Thursday, February 25, 2010

New Gym-New Trainer

I guess blogging about my weight did help me as I started looking into gyms and trainers in our area. While I found all gyms/personal trainers were very expensive, I found a trainer/gym in our area and I am so excited! We met with the trainer last night to tour the gym and both Tony and I loved it! We had no clue how big it was as we were told it was just a "room with some equipment". It is more than that, about 4 rooms with lots of really nice equipment. When we went in last night, it was fairly full, but still there was lots of machines with no one on them. I would love to try and work out in the am, but I know me and I am not very motivated to give up my sleep to go work out. I have found that either right after work or around 8ish at night is my best time to work out. I do know it keeps me from sleeping, but not too bad. I have signed up for 5 training sessions, one a week for five weeks. Tony thinks I should do 10 but 5 is all I can afford right now. The gym is a 24 hour gym that you come and go as you please with a magnetic key. I am so excited because it is literally 2 minutes away from our house and open all the time. There is no supervision but both Tony and I have worked out in gyms before so this isn't an issue for us. I hope, eventually, Tony will take over my personal training so we don't have to pay a personal trainer but for now, it is a good idea.

I have been walking on the treadmill the past two days, just trying to test out my leg and see what it will handle. It does feel very tight and a tiny bit sore but i have been stretching alot and icing alot and trying to be proactive. I did jog a little yesterday but only for about half a mile. The gym had several low-impact, no impact machines that you could do cardio on so that will be nice to not be pounding my joints into a treadmill or a concrete track. I am hoping that Tony and I will go tonight and get ourselves acquainted with our surroundings. I hope this is a positive step towards us eating better, getting in better shape and health, and maybe helping tony to not snore as much so I can sleep at night.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Weight gain-dieting-yuck

This has been bothering me for a while so maybe if I write it out, it will spur me into action. I haven't been exercising since I hurt my leg last august and because of my lack of inaction and my increase in eating, I have put on a considerable amount of weight. I am not sure exactly how much as I haven't been on a scale in while but i am probably hovering pretty close to around 137ish (was in lower 120s), which is way, way, way too much for my short frame. I don't mind being in the 120s as long as I am exercising daily but this is way to much weight and it is embarrassing. None of my clothes fit and I have a muffin top. I battled this battle before when I lived in Colorado and won by using the weight watchers program (lost 25 lbs), but I am sick of weight watchers. I hate paying the fees, hearing the lectures, loosing the weight and not being able to commit for lifetime. It is a great program, I always loose weight when I get serious about it, but I just cannot maintain it. I start feeling super guilty about everything I put in my mouth and Tony and I fight alot because i refuse to eat out and I have to cook because he won't watch what he cooks with. We eat a ton of processed foods just because I can figure out exactly how many points. It turns me into a very angry food freak who is always hungry and always longing for certain foods, even if you can have smaller portions of said foods and still be okay. The most weight I gain is after I have been doing weight watchers as I seem to go on a food binge.

I love the feeling I get when I loose weight but have recently grown tired of battling my weight. I am not a huge fruit or veggie eater and I don't like cooking so I eat out alot. Tony and I seem to bond over eating out and both of us get very lazy with eating out. We are both hungry when we get home so we want food right then and he is usually tired so we eat out. I am so sick of eating out but can't break the cycle. It is so convenient, quick and yummy. Just last night, was thinking boy, Mexican cheesy, gooey food sounds so good and of course as soon as I got in the door, tony said, "let's go eat Mexican". Even though I had made a plan to start back walking on the treadmill last night, all will power went out the window with two words, mexican food. I hate being this way! I also hate not working out. This is the worst shape i have been in. I would like to blame it all on my leg, and that is a huge part of it, but I can't blame it all on my leg. There are so many gyms in our area and we have a treadmill but I have been super lazy here lately. I just want to go to work, come home, and play with the pups and go to bed. I know working out would give me more energy but I have come up with a thousand reasons not to.

Funny thing, had to stand up alot yesterday because i was working at my bench alot and my leg is super sore today just from standing up. I LOVED running, but fear that with my leg still bothering me, will never be able to run again. I have AKC nationals at the end of march so on one hand, don't want to injure it further, but on the other hand, need to be in shape to be able to run. I wish i could just afford a personal trainer. I do best when given specific goals and am held accountable. That is why weight watchers has worked because I had to meet goals or pay money. I have bought gym memberships before to try this theory on my own, but it never has worked, I just don't go. I feel so self-conscious just going to a gym so I either need a group class or a personal trainer to get me going. We have a fitness center here at the university, but again, even though I am twice the age of most of the students that work out there, they make me self-conscious. Even the student trainers are expensive and with our recent fun of tony being laid off and our unexpected house redecorating, money has been tight and we are just starting to recover financially to the point where I feel comfortable paying extra money.

I was reading an article the other day that said even if you are much smaller than your hubby, you will match eating patterns and I think this is true. I use to match the eating pattern of my brother (who know weighs 220 and did play professional football for 8 or so years), but that was when I had the metabolism fueled by a nuclear power house. Now, I am in my 30s and I can just look at a piece of chocolate and gain a pound in my ass, whether I eat it or not. I need a kick in the ass to get motivated and get going. I keep saying to myself, if i go up a pants size, I will start dieting and exercising, yet i am still squeezing into my size 6 jeans. Most all of my short sleeve shirts are way too tight so maybe when the weather warms up, that will be the impetus I need to loose weight.

This blog seems really random but this is just crap that is poring out of my head right now. I know the answers, just need that motivation to get going. Now on to finishing off my sweet tea:)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Lighting is up, now on to the sconce lighting


The track lighting is in and the can light trim is ordered. Never take an electrician into a lighting store as you will never get him out. Funny thing though, we looked at the exact same track lighting in both the lighting store and Home Depot, and it was three times as much at the lighting store! We did order the can light trim since we couldn't find it at Home depot and of course Tony (who can't focus on one room at a time) bought trim for the bathroom can lights, which I didn't even know needed new trim. Oh well, it does look nice and he put new bulbs in that are softer and make the whole bathroom look better. I guess when Tony does the trim in the dining room, we will be replacing the trim in the entire the house and we will have to decide if we are keeping the vanity/bathroom mirror or getting a different one. We had painted the bathroom a while back but again, had issues since the wall in there is orange peel as well.



Here is a picture of our bathroom after painting and outfitting it with new towels and bathmat. You can't really see the can lights unfortunately.

Anyway, now we have to pick out what sconce lighting we are going to put in the dining room where the low ceiling is. We looked at several options at the lighting store but Tony didn't like any of them. We went home armed with catalogs and are still trying to figure out what we like. Looks like we are only going to put two in. Tony is still working on the phone jack and the last outlet with the new switch covers and sockets and we have the 3 way gang switch plate cover ordered for the big switches that control the can lights, the track lights and the soon to be sconce lights. Tony wants decora switches so he found what he likes, but we are going to have to order them as they didn't have black. Funny thing, originally, tony was going to tear down the trim from the windows and closet door and that was going to be part of the redo when he started working on trim. Now, with the colors and the lighting, we are kind of digging the trim. We shall see if we still feel that way when he does start doing trim work.

I did go sneak to the two antique stores we have in wamego and look at antique buffets. There are two that I like but really need to look around more. One store has a very ornate oak buffet that is a lighter wood and would go with the current trim color but if we go with a darker floor and darker trim, it won't match. There is a darker wood buffet at the other antique store but it is not ornate and is not in as good of shape. It has some veneer on it and there is some damage that probably won't be able to be fixed, but it is darker wood and very solid and sturdy. I just need to look around more as the furniture will be the last thing we put in.

Funny how this project is spinning into several other projects. So because of the painting not making clean lines, we can see green in the living room. I had gotten some samples of the glidden paint, trying to find something we could paint the living room that would go with the green, since you can see it. I have tried 5 neutral colors but nothing is really catching my eye.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Update on Dining Room






I just realized that I hadn't updated my blog lately about what we are doing in the dining room. We did decide to paint and tony picked out three colors, truly olive, garnett, and some shade of white. After several coats, the dining room is looking really good. I will post pictures when I get home since I don't have them on this computer but the colors really look great together and I have to give a shout out to Home Depot for helping tony pick them and giving us exactly the right amount for painting. Tony has really done a great job and I am so thrilled to see him so excited about a project involving the house, even if there are things that need to be done that are more important.

We did have a minor issue, even though we taped everything off, because of the finish on our walls (orange peel) the paint did not make definite lines so tony had to go back and hand fix lots of spots. Overall, it looks really great and we have caught the painting bug! Paint is on sale right now at Home Depot so we have been looking at colors for the living room and front bedroom. Glidden has these cute little bottles of paint that you can buy and try on your walls so we have been trying several to see what goes the best. I can tell you, the card and the paint on your wall never looks the same so it is worth it to have little splotches of color everywhere for a while! We also had a great friend come over and (thanks Kim) and help us pick out colors and give us advice on lighting. Tony is very keen on having good lighting since he is an electrician and has lots of great ideas. He is replacing the can lights in the dining room with nicer looking ones and then adding track lighting. The lower ceiling is also going to get some new can lights since there is no lighting whatsoever on that side of the room other than the blinds letting natural light in. We had played with the idea of floor lamps but I vetoed that idea. I wanted a chandelier but the ceiling is so low that anything hanging down is probably not a good idea. I always hated the chandelier that was already in the dining room because of its location, even though it was really in the center of the room. It hung way down from the uppermost part of the ceiling and just looked out of place. We will be eventually getting a proper dining room table, more than likely a rectangular size and I am hoping antique for that room. I also have my eye on a beautiful antique oak buffet but this will be waaay down the road for now.

Last weekend, we were in Lawrence so we went to their local Home depot and got new sockets and switch plate covers. Who knew something as little as that can make such a big difference? We are also looking at the decora type of switches for the main light switches in that room. Again, who knew there were so many options in switches? We also need to order our vent covers for the room since we have the switch plates now so everything matches. I am so excited! I never knew I would get this into redoing a room. I am hoping we can also start looking at flooring options so we can start saving up for that. Dog show season has started so we are gone most weekends now so it is hard when most places close at 5. Home Depot didn't have any flooring we really liked so we are probably going to have to go with a flooring center's options instead.