Finally!

Freakin' finally!  I've dropped below my weight from December!
I gained 4 pounds over the holidays and kinda slacked off, not caring about taking it back off and keep going with the weight loss momentum.  Totally not going to meet my goal of 25 pounds before March 15th, but I'm going to lose as much as I can.  
I'm officially the lowest I've been in 2.5 years and I'm excited about it!  My plan of action:  Get on the elliptical every morning that I don't work.  And go for a walk in the afternoon.  I have my own little personal cheerleader, Jaidelyn!  She gets all excited when she sees me on the machine, it's so cute! She's all: Mommy, Yay!  You're awesome!  I love you!
hee hee...

Kosher's new home.

Yes, Kosher was supposed to be an indoor pig. But get this. Pigs eat stuff! And he doesn't care if it's not edible! So... Instead of getting upset with Jaizy for leaving toys on the floor, because honestly, the poor girl doesn't have a room of her own to keep her toys in, we gave the pig his own "room" outside. He has a great shed for lounging in and his own fenced in (read: poop and root) area. He loves it. Kinda. He's a little confused that he is fenced in, BUT he was crashing in the shed, wrapped up in a tarp no less, before he was penned in, so he'll get used to it!

Here are some pictures of the boys making his pen. A big special thanks to my friend Heather for all the fencing materials!

Domestica!

If you'd like, check out my other blog: Denakisland Domestica, Not Quite A Domestic Diva!

I put my weekly menu and recipes up. Also pictures of cooking and some yummy extras!

Ahhh.... life.

So, see, it hasn't been 7 months! But I'm not too sure what to post. ummmm....

Kosher (our pig!) is being pretty naughty! So he gets to spend lots of time outside and he doesn't

mind so much (considering he's a pig) and our garden gets nice and roto'd while he's out there.

Pigs like to root around, and we may not actually have to rototill the garden when it comes time to plant again. Quite a bonus! See the picture of our tilled garden? This is where the pumpkins go!

Here is a picture of the naughty pig, dirty nose and all!

I have not been being very disciplined in my life lately. I've hardly dedicated any time to ChaCha in the last 3 weeks and I've only booked a few parties. I need to set up a schedule to work all my jobs and stick to it. Yes I played hooky today too, but not really, so don't give me any flack about it!

Kids are doing well! Matthew has been able to turn around his grades from last year. He's gone from almost failing all of his classes to 4 A's, 1 B and 1C (in Spanish.) He's still terrible at homework so he does really well when he can get stuff done at school, but it's such an improvement I can't really complain too much.

JoNathan got a couple of awards last week at school. One for having 4.0 GPA the first trimester and the other was a character award "Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Responsible." He was nominated for that one from all his teachers, so it's quite an accomplishment. He is so good at coming right home and sitting down with his homework. He really strives to be the best.

Caden loves being back at Sojourner. He truly missed not being there, as any teacher at his other school will tell you. He's doing well and seems to be on track to start middle school next year.

Jaidelyn wants to go to school! (She also wants a visit from the tooth fairy, although I can't figure out why!) She can't wait to be old enough. I think she thought she would get to start when she was 3. So I enrolled her in a dance class. She has attended one and LOVED it! It was so cute how she was watching and following along! It definitely helps her feel like a "big kid!"

Here she is jumping over a "puddle!"

She's so proud of her new dancing shoes!

Here is Jetto. We usually just call him Jett. He loves Jaidelyn like every dog should love a little girl. It's Jason he's not so fond of! But they are coming around and to terms with each other, slowly and surely. It probably doesn't help that Jett thinks he should stand on the table.

Long Time, No See!

Ok, so I'm busy, sue me! (Please don't, I don't have any money!)
What's been up? Let's see...
Summer was fun.
Got a pet pig.
Enrolled a kid in each high school, middle school and got a kid back at Sojourner!
Lost my full time income.
Started selling Scentsy, in addition to kicking up my Brown Bag Party business.
Got my pig neutered. Yup, sure did!
Discovered the Farm Stand a block from my house and am going to miss it when it closes for the season.
Got an actual paying outside-of-the-house job. It's very, very part-time with very, very part-time pay.
Almost had a car die on me, but we were able to perform CPR and get it all fixed! (CPR stands for Car Parts & Repair in this case, gotta love my husband!)
Joined Weight Watchers and lost 14 pounds. Quit Weight Watchers and lost another 6. I'll keep at that, but I miss Weight Watchers!
Waited and waited and waited for New Moon, and was not disappointed!
That's pretty much it.
I bet you're wondering about that pig, right?
I'll fill you in later, and NO it won't be in 7 months!

Convention

I'm leaving for the Brown Bag Party convention in 2 days. I'm amazingly nervous. Not to go to convention, I'm totally excited about that! But to get there I'm taking a plane. I hate planes. Edit: I hate it when planes don't do what they are supposed to: Take off and land safely.
I know that the chances of me not getting there or back is surprisingly low, and I'm sure I'm not doing myself and favors by dwelling on it. But I can't help it. I don't like to fly and I have no one to come with me and hold my hand. That sucks! If just one other person from the area had been willing to go we could have driven which would have made me so much happier.
(I swear, I must be living under a flight path right now and the planes seem SO LOUD! - I think they're taunting me)
So... anyway, I get on a plant at 11 something on Wednesday and get back around 2:30 on Sunday. The days in between are going to be so awesome, I know, but the getting there and getting back are going to be Hell.

My girls night out experience

This even happened a while ago (has it been 2 months already?) and I think I may have just recovered.
A little background: I am a homebody. I'm practically a shut it when it comes to having fun. I do not go out and dance, I don't spend much time with girlfriends, and I NEVER go to clubs!

I went to a friend's house with the intentions that we were going to be playing games, a little snacking, and a lot of bullshitting. So after not very long of being there everyone decides that we should go to the local watering hole and dance.
Oh fun.
So I have the biggest car able to transport everyone there (minivan mom!) and back and I'm not a drinker so it should be fun! Who else is going to sit and watch the purses? ME!
So this place is kind of a joke, in my opinion! Loud (of course), Hoochie Mamas to the brink of madness, and these guys with the crazy gleam of prowlness (is that a word?) in their eyes. So after a while there all that gals are begging me to go downtown with them. I'm suspecting it's because I'm 1) sober and 2) a good purse watcher. So I call the hubby at the time that I said I'd be home and see if he minds that I stay out later.
Side note: Jason does not tell me what to do or how to do it, this is just a common courtesy that we have in our wonderful marriage.
My stipulation to all of this is we HAVE to stop somewhere so I can get a better shirt to wear, make-up and maybe a piece of flair because I was not in shape to go anywhere besides hainging out with friends in a private residence! I'd already embarrassed myself going to the one bar looking like a 32 year old haggard housewife who never leaves her house. Oh yeah, that's exactly what I am! lol
So we stop by Walmart. Yay Walmart! Open 24 hours a day! For Schlups like me! I find a half way decent shirt that I would have never bought under any other circumstance. I really needed another bra to go with this shirt, but there was no way I was dealing with that at 12:30am. Then off to the makeup section to grab some essential: conceiler, eyeliner and mascara. On my way back there was some cute jewelry so I grabbed a few pieces of that as well. (Flair!) Pay (Why was the line wait so rediculous at 12:30am?) and into the bathroom for a quick turnaround! Ok, ALMOST halfway decent and I'm off to find my gal group. They were eating! Smart gals!
SO off to Embers we go! WOOHOO!
Ok... um... did you know that this was a gay club? I did know this however I didn't think too much of it.
Wow. We walked in and there was fantastic music. Lots of dancing. Lots of "making out" on the dance floor. I put that in quotes because I think it was just on the edge of actually having sex. Decent drinks. I had one, I can't even remember what it was, but thanks Chrissy for the drink!
I'm standing on the edge of the dance floor watching drinks. (Everyone was very smart and left purses and what not in the car, so I was watching drinks! Of course this was a self appointed job.) And let me tell you what I saw:
This wonderful little man who was dancing up a storm! I don't know that he would actually qualify as a "little person" but he was pretty close. He was so exuberant! Dancing like crazy with anyone who would get close, I mean dance with him. He was so dang cute! I could imitate the way he danced, but I'll save myself the shame, thank you. He even would come up to the group I was with and dance, cute!
Then they played Madonna and of course I got out there and shook my thang. Mind you, not the same kind of "thang" that a lot of the people there were shaking, but you get the picture.
Back to the edge of the floor and onto my observation. (I'm shaking it up a bit the more time goes on. A little side to side, a step here or there.)
Then I saw these guys. They were "Night At The Roxbury-ish" kind of guys. They were going after one of the gals in my group trying to convince her who was "less gay" I mean, less gay? Is there really such a thing? I mean, either you're gay or your not. Right? Maybe I'm a little unPC about that, but really, is it worth a girl, Guys to disregard your sexual preference? Probably not. NOT that I'm implying the gal we were with wouldn't have been worth it, she was a great, fun person! But... these guys seem to be the type who were swarming in on anyone who would pay attention. Ok, before I go any further I have to express that I'm not a bigot, I understand and appreciate that people can choose any sexual orientation and they even have the right to be bisexual and go back and forth as they see fit. I am just telling it like I saw it. I was under the impression those guys were there to pick up on ANYONE who would go home with them, maybe even together (again, no judging!) and that is what I find interesting. Sad, but interesting.
So, we stayed until last call and then we got the hell out of there!
It was fun. Would I do it again? Yes, with better planning though.
I've decided I HATE Walmart in the middle of the night!
And I will always go to game night in makeup.