Your way weight loss.

One of my very best friends, the type of friend you don’t have to talk to in years but pick up right where you left off, is a social media guru. I’m talking bogs, podcasts, designing apps, Twitter, Facebook, he is the go to man. I am so happy to share his newest venture with all of you! It’s a blog with weekly podcasts on weight loss your way.

Each week he features a new person and their own inspirational weight loss journey. I love, love, love, how he is highlighting that each persons’ journey is their own and what works for one person will not work the same way for another. I might also be partial to the first podcast because it features his mom, who I love dearly. She is the good in this world for sure. She has struggled with being over-weight for a long time and has lost a running total of 180lbs!!! Not to mention Brett has lost something like 165lbs himself!!

They are both so inspiring. You will always find a smile on either one of their faces. I am so glad that they both have made the decision to live a healthier life style. They are the type of people that the world needs more of.

I binged and listened to all three podcasts tonight while I was cooking dinner and getting ready for work. I loved all of their stories. I personally need to do better myself. I am capable of it. I just need to stop being lazy and do it!!  

I urge you all to listen to these podcasts, even if you don’t struggle with weight or weight loss. They are so inspirational. You can find them at Paleo Update or Your way weight loss.  Please listen, learn, comment, and if you have your own story fill out the information page and you might get the chance to share your story too. 

Direct Link to the podcast http://paleoupdate.com/episode-001-patti-fairall-getting-centered-to-lose-weight/

Jingle Ball Bash!

Last night we went to a concert thrown by a local radio station here Kiss 106.1 called Jingle Ball Bash. I originally bought tickets to see Fall Out Boy at this show and about a month out they ended up canceling and the venue changed. The only other person we were excited to see was Lindsey Stirling.

We saw her earlier this summer at the fair and the show was amazing so when she was coming back with Fall Out Boy of course we were going. Then FOB cancelled and they offered refunds but we decided that since we had already bought tickets we would still go and enjoy the night. I think we are all glad that we still went, it was fun. There were a lot of younger kids there with their parents, I felt a bit old.

Mary Lambert was there as well and she had a really great set and as a surprise guest Macklemore showed up and sang "One love" with her! It was pretty awesome that he came out probably just because Seattle is his home town. He also did a song with another band Fences.

Of course we had to take a bunch of selfies and there was also a photographer outside while we were waiting in line who took our picture and it ended up on the radio station's Facebook page, which is pretty awesome! Its a good picture of all of us. 

Kiss FM photographer's photo of us 

Sexy faces

They are crazy!

Pikes Place Market before the show

Crafty!

  

One of my Black Friday scores was a new Cricut Explore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Cricut expression and am so ready to see all of the awesome new things that you can do with this new all digital machine. The best part I think is that my sister is getting one for Christmas too. Its so fun to have someone to share all of my excitement with!

I actually scored this deal early Thursday morning while I was at work. It was live on walmart.com so we decided to just order it and pick it up in the store whenever it arrived to avoid the black Friday mess that is Walmart. The black Friday "bundle" included some extra goodies that made the deal that much sweeter. The machine its self retails for $299. It was on sale for $199, with a free Cricut tool kit $24.99 value, and a two month trial to the online library a $19.99 value. A total of $343.98 for $199!!! That is an amazing $145 savings!

Mine is set to arrive in store to pick up on the 3rd and my sisters is supposed to be ready for pick up on the 4th but fed ex says that it should be there today! I might be a bit jealous that she will get to play with hers first. But I'm also going to a concert tonight so its better that it comes on the 3rd.

We are excited to make our holiday gift tags with the new machines!

Thanksgiving 2014

Wow! It’s amazing how fast life just sails by, these past few months while Ron has been in San Diego especially. We are quickly approaching the start of our fifth month of single parenthood and some days it feels easy and some days I feel like I have been hit by a bus. We have good days and we have bad days but we are pushing through.

I’m always looking for new, cheap, and quick things to do with/for the kids to keep things exciting, browsing Pinterest the other night I found a recipe for pumpkin play-doh that needed only two ingredients, two cheap ingredients, so I swung by Winco and picked them up. Large cans of pumpkin puree and large cans of corn starch, I also dumped some cinnamon in for a little pumpkin pie smell. It took 1.5 cans of corn starch to one large can of pumpkin and however much cinnamon you’d like. All you do is mix the two together until they are play-doh consistency. Bam! Done, it was super easy and cost all of $3 to make. So I make 9 good size balls put them in ziplock bags and took them to Ronnie’s classroom the day before thanksgiving break as a little something fun for the kids to take home and have over the weekend. I would consider this one of the better days.

We went to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving this year and I was pretty much no help at all because I worked the night before but, I did cook the turkey! 20 delicious, juicy, pounds of bird! It was a good turkey if I do say so myself. It did help that it was free with my $150 grocery purchase earlier in the week. It was a good dinner and it was nice that my sister and brother-in-law were able to be there too.

Our tradition of looking at the black Friday ads after dinner was pretty uneventful this year. There just wasn’t anything that we really felt like we needed to head out to the store in the cold, wind, and rain for this year. In fact I was able to order the one thing that I wanted the night before while I was at work and I will be able to pick it up on Dec 2^nd. Bam! Done no long lines, no getting soaked, no dealing with grouchy grumpy people. Black Friday win for me.

After dinner we skated out super early to go home and go to bed. I was crazy exhausted and could hardly stay awake. I think we made it to 6pm before we went to bed and slept till the next morning. I consider it a good Thanksgiving! 

All the play-doh credit goes to Fun at home with the kids! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe. 

Body Building

I had the pleasure of being able to watch some friends compete in a very serious body building competition yesterday. Let me just say that I am amazed at the dedication and determination that I saw from every competitor on the stage. I'm pretty sure that I now have enough gym motivation in my head for the next year!

One of the competitors is a very good doctor friend of mine from work. I have gotten to watch her determination and dedication from the beginning of her fitness journey and let me tell you, this lady is amazing! She is a wife and mother by day and a DOCTOR at night, an amazing Emergency room doctor at that.

Her competing in this competition started out as a joke between her and some friends. She then took the time to think it over and discuss it with her husband and trainer, together they decided that she should really give it her all and go all the way. She and her husband have logged so many fitness hours the past month I have no idea how she is still standing!

It isn't just the gym hours that are crazy it's also the home hours. The food prep, the laundry, the missing sleep, and countless other things. She has some amazing balance, I envy her balance. I really like to sleep! I don't get to, but I really like it. I admire that her children have seen her not only work out but that their dad was right there by her side training, pushing, giving. They made a commitment together and followed it all the way through.

The competition was about 100 miles away from where we live so a fairly long drive. Earlier in the week a couple of us girls met at my house to make some signs with my Cricut to cheer them on during the competition. The signs turned out amazing and were really encouraging they both said.

I am so proud of both of them and cant say enough good things about them. I cant wait to see where their fitness journeys take them next!!

These pictures aren't very good, they are cell phone pictures and kind of far away from the stage, I'm hoping for some better ones to be posted soon.

Marie during pre-judging

Second one in 

Second one in

Show posing 

Show posing

Darren's before and after!! 9 months of hard work paid off.
 Second place
and most motivational!!

My flock is growing.

Earlier this summer I set off to build a run for the chickens. When I got the lumber home and actually started building this thing I realized that it was going to be huge! It is 4ft high by 8ft wide by 12ft deep. This thing is a coup in its self. In face I am just going to enclose one end of it for their hen house.

Well of course now that I have a new huge coup I needed some more chickens to go in it right? Yes! So now I have 7, yes 7 chickens. 6 Silkies and 1 orpington. The orpington is the leader, she cries for the babies if she can’t find them. It is really cute actually, I have to make the kids go find her and walk her out to the front yard. First we started with Rapunzel, noodle, and princess. The 4 new ones don’t have names yet. Two of the new ones are around 10 weeks old and they have the same coloring as princess and noodle so today I caught them all and painted their toe nails different colors to make sure we could tell them apart.

Then I also got two babies. They are about a week or so old and they are lighter colored than the others. They are so tiny and so cute! The only bad part about them is that I have to catch them at night and bring them in the house to sleep. Man those little peepers can really peep. The kids have already started thinking of names for all of the new ones.

I really want three more colors of silkies, buff, lavender, and paint. They are just so cute and fluffy how could you not want one of each color? I can’t wait till the tiny one get bigger so I have a better idea of what their coloring will be like. I might have a silkie problem. 

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First week of school.

We have survived our first week of school! It was only a three day week and one of the days was early release but we survived. Everyone had packed lunches and everyone was at school on time every day. This is a win to me! I was so lucky that the first week fell on my three day stretch off of work, I did not have to return to work until tonight (Friday).

Ronnie is going to all day pre-k this year and is doing wonderfully, even taking naps! I’m very happy with both of the teachers in this class. The two Para educators and even Ms. Jones have all came by to see how he is doing and help out in the class. I love the attention that they are able to give him. I am hoping that this all day pre-k will help prepare him for all day kindergarten next year.

Miss Evee has been a champ in 1^st grade. She loves her teacher and going to school. A friend of ours has a son who is in her class this year as well. They have been hanging out in the mornings before school on the playground. There are also a handful of students from her class last year back this year.

Ron was pretty sad about being in San Diego for their first days but I sent him a ton of pictures and made him feel like he was here. The Seahawks also played the first game of the season this week so Evee rocked her huge Seahawks bow in spite of the uniform policy. We love dressing up for game day. Since we don’t have cable to watch the game we headed out to Applebee’s to have some half price appetizers and watch as much of the game as they would let me. We made it 10 minutes into the second quarter. I call that a success, we listened to the rest of the game on the radio in my car as I worked on the chicken coup.

It’s been a fun week. I feel like I am ready to take on the school year! Drop offs, pick ups, and packed lunches and all!

Ronnie's first day of Pre-K

Evee's 1st day of 1st grade

Ronnie's classroom is decked out in Seahawks gear.

She is growing up so fast.  

Fall is fast approaching.

 Summer is quickly coming to an end and the start of school is looming rather close. I have been trying to take advantage of the nice weather before all things fall start to happen. Today I mowed the lawn, for the very first time, EVER. I have weed whacked a lawn before but never mowed it. Let me tell you that was hard work! No one told me that the grass should be dry before you try to mow it. So this made for a lot of stalling and an arm workout restarting the mower every two seconds. Despite the stalling I got it finished and felt pretty darn good. Now the chickens won’t get lost when they are roaming around.

After the lawn mowing fiasco I set out to work on the new chicken coup. I almost finished one section putting up the chicken wire and I royally jammed up my stapler. I’m talking I tried everything to get the thing unjammed, a nail, a screw, a screw driver, some tweezers, and even my forceps! I could not get that stinking little staple out! So I brought it to work with me tonight and a friend here was able to pry it out with a pair of scissors. I was so mad! I was on a roll with doing chores around the house this morning, until the jammed stapler.

Tomorrow night is back to school night at the kids’ school. We get to meet their teachers, drop off school supplies, and eat crappy hot dogs. I am off for it though as well as their first day of school. I’m pretty excited about that. In fact I am off until Friday night so I get to be home for the entire first week. Hopefully our new schedule goes off without a hitch. I’m really hoping that all of my planning insures this. I do need to put the finishing touches on my teacher gifts and still get a few last minute supplies for Miss Evee, but I think other than that we are good to go, well if her uniforms come in time! If they don’t I will be improvising some uniform type clothing that fits her still! I might have been a little late placing my uniform order this year.

Now that my stapler is unjammed I’ll work more on the coup when I get home in the morning before we head off to do some errands. Unless I fall asleep first!

Noodle

Princess

Rapunzel

I'm going to rock this.

Ron as officially made it to San Diego and I have survived two days just me and the kids! I managed to grocery shop, go to the gym, and sleep an entire night! So far so good, tonight is the first night of my four day stretch at work and the first work night in our new routine. I am thankful that a friend from work has loaned us her daughter for this month. She will come to the house while I am sleeping and watch the kiddos. I love that they can stay at the house and I am so close.

I officially have Ronnie registered for Pre-K for the day time and then the afternoons that he isn’t in class with Ms. Jones. We also went and got his 4 year old well child check and immunizations today. He wasn’t very happy about those.

I am very excited to get into the new routine. Ron and I had a long talk about how I feel about myself and how I need to take better care of myself and take more time to work on the things that are important to me. This will be interesting to balance everything but I think that if I can stay on top of things at home I will be ok.

I am also really excited about my Beachbody business. It’s really taking off! I love sharing all of the amazing products with other people as well as using them myself. I also want to start doing reviews on the blog of different products that I love so that I can help some other small businesses get recognized as well.

There are a couple hikes that I want to do with the kids before summer is over too. Ron got to take them camping before he left for San Diego and they had a really good time riding bikes and swimming in the lake. He takes such great care of them. I am really glad that they got the time together before he left. They enjoyed it. Evee has had a hard time the past few nights with him being gone but I think will do ok as time goes on. Ronnie is more like eh whatever about Ron being gone. I don’t think he really realizes how long he will be away for.

Everything will work out in the end. I got this! I’m going to rock this single parent thing! I have to I don’t really have a choice!

*** If you are a small business or have a small business and would like me to review your product here on the blog please send me a message at mycrazyhappylife@gmail.com I would love to do a review for you and a featured post.*** 

My awesome new workout pants from Fabletics and
my post workout #fitnessisntpretty picture

The bag I pack for work with my work lunch, Shakeology, and
all of the stuff I will need for the gym in the morning.

A little garden update as well! Lots of peppers! 

The new peepers!

Last month I was shopping at one of my favorite stores, Wilco. They have all of their plants and larger farm equipment behind the store in an area you can walk around in to look at it all. While I was looking for some blueberry plants I happen to see that they had a chicken coup just hanging out back there too. Of course I had to investigate more and find out what they were going to do with it. So I found an employee and asked him what the deal was with the coup, he told me it was a return and that they were just going to throw it away. Now I checked that thing out before i even sought out an employee to ask. It was a little bit rough but nothing that I couldn't fix! I really wanted that chicken coup, a free coup was going to give me the green light to get some chickens that I have been wanting since last year. So I asked the Wilco employee if I could have it, he said, "I don't know, let me go ask somebody." He came back and made all of my dreams come true!

The chicken coup was mine! All I had to do was get it home..... Of course I had driven my car. I had to go back to Bremerton to get the truck. This was not a problem for a free chicken coup. Back to Bremerton we go, I also pick up my mom for some lifting help, I was going to need it.

About two weeks before the chicken coup adventure Ron had decided that he wanted a canopy for the truck, Ok all well and fine I see that it could be useful, maybe, sometime, really never. The truck with the canopy on it wasn't tall enough to fit my new chicken coup into!!! Great now how was I getting this thing home? My mom and I are lifting and turning and trying to get it to fit in the back of the truck, Oh did I mention that it was about 80 degrees out? By the time we got it all arranged and in the truck we couldn't close the tailgate so I had to tie it in with some rope, but it's free, it's worth it, this is what I keep telling myself. 

Now to get it home and unloaded, this proved to be much easier than the initial loading. the coup actually sat in the back yard for about two weeks before we started to put it together and fix the broken things and other minor issues. During this two weeks I was researching the type of chickens that I wanted to get. The coup isn't that big so I knew I couldn't go chicken crazy (although I pretty much have the chicken fever now!) I finally decided that I wanted Silkies for sure and an ameraucana or easter egger that lays blue-greenish eggs. I found a silkie breeder about an hour and a half away from where I lived and was going to drive there to get some babies but then I found another craigslist post for some babies that were a 20 minute drive away from me, yes! They lady was amazing we talked for at least a half hour and she was super willing to work with my crazy overnight work schedule. 

We have now had our babies for almost two weeks and they are getting so big!! They love being in their coup and playing all day. I typed up a list of the food scraps that we could feed them and when I am cooking I think that it's so funny I have a bowl for our meal, a bowl for the chickens, and then the bowl that will go to the compost. They love the food scraps and it is such a nice treat for them. I recently bought them a wheatgrass plant too that they have been munching on, as well as sitting in! So I ordered some more seeds to grow my own plants for them. 

Ameraucana 

We all love these little chicks! I can't wait for them to be old enough to start laying eggs for us! Now for some extra cute pictures of them. 

The Silkies

First day

8/4/2014

Today 8/4/2014

First day

8/4/2014

8/4/2014

Fitness is not pretty!!!

On my weight loss/fitness journey I have come to realize that fitness is not pretty. Working out is not pretty, its a hot, sweaty, nasty mess! Really it is. If you think that the reality of fitness is skinny girls in short shorts and sports bras you are highly mistaken. The fact that this is the image that society has put into our heads its no wonder that so many people are over weight.

If you don't already look like a model how are you supposed to be comfortable going to the gym and working out in public? Or running down the side of the street? Your fat might giggle, your arms might flap in the wind. You know what? WHO CARES!! You are out there (or in there) choosing to make yourself better.

I have decided that I really don't care what other people think about me when I'm working out or running in public. I'm doing it for me not for them. For my family, my life, for the health of my own body. I'm going to run races even though I might be slow and have to walk a bit, I'm going to buy some cute workout clothes because I am not limited to baggy shirts and sweatpants.

My progress is solely based on myself. I am the only one responsible for changing myself! Join me today by using the hash tag #fitnessisntpretty and post your pictures on instagram and facebook. Motivate others by showing them what you are doing to make yourself better today! You never know who you will reach by sharing your journey.

Follow my fitness journey here on my blog or by following me on facebook. I would love to help you take the steps to becoming healthier today.

You can create your own free Beachbody account and have me as your coach! Sign up free here!

Feel free to email me at mycrazyhappylife@gmail.com or coachjess7616@outlook.com

My collection of ugly fitness photos so far! But I kicked butt during every single one of these work outs! The bottom one is after my very first race. Feel free to share your fitness photos in the comments as well as instagram using the hashtag #fitnessisntpretty

PiYo and the Gym

Going along with my post yesterday about rejoining the YMCA, I have kicked my butt into gear to lose this extra weight I have packed on again. In addition to the gym Beachbody has released a new program called PiYo that I couldn’t wait to order.  I received it on Friday of last week but waited till today to start it.

The first workout of the series is called Align: The fundamentals and it was amazing. I felt like Chalene was speaking right to me and really wanted to make sure I understood everything she was saying. What home workout program does that? Who actually takes the time to explain the moves before they break out into the routine? I now know the correct poses and how to modify them if I feel like I am unable to execute them fully.

I am pairing PiYo with Shakeology of course to see the full effects. On this coming Monday our team is starting the monthly ten day clean eating challenge that I just ordered the three day refresh to give me a kick start during the first detox days, last month they were the hardest for me.

My favorite park of the clean eating challenge is going to be my new cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo by Michelle Tam. I have followed Michelle’s blog for a while now and just LOVE it. So when I saw the cook book at Costco I just had to have it. I completely recommend the book as well as the blog.

I can’t wait to head home from my zombie job to attack PiYo day two! Please if you would like to hear more about PiYo, Shakeology, or the Ten day clean eating challenge, leave me a message or send me an email!

You can visit my Beachbody website here

Sign up for your free Beachbody account here and see what all we have to offer

Like my fitness page on Facebook

Summertime Slacker

I am such a slacker! I really am, with both of the kids being home full time and working full time it seems like I have no time but to sleep, cook/eat/clean and, work. Just last week I took a step back to reflect on the past 6 months. All the things I have dealt with and overcame the things that make me happy and the things that have made me sad. I have a list.

Things that make me sad-

My weight gain (30lbs) - I worked so hard to lose the 50 that I had lost before taking a desk job. Now that I am sitting all night long I have gained 30 pounds back 30!!!

The kids growing up so fast- Everyday they seem like they are doing or saying something new. I can’t keep up with it. Today Ronnie sang an entire verse of a song! We bought backpacks and lunch boxes for them today at Costco, the new school year will come up so fast we have to start now.

Sleeping during the day- This is not ideal, and I never feel completely rested. So much so, that I can sleep for hours and hours on my days off wasting precious time.

Things that make me happy-

I rejoined the gym! - I rejoined the YMCA so that the kids could resume swimming lessons and I can go workout right after work.

Beach body coaching- With the launch of PiYo my beach body coaching business has really taken off. By motivating others I am motivating myself to do better.

The kids growing up- They are becoming such smart, loving, and caring little people. They are so polite and grown up for their age. Every single day they surprise me with new things they have learned.

Its full blown summer- The weather has been amazing and beautiful. I could not ask for better. My plants are growing, the kids can play outside all day, and I absolutely love all of the sunshine!

So many more things I could write about but I’ll just share tons of pictures instead.  

Blueberries!

                                 One of my raspberries.



PiYo Challenge pack