Yearbook 2012

Guys! I Shutterfly'd again... I'm doing that Family Yearbook project that's been all over Pinterest. I started in September and finished the last tweaks a few weeks ago. After checking it all over today, I got to order it! So on top of just liking to share this crap, sharing gets you ten dollar codes. Of course, the one I had already expired on December 31st, so I didn't get to use it on this project after all, but I still got free shipping and 40% off, which totaled about fifty-nine dollars in discounts. Yeah. Love Shutterfly.

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TUTORIAL: Creating and Adding a Watermark in Lightroom 3

Hey, everyone! I had to look up a video on Youtube to show me how to do this after hearing obscurely that Lightroom had a feature to watermark. I know a lot of people don't use it, but I love Lightroom and it seems to be gaining in popularity. It came free with my camera and I've actually had it a little longer than that since my dad installed his copy for when I would take pictures with his camera, so I've been able to get very acquainted. There are few tools I don't have, though, that I use another program for. Example, I'm not all that fond of the spot removal in LR. I much prefer the "makeup kit" in Paint Shop Pro X Ultimate, which includes spots, tanning (which I never use, but it's cool), teeth whitening, and a "thinning" tool where it will squeeze the image together with minimal distortion (gimmicky, but I've used it).

Anyway, that doesn't really matter for the purposes of this tutorial. What matters is I love Lightroom and you all should, too. This is how you protect yourself and your pictures. This is especially important for bloggers. Just the other day I saw on my Facebook feed that a blogger I liked on there found a site that cropped out her watermark (notice the positioning, fade, and size of mine) and copied and pasted her original recipe and pictures into their food blog, claiming it as their own. Protect yourselves!

PS - If you don't have Lightroom, I was inspired to do this by this post. It uses a free program through the internet, I believe.

Photo Book

So I got a free baby book offer from Shutterfly in the mail before Ever was born. I found it again yesterday and realized it was expiring on the 31st. So I decided to make a picture book of her first two months. Not only did I want to share it with you guys, but you also get a ten dollar certificate for embedding your projects. So, here it is! Tell me what you think.

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Organize My Life - Budgeting!

Yeah, I think my parents definitely decided to sell, they just have to decide what they want to buy first. It's so confusing.

I didn't get to that bin until yesterday. I suck. But what I did do is stay up til 5:30 yesterday morning working on budget spreadsheets in Excel. I made one for this month and plugged everything in, using a template provided for free even in my Starter version. I then made one for every month for the rest of 2012. I threw in thirty bucks for Ever's Halloween costume in October, if I feel like dressing her up. (It's a photo-op and I just can't resist those.) I budgeted in for Christmas in December, deciding how much we should spend on Ever and whether or not Erik and I will pay for our gifts to each other ourselves or if they can come out of the family budget. I allotted for a forty-a-month-each cash allowance for whatever the fuck we want. (We need that system.) And, even though December ended up negative, I managed to have us saving one hundred dollars a month - and that's without me getting a better job (I'm meeting with the guy from the Animal Research Center at St. Jude's next week Thursday, though) and with him leaving Best Buy after August.

Guys, I even budgeted in a box of my hair dye every month.

I wasn't done there. I went ahead and made a quarterly sheet for July through September and one for October through December. Then I made a yearly one, though it only calculates June through December. Then I went fancy and made those sheets (all in one file, a feature that makes me nerdgasm over Excel) calculate automatically.

Then I made 2013, January through December.

I was on a roll, guys.

I have a cold that hit hard Monday morning and basically wiped me out. I stayed up late with friends Sunday to celebrate Ever's baptism and then slept til after four in the afternoon, unable to make myself wake up. Then I napped all evening after dinner until I woke around ten or eleven. Then I couldn't sleep.

Do you want to see the beautiful fruits of my labor? (The answer is yes.)

You should totally look at it full-sized. It's awesome. Even though I forgot to turn "monthly" into "yearly" in the income sections. Oops...

I got to brag about it to Erik in the morning and then my mom. At first this will only be to find out how much we spend, where we can save, and eventually how much we can afford to live on when we move out. As it stand now, we're never getting the hell out of here. But if some things change around (if Erik gets a personal trainer job when he finishes classes, if I get a better job) we'll be able to work it out, and I'll e able to figure it out with the help of my handy-dandy spreadsheet.

I'm so excited, guys.

On a related note, I did get to the yellow bin last night. I had very little to throw away, but there were a lot of loose papers and folders just stacked in the bottom of the bin that I needed to file, plus a chunk of unused or barely used notebooks/journals that I need to rehome. I began to condense all Erik's school crap before needing to go to bed. (It was already a little after three.)

However, the only reason I wasn't able to do more was because in between I stopped and put away two big baskets full of Ever's laundry. There was so much folding and hanging! Then I went so far as to completely redo all her clothing storage. She has a new home for her socks, I got all her hats and bibs in their bin, and I relegated all pants, leggings, and skirts to a bin in the cubical shelves, even if they were the match to anything. My back was throbbing and burning by the time I'd finished. But hey, now I know where everything is. Erik doesn't, but I do. Haha.

There's so much that I want to do and so much going on. And I go back to work next week. Both excited and desperately not looking forward to it. I wanna get out of the house, but I don't wanna be on my feet that much. I hate retail. Hopefully it'll help give me the boost to lose all this weight, though. Anyone heard of the three day diet? I'm tempted to give it a shot while my dad's out of town. Problem is, I hate tuna. I don't think I like grapefruits, either, but I can give it a shot.

I've got more I want to do, but tonight is a break night, I think. I've got laundry going, a major multi-day project that's been building up and needing tackling. It counts. I need to be lazy, and maybe try to sleep at a decent hour tonight.

I leave you with my favorite picture from her exorcism baptism:

IT BURRRRRRRRNSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Noms and Puppy!

So we're going to forget about my need to lose weight for a minute. I had my six week check up today and got my cervix pinched with some horrible instrument. I get to make brownies. So I made Hot Fudge Sundae Oreo Cookie Brownies. I think I overcooked them a little cause the cream got a bit hard. But they were delicious anyway. A post will go up in Two Broke Women within the next couple days. So I have a couple pictures right now to share. First, me nomming the deliciousness. Then my beautiful dog Tucker being nutty. He wanted to cuddle when I sat down to take a picture, but I pushed him away and he decided that meant play time. Haha. He's cute.

Creature of the Night

First thing's first. VAMPIRE BEBEH!!!

When they wake up at 4:30 in the morning, you gotta do what you can to make light of the situation. For the record, the original picture is here. Isn't she adorable? My friend Dani told me she looks "derpy," though, and she kind of has a point lol. I love it. She can be totally ridiculous sometimes. I can't wait til she's older and can pose. Brooke (over at The Circle Married the Line) has a three year old and I love the sassy pictures she's got of her. I was a pretty cute kid, too, and my mom has some pictures that make me hope my kid's as adorable. XD That sounds really self-centered, but I don't mean it that way.

So while we're talking about me... I did not remember to weigh myself on time this week. However, I stole one of my mom's new cute shirts to go to a party Saturday night and it looked great. A little bit snug, but you couldn't really tell. My boobs looked fantastic. I actually got compliments. (My friends are not shy.) My mom's smaller than me right now, so I like being able to occasionally steal her cute clothes. I talked her into buying them anyway.

Hopefully I'll remember to weigh in next Thursday. Maybe I'll even post a photo. I think it'll have been a month, right? So nervous. I do not look any better.

Subject change entirely. The aforementioned Brooke and I have created a collaborative blog to craft and bake and be ridiculous in. We have named it Two Broke Women Doing Random Shit. The username "doingrandomshit" was actually available, so duh. We had to pick that one. There's a link in the tabs on the top of my blog. So far we haven't done anything but format it and write a test post, but when we finally get around to doing anything, I'll post about it. I want to try making Oreo Brownies with a mix I have in the pantry, and I also volunteered to help my mom make photo coasters based off these photo blocks as a super touching gift for her best friend's fiftieth birthday. She's the last of the four of them to turn fifty. My dad just did in June and she does in August. They're the babies. She and her husband got my dad a super sweet (and hilarious, and raunchy) Shutterfly book of pictures from their friendship together since we met them fourteen years ago.

Holy crap, I feel old. Just last night I realized I'd been friends with two of the people I was partying with (one being the host, my BFF Katie) since I was 13. I'm 22. Nine years. Nearly a decade I've known these bitches lol. I guess that's why I still put up with their crap. Glad I do, too, or I wouldn't have met Erik. He was into Katie when I met him and I was about to move to Colorado to be with my now ex-fiance. Crazy stuff, right?

Okay, she's been asleep an hour now and I think she actually really is going to sleep. I wonder if I should risk moving her to her bassinet. She doesn't like laying in it very much and I don't know why. But she's hogging the bed lol. She's, like, twelve pounds or something (I really have no idea right now) and yet manages to hog the king-sized bed. She's like my Shih Tzu Randi. Jeez...

Well, for one reason or another, I'm ending this post and going to try and get some sleep. OB appointment this afternoon. Night! And morning!

Photobomb

Erik and I went out to celebrate his new job last night. We went and saw Ted. It was pretty funny. I liked it. It was one of those stupid comedies that wasn't completely awful. But maybe it's because Mila Kunis is damned sexy and awesome. And afterward, we went to The Fox and Hound, a pub near his parents' house. I got a couple of pictures. I can't put them on Facebook for a little bit because Erik played hookie from work last night, but I can put them on here.

This was called "Island Rum Berry Punch," I think. It was fantastically fruity. I also tried a vodka drink called "Fruit Loopy," and we each did a shot called "Apple Jack," Jack Daniels and some Sour Apple thing. It was delicious.

My cheeks are so flushed from the alcohol in those last two. Those were in his mom's bathroom while we picked up Everleigh. Speaking of which, she turned a month old on the 30th (she was born May 31st) and I got some pictures of her in her birthday outfit last night. She's adorable.

 We call this her grumpy old man face.

That's all. I'm getting really into Pinterest lately and I want to try crafting some things. Erik and I have to hit the stores anyway, so I might get a few supplies. My camera isn't the best (I wish I had my dad's, but he and my mom are in Idaho for a week visiting their best friends), but if I make anything, I'll try and take pictures and post them.

Excavating My Real Self

This is me. Or it was last May when Erik and I first got together. On the right is actually our first date and the day we became an official couple. Please ignore my ridiculous bird impersonation.

I was cute (or at least I felt cute and Erik likes curvy girls). Maybe I would get a nose job if I won the lottery, but I really have come to terms over the years with my wide-bridged schnauz. When my weight is down (I was around 140 in these pictures), my face thins out and even my big Polish nose seems to get a little thinner. I look and feel much, much prettier. Then I find a good hairstylist, a good box of hair dye (I love the newish Jon Frieda foaming stuff you can do yourself - the colors last so well, even the reds!), and a new wardrobe off the Kohl's clearance racks. Ninety percent of looking good is feeling good and I felt amazing.

These are my inspiration pictures.

I want to get back to my happy weight. 140 for me is amazing. I have a muscular, curvy build. I could lose a little more at that point, do some toning especially, but really it was great. Fitting into size ten jeans was incredible. I finally wore a pair of shorts that weren't knee-skimming bermudas and I looked cute. I want to have the body I had when the man I love fell in love with me.

He's great, don't get me wrong. He's never made me feel bad about my weight gain (which honestly started before I got pregnant, after I moved back to Memphis [I had been living in Colorado for the previous ten months which is part of how I lost so much weight to begin with] and was less active because it was summer and horrible) and he'll tell me out of the blue, "You look really cute today in that shirt." He's still massively turned on by me, even with my empty belly overhang, horrid stretch marks, and c-section scar. We made it a whole twelve days before I sent him for condoms and lube and we did the deed again post-partum. It was supposed to be six weeks? Oops.

Still, I want to feel sexy again with my clothes off. I want to get back into my small tops, all packed away in my mom's attic in a bin. I miss my red tube top and cute sundresses. Simply put, I want to be me again, the real me I found out I can be. The real me I'd been covering up with chocolate and carbs because I never felt good about myself. The real me that I didn't know could exist until she ran away and broke out.

It took living with a hot-headed ex that bordered on abusive (definitely manipulative) to make me feel so bad I needed to stop eating, then leaving him and feeling so good I just didn't need to comfort eat and got out more. I was a fat girl all through school and then I managed to lose that. Now it's here again and I will not let Fat Jaclyn win. Fat Jaclyn is not a happy person, not a healthy person. She's not who I want my daughter to grow up with. This time it won't take a bad ex to get myself in shape. Now that I know I can do it, I have a much better inspiration: I want to be able to chase my little girl around, to be a hot mom (I'm only twenty-two for Christ's sake!) and not some frumpy thing who let herself go when she had kids.

So now that I've rambled again, let's get to the bottom line of this post. Every Thursday (since I had my daughter on a Thursday and therefore that marks another week post-partum) I will weigh myself and take pictures of my progress to post on here. I weighed myself yesterday, but fell a little behind and only took the pictures today. Oops. Here it is:

Two things before I continue: First off, my underwear looks so ridiculous because I'm still wearing granny panties after my c-section and I scrunched them down to get the pictures. Second, please refrain from mocking the stickers on my mirror. This was my room growing up and they were all added between ages 13 and 15. We're living with my parents right now.

So I was wrong on my weigh in of 233. It's 233.5. Oh well. I'm still pleased, even if it's 4.5 pounds lost and not five. I'm eating much less than I used to and much, much less than I was while pregnant, so I think it'll help me have a good weigh in next week, too. I actually was very naughty and went in the pool today and swam around, so I'm starting to get more exercise. I think I'm not actually supposed to do that until I'm six or eight weeks post-partum, but I'm healed up really well and I've actually stopped really bleeding, so I said fuck it and hopped in. Totally worth it. It felt so good. Memphis in the summer is hell.

One more thing to wrap this up. Each week, in addition to posting my weight and some pics, I will force myself to find something good to say about my body. So here it is. The dark line that hasn't left yet looks like a cool birthmark or tattoo. Some women don't ever lose theirs, and I think I could live with that.