Yearbooks and Savings

Shutterfly has up to 40% off on photo books through the 18th. More specifically it's "Save 40% on 12x12 photo books. Save 25% on 8x8 and 8x11 photo books. Save 15% on 7x9 and 5x7 photo books." Still cool. Also, over 30 bucks gets you free shipping with "SHIP30" and "CARD4U" gets you one free card. I don't know how long those two last. Good to think about, though. I love Shutterfly stuff.

I found a yearbook thing on Pinterest and I'm going to probably use Pinterest to do it. You make a family yearbook of each year of your life as a family. Since Erik and I got together last year, I've thought about doing one with 2011 photos, but I need to get a cord for my external harddrive. I'll probably just wait to start this year, though, since Everleigh was born.


Oh! And I almost forgot. If anyone wants it, I have 25% off promo code specific for one use. I also offered it on Facebook, but no one responded. The last day to use it is Wednesday and I'm not going to end up using it, so comment if you want it.

Stationery card

Got ten free Holiday cards from Shutterfly in my email. Had to order by Tuesday. Picked a couple favorite pictures of our family and made one. It even took off the extra charge to have half of them come with pre-addressed envelopes because I hate addressing envelopes.

It makes me feel all ~special family~ and ~grown up~ to make a holiday card. I love Shutterfly. They ran a special for a 29.99 off (or free, if you get the same size I got last time) photobook a week or so ago that I caught on the last day. I gave my copy from before to Liza and so I ordered one for myself now.

I want Shutterfly gift cards...

Merry Everything Christmas Card

Design your Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

New Hair!

So I haven't been around in a while. It's amazing how your life can go from empty to crazy in a heartbeat. I got the new job at St. Jude I mentioned before. It means I basically live at work and it's exhausting, but in the best possible way. I'll write more about it later.

I made an attempt today to fulfill a bucket list item: Dye my hair a spectacularly unnatural shade (#46). Namely, pink. I consulted with a stylist at the local Ulta salon, using a clip-in colored extension as the inspiration piece. She got the dye to match perfectly and seven and a half hours later........

I left with black hair.

Oh, and bangs. And under-eye bags. And a ridiculous boyfriend.

In the right light, you can detect a hint of purple/pink/berry cast. But essentially it didn't work. I think the problem was that we decided it was too light after one application, then left the second application on too long. It just got darker and darker. Because we bleached it first, it has nowhere to go but lighter when it fades, so she predicted that in about two weeks it'll be where I planned it (matching the extension piece). She also said I could try the clarifying shampoo I'd mentioned owning. I'm afraid to screw it up completely, but I may try that in the morning and see if it washes more dye out and brings out some pink.

On the bright side, whatever happens, she did not charge me the 200 it would have cost me without the coupon I had - or the 165 it actually did cost. (It was a haircut and two colors, not because of the second application, but because she mixed a red with what was technically called violet something, but matched the pink extension almost perfectly.) In fact, she didn't charge me a damned thing. She seriously rang it up then said I paid cash and told me goodbye, handing me the receipt. I was stunned - so much so that I forgot to tip the woman. I plan to return to her for my next cut (I enjoyed the seven-and-a-half hours of conversation on top of liking the unexpected end results) and will tip her double. I said so in the text I sent her; she texted me pictures she took for me throughout the progress because I forgot my phone in the car when Erik dropped me off.

Speaking of which...

Since I had not shelled out the expected fortune (I budgeted it into my allowance and the sixty bucks I won off the Packers-Bears game [go Pack!] Thursday), Erik and I went to Penny's (it's right next door to Ulta) and surprised the friend I had planned to go to the Cooper-Young Festival with before taking an inordinate amount of time at the salon. Katie played saleslady and we bought a couple things for Ever - some for now, some for when she's bigger. Then we went to Barnes and Noble because Erik loves it as much as I do and bought some stuff. Then we shelled out 83 dollars at Walmart, which I'm not really sure how that was done... We bought shampoo, conditioner, mousse, eyeliner, and three magazines. Oh, and a jacket for winter because I was looking for a women's sherpa-style jacket all last year and couldn't find one that had more than just the hood lined in the fuzzy fleece. This year they have a whole section devoted to them and I got one in a pretty blue.

Oh, and I got new reading glasses. My old pair broke and I've been spending my lunch breaks reading stuff I have from Pixel of Ink on my Kindle and I need a pair.

Erik helped pick them out.

Wow, this ended up long. Anyway, I'm happy. I hope it fades to pink because I really wanted it. But if it doesn't, I'll live, I think. I'll just have to cross it off my bucket list later.

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.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

The Three-Day Diet

I bought grapefruit today.

I don't like grapefruit.

I love Pinterest. I have to tell you that. It's incredible for sharing things you'd never otherwise find. My favorite are recipes. The more chocolaty, the better. Between a blog I found through Facebook and all the stuff Pinterest has to offer, I have Christmas covered, guys.

Now, I have a couple boards for several things, covering most of the Pinterest categories. Even tattoos, and they only just made that an official category. One thing I don't have, though, is a board for weight loss. Maybe I should. Weight loss tips and exercise routines keep popping up in my stream, or whatever it's called on Pinterest, but I don't usually care for many of them. Anything I do like goes onto my "other" board. Maybe I should try to find some things I do like and finally make that fitness board? Maybe.

I would have to start with the three-day diet. Apparently, in three days you should lose up to ten pounds. You could lose, potentially, forty pounds in a month. I did weigh myself last Friday (no pictures, though) and I was 239. Yikes. My best weight was around 160 by Spring of 2011. I have gained all that weight back and then some since having Everleigh. I'm heavier than I've ever been in my life. But I could potentially lose eighty pounds in two months and be back at my favorite weight if I did this diet.

You're supposed to follow it for three days in a row (I would pick Sunday, Monday, Tuesday due to scheduling) and then eat like normal, but not in excess (you don't want to gain it back), for four days. Then you do it again. Thus, forty pounds in four weeks.

The original poster said this was shared with her by a military man that attended her church. They sometimes use it to lose weight quickly. It is supposed to be a safe and effective diet. I believe someone calculated it at about 1200 calories a day, which is fine, at least for a woman. I think it's also okay for a man, especially if it's only three of seven days each week. The concern is hypoglycemia. I am actually very prone to it, but it's not severe. It was bad when I was pregnant, but I know how to keep from having anything happen and don't even usually have to think about it. If I have a sugary breakfast I sometimes get weak, but that's it for the most part. The original poster said she only did it for two days because of hypoglycemic symptoms and still lost five pounds. Two of her friends did all three and each lost eight.

I'd be happy losing eight pounds in a week.

I asked Erik if he would do it with me and he said yes. I showed him the diet and I know it'll be harder for him than me. I eat less than he does. He's a big guy, and I don't just mean his waistline (which really isn't bad, he's just gained weight since we got together; he's still my sexy man). I don't know where he got that build, but there's a reason he's been hired as a bouncer before.

I love it.

Anyway... I even got him to agree to let me take pictures of him like I did me. I say "got him to," but it was as simple as, "Would it be okay if I photographed you when we did it?" "Yeah." "...For my blog?" "Yeah." "That means showing off your weight on the internet." "Yeah, that's fine." I love him.

Sidebar: I fucking love him. He's unbelievably supportive of anything I want to do. There's never a "no you can't" or resistance. He even said he'd consider letting me paint the ceiling purple when we have our own place. (Or maybe he didn't say that, but I've decided that he did. That's another reason I love him. I get to be a brat and he thinks it's cute. Sexy even. So maybe there's something wrong with his brain, but why fix it? :P)

So I'm going to copy the diet in here. I put the link to the original post, but I don't like her formatting. It's difficult to read, especially when she lists each day's meals. However, it's good to read the comments if you want.

DAY ONE:

• Breakfast:
• 1/2 grapefruit
• 1 slice toast
• 2 tbs. peanut butter
• coffee or tea
• Lunch:
• 1/2 cup tuna
• 1 slice toast
• coffee or tea
• Dinner:
• 2 slices any type of meat (about 3 oz.)
• 1 cup green beans
• 1/2 banana
• 1 small apple
• 1 cup vanilla ice cream

DAY TWO:

• Breakfast:
• 1 egg
• 1 slice toast
• 1/2 banana
• Lunch:
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese (or 1 slice cheddar cheese)
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 5 saltine crackers
• Dinner:
• 2 hot dogs (no buns)
• 1 cup broccoli
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

DAY THREE:

• Breakfast:
• 5 saltine crackers
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• 1 small apple
• Lunch:
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 1 slice toast
• Dinner:
• 1 cup tuna
• 1/2 banana
• 1 cup vanilla ice cream

So the big rule, I guess, is you're not allowed to substitute anything. I do not like tuna (day one, day three) and I will not eat it. Knowing full well it may damage the success of this diet, I will find some other protein around the same amount of calories to eat. I know that's cheating, but I can't do it otherwise. I do not like cottage cheese (day two) either, but luckily they gave an alternative already. Cheddar isn't my favorite cheese, but I do like it, as long as it's not sharp cheddar. (I like mild, my mom buys medium to compromise between me and my dad. I can deal with that.)

You can use salt and pepper, but no other seasoning. On the first day you're allowed coffee or tea, but you're only allowed to drink water at any other point. It sucks cause I'm a total crack whore for milk right now, but I'll live. Erik will have a harder time, I think, cutting out Coke Zero. I don't think he's developed a caffeine addiction yet, but it may be close. But he can drink it the other four days, so that's fine.

Oh, and no eating between meals.

The comments say it works. It works better if you're active, obviously. It is a military diet after all. We're going to try it. I don't care for grapefruit, but I'll eat it. My mom says she knows how to make it less bitter and that's without sugar. She's gonna teach us how to properly eat a grapefruit.

We'll see if this works. I'll post starting weights and pictures when we start. The grapefruit is in the fridge, so it'll probably be this coming week.

Oh, and if it doesn't work, I found a more liberal (or it appears to be, without reading it that thoroughly yet) version here that promises the same results, numberswise. We'll see what happens.

Wish us luck!

Two Broke Women Doing Random Shit: Hot Fudge Sundae Oreo Brownies

Two Broke Women Doing Random Shit: Hot Fudge Sundae Oreo Brownies: Wow. I've been meaning to post this for almost two weeks now. Guess who procrastinates? This girl! I had my six-week post-partum OB back o...

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!!!!!

Organize My Life - Filing Away

My parents are probably going to sell their house. We've currently got all our crap stuffed in my old bedroom and - quite frankly - we have ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five pound can. They'll want to show the house, obviously, so we're going to have to fix this. This is a good-sized bedroom, but the way things are now, it doesn't look like it. I don't know what they're planning on us doing, but I'm trying right now to just condense and organize.

We have papers everywhere, boxes and bins of crap we don't need or even know about. The other night I was looking for a notebook of mine that I'd written Erik's bank account info in a while back because I wanted to be naughty and get something off etsy. I dug everywhere I could think of and never found my pink scribble book. I did, however, finally discover the location of my "missing" purple file bin. (I have a purple, green, blue, and yellow one. I thought I had a pink, but if I did, it's somewhere else now. I had managed to hide the purple one from myself in my closet.) I also found that the banker's box sitting on my closet shelf was not an organized box of anything. It was a dump site for a shit-ton of papers, mostly Erik's schoolwork.

That happens a lot, the random dumping of papers. We get a lot of things we need to file and a lot of random mail and it all ends up in one spot, just tossed there to be tended to later - and then it's not tended to. Ever.

I also had a ton of laundry all over that needed to be put away - especially Ever's laundry. So I enlisted Erik before he had to go to work tonight and we got that put away. Then after he left I pulled out the bins. There was a blue bin that was sorted but not filed - his schoolwork. Then there was the purple bin - existing files. I finally let go of sentimentality and threw away about half of it. There's still a yellow bin I haven't pulled out. I'll probably do it tomorrow or Friday. Tomorrow is Family Night and even though they're having it Saturday because Erik's grandma Joyce is in town for Everleigh's baptism (by the way, she's getting baptized Sunday), they want to do an early evening Thursday one. I think after that it'll be on the weekends because Erik's brother Ethan got a new job, too, so two of the brothers can't do it now. And I think Elliot will be able to do weekends. Not sure. It's all so confusing. I just show up where I'm told to be.

Anyway. Blue bin done. Purple bin done. Banker's box done. To do: Yellow bin. Pile on the printer. Crap on desk. Pile on cubicals (bookshelves). I think I have crap in the nightstand, too. But all these other piles are relatively small. The only big one left is the yellow bin, and that's already filed, I just need to condense it. It should be pretty easy.

This is me earlier, buried in papers and files on our bed:

Love my ratty old butterfly PJ pants.

See how messy the cubes are in the background? I will tame this room again.

I say again like we've ever been organized... When I first arrived at his house, all my crap was just dumped in his living room. I never fully unpacked even my clothes. And my mess made him messy because we were just all over each other - and not in the good way. (Well, also in the good way.) And then we moved very quickly into my old room, where we had even less room. But now I'm determined to fix this. I want to toss and shift and make it all good. I've never been organized in my life, but I want to get us our own place (even if it's a rental) and I want to start off fresh. I'm also working on a budget and figuring out how to live on our money. And we've vowed to eliminate fast food. And to work on an allowance each instead of free spending. I'm the worse one at that. And we're supposed to start saving. I wanna move out around the new year. If we take (big) baby steps, we might make that happen. His mom has already agreed to help us out with rent, at least until he's done with school and can get his personal trainer cert. They can make decent money right off the bat.

Anyway, I've hit my rambling point and I need to cut myself off. It's just shy of four in the morning. I couldn't help myself tonight. The baby is attempting to sleep through the night the last two nights, so she's let me work on this, and I had a burst of drive and energy. I actually committed to this one. Even with taking a break to watch this week's episode of Dallas on the DVR.

Right. Rambling.

This is my tired ass saying good night and signing off. Don't I look exhausted? I am. But also very pleased with myself.

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!