Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Wed. Feb 27th

HI to all,
Well not alot has been happening lately. School and Rob's second week at work. I can't say he is loving his job.......but I think he is adjusting. I started back up at Bible study last night, I haven't been able to attend since Rob left and it is so nice to get back to my old dear friends. It was like coming home.
The kids are all feeling better finally! Geez, I thought we would make it thru a whole season without getting sick , and just as you say something they all get influenza, and now Whooping cough is going around. Thank God we haven't contracted that! Rob has been working on a rabbit hutch for Clarissa, I can't wait for that to be done, that way we don't have to smell the stinky rabbit in the house anymore. Clarissa got a Bunny from Grandma and grandpa Brown for Christmas, she had been wanting a black and white bunny for about 7 months before Christmas, and she has been patiently waiting for the house to sale, ( we told her that is when we would get one for her) , She finally decided that she had waited long enough. She convinced us she would take care of a bunny and she named her future bunny. Well she chose the name Ballerina, So basically Grandma had to make sure it was a girl bunny. So grandma bought her the most precious black and white bunny, it is papered so in case Clarissa decided to join 4-h , she can.
Rob is planning on bringing Brody home this weekend---although he is a very sweet dog, I am not awaiting his return. HE wears me out! HAhahah! Although it will be nice to have our family back together again.
It looks as if spring is coming, there is no more snow on the ground and the sun shines so bright during the day--I am getting spring FEVER! It makes me want to start working in the yard and go for bike rides. I am hoping Rob will be home to enjoy the summer with us this year, it sounds like he will be working alot. Please pray that they will hire someone to work with him, they need to hire one more guy before May and they seem to have trouble finding guys to do this job.
Well that is our update for today--I hope all is well for everyone! Have a great day!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

LOw Cals

HI All,
I have to say I reached a milestone! I have lost 20 pounds since JAN. I am a big fan of that show....THE BIGGEST LOSER...well I haven't been paying much attention to commercials, well on Tuesday I saw the Zip and steam bags from ZIPLOC. I decided to buy some, I tried them last night......YUMMY! I bought some low fat( hormone free) chicken breasts and I bought a TON of veggies( green pepper, red peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, zuchini, yellow squash, carrots, onions and asparagus) I cut them up and put them in a big bowl. Then I just took my chicken breast, a few handfuls of veggies, sprinkled some lemmon pepper over it all , zapped it it the microwave for a couple minutes, and like MAGIC....I had a huge plate of food with less than 300 cals! SO I will keep my big bowl of veggies for the rest of the week. I am also marinating some chicken, to try some different flavors. These bags make it so easy to make myself a plate of food , and that way I can make my family a higher calorie meal, that may not be good for me to eat.
I will also share some other things I have been eating.......SKINNY COWS! I keep a hearty stock of these delicious treats on hand. NOt so much the sandwiches, but the cones....YUMMY! They are 150 cals compared to a nutty buddy that is 360...and I save enough cals to allow myself to have one every day( Safeway is the only place in town that sells the cones). I have also picked up these Morning Star breakfast bites.....they are 180 cals for 3 good sized bites , they look like chicken nuggets but they have eggs, veggie sausage and a few veggies in them---Very good. I also bought a bunch of ground turkey and turkey burgers, I thought it would be hard to switch from regular ground beef---I don't notice much of a difference, so slowly but surely I will be elliminating the red meat intake in my house hold. I will buy steak every now and then or my Husband would go CRAZY, and stew meat,that sort of a thing......BUt I figure why not cut where we can, right?
I also read this article on how to cut cals, so your family doesn't notice as much--and one of the tricks was to put double the amount of veggies in your casseroles and such, if you put extra veggies you can cut the pasta in half or the rice ( whatever the starch may be) , I have done this with my kids, I hear no complaints.These things have been working for us. I don't really have kids with weight problems, However, I don't ever want them to have this struggle. The hardest person to train in my house is Rob...that guy is a heart attack waiting to happen, between all of the sausage,beefsticks, and cola, that guy doesn't eat healthy at all.
HE was blessed with good genes.....I hope Clarissa gets those!
Well those are my tricks for weight loss so far, I really need to start working out and walking again, I think I will be more motivated when the weather warms up. PLus I think Brody will be coming home soon, so we will need to get him out and running, otherwise he goes CRazy being in our tiny yard.
Well I hope you all have a great day! Pray for me, I have an in class essay today and I really need to get an A on it---I am hoping to pull an A in english.....but the way the class works....I don't know that I can...today's essay will be the clencher.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

CHecking back

Hi All,
Thinsg are going well here. Rob started his new job yesterday. He says it isn't as much grunt work as he may have suspected, but he needs to go buy some tools, and warm clothes, since he was freezing yesterday.( he is a refridgeration mechanic)PLease pray that they find another guy at his place of business, they need another guy before harvest season comes, otherwise my husband will be working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, although the money will be nice, I will need the help at home, not to mention, we need the family time.
School is going great, I have to register for my new classes next week, spring quarter starts March 31st. Only 5 weeks left of this quarter.
The kids are all doing well, last weekend we went to Idaho and stayed at Triple play, we had a great time! Much needed fun time!
We took the house off of the market! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Now we just need to start unpacking things and putting our house back together, which is going to be a huge job in itself. We will at least have a home again.
Well I hope everyone is doing well and that we are all liking the sunshine that has found us!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Friday night

HI to all,
Well my kids have been sick on and off for a couple of weeks, I didn't know what was going on....but PReston became ill a few days ago and I took them to DR. Brezezny today, Thank GOD he was on call, I hate taking the kids to anyone else, because I really trust Dr. B. Anyway, my kids tested positive for infulenza B, bad because they could have gotten a shot earlier in the year to ( maybe) prevent it, but some people are still getting this strain of flu, even though they have had the injection, so I guess it didn't really matter, however, we are quaratined in the house for 5 days. Poor Baby Preston , he has been in bed for the last 3 days, not eating, but getting plenty of fluids down him, though.
SO what fun for all of us! I was sick on wed. But when you are the mom, you can't stay down very long.
Rob comes home tomorrow night, for a few days then he will finish his last week in SPokane. I have figured out what my next quarter's schedule will be for college. I will be happy to have him home to help me, because I will be taking a much heavier load next quarter. SO I will for sure need his help, and I am sure the kids will be happy to have him here.
I hope all is well with everyone else, Have a good weekend , while we are cooped up!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Rob's Job

HI All,
Well we got the call today! Rob is giving his notice at Napa tomorrow and he will start his new job in Quincy on the 19th. He will be making less money--although it will actually be more money only b/c we won't be paying so much money in gas and extra living expences. Rob is so sad, He started crying....I am sure he doesn't want everyone to know---but I blabbed it so--I guess he will have to forgive me. HE hates that he is going from being in a management position to a grunt worker again, I don't blame him at all, but what other choice do we have? Our house isn't selling the weather is going to start warming up in a few weeks and they will start building all of those new houses that they are already pre-selling--so we are not going to be able to sell this one and it is already going on 8 months of living apart--so he is coming back to Ephrata, all of my dreams are shot of going back home.
On the bright side of things, I went to Spokane last weekend to take my CNA certification test so I could get my license, I was a bit worried because it has been 4 weeks since I did my clinicals--but I passed so now I am a registered CNA! Not that it really matters because I would never do that work , unless I really had to, but now I don't need to worry about getting it for nursing school--woohooo---one step closer to my goal, right?
I had a psychology test on thursday, I got an A which brings my overall grade in that class to an A, that is my most time consuming class, so I am glad that all of my hard work is paying off. I am getting an A in math , and I am shocked by this, but I am only getting a B in english---so I am doing all of the extra credit I can to try and bring up that B, it just kills me that I am getting a B in english when I had always thought english was my best subject.
I am almost halfway through this quarter and next quarter I am taking 4 classes--so just in case I didn't think I had a big enough load now--I am making it worse. I am trying to get all of my pre-req's done in 1.5 years along with getting my associates degrees with my Pre-reqs--so some quarters I am taking 4 classes and I will be going 2 summers. I hope all of this pays off and that I can keep up!
I was glad that Rob was home today--we had 3 sick kids. There has been at least 1 person sick in my household for the last couple of weeks, mostly minor colds, but this last virus seems to be hitting everyone with headaches, vomiting and fevers , sometimes a cough goes with it all. OH well this time will be over soon and we can all get back to normal.I hope you all have a good week!