I've Said Goodbye to Counting Calories...

And hello to Weight Watchers!

I’ve blogged often about my desire to lose the weight I gained shortly after Nate and I started dating. I don’t have a lot to lose ~ only ten pounds ~ but have been struggling with little to no success for over a year and a half. A week and a half ago, I decided that it was time to try a new approach, and within twenty minutes, I was all signed up for Weight Watchers Online and on my way to thinking in terms of “Points” instead of “Calories” and “Fat Grams”.

At first, I was freaked out by the idea of only getting to eat 18 points a day {plus my 35 weekly points that can be used all at once or throughout the week and any activity points I earn through exercise that can be transferred to food points}. But I’ve been surprised at how full I can feel after eating smaller {and healthier} sized portions, and I’ve actually only used a few of my weekly points so far. And I’ve found that just taking a different approach to eating ~ counting points instead of calories ~ is making a huge difference in my outlook and my hopes for success this time around. I haven’t seen much of a change on the scale yet, but I’m staying positive and feel confident that I will get the results I want with this program.

What’s even more exciting is that I’m not alone in this endeavor. I was talking to my boss yesterday about joining Weight Watchers {she has been struggling to lose a little extra weight for months also} and we decided to see if there was enough interest in our building to have Weight Watchers meetings here. She sent out an email and got an overwhelming amount of immediate response. Out of 120 employees, a whopping 25 have expressed interest so far! That’s 20%!!! We have an informational meeting scheduled for next Tuesday, and hopefully we’ll get started the week after that. I’m ecstatic that so many of my coworkers are interested in doing this together and am really looking forward to the support we can provide one another!

Have you tried Weight Watchers, or are you a current Weight Watchers member? Have you found success with this program? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Friend Makin' Mondays ~ Survey!

It has been WAY too long since I participated in Friend Makin’ Mondays {I’ve been in a bloggy rut} but I just couldn’t pass up on today’s survey brought to us by Amber at {aefilkins}. I’m emailing my post from my work email because I can’t log onto Blogger from work, so I apologize for any weirdness in spacing and display. I'll fix it all when I get home from work. :o) Here goes…

1. Favorite website ~ Etsy. My garter business wouldn’t be nearly as successful as it’s been without it, and I love browsing through other crafters’ creations for inspiration. Although it does make me wish I could spend all my days crafting rather than stuck behind a desk at work…

2. Favorite color ~ Pink!

3. Facebook? ~ Umm yes. I’m a bit of a Facebook junkie. You can find me at hmccormick3 at gmail . com ~ I would love to be your friend!

4. Favorite Christmas song? ~ Nat King Cole’s Buon Natale (Merry Christmas to You). I discovered it in college on Napster {back before it was a pay~only site ~ yes, I illegally downloaded music back in the day. Whoops.} I’m not sure if it’s one that even gets played much, but I love it {and pretty much everything else Nat King Cole sings}. It’s about a town in Italy where Christmas is celebrated all year. Who wouldn’t want to live there?!?

5. Christmas tree: Real or fake? ~ Fake. In my experience, going with a fake tree is the only way to guarantee a decent~looking tree. My last experience with a real tree was years ago with my parents ~ they decided to cut down a dying tree from the yard and use that instead of forking out some $ for a REAL real tree. It was, by definition, a Charlie Brown tree if ever there was one. I bought my own fake tree a few years ago, complete with lights, and I love how easy it is to get the tree set up and start on the best part ~ putting on the ornaments!

6. Hottest celebrity? ~ I’ve got a bit of a Zachary Quinto crush at the moment… Even as the evil villain, Sylar, I find him completely irresistible!

7. Favorite restaurant? ~ Olive Garden. Incidentally, the O.G. is also my favorite place of employment. I worked there for three summers and two Christmas breaks during college, and it was the best, most fun job ever. Plus the pasta is absolutely delicious and the breadsticks are to die for!

8. Favorite magazine? ~ Any bridal magazine. I’m a glutton for punishment, as I’m beginning to think that I am NEVER going to get married… But they sure are fun to browse, and I like to get garter ideas from them.

9. Favorite thing to drink around the holidays? ~ I’m not a big eggnog or cider person, but I never say no to a lemon drop…

10. Favorite Christmas movie? ~ A Christmas Story. And Scrooged. And Twas the Night Before Christmas, a cartoon my dad taped for me back in the ‘80s that I still love to watch. And I do have a soft spot for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Happy FMM!

Clean the House in 30 Minutes?!?

I am 100% embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I am the world’s worst housekeeper. At present, our house gives a whole new meaning to the word “filthy.” There are 3+ days worth of dishes piled up in and around the sink {life without a dishwasher really is the worst}, pine needles from the shedding tree outside all over the floor, and puppy toys and treats scattered everywhere. A clean load of laundry sits in a basket waiting to be folded; another is still in the dryer. Our bed hasn’t been made in weeks, and I’m sure that my sewing room should be declared a national disaster area. And the only reason I can stand to bathe in our scummy shower is that I always shower sans contact lenses and thus can’t see exactly how disgusting the walls, curtain and floor of our shower really are.

I grew up in an immaculately clean house ~ my mom is borderline OCD when it comes to cleanliness {don’t get mad at me for saying so, Mom ~ you know it’s true!}, so our carpets were ALWAYS vacuumed, the floors were ALWAYS scrubbed, the toilets were ALWAYS cleaned, and so on and so forth. And to be honest, I miss being able to eat a cookie or cracker that’s fallen on the floor without a second thought about exactly how dirty the floor it fell on really was. I hate that our bathroom sink almost always has toothpaste stuck to it somewhere, and I am tired of the bottom of all of our white socks turning brown the instant we take a step on the floor. Plus it’s getting really old having to do a speed clean of the whole house so it is somewhat presentable if a family member or friend calls to let us know they’re on their way over for a quick visit. I know that I will never been the housekeeper my mom is, but I also know that I can keep a whole lot cleaner house than the one I’ve been keeping.

My new plan is to do a little bit of cleaning every day. Amanda at Imperfectly Beautiful had the same idea, based on a 30 minutes a day checklist she discovered here. It sounds AWESOME! The basic idea is that by doing maintenance cleaning in the main areas of the house on a daily basis, the mess won’t get away from you. We’ll see if I can actually stick with it, but it’s definitely worth a try!

Do you have any special tricks you use to get the house cleaned in a jiffy? I’d love to hear them!

New Garters!

Just wanted to share a few of my new creations!

Since I've Been Gone...

I've been in a bit of a blogging funk lately. I've composed multiple posts in my head but could never find the energy to write them down. I've read many of my favorite bloggers' posts but just couldn't seem to find it in me to leave any worthwhile comments. And I've missed it. I've missed having an outlet to share my thoughts and feelings, and I've missed the interaction with my fellow bloggers. I think I'm finally ready to get back into the swing of things, and wanted to do a little recap of the things that I've been up to in the last month or so...

~ I got my first haircut in 6+ months and decided it was a fabulous idea to get bangs. It wasn’t. ~ I started growing out my bangs.

~ Daisy got her girlie parts removed and we had to deal with two weeks of sleeping with a cone~headed puppy.
~ I was a beer wench victim to Nate's vampire for Halloween. {Somehow we forgot to take pictures, but this is the costume I wore. :o)}

~ I took Mrs. Soup up on her book recommendation and FELL IN LOVE with Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander.
~ I admired the photos from Nate’s first maternity shoot.
~ I finally figured out how to make ribbon roses and started adding them to my garters.


~ I gained two pounds. :o(
~ I rejoiced with the rest of the blogging community when Stellan’s second ablation was successful.
~ I celebrated Veteran’s Day with my favorite vet. {Not sure if I’ve shared, but Nate spent a year in Iraq as Intelligence for the army. His older brother was there at the same time as a Scout. I don't know how his mom got through that time without going mad with worry.}
~ Nate and I woke up to puppy poop in bed no less than four times. After the fourth incident in seven nights, we decided to take her into the vet, who determined that she had some sort of gastrointestinal problem. After two days of antibiotics, she seems to be feeling better and we have had two poop~free nights. Hooray!
~ I discovered a fabulous new workout program. {I will share more about it later in the week.}

~ I began a quest to find new white polka dot organza ribbon. My favorite vendor stopped carrying it, and as it is a ribbon I use for many of my best~selling garters, it is a MUST HAVE for me. Fingers crossed that I can find a decent replacement!

~ But most of all, I missed all of you!

Dear Someone: To My Fifteen Year Old Self

This week for Dear Someone, ShortMama has written a letter to her ten year old self and invited us to do the same. I started writing that letter, but then decided that while there are things I really wish I had known, I would probably want to protect my ten year old self from those things, so I decided to write to my fifteen year old self instead. She would be a little better equipped to handle all the important stuff than my ten year old self would be.

Dear Fifteen Year Old Self,

It’s hard to believe that almost fifteen years have past since I was in your shoes. If I could, I would tell you everything I’ve learned in those fifteen years in the hopes of preventing my mistakes and protecting you from getting hurt, but knowing you, you wouldn’t listen to me anyway. {We sure can be stubborn, can’t we?} But I will tell you a little bit, and maybe you’ll surprise us both and for once, actually listen to someone who has more life experience than you do. It really is okay to learn from others’ mistakes and to take others’ advice.

You are beautiful, inside and out. Don’t ever forget that. I know you wish you were a little bit taller and that your thighs were smaller, but you are perfect just as you are. When you look back on pictures from your high school days, you’ll be surprised at how thin you were ~ don’t spend so much time worrying about your weight. A little word from the wise ~ step aerobics twice a day will make your thighs bigger, not smaller. {You will soon learn that you put on muscle FAST without even trying, especially in your legs.} Oh, and laxatives are evil. Don’t ever, ever use them as a weight loss tool. They’re highly addictive, and if you take them too much, you can’t even poo without them!

I know that right now, you really want to be a cheerleader for football rather than for wrestling, but know that you will have AMAZING memories from three seasons spent with the wrestling team and your fellow cheerleaders. You don’t even like football {and wrestling is actually pretty cool}. Plus wrestlers make way better high school boyfriends than football players do.

Stay away from that dark, handsome cowboy you’ll meet right before you turn 23. Yes, he’ll look amazing in his cowboy hat and Wranglers, and you may think you have great chemistry, but he’ll break your heart as many times as you let me. {And believe me, that will be A LOT.} He is not the One. You may think he is the One, you may want him to be the One, but be thankful that he isn’t. You will be a million times happier and life will be much more enjoyable without him in it. And if you do find yourself in a relationship with him, for goodness sake, don’t be silly enough to buy a house with him! Nothing good will come of that!

Enjoy life. Enjoy high school and college. Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, and don’t spend so many hours in front of the mirror wishing your legs were a little bit thinner or that your skin wasn’t so pale. Treasure your relationships with your girlfriends, and don’t spend so much time worrying about boys. I don’t want to tell you too much about how life will turn out ~ not knowing is half the fun ~ but I will leave you with this little tidbit: you already know the boy who will turn out to be the love of your life. And he’s not that scrawny little Mexican who wrestles at 115.

Good luck, and remember to enjoy each day, each week, each year. Time flies by so fast, and before you know it, you’ll be me!

Job Update

I just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers last week regarding Nate's job interview, and thought I'd offer up a little update. The interview went well, and Nate was asked to come back for a second interview today. He thought about the position, and we discussed the impact it would have on us and our relationship, and he decided not to pursue it and ended up canceling his interview. It turns out that the available position is part-time to start, 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm five nights a week. After months as a part-time instructor, he could get bumped to full-time, which would be noon to 10:00 pm four or five nights a week. As I work 7 to 4, those hours would mean we would see each other just in passing during the week, and that's not enough for us. And it would mean we'd probably have to give up Argentine Tango (our classes are during the week), which is something neither of us want to do. Plus, the studio was really looking for someone who has a desire to be a dance instructor for a career, and while Nate enjoys dancing and teaching, he doesn't see himself doing both for years and years.

And so the search continues. We both remain thankful that Nate is eligible to collect unemployment, and that he will be able to apply for an extension if it runs out before he is able to find something more suitable. I will be sure to keep you all posted on how the search is going. :o)