What to do on a Sunday!

After my morning planks and run at the local park, I ran 2 miles. I decided it was a nice crisp day to burn up all the branches in the yard and all our paper that was collecting to be shredded or burned. 

I actually had fun burning up everything. Steve came outside with hot dogs so we cooked up those on the fire. 

So glad to check this off my todo list. I had been wanting to do this all summer but it was just too hot to sit by a fire.

I finished the last of the door knobs, purchased more spray paint to do the outside lights. We picked out paint for the kitchen walls to cover all the red. Tomorrow Steve paints and we have more updates done around the house! I even cleaned the basement and need to go to Goodwill to get rid of a bunch of stuff we not longer need. 

Mankato Weekend fun, Bucket list check off!

Our First Weekend in Mankato for Homecoming!

 We watched the 150 year parade..

 Ended up getting some fun game time pom poms, flag and cow bells to use.

 We went through the Buffalo park, killing time before the football game started.

 At the end of the trail was a old flour mill from the early 1800's

 Start of the football game Mankato VS St. Cloud. We won 49 to 10

Half time show.. This was my first ever football game where I watched the whole thing at the game! Checking that off my Bucket list. I actually enjoyed the game. Who knew! Of course my favorite part was waving that pom pom!

Coming along..

I might not be changing much in my diet and exercise but my house projects are coming along. 

I have four more door knobs to spray paint. Good bye gold! 

 I'm trying to cook dinners more often. I'm not a cook. I found this recipe off Pinterest for chicken. It turned out excellent! Just need to find low calorie meals. I wanted to use up the half and half cream so this is the reason for the cream dish.

Back to the house projects. Trying to find new lights to replace an outdated and dusty one we have over our stairs. I'm going with the silver metal ball. Can you see it? Should be less of a dust collector. It's in spot where I can't reach it to clean so it has to be kind of dust proof. 

I'm already for Sunday painting our red wall! I can not wait to cover up the dark red and brighten up our house. It's been a long time coming. I picked out a very light gray. I know more gray. I'm just so over the yellows.. Everything is white and clean in our house! or getting there! We still might keep the golden oak floors on the main level. I'd really like to cover them up but its an expense and we would be covering real hard wood floors. Should that really matter? For now, I'm changing out what is cheap to do, wall color, door knob color, trim painted, chairs re-covered etc.

Trying to change!

Change is not always easy. I'm trying to take some good advice that I have been reading, if you fail get back at it. Don't let one meal 100% wreck your diet plans. 

I was 100% committed to losing weight and have a 6 week goal time frame. Does this mean at the end of 6 weeks I go back to eating what ever? Nope, I just keep going. I did have a meal set back yesterday. I am trying to be too aggressive on my dieting. I need a breakfast some days and some days I do not. I have to listen to my hunger and not let it over take my brain and trick me into eating unhealthy foods or too much.

I was going to just skip breakfast and lunch to keep my calories low for the day. Only problem was that come lunch on day 3 of my diet plan, I was super hungry and just wanted to eat. I stocked up on some healthy quick meals thankfully! I ate the whole bag all of 300 calories. I still was hungry so I grabbed the entire bag of sea salted popcorn. Good thing its also a low calorie snack. 300 more calories. I had a craving for my Peanut-butter since I had not eating my breakfast in three days of PB with wheat bread. I remembered the Peanut butter cups in the pantry and gobbled down two cups. That's another 250 calories. I still wanted dinner. Left over BBQ, coleslaw, corn on the cob and I made some pumpkin bars which I ate one. Day three was a bust for over eating my diet calories. I'm back at it today. I did eat breakfast and will just eat dinner tonight. Low calories like soup or some veggie meal like above. I'm also going to try planning meals for the week and make some low calorie choices to pre-plan dinner. I'm not going to try and set my self up for failure.

I have to re-think my diet plan. Make dinners, maybe eat breakfast when hungry and don't give up because I had one bad snack or meal.

I'm making other changes around our house. I finally bough some oil rubbed bronze spray paint. Our upstairs door knobs are still shiny brass. Time to get those changed out. Instead of buying new ones like I did for our main level, I just decided why not try a cheap fix. We have a lot of knobs upstairs, unlike the main level. I didn't want to spend a small fortune to change out all the knobs. 

 Before and after! Love the change and now to paint that door white!

I noticed our address numbers on the house looking a little weathered. I took those off the front door and am in the process of spray painting those too. I'll have to re-paint the trim white before putting them back up on the door. Next project is spray the outdoor lights! Another easy cheap fix instead of buying new! Got to love some spray paint! At $6 per can its the best way to make instant updates. Oh, best yet, I picked up this tip on Pinterest. Use a TP empty roll to hold up the knob to spray from all angles and help with a smooth finish. 

How was your weekend?

A little sample of my weekend. We tried a new place Kegs and Case in St. Paul's old Schmidt brewery. They had shops, restaurants and a brewery 

 Oh my gosh the BBQ and Mac & Cheese at this place was Amazing! Worth the wait in line!

 A sample of a sour fruit type beer. At another St. Paul Brewery, 12welve eyes

I painted the table and waxed coated it.

Now to find seat cushion fabric cheaper then $24 a yard. I have a lot of chairs to recover!

 Went to Excelsior Apple Festival with Kendra, Paul, Evan, Celina and Logan on Saturday. We looked and I took photos of items I liked and want to make.

Ran the lakes, 2 miles. Still taking it easy on my feet! 

Zoey going for a walk while I run. She loves her car rides!

I found this bench with hooks for Steve to make us in our mud room. I took out the bench and now we need a new area for coats, shoes etc.. I would do it to the ceiling! 

Back to Running with my feet still ..

We were off to the park to run the trails. I'm getting back into running even if my feet kill me in the mornings. My feet hurt if I run or not, might as well run if I have to get foot pain. It's not going away. 

Every morning or if I sit for any length of time, I get up and my feet really hurt, till I walk it off. Lucky for me, it goes away in about 10 steps. It's just the first 10 steps that are a killer! I feel like I'm 100 years old walking. I gave up a lot when Steve hurt his eye. I was focused on earning money, his recovery and keeping our family stable since we were down to one income.

I'm back to doing daily planks, just a lot less time. Starting at 1 minute instead of my two minute planks. My right arm is back to normal after I injured it and had tennis elbow for months. Feels good to lift weights again. It's harder then it use to be, but I'll get back there quickly. Just doing a little every day to get back into the swing of working out, losing weight and taking care of me.

I'm also focused on dieting. I tried the slow or eat healthy and I think it's best just to lose weight and do what works. Just don't eat more then 500 calories. I have a 6 week goal of losing 10 - 15 pounds. It's a start and I don't doubt it will be hard to give up eating what ever. I'm going to eat a lot of raw veggies and allow myself any thing on splurge days as long as I'm under 500 calories. That might be a sip or a taste of something, just not the whole darn thing! This worked in the past and it will work again. Here we go Day #1!!

Try once again!

I've come to the conclusion, I need this table a dark gray! I ran out of chalk paint so now is my opportunity to go darker! 

I also went in our basement and found 4 more chairs to paint, another table and two end tables. I'm doing black in the basement for all the furniture I'm painting. Nothing like adding on more paint jobs!

It's another rain filled day. Zoey is spending it how I feel right now. Just crawl back in bed and sleep! If only!!!

My diet or lack of trying in the afternoon/evenings is not going well. I'm at the point where I have to lose weight! I'm not liking how I feel and it's time to get serious! I can do this!! I've been on a few diets starting last April. That was a long one, almost 100 days. I just cut back and did lose about 10 pounds. Slow weight loss but now I've put that back on over the summer. Time to start over and just do it! My plan is the same, not sure if that's a good idea or not? Just eat healthy, cut out sugar. 

Caught.. in the rain!

Steve and I both had Monday off work during the day. We decided to do the bike ride from Fort Snelling to Minneapolis. It started off sunny and nice. We had plans to eat lunch in Minneapolis along the river and bike back. Plans changed with a big storm coming right for us. 

We biked back fast and decided to just go eat out close to home. 

We did stop at Minnehaha falls for a quick look before going on our way. It was a shorter bike ride but still good to get out and do something.

Why are Weekends are made to go far too fast!

I'm such a chicken to sleep in our back yard in the tent. I have to set it up on our deck because we have too many animals. It's mostly just the raccoons at night that like to visit our backyard and deck. I know how big they can get and I don't want a run in. I took advantage of the nice warm weather we were having to enjoy a few more nights of sleeping under the stars. It did get a bit chilly a few nights but felt great compared to sleep indoors. Even with the AC on, upstairs never cools down. 

I put the tent away on Friday so now it's officially the end of summer! Today is going to be the last day in the mid 80's. I did some painting yesterday and finally after a few years painted that chair white! It's just the first coat of paint, but I'm making progress!!

Saturday, it was close to  90. We took the boat out on the St. Croix River one last time. We stayed out a little too long as Steve and I got a little burnt. 

It was a really nice day to be on the river and just relaxing. I floated in the tube off the back of the boat, while Steve fished in the front. It's a good thing he didn't have any bites! I don't really like the idea of big fish under me.

Celina left this morning to go back to school. We will see her over the weekend again on Saturday for a little bit. It's hard to say good bye but easier since we will see her in a few short days.

This week, I'm getting back to doing more biking. Steve and I did the 10 mile loop on the dirt roads by our house on Sunday. Today, we are going to Ft Snelling and will ride our bikes to Minneapolis along the river, have lunch and ride back. Its a good 20 mile or more ride. Should be a nice warm day to get out. We'll have to do this again once the leaves turn colors. Its a super pretty route by car or bike.

Updating our 18+ year old house

Our new lights are up! Good buy dirty old white ceiling fan! It's been a long time coming replacing that ceiling fan. It was a love hate relationship. It's nice to have a fan, but not over the table where you eat. It's just not needed. I still have those bookcases and fireplace to paint white. I decided to go with the same gray as our kitchen for the table. 

Two new pendant lights in the kitchen where we use to have just can lights. I love it, but I must admit, its a little darker in the kitchen with the new Edison bulbs. I finally removed our junk off the frig front. I might change the color of the bar stools to the gray bar color? I'm still undecided. I just don't think chairs need to stick out so much?

I'm back to doing daily planks. Just starting out nice and easy so I'm not overly sore. I'll get back to my 14 minutes of daily exercise! It's also time to diet. I have to start losing weight. These added pounds are not doing me any favor!