All Posts By

Candi

blog, weight loss

Violated

Just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse…they do.

The past couple of months have been filled with some trying times. Recently I had reconnected with one of my best friends from high school and we started walking 4 days a week. Not only did it feel great to create an exercise plan and stick to it, but my friend has been a lifesaver to me. It has almost been like daily exercise and daily therapy at the same time!

After walking for 3 weeks, anywhere from 3 – 7 miles at a time, we thought last week was the perfect time to start implementing the Couch to 5K program. I wanted to make goals in terms of distance and time and try to forget about how much weight I was losing each week. So here we were, walking for 90 seconds and running for 30 seconds and after 45 minutes we stopped at our cars to drink some water. We wanted to continue for another couple of miles so we headed back around the track. As we were passing our cars I glanced at my car and said, “It looks like my window is down.”

So we walked up to my car and once we were close enough I seen the glass on the ground. Let’s just say I don’t do very well in situations like these. I went into panic mode and felt like I couldn’t breathe. Thank goodness my friend was with me because without her I don’t know what I would have done. My purse was stolen and yes I now realize how stupid it was for me to be leaving my purse in the car with my checkbook, cash, credit cards, etc. It took us a few minutes to notice that my friend’s car had been broken into as well. She didn’t have her purse in her car, but she did have her work laptop which was stolen as well.

It has been a huge mess; all the phone calls, visit to the bank, checks bouncing after having to close my current account. I don’t think an hour has gone by without me thinking about it. We had to change the locks on our door, but I still don’t feel safe. I keep thinking about where my purse might be, who might have my drivers license, and photos of my kids. Knowing that someone out there stole my purse, invaded my privacy, and was clearly watching my friend and I that day – feels very unsettling. I haven’t walked since then and I miss it. I know I can’t live in fear forever, but I can’t help but feel like I am being watched.

March was really a terrible, terrible month. Yes, I do realize how lucky we are that no one was hurt. I do have much to be grateful for. I’m going to try to let the past stay in the past and move forward. Let’s hope that April brings some positiveness into my life!

books

Fifty Shades Trilogy

50 Shades Trilogy

Now that I have finished the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy I feel like I need to at least give a final review.
In a nutshell:
Book One – Awesome
Book Two – Even Better
Book Three – Somewhat disappointing

The plot of book three was not quite as addicting as the first two books. Everything became a bit repetitive, especially the sex scenes. I was so bored reading those parts that I actually found myself skipping ahead and sparing myself from reading the same thing over and over. With that being said, I still liked the trilogy overall and was not surprised to read today that the books are going to be made into movies. However I was very surprised to read that the author received 5 million dollars to bring the books to the big screen. Wow. Wonder how much Stephenie Meyer received for the Twilight saga then? My guess would be 20 times as much.

More importantly…who do you think should play the sexy control freak Christian Grey?

My top 3 picks:

Bradley Cooper
bradley

Ben Affleck
ben

Jake Gyllenhaal
jake

Who do you think should play Christian Grey?

books

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey

Okay, I am so confused and can not seem to research this book fast enough! It all started Tuesday morning when I recorded Good Morning America so I could listen to the interview of rejected Linzi. I ended up watching the segment on this crazy popular trilogy of books called Fifty Shades, which I had never heard of until then. The books are being referred to as mommy porn and well, sex sells right? The first book is Fifty Shades of Grey it’s 528 pages and I read it in two days. O.M.G. Even last night during these crazy storms where my daughter couldn’t quite possibly sit any closer to me…I couldn’t put my iPad down. Then last night I went up to bed my eyes were getting heavy so I finally gave in and went to sleep with 93% of the book finished. Something woke me up at 4am and I actually finished the book and then went back to sleep.

I have already purchased book 2 on my Ipad – Fifty Shades Darker and plan on diving in as soon as I feed these munchkins of mine.

I read some of the reviews on Amazon and GoodReads on the first book and I am finding that people either love this book or hate it, with probably 75% loving it.

Supposedly…and this is where I am just so shocked, the basis of the books come from Fan Fiction for the Twilight books. If you don’t know what Fan Fiction is, basically it’s where people take books and create their own stories from characters or settings from other published books. The author, EL James, had created fan fiction from Twilight called – Master of the Universe. It was based on Edward and Bella set several years into the future. Basically Edward and Bella – the sex story. There are even pretty racy videos on Youtube, just do a search. Apparently her writing received such a large following that she was advised to take the writings off the internet and turn them into books. However the Fifty Shades Trilogy has no mention of vampires. The author had to rewrite much of the Fan Fiction to make sure the books did not resemble the Twilight series. And honestly I would have never connected the two myself. If anything I kept thinking of a Rated X version of Pretty Woman, minus the whole hooker thing.

Sure there is the withdrawn, sexy, wealthy, controlling, broken Christian (sound like Edward?) and the desperate, inexperienced, immature, insecure Anastasia (umm, Bella much?)…but the story just doesn’t ring Twilight to me. It is much different and moves much faster than Twilight. It certainly doesn’t take 4 books for these two to have sex for the first time. You The “mommy porn” as people are calling it is written very well (and not really that bad, I guess that will depend on the person though), but some other parts of the book are very repetitive (like the words that Ana and Christian use to communicate with one another) and really just odd for lack of a better word. But there is something about the characters and their obsessive relationship that make you keep reading and reading and never wanting to stop. I dare ya, give it a shot. You’ll be hooked too!

Good luck trying to find the books in print, they are sold out everywhere, including Amazon. If you have an e-reader, you are in luck. $30 (for all 3 e-books) is worth to me. Now I’m just trying to decide if I should keep visualizing Christian as the guy that I have imagined for the past 528 pages or if I should switch to Edward?? Tough decision.

books

Missing books

While I absolutely love having an iPad to read books on I really miss buying books. Whenever I’m at Target I always seem to find myself walking down the book aisle admiring all the pretty book covers. If I had the storage space and money I would buy new books all the time. It’s my dream to redo my office and have Ken build floor to ceiling books shelves on the longest wall available. Although I would then need to buy some more books to fill the shelves…darn!

It’s hard to shop for new Kindle or iBooks to download at times because I really do like to judge books buy their cover. I tend to browse the Top 100 lists and such, but there you find the same authors over and over again. Sometimes I like to find a new author or a unique book that may not be on a most popular list. I find it really helpful to take photos of books when visiting a store and that’s exactly what I did during my last visit to Target. Look at all these beautiful books? Do you recognize any of them? Any recommendations?

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Karli loves books as much as me, but I try not too buy too many books for her. We mostly go to the library, usually twice a month to pick out some new books. She constantly picks out books that are a little too hard for her to read. Well she can read them, but it takes forever to finish a book and she likes to read out loud to me. By the time she finishes a 200 page book I am bored to death of the book. I try to make it a rule that the book has to be under 100 pages and if it has a few illustrations here and there even better. I feel like she went from reading fun picture books to these huge chapter books leaving out so many good books in the middle. There are some really cute series of books like Ivy & Bean and Judy Moody that are age appropriate and fun to read.

She picked out some fun books, including some new series of books where we tried to check out just the first book of the series to see if we like it. One thing we like to do (that I did with all my kids when they were younger) is she reads a page and then I read a page. I feel like this really helps with reading fluency and it’s a fun way to spend time together.

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The library had a display where you were to answer – What Do You Geek? Karli wrote puppies and of course I wrote Twilight!

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blog

Beautiful Day

Today was a perfect Sunday! Ken woke the kids and I bright and early (9am is early on Sundays to me) so we could attend mass. While I was hiding my head under the covers and moaning about my aching back (I slept wrong or something) Ken was filling me in on his new idea to have every Sunday spent as someone’s special day. Of course he gets to go first even though I am the oldest, so technically I should go first. He knew if it was my turn the first thing I would say is we are skipping church and sleeping in.

He decided when it’s your special day you get to decide what we do for the day, but it has to be family oriented. If we go out to eat after church, it’s your choice of restaurant. Then when we come home, you get to decide how the day is going to go for the most part.

Today at church our family was asked to present the gifts for communion (I think only Catholics do this at mass), which we have never done before so that was perfect timing. After mass, we went to lunch and then came home and enjoyed the beautiful day. The weather was gorgeous, in the 60’s all day. First we cleaned up the house a little and then the kids went outside and played a bit of everything – basketball, football drills, jumping on the trampoline, and roller blading around the neighborhood. Ken got some things done around the house, like cleaning up the garage and taking the cover off the Camaro. I cleaned and prepared a scrumptious dinner. Ironically enough I had purchased a small turkey for today and I prepared Ken a Thanksgiving dinner since he didn’t have one this year. I also made a new dessert which I will share later this week. We ate dinner kind of late so afterward it was showers and off to bed for the kiddos. Ken is playing MW3 and I am blogging and watching GCB – Funny new series that is on after Desperate Housewives. I’m going to read a couple chapters of The Maze Runner until my eyelids feel heavy and I doze off to sleep. Hope you all had a fabulous Sunday as well!

Photo from today…my sweetest girl ‘STOP’ = Sweet Teenie Outspoken Princess!

S-weet T-eenie O-utspoken P-rincess!

blog, music & concerts

Minivan Momma once again

Day 16 - New - Bye bye Yukon, back to a Chrysler Town & Country! #febphotoaday #newcar

After much deliberation we decided to get rid of my Yukon and go back to a minivan. 5 years ago I was begging for anything other than a minivan after owning a Town and Country and a Voyager. That was right at the time that crossover vehicles came out and we bought a GMC Acadia which I owned for 2.5 years and put only 20,000 miles on. I traded that in for the Yukon back in December of 2009 – remember the crazy day we went for an oil change and came home with two new cars? That was insane and I still can’t believe we did it. Ken still has the Camaro and we do enjoy driving it when the weather is nice. (Right now it’s under a cover in the garage.) I loved my Yukon dearly, but the trunk space was atrocious and the payment was double what I really should be paying for a car considering I drive on average 6,000 miles a year. I had my Yukon for 27 months and only put 14,000 miles on it. CRAZY!! (A luxury of working at home!) So we went back to a minivan and I have no complaints. I am sort of past that stage of caring what car I drive and just want something comfortable that my kids can all fit in, I can toss lawn chairs into the back for the kids sports, and I don’t have to worry about the groceries falling out the back when I open the tailgate. I’m really loving the hard drive on the radio. How awesome to be able to upload all my favorite songs and play them with the touch of a button. No cords to plug in my iPhone or iPod, it’s great.

My most played songs right now are:

In for the Kill – Skrillex remixSkrillrex is amazing!
Wild Ones – Flo Rida with SiaUpbeat fun song!
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall – Coldplay Love Coldplay, best concert I’ve ever been to. OMG, that was in 2008. Wow, time flies.
Cosmic Love – Florence and the Machine – I’ve loved this song every since it was played in the commercial for the movie Water for Elephants.

Too funny, these songs really show how my taste in music is all over the place. They are all so different from one another.

blog

Daddy Daughter Dance

Daddy Daughter Dance

Karli and Ken attended the annual Daddy Daughter Dance last month. Karli had actually found this dress on sale over the summer and she begged me to buy it for the dance even though it was months away. It fit her just fine except the front did hang down a little low. It is so hard to buy clothes for her because she is tall enough to wear a normal size for a 7 year old but she is so darn skinny things sometimes don’t hang on her correctly. She didn’t seem to mind so I didn’t make a big deal about it. We fixed up her hair in a messy looking updo and applied some makeup and she was on her way. They met some friends for dinner before the dance and once they arrived at the dance Karli was Miss Busy Body rest of the night. Ken was supposed to take pictures but apparently Karli gets her social skills from her father because he was too busy chatting away to remember to take photos. Luckily I got a few pictures before they left for the night. She looked so cute and she still gets shy when it comes to her Daddy sometimes, it’s too cute!

Daddy Daughter Dance

Daddy Daughter Dance

Daddy Daughter Dance

blog

I’m not a quitter

My life feels so crazy lately, yet to put it into words what has been going on I come up blank. Part of that reason is there are some things that I have had going on in the last couple of months that I can’t really share. {I know…I hate when people do that too! I have this exciting thing going on and I can’t talk about it, ugh! How rude!} No, it’s not like that. It’s not exciting at all, just stressful and complicated and I wish I could just pack a bag and run away with Ken and the kids for a few months until the drama ends. Also, do you ever notice when life gets stressful the next thing you know the phone is ringing with more drama? That’s me, a magnet for other people’s crap.

Anyhow, I constantly think about how I miss writing and wish I could somehow turn off the negative in my brain and accentuate the positive by writing and sharing about the things that I love most in this world – my family! Here lately I have enjoyed reading and escaping into other fun inspiring stories. I read this post the other day at a blog called The Happiest Mom – Do fewer things, Do them better.

I love this paragraph in particular:

The truth is, every day brings with it plenty of opportunities for us to do better–not perfect, but better–at small, familiar things instead of chasing down the next new thing that will “make” us more: fulfilled, successful, better parents, more in shape. The more I try to do everything, the more elaborate a schedule I cook up–the more I slack off, drop the ball, leave things hanging. Because I can’t do everything and do it well.

I feel like I have the “I want to do everything” syndrome and many days it results in doing nothing at all. Then when I ask myself what it is I really want to be great at I find myself putting all these things on my list that I don’t even do. Like – I want to run a mile, I want to knit a blanket, ugh! Who am I kidding? I haven’t knitted in years nor have I been pushing myself to run. I still want to do these things, but I also need to give myself a break and look at all the things I accomplish in a day and realize that I should give 100% effort into those things instead of always trying to do more. It’s a great concept; do less, but do it better.

Daisy is acting like how I feel…I just want to hide under something some days too!
Where's Daisy??

Which brings up the diet. I know you are all dying to know why I haven’t made any videos lately. {sarcasm} I felt like the videos were repetitive especially since we weren’t really doing anything different each week and I didn’t have anything new to say. However, I will admit that not having the weekly weigh in’s have made a difference in my effort each week. I’m still not drinking pop and I don’t fill myself with junk food…however my weight has been pretty steady the month of February. I haven’t quit, but haven’t been trying real hard either. As of today I am down another 3 pounds since the last video I made. I will make an update video real soon and I’ll get Ken on the scale and we will get back into the swing of things. {This is my way of saying I am trying to dig myself out of the pile of crap I am dealing with and get back to what makes me happy!}

Morning with mom at Chase & Karli’s school
Morning with mom at school bright and early this AM.