What inspires you? I'm inspired by The Lord, my children, magazines, friends, nature- you name it! But sometimes I get into a slump- I'm kinda in one now to be honest. House bound (by cold weather of course!), stuck in a routine rut! The thought of Spring is starting to awaken me and bring me back to the challenge of getting my home in order. Planning a vacation or short getaway is starting to help me make better choices in eating and the desire to be more active.
What gets your creative juices flowing? Send me a quick post of what you have been up to!
We finally ordered our tile and undercounted lighting. Now we have to make the time to - Get 'Er Done!
Be well!
Kim
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
the skinny Jean's diary
My journal...I mean journey to stay healthy and fit. You will be my accountability!! Let me start with a brief back ground and a few pictures...
So lets start at the very beginning...losing weight has always been a LOSING battle for me. I guess not always as a child and all through middle school eating never crossed my mind. I ate just because it was what we as humans need to do to survive. Then high school hit and with that came the freedom of driving! I could come and go as I pleased and afternoon trips to the Seven-Eleven around the corner became habit. A snack size bag of Funyuns and a pint of Ben & Jerry's because my new found friends! We can all guess where this is heading... College came and although I was still not what you would call overweight my poor eating habits were starting to catch up to me. Fast forward through college, my wedding and now newly weds moving to a new state & town. As you can imagine now I start to become unglued! I had no job so my husband would get up and go to work everyday while I sat at home in a town that I had never been to before living there. I was scared to leave my apartment for fear of getting lost and never finding my way home again!!! Oh the drama in my head sometimes... With nothing but countless hours alone the only trip I was comfortable making was to the grocery store my pant size grew leaps and pounds! One day I finally looked in the mirror and saw a stranger looking back at me! I started a job at the local college and as luck would have it they offered Weight Watchers at work program on campus. It was so convenient I had no more excuses and I decided a change was on the horizon. That was my first successful attempt at weight loss.
Fast forward again a year or two after successfully keeping the weight off I find out the best news of my life! I was pregnant!! Well now I had a license to eat for 2 right? Well that is what I told myself anyway! I ate and ate had an easy delivery to a beautiful baby boy! And on my first night home from the hospital hormonal and hurting from my milk coming in my mother delivers the bad news…my father had a burning question that needed to be answered right away! What was the question you ask…well I bet you will never guess. His burning question was “So now that you had the baby when do you think you will decide to lose the weight because you are a beautiful girl but you don’t want to be labeled the big girl with the beautiful face.” Hurt doesn’t even begin to cover this one… But I took that hurt and made the decision instead of eating my way threw it I would do something about it. I had gained 60lbs during my pregnancy and so began my second round of Weight Watchers. I was determined to lose whatever weight I had gained in the pregnancy so that when we decided to expand our family I would not be packing on more weight to my first pregnancy weight gain. Again I started on the weight loss journey this time with Nutri System and had lost all my weight just in time to get pregnant a second time. Another beautiful baby boy and this one was all of 10lbs delivered naturally by my 5ft 3in frame and to say my body had changed was an understatement! I kept that second round of baby weight on me for 3 years until I had decided enough was enough! I loved fashion too much to have to suffer through only being able to wear the same 3 pairs of pants because I refused to buy new clothes for this body. I was NOT going to keep this extra weight! With some prompting from my best friend when she called to tell me she had join Weight Watchers. I decided there was no way that I was going to standby and watch her already small frame disappear while my own grew! So as soon as we hung up I hopped online and signed myself up to take another run at weight Watchers. Praise God with a tremendous amount of prayer and encouragement from my friends and family I lost all my baby weight and then some. Went from a size 16 to a size 8! Last year in 2012 I ran my first 5K which was HUGE for the girl who not only HATES running but had spent years on the couch. Again my friends were there to encourage me and push me to move into uncharted territories! I can honestly say without Danielle and Ashley’s prompting I would never have dreamed I could accomplish such a feet! And as if that wasn’t exciting enough I had a once in a lifetime moment present it’s self to me! I was randomly selected to be the Sue Chef of the Day on the Martha Stewart Show in New York in October. I had written a short request for tickets to the show as a surprise to my sister for her 40th birthday. Although it was a random pick I feel like it was the Lord rewarding me for my determination to honor Him and take care of the body He had given me.
That was over a year ago and I have been in maintaince for the last year. With very small weight gains depending on the month! But still maintaining most of my weight loss. This is where I will begin with this blog and it’s purpose… I will blog about recipes, thoughts and what I'm currently up to and of course confessions of low points and high points on this weight loss journey. So buckle up it’s going to be a bumpy ride but with the encouragement of my friends and family and my faith in God this lifestyle change will be just that for me a change for LIFE!
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So lets start at the very beginning...losing weight has always been a LOSING battle for me. I guess not always as a child and all through middle school eating never crossed my mind. I ate just because it was what we as humans need to do to survive. Then high school hit and with that came the freedom of driving! I could come and go as I pleased and afternoon trips to the Seven-Eleven around the corner became habit. A snack size bag of Funyuns and a pint of Ben & Jerry's because my new found friends! We can all guess where this is heading... College came and although I was still not what you would call overweight my poor eating habits were starting to catch up to me. Fast forward through college, my wedding and now newly weds moving to a new state & town. As you can imagine now I start to become unglued! I had no job so my husband would get up and go to work everyday while I sat at home in a town that I had never been to before living there. I was scared to leave my apartment for fear of getting lost and never finding my way home again!!! Oh the drama in my head sometimes... With nothing but countless hours alone the only trip I was comfortable making was to the grocery store my pant size grew leaps and pounds! One day I finally looked in the mirror and saw a stranger looking back at me! I started a job at the local college and as luck would have it they offered Weight Watchers at work program on campus. It was so convenient I had no more excuses and I decided a change was on the horizon. That was my first successful attempt at weight loss.
Fast forward again a year or two after successfully keeping the weight off I find out the best news of my life! I was pregnant!! Well now I had a license to eat for 2 right? Well that is what I told myself anyway! I ate and ate had an easy delivery to a beautiful baby boy! And on my first night home from the hospital hormonal and hurting from my milk coming in my mother delivers the bad news…my father had a burning question that needed to be answered right away! What was the question you ask…well I bet you will never guess. His burning question was “So now that you had the baby when do you think you will decide to lose the weight because you are a beautiful girl but you don’t want to be labeled the big girl with the beautiful face.” Hurt doesn’t even begin to cover this one… But I took that hurt and made the decision instead of eating my way threw it I would do something about it. I had gained 60lbs during my pregnancy and so began my second round of Weight Watchers. I was determined to lose whatever weight I had gained in the pregnancy so that when we decided to expand our family I would not be packing on more weight to my first pregnancy weight gain. Again I started on the weight loss journey this time with Nutri System and had lost all my weight just in time to get pregnant a second time. Another beautiful baby boy and this one was all of 10lbs delivered naturally by my 5ft 3in frame and to say my body had changed was an understatement! I kept that second round of baby weight on me for 3 years until I had decided enough was enough! I loved fashion too much to have to suffer through only being able to wear the same 3 pairs of pants because I refused to buy new clothes for this body. I was NOT going to keep this extra weight! With some prompting from my best friend when she called to tell me she had join Weight Watchers. I decided there was no way that I was going to standby and watch her already small frame disappear while my own grew! So as soon as we hung up I hopped online and signed myself up to take another run at weight Watchers. Praise God with a tremendous amount of prayer and encouragement from my friends and family I lost all my baby weight and then some. Went from a size 16 to a size 8! Last year in 2012 I ran my first 5K which was HUGE for the girl who not only HATES running but had spent years on the couch. Again my friends were there to encourage me and push me to move into uncharted territories! I can honestly say without Danielle and Ashley’s prompting I would never have dreamed I could accomplish such a feet! And as if that wasn’t exciting enough I had a once in a lifetime moment present it’s self to me! I was randomly selected to be the Sue Chef of the Day on the Martha Stewart Show in New York in October. I had written a short request for tickets to the show as a surprise to my sister for her 40th birthday. Although it was a random pick I feel like it was the Lord rewarding me for my determination to honor Him and take care of the body He had given me.
That was over a year ago and I have been in maintaince for the last year. With very small weight gains depending on the month! But still maintaining most of my weight loss. This is where I will begin with this blog and it’s purpose… I will blog about recipes, thoughts and what I'm currently up to and of course confessions of low points and high points on this weight loss journey. So buckle up it’s going to be a bumpy ride but with the encouragement of my friends and family and my faith in God this lifestyle change will be just that for me a change for LIFE!
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Sunday, January 20, 2013
So once the peninsula was completed, we thought we could just add on to the granite we already have. WRONG! Since our granite was 6 years old it was virtually impossible to match it.
We were sent to a place in Farmingdale that has beautiful slabs of stone. Its amazing all the choices. It makes me reflect on the beauty and splendor the Lord has given us on Earth!
I fell in love with a slab of Calcutta Manhattan marble that was already honed. Honed is a matte finish- which is a good idea since marble wears easily and if you missed a spot of juice it can etch its surface.
To save a little money, we purchased the one slab and our installer gave us a slab of carrera marble they had left over at their shop. We used the carrera on our desk.
Here's how they came out:
We found counter height chairs at Pier 1. They are pretty, but very fragile!
We have been trying to figure out what kind of backsplash we wanted. This is what we came up with. I would like to put a mozaic over the stove area.
The majority of the backsplash is going to be subway tile. I wanted to add a little to it by having a strip of mozaic going thru the subway tile. Once we have ordered and installed the tile. I'll show you what it looks like!
Friday, January 18, 2013
Kim's Kitchen Remodel
Hi, Guys, this is Kim! I thought I would show a 'little' project my husband and I have been working on over the past year.
A little over a year ago, my hubby and I were able to purchase a larger home in a wonderful neighborhood, not very far from our previous one.
Anyway, our house was a new construction that sat for 6 years before we bought it. Its a story I'll leave for another post. One of the problems - if you could call it that- was the kitchen cabinets were a white washed maple. This gave them a pinkish appearance, not too appealing, but the bones were fairly good! I knew the guys at work could paint them to whatever color I needed (on their time- of course!).
This photo shows you what the kitchen looked like before we had the floors sanded and stained to the color Jacobean from MinWax.
When we looked at the space, we wondered if an island in the middle would work. Then we quickly realized there wasn't enough space to move around an island. Hmmm- then the idea hit my hubby! Why not an peninsula?! That posed a few challenges of its own. First of all who made the cabinets? Can we still get them- they have been sitting after all for 6 years?! Quick examination of a drawer and a web search and we found the info we needed. We contacted a local company that sold them.
I won't go into the details of our experience with them, but I will say it was not pleasant! After what felt like an enternity the cabinets arrived!
But before we get into that, this summer I had the cabinets painted a soft white.
Here's how they came out:
Once they were painted and returned to us, then an interesting challenge emerged. Piecing together the new cabinets, to create a peninsula. Once the puzzle was solved, my hubby had to retrofit our microwave. A purchase from ebay for a microwave trim kit and alot of cutting etc. My hubby got it into the cabinets. Here's a shot of that:
While he worked on the microwave, I searched tirelessly for the perfect hardware. Easy, right? Wrong! I finally landed on glass knobs from coolknobsandpulls.com. I saved so much on these! They were literally half the price of ones from Restoration Hardware! I did however, purchased my drawer pulls in varying sizes from Restoration Hardware.
Up next our counter adventure!
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