Somewhat of an update :)

I know, I know, more articles not written by Kristy. Sorry. I do plan on getting back into writing soon but I'm dealing with a lot right now:

1. I'm finishing up "remodeling" my bathroom. Last Saturday, my sis & bro-in-law came over & helped me remove the icky wallpaper & paint it a pretty blue. Yesterday, I sectioned off parts of the walls & started putting a faux finish to look like linen. I got every other section done & was going to finish it tonight so that when my parents come tomorrow night, my dad could help me get my toilet back together (I had to take the tank off to get to some of the more difficult areas), rehang my mirror, remove the cooshy toilet seat & install my new normal seat (I am going to miss that less icy seat but the thing is just hideous), rehang my above the toilet cabinet, rehang my blinds, & help me hook up my new light (super cute by the way, my sis picked it out...way to go sis!); however, I ran out of glaze on the first panel tonight, so now I have to stop & get some more tomorrow & hope to get at least two of the major panels done tomorrow before my parents get here. I still need to get new towel holders, a faucet, drawer pulls, toilet paper holder, floor mat, & I want to get some prettier/girlier curtains, maybe an embroidered shear. I'm also wanting to "frame" my mirror with crown molding, but that can wait a bit.
2. I'm seriously struggling with my weight/diet/exercise. Sadly, I have gained much of my weight back. In fact, I should have a baby now for as much as I have gained in the last 9 months. :P I even woke up this morning about 45 min early in a panic about my weight gain/lack of discipline. I could make excuses all day but when it comes down to it, I'm out of control. Romans 7:19-20 were written perfectly for me. I quit 24 Hr Fitness & joined LA Fitness with my friend Brandie so that should help. It also doesn't help that I have gotten a bit lax on my Bible study/reading as well.
3. I've also gotten addicted to blog reading, particularly Christian apologetics, theology, & eschatology; political; & housekeeping/family blogs. To the point that I don't eve read many of them & the ones I do, I just skim through too fast to pay attention. So by the time I catch up (if I ever do) I'm too tired or can't think straight on what to say in my own. I need to purge/trim down.

Having said all that, the next post will be a couple of articles that I recently read & found interesting & wanted to share them.

The Year of The Home: Frugality

Frugality is a very important part of homemaking. You have to guard your finances. Money, according to almost every poll I've ever read, is the number one stressor in people's lives & the number one reason many marriages fall apart.

I was quite lucky to have been raised by great parents that stressed the importance of minding your finances well. I am so far ahead of many of my peers. The only debt that I have to my name is my car & that is very close to being paid off. I was lucky enough to escape college without having to take out any loans. I would say the majority of people cannot say this & there is nothing wrong with that, I'm just very lucky. The other major form of debt comes from credit cards. Again, my parents made us swear that we would pay off our credit card in full every month or we couldn't have one. That one rule will save you from so much grief later on.

Even though I don't have any real debt, finances still stress me a bit. I want to buy a house sometime soon & don't have the money saved that I would like to have before buying. I also love to travel but don't get to do it near to the extent that I would like. So, in hopes of growing a bit of a nest egg, dreams of travel, & aspirations of being a smarter homemaker, I'm going to start living a bit more frugally.

Last month I had a higher than usual credit card bill & made a commitment to not buy anything unnecessary (ie, no makeup, no music, no movies, no clothes, etc...) until after Kim's wedding in August.

Well, you know when you make a commitment, Satan cocks his gun & attacks. If you aren't familiar with the computer game The Sims, it is not exactly a game with an ending. Basically, you create a family, buy them a house, get them a job & let them live. You tell them when to eat, go to the bathroom, shower, sleep, go to work/school, socialize, etc... Essentially, you play God. It is basically like playing with dolls for the more sophisticated. :) I've owned both The Sims & Sims II. I love the game & play it all the time for the first few months of owing it, then I'll sit it down & not touch it again until the next edition comes out. Recently, they came out with Sims III. I wasn't planing on getting it but then I found this blog & it really got me interested in the new attributes of the game. So, naturally, I want it. Now, normally, I would have given in to our society's new culture of instant gratification like I have become so guilty of lately, & bought the $40+ waste of time. But, Kristy, you made a commitment, remember. CRAP! Ok, so I'll have to wait, fine.

But then, I decided to one up myself. As of late, I have been having difficulty getting back into the weight loss mode. Granted, I am supposed to be plateauing until after Kim's wedding but I have recently gained about 7 lbs back. Not good. Not enough to freak me out but enough to slap me in the face & say "get your butt back in the gym." So, as an incintive, I have said that I will buy myself the game once I get into the 160's...that's about 15-17 lbs to go. I've never done the whole reward system thing. Never really needed to. I thought loosing the weight was reward enough. However, now that I've lost as much as I have & I'm feeling healthy & sexier, it is getting harder to stick with it, so maybe this will do the trick. Just to end this part of my story on a good note, I've lost about 2 lbs this week & kicked my butt in the gym all week.

Ok, back to the frugality issue. This week I went in to Wal-Mart for some groceries. Well, evil WM has now rearranged their store so that the makeup & stuff are right next to the groceries. Before, I would have had to walk to the other side of the store & I am usually too lazy to do that unless I just have to. Well, instantly, I turned down the nail polish aisle. Ok, here, I must say, I rarely paint my nails except my toes & that is usually done when I get a pedicure & even at that, I have some nail polish in the cabinet at home. I do need to get some lighter pink for Kim's wedding if she wants our toes painted, plus I had split one of my nails this week & thought I should get something to repair that. Well, after several minutes, I had decided on a color, a repair, & a base & top coat combo. Each of these over $5. Then I started toward the groceries all the while feeling quite guilty. Then I stoped. I remembered that we will be getting pedicures before the wedding & she may paint our toes, plus, I don't know if Kim even wants our toes done or if she just wants us to have French tips. So, I U-turned & put back ever last bottle. After doing a victory lap around the forbidden section, I moved on to my list. Even though this was a little thing, I felt like I had won some huge battle. Yay me! :)

Here are a few links I just found that I liked about the frugality:
6 Great Reasons to be Frugal
Free frugal budgeting & personal finance advice

I made bread!

That's right. I did.

I woke up Saturday morning around 6 am (way earlier than I wanted) & thought, I think I'll make some bread. I used this recipe from Annie Eats. However, I couldn't find my dry milk I had bought so I just poured in a bit of my skim milk. I also only had Splenda blend instead of sugar so I used a little of that & then squirted in some honey too.

I also don't have one of those cool stand mixers with the paddles like most bread bakers have so I mixed my dough using my spoonula. I figured if the pioneer women didn't use a mixer surly I could mix mine with a spoon too. Let me tell you, that is hard work. Finally, I got to the fun/exciting part...the kneading. I kneaded the dough for about 10 min having to add a lot more flour. I had dough stuck to all parts of my hands & flour was everywhere, but it was fun. I plopped the ball into a bowl to rise. All recipes say that the bread will double in size at this point & they are not lying. It got HUGE. I started searching the cabinets for extra pans that I might could bake the bread in. Then as I was about to transfer it back to my cutting board for shaping & a bit more kneading, it started shrinking. Apparently it is supposed to do this but I got a little concerned but thought I'm going to see this through.

After shaping it, I realized it would fit in my bread pan & I wouldn't need the extra pan I had found. I covered the dough again to let it proof but after about 20 min it was growing exponentially again so I decided to go ahead & get it in the oven. After baking it for about 15 min I wanted to see how it was coming & the monster must have continued to grow once in the oven because the top of the bread was actually touching the top coils. So I quickly pulled it out of the over, lowered the rack, & stuck it back in without burning myself (which is actually a miracle with my history).

After baking for about an hour, I let it cool. And, let me just say, I think I did pretty good. It's not bad at all. It is enormous but quite good.

My parents & grandmother was in town this weekend so I took some of it over to my aunts & they tried it & everyone seemed to think it was pretty good. So, huh, I guess I'm a baker now. :)

The Year of The Home: Getting my act together.

The Lord has been convicting me for sometime about a certain area of my life. That area is homemaking. If any of you know me "in real life" (IRL), you probably know this is a serious area that I consistently fail in. At least I'm consistent, right? ;)

Anyway, I am working on this. As Christians, we are called to be hospitable & I know I am not. I never feel like my home is clean enough (& it really isn't) for guests & I don't feel that my cooking skills are where they should be to offer meals to people who need them.

A couple of weekends ago, I finally told God, "Fine, let's do this." & really allowed Him to convict me fully on the subject. That Saturday, when I went to church, what do you think the pastor preached on? That's right...hospitality. "Ok, God, I get the picture."

So how does one go from pig to princess? From clutter & chaos to comfort & peace? From "get me out of here" to "I wish I could stay longer?"

Well, I don't know about others, but I'm a nerd & I research things to death. I ordered several books on homemaking, organization, clutter, etc... I have become obsessed with several blogs regarding homemaking, organization, cooking, frugality, cleaning, anything to do with running a home.

I know it sounds a little like feeding a problem to order more books for a person who already has a serious issue with clutter & way too many books to begin with, but I'm working on a plan. A couple of weeks ago, the weekend I finally had gotten the message, I cleaned out a cabinet in my bathroom hallway that had been bugging me for weeks. I threw out boxes of stuff. I felt guilty about throwing some of those things out but I've had them in that cabinet for almost 5 years now & still haven't used them, I doubt I ever will...I usually just end up buying another what ever it is when I need it anyway. For example, I found 5 large bottles of Tums in that cabinet. I can't even remember the last time I had indigestion. By the way, I kept one bottle & took the rest home to my mom & dad.

That same weekend, I also cleaned my closet & got things a bit more organized in there.

My next project, I hope to go through my book cases in my living room. Like I said, I have a serious issue with too many books. I'm going to be very selective & only keep the ones I am extreemly serious about reading. I have several that I have had for years & haven't even attempted to read them. Even though I always say, "I'll read it eventually," I never do, so those suckers are out. I have a friend who reads books like crazy so I'll offer some of them to her & the rest I'll take to Half Price Books & see what I can get for them, if there are any they refuse to take (which I highly doubt), I'll take them to my hospital (they have roving book shelves for the waiting rooms & patients). To be honest, I have gotten away from fiction lately. I use to say I would never read non-fiction..."it doesn't require any creativity, no imagination, it's boring"...but that's not really true. I love non-fiction now. I glean so much from it & I find it quite interesting. Like I said, I'm a nerd, I love to research & learn.

Most of the research (blogs, books, & websites) I have been making is by Christian homemakers, aka, stay-at-home wives/mothers/homeschoolers. I mean, they are the experts of homemaking, right? That's their job. I'm not sure if I'll ever marry or become a mother or a stay-at-home wife/mother but that doesn't really matter. If I do, I'll have learned a lot of great advice on how to run a home & if I never marry, I'll still have my own home to run. Practical life wisdom rarely goes wasted. I have already learned quite a bit &, hopefully, having real life friends that are homemakers & reading these other ladies blogs will continue to inspire me get my life on the homefront in order.

Last year, I guess, was the year of my physical life. God convicted me about my health & helped me to get in better shape, learn to eat healthier & like it, and loose approximately 70 lbs. While I still have at least 30 lbs to go, I guess God thinks it is time to move to another area of my life. I came to the realization that, like loosing weight, I can not get my house clean & in order in a day, a weekend, or even a whole month, it is going to take a long time to get it where I want it, even then, like struggling with weight, it will be a daily battle to keep undercontrol. When I realized that, I seemed to relax a little. I've been looking at this mess for so long thinking, "There is so much to do, I don't know where to start." & then I would find something much less productive to do. But knowing it will take months to sort & thinking in small goals, like my cabinet in the hallway or one book self at a time, seems much more manageable & much less stressful. The entire living room in one day, forget it...I'll just play Rock Band for a while. But, one shelf for today...I think I can handle that.

So, a couple of years ago, it was The Year (or Two) of Spirituality; last year, it was The Year of Health; & I guess, this year, will be The Year of The Home.