What's so funny?

While I was packing away the last of my scrapbooking stuff, I took a break to look over some vacation shots from this past January. Do you ever look at a picture of someone laughing and wonder..."What's so funny?" Well this is one of my favorite pictures ever! It reminded me of how much fun I had on vacation with my friends and how easy it is to laugh when I'm with them. At the time I didn't realize someone was taking pictures of me taking pictures! First I had to get the camera ready on the convenient rock partially buried by beach sand. No problems so far. Set the timer, press the button and strike a pose before the little flashing light stops flashing!Then I quickly crawled/scooted in reverse to my spot which is not as easy to do as one might think. I'm sure I was a complete uncoordinated dork! I soon realized I still had my swimsuit coverup on and didn't want to lay in the water with it on so I whipped it off over my head, knocking my glasses all crooked, and tried to throw it away from me. It didn't go very far and pretty much landed in the water anyway!

Rita is pointing that out to me in this photo with her, "What the hell?" face.


Somehow they all managed to pull themselves together and smile cutely, while I just kept laughing! That was a great day!

A smile...pass it on!

Lately I've been feeling that I haven't made enough of a conscious effort to be kind to others because I've been consumed with fixing the house, packing, etc. When I started my journal last year, my original intent was to do something kind for someone everyday. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were a ton of days when I didn't see anyone. Every once in a while my sister would call and my "Hello" would be more like a croak and I'd realize I hadn't spoken yet that day. Anyway, my daily act of kindness idea fell by the wayside in the hussle-bussle of my life...and seriously...I KNOW my life is not nearly as busy as most job holding, kid raising, life livin' people out there! I really don't know how you all do it! In my search for ideas on simple things to do for others, I ended up Googling "pay it forward" and this is what caught my eye:

~The many wonderful things a simple upturned line on your face can do. Did you know that it only takes seventeen face muscles to smile and, in contrast, a whopping forty-three muscles for your mouth to go the other way? Yet smiles are often underused, under-rated and under-appreciated. A simple smile can make the world a better and brighter place if only everyone took more time to do it and really mean it. ~

Here are some of my favorite "SMILE!" photos.

200...again!

I've lost 2 lbs. this week again. This is what I figure...I've removed my tally board from the blog because if I keep gaining and losing the same two pounds on alternate weeks, by the end of a year I'll have tallied 50 pounds lost and still weigh 200 pounds...seriously?...what's the point? That doesn't mean I'm giving up by any means! I'm still determined to continue with healthy lifestyle choices and see where it leads me. I think I lost a couple pounds because I've been very busy with life. This is the exercise I've had this week:
Packing and hauling stuff - up and down stairs a lot!
Scraping, plastering, and painting the laundryroom
Pulling up carpet and padding and hauling it away
Cleaning the garage.
Another thing that helped me is that I don't have a lot of junk food in my house so even if I feel like eating it, it's just not here to eat. I still plan on weighing in each Wednesday because I think it will help me stay true to my goal of healthier living! My exercise goal this week is to bust out my bike and go for a ride at least 4 times this week...now that sound like fun and a great stress reliever!

Reminiscing...

Bye, Bye Blackfoot! I haven't talked about it much for fear that I would jinks it, but after a great 26+ year run, we've sold our house. It's been a busy time trying to finish all the unfinished projects and there are plenty of them! I have a couple before pictures of our latest project- the laundryroom- but I don't have the after pictures yet so more on that later. It should be done in a couple of days. Earlier this week the appraiser from the buyers bank was here inspecting the place (measuring,taking notes, taking pictures, asking questions). I've been trying to look at our home objectively but it's hard when you've been at a place so long - and built it yourself. After the inspector left, I took my own pictures standing where he had stood so I could try to seewhat he was seeing. (There's a pile of trim boards hiding behind the chairs just waiting for us to install!) (notice the partial crown moulding - yet to be finished)
Overall, I think it looks pretty good all cleaned up. We've also been working at sprucing up the yard. Bricklayers came on Sunday to finish the brickwork that was started many, many years ago and it looks great. New mulch was added to the trees and swingset area just to freshen it up a bit. I remember when Steve and I bought the supplies to build the swingset for our little kids. We gathered up all the junk metal and a couple junker cars that had collected in our sandburr filled yard of the ninteen hundred and eighties. We dropped all of it off at the junkyard and took the money to Menards for supplies. Gone was the "Pinto-bomb" wood sided station wagon decorating our landscape and in it's place was the swingset. It got a facelift a couple of years ago to make it more Grandkid friendly and now it's the first place they go running to when they come visit. We'll be leaving it here for the next owners who have a little boy and another baby on the way - many more years of fun just waiting to happen!

Aurgh!

Another Wednesday = another pound gained and feeling like I don't care so much about that today. I've been sick since last Saturday and have lost focus on ...well just about everything. To sum it up - I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired! If I could just get rid of this cough I'll be on my way to a healthy me and a good night's sleep. Right now I'm going to go outside and soak up some sunshine...put a smile on my face... and just keep swimming!