Okay, now I'm sore...

Okay, now I'm starting to feel the pain. Yesterday morning, I thought I would try to go to the step class at 9:30am, but when I crawled out of bed at about 8:40, my head and my back hurt, along with stiffness in the legs. So, I said, "forget it" and went back to bed. I won't tell you at what hour I got up for the day...I went to dance class in the late afternoon to make up for not going in the morning. I met another girl there. Her name is real unusual--it's Leggett. I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, but that's what I'm imagining. She's about another foot taller than me and she seems really nice. I also met 2 other girls over this past week--Reileen and Holly. And of course, I've met the dance instructor, Cheryl. She's crazy! She's so full of energy and excitement during class and that's good! Maybe if you're lucky, I'll show you a crazy dance routine she's been making us do. Anybody would burn hundreds and hundreds of calories if they went to Cheryl's class!

Okay, now that Kyle is gone to work, I'm going back to bed...

Not sore yet!

I mowed the grass today before I had to go to class. For some strange reason, I kinda like mowing the grass. Go figure? I never did any yardwork when I lived at home, but now I guess since it's my own home, I take ownership in it and want to make the yard look at least manicured.

I went to a dance class yesterday at the gym and it was fun and today I went to the step aerobics. I'm not really sore yet. I guess that's good! This past Sunday after I had gone to the Saturday morning step class, I was only a little sore in the calves but that was it. I guess my muscles are in good shape! I can feel the fat burning now! I walked into the kitchen this evening after I got back from the gym and Kyle was like, "LOOK AT YOU!" I had sweat all down my shirt and he said I looked awesome! haha...He's being the motivating source for me.

We had BBQ chicken tonight with Whole Kernel Cornbread (from the Southern Living cookbook) and salad. It was tasty! Kyle liked the cornbread and I did too. It seemed to be more moist and I think it's because of having the corn in it. If you want the recipe, email me and I'll give it to you.

Anyway, guess that's about it for tonight. Not much happening in this neck of the woods (or lack thereof ;). Tiger's doing well. He's wiley and mischevious. He's found a new place to sit and it just so happens to be on the back of our loveseat so that he can peer out the window and watch the birds fly by. Alrighty...ciao bella!

A plan for improvement

Here's the plan, now that I've come to terms with what I need to do to improve myself:

*Go to 3-4 aerobic classes each week if at all possible (preferrably 4)
*A little bit of resistance training, although all I care about now is burning the fat because I've got a lot of muscle to live on for now--I just need to make it visible because I can feel it...it's hiding.

And that's my plan for now. I went to a class today. It's called BodyJam and it's a class where all you do is DANCE like a fool! It's fun! The instructor really gets into it so that makes a difference too. The embarrassing part is that people can see you dancing because the classroom has glass walls and the people who are out in the regular exercise area walk by and watch us sometimes. Also, the people who are waiting on the next class sit there and watch. hahaha...it's okay though. We're having fun and burning tons of calories! Tomorrow I'm going to step aerobics and then Wednesday, it's dancing again. My class schedule kind of rotates to either one or the other. Step class will give me some resistance training.

I start my sub orientations pretty soon. Then a few days afterwards, I should be able to get into the schools and start making some money! $$$ I miss my teacher paychecks! It was so nice to get them in the summer--it was like I was still working without actually having to! :) It's because of my job that we were actually able to make some sort of a down payment on our house! Thank you, Dekalb County Schools for making this purchase possible! If I had not had this job last year, we would still need to live in an apartment for another year probably--which wouldn't be so bad here in Idaho since our temp. apartment was VERY peaceful. All the same though, I'm glad to have our own walls, floor and ceiling!

Alright...it's late. Must sleep.

Why do I have to answer to anybody?

I went to the gym this morning at around 9:30am and attended a step aerobics class--very demanding. I'll get the hang of it--I just have to get used to the routines because they basically stay the same each time you go to the class. Anyway, I did my hour of exercise and then went home. I came back at 1pm because I had to meet with a specialist (aka trainer) and talk about what goals I want to set for myself. He then took measurements and that's when I got depressed. I knew I gained some weight, but never did I think my fat percentage was that high! I know I need to change stuff in my lifestyle when it comes to food and exercise, but why do I need to be told that by someone that I hardly even know? It just seems so cruel. I would've rather heard it from a doctor--ya know, someone with a medical degree? Ugh...I almost felt like crying right then and there. Why do I even have to answer to a perfect stranger? I joined the gym because I already knew I needed to make a change. I've never had measurements like that taken for me and I guess that's a good thing, but still...where's the doctor instead of having someone else poke and prod at me? I feel like they've all got their eyes on me. I felt like I was the only one in that gym that they were focusing on...it's not a fun feeling.

Kyle and I are supposedly going to the gym tonight after dinner. Oh, and I had to make another appointment with this guy for Wednesday so that he can show me some resistance training stuff. That better be the last session. I want to take my success into my own hands by going to 3 classes a week with a little weight-lifting on the side. I don't want to have to check in with someone except myself.

New Hairdos

We got new hairdos today because it was time for a change for the both of us. I wanted my hair gone and Kyle wanted his gone too. You likey?

The Western Idaho Fair

We went to the Fair last night and I decided that I didn't want to hang on to a camera because I was afraid it might fall out of my hands during a ride so...sorry to dissappoint. However, I can tell you about it and it might have the same effect. We got there and it was just swarming with people! It was the most crowded I've ever seen a fair to be! We paid our admission and then walked through the food area--the smells of greasy corndogs and onion blossomed were almost sickeningly sweet and at first, made us wish we had eaten dinner here, but it was good we didn't. It saves us a heart attack down the road...and possibly a leaning over a trashcan after the rides we were going to be riding. We then walked around to see what types of rides they had there and decided that all fair rides had something in common--spinning. After seeing which rides we would like to experience, we bought our ride coupons, as they called 'em. Kyle and I both decided that we'd probably only ride about 3-4 things so we bought about 24 tickets just in case.



The first thing we rode was called the Fireball. It looked all fun and games when we were down on the ground watching, but the minute it was our turn, it was....let me just say, a bunch of swinging and spinning and turning--OH MY! When we got off the Fireball, we had an intoxicating feeling of dizziness....we couldn't hardly stand still and we just stood in the middle of everything and laughed and wobbled to and fro'. The next ride was the ferris wheel. What fair excursion is complete without the ferris wheel? We needed a more calming ride after the first one. The next ride (and our last one) was the Himalaya. Most fairs have this one also. In the past, I had had so much fun on this one! We soon found out that we had also outgrown this one, meaning that we couldn't tolerate as much spinning and fast motion as we used to! Kyle sat on the outside even though he knew that it was going to be a rougher ride. He decided to be a man and stay there. As the ride started going faster and faster, I started being pulled to the outside and was slammed against him every turn we made and there was a bump every so often that would bounce me away from my side (after I had pulled myself off of Kyle) and back onto Kyle's side....he started telling me, "You're crushing my testicles!" HAHAHA...the force of the ride was so great that I couldn't hold myself to my own side! We got off the ride and that was it for us. We were so dizzy and ill feeling. Before we left though, there was one thing I had to get: it was the Elephant Ear!! I had to have one. I got one at the stand and we started eating it. When we were about 3/4 into it, I started regretting it...I gave the rest to Kyle and then we left. I had a nasty, sick feeling in my stomach the whole way home...luckily I'm back to normal today.

So, that was our fair adventure. I think I've had my fix to last me a good long while. :)

Another visit to the vet

We went to the vet again today in order to get the first round of shots for Tiger. He was a very good kitty. He only mewed once and that was when she shot him in the hind leg. The other one was in the front leg and he didn't make a sound. While we were waiting, this lady came in with the TINIEST kitten I've ever seen!! It was so CUTE!!! Unfortunately, it was infested with fleas. She said that her mother found it and wanted to give it to her son...I could tell she was thrilled to have a flea-infested kitten in her hands--hahaha....We were fortunate that our kitten didn't have fleas when we got him. The lady's mother found the kitten under a trailer so I guess that explains the fleas. Anyway....

Our guest room is almost finished. We got our daybed last week and it was a time trying to put that blasted thing together but I guess it was worth it. It looks pretty good.

We're going to the fair tonight!! It's the Western Idaho Fair. We're planning on going on rides and eating some junk food! Yay! I'm gonna try to remember the camera and take pictures so I can share the fun!

By popular demand...

One day I couldn't find him and then all of the sudden, I found him...curled up behind the office television sleeping. The little stinker.
He was caught in the act of being on the computer desk and was making his escape (along with the pile of unorganized papers.That look he gives us when he's about to scale our leg like a cliff and get into our laps for a little love.

The card painting/drawing from Bobbie Campbell in our library. Water color painting of brick wall and trees (if you look closely). It's going in the guest room.
Water color splash picture that's also going in the guest room.

Dad wanted to see the pictures that were given to us by Kyle's grandma Bobbie and so I put them up, along with a few Tiger pictures because I couldn't resist. I wish I could get a picture of him jumping up high in the air after his little mouse but that's kind of hard to capture.

Just trying to update...

Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. Things have been kind of slowing down around here. We're still trying to get the house settled, although all of our stuff is unpacked and put away, it's just that we are trying to get it decorated and furnished the way we want it. Money is a factor also in this furnishing--we have to kind of slow down right now since I'm not getting another paycheck until I start subbing for schools in September. My paycheck will definitely help out with any furniture/accessories we want to buy later on.

We got our new Idaho driver's licenses today. Their DMV here took only a fraction of the time that we used to spend at the DMVs there in the ATL area. It probably would've taken only about 30-40 minutes if they hadn't had trouble with my license. Since I still have my CDL, they had to look me up on some list they have to verify me as a CDL holder (I guess that's what it is) and when the lady looked me up, they didn't have me on the list. So, she had to call in somewhere and they had to call Georgia to check. The lady on the phone said she'd call back in a couple of minutes. I sat, and sat, and sat and finally the lady behind the desk called them and checked on the status...they said, "oh, we're really busy today and we forgot to call..." blah, blah, blah...whatever. So, everything was ok and they had to overwrite me or something and it cleared. I didn't really understand what happened but the point is, I'm officially an Idaho driver (God help me because the drivers here are terrible sometimes)! Both of our pictures are pretty horrid-looking but I guess you can expect that with any ID photo. My skin always ends up looking a bit blotchy because the flash on the camera bleaches me out and then shows all the redness that I might possess in my complexion. Kyle's picture looks funny. He looks a bit nerdy because of how he had his hair parted. He's also bleached out but no redness. Oh well. That's done and then this afternoon, we're going to go get our car titles switched over so that we can get the tags for the cars.

I forgot to write something or either I didn't get a chance to because our internet has been out lately due to weak signals (that's a whole 'nother story that I don't care to tell). The other day, I went out to get the mail and ended up getting a glimpse into the very personal and private life of our previous house owner. There was a magazine in there and I didn't think much of it and opened up the plastic packaging and lo' and behold...guess what it was? A Playboy! AHHHH!!! Disgusting!!! Of course, as anyone would be, I was curious and flipped through it to see what all the hype was about these things and it absolutely confirmed my disgust in this type of literature (or lack there of because we all know good and well that men/people don't read these things for the articles--that's a bunch of crock). I immediately threw it in the trash and tied up the bag and then took the bag out to our trash cans and gladly tossed it in--never to be seen again! I seriously hope that this was the last one to grace our mailbox!! Icky-poo! Well, that's all I have to say about that.

That's it for now. I'll let you know when more exciting news happens--supposing our internet is working at the time.

Painting, again...

This is the office that I painted--it used to be a shade of shocking lavender and now it's a shade of calming blue. The color will go nicely with my Neuschwanstein castle picture I've got.
This is the unfinished guest room that I'm working on. I'll put a picture up once it's COMPLETELY finished. The picture that you see there is from Kyle's step-grandma, Bobbie Hillburn Campbell. She's an artist and she does watercolor paintings--or at least. used to do them. She occasionally sells them for a good bit of money, but she decided to give us this one along with 2 others that you'll probably see at some point in this blog.
And, this doesn't really fit into the whole room category that I've got going, but it's our crazy kitten. He's getting healthier and with a healthy kitten, comes absolutely nutty behavior! He's been driving us bananas lately because he runs from room to room and jumps all over everything. Last night and this morning, I had to put him back in his sleeping room for punishment because he's started to scratch things and he won't calm down. I love him though.

Well, I'm painting another room now. It's the guest room. It's a tan color and I must say, it's looking pretty good so far. I'm going to have to do some touch ups do to some areas being a little lighter than others, but it's going a lot easier than the first room that I painted. It's amazing how just adding a long extension to the paint roller makes a job go a little faster! Well, I don't know if anything else has really happened that's worth typing here. We've just been gradually settling more and more into our house and making it our own. We're pretty satisfied with how things are going. Once the house payment is due though, we're going to have to curb our spending for awhile. We had no idea how much money one can spend when trying to furnish a new house! We start thinking, "oh, we're gonna need this and oh yeah, what about the yard? We're gonna need a lawn mower, hedge clippers and hoses!!" AHHHHH!! So much money is involved, but we're enjoying how our house is finally turning out.

We're getting a daybed in a few days and we also had to get mattresses. We got the mattresses through a furniture company here called RCWilley. They were $69/piece! Can't beat that, right? And so as with any bed, you have to have bedding, right? So, I went to Wallyworld and bought a bedspread (I think it'll fit) that will perfectly match the room! It's blue plaid with some of the same tan color as I painted the walls with. I was going to get the bed spread at B.B and Beyond, but they were like $79 and above! And that wasn't even the actual daybed bedding! The stuff that actually goes with a daybed cost $149 or more...no thanks, I'll go to Wallyworld. Anyways, I guess that's about it for now. Like I said, I'll post more pics up as soon as the rooms get finished.

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY.

The vet visit

We took Tiger to the vet yesterday and this is what happened:

First of all, Tiger remained relatively calm and well-behaved even when there was a dog in the waiting room with us. I was afraid that there might be a dog in there and that Tiger would have a hissy fit and scratch us all up, but nope...he was a good kitten. We finally went into the exam room and the nurse took his temperature and said it was a bit high but not worry because it usually happens when the animals come to the vet. Then the doctor came in and examined him. Tiger has a whole slew of ear mites and he has an upper respiratory infection which is causing him to be a little wheezy and his eyes are congested with goop. It kind of looks like conjunctivitis. So, we ended up taking home about 4 medications to administer to him for the next 10-14 days. They didn't give him his vaccinations since he wasn't feeling good. We'll go in later for that. The meds include eye stuff that we have to put in his eyes twice a day, an oral medication (it's ammoxicilin for cats), an ear medication that we have to drop in his ears once a day for a week, and the last one is a med that we won't have to administer for another month since the vet did it right there in the room. It's a medication that we rub into the skin that helps kill off the ear mites. Overall though, it was a good visit and Tiger did VERY well. I'm a proud Mama.

We have a baby now....kitten, that is..

His name is Tiger and he's 10 weeks old. He's adorable. We were wanting a kitten to have around the house and so we looked in the classifieds for free kittens. We found some and called the people. They said that they were both boys (which we were wanting girls for less smell), but we were okay with it. Nobody else had called us so we decided to jump on it. He was a little shaky in the car ride back to our house, but he warmed up pretty quickly to us. He didn't make a sound the whole way home. When it was time to go to bed though and we put him in the laundry room, he started to mewl. It was pitiful. I decided that I would turn off the dryer because that's probably what was freaking him out. We think he's got something though--some kind of illness. His left eye is kinda gunky and he sneezes a lot. We're taking to the vet tomorrow morning to get him checked out. We also thought he wasn't using the bathroom, but after I got back from the store today, I saw him in his litter box and I think he was using it! I was afraid that he might've had something else wrong with him...he seems like a pretty healthy kitten other than the eye and the sneezing. We think that we rescued him from a nasty situation. The house he lived in before was a double-wide mobile home and when we walked in, it reeked of dog and unchanged litter pans...ICK! I think we can offer him a better and cleaner home. He needs a bath because he stinks due to the situation he was in before. I don't think we're brave enough to do it though. There is a stuff that I saw at Target that's a "dry" shampoo--no water needed. You just brush it through the fur until it disappears and it supposedly makes the cat smell like powder-fresh or something. We'll see what happens.

So now, both our parents are proud grandparents to a kitten. YAY! It's a boy!

Just playin' around

THE CAMPBELLS.......(in that Simpsons theme song voice)

I'm just playin' around on the internet and found this AWESOME site called http://www.simpsonizeme.com/ . Some of you may know the cartoon, "The Simpsons" and you may know what the characters look like. You can upload a plain picture of yourself (make sure that it has just a plain background--like, a light background) and it'll analyze your photo and make a characterization of you (if that's the right word). For some people, it's very accurate and for some others, you kind of have to tweak the picture a little. Kyle's picture came out VERY accurate...Mine was okay. I think it's harder for girls because of the different hair styles.

Well, we're staying the night for the first time in our new house. Right now, Kyle is installing our hotel style shower curtain rod. It's a curved rod that gives you the illusion of having more space in the shower...in fact, you do have more space for your elbows when you wash your hair--it just feels more spacious. We got the idea from Mom and Dad (once again). haha. We're gonna do the same thing for the guest bathroom since that one especially needs some more room. I mean, both tubs are the same size, I think, but the rooms are very different in size. Anyways, I think it'll make the guest bath feel better.

Moving in...finally

Today is the first day we're going to actually live in our house! The rooms aren't completely ready, but it won't take too much more. I've gotta try and get most of our stuff out of the apartment and bring over to the house. That way we won't have too much more bring over later. We have to check out of the apartment by the 10th of this month so this weekend is about the best time to do it. Yesterday, I worked with all of my clothes that were just piled all the way from our closet and all throughout the bathroom. It looked a little bit chaotic, but it actually didn't take me too long. Now all that's left in there is for Kyle to put his clothes up. I told him today that if I felt gracious enough, I just MIGHT put his clothes up for him....we'll see. ;) We're excited to be able to finally live there instead of going back and forth from one place to the other. It's only a 20 minute drive between, but it seems like longer and longer the more trips you have to make.

Sorry I haven't been updating as often as I used to. I've been at the house most of the time and trying to get everything together and I've been exhausted afterwards. Plus, not much new has really happened anyway. So, we ordered a new daybed yesterday morning. I think it'll be pretty. The only thing is that it's gonna take up the WHOLE room just about it. It's about 78' long and 38' wide (meaning from the wall to the center of the room). It's white iron--kinda like the one at Mom and Dad's house, but I don't guess it looks just like it. We've got to find a good mattress store that will ship 2 mattresses to us for not too much money. We were going to order the mattresses that came along with the daybed, but it was too much money for 2 crappy mattresses. Now, I have to go find bedding for this bed. I'll have to see if Bed, Bath and Beyond has it. Anyway, guess I better go now. I gotta get busy with moving. We'll put up pictures of the house after we've got it more settled so ya'll can see what it looks like with ALL of our stuff. Later!