For Girls ONLY!

Ok, so I have lost quite a bit of weight over the last few years. I started seriously dieting and exercising in May of 2007 when I hit my highest weight ever, of 233 pounds. (I'm only 5 foot 5 by the way.)

Here is a picture of me from then.

Here is another gross picture of me from about 6 months earlier (11/2006), I weighed a little less here, maybe in the 220's? But it's a clearer picture of me. (The other was at my Uncle's wedding, which I was working at, and I am cropped out of a crowd of 50 people or something.



Here I am in May of 2008 or so. I had just hit 197 or something I think? maybe it was 194. I was at least in the 190's.





And then Kristin took the picture of me in an apple orchard near some mental institution. So fitting, right? LOL This is October, 2009.


Ok, now one more time...

and 170ish.

Weird, huh?

Pretty sure we all know I am having some serious financial struggles- feel free to click on those google ads to your right, I get $$ everytime you click on them. Let's help pay Emily's electric bill!

Anyway, so since I have lost weight, (and this is why this post is for girls only) my bra size has changed. At that top picture, I was like a 38 DD, or a 40 D. Mostly I wore 38's.

The bottom picture? I was a 32FF. Um, big change. (Now I am more like a 34).

So my bras don't fit. I have all these millons of bras, which we all know cost a fortune, and they don't fit. But I couldn't bear to throw them away or donate them or whatever since they were all in perfectly fine condition. So I have been holding on to them for literally, years.

I was digging through my drawers yesterday and I really seriously needed some bras. so then I started staring at the too-big ones. And then I thought- well, I know the cups fit, it's just the band sizes that don't fit- so guess what I did?!

I took my bras IN! :-O (pause for gasp)

I know, right? BRILLIANT!

I took a bra that fits me well, and measured it against one that was too big, pinned it so they were the same size, folded the big bra's band size over, and sewed down- leaving a two inch loop or whatever of of excess fabric. I did NOT cut off the excess, because i figured, you never know when you are going to change sizes again, for whatever reason, like weight gain (please no) or maybe a pregnancy (ok, that's fine). AND, being the careless sewer that I am, in case I screwed it up, I wanted that security blanket that if my new stitches came out for some reason (I did a straight stich twice, forwards and backwards, and a zig zag, so I don't think so, but I dunno!) that the original bra design would still hold.

I feel so brilliant! My favorite bra ever I got in Ireland, which seems to be the only place that makes good bras my size that don't cost a fortune, but I haven't been able to wear it (I bought it in 2004!) because it's too big. Well, no more! It fits perfect now and I am so excited! Whewhoo!

And no, since I am the only person who is going to be seeing these articles of clothing, I did not feel the need to match thread, nor do it tidily, NOR trim the threads before I took pictures. :D lol

That really is straight in real life.

Aren't I so smart? Yay for Emily!

I really want to go to In N Out now. Please?

Christmas!

Thank you Michelle for your awesome comment last time! I am so glad you don't think I am a crazy stalker for following your blog! :) lol

Sorry it's sideways, but here was the christmas tree at my sister's house, where we celebrated this year. I took this christmas eve from my "bed". (I slept on the couch. Didn't even hear Santa come in!)

Christmas morning. That's my brother in law Gil at the back, my Dad, my niece Jasmine, and my nephew Justin's bum sticking in there. lol You can also just barely see Clarence the dog's snout sticking in on the right side. He is my dad's pride and joy!

Ok, this was before Christmas, Jasmine and Justin came over to make gingerbread houses with me while their folks went to dinner for their anniversary. I forced Jasmine into wrapping presents. (hee hee) and Toulouse was trying to help, aka getting in the way and driving her nuts.

Here we are making gingerbread houses. Shocking I was able to come up with enough table space! lol Tootie was VERY interested, as you can see.

Here is our Christmas card from this year! Isn't it so cute!!!

Here is a quilt I sewed for my nieces with the help of Kristin's neighbor Nicole's Cricut machine for the letters, and then I embroidered the doggie on it. It looks so cute don't you think?

And yes, I did notice that I goofed and made bulldogs into two words instead of one. I am so sad it isn't flawless. :( The white part is muslin, and the orange and black are all flannel. Since my nieces are hitting high school now, one's a freshman, and one is in 8th grade now, but be there next year, I thought that they might like this to take to games and stuff!

Oh, ALSO, I need anybody that reads this to sign up for SWAGBUCKS! I have to come up with $1700 at LEAST to replace my camera within the next two weeks, and um, I haven't been paid since October. I'm living on my savings. Sort of a problem. if you sign up, and you USE it, you will earn lots of bucks which you can trade in for gift cards, and when you earn bucks, I get some of your bucks too, and then I can trade them in for gift cards to help pay for my camera!!! (My camera broke, and would cost more to fix than replace, unfortunately.)

Christmas Ornament Wreaths!

I got this project from Michelle's blog, who got it from someone else's blog, who got it from Eddie Ross' blog- a site which I now totally love. This was the best project ever. It was super easy, took no time at all, looked great afterwards; totally rewarding! I loved it!

My sister's house (Kristin) is all purple- she has lavendar walls in her kitchen, deep purple couches in her living room, with dark plum paint from the chair rail down. She is obsessed with purple- has been her whole life! So I made her the purple one. I did that first. I did everything wrong on the first one. I didn't really get the logistics of how you get all of the balls to face the front and stay that way- took me a bit to realize you just pack as many balls on the hanger as you can and then it is full from all sides. Yeah, little slow. Anyway, when I was trying to figure it out, I just started sticking the balls (From the 99 cent store- dollar tree didn't have any) on with the little elastic loops still attached- yeah dumb. Then I had to try and cut them all off after the wreath was assembled. Didn't really work. Oops. Oh yeah, and I for some reason thought I had special balls and didn't have to glue gun down the the tops of the ornaments to make sure they stayed on... so they started falling off. Oh, I am a bright one!!!



The little Snowman ornament at the top is just randomly sitting there. I am going to put a bow there, but I put the Snowman there in the meantime. When I was in high school I used to do craft fairs and I sold little stuffed snowmen with scarfs and hats, and then mini snowmen with a wire loop at the top as an ornament- this is one of the leftover ones from back then! I designed him myself. :) All my snowmen were so cute.

I had it all figured out by the time I did mine, which is blue, to match my house, and I love it.

I ran out of balls right before I finished mine, so I went back to the store to get a couple more acks and in the meantime had talked to my dad about the project and he sounded very interested, and so I ended up getting red and silver balls to make him one too. I am going to run out of hangers soon! LOL

I did run out of glue sticks, so I can't finish his yet, but I will get some glue tonight and finish it, but here it is 2/3's done.

Thanks for the great links Michelle! Kristin, you have to make a pink one! I don't care if you are too busy!!! PLUS if you do it in pink, it will look christmasy, but you could put it up at Easter too! How about that?! So cool! :)

BTW the colors on ALL of the wreaths, but especially the purple one is totally funky and off. I may be a photographer, but I am perfectly capable of taking bad pictures too. LOL I will take some tomorrow in day light and you can really see how pretty they are. The colors in the pictures are way off- they are so cute in real life! And there is no gold in that last wreath- those are silver balls- they look gold in the picture tho. Weird!

Kristin's Visit

OK, I know this is six months late, but better late than never, right?

Kristin came to visit me back in March, I think to do a whole lot of shopping, and eating! Our two favorite activities for sure!

One of the things we did was we went to this burger joint that was featured on the Food Network, and got so popular because of the spotlight on Diner's Drive-In's and Dives, that they are expanding to two more locations- even thought the original location has been sitting there for like 20-30 years!

they are famous for their big burgers, and cheese "skirts." It was amazng, and I ate every. single. bite. Wow. Look at those burgers!!!

A Second Update

I just realized my latest post doesn't make total sense, because I left you hanging last time. Matt came over that day in August, and it was like nothing was wrong. We went to get him a caffinated drink because he had a headache, and went for a little walk, and we went to PetSmart with the cat (he even rode in my car!) and walked him around on a leash, and we picked out a new pet fish, a red betta named Marlin. Actually, Matt picked out one fish, and picked another, and we held both up to Tootie and let him choose which fishy he wanted for a baby brother. He picked Matt's fish, of course. Everything was fine. He told me I was his best friend. He was optimistic about us, and said that he just needed to try and think about the situation differently and maybe he could cope with the stress. He came and visited again in September too, and that was great too. Everything was fine.

And we broke up, over the phone, basically over the long distance thing again. He just can't handle it. Doesn't want to do it. Doesn't want to even try. Just not capable.

So that was it.

Just Plain Old Not Happy

So, you knew it was coming, or some of you already knew it happened, but Matt and I finally actually broke up. We have been broken up for one week- it happened last Monday. We actually never even finished the break up conversation, we got half way through it and he had to go because he was doing an overtime shift at a Cal Trans site. He said he would call back when he could, but never had time. We texted some on Tuesday, and I tried reaching him Wednesday without success, and finally just sent him a final text message, "Be Safe. Good Night. I love you." And that was all I planned on doing, again.

Saturday I did this wedding in Sonoma, in the Napa Valley. I was sitting on the sidewalk outside the bride's room photographing the rings and the bridal bouquet, when my phone started going off. I had a text message from Matt, saying his dad was back in the hospital.

I didn't know how to respond... We're not really together, even though we didn't finish our talk, and so I didn't know what my role was supposed to be. But I didn't want him to feel like I didn't care, because I do.

So I said I was really sorry, and asked what happened, and he said he didn't really know, just that one side went numb and he was on his way over then. So I told him it sounded like a stroke again to me, and that I was really very sorry and to let me know if he needed anything. He said Thanks, and I sent him one last one and asked that he keep me updated.

I haven't heard from him since, so I don't know what's going on, and I am worried. I love him, and I worry about him. Nobody takes care of him, and he just takes on everyone else's stress. It's not good for him. But it's not my place right now to intervene or participate in this... At least I don't think so... I just don't know.

I didn't ever get an update on the situation, so I did decide to give him a call this afternoon and check in. I just left him a voicemail message that I was thinking about his dad and wondering if he was ok, and just that... I was thinking about them.

So it's the middle of the night, I'm laying here thinking about him, and worrying about his dad, and just missing him SO much. I just really do love him, and just can't help but hold on to that so confident thought that I have had these last 5 months we have been together that he is the right person for me. And I feel lost without him. I am handling it very well actually... thanks to my medication probably. But right now, I just feel like part of me is missing. And I don't know how to find it again, and I don't know that I will ever get it back. And that is what makes my soul ache.