Kosama - 16 Weeks

Last Saturday marked the end of  my 16th week of going to Kosama. To mark the end of my second 8 weeks, I did another assessment on Saturday morning to see how my stats had changed over the last 8 weeks. 

Now here's where I messed up... 

The way they do their analysis is with ne of those scales with the foot electrodes. After I did the assessment this time, I read online that the readings from these scales are pretty inaccurate, but to make them at least comparable it is important to do your assessments at the same time of day and under the same circumstances each time. 

The first two times that I had assessments, I did them the first thing in the morning after I woke up and hadn't ate anything before hand. This time, I had worked out (which they also say not to do), ate, and had been awake for several hours. I also had to go to a different location to do my assessment this time because they moved all the assessments to one place, which meant the equipment they were using was different as well. So even though I did the assessment, I'm not so confident that the numbers are accurate or comparable... I guess I'll do better next time at keeping everything as consistant as possible!

The whole not having comparable results kind of bothers me since I am all about numbers with being an accountant and all... But I guess I'll just have to go off the fact that I feel better and can tell that my body is changing rather than off of the numbers... But for what it's worth, here's the results!

I went to Kosama 26 out of 48 possible days - 54.17% 

Of the days I missed, I was out of town or wasn't able to go 9 days. 

I also just didn't go or overslept a lot more this 8 weeks, which was bad, but hopefully I can do better this time!

 
Other stats (in spreadsheet form because that's how I roll)

For the next 8 weeks, my goal is to go work out 70% of the time which would be 34 out of the 48 days. I already know there will be a few days where we are out of town and quarter close at work also falls within this 8 weeks, so it's going to be a little bit of a challenge. (And I didn't go this morning! Ahh!) I'm confident I can do it, though!

Click here to see my first 8 week results!

Stenciled Living Room Curtains from Drop Cloths

In my continued effort to really make our house look more lived in and homey, I knew that I needed to get some curtains up around the house. The most logical place to start with putting up curtains seemed to be in the living room/dining room since it really was a very bare room.

Since the furniture we have in there now isn't necessarily our "permanent" furniture, it was hard to decide which direction to go with the color and style of the curtains. My first instinct is to go with light and airy... like white or ivory or something like that. I knew that telling that to Trent would make him roll his eyes at me, though, since I want everything to be neutral colors these days and our walls are already a creamy, neutral color, so I had to come up with something a little different.

I wanted the curtains to be long enough for our high ceilings and wide enough to cover the wider windows at the front of the house. I also didn't want to spend a ton of money on finding curtains that were perfect. So my solution was to just make them myself! I searched Pinterest for weeks trying to find something I liked that was inexpensive and something I was able to do myself and I found lots of tutorials on Stenciling curtains. Like here and here and here. Even after I determined I could do the stenciling thing, I still had to find fabric to stencil. I figured my options were to buy fabric and cut it to size and then stencil it, find plain curtains in the right size and then stencil them, find a table cloth that was the right size and stencil that or, the option I chose, buy some drop cloths from Lowe's and use those to stencil to make my curtains. I saw this tutorial, and saw how great hers turned out, so I knew that I could do it and have it turn out great, too.

At Lowe's I purchased 2 - 9' by 12' drop cloths.

They were already the exact height that I wanted so they would be 4 inches from the ceiling and then touch the ground. The tricky part was getting them cut and then put back together in the right widths. We have two windows in our living room, one narrow window and one that is a lot wider.

(A picture of the windows from before we moved in)

I ended up cutting one of the drop cloths in half and the other into 4 pieces so I had the correct widths for the smaller window and then had to attach the two extra small pieces to the two halves to make those the correct widths as well.

I found the best way to cut the drop cloths in a straight line (I was just cutting them on the living room floor) was to start the cut where I needed it to be and then just ripping it the rest of the way.

The drop cloth before I cut it to size.

After I had all my pieces, I then had to attach them where needed and hem the raw edges I had left. Since I have yet to own a sewing machine, I hemmed the fabric with Stitch Witchery. 

 

After I had all my hemming done, I washed the drop cloths to make them less stiff and get the wrinkles out. This made some of my hemming come out (since I'm sure it wasn't 100% secure in every place to start with) so I had to redo it in a few places, but that was alright. This is where having a real sewing machine would have come in handy! When that was all done, it was the time to start stenciling. Thankfully, I had won a stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils in a giveaway on the blog, A Diamond in the Stuff, a while back so I didn't have to purchase one! I had intended to use it to stencil one of our dining room walls, but this little project got done first. We'll see if the dining room wall ever gets stenciled. I'm not so confident it will!

I put a plastic drop cloth down on the garage floor and made sure that it was tight and secure so it wouldn't move around. Having something under the drop cloth while stenciling is important so the paint that goes through the cloth doesn't cause it to stick and leave pattern on whatever surface you're working on. I then secured the drop cloth down to the plastic with painter's tape.

 

When it came to the stenciling, I poured paint into a double stacked paper plate with a high edge and used that to roll my foam roller in the paint. (I just used the leftover paint we had from other projects like this TV stand.) I then rolled the roller on a paper towel before starting to stencil on the drop cloth each time. (This is like they instruct you to do in the how-to section on the site my stencil came from so check that out for better detailed instructions.) This kept the paint from seeping under the stencil a bunch. I started in the top left corner and went down and then repeated until I was done. I then went back and did the edges. 

  

It took me three nights after work to get the painting done. I needed to get them all done before the CPA party we were having at our house back at the beginning of June, so I was in a time crunch to get these and all of the other little things done. I was still stenciling the night before the party when my mom arrived to help us get ready! 

I was very happy when I was finally done because my back hurt big time from bending over for so many hours. I think, in all, it took me between 10 and 12 hours to get just the stenciling done. A long time! But, now that it's done, I can say it was worth it... Not so sure I'd ever do it again, though! (Unless I had a big table I could work on or something! Or smaller curtains!)

I also didn't want to spend the money to buy new curtain rods... The previous owners left the rods up in the house, but they were a color that didn't match the rest of the fixtures throughout the main floor, so to make them match, I just spray painted them with a brushed nickel spray paint. They aren't perfect by any means (they may have been better if I had a little more time or patience), but no one would ever notice the imperfections, so they are wonderful in my book!

I used curtain hangers similar to the ones pictured below from Lowe's. They weren't the right color either, but I wasn't willing to spend more to get the right color, so I spray painted those as well. I probably could have gotten away with leaving them since you can't see them anyway, but it didn't hurt to paint them.

The last thing to do was just hang them up and enjoy! Thankfully my wonderful husband was willing to help me with the hanging! I have to say that I like them quite a bit. =) Like everything else I do, they aren't perfect and there are plenty of imperfections where some paint smudged or my stencil got off because the fabric wasn't straight or something, but I was able to fold the fabric to hide most of the major issues when I hung them up for real. And hopefully no one is looking that closely at them anyway! So here's some pictures of what the finished product looks like!

And here's the best I have for before and afters...

Yay for having some curtains! Now hopefully no one will notice that no other windows in our house have them quite yet. :) Someday maybe!

__________________________________________________________________________

In all, I spent $89.29 on my curtain-making supplies. This included 2 - 9x12 drop cloths, a dense foam roller and two replacement heads, curtain rod hooks (3 packs of 7), and 2 cans of spray paint for the curtain rods. So $90 and some time and effort, and now we have curtains!

Some similar store-bought options that I found online to compare prices are below. There obviously isn't anything that is exactly the same, so these are just close examples. The advantage of buying them from the store would be that they don't have many imperfections like mine do, but that's a small price to pay for the major moolah I saved by doing it myself. (it was even worth the time and the back ache!) If I had to the price for curtains like the ones below, I know for certain our windows would still be bare!

Sahara Rod Pocket 108-inch from Overstock.com 

1 curtain panel that is 52" wide is $54.99. To get the width of my curtains, it would be about $300

Medina Curtain Panels from Overstock.com

1 - 50" panel is $82.99. To get the width of my curtains, it would be over $475

(they sure are pretty though!)

Trellis Rod-Pocket Curtain Panel from JCPenny.com

1 - 55" panel is $80. To get the same width of curtains I have would be over $400.

(These are only 96" as well, so they aren't perfect)

Linked up with these parties!

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Pink Birthday Cake Batter Popcorn

For Bailey's Baby Shower, I made a batch of Pink Birthday Cake Batter Popcorn. I had made this once before to bring to work and used this recipe as a guide. I have tweaked the recipe a little, so below is my version of it. I didn't take any pictures while I was making it because I didn't anticipate blogging about the recipe, so if you need step by step pictures, check out the original recipe I linked above!

 

 

I used:

Yellow popcorn kernels and microwave popcorn popper bowl (similar to this one) cooked according to the directions on the bag. (I think one batch was 1/4 cup kernels) You could just use regular plain popcorn from a bag as well.

Half a block of Almond Bark

1/4 cup Vegetable Shortening (or less)

1 cup Yellow Cake Mix (or less)

Food coloring (if desired)

Sprinkles (if desired)

 

As you can see you pretty much can do whatever you want with this recipe and not mess it up - more or less shortening, more or less cake mix, food coloring, no food coloring, etc. Just don't burn the almond bark! :)

 

First, pop your popcorn using whichever method you choose. Then, set the popcorn aside while you melt your almond bark. (White chocolate will also work for this) I microwave the almond bark for about 45 seconds, stir it a little, and then microwave for another 30 seconds and stir and just repeat until it's all melted. Then add the vegetable shortening. This will help the melted chocolate to be easier to use - more runny maybe... (Not sure if that's the right word to use!) Next, add in the yellow cake mix and stir until it's mixed in well. Finally, add in food coloring if you'd like to make this treat a little more festive!

 

Both times I've made this recipe, I have doubled it. I usually do the first batch of popcorn with the yellow cake mix and the second without and then combine the two batches in the end. I have found that the yellow cake mix makes it very sweet, almost too much, so it's nice to have some of the popcorn just be chocolate covered. If you're just making one batch, you could just halve the yellow cake mix and see how it goes from there. You can use as little or as much cake mix as you'd like! The recipe I found said to err on the lesser side though because too much yellow cake mix makes the chocolate mixture a little too thick... So beware!

 

 

It's then time to mix it together with the popcorn. Be sure to use a big enough bowl so you can adequately stir the popcorn without having a lot of the popcorn end up outside the bowl. Like I said before, I usually do two batches, but I do one batch at a time, so it's a lot easier to stir and be sure all the popcorn is coated. (I can also do my one batch with cake mix and one without a lot easier that way)

 

After it's all covered, you can add sprinkles if you'd like or you could even throw in some other candy with it. I think I prefer it plain, but I might try it with sprinkles sometime just to see how it goes!

 

When you're all done, let it cool and harden and then have at it!

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Baby Shower for Bailey

Last Saturday was an awesome day! Our house was filled with some wonderful ladies as we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Bailey’s little baby girl, Harper Lee!

Lauren and Trisha and I had been planning for months to be sure we had all the details ironed out and even though it felt like we were kind of running around like chickens with our heads cut off a little the morning before the party, as soon as 1:00 came around and the guests arrived, everything went perfectly!

After everyone had gathered and was able to 'ooo' and 'ahh' over how cute Bailey looked for a while, everyone grabbed some food and took their seats in the living room to start the activities we had planned.

 I didn't take any good pictures of the regular food, but we had veggie pizza, a watermelon fruit carriage with assorted fruit in it, and crackers with a strawberry cream cheese type dip to eat. We also had great sweets of pink birthday cake popcorn, mints, a beautiful cake made by Lauren's aunt, and awesome cake pops! (You can read how Lauren made the cake pops in this post on her blog!) 

Cakepops and the cake

Pink Popcorn and Mints

While everyone was eating and visiting some more, they all got a card that had "Wishes for Harper" on it. The cards were to be filled out with the things they hoped Harper will remember as she grows up. They were fill-in-the-blank cards with statements like "I hope you learn...", "I hope you never forget...", "I hope you become...", etc. After the cards were filled out, they were all then put into a scrapbook and used as a guest book for the shower. In that book, we also put the list of what gifts Bailey received from the shower and there are blank pages in the back where she can put pictures from the shower as well. That way, for years to come, Harper can read all the good wishes her family and her mom's friends have for her and see what fun we had celebrating her upcoming arrival!



The table with the favors and guest book on it

The other games we played were a 'Gift Bingo' game and 'Guess the Baby Food' game. For Gift Bingo, each person was given a Bingo Card and they were to fill in the spaces with gifts they thought Bailey would receive when she opened her gifts later. The first person to get Bingo would be the winner! For the Guess the Baby Food Game, we passed around 6 unmarked baby food containers and the guests could smell or, if they were brave, taste the baby food and then write down their guesses on a piece of paper as to what food they thought was in the container. The person with the most correct guesses won. I think the best someone did was get four of the six correct... I think I may have only gotten one right... None of the choices looked too appetizing to me!  

Prizes for the games were Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies in a jar. I bought the jars from Wal-Mart and just layered in the ingredients. I found that you really have to press down the flower and oatmeal to make it all fit. It was quite a challenge to make it all fit until I got the hang of it! I found the colored M&Ms at Factory Card and Party Outlet. I was happy that I was able to find the right colors to fit in with the Pink theme!

Our final activity, and the most exciting, in my opinion, was making headbands and hair clips for Harper. I had bought about 9 different kinds of elastic and lots of different flowers and bows from several different Etsy shops and gave everyone a chance to make some hair accessories for Harper to have.

(Here's my Etsy board where I saved all the supplies that I bought for the headbands.)

We pre-made the elastic into 3 different sizes of headbands:

12" for 0-6 months

14" for 6-12 months

and 15" for 12 - 18month and up

(There wasn't any science to the sizes I picked. Everywhere I looked on the intertron had different sizes for different ages, so I wrote them all down and kind of averaged them and went with it.)

I also cut out circles of felt to put on the underside of the flowers. I found that helps immensely with attatching the flower to the band without getting hot glue all over and it also made sure that nothing from the bottom of the flower or the seem of the headband would hurt the wee one's head.

We made A LOT of hair pieces for Harper. She definitely hit the hair piece motherload! I had put a tag on each headband that had what size the headband was and each person that made the headband wrote their name on it as well, so Bailey would know who made it when she goes to put it on Harper for the first time. We decided the winner for this activity would be determined by which hair piece Harper wears in her newborn pictures!

 

There was barely enough room to hang them all up when it was all done!

The frame is just one I bought at Goodwill and spray painted. I then hot glued ribbon on the frame in a diagonal pattern and fancied up some clothespins to hang up the finished headbands.

We had to try out the headbands too!

After everyone had made their share of headbands, it was time for Bailey to open her presents! Bailey and Harper both got some good gifts that will be both useful and absolutely adorable! :)

Before everyone left, they were given some party favors, including a pink flavor of Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer with a tag that reads, "Thanks for coming and touching Bailey's life, now you are able to touch her baby." They also received a reusable Starbucks cup (the guests will save $.10 off their coffee each trip for using it) with a shade of pink fingernail polish inside along with some coffee beans (to use to make coffee or just to smell) and a sign stuck in the cup that reads, "Bailey's Brewing Up Something Special."

You can read more about the coffee favors on Lauren's blog as well.

The shower was a blast! I'm so happy that we were all able to get together to celebrate with Bailey. And now we wait for little Harper Lee so we all can meet her!

Everyone at the party (Except for Annie who had to leave early)

After the shower was over, all the Morningside girls (and Trisha, too!) hung out for a few hours and it was fun to all be able to be together for a while to catch up and just be us! It's so fun how we all pick up right from where we left off when we get together no matter how long it has been since we've seen each other. It's like we all still are living together in the same apartment or going to dance practice each week! I love these girls!

The hostesses with Bailey

Brady got to hang out with us for a while, too!

Mattie was just one of the girls during the shower!
Except she didn't get any of the food or to play any of the games!

Other details!

The invitations made my wonderful Aunt!

Printable from here

Sign from Lauren's shop. Buy your own here!

Linking up with The Weekly Creative Link Party at The Girl Creative.