the journey begins

So, we've officially begun the health/fitness thing. AKA- I refuse to gain any more post-wedding padding and plan to get rid of any I have plus more. I don't expect you to particularly care, of course, but on ocassion I may post a recipe or something that turns out well (if nothing else then for my own benefit). The plan is to eat approximately 1200 calories per day-- Slimfast for breakfast (it's quick and easy), sandwich and little chip bag or whatever for lunch, and cook a healthy dinner-- walk/jog Delta 2 miles daily, and workout at least 5x a week. We shall see.

Michael and I bought ourselves an early Christmas present: the Kinect sensor for Xbox360 and a fitness program to go with it. It is surprisingly good so far! Whooped my tushie. Boy do I feel out of shape- a video game wore me out. It sure does beat going to a gym, though... and of course it's way cheaper in the long run.

The past two nights we've had salmon and Asianly broiled veggies, and chicken taco salad. I can't post recipes because I rarely use them (I don't like paper telling me what to do)... but I really need to start writing stuff down. I make awesome salmon, if I do say so myself.

Enough about that. In the past few weeks I've taken a mini trip to Branson with Mom and Memaw, done a lot of Christmas shopping and decorating, subbed a lot, and spent a week on the beach with my family (new Thanksgiving tradition). I would post pictures, but I haven't uploaded them from my camera yet and don't want to right now.

Michael is currently installing a new light/vent/heater thing in our bathroom (the result of buying a 1969 house... sometimes things stop working), so I should probably go help him. Or maybe just watch him. Or I might just go say hi and then leave and watch TV.

old-to-new stuff

I don't know what it is about old stuff that I like so much. Maybe it's the mystery of not knowing its history (I didn't rhyme that on purpose), or perhaps it's the romanticism of reformation, or it could be that old stuff is just more individualistic. I love finding things in junk stores that look hopeless and unwanted, then claiming them as my own and giving them somewhat of a brand new existence. That's my dramatic explanation of it.

Side note: I wish I had the same passion of doing that kind of thing for people (minus the "claiming them for my own" part, of course). Hmm, need to pray on that.

My most recent transmogrification (yeah, go look that one up) of near-decrepit furniture is the following dresser:

It actually looked much worse in person; it was pukey white, chipped up, and missing handles. Then I adopted it from the Veteran's Thrift Store. Here comes the extended edition chronicle...

Step 1: Removing old handles. Delta was a big help.

Step 2 & 3: Sanding and removing drawers

Step 4: Listening to Delta tell me that she didn't think it would work.

Step 5: Painting everything normal- not pukey- white. I used the leftover trim paint we had.

Step 6: Painting black edges and top

Step 7: Stenciling the drawers and side

Step 8: Installing new handles. Also, I can't figure out how to shrink this picture.

A few painting touch-ups and

VOILA!

I like the new version much better, if I do say so myself.

So does Delta.