Far From Perfect

Still here

2009-08-14T00:15:00.000-07:00

Okay well it's been a while. My husband and I moved so things have been kind of hectic. I've even gained two or three pounds. Boo!

Here is a yahoo link though I wanted to share so you didn't think I forgot about my blog.

Foods that burn calories
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/foods-that-burn-calories-492197

Updating

2009-06-12T17:39:00.000-07:00

So I got on the scale today after a while and I weighed in at 159; that's ten pounds I've lost since I started dieting. I can definitely see a difference when I put on certain t-shirts; that spare tire is deflating. ha ha It's very exciting to know that all of the calorie counting is paying off. Honestly though these last three weeks I haven't counted much since I've been kind of stressed out; I've just been making sure I am careful with what I snack on and how much I snack on. I've actually followed a pattern of what I'd eaten the weeks before so maybe I just started a schedule with out needing to count?

I've had a headache though for the past three weeks; I think I've decided it's stress related. So if this post doesn't make any sense I'm sorry.

After being MIA...

2009-05-27T10:53:00.001-07:00

I have been pretty stressed out lately because my daughter ended up getting a bad heat rash and now this week because of the medication from the heat rash, she has thrush. So I am feeling a little frustrated. So my diet last week wasn't followed 100% and I think because of the stress I didn't lose any weight. We're struggling financially too so we're currently on food stamps and having no more money on the card and having little to no food options in the house makes it difficult to follow as well. However, today I got on the scale and it said I weighed 161 so that's always encouraging. That's two more pounds! I think I see a slight difference in my waist but it could just be my imagination. ha ha Only one person has said I looked like I've lost some weight and it was from someone I hardly ever see.

Week Three

2009-05-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

I may or may not lose as much this week as I have in the previous weeks. I had two cheat days in which I did not count my calories. I was still careful and ate small portions but I am unaware of how many calories I actually consumed.

Today though I cooked an artichoke and wanted to share with you how I substituted the butter. I never ever thought that eating an artichoke with out butter would be something I could get on board with, but I took the artichoke and cut off the top inch or so, then cut back the rest of the leaves. I placed in my pressure cooker with about two cups of water, then chopped up onions and added it into the water, added some lemon juice, pepper and a tiny bit of salt and then some garlic powder. Made my house smell yummy. It cooked for 15 minutes once the pressure cooker started howling at me.
When the artichoke was done I made a little sauce. About one tablespoon of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of mustard (more or less, doesn't matter because there are no calories in mustard) and one tablespoon of pickle juice; the sauce was slightly runny and there really wasn't much in the bowl, but it went a long way. It was tangy and had a lot of flavor in a little bit so I added very little to each leaf as I ate it. It was so good though! About 95 calories for the sauce and another 60 for the artichoke.

What's on my mind...

2009-05-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Okay this isn't for those who are dieting but https://aws.realchocolate.com/ is giving away coupons for a free bar of chocolate. You enter your information and then it says check your mail in six weeks. YAY! (One wont kill me) ha ha

Okay so I have a lot on my mind today. Most of it has nothing to do with food. *smiles* Which is a good thing when you are trying to diet if you don't have food on your mind twenty-four- seven.

First I'll talk about my diet. Today I got onto the scale and weighed 164. That's five pounds I've lost in two weeks (well tomorrow is officially two weeks) but that is so exciting for me. Every other diet I've not been able to stick too. It's hard for me to get into an exercises routine. I'm attempting to eat healthy too. I try and find items that would be good for me AND are low in calories. Last night I needed a snack while watching Grey's Anatomy (Which I'll get to in a minute. I'll post spoiler alert so it doesn't ruin anything.) Well the snack food I picked was popcorn. I actually have reduced butter popcorn but in my opinion it doesn't make a difference. Regular popcorn, for one cup is 40 calories. My reduced popcorn, for one cup, is 20 calories. Both are still less than an apple! So I had four cups of my reduced calorie popcorn. That's still only 80 calories! But it was enough for me to feel satisfied so I was happy.

Now - SPOILER ALERT - Don't read if you haven't yet watched the last episode of Grey's Anatomy (2009)

So last night was the finale of Grey's Anatomy. Not the series finale, but the season. Well I knew for a while now that Katherine Heigl wanted out of her contract and that T.R. Knight did as well. For a while my husband and I thought that maybe George would sign up for the Military and that would be his way of leaving the show. I heard a rumor they didn't want to write him out so he could come back later if needed. Can you imagine my shock when John Doe was discovered to be George?! I gasped right along with Meredith. I didn't ball my eyes out however until the very end when Izzy was fighting for her life and they put her into the elevator. My thoughts on the elevator were, "they've done this, I'm tired of the whole Denny thing, where could this go?" when those doors opened, it took me a second to realize who it was standing there. And I have to say, he looked so handsome standing there. I'm a little irritated now that I have to wait four months before I can see what happens next.
Thank you writers for another fine job well done. Don't want to see them go but at least you did it tastefully. I have a love hate relationship with you right now. I love the show and hate that you can make me ball my eyes out and cause me to lose sleep over a TV show. Thanks! *smiles*

The Biggest Loser Finale

2009-05-12T22:45:00.001-07:00

Tonight was the Biggest Loser season finale. This is such an inspiring show; people losing weight and finding their strength and learning more about themselves then they could have ever imagined. The winner of the at home prize, was surprisingly, the oldest contestant they'd ever had on the show; Jerry. He started out the season by passing out on the first day of exercises and ended up spending a very short time on the ranch. But he went home and proved it can be done at home. He lost 47% of his body weight and beat out people half his age.
When the three finalists came out, they looked amazing; Helen, Mike and Tara. I wanted Mike to win but he lost to Helen by four or five pounds. (Which has to be frustrating.) But he still looks amazing; it's hard to believe just seventeen weeks ago they were all totally obese and unhealthy. Just goes to show what a little hard work and determination can do. I think the biggest shocker of the night was when Tara got up onto the scale. Tara has been the girl to beat all season; never going below the yellow line and always being announced that if the show where to stop at any moment she'd be the one to win. But tonight Helen was the one to beat, beating Tara by only a few pounds. The Biggest loser is the only place that those few pounds really do make a huge difference.
I felt so bad for Tara because you could tell she thought she'd win; you could see the disappointment on her face when she was only off by five or six pounds. But Helen deserves this, she worked so hard.

I watch the Biggest Loser and get motivated to exercise; it's so uplifting. Last week just counting calories, not really adding any extra exercises to my routine, and I lost three pounds. That's pretty impressive when you aren't on the Biggest Loser.

Hope you all enjoyed the show. Keep checking back here to learn about my progress. Today I learned that you CAN still enjoy your favorite foods while dieting. I love it when my husband makes taco's and tonight I was able to eat those while still staying with in my calories for the day. Didn't do anything different to them either. Sunday for Mother's Day I enjoyed a little bit of desert; I think it's important to portion control. Don't go overboard, don't eat your favorite foods every day but just be aware of what you put into your mouth. Maybe I'll weigh in tomorrow to see how I'm doing so far this week.

One week ago

2009-05-09T18:07:00.001-07:00

One week ago I decided to start counting calories, so today I figured would be a good day to get on the scale; 166 pounds. Success! Three pounds in one week. (I could and probably should eat a little more, lose less with in the week. I knew the first four pounds would be easy though; I think I even made that comment in a previous post. I know getting past 165 is the real challenge and will be the true test to see if I'm doing this correctly. I'm honestly not trying to lose weight that quickly which is why I gave myself 6-7 months to do this. I'm not trying to starve myself.

Today I've already consumed 915 calories.

1 green apple
two turkey sandwiches on wheat
1 100 calories pack Lorna Doone cookies
chips and salsa
3-4 bottles of water (can't remember exactly)

I read a blog the other day that helped me calculate how many calories I burn in a day. Based on my height, age, weight and exercise I burn around 2150 calories a day. I'm still breastfeeding too and that helps me burn calories as well. I think I may be burning more calories then that however because the math doesn't add up. (Calories in vs. calories out.) In order to lose one pound you must burn 3500 calories. So logically if you burned 500 calories more than you consumed each day that would mean you were losing one pound a week. So if I lost 3 pounds this week I'm obviously eating 1500 less each day than and could easily eat an extra 1000 calories with out gaining weight. If that's correct then I should be consuming around 2500 calories each day, which is what I did last Saturday when I first started. I know I'm rambling. *smiles* For right now it's still trial and error; I'll get it right eventually.

Day 6 - Overview

2009-05-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

If I calculated correctly I had only 1672 calories today. I always try to make sure that my day before my dinner isn't over 1000 because I know our dinners are always filled with calories. (My husband isn't on the diet bandwagon just yet.) Now that I have some breakfast foods I'm a little more excited too. Hopefully I can start my days out better and get into a good routine. I've even been measuring out my foods which I never thought I'd do.

What day am I on?

2009-05-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

So my husband and I went to the store together today and spent over 200 dollars. However I think we did pretty well. Ovaltine, one bag of mission tortilla chips, frozen chocolate banana stuff (this was more for my daughter) and ice tea mix may be the only bad things. We bought beef which I'm sure is not lean but for the most part we did good. I found some lean cuisines that I'm going to try and oh, I forgot the whole wheat waffles. ha ha I'm gonna give them a try. I bought some 100 calorie packs so I have some snacks. I bought some new cereals; Go Lean Crunch! Which I'm eating now, not too bad. One cup has 200 calories, which is 100 more than a cup of cheerios but they also have 500 mg of Omega-3, 9 g of Protein and 8g of fiber. Omega-3 is a very important part of your diet and isn't something (I don't think) that I typically get. It's recommended that you don't go over 3000mg or 3g in a day but you should get close to that.

I'm excited because yesterday when I weighed myself I was 167 so I AM losing weight. (yay!) I did some sit ups yesterday, some backwards sit ups and some leg lifts. Still not much but it's something.

This isn't all we bought. Fruits and veggies are in there. I made sure to check the calories on most of the foods I picked up. My husband also bought some ground turkey so we'll try a turkey burger.

Day 3 - Breakfast

2009-05-04T12:16:00.001-07:00

Last night for dinner I gave in and had Carl's Jr. All together I had over 2100 calories. I did not finish the diet coke I had. In fact I didn't even get half way through it.

Today I don't care as much because I had a crappy morning. It's more a frustrating morning because I woke up and got into the shower with my daughter. Well half way through our shower the water pressure went down and was then no more. So nice of the apartment building to give us 24 hours notice right? Ya I was upset. Luckily we had washed the soap out of our hair, there may still have been some on my daughters back because I know I had some on my hands.

I went downstairs and picked up a Sprite though. There's 140 empty calories. I know I'm still doing better than I was last week with out even counting what I ate last week. I bet I could continue to stay in the 2100 range this week and still be okay. Slow and steady wins the race right? ha ha

Spa Shop

2009-05-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

I was browsing around the Internet today and found a spa site; it's called MySpaShop.com. They have everything on their site to make your home feel like a luxury spa, from hair products, to baby products, makeup, sun care and stuff for men. They even have Eco-friendly items as well as items for nutrition, fitness, and stress. Also included are meal plans and diet bars; everything to make you healthier.
They also include a Passion section that gives healing recipes and rituals, spa menus and beauty therapies. Mother's Day is coming up soon too, it's on May 10th, so they also have gifts for her and a special that if you buy a gift certificate for $100 dollars or more you get a bonus $10 gift certificate.
Their categories include Journeys (lets you pick a location and gives you all the fragrances and essential oils and whatever else that may help you feel like you really are in that location), Passion, Shopping, Our Community, Our Stories (gives you an in site as to who create the shop), and Concierge. (Which takes you to a contact area.)

The Spa Shop is a great site to go to if you want to experience all the luxury's of a day spa but in the comfort of your own home. Not only do they have over 2,000 items to chose from but they also have reasonable pricing!

Day 2 - Lunch

2009-05-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

1 cup cheerios - 100
1/2 cup 2% milk - 70
1 Green apple - 36 calories
The rest of the skillet sensation from yesterday - 350 calories

Total - 556

Wow if I would have eaten like this yesterday my dinner wouldn't have been so bad. *smile*
I haven't eaten enough today though in my opinion. It doesn't seem like enough food. Maybe I need more snack foods, healthy snack foods.
I'm going to start a list of foods that I should buy, foods I'm not used to buying for the next store trip. I've added walnuts. They have omega-3 which is really important. Grapes would be a good snack food and I'd love to get an artichoke. mmmm One medium artichoke has about 60 calories, ya I put butter on the leafs but maybe I could find something else to put on the leafs. I'll try not to go over board the first trip to the store. The Biggest Loser Cookbook had some recipes for breakfast that actually looked yummy; Omelets with asparagus was one.

Day 2 - Breakfast

2009-05-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I are on a weird schedule, maybe that's part of my bad eating habits; who knows. We don't get up sometimes until around 10 AM which means I sometimes don't eat until around 11 or even 12. Today though I had a bowl of cheerios. One cup of cheerios and half a cup of milk was 170 calories. I'm a little hungry right now but I think it's because I'm so obsessed with food this weekend. If I do decide to eat anything I'll go for an apple before I have my lunch. Not sure what that will be yet but we have a frozen pizza in there that says 1/5 is 300 calories. I believe that's two or three slices which isn't that bad...is it?

I weighed myself today before getting into the shower and the scale said 168. I know you aren't supposed to weigh yourself every day so I won't get excited about that one pound just yet; but it's promising. I expect those 4 pounds will be easily lost since they've been those obnoxious four pounds that come and go every few weeks. Making it to 160 will be the success marker since my body sometimes gets into a rut.

My husband and I have been struggling though and are on food stamps so I have to wait until next week before I can go buy new food. I told my husband that maybe I should do the shopping from now on since he can't seem to balance the card. Every month he's bought the food we don't make it to the end of the month. When I asked him to bring me home some chocolate, ya he did what he was asked but he brought me a bag of small snickers, and two packages of Hershey's bars; they have 6 bars in each pack. Then he'd randomly buy me my favorite chips; either Salsa Verde or Spicy Hot Cheetos. It's nice that he thinks of me when he goes shopping but he knows we both need to lose weight. (I ask him to be honest, I don't want to be one of those couples that says "do I look fat" and he says no while I'm 400 pounds. ) We both need to diet, he doesn't even like to be in photos because he can't stand to look at them. We have a (soon to be) 14-month-old and I know in the future he'll look back and regardless of how fat he is, he's going to want to see himself in photos with her.
One thing that bugs me is he says he won't stop eating his favorite foods just to diet but then he bitches that he's unhappy with how he looks. Like, he won't give up soda. Grrr I'm one of the biggest Pepsi addicts. I used to not be able to get to 4PM with out having a headache if I did not have a soda. Being his mom is diabetic don't you think cutting out soda would be important? I told him we could buy the half cans and he said no, that that is just stupid. I'll be honest, if Pepsi is in the house, I drink it and I don't moderate how I drink it. I told you, it's my addiction. I actually get a relaxation feeling when I drink it, sometimes where I feel like I can breath better. THAT'S BAD! When it's not in the house I save it for special occasions like restaurants or birthday parties.

The rest of the day

2009-05-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

So I was doing good until dinner time. My husband wanted spaghetti which I have no idea how many calories were in the sauce because it was made by his mom; something we had in the freezer. I then decided though that I wanted sour dough garlic bread which I saw one slice was 110 calories and the garlic bread spread was 110 for 15g. With out calculating I know I went over just with the bread.

My dinner alone was over 1080 calories. *eyes widen* I knew I'd go over 1800 today because this is my first day counting calories. I did get out and walk some outside with my daughter before dinner. I'll gradually get better at this as I learn new things. I did go blog hunting today to see other health related blogs, found a good exercise one so hopefully I'll be able to use that knowledge.
Makes me wonder though; counting I know I ate less than I would have normally and I had about 2500 calories all day. (I'm estimating because I don't know the sauce.) So on a normal day I'd consume probably easily close to 3000 calories if not over; WOW!

First Day of Calorie Counting - How I'm dealing

2009-05-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

So now I've eaten an apple, and made a skillet sensation. 1/2 of the bag was 350 calories so I ate half along with two glasses of chocolate milk. (I drink Ovaltine because I like the way it tastes and it also has vitamins and such, I really don't like milk by itself.)
So far I've consumed around 1165 calories. While breastfeeding you should consume between 1500-1800 if not more calories. I'm not sure how many I consume typically since I've never counted calories before today, I'm sure it's a lot because I am always snacking. Especially lately, my husband bought me chocolates and chips and Sprite so we had a ton of junk food staring me down. But it's gone now so I'll have a chance to eat better. *smiles*

If I screw up and go over today it's okay because I'll just try again tomorrow. I'm not in a hurry and that's one of the things I've read is to go slow when dieting while breastfeeding. (I added some links to the right for you to read.) The sites said to only lose about one or two pounds a week which is good because if you count the weeks in May all the way through November that's 29 pounds I could lose if I lost one a week. That's a good, practical goal right?

I'm 5 feet 8 inches tall and in high school I used to be 130 pounds. (That's right I'm telling you my weight.) After I got married I gained a bunch of weight and have since weighed 165. When I was pregnant with my daughter I almost got up to 200 pounds which scared me and one reason why I'd like to lose weight before having a second child. I'm not interested in getting back down to 130; I'd be happy with 145 which is why current goal. After I had my daughter I lost all my pregnancy weight with in 6 weeks. I was much more active before she was around, my jobs helped keep me busy. Since my daughter was born though I've put on four pounds, which four pounds in 13-months isn't that bad right? I'm one pound shy of hitting 170 though and that makes me unhappy again; I refuse to let myself hit 170 which is why I started this blog. I need to keep myself active though because seriously, this counting calories thing has me thinking about food all day! ha ha It needs to hurry up and warm up outside so that I can go on walks and take my daughter swimming.

Saturday's Ramblings

2009-05-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

150 calories in 16 crisps. That is ridiculous; no more Pringles for me!
So I did 50 sit ups which is better than I have been doing; typically I can get in about 25 and then I'm tired and can feel my muscles burning. It's hard to do any sit ups because my daughter likes to come over and sit on my stomach or walk behind me so I can't lay back down. After I did my sit ups I walked back and forth in my apartment. Doesn't sound like much but it's maybe a 30 foot length? (I could be way off.) I walked back and forth for about ten to fifteen minutes, half that time I had my daughter in my arms. (She's 22 - 23 pounds) So at least I've made a small effort so far today.
Afterwords I decided to try and eat healthy. We don't have much in our house but I made a tuna sandwich on wheat bread, which in all honesty I hate tuna. ha ha I counted the calories though in my sandwich and it was between 450 to 498 calories. That's a lot for my sandwich, no wonder I can't lose weight when all the food I eat has so many calories. ha ha ha BTW the sandwich tastes horrible; tuna, mayo, onion and tomato. I don't have reduced fat mayo, just regular. So I made sure to only use one tablespoon which surprisingly went a long way. Typically when I eat a tuna sandwich I eat it with relish I just don't have any which is why I tried it with all the other stuff. Wait, I just looked and I do have pickles and they are only five calories for three slices....and the outcome is much better than before! (I'll eat tuna occasionally even though I hate it.)
Still though 498 calories is a lot for a single sandwich. Especially when The Biggest Loser Cookbook has them for half that. I could be wrong on the exact number but it's close to 498 anyways. Then count in the Pringles I ate and that's around 648 calories.

Now I'm breastfeeding too so I have to be careful not too cut back my calories too much. Being more sensible with the food I'm eating is more important then the calories I'm eating.

I stopped drinking diet soda's a few weeks ago because I realised that they were making me hungry. I wasn't drinking them with the intent to diet but because while I was pregnant I had gestational diabetes and I don't want to risk getting it again and diet soda is safer for a diabetic. Well I've weaned myself off Pepsi and now diet coke. When I was six months old my grandpa gave me some soda and I'd been hooked since, so 26 years of soda and I think I've finally beaten the addiction. I don't crave it anymore and don't feel the urge to buy it, however if it's in the house I do drink it so I just need to keep my husband from buying it. I honestly think the reason I had gestational diabetes is because of all the soda's I've had in my life.

Okay well I ate one half of the sandwich and now I don't feel like eating the other half, I'm just not that hungry. So that's what? 375 calories I've consumed? That's better right? I dunno if I'm doing this right I just know I DO need to get more exercise in my routine. Exercise is the reason I don't lose weight because there is no exercise in my routine. Oh, and I am on my next bottle of water. So once this one is finished that's 2 1/2 (I started the morning with a bottle that wasn't full so I'll just count that as half.)

I'm totally rambling but as long as I keep track of what I'm doing, I'll be sure to eat better and make sure I get my heart rate up a little each day. I only need to lose about 24 pounds in the next few months, which should not be THAT hard, right? I'm hoping that by writing this somewhere where others can read will help me stay on top of things, not to quit or say "it's no big deal."

New Goals

2009-05-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

So the name of my blog is Far From Perfect and I think it fits well for the next idea I had for this blog. I think I'm going to track my weight loss from this blog instead of from my parenting blog. I think if I post my activities and food eaten for the day I'll probably be more likely to lose weight. This way I can't deny anything I've eaten because I'll be using this site here like a food journal and exercise tracker.

So today I haven't really had a good start. I've never been a breakfast person but I woke up to find Pringles on my kitchen counter. I took a bowl and maybe an inch to an inch and a half worth of Pringles and I ate them. I'll try to do better though out the day. I'm really excited because I just bought The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook so I'm looking forward to trying some recipes in there. Just need to get out and buy the ingredients.

It's already 11 AM and I've finished 1 1/2 bottles of water. I drink Aquafina in 16.9 oz bottles. We've bought filters, we had one that fit right onto the faucet and we also had one of the fill able ones that go in the fridge but I hate the taste of our tap water; They just don't filter enough. I can even taste the ice cubs weird flavor in my drinks at times so I stick with Aquafina. They may be from tap water already but they have a rigorous seven-step process to purify the water and remove substances that would normally affect how the water tastes. I recycle though! I make sure the water I drink doesn't have weird chemicals in it, because regardless of what they think it's not good for our body. Even fluoride hasn't been proven to be helpful to our bones and teeth while digested, in fact too much fluoride can cause poisoning and even certain cancers.

It's pretty windy outside today other wise I'd think about bringing my daughter out for a walk. I can't wait until it heats up again so I can take her swimming; she loves water! She likes to splash around in the tub so I can only imagine how she's going to be in a pool. I didn't learn to swim until I was about 7 or 8 years old; which is embarrassing to me. ha ha I don't know what age you can teach your child to swim at but I plan on trying to teach her some sort of water safety this summer. She'll be 14-months-old on Tuesday and if you can teach a child to sign and read then you should be able to teach them to swim right? No harm in trying *smiles*

I'll write more later when more has happened. I'll be sure to get some exercise in today too.

Inspector Gadget Theme

2009-05-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

Do you remember Inspector Gadget? Here is the theme song for the old cartoon show.

Duct Tape Backpack

2009-04-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I took a 3D art class and the first project was to create something you can wear out of duct tape. I looked around and on the floor next to me was my backpack so I thought, while everyone else is making shoes, why don't I make a backpack modeled after my Jansport? So I went and bought three different colors of duct tape; white, red and black. On the left is my finished product. It has two pockets, one on the front and one on the side. The side pocked may hold a cell phone or some pens and pencils but the front pocket is bigger. Both pockets are woven together to get the checker look.
I have actually put things into this backpack and it does work, it even straps to your back just like a Jansport backpack except the straps aren't adjustable. There is actually one detail left out of this photo that I did a little later. I added a logo to the top where there is typically a "Jansport" logo; it says "Ducksport" since I used Duck brand duct tape and it was modeled after a Jansport bag.

A Cowboy Needs a Horse

2009-04-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

I found this video on youtube today and wanted to share it. I miss this kind of stuff from Disney and think they should dedicate one day, maybe Saturday's to the old fashion stuff. Maybe play one old movie, and some old shorts.

My husband and I get Netflix and I ordered The Shaggy Dog which I watched last night; the original too, not that new one they put out a few years ago. I don't know if I'd ever seen the old one in color and the DVD gave me an option of color or black and white. Afterward I watch the special features where the kids from the movie talked about what it was like to work on set. I did not recognize any of them because they are so much older now; they look so different.

Blow Wind Blow

2009-04-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

Crazy weather today. I look out the right side of my building and it's sunny, I go to the left side and it's cloudy and looks like rain; it's also been pretty windy all day and the cloudier the left side gets the windier it seems to get as well. I love rain though so I hope it rains. You know what I miss and I wish we got out here more than once every few years is thunder. I went to Texas a few years ago and they had a great thunderstorm while I was there. They can get kind of scary but I still love them. Maybe it's because I'm from California that I enjoy all weather; because we never get anything but sunlight so of course I'd look forward to anything else.

Diaper Cake

2009-04-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

My friend Chelsea and I started our own business; we make diaper cakes. For those of you who don't know what a diaper cake is, it's a bunch of diapers rolled up to form a cake. They come in different sizes and shapes and colors. You can theme them or leave them blanket and they can cost anywhere between 35-200 dollars a cake; just depends what's on it.
Each cake is made specifically with that mother in mind which means we don't make it until you've ordered it. Currently we're taking special orders and we've even made an order sheet so all you have to do is fill it out and we'll get back to you with a price. We don't have that many photos displayed yet but we will soon.

I'm extremely excited for our business because I have big plans for our future; many things I'd like to see done.

http://angelfacecakes.webs.com - Come check out our store and sign up to become a member. (It's free!)

Fell for it...

2009-04-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Once a month I get a newsletter from Top One Report which is sent out via Joel Comm. He gives professional and very helpful advice on how to gain traffic, how to make your web site better and the best websites to be apart of to get ahead.
Well this month I got the report and looked at the front cover "Federal Judge Awards Joel Comm Royalty Rights to .com!" was the headline. So I open up the cover and read the article all about how Joel Comm sued Al Gore for saying HE invented the internet and how basically Joel Comm did and his proof was in the fact that his last name is Comm. I read on and thought, "is this really true?" but yes, still believed it even though it didn't sound completely correct to me. I then logged onto the site to register my .com with Joel who, as it said, was now the rightful owner of all the .coms. That's where the site then told me it was all an April Fools joke and I had been fooled. I should have known better. *smiles*

Great Gift

2009-04-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

Have you ever ordered one of those photo books from places like shutterfly.com or mypublisher.com? There are a ton of other places to order them from but those are the two I've done it through. Shutterfly.com gave me free prints for signing up with them which was nice. I was able to order some prints of my daughter and then give them out to people all for free.
I actually heard about shutterfly.com through Pampers. They have gifts to grow promotions that they've been doing for a while. All Pampers products come with a 15-digit code that I type in and get about 3 points per code; depending on the product. I saved up 100 points and got to pick out the 20 page photo book which I filled with pictures of my daughter. The first year of her life I took pictures on her monthly birthday so I could look back and see how much she changed from month-to-month. So I made a photo book out of the month-to-month pictures and it actually turned out very nicely.
It also makes a great gift because I filled one with pictures of our wedding and gave them to my parents and in laws for Christmas; they loved it!

Paintings

2009-04-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

This is a painting of Tinkerbell I did on the bottom of a skateboard. My brother bought ten blank skateboards once and gave me one so I could decorate it and this is the finished product. I sprayed around Tinkerbell with yellow spray paint so it looks like she's glowing and the rest of the skateboard which isn't shown is black. Tinkerbell's wings have also been sprayed with glitter to give them a sparkle.

The second image is of Eeyore and was painted on a small piece of wood that I bought from Walmart. I gave the finished product to my cousin as a gift because her favorite character is Eeyore.

These two are of Winnie-the-Pooh and Dumbo. Dumbo actually isn't finished yet, if you look up in his hat the little mouse doesn't have a face. Winnie-the-Pooh was given to my sister-in-law who loves Winnie-the-Pooh. I sprayed the blue background around Pooh with glitter.

Drawings

2009-04-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

These are just some drawings I did while I was bored. They are of Lampy from The Brave Little Toaster and Thumper from Bambi. I don't draw much, I'd much rather paint but these turned out good so I wanted to share.
These are just drawn on normal computer paper but I used a pen to draw instead of a pencil.

Mountain Painting

2009-04-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite painting I've done. When we moved into our town home the walls were painted this light brownish color, the carpet was a dark brown and then my mother-in-law gave me these brown couches. Well the wall needed something on it, nice big painting perhaps? Well the couches pillows have a little bit of green in them so I figured what better than a nature painting? So I looked around online at different nature photos and came to this one and began to paint. This painting actually isn't finished, I may only be half way done but I put it up on the wall anyways. ha ha My husband goes "you know a painting is good when you're only half way done and it still looks amazing." That makes me feel good. *smiles* So I wanted to share it with you, and here are the three canvases. On the wall I've actually separated them by a few inches and the image you see here was actually taken on the floor so you can kind of see the ugly brown carpet on the sides.

One of my favorites

2009-03-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite designs is the pink elephant outline. Here it is featured on a child's body suit. I love that it's kind of unique in its design and instead of being gray or blue like a normal elephant it's bright pink!

I created this design originally with the thought to create a Noah's Ark type design. I had this idea of all kinds of animals on an ark. I'm sure you've seen the design around before, I just wanted to put my spin on it. Well I got distracted and drew the elephant by himself. I did draw a lion, rhino and a giraffe all by themselves but this one was my favorite of the four.
This body suit can be found at www.flamingdeer.com or cafepress.com/flamingdeer015 for $14 dollars.

Weekly Featured Product

2009-03-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

This weeks featured product is a Class of 2009 tank top with a hibiscus flowers and sea turtles logo. This makes a perfect gift for any graduate and only costs $21 dollars.

Visit my store at www.flamingdeer.com for other great products!

Weekly Featured Product

2009-03-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

This weeks featured product is a baby bib that says "Caution: Teething may cause crankiness and uncontrollable drool." This bib costs $7 dollars and can be found on an infant bodysuit as well as sweatshirts and shirts. Check out my online store here.

Weekly Featured Product

2009-03-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hibiscus Flower on a Tile Coaster (click to buy product) is the product I've chosen to feature this week. It's hand drawn by me using prisma colored pencils. This product can be found at www.flamingdeer.com or you can see other products with this design by clicking here. This tile coaster costs only $5.

Weekly Featured Product

2009-02-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

This weeks featured product (The first for my blog) is the Butterfly with Vines Tote bag.
Both the vines and the butterflies were hand drawn by me. This tote can be found at my online store flamingdeer.com or directly by clicking here.

CSI: Cranky Stinky Infant

2009-02-17T01:02:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I never thought of it, but my dad was looking through my designs and he decided he wanted to buy the CSI shirt but was upset when it only came in baby sizes. I made a sarcastic remark like "the word 'infant' didn't give that away" and he said that he wanted to buy it for a guy at work as a joke. So I'll be adding adult sizes soon but I think I want to improve the image. What do you think? I personally think it could be better. Maybe I could make it more cartoon like using my own bubble lettering instead of computer fonts? Draw a crying baby on the side as well. Anyways that's where I may be going with this logo to improve it. Having my own CSI at home though sometimes makes working on new designs difficult.

Class of 2026

2009-02-16T00:27:00.000-08:00

The Class of 2026 design was such a simple idea. I say this because my father used to do silk screening when I was younger and made a ton of shirts for different companies. Well one of the designs he made was a shirt for me that said "Class of 2001". His design featured black print and was very simple but the image of me in the outfit is displayed in his house and I have always thought it was cute. So I wanted to start a tradition and designed one for my daughter with her graduation date. Instead of keeping it to myself however I added it to my shop hoping that others will also enjoy it! Here is one in pink and one in blue.

Hibuscus Design

2009-02-12T00:26:00.000-08:00

The design I've chosen to discuss today is the one with Hibiscus Flowers and Sea Turtles. I came up with this design originally because I wanted a design to be displayed on the back window in my Camaro. I had hibiscus print seats and wanting to keep the theme so I came up with this design. The original design was with out color and in simple outline form but when I created my on-line shop I added color to liven it up a bit. It continues to be my favorite design in the shop and hope that it's your favorite too.

Finding the Error in My Ways

2009-01-28T00:24:00.000-08:00

It's so frustrating when you have an error but can't figure out what's causing it. For the last week or two I've had a few errors on my page and had done everything I could think of to fix them but nothing did the trick.

I've been creating my page using Coffee Cup Visual Site Designer, which I guess could be the lazy mans way since so many professionals use HTML. When I was about 15 or so I tought myself some HTML, the basics, so I went into my error pages and checked out the codes. I'm in disbelief; I fixed the problems. They were surprisingly easy to fix and I'm embarassed to have had these errors now. My designs page had errors with the images because I didn't know the image names had spaces and the site wouldn't upload them. So all I had to do was change the names! *Sigh* I'm just happy to have my site back to normal. Now I can get back to creating new designs.

What's with the name?

2009-01-16T00:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sure the first thing on your mind is, what is with the name?
Flaming Deer came from my first design; the flaming deer with the warning sign. I have an oil painting in my home which I painted in 2001 that seems to be the topic of conversation when new guests come over. The deer is just a silhouette and so sometimes the things people see starts up a random discussion. One person said the deer looked like Mr. Burns from the Simpson's, someone else said it looked like a person waving their arms. Once I tell them it's a deer they go "OH" and turn slightly red. I'm not offended though that they can't tell exactly what it is.
One day I was looking at that painting and said to a friend "Flaming Deer; the leading cause of forest fires." and that made her giggle so I perfected the deer to make him more obvious that he's a deer and added the text.

I love the name and logo. It's so original and random and it's craziness shows my personality.
Here is the oil painting that everyone laughs at. It's so random but yet one of my favorites. I changed the image of the deer though because the painting came from a project where we had to take three images from a magazine and put them together then paint. Well I couldn't find the magazine clippings and couldn't remember if the deer had the flames behind it already or if I pasted the flames behind. Not wanting to break any copy write laws I decided to re create the flaming deer, which is how I got to the image I have now.