My Photo Challenge

If I ever said that I was going to follow the photo challenge in order, I lied! I'm still doing the challenge as I remember and as I also remember to keep my camera nearby. So without further delay here are a few more days;

[No filter, no editing]

Day 10 - Looking forward to...

Just this past Tuesday I went to my weekly WW Meeting and FINALLY received my first every gold star! Whoohoo! I was very excited :) Some may remember me saying that I've been on Weight Watchers twice before and this is my 3rd attempt, so finally getting this little sticker made me feel like a school girl getting a smiley face sticker on her paper. And I yes. I have no shame. You people who I have never met in my entire life now know exactly how much I weigh. There.

Day 12 - Book

Even though our day and age has come to reading a book on an iPad, Kindle or phone as you can see in the picture; I am still a HUGE of cracking open an actual book, inhaling that fresh (or old) printed paper smell, and flipping the pages. I have an app called Audible that I use alot to listen to books while I'm exercising or simply nodding off at night, but recently a friend introduced me to an app called Kobo. With Kobo & my BookSneeze freebies, I downloaded a powerful book by Max Lucado called, Grace. I'm on the last chapter and gosh, it has got to be my one of my top fave's!    

Day 14 - Favorite Time of Day

Amazing picture, huh? It's mostly the colors that I fall in love with, but watching the sun rise has become my favorite time of day. Monday thru Friday I drive a strech of road that is surrounded by fields and each morning I get to witness this beautiful scenery. I just love how quick the colors change as the sunrises in seconds - I took about 4 shots in the span of 30 seconds and each one has color so different from another.  

My Photo Challenge

Thought since it's officially FALL I'd warm up the font color a bit :) Okay, so lots to share about New York City, but first I need to catch up on the 30-Day Photo Challenge. I don't have Days 1-4 cause there on my laptop, but I do have these from the beautiful city of New York.

Day 5 FAMILY

Pictured here is myself with my husband and mother-in-law. Lombardi's Pizza was suggested to us by some friends and boy o' boy was it delicious!!

Day 6 OUTDOORS

Any visit to NYC must include a trip to the beautiful Central Park. Here are a few pictures from there...

Day 7 HOBBY

I have more than one hobby, so I included one of myself cause photography is definitely something I love doing...I may not do it well, but I love to try. And second is a few pictures of some headbands, which is my other hobby, my small business :)

[side note: I wasn't finished with the blog when it posted yesterday. My mouse decided to die on me so I had to control everything from the keyboard.]

Anywho - I'll be posting about the trip a bit later today, so stay tuned!

30-Day Photo Challenge

During my usual daily stroll in Blogville, I came across a 30 Day Photo Challenge Fall 2012 that I have already promised myself I would do. Exciiiiting! Last year I invested in a "really nice camera", and I'm ashamed to say that I haven't put one stinkin' hour into learning anything beyond basics or even how to take "really nice pictures". I'll usually put in a few days of the Instagram monthly challenges, but eh, I need to focus on the real stuff. Another reason I can contribute to this promise is that I just recently got a huge blessing from my mom. A laptop! Ha ha, I know that might seem childish to you, but she knew how much it would mean to me (shout out to awesome moms all over the place!). As you know I have my small business, A Stellar Find, so a place of my own to store these ideas, pictures, web pages, alllll this is where its happenin'! I had Photoshop on my MIL's laptop that I borrowed here and there (you see why I needed my own?) so I transferred that over in hopes that I learn how to tackle that beast, too. And of course after 2 days I got alllll our family pictures transferred over - I always thought to myself, if Facebook ever went down, I'm screwed. Anyway, so if you are interested in exactly what to look forward to, check it;

Day 1 The first thing you see when you wake up in the morning
Day 2 Your mode of transportation to work/school
Day 3 The most inspiring thing you saw today
Day 4 Breakfast
Day 5 Family
Day 6 Outdoors: landscaping, sports, a park you visit, anything!
Day 7 Hobby
Day 8 Self portrait: funny face
Day 9 Favorite band/CD (or dare I say it? cassette tape or 8-track!)
Day 10 Something you are looking forward to
Day 11 Lunch
Day 12 Your favorite book
Day 13 Talent (yours or someone else's!)
Day 14 Your favorite time of day
Day 15 Your favorite color
Day 16 Street you live on
Day 17 Humor
Day 18 Your favorite electronic gadget
Day 19 Snack
Day 20 Self portrait: serious face
Day 21 Social media of choice
Day 22 A great smile
Day 23 Weather
Day 24 An animal you encounter during the day
Day 25 Dinner
Day 26 Soap/shower gel/body wash you used today
Day 27 Favorite pair of shoes
Day 28 Luxury item you wish for
Day 29 Bedtime ritual
Day 30 The last thing you see before you go to bed at night

Now, if you head over to Liz' World, you'll see she asks to share these pics on her Facebook, but I can't promise I'll have time to do that...this is just mainly for my own purpose :) I plan to start this Monday and that means that I'll be including days 4-8 from NEW YORK CITY! Yay!

Have a memorable weekend!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

What a hectic/eventful, but very productive weekend it has been! This past Friday my husband and I celebrated 5 years of marriage - yay! - and I'm sad to say I don't have any pictures to share :( I didn't really want to carry around my big camera around so I figured my phone would make-do, until it ran out of juice and there goes my plan out the window. We dropped the kids off at grandma's and headed out to PF Changs to devour their delicious lettuce wraps, crispy honey chicken, mongolian beef and shot glass desserts. It was even better than expected! The waitress gave us a complimentary appetizer called spicy green beans - and those were really good, too! Definitely recommend them - and take it from the pickest eater of them all - they weren't spicy. Our local PFC is somewhat attached to our mall, so we attempted to walk off our dinner while splurging a little here and there. We had such a hard time deciding on a movie to see, so we cancelled those plans and headed down to nice attraction in the city called, The Water Gardens. It's become an even better place to visit since our famous Harbor Bridge added a spectacle of lights! A friend of mine who is a photographer captured the beautiful scene in this picture...

Is that not beautiful?!?! She has amazing talent that makes this all the better! I had a lovely time being in each other's company, loving on the wonderful husband I have! It's kinda funny cause even though we had a scheduled date night as husband and wife, we never lost the title of mommy and daddy. We went to pick up our kids and surprise, surprise, our little one was a hot tamale! All weekend I've been nurse mommy to my little princess with motrin in one hand and tissues in another. Staying in all weekend did allow show off some of my projects that I did while my creative juices were flowing with a mix of cleaning/rearranging. I started out my switching out all our old pictures and replacing them with updated ones. I don't have any 'before and after' pictures, but here is what I did...
Our fireplace has a great brick ledge that I used to display pictures...

Our boys got this area...our son graduating from Pre-K, our oldest loves sharks, so I put that picture of him up and I captured a really cool looking picture of Jeremy at the park, so that went up, too. In the double frame are some pretty old pictures, but I just love what they capture - everytime I look at it it just expresses so much about them.

I picked up this 'Family Rules' poster from Hobby Lobby for 40% off and put that next to the book shelf with my recently alphabatized books and updated family pictures. 

I know you've seen Valentine mantels every on Pinterest and on the blogs, but as a starter, here is my Valentine display. I had found some free printables online for each holiday/season - bought a frame for $1 from the Dollar Store along with some flowers from there and a vase I had under the sink and taaadaaaa...a very simple but cute holiday mantle. Now I know it's usually on the mantle above the fireplace, but that's currently our large family portrait and pictures of my husband and I from our first year of "dating". Our foyer table didn't really have much gonig on, so I thought that would be a great location for our friends as they come in. I plan on adding more, but for right now, this'll do...

I got this idea from this blog I came across. Thought it would be a great to make one for each of my kids...I haven't yet bought the frames, but that's the least of the project. I love how each one is (obviously) very personal to each child. It gives them history of themself, their name, origin of their name and a short description of their personality. 

  Oh! I did manage to sneak out of the house to find a gooooood winter coat for New York (t-minus 3 days!!). I found this jacket Burlington Coat Factory for just $50, regularly $150! It's so warm and I think it'll be perfect for standing outside of The Today Show on Friday :) Mostly all the department stores are having a 40-50% discount off already clearanced winter clothes - I found a beanie and scarf at Abercrombie & Fitch for just a total of $18. Express was another place I found with great finds - I bought a pair of $108 jeans and paid $32! Whoo! That's a deal!

And this here is my sweet little princess. She spent a lot of time in her bed this weekend :( I just hate when babies-kids are sick, don't you?

So, this was my weekend wrap-up. How was yours?

NEW!

I love Merriam-Websters definitions of 'new'; being other than the former or old or made or become fresh. Don't you love the sound of that?!?! Just yesterday millions upon millions shouted "Happy NEW Year!" to friends and family across the world. Among the millions January 1st marks the day we start "new" - new eating habits, new thinking patterns, new financial plans and even new home decorating. I know for me I mark all of the above; specifically new eating habits.
I've committed myself to a few companions that will be assisting me on a 40lb loss journey in 2012. First off I've joined Weight Watchers (again), a book called Made to Crave (for the 5th time), Zumba Fitness 2 and last but never the less of anything, prayer. 
Along with the self-weight loss challenge, I've also added a few other resolutions.
2. Taking more pictures && PRINTING them all! I specifically remember my grandmother always having wicker baskets full of pictures we'd all take out and look thru, giggling and oo'ing and remembering the moments captured. I'm ashamed to say that I have hundreds of pictures occupuying the memory of Facebook! If something were to ever happen to that website, I'm dead! So my plan is to buy a large storage jump drive and put them all on there to print.
3. Engaging with my children. My schedule is quite busy I must say. I work 4 10's...meaning Monday thru Thursday, 10 hours a day. Therefore; I don't get the opportunity to wake my kids, make them breakfast and get them off to school. It's a bummer. BUT! I'm not gonna make that be a hinderance, instead make it a chance to do more things with the time we do have together.
4. BLOG MORE!! I'm gonna attempt to blog more this year. At least a few times a week to document my life - my weight loss/lifestyle change journey, as a mom, wife, a business woman and most importantly - my walk with the Everlasting God.

I gotta a whole lot more planned for this year, but I'll leave you with those resolutions first.
I want to hear what resolutions you have planned for your 2012/life. If you haven't planned anything yet; consider the definition of 'new'. God has said, as a follower of Christ we have been made new! He makes ALL things NEW. Just for reference, read 2 Corinthians 5:17.

We'll talk again soon...