I have been having a rough time staying on track lately. I admit it. I have not been following my goals like I should be. I really have no excuse. I decided that I really need to start over and find some motivation to help me get my ass moving. What better place to find some motivational quotes than Pinterest!

Do you need a kick in the ass to motivate you to get your ass off of the couch? Here you go!

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These are definitely motivating me, what about you? Do you feel the need to jump off of the couch and start moving?

If you are looking for a great group of motivators, you need to join us! Come check out our private group, Flab To Fab With The Random Blogette & Babe’s Rockin’ Mami! No judgement. No haters. Just motivators!

Do you love potatoes as much as I do? I have to admit that I am a total carboholic. Pasta, potatoes – give me more!! I just can’t get enough, but how many different ways can you make a potato? Tons, I am sure, but how many EASY ways can I make a potato? I am lazy and need easy-peasey recipes!

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Seriously, how good do those potatoes look?! Ok, so I have to confess that as you can see those are not my potatoes. We demolished our potatoes so fast that by the time that I thought to take a picture of them they were already gone. They do look a lot like my potatoes.

I don’t have an exact recipe for these potatoes. It is just one of those things that you throw together, so please excuse my ridiculous “recipe”.

My “Recipe”

Potatoes (Whatever kind you want. I just used regular old baking potatoes. Nothing special. I bet red skin would be amazing though!)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil or PAM-like cooking spray – (Mine was the Canola Oil generic PAM version.)

Random Seasonings – I used Chili Powder, Onion Salt, Garlic Powder, Taco Seasoning (Whatever floats your boat.)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Peel and dice your potatoes. Make sure not to make them too big so they all cook evenly. Then place all of the potatoes in a bowl and sprinkled them with various seasonings. Seriously, use whatever spices that you like. I am sure that the potatoes would taste amazing with just Mrs. Dash sprinkled all over them.

After you have seasoned your potatoes, mix them all up with a giant spoon (or your hands, whatevs). Make sure that the potatoes are totally covered. Spread the potatoes on a greased baking sheet. We like to use foil on our baking sheets because they are nasty and I feel like it helps crisp the potatoes up.

Before I stick them in the oven I like to either spray them with cooking spray or drizzle with EVOO to help them crisp up. If you can’t tell, I like my potatoes super crispy.  Bake for 20-30 minutes or until they are to the consistency of your liking and enjoy!

These make a perfect side dish for just about anything. We ate ours with smoked turkey sausage and green beans. Perfect combination!

*I have another confession. I got the idea for this recipe from my mother-in-law. I have no idea what spices she used so I just decided to use whatever I had in the kitchen and they were perfect!

Paige and I went and got our hairs did!

My hair change wasn’t that big of a change. It was thinned out a lot but it doesn’t look too much different (other than the fact it is all one length now and I have some bangitty-bang-bang-bangs.

Before:

Hair After:

I seriously hate taking pics of myself. I look like such a chipmunk. I am still working on getting it to lay right. I am super happy with it though. I needed a change.

Now Paige’s change was a little more drastic.

Before:

After:

I just think that she looks so adorable like this!

Later that night we went out to dinner while the boys had a boys night.

She just cracks me up!

I just love girls days!!

My day is a blur of spreadsheets, phone calls and paperwork. I can’t wait to get home and relax. I want to turn off my brain in front of the tv and forget about all of the stress from my day job.

I fight the ridiculous traffic on my short drive home, praying that the crazies on the road don’t take my life because they are all in a hurry like me. I think about the couch that I am soon to collapse into and I smile, knowing I am right around the corner.

Once I get home I run into the house and am greeted by the dog. He is always so happy to see me. Soon after Paige flies into the room and leaps into my arms. It is such a nice welcome, but all that I want to do is crash.

I say hello to the boys and head to my couch. I collapse into the couch and turn my mind off. The boys are watching some mindless drivel on tv and I get sucked in. My neck and my back are sore and all that I want to do is go to sleep.

Next thing I know Paige is on top of me. I just want to be alone but Paige will not have any of it. I try to make her sit next to me, not on top of me, but she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand that mommy needs time to relax. Mommy needs to shut down.

She doesn’t understand. All that she wants is her mommy. All that she wants to do is just cuddle. I look down into her big beautiful brown eyes and can’t resist her.

I pull her closer to me and she squeezes me as hard as her little arms can possibly squeeze. I squeeze her back and take it all in. Too soon she will be too big for me to hold in my lap. Too soon she will be a moody teenager and will want nothing to do with me. Too soon my little baby will not be my baby anymore.

I lace my fingers in between her little fingers and hold her tight. These precious moments are going to become just a memory very soon. I need to remember to take time out for the snuggles.

Do you remember to take time out for the snuggles?

Please welcome Amanda! Amanda is a local area blogger (in my area) that I have just recently become acquainted with and I just love her! This story hits so close to home for me. While not everything is exactly what happened to me, it is so close to my story and it just breaks my heart. I remember being that girl. I remember being teased. Please give Amanda your support.

I remember the first time I ever had my first moment of ‘disordered eating’. I was in second grade, and my family had just moved. I was more than halfway through the school year and not feeling terribly accepted at my new school. I recall my dad going to take a shower and my mom at work, and me sneaking a Little Debbie snack from the cupboard. I can’t remember why I didn’t just ask for one. I guess maybe I thought I would be turned down because I had just had a meal.

It is clear from my childhood pictures that this truly does mark the beginning of my eating problems. That year, my school picture portrays me as a heavy set girl. The following school year, I started at a different school. I don’t really remember any further teasing until I was in fifth grade, running half heartedly in gym class, being called “Mount Fuji” by one of my classmates. By seventh grade I had sworn off fast food and by eighth grade I was wearing away the grass around the perimeter of our one acre yard by running every night.

I believe by high school I had really started to do radical things to lose weight. I would avoid breakfast and eat half of a soft pretzel for lunch. I was still running on top of it, and at some point, my menstrual cycle stopped. I had days where I couldn’t stand how hungry I felt and would binge on peanut butter or ice cream. I recall that at some point I tried to purge what I ate, but lucky (if you can call it that) for me, I could never pull it off.

I reached a peak of weight my sophomore year, and then started walking on our treadmill every night my junior year. That, combined with working a part time job many nights of the week, kept me busy and my weight stayed pretty steady. I graduated from high school a size 12, and although I’m sure I had moments of wishing I was smaller, I think I was at least OK with my body.

In 2002, my fiancé, Jon, (who is now my husband) and I broke off our engagement and I moved out on my own. Then, in 2003, Jon was shipped off to Kuwait during the beginning of the war with his fellow Marines. Struck with sadness, stressed about his well-being, and trying to make ends meet as an adult out on her own for the first time, I ate. And ate. And ate. And drank some too. Slowly, slowly, the scale went up and my thighs rubbed together a little more. I didn’t feel good about myself, but I had food to drown out my feelings.

Jon had left in March and in September I had found out that he would be coming home soon. We had many conversations about getting back together, and I certainly did not want him coming home to see me at my highest weight ever. So, I went low carb. I lost 8 pounds and then I get tired of pork rinds and cheese (well, I mean, a girl never TRULY gets tired of cheese, but you know what I mean). In the Spring of 2004, I joined a gym and Weight Watchers with my friend.
I lost 23 pounds for a total loss of 31 pounds. I felt awesome. I was a size 6, a size I had never been in my life. I was exercising five days a week. I thought I had attained a healthy weight that I would be able to maintain for life.

SNORT.

I slowly gained. Then I lost weight again in 2008 using sparkpeople.com. Then I had trouble getting pregnant and gained the weight back. Got pregnant. Gained even more weight. Had the baby. Was 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Gained 10 pounds back.

And so, here I am. At my heaviest weight of my adulthood. In pondering my weight up’s and down’s, it has occurred to me that, if I lose weight again, this will be the third time in a decade that I have lost twenty pounds or more. And, while I float around on the internet all day reading about “curve acceptance” and loving your body, I have to tell you that I certainly don’t hate my body. It is strong and has made a beautiful baby, which I delivered sans pain meds. That gym membership that I obtained in 2004? I still have it and use it. The longest I’ve gone without exercising in the eight years that I’ve belonged to a gym was the 2.5 weeks after I delivered our daughter, and I’m awfully proud of that.

What I am not proud of is how my weight has impacted my stamina during the day and how, even though I do not have the self-hatred that I had as a teen, I call myself “fat” when I am tired and my jeans don’t fit. I certainly don’t want my daughter to grow up hearing those words. Nor do I want her to see me scarfing down the bag of chocolate chips when I’m upset. I want her to see my running in 5k’s, exercising at the gym, and having a healthy attitude about food, rather than using it as my emotion drowning drug.

Perhaps that is why I can’t face the scale this time around. All the other times that I have lost weight, I have been obsessive about weighing myself. This time? I just can’t look at it. I think part of it is that I’m losing inches but not the several pounds that I’m used to seeing when I start changing my eating habits. But I think another part of it is that I just can’t go through the self torture anymore. I either feel better or I don’t. I make good eating choices or not. I’m hoping that with the support I have with the Flab to Fit girls and with logging my food choices on sparkpeople.com that I can eat better, feel better, and be the best example to my daughter that I can be.

If you are interested in joining our Flab to Fab page or private group and/or sharing your story please let us know!!

Today I am going to post something non-healthy! *GASP* I know! I have to admit that I have fallen off the wagon a bit this week. I haven’t been too bad, but I haven’t been perfect. Who really is perfect anyways?! Plus it’s Valentine’s Day Week. Yes, it is a whole week of candy and love.

For Jacob and Paige’s classes I was in charge of candy. I didn’t sign up for Paige’s class but we really like her teacher and when she sent home a note asking us to bring candy I couldn’t resist it! I didn’t just want to have the kids bring in a couple of bags of candy this year. I wanted something different. This is the year of Pinterest, right?!

I am not a super crafty mom (as much as I want to be) but I can bake and bake is what I did. Kinda.

I made these!

Yummy in my tummy! I posted a picture of these on my facebook page and immediately everyone was asking what they were and where the recipes was! They were the perfect combination of sweet and salty.

I found them on Pinterest of course! Here is the super simple recipe!

What you’ll need:

• square pretzels
• Hershey’s Hugs (you can use Kisses, too, but I think the Hugs taste better and they definitely soften up better!)
• plain M&Ms

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Place the pretzels on and top them with the hugs.  

Things have been a little strained around here with Dave’s hernia surgery preventing him from doing his usual duties, like showering me with love, cleaning the entire house and rubbing my feet at the same time. So, of course this Valentine’s Day would not be a normal Valentine’s Day.

The fun started a couple of days before. I was trying to finish the sentence “Love Is…” for a post by DumbMom. I asked Dave for a little help because I was trying to figure out if I should be funny or serious. I just couldn’t make up my mind. Dave came up with his own.

Love is… finding somebody whose penis you don’t mind putting in your mouth.

Umm…ok. Didn’t think that was appropriate for that post but hey I might as well share it here! (By the way if you want to read the entire post it is really cool and you should totally do it. There are some pretty couples in it too! Look pictures and words about love!)

Due to the fact that that Dave can’t drive right now due to the above mentioned hernia surgery, I decided to take it upon myself to buy me my own Valentine’s Day gift. I know that OBVIOUSLY he wanted to get me something nice and I knew EXACTLY what he wanted to get me.

So I bought myself this.

Clarisonic Mia 2

I really thought that it was important that since I wouldn’t be having any orgasms on Valentine’s Day that I should give my face one. Speaking of orgasms, I also needed a new cream blush and after hearing so many people rave about NARS blush that I also purchased NARS The Multiple-Orgasm.

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After finally getting myself my dream gift, I decided that I should probably get the rest of my family something. I swung by the local Rite-Aid and grabbed some cards and boxes of candy for Dave and the kids. Now before you all jump all over me for being so selfish I must remind you that I spent a shit-ton of money on my kids for Christmas and I have purchased Dave countless expensive gifts while expecting and receiving nothing in return.

Next make sure that you get in a “text fight” with your husband on Valentine’s Day about what to do for dinner. I was perfectly fine with making something at home for dinner but Dave has cabin fever and wanted to go out to dinner. I was ok with that too, but Dave’s body decided to revolt against him halfway through the day which put our going out to dinner plans on hold for the evening.

Me: Vito’s?

Dave: Sure.

Me: Are you feeling better? We can go to Hazzard if you want.

Dave: Probably should stay in. Sorry, just took a Vicodin.

Me: No problem. I don’t want pizza but I will get a sub or something. I will look at the menu.

Dave: I will honestly eat anything. I just want you to be happy with dinner.

Me: Grr…just pick something.

Dave: Really, I don’t care. You are the one that has to pick it up. If you want something else that is fine too. I just want you to be happy with whatever is for dinner.

Me: OMFG!

Finally I picked up the phone and made the decision.

And I went all out for myself. Did you know that calories don’t count on holidays?

Bacon Cheeseburger, Loaded Baked Potato and COORS Light!

After dinner make sure to get the best snuggles from your littlest valentine!

And make sure to snuggle by the fire…

Did you have a trashy, classy, fabulous Valentine’s Day as well?

For those of you that did not know, Dave had hernia surgery last Monday. This is quite an experience for both of us. Usually it is me going into surgery, not him. It was one of the longest mornings of my life.

4:00 am. I can’t sleep anymore knowing I have to be up in 30 minutes. I lay in bed and look at my phone. I know that this is supposed to be a simple surgery but I always think of the worst possible scenario. Dave like to say I am quite the pessimist. It isn’t that, it is just that I have to think of all possible scenarios.

4:30 am. I am up and moving. Packing my bag to keep me busy. Laptop, phone, chargers, paperwork.

5:00 am. Make the kids roll out of bed and head downstairs. We have to leave by 5:30 to drop my kids off at my parents’ house. Poor kiddos. My poor parents!

5:35 am. Already made it to my parents’ house. There is no one on the road this early.

5:50 am. Check in at the hospital. So ridiculously tired. I feel so bad for the chick behind the desk. She looks exhausted.

6:00 am. We take our seats in the surgical waiting room. A few minutes later another family sits down near us. We later become BFFs.

6:30 am. Dave is taken back to get prepped. I am now alone with my new BFFs. Nice people, just a little trashy, but nice. We realize that it is a small world and that they are part owners of a bar where Dave sells wine and beer.

7:00 am. I am finally able to come back and see Dave before he goes into surgery. I unselfishly threw out my half full can of Diet Coke because I am told that Dave is thirsty. You are welcome dear. See, I will do anything for you.

7:05 am. Took this awesome picture of Dave. He is such a good sport.

7:30 am. I am sent back to the waiting room as my love is wheeled off to surgery. The nerves really set in now and we all know what that means… I feel like I am going to poop myself. I distract my stomach by giving it a special treat. There just happens to be a Starbucks right next to the waiting room. The yummy smells are too much for me to deny. I indulge my nerves with a yummy Apple Cinnamon Scone. It’s funny because I didn’t know that scones were supposed to be so soft and heavenly.

8:00 am. I know that his surgery could take at least an hour but I nervously watch the surgery update monitor.I found out later that it was not being updated properly. Oh well.

Shortly after 8:30 am. Dave’s surgeon takes me into a consultation room and explains that the hernia was really bad (as I expected) but everything went perfectly which was so great to hear. He told me that they were waking him up and I should be able to see him very soon.

9:45 am. Finally buzzed back to go see Dave. He is doing surprisingly well. He didn’t understand why his throat hurt so bad. I forgot to tell him how they have to shove a breathing tube down your throat when they put you under. Oops!

10:30 am. We are released to go home.

11:00 am. We are safe and sound at home. I drove about 10 mph through the neighborhood so that the bumps didn’t hurt him too bad. He made fun of me the whole time. Jerk.

After that it was a whole lot of resting. The rest of the week went pretty well. The kids were helping around the house, but Paige just didn’t seem right. She really hasn’t seemed right since her last bout with strep.

She is fabulous even when she is sick.

Well, apparently either she never got over her original case of strep or she magically got it again within 2 short weeks. We had to take her to the doctor again on Friday. Thanks to my mom for picking up Dave and Paige and taking them to the doctor since Dave still can’t drive yet. I owe my mom big time!

So now we have Dave healing up and Paige trying to get healthy. Please forgive me if I seem insane. Lack of sleep can do that to a person.

Flab to Fab Giveaway Number Two is…

a $25 Gift Card to The Fresh Market!!

You may want to make sure first that there is one in your area before you enter but they are cropping up everywhere.  Chris (Stephanie‘s husband) was just in Rockville, MD for a week and a half opening a new store there and there are many more set to open soon!  If you don’t know what The Fresh Market is you are missing out, it’s a gourmet grocery store with quality food and friendly people.  The Fresh Market has a great dedication to customers and also treat their employees well which I have seen first hand from going into the store often.  You will always get large fresh produce and great meats plus the deli is amazing and Nate and I both love the bakery!  You really do get what you pay for at The Fresh Market.  And thanks to Chris’ commitment to Flab to Fab and trying to keep everyone eating healthy and The Fresh Market’s commitment to food, his store is donating a $25 gift card!!  Enter to win via the rafflecopter form below.

*this giveaway is in no way affiliated with The Fresh Market corporation.  This is a donation in the form of gift card from the Spartanburg, SC store*

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I am FINALLY caught up enough to get on these giveaways!  Flab to Fab Giveaways are for Flab to Flab participants only and you may enter on both blogs, one of the perks we have offered participants are giveaways.  If you need to lose even 10 pounds have been struggling with it let us encourage you.  Each week we share tips/tricks and participant stories on either Babe’s Rockin’ Mami or The Random Blogette, I also shares recipes and Stephanie share some posts on the more personal/mental side of extreme weight loss.  We don’t want anyone just joining to be able to enter giveaways so please only join if you truly need to lose weight or need a support system for weight loss.

This is our first giveaway for Flab to Fab!!  A one hour health consultation to be done by phone or via Skype with the lovely Coach Karen!  She is also offering a 60% discount for six 45 minute health and life coaching sessions.  This giveaway is valued at over $250!  Karen is a certified Holistic Heath Coach and Personal Trainer so she knows her stuff.

As a client of her health coaching program, you will…

• set and accomplish goals in a way that is empowering and exciting
• work to achieve and maintain your ideal weight
• understand and reduce your cravings
• increase your energy levels
• feel great in your body
• learn about new foods and how you can easily incorporate them
• improve your personal relationships
• discover the confidence to create the life you want

I have emailed with Coach Karen a lot and I can say she is very very excited to be helping and would love to help each and every one of you reach your goals.  She is motivated, enthusiastic and loves what she does, find her on Run with Nutrition!

If you would like to enter to win this 60 Minute Health Consultation and 60% discount then enter via the rafflecopter form below!


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