Presenting the new and improved HappyMommy3!  I absolutely LOVE my site now.  It has all the bells and whistles I wanted.  The sidebars are the perfect size and I have my navigation tabs.  As well as a soft gentle, not so busy, theme.

I owe all this to Sheena over at Mommy Daddy Blog!  I would like to apologize for being a pain in her @ss!  I am not computer-savvy and she did a lot of work that I should have been able to do myself.  She has such great patience for a difficult customer.  None-the-less it all turned out beautiful.

Check out her site if you are not already one of her daily readers!  I enjoy reading her blog and she does beautiful blog designs.

Thanks again Sheena @ Mommy Daddy Blog!!

What an amazing site. It is 21 degrees in D.C and people have been waiting outside since 2:30am. A woman got up and on the road at 3:30am and at 7:30am she was still on 7th street waiting for police to clear the way to the mall.
This is crazy. Planners say attendance could easily top the 1.2 million that showed up for Lyndon B Johnson’s 1965 inauguration.

I however, will enjoy all the festivities from the warmth of my couch….watching it on TV.

In August of 2008 I decided to take weight loss on full force.  I was eating way healthy and exercising as much as I could with being really overweight and just recovering from a c-section.  None-the-less I lost 60 pounds to date.  A good deal of that was baby weight and water weight but I’ll take it however I can.

In September I stepped it up a notch and started working out a whole lot more.  I was on a STRICT diet and working out at least an hour a day 7 days a week.  But I wasn’t losing any faster and I felt that maybe I was in need of one or two days a week to let my body rest.

My next step was to workout 5 days a week and eat a little more. I think I may have been putting myself in starvation mode.

Are You Eating Enough?
I know this isn’t what you’re used to hearing this time of year, but it’s important to make sure everyone’s got it straight. You’re all trying not to go over your allotted calorie amounts for the week, but how many of you aren’t eating enough calories? It may seem like a bright idea to cut a hundred or so calories from your diet each day, but that’s a dangerous — and incorrect — assessment of your dietary needs.It is absolutely 100 percent essential to eat enough calories! If you don’t, it will destroy your metabolism. It’s like telling your body that you’re starving. If your body thinks it’s starving, your metabolism will shut down.

-Jillian Michaels

It seemed as though I would do a great job and lose 10 pounds in a couple weeks and then hit a plateau for 2 weeks or so.  So every time I hit that plateau I thought I needed to change up my routine.  20 of the pounds I lost were during Sept-Dec.

The week before Christmas I was just feeling beat down.  I was “craving” food everyday.  I had NO desire to workout.  For about a week during the holiday I didn’t really concern myself with calories and I didn’t workout.  I mean I didn’t stuff my face but if I wanted to eat something, I did.

My goal was to start fresh in the new year.  Back on the workout wagon but I was going to just give in to my cravings a little more.  If I wanted something, I would have it just in some moderation.  I still worked out 5 days a week.  Well I really just don’t think I have the body type/metabolism to do that.  Thankfully I have a scale.  I think not having one over the years is how my weight got out of control.  Now that I have one I can see a pound or two weight gain and I think to myself that ….I just don’t want that and it gets me back in to reality.  I just don’t think that I can eat and give in to cravings.  Maybe once a week or a couple times a month I can but not as often as I have.

My thoughts were going to be that I just wanted to be healthy.  Exercise, eat healthier and just be more energetic.  But I am just NOT happy with my weight at all.  I need to lose more or all of the weight I want before I can take that approach.  I can maintain my weight with that plan but I can’t lose weight and quite frankly….I need to lose more weight before I have those sort of eating habits.

So with all that being said, I am back to calorie counting and measuring my foods.  Staying within a certain number of calories a day and working out at least an hour/5 days a week.

Here’s to ANOTHER fresh start……I think I just need to lose another 10 – 20 pounds to lift my spirits.  I am still half way to my goal so if I lose 20 pounds I am 1/3 of the way to my goal but I have been at the same weight now for almost 2 months.  Somethings gotta give. 

Tony and I have only been using one car because his needs a new tire and we just really don’t have the “extra” money for that.  Well actually we are thinking about selling his car, mostly will be used for parts, so I don’t want to put any more money in to it.  He will definitely not get his money’s worth on that tire.

I am pretty much stuck in the house during the day.  That isn’t all that bad because all I would want to do anyway is go to the stores and shop! 

Well, this morning Tony didn’t have to go to work until noon so I took advantage of having the car.  I took the kids and we went to Walmart.  I needed a couple things and then I was going to “look” at some stuff for my scrapbooks I am making.  I say “look” because I wasn’t SUPPOSED to buy anything but I just couldn’t control myself.  I bought some fabric for the cover and I bought some embellishments.  I was going to check out and I thought I had grabbed everything out of the cart.  I have Bubby in the seat and the car seat in the “basket” part of the cart so some items had slid under her seat and I didn’t see them.

I checked out and started to leave.  Ya know at Walmart how they have that employee sitting at the exit to check your bags or whatever…..well she was sitting down so she could see the items that had slid under the car seat.  I felt so embarrassed, I immediately went and paid.  So when I was leaving the nice lady said to me, that I could forget items but just as long as I don’t forget my kids.

What she was referring to is those people that have left their kids in the car and went to work or whatever and realize 8 hours later that their child has been in the HOT car all day and the child is dead.

I am sorry but I don’t know how someone can forget their kids in the car.  My life REVOLVES around my kids.  It is just habit when I am getting out of the car, to hit the door locker so I can get the kids out of the back.  I catch myself doing it even if I am out and about alone.

Statistics show that over 400 children have died since 1998 after being left in a hot car.  47% of hot-car-deaths of children are the result of the caregiver forgetting them in the car.

STATISTICS

• Total number of U.S. hyperthermia deaths of children left in cars, 2008:  42
• Total number of U.S. hyperthermia deaths of children left in cars, 2007:  35
• Total number of U.S. hyperthermia deaths of children left in cars, 1998-2008:  414
• Average number of U.S. child hyperthermia fatalities per year since 1998: 37

I just couldn’t imagine leaving my child in the car.

Here is a snip-it from one of many stories I found:

By Allen G. Breed, Associated Press  |  July 29, 2007

MANASSAS, Va. — Kevin Kelly is a law-abiding citizen who, much distracted, left his beloved 21-month-old daughter in a sweltering van for seven hours.

Frances Kelly had probably been dead for more than four hours by the time a neighbor noticed her strapped in her car seat; when rescue personnel removed the girl from the vehicle, her skin was red and blistered, her fine, carrot-colored hair matted with sweat. Two hours later, her body temperature was still nearly 106 degrees.

I felt sick to my stomach reading all the details of these deaths.  Parents need to be way more careful because hot-car deaths are on the rise.

I look so forward to tax time.  I am not sure how anyone else feels about this time of year but with 3 kids, money gets pretty tight towards the end of the year and some bills get left behind.  By the first of the year I am ready for a pick-me-up.

Now I am not sure how tax time is going to look for us.  This is my first year in 13 yrs that I won’t be able to file because I haven’t worked and Tony will be claiming all the kids.  He made a good deal of money last year so I just don’t know.  I do know that whatever we get back will go to get caught up on bills and any left over will go to our savings.

The last couple months have been really rough. We never go past the 1st week of February and we have our return.  Turbotax all the way with electronic filing. 

I will say that I am thankful we are here in Florida, we don’t pay or file state taxes.  I used to live in Illinois and filed state tax so I do know that I never really got much back, however to say the state is running out of money and that your refund may be put on hold would make me a little upset.

States and the government surely have no problem taking your money or if you owe tax money at the end of the year they are surely quick to collect but to tell hard working tax payers that they are getting an IOU that just seems ridiculous.

I never had any desire to live in California and now more than before I know that I will never reside there.  Not just because the state is in a financial deficit in the 10′s of billions of dollars, but just as a whole, that state never really looked appealing.

We are a family of gadgets and one of our favorite gadgets is our Zune.  We all have one.  We don’t have a stereo system we basically use our Zunes with headphones.  Whether it’s during a workout or Tony uses his at work and Nicki uses hers…..well whenever.

So when we were given the opportunity to try out an iHome Audio product we were really excited.  Sometimes when I clean I like to listen to music.  That is usually how I get and stay motivated to complete my chores. 

I received my iHome Portable Speaker System in the mail today and immediately started using it.  First I would like to say that I was sent the pink portable speaker system…..it also comes in black but I love pink.  Yippee!

I also like that it came with the batteries needed to use it. It requires 4 AAA batteries and they were included, as well as a protective carrying case.  The sound quality is pretty darn good for such a small device.  For my Zune it plugs right in to the headphone jack.  It is lightweight and compact.

Here are some of the features of the iHM3P model:

• Portable Speaker System
• For your MP3 player, iPods and iPhone (music only)
• Clean contemporary design compliments and decor
• Line-in jack for any MP3/CD player
• SRS Trubass sound enhancement
• Access to all iPod/MP3 controls
• Includes protective carry case
• Operates on 4 AAA batteries (included)

Check out iHome Audio and see all their great products which include Home Audio, Portable Audio and Computer Speakers.

Thanks again Mom Fuse and iHome Audio for this great opportunity.