Still trying to get traffic and business to my online store and craft blogs.  I was using google advertisement and I was getting “hits” on the site but it was costing a fortune.  The only reason I even signed up was I had free advertising credits from Godaddy.  All of our web hosting and domains are registered with them and they gave advertising credits.  It was only $75 with google but it was helpful because for like 3 days the bill was up to $150.  I don’t have money like that to spend. 

I have been crafting and trying to blog daily.  I have been blog hopping and commenting and following other crafty bloggers.  I advertise my store on my blog with almost every post.  It is just so competitve.  There are so many other stores out there like mine.  I need to find ways to be different, to make people want to shop at my store.  The only problem is people are pretty loyal to the companies they already buy from.  

Having a successful business I know takes time.  I am willing to be patient and wait.  I am having fun meeting new people online, crafting and just being a part of the craft world.  It is so fun and welcoming.  Everyone is so nice. 

I found a local store that has meet and greet type get-togethers.  To craft and socialize.  The only problem is I am not sure if they are my age or older.  The owner of the store is older and she called them “ladies”.  I am not against crafting with “ladies” if that means they are older I just would love to find “ladies” my age.  There is somewhere about an hour away that has craft get-togethers too but I am just not sure I want to drive all that way for that. 

Anyways, if you enjoy paper crafts or know someone that does check out my blog artfuldelight.blogspot.com or my store for a variety of paper crafting products, artfuldelight.com.    I will be selling some of my handmade cards soon too.  Not sure if I will reopen my Etsy store or do it on my online store or both.  So check it out. 

Next week is my neice Hudsyn, Nicki and Tony’s birthday.  Hudyn’s is on the 22nd, Nicki’s is the 23rd and Tony is the 24th.  My neice and daughter almost had the same birthday.  WEIRD!  She was born like 29 min before the 23rd.  That REALLY would have been crazy. 

Anyways, I am going to get my neice the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie.  Lil Tony loves it and my brother told me that she loves anything to do with dogs so I bet she would love the movie. 

For Nicki I am going to get her a flat iron, clothes and she wants to get her second hole pierced in her ears.  She had them done when she was like 9 or 10 but she never kept earrings in them and they closed.  Hopefully this time will be better.  For Tony I am going to get him either an electric tortilla press or a pasta roller/cutter that you can use on the kitchen aid mixers.  He wants both.  I think he would enjoy the pasta roller more but they are like $140 for a set of 3 and the tortilla press is only like $60.  We would certainly use both and eventually whatever I don’t get him for his birthday we will get anyway.  Homemade lasagna and ravioli and pasta would be awesome. 

I just don’t know what to get, next week is going to be expensive.  Between presents and dinner out, WOW!

I really wish we had the money to drive down to Florida and spend the weekend with my brother and my neice.  He wants to take her to Disney and I would love to take my kids.  Unfortunately that would cost a ton and we need to save that money for June when we visit IL.  I really wish we were wealthy! 

Tony has been “acting manager” at his store for a few weeks now.  His boss is supposed to be back on Saturday and she said for the next schedule which is his birthday week she planned on giving him Saturday and Sunday off, Saturday which is his birthday!  That would be super cool to spend it in Florida with my brother.  Oh well.  At least Tony will have off so we can all spend it together. 

Well I better decide quick what I want to get Tony, it is next week and either of the gifts need to be ordered and shipped.  I would really like to have it by his birthday!

So lil Tony has shown a teeny tiny interest in potty training.  Well actually I take that back, Tony and I decided that if a lil boy can pretty much change his own diaper, meaning strap on a new diaper then he needs to be wearing big boy underwear.  When he has poop he gets a diaper and lays down in front of one of us to be changed.  When he has pee-pee he sometimes does the same.

Well a week or so ago we decided to put some Lightning McQueen underwear on him.  He loves the Cars movie so I thought having Cars underwear would make him happy.  Within 5 minutes of having them on he pee’d and pooped.  What a dork.  Now if I put him on the toilet he immediately knows what to do and does him business where some kids when they first start out with potty training they may sit there for 10 minutes and have no clue what they are supposed to do. 

Nope he pee’s and poops almost every time he is on it.  The problem is he doesn’t tell us he needs to go.  Well this little brat woke me at 2 am, that’s right 2 in the morning to have me change his WET diaper.  He woke up dry and I caught him in his room changing his own diaper.  I asked if he wanted to go on the potty and he threw a FIT! I put him on anyways and within seconds he was going pee.  Why does he have to be so difficult?  I know he knows what to do.  I really wish he would go on the potty.  I am not sure how much longer I can change 3 kids diapers a day. 

I refuse to use pull-ups.  They are just like diapers and cost way more. 

On another topic he is starting to talk.  Well he says “more” to everything.  And he uses the sign for more.  When the speech therapist was coming she taught him some sign language to get him to communicate.  He learned the sign for more pretty quick and so he uses it all the time.  Now, though, he signs more and says it too.  Isabel is also starting to say more.  She still doesn’t address me or Tony as Mom and Dad but she is getting better with using her words where appropriate.  I just can’t wait for them to talk, it will be so awesome!

So anyways, with this potty training thing.  I just don’t want Lil Tony to be 4 and still in diapers.  I just refuse to have that.  Hopefully in the next couple months he will be more interested in it and not throw such a fit when I want to put him on the toilet. 

It seems so surreal that I will be going HOME to visit my family in a few short weeks.  Well I guess it’s more like 8 weeks or so but after 7 yrs of not seeing your family that seems so soon.  I just can’t believe it.  So much has changed in that time.  All my cousins have families and kids and have graduated from high school and college and have careers.  My mom has moved and I haven’t even seen her new house.  My grandma has moved and I haven’t seen her place either.  All my life I knew grandma’s house.  It was old and comforting.  All family get-togethers that I remember where there.  Kinda sad I have not had the pleasure of enjoying family time at her new place. 

I am excited for my kids to meet their 2nd cousins.  I also would love to see some of my friends that I haven’t seen since high school.  All have families and kids and oh my……

I feel sad too because I have been spending a lot of time on Facebook which has been great.  I have gotten in touch with friends I haven’t talked to in FOREVER, I can keep up to date with all my family and their lives, marriages, engagements, pregnancies or anything else that is going on.  But at the same time it makes me sad I am not there, in IL all the time.  ALL my friends I had so much fun with and so much in common with all lives there.  My family is all there.  I would just hate to make that move back home and still not see them or whatever.  I mean it’s been years, they all have their lives and friends and families. 

Oh well at least I will get to see them soon.  See how much things have changed.  Maybe, lol, Tony and I should just leave our kids with one of the grandparents and go on a mini (2 day or so) getaway together.  I was looking online for cheap places to go and there was cheap Branson vacation packages.  I have never been to MO.  Not sure Tony would go for that though.  I am just kidding either way, lol.  I certainly would not leave my kids for a couple days let alone my family that I went to see.  We will just have to plan something in a few years like we had originally talked about.  When they are a little older I will be ok with leaving them for a couple days or a week or so and get away.  By then I am CERTAIN I will need the vacay. 

Anyways, 8 weeks and counting.  Still working hard to lose the weight and get in to shape.  I know I will not be at my goal by vacation time but I know I will be pretty close.  I think my kids will love to go see everyone. 

We have lived in our house now for almost a year.  Since Tony and I have been together this is probably the longest we lived somewhere.  Lots of circumstances cause us to move over and over again.  We’ve lived in some pretty heavily populated places, Vegas, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa.  All of which were pretty big on crime.  You couldn’t watch the news without seeing a shooting or stabbing EVERY single day.  It was scary.  Certainly not somewhere I wanted to raise my kids. 

So last year with the encouragement of Tony’s dad and a job application to the place he currently works for we were headed to Virginia.  We live in a quiet town called Winchester.  It’s about an hour and a half or so from D.C.  It is still a pretty big town but little to no crime.  I have not heard of any killings since we’ve been here.  You still have your petty crime, purse snatching or whatever but for the most part safe.  Tony actually forgot to roll up his windows in his car the other night and nothing was touched.  That never would have happened anywhere else we lived. 

We live on a street that is kinda a loner.  What I mean is one street over is a bit of a busy road and you have to go a couple blocks over to get to a “neighborhood”.  We live walking distance to an elementary school.  We also live on a dead end street.  Now when we had our old “white trash” neighbors, we had some domestic abuse situations.  The police were called and the boyfriend was hauled away in the back of a cop car but they have moved.  they rented the home and I think the owner moved back in. 

On both ends of the street there is mostly older folks that live in the houses.  The houses directly beside us and in front of us are all young(er) people and all seem to be friends.  Right cross the street is one of Nicki’s friends.  She is one year older than Nicki but they hang out a lot. 

It was great, yesterday I went to the gym and Tony was home with the kids.  he took them outside to play.  My kids and all the neighbor kids were all hanging out together and playing with Lil Tony and Isabel.  They just love my lil ones.  Since the street is a dead end it doesn’t get too much traffic.  So it is just really pleasant. 

It was funny too, our neighbor across the street has an atv that he pulls out every now and again and rides it up and down the street hoping no cops see him or no one calls the cops on him.  He was riding with one of our other neighbors on the back and they were driving down the street doing a wheelie.  Is that what it’s called on  quad too.  He was riding on the back 2 tires.  It looked so scary.  LOL!  We used to have 2 quads and so Tony and I were really upset, wishing we had ones to ride too. 

I really do love this town and our street.  Nicki likes her school and like I said there is an elementary school walking distance.  Tony and I have really been talking about the possibilities of buying the house.  Our landlord is AWESOME and always talks about wanting to sell it to us one day.  The only problem is if we buy it we will need to do some add-ons.  It is just not big enough for us.  There is room on the lot to add on.  We would need another bedroom and a garage.  The bedroom would either need to be big enough for my craft space to be in it too or we would need to do something about that.  We have an attic but it is not big enough, the roof is too low.  We could make that bigger.  We also talked about finishing the basement so the kids could have their own space to hang out with friends or whatever as they get older. 

All that may cost more than we have to spend and it may be cheaper to buy somewhere else.  We still don’t plan on doing anything for another 3-5 years so we have time to figure it out.  I just really love my neighbors and the town we live in.  Plus I am SO tired of moving.  LOL!

Only time will tell where we end up.  It sure would be nice to win the lotto or something.  All of our problems would be solved. 

Ok so really I am not sure what  we are on.  Maybe I should just keep calling it a “progress update” and forget which week we are in.  LOL!  When I can’t even remember what day it is I am certainly not going to remember what week we are on. 

So anyway, the last couple weeks I have not really been able to work out.  Let’s see 2 weeks ago I took a break because of my knee which did not get better BTW.  Then I was going to start back last week, I went on Monday and then Tuesday I got my monthly friend.  LOL!  TMI I know but I can’t workout at that time.  So I didn’t work out last week either.  I am not upset or stressed about it.  I am still seeing results.  Last year when I was working out, if I didn’t go every day I was a mess.  I would stress on it all day. I think my stressing about working out and losing weight and how I was eating was really playing in to why I wasn’t losing so consistently. 

So I am back to working out as much as possible this week.  Tony has been working all morning shifts and that makes it difficult to get to the gym.  By the time he gets home it is after 5pm and then it’s time to make dinner and we both certainly can’t get to the gym.  So hopefully I can get to the gym more this week. 

I am going to post just this weeks progress, it wasn’t bad for not working out, having my monthly friend and “snacking” a bit on chocolate.  I did count for the calories but normally I only eat sweets once a week. 

After typing the numbers in to my calorie tracker on my notebook computer, here is what I have for this week:

 weight down 2.8 pounds
lean pounds up 1.66
h2o pounds up 1.27
fat pounds down 4.46

That is actually a pretty darn good week.  I gained lean mass, lost fat pounds and all without busting my ass at the gym.  Seriously when I started working out last year (when I say that I mean 2008) I was on that elliptical for 4 hrs or more a day.  I figured that’s how the Biggest Loser people lost the weight so why can’t I do it that way too.  Well I was not eating right, lost fat/low calories and I was starving myself every single week.  Tony said I was REALLY cranky from not eating enough.  I felt hungry ALL the time.  I eat 1800 calories a day now and still sometimes feel hungry, last time I was only eating 1200….I don’t know how I did it. 

Anyways, another great week.  I am needing to prepare myself for a bad week, I haven’t had one of those in a while.  LOL!

Nicki has recently shown interest in Volleyball and her friend said the Winchester Park District was starting Volleyball this week.  So I decided to sign Nicki up.  She is so excited.  She will be on a team with her friend.  I REALLY hope she enjoys this and it is something she will stick with.  She said she wants to play for the Park District and then go for the middle school Volleyball team in the fall when she starts 8th grade. Her first practice is on Tuesday and her games will be on Saturdays.  I will have to take some pics and post them up.