That is all I really have to say.  I have taken a boot camp class at my gym and I absolutely loved it.  It was Tuesday and Thursday this week.  The class was held by a former body builder and she was amazing.  She was encouraging without being harsh.  I am still fairly overweight and so this class was certainly rough for me.  I made it through though and boy do I feel great.  I have been sore all week from the class and I look forward to allowing my body to recover over the next 2 days.  I say 2 days because I won’t be able to go to the gym because of Tony’s schedule.

The class was 35 min long and it is almost non-stop cardio, strength training.  Seriously there are parts of my body that are sore, that I have not worked in, well maybe ever.  On a personal note, maybe even TMI, but there is a lot of jumping around that I felt I could participate in more except my chest kept me from doing so.  I had to wear 2 sports bras and still was mildly painful to jump around.  Some of the other exercises were tough because it hurt my knees.  But overall I made it through the 35 min tough class.

They were giving these classes at my local Snap Fitness.  Oh man, I can’t say enough about this place.  All Snap Fitness’ are individually owned and I can say the owner of ours truly wants to make hers gym a pleasant experience.

The gym is one of the cleanest I have ever been to.  It is a 24 hr center which is great for Tony and I, especially with school starting in a couple weeks.  We may be working out in the wee hours of the night.

Not that I go but that have a tanning option.  They are staffed during the day which it seems a good deal of other Snap Fitness’ are not.  We went to one when we visited IL and OMG, it was SMALL, dirty and not staffed.  Which meant while we were there 3 punk kids came in and were just being obnoxious.  It was a bit distracting.

So the recent thing our Snap did was offer a boot camp class.  It was Tuesday and Thursday this week and I think they did it to just get a feel for how many people would be interested.  Unfortunately each class only had 3 people but we are blaming that on the summer and the fact a lot of people may be on vacation.  I am really hoping this becomes a regular class.  Or like Lisa, the trainer, was saying in the fall they may do a 12 week class.  That would be AWESOME.  Unfortunately if it costs money I won’t be able to do it.

Anywho, I feel amazing and can’t wait to see if I lost weight and/or gained any lean pounds this week.  Wish me luck getting through the next couple days too.  My legs are arms are killing me! LOL!!

As I have mentioned before Tony and I are going back to college in the fall.  We have not been able to register yet since we have to attend new student orientation first, his is scheduled for next week and mine for the week after.  Hopefully all the classes we want to take will still be available because we have it all worked out perfectly.  We will be packed with school and studying M-W-F with Wednesday being our busiest day.  We also had to remember that Lil Tony will be in speech therapy next year so we will have to drive to his school 2-3 times a week.

Both Tony and I will be going full time. I am not certain how we will handle, school, Tony working full time, taking care of our kids and maintaining the household.  I really hope it all pays off in the end.  Tony is still undecided about what he wants to do for school and I have decided on teaching.  I just worry that both of us are going to go through 5 yrs of school and not be able to get a job.  Well at least getting an education can’t worsen our situations.  Wish us luck!!

I spend a lot of time on the computer.  Blogging, browsing the web and visiting my craft buddies blogs.  I will actually probably start spending more time on the computer once I start school in a couple weeks.  Oh my I am so nervous.  It has been 15 yrs since I stepped foot in a classroom.  What am I thinking!  LOL!

So anywhoo, while I am on the net and hopping from blog to blog or Google searching I find it so great how many different things I come across.  New ads and new websites.  I found a couple illustrators for hire today.  I am really interested in selling “Artfuldelight” stamps.  I need someone who can draw them for me though.  I am certainly no artist.  I have found someone that will make the stamps for me now I just need to get some creations in the works.

I also came across a site that sells cigars.  Cigars by Rocky Patel.  Never heard of him before but my step dad loves cigars, maybe I should get him some really nice vintage cigars for Christmas.

I really do want to pursue the illustrator, make my own stamps route.  I think that would be totally cool if I could expand my store from just selling craft supplies to selling my own products and maybe having a design team to showcase my stamps.  Oh that would be super cool.  I will have to wait until I have a little more money to spend.  LOL!  And I guess time.  Something I probably won’t have for quite a while.

I can’t believe Nicki has been gone for a couple weeks now.  She has been with her dad’s family for the last 2 weeks and tomorrow she spends the rest of the time in IL with my dad.  She will be coming home on the 27th of July which is Lil Tony’s birthday.  She seems excited she will be home to celebrate with us.

She will then have about 3 weeks home before school starts.  I just can’t believe she will be in 8th grade, only one more year and then she will be in high school.  Which means we are that much closer to being past adolescence and worrying about puberty.  Well she hasn’t gotten her monthly friend yet, but I was in high school before I got mine.  I know when that happened I started to get pretty bad acne.  Maybe I should start looking at the best acne treatments.  I know a year or so ago when she visited my family her grandma suggested and purchased her some face wash and she said it worked really good.  Her face usually doesn’t have a problem unless she puts her hands all over it a lot during the day while she is in school.  Her dirty hands.

Well only time will tell if she is going to have a problem with acne.

I am really not sure how well this new plan is going to work out but I am not going to count my calories like I used to.  With all the added activities to come in my life in the near future I am just not sure I will have the time.  With going back to school and all.  I have been doing it all week, just watching what I eat, not pigging out or anything.  My problem is once a month when I get my monthly friend, I crave a lot of sweets/chocolate.  Maybe I am getting mine soon because this week I have had a rough time with it.

Maybe I should get some weight loss pills to take one week out of every month.  Just to curb my appetite.  I mean it’s not like I sit on the couch and eat bon bon’s all day I may eat a handful of M&M’s a couple times a day but that is it.

Or is it that I am destine to be this size forever.  I am about 40 pounds off from my goal.  In the past 2 months I have not gained nor lost.  No matter how much or how little I ear or how much I work out I have maintained my weight.  What gives?

Tony and I have applied for college.  We took our placement tests the other day and as soon as we go to new student orientation we will be all set for fall semester.

I know I am going to school for education.  Probably elementary education.  Tony is undecided now.  He had large intentions of going to nursing but after taking his placement tests and talking to a counselor he may not do that anymore.  He plans on working full time (we couldn’t afford it otherwise) and go to school as close to FT as possible.  The problem is the nursing program requires a lot of face to face classroom/labs etc type of work.  That just wont be possible and work FT.  So he is trying to quickly decide what he wants to do.

I am excited and worried at the same time.  How will I manage 4 kids, my hobby, school, housework, trying to get my business rolling and just life?  When will I have time to do it all?

I spend a lot of time online.  Reading my craft blogs, blogging, checking emails and just browsing.  I come across these ads all the time for diet pills that help you lose 5-10 pounds a week.  That is so unrealistic.  I read some lipofuze reviews and they claim that.  I don’t really want to get in to a debate or long post about how I feel about that but from my experience, struggling over the years to lose weight the right way and sometimes the wrong way, I know this is not healthy or realistic long term.

I have struggled and struggled and gained and lost……I just know that pills may help someone lose 5-10 pounds a week but once you stop taking them you will probably gain the weight right back.  You need to lose fat while gaining lean mass in order to do it right.  That is where I struggle.  I really wish I knew the right equation, the right amount of food to the right amount of exercise in order to just shed the weight off.

I am really tired of struggling and working so hard and getting disappointed when things don’t go my way.  I just need to relax and stop stressing so much, maybe then it will all fall in to place.  Who knows!