Happy Halloween!!!

Hi There!

My youngest sister lives
'bout 1-1/2 hours drive, from here...
THANK GOD!!!
(you'll understand why I wrote this, in a bit)
*grin*

Now, my sister's an EXCELLENT cook!
But, IMHO, she specializes in desserts...
Cheese Cakes, regular cakes, pies,
fancy cookies, creamy (fancy) squares -
you name it and I'm positive she's made it!

At our family functions,
I've stopped fretting and worrying
about bringing some kind of dessert...
in the back of my mind, now, I say,
"Oh, she's bound to bring SOME incredible
dessert - I won't bother."
(Thanks Sis!!!)

Recently, she's taken several cake decorating classes.

Thursday evening, she sends me THIS picture,
via email.



She made cupcakes for her daughter's class.

Incredible, eh?
*VBG*

If we lived close to each other,
I'm afraid I'd have to be "pushed" around in a wheelchair,
instead of just waddling around!

LOL

Love ya, Sis!!!!

Rosa

Still Breathing and Barely Moving

Hi There!

Okay, I went to Curves Saturday morning.

I didn't think that those woosey kind of exercises could make me break out in a sweat.

WRONG!

Sunday, Curves is closed (... YES, Thank You Lord!)

Monday, after work, I went back to Curves.

Crawled into my car.
Crawled out of my car, once home.
Crawled upstairs to take a shower.
Felt like crap.
My friend, "Rocky" assured me it would get better.

Tuesday, after work, I went back to Curves.
Dragged my sorry butt into my car.
Dragged the same butt out of the car, once home.
Felt crappier - EXHAUSTED, actually...
Once again, my friend "Rocky" reassured me that it was only temporary.



Went back to Curves this evening.

Well, my body protested afterwards and YES, I crawled (AKA dragged my sorry butt) in and out of the car but for the first time, after my hot shower, I almost felt "okay".

So, I think I'll survive....

I'm still breathing and after my shower....
yes, barely moving, too!

Besides, I've now got 4 visits at Curves.
396 more and I'll get my FREE t-shirt!!!

YEAH!!!

Bring on the "carrot"!

LOL

Rosa

Call Me a Donkey!

Hi There!

Confession time....

Okay, I'm weak and I'm human.

I'm not brave and I'm not strong.

I need "incentives" ....
just like a donkey,
I need a carrot in front of my nose.

*grin*

I managed to finish my Dear Jane quilt
'cause at every 50 blocks or so,
you got a new "title".

Since I've COMPLETELY
finished my Dear Jane quilt,
I'm now a "Goddess" or "Queen".

Sounds silly?
You betcha!

But, that's what kept me going!



I've joined "Curves" and I think I will keep it up
'cause at every so many visits, you get a free t-shirt!

Once again, I could easily skip the visits
and go to a store and buy a darn t-shirt,
but it's not the same thing!

This one is FREE and it has the amount of visits
on the front of the t-shirt!

*VBG*



Here's my next "carrot"....

It's called the
"Rughookers' Merit Program".

You pay an inscription fee and you get this real cute sheep pin.

As you finish each "Award" level, you get a cute "stone".

Did I mention that I LOVE bling?!?!?

And what's cuter than sheep, eh?!??!

Anyhow, I've included a button, to the right of my blog page.

Click on the sheep button and you'll go
to my hooking web page
and see where I'm at... with the Merit Program.

Back to work tomorrow....

Rosa

Bad News and Good News!

Hi There!

Here's the bad news....

See "My Fitness Pal" ticker, at the top of my blog?

I've been slowly sliding back to where I had started.
Things like this cake that I picked up 'bout
2 weeks ago, sure doesn't help...
It helped my sweet tooth, at the time, but
the scale is ALWAYS there to
remind you afterwards, right?



I had promised my friend, Elaine,
that I would be going back to the gym -
probably with "Curves", this time.

About every 2nd or 3rd phone call, Elaine would ask,
"So, how was Curves today?"....
or "Oh, did you swing by Curves, lately?"
Actually, it's become a running joke with us!
When she asks me those questions,
I suddenly make static noise, on the phone...
pretending that the line's bad and that I can't hear her!

LOL

Well, yesterday, after work....
guess where I went, Elaine?!??!?!

I got the tour of the place and this morning,
bright and early, I was at....

Yep, I went to "Curves"!!!!

Yesterday, when I watched the
women exercising, I thought to myself,

"Sheeeshe! I don't know!
Sure looks like a bunch of woosey exercises..."

Well, I KNOW I'm defeating the purpose
of exercise this morning, but we went
and had pizza for dinner....

As for the "woosey" exercises,
I left "Curves" this morning with
a fair amount of perspiration goin' on
AND this evening?
Well, let's just say that I've become
reacquainted with muscles that I had
long forgotten about! LOL

Soooo, my good friend, Elaine....

I have one free week with "Curves"
and I will "OFFICIALLY" sign up with them
on the 1st of November - I promise!

*VBG*

Headin' off to bed....
Even my finger muscles are
complainin' from all this keyboard typing!

LOL

Rosa

Elaine - Don't Read This!!!

Hi There!

Just a little background info, here....

My friend Elaine has been trying to "convince" me to start exercising again and to "watch" what I eat. I told her that I WAS "watching" what I was eating and it was ALL VERY TASTY!!!

LOL

Anyhow, I "was" to have re-started at the beginning of September, and I KNOW you can all relate to this, but I have LOADS of excuses....

I was still on vacation.
I went 3 times and most of their machines were broken... waiting to get fixed.
We had clients coming and I had to be home, for them.
Then, there was the Quilt Show, which TOTALLY stressed me out.

Oh, and HERE'S a good one....

I didn't "FEEL" like going to the gym....

LOL

Anyhow, in our defense, we barely ate all day yesterday and, on our way home from Calais, Maine, we stopped off at "Comeau's Seafood Restaurant", in Pennfield, New Brunswick.

OH-M-GEE !!!!

I decided to splurge and get the SMALL "Seafood Platter".

In this picture, see our waitress, to the right of Gilbert?!??



Gilbert got a poutine and here's my SMALL platter....

1 piece of fish, maybe 5 scallops, 3 shrimp and a whole BUNCH of fried clams and french fries!

No, I didn't eat it all!

I left quite a few fries behind.... but it was SOOOOOO good!!!!!

Rosa

Last Day to Party Hearty,,,

Hi There!

Well, I didn't yell this from the roof top,
but this spring, I had fallen off the wagon.

Yep.... I regained almost all of those
terrible calories due in part
because I had stopped going to the gym.

When I fell off, this spring,
my friend Elaine "encouraged" me
to start up again.
Silly me, I told her that I would
join back up, in September.

*slapping my forehead*

I didn't realize that she had
such an EXCELLENT memory!

Last Saturday,
I went to one of our shoe stores
and picked up the cute,
PINK shoelaces!!!



Proceeds going to the
Canadian Breast Cancer Society, too!

Hopefully, this new look will
help me exercise!

Anyhow, I'm on vacation
for the next 2 weeks and
whilst the food choice
may be a bit difficult, for now,
I'll be re-signing up for
the gym, tomorrow....

once again.

I'll keep you all posted!

Rosa

Goodbye UFO's!!!! .... aaaaah... maybe....

Hi There!

You're probably all wondering what I've been up to.

Well, this morning, at 7h15 a.m., I went to the gym.

As I told my friend, I think it's best to arrive there early, before you're fully awake.



Once you REALLY wake up and look around, then you can say to yourself,
"What in TARNATION am I DOING HERE.... at THIS HOUR?!??"

LOL

Okay, here's some "news", that's actually become part of our dreams and hopefully will work out.....

Anyhow, life sometimes throws you a curve ball and then again, sometimes opportunities arise and you just have to "Carpe Diem", right?

(For those of you out of the loop,
Carpe Diem means "Seize the Day!"
or "Seize the Opportunity!")

Well, as some of you might know, Gilbert is unemployed and still looking for work. A good friend of mine is selling her Gammill Long Arm quilting machine. She's asked me a couple times if I wanted to buy it and Wednesday, on my way home from the gym, I had a flash!
"Gilbert could do this, as a business!"

Well, after trying to convince Gilbert and then watching all the video demonstrations on the Gammill web site, he finally got "On Board" with the Plan!

So far, so good.

We need to apply to a Small Business Loan and after reading a 26 page document and spending several hours of writing a "Business Plan", I think we're ready to submit our Plan - on Monday morning. Apparently it takes 24 to 48 hours for approval. Keep your fingers crossed!

Here's a picture of what our Baby should look like:
http://www.northwoodsquilting.com/Gammill.html

Now, here's what I'd like for you to do, to help me... if you don't mind.

Would you mind leaving me a comment on suggestions, ideas or hints or what you didn't like about one of your Long Arm experiences?

If you're a Long Arm quilter, do you have a form that you get your clients to sign? If so, would you mind sending me a copy via email?
robich@rogers.com

Any and all comments are much appreciated...
*grin*

Now, to the UFO quilting part of my blog....

I've finished a (round) Christmas table centerpiece and another table centerpiece - this one with 30's fabrics. It's in the washer now and once it's dried, I'll be adding on the label and THEN uploading pictures of both these UFOs.

Can't believe that there MIGHT be a possibility of maybe having a Long Arm machine in MY house!!!!

Goodbye UFO's!!!!!

Rosa

The Numbers Remained!!!

Hi There!

Well, for those of you following the saga and because I got tied up with another fun project yesterday evening, we didn't get to eat our pizza.

We, instead, had spaghetti with a tomato sauce, and 2 small pieces of garlic bread, which I indicated on "MyFitnessPal" food diary. I had busted the food chart by over 500 plus calories!!!

Anyhow, this morning I got on our bathroom scale, with trepidation, only to find out that I had remained the same!

Can we all give a HUGE sigh of relief and say,

"PHEW!!!!"

together?!?!??!




Well, I just asked Gilbert and apparently, Pizza will be on the menu, for supper.

And tomorrow after work, I'm back at the gym.

So, stay tuned - we'll see what my bathroom scale will say by the end of next week, eh?

Have a great Sunday!

Rosa

Wait to Weight?

Hi There!

Okay, before any of you start doing the "Snoopy Dance" for me, I need to tell you a couple things, first.

*hangs her head in shame*

I weigh myself every day.

Yah, yah, yah...

I KNOW I'm only supposed to weigh myself once a week but I'm too darn curious!!! And right now, I'm losing weight and I LOVE all these encouraging emails and congrats, but along with the daily weigh measuring, can come some days where the scale doesn't budge or... worse yet, I've gained a pound of two.

I just wanted to give you all a "Heads Up", in case you see a lot of fluctuation. S'just me being too curious and weighing myself every day.



Second of all, Gilbert's bound and determined to take the weekend off and I'm trying to rein(SP?) him in, a bit. He wants to eat pizza tonight. Okay, fine, but do we need to SMOTHER the top of it with a TON of mozarella?!?

Sooooo, after I just wrote my last sentence, I re-read this sentence and thought,
"That's crazy! OF COURSE you need TONS of mozarella!!!"

LOL

Seriously, though, why not do a compromise and add a sprinkling of parmesan instead of mozarella, right?

He said, "No, you need mozarella to HOLD the pizza together!"

What a bunch of crock, right?

LOL

Anyhow, we compromised and he said he would cut back on the cheese toppings...

And this was our Saturday Food Intake discussion.

I mean, I've already decided that I wouldn't be exercising on weekends - at least, not at the gym, right?

Anyhow, we'll see what kind of numbers the scale will spit out tomorrow morning....

'Cause I'm just too damn curious to wait to weigh!

LOL

Rosa

Pumped, Cut and Ripped!!!

Hi there!

As I type this post this evening, I can truly admit to you that even the unknown-to-me muscles in my fingers hurt!

As some of you have realized, I've started a new journey in my life. I want to loose some weight and become fitter and healthier, as I travel upon this journey.

Well, I've lost 5 pounds, so far. Do I expect any "accidents" and ups and downs, on my journey? Well, of course I do! I'll just have to put my big girl panties back on, and deal with it!

LOL

I'm counting calories and "MyFitnessPal" is an EXCELLENT and FREE program - no affiliation with them, either!

And today, I signed up for a month, at a gym right next door to the building where I work. I even convinced my co-worker to join up, too! *grin*



I headed off to the gym (AKA: the Torture Dungeon), with my mauve tote bag, marked "San Luis Obispo" - a gift from a dear friend. When I'm in the Torture Dungeon with my mauve bag, I feel like she's right beside me.

So, here's today's story...

I started out with the stationary bicycle. Things were going really great and I figured that I had biked at LEAST 50 miles - sweat was starting to form on my forehead, even! Then, I looked at my watch.

God ALMIGHTY!!!
Only 2.5 minutes had gone by!!! I was already sweating and bored!

Well, I managed to tough it out on that machine, for 6 minutes and then, my calves started to cramp up - their way of protesting, I imagine. In fact, I suspect a mutiny was brewing!

So, I grabbed my right leg with the help of my 2 arms and swung that leg over the bicycle bar! WOW! I felt like I had accomplished quite the feat! LOL

Thirty Minutes later....

Me: Anne, you ready to go?
Anne: (who was on the bicycle, by then) Yep, give me 2 more minutes.
Me: (trying to stand up) I think Gilbert's gonna have to POUR me into the shower! My legs are all wobbly! I don't even think I can lift my leg up to get INTO the shower!

LOL

Well, I walked out of there, sweaty forehead with wobbly legs and all, and my head held up high! I felt pumped, cut and ripped!!!

So far, I've (clears her throat) "encouraged" a few people to accompany me, on my "Fit Trip". Anyone else care to join me, on my "Fit Trip"?

Okay, I'm outta here....

Rosa

Zero Pounds - 102 To Go!

Hi there!

Okay, look at the top of my blog. Do you see my new "Weight Loss Ticker"? I just found this EXCELLENT web site and it took very little "here-and-there-clicking" to figure it out.

PLUS, it syncs with my iTouch - how cool is that, eh?

If you're serious about weight loss, as I soon will be, then you might want to check out this program.

My official start date is the 1st of April but to be honest, I'm getting so sick and tired of being unable to bend down to tie my shoes, of having to hold onto the stair railing to help me HAUL my butt UPWARDS, that I might start sooner.... okay, slower and not as drastic (yet), but sooner. *grin*

Oh... and did I mention that this program is FREE?!?!??!?!

*VBG*

Those are the kind of words that I truly do appreciate and enjoy.... FREE!

Have a great day!

Rosa

This Is NOT An April's Fool Joke!!!

Hi There!

Just a "Heads Up"....

Gilbert and I quit smoking almost
one year ago and, in the meantime,
have picked up yet ANOTHER
nasty habit...

Call it gluttony, being little porkers,
lazy..... whatever you wish,
but we gained a LOT of weight!

April 1st, 2010

I'm giving you fair warning,
that I will be changing my life
and lifestyle, along with my dietary intake
and will probably be complaining,
in a bad mood and/or just plain
incommunicado.

No, I won't tell you how much
I weigh, but I will tell you
how much I wish to loose
and will probably have
some kind of barometer on
the calories that I have lost.

Hopefully, this will prove to
you and ME that I'm serious,
this time!

Anyhow, for now,
here's a cartoon to hopefully,
make you chuckle.



Rosa