Vacation woes

We got back late last night. Over all vacation was good except for my pain, fibro and diet. The fibro kept me tired all day so I had to have my usual nap in the afternoon - precious wasted time. And walking the boardwalk, one of my favorite things was nearly impossible because of the arthritis. I remember only a couple years ago walking the boards end to end for exercise since I was missing my usual workouts. Now, just walking one mile took about 45 minutes and I had to ride back because my knees hurt so bad I wanted to scream. So I spent most of my days relaxing on the balcony looking down on the boardwalk or sitting on one of the benches on it. Evenings, I went down to the beach when the sun went down enough that I didn't need my umbrella. I wanted to carry as little with me as possible so I opted to go later in the day and just take my chair. I am pretty excited that I only got a very little bit of sun poisoning on top of my feet as opposed to all over my legs and feet every other year.

As for my diet... it went all to pot. I guess I should start in the beginning or at least the beginning of the current chapter of my weight struggles since I haven't really mentioned this aspect here yet. In 2003, I joined Weight Watchers and Curves For Women. I followed the WW plan to a T and went to the gym 3-4 times every week faithfully. At the end of nine months, I had lost a whopping 15 lbs. which was my 10% WW goal. I got my keychain and never went back. I was 127 lbs., about 30 lbs. from my goal weight. After that I tried The South Beach Diet and didn't loose anything in a month. Next came Atkins. I did Atkins for seven months and did not loose any weight. But I also did not gain any either. I maintained my previous loss but was not happy with it. That summer about a week after we got home from the beach, I had an episode that landed me in the hospital. It was a combination of dehydration, anxiety and who knows what else but that started me on a downslide. I went off Atkins and started gaining two lbs. a month. I continued on this trend and ended up at my maximum weight of 179 lbs. I am only 4'10" so of course I look just awful. And the more weight I put on the worse I felt inside. According to my doctor there is no physical reason for the gain and I am not in the habit of over-eating - really I know how to eat healthy and for the most part do so. I have been trying every eating plan, diet or drug I can afford during this time to stop this terrible trend to no avail. So a few months ago I started thinking about Atkins and how I felt when I did it before. I remember my nails and skin looked great, I had energy and generally felt great. Now my nails and skin are a mess along with the rest of my body, I am so tired all the time and have absolutely no energy - I pretty much feel like crap all the time. I do have health problems now that I didn't have before - arthritis in my knees, neck and back, and fibromyalgia. So any way, I decided to give Atkins another shot. Also I believe that some problems with weight are heriditary. My mom was morbidly obease and finally had to have gastric bypass. My battle is very similar to hers, she also tried everything and could not loose the weight. I am so afraid that it will get that bad for me some day too.

I started doing Atkins on June 1, 2007 eight weeks ago. I lost eight lbs. the first four weeks and not an ounce since then. I didn't have any more energy than usual either. Pretty crappy huh. Well, I don't give up easily so I kept trudging along until last week... vacation.

I was going to stick to Atkins on vacation. But on Saturday morning at breakfast I thought why am I doing this? I decided to eat what I wanted and now I am paying the piper - I gained back the eight lbs. I had lost. Not that I didn't fully expect to but I had hoped in the back of my mind that it wouldn't happen. So here I am trying to decide what to do next.

Do I start over again with Atkins or try something else??? What???? I've tried just about everything I've ever heard of and failed. I am so tired of trying so hard only to fail over and over again. And I do consider my loss while on Atkins this time to be a failure. After all, I did not loose at all the second month. I am going to have to give this some further thought. I probably won't even begin to try again until next month.

I probably won't be able to do any stamping or scrapping until later in the week. But, I am excited because I got a new storage system for my stamp pads and want to get that set up soon. I also got some new stamps and papers to play with too. The new Idea Book will be arriving at my door soon and I can hardly wait to see it. It doesn't go public until September 1 so I won't be able to share any details until then but like I said there are some great new products in there.

Well I guess I've rambled more than enough for today. Until next time - God bless!

Ready for vacation

I've been busy today getting the laundry done up and making a packing list. Saturday we leave for our annual vaction in Ocean City, MD and I can't wait to get there! Tomorrow I don't have to babysit so I will do the errands that need done, clean the house and pay the bills :( Then on Friday I will try to load as much as I can by myself while dh and son are at work. I want to go scrapping Friday night and if I dont get the Explorer packed early I won't be able to go. I don't know how much I will be able to do myself with Allison here and my arthritis and fibro problems but I am going to give it my best shot. I am really going to miss Allison this year. Now that I spend almost every day with her it will be hard to be away a whole week. At least I can call her, she will talk on the phone now. I sure wish they would come along with us. There is room in the apartment we rent but my SIL doesn't like to go on vacation.

We stay in an apartment on the boardwalk near the pier. I love being right at the center of all the excitement. Hopefully the weather will be good this year. I found out last summer that the rash and hives I get every year while we are there is sun poisoning so this year my goal is not to get it. I usually try to tan but never do so this year, I just won't even try. My brother and his family are joining us this year. They aren't staying with us, I got them a hotel room on 13th and boardwalk. They have four kids that are quite a handful. Our apartment only sleeps six so we consider ourselves lucky that we could truthfully say they couldn't stay with us for that reason. Now, don't think I don't love my brother and his family but we do want some peace and quiet time too. With three boys 4, 3, and 2 quiet is not something they have much of. They also have a 7 month baby girl. So we will get to spend time together and also do our own thing. Some of the things I enjoy doing are crabbing, sitting on the beach (under my umbrella), miniature golf, treasure hunting with a metal detector and people watching on the boards.

More crop layouts

Here are some of my favorite new pages I made for Allison's scrapbook.

Layouts from crop

I got 30 pages done and scrapped a total of 111 pictures over the weekend. I had lots of fun. There were a couple new gals there and I gave them Idea Books. I even made a sale. I made this random stamped paper, she liked it so I showed her how I made it and she bought the stamps and some acrylic blocks.

Here are some pages from the scrapbook I made for my grandma's 80th birthday party. I used the Sonata Level 2 paper packet, the matching My Stickees and the Floral Delights stamp set.

Croppin' Fools

I get together with a group of scrappers every Friday night. We met at the LSS before it closed last July and have been cropping in homes since then. We've named ourselves appropriately Croppin' Fools, with all the right tools

This weekend we are having our first annual weekend crop. We rented a meeting room at the local Comfort Inn from Friday to Sunday. We've been having a great time scrapping and just carrying on together. I've been getting lots of pages done and will post some here and all of them will be on my CTMH site. I've been out so late the past two nights, I'll probably pay for this all next week. I am sure my fibro. will act up but it is worth it to have so much fun with my friends. So far, I have completed a scrapbook of pictures from my grandma's 80th birthday and several layout of Allison. I also stamped some really nice random stamped background papers. I haven't done much of that but have decided that I will start to because they are so nice and it is a great way to incorporate more stamping in my scrapbooking.

Gotta run now. Remember when you go to your knees, God will help you stand up to anything.

Allison

Here she is the current star of most of my photos and layouts our Grand-daughter Allison. She is two and keeps me busy most days because I babysit while our daughter and son in law are at work. I love to spend time with her but some days I just can't wait for nap time to get here :)

I love my flower garden!

My garden is so beautiful this year. It is the first time that I've been able to tend it properly because I am not working any more. So I thought I'd share some photos of it.


I have to get ready for a weekend crop but I will try to get back later and upload some more of my art.

Cards

Here are some cards I made recently. Everything is Close To My Heart.

For this one I used Playful Flourishes and Flower Girls.


Give Thanks and Moments (May Stamp Of The Month) card


More To Adore Level 2 Paper Packet and Adorable stamp set.



I used the Let's Get Together Level 2 Paper Packet and Delight in Everything stamp set for these cards.