It's official.....

Yup, it's official, I have realized that I am a fangirl, also known as an otaku. I guess the only thing I can do is accept and embrace it. This year of being single has let me come to this realization. And I can't be happier about it! It's great! My inner muse has been released from the chains that once bound her. I'm drawing again, I'm also writing again. I even crochet and sew more. Granted I watch a lot of anime and read TONS of manga, but I love it all! I've even started drawing up my own characters again. I also am finding that I'm getting better at drawing hands and feet. As I watch the anime, I find myself noticing how things move when animated. Same with the manga. I think it's what has helped me figure out the hands and feet.
Even my daughter is turning into a mini fangirl. It's so cute. We like most of the same anime & manga. We like different characters though. She likes to draw to and draws her fav characters. She's getting really good too, but she struggles with hands & feet as well. I guess a lot of people do. Her favorite thing to draw are chibis. Chibis are super tiny versions of characters. She fills up her drawing books so fast I have a hard keeping hee supplied with empty ones. Lol.
Well it's time for this fangirl to go to bed and dream as the other fangirls do! Hehehehehe.

It's happening again......

It's weird and I don't know why, but it's happening again.  The same thing happened last year around this time as well.  I can't eat.  I try to force myself, but I just can't do it.  I tried to eat a persimmon this morning, cut it all up and everything.  Ate a piece of it, and realized I didn't want it.  So I tried to make myself eat another one, and I couldn't do it, I had to spit it out.  I'm hungry, my stomach is rumbling at me, but yet I just can't eat.  I mean, I guess it's not a bad thing, it's not like dropping a few pounds is gonna kill me right.  I've got quite a few to spare, lol.
I guess it's just frustrating.  I'm hungry, and I know I need to eat, but for some reason, I just don't want to.  I think the frustrating part is not understanding why.  And I obviously don't know what to do about it.  I guess the plus side to this is that my grocery bills will be a little lower for awhile.  I still need to cook for my daughter though, so I'm sure I can force myself to choke something down in front of her.  I just don't want to.
Any thoughts??

And more bike riding!!

I did it!!  I finally rode my bike to work!!  Ok, I rode my bike to the max station and then from the max to work.  We just had a meeting that I had to go to.  My legs are feeling a little jelloey right now though.  It was soooo totally worth it!!  I need to get some kind of tail/head lights for my bike so I can ride in the dark if I choose to ride in the morning to work.  I would totally do it tomorrow too if I had some lights.  I have reflectors but I think I would feel safer if I had actual lights.  I didn't come the same way home though.  I wanted to drop something off at a friends house so I came the long way home.  All in all, today's ride was 8 miles!  That's my best yet!
I raised the seat on my bike too to make it easier to peddle.  Why did I have to be cursed with such long legs..... Because I have to have my seat so high, I can't touch the ground when I stop.  I'm sure that's not  how you're supposed to do it, but it's easier on my legs that way.  Once I get more strength in my legs I can lower it some more to where I can actually touch.  I really like to ride my bike to work in the mornings during the summer.  I though it would take me longer, but it actually only took me about 45 minutes to get there.  I don't think that's too bad.  And if I continue to ride every day like that, the inches are just going to keep coming off.  I can't believe how loose my pants are now!  The thighs have gotten looser too and are a little on the baggy side!  So happy!!!  I wish I had taken measurements when I started my "diet".  My scale doesn't move but I know I'm loosing weight because my clothes are getting too big.  I'm still amazed at how good I feel after riding my bike!  Even though I'm just absolutely exhausted, I feel great!  It doesn't take long for my legs to recover either.  Since Friday is payday, I think I had better put bike helmet and lights for my bike on my list of things to buy.
Oh, the only thing that sucked about today's bike ride, my back tire was hit by a car.  He wasn't paying attention to the cross walk.  He was only watching on-coming traffic and didn't look the other way before pulling out and I was already in the crosswalk.  Thankfully it was only my back tire he hit and not anything else.  I was REALLY lucky today too.  He wasn't going fast or anything, he had just started to pull out onto the street.  And I had tried to swerve away from him to otherwise he probably would have me.  I bet that guy got the shit scared out of him today and will always look both ways before pulling out into the street now.  I know it scared my!  I just can't believe he didn't stop and just kept on going!  That reminds me, I need to thank my guardian angles for watching over me and making sure I was ok today!

Of course that little incident won't stop me from riding my bike, and I'll definitely make sure I ALWAYS have my helmet on.  And on that note, I wish everyone Happy bike riding days!!!

My big bike ride!

So I did it!  I finally got out and rode my bike into town!  It was a little over 6 miles round trip!  I needed to get a new battery for my pikachu pedometer so instead of taking the car, I took my bike.  Sure it took me about 10 times longer, but it was so totally worth it!!  And so much fun!  Rocking out to my iPod.  It wasn't super hot today, but it was hot enough.  Hopefully I'll sleep good tonight!  I feel great!  I'm almost ready to go for another bike ride!  A friend is coming over shortly so I wasn't able to ride around as long as I wanted to, but that's ok.  There's always another day :)  Perhaps next week!  And I need to remember to take more water with me and some gatorade!  I got some at the store on the way home and it really hit the spot!
But, yup!  It was definately a great bike ride!  I hop munchkin hurries up and gets her legs nice and strong so we can do those kinds of rides together! :)
I love my bike so much!!

The sensation of flying

It's very rare when you get a whole day where you can feel care free, so when you only get a chance to be that care free for moments at a time, how can you not jump at them?
Today I had one of those moments.  I had forgotten how invigorating riding a bike could be.  So I thought about it and had to ask myself:  What is it about riding a bike that makes you feel so free?
Is it the sensation of the wind in your hair, or perhaps it's feeling the sun warming your skin as the air flows over your whole body.  Could it be the burning sensation in your legs as you peddle faster.  Feeling your spirit soar as you fly down the road.  Seeing every bump in the road as an obstacle trying to slow you down and laughing at it as you fly over it.
This is what it felt like today when I was riding my bike with my daughter.  Racing each other.  Stopping at hidden paths to explore what might be hiding behind those bushes.  It was an amazing time.  Even though it may have only lasted a couple hours, it was AMAZING!  I can't wait for the chance when we get to ride our bikes together again.  Riding  not to exercise or to get back into shape, but just for the pure joy of riding.
We packed a sack lunch dinner and ate our pb&js at the park along with some wonderful summer cherries.  It makes me happy to know that my daughter will always remember these days with a smile.  So when I'm gone and she misses me, she can think back on the fun we had as she rides her bike with her kids and shares a new experience with them.

So in love with life right now!!

My yummy Bento lunch!! & "diet" update!

So, my new think is making bento style lunch boxes for myself to take to work.  I'm still getting the hang of it and I don't quite go all out like some of the one's I've seen on line or in the bento cook books, but I'm still learning how to pack everything in there.  Packing your bento box is an art form all it's own!  So here are the pictures of my little bento lunch.  I use 2 bento boxes, they're pretty small, and like I said I haven't quite mastered the art of bento.
On to the pictures!!!

 Here are my 2 bento boxes.  The one has veggies and a hard boiled egg in it, the other has strawberries and apples in it.  The last thing is just a regular glass container that has cottage cheese and peaches in it.

Here's kind of a close-up of the veggie bento. I wanted to get a picture of the egg. It's so cute!!!!  It's kind of hard to see in the picture but it has a bunny face in it!  I have 2 egg molds that once you boil the egg you peel it then put it in these molds.  I put it in the fridge to cool them off.  I also spray them with a little olive oil because the first time I made them, I discovered that they were sticking to the molds and part of the egg would peel off and it wouldn't be very cute any more.  I have 2 little tinfoil cupcake papers in there to keep some of the stuff from getting soggy.  The bigger one has diced cucumber and tomato and the other one has feta cheese in it.  I mix those things with some hummus that I have.  I buy the hummus in individual containers so I don't have to measure out how much to give myself.  I'm going to try adding broccoli to the hummus mix and see how it is.  And I'll either squeeze the lemon juice onto it or add it to my water, not sure yet.  I'll decide that tomorrow.  So this is basically my breakfast.  I also eat the strawberries from the other bento which is actually only 2 strawberries cut up, and half of the apple with some peanut butter (which is also in a sepperate container in my bag).

Also included in my lunch (but not in the pic) are the odwalla bars I take with me.  I take 3.  I eat one on my way to work, I eat one on my 30 min lunch break and if I eat the last one, it's on my last 15 min break with the last half of my apple and the cottage cheese and fruit.

Here's everything before it goes into my lunch bag.  Aren't the boxes so cute!!!!  There's another one that I want to go and get that's like the deer, but it has other cutesy woodland animals on it.  It was pretty cheap, only $4.50, the other one with the cat on it was around $16.  I'm going to keep an eye out for other cute bento boxes.

Here's everything in my bag.  That little container is the peanut butter, you can't see it but the hummus is also in there.  And the little bunny thing is where I have my sea salt.  It's actually supposed to hold your rice sprinkles, but I decided to use it for my salt instead.  I don't really take rice with me right now.  So there's no point in taking rice sprinkles.  And since I can't find a tiny salt shaker to use, the bunny will be perfect!!  And it's super cute!!  So the only thing I have to remember to put in my lunch bag tomorrow are my vitamins.

This is also the stuff I've been eating on my "diet".  Surprisingly enough, it keeps my full, or satisfied for quite a while.  I eat my walnut odwalla bar on my way to work which holds me until 8 am when I take my first 15 min break.  That's when I eat the hummus, veggies, egg, strawberries, 1/2 the apple with a little peanut butter.  Then I get my 30 min lunch, and I'm not hungry, so to prevent myself from having that "starving" feeling, I eat a choco-walla odwalla bar.  Then for my last 15 min break which is usually around 1:30 I eat the last 1/2 of my apple with some peanut butter, the cottage cheese and fruit, and if I feel I need a little more, I eat my last odwalla bar which is the chocolate-peanut butter protein bar.  Each bar has roughly 200-210 calories in it, so I figure with the low calorie meals I'm eating, they should be ok.  Plus I get my chocolate fix which prevents me from craving sweets!  SUPER BONUS!!!  And at breakfast I have my water, and my vitamin cocktail.  Which is 1 multi-vitamin, 2 glucosamine, 2 fish oil, and 2-3 focus factor.  I find it actually does help me stay focused and helps me find the motivation to, well, get myself motivated to actually DO stuff.  I have also managed to keep soda out of my diet for the most part.  Yes, sometimes I do have a drink or 2, when I say sometimes, maybe once or twice a month.

I officially started my diet last week, and after weighing myself, I've lost more weight!!  So happy!!!  I had put on 5 plbs, but now I've lost it again and I'm down 2 more!!  I just have to keep going at it and allow myself to have that little splurge every now and again, but in moderation!  Which I actually find that easy to do anymore! :)  I'm still working on the dinner part of it.  I have been doing pretty good and not over eating at dinner lately too.

And also starting this week, mom and I are going to start swimming!  She's getting frustrated because she's gained weight since she's been here and I've actually lost!  I have a swimsuit that's too small for me so she's gonna use it and we're gonna either do aqua aerobics or laps.  It sounds like we're gonna do laps because I personally get more of a workout that way.  I talked her into swimming because it's going to be a lot gentler on her body! (and mine too!)  I'm hoping to do some bike riding with her as well. :)
Will keep writing about my weight loss efforts and hopefully with the new regime, mom will start loosing as well!  We just need to figure out what foods work best for her!  More fruits and veggies and less meat works great for me!  Now to get her to "listen" to what her body tells her it wants.

Almost summer!

Thankfully the school year is almost over! Soon munchkin and I will be able to go camping and take trips to the beach and go wherever we want! The only sad things that unfortunately I won't be able to go see my dad in Alaska this year. Really upset about that. It sucks that my externship sucked up all my vacation time. But at least school is done and out of the way now. I just wish I had a new job so I could put my schooling to use. But I guess I should be thankful that I even have a job right? And I am lucky that I only have to work three days a week, but an extra day a week would be nice too. At least I've finally got my Etsy shop up and running! Need to start organizing my time a little better so that I'm busy making stuff on my days off so I can post them and sell them in my shop. A lot of people have favorites one of my items though. That's exciting! I just wish someone would buy something. Hopefully having a contest to promote and celebrate my crafty blog will help! Still working out all the rules. I know what I'm gonna make now too. I had created my own crochet pattern awhile back so I think I'm going to make an amigurumi using that pattern. What better way to celebrate the anniversary of my crafty blog than with a pattern I created myself right ;). I'm getting pretty excited about it. I need to finish up a few projects first and then I can get cranking on the monkey pattern :)
Well I guess that's all for now. I need to go and finish up a birthday present for someone.
Hope everyone has a happy weekend!!!

A whoe year already!!

WOW!!  I just realized that it's been a whole year since I started blogging!  How exciting!!  Of course I didn't blog as much as I had wanted to last year, but that's ok.  I think I'm doing pretty good this year so far, especially since I have 2 blogs now!!  Boy am I ever crazy!  It's kind of fun to go back and read some of the older posts.  Kinda like re-reading a diary (just not as intimate as a diary lol).  In august it will be a year for my other blog.  Once that one comes up on the 1 year anniversary I'm going to have a contest and the winner is going to get one of my Amigurumi dolls!  It won't be a simple doll but it won't be a super extravagant doll either.  Some kind of happy medium.  Especially since I plan on making a doll to enter into the Oregon State Fair art competition!  Isn't that exciting!!  My grandma actually gave me the idea last year.  She loves my dolls and is just amazed at how tight my stitches are.  One of these years I'm going to get around to making her one for christmas.  If I'm lucky, it will be this year and I'll give her the one that I enter into the fair.  And if I'm SUPER lucky, it will have won a prize!  I think I'm going to make a doll to enter into the Washington County fair as well.  Not sure what kind of doll I'll make, but I defiantly want to make one for that fair as well.
Well, since it's late and I have to work tomorrow, I'm off to bed!  First to make my lunch!
Night everyone and Happy 1 year anniversary blog!!!!!

Birthday's come and go

It's official, I'm a whole nother year older..... :(  But oh well.  I had a great birthday this year.  Spent it with my brother and his family.  It was a beautiful day at the beach! I couldn't have asked for a nicer day.  this photos was taken out at Gearheart looking towards seaside.  It was at like 7:30 am ish.  We wanted to get down there early for low tide.  Not because it was a great low tide, but because it's the time of year when the sand dollars wash up on the beach.  I'm not sure if they wash up any other time of year, but I remember last year for my birthday we found a few.  We didn't get a whole bunch, but we got enough.  It was a lot of fun!

Here's Minion looking for some sand dollars.  You can kind of see some of the broken ones in this picture.  There were lots of broken ones.  It was lots of fun!!

 Obligatory Mother/Daughter shot.
It was fun too because I got to have breakfast with a friend from high school that I haven't seen in 5 years.  They were staying at Gearheart and joined us for breakfast at Pig 'n' Panckake.  I had the dungenous crab omelette.  So good!!!  Minion had pancakes.

After breakfast is when Steve and everyone showed up!  :)  We played on the bumper cars, the tilt a whirl and we rented one of those multi-person bike things.  That was fun!  We stopped like every 5 minutes because everyone kept getting tired and they weren't able to keep going.  Everyone laughed, smiled and waved at us.  It was great!

Here's Steve and the kids.  Sadly we didn't have someone to take a picture of all of us on it, but there were 3 more adults on there.  It was crammed, but oh so fun!  What was even funnier, is I had bought candy cigarettes for the kids and as we peddled through downtown seaside, they all had them in their mouths.  It was hilarious!!  Steve and Jamie were so thrilled.  But hey, what are aunties for!

Here's a good picture of most of us playing the bumper cars.  Jaime wasn't able to join us unfortunately, but that was good because she was able to take lots of pictures for us!

Here's Steve trying to get into his car.  He had left the lights on and couldn't get in.  The key didn't work in the door and the keyless entry wasn't working because the battery was dead.  It took about 4 hours and 2 AAA guys to get into it.  While him and Josh did that, Jamie and I took the kids down to the beach.  It was so warm.

Not sure how well you can see it, but the sun had this huge ring around it.  I've never seen that before, at least not one that big.  I wish I had something to compare it the size to.  But it was pretty cool.

This was my favorite picture of the kids.  So cute.

Here's Steve cooking my birthday dinner.  Hot dogs and lobster!!  Too bad I can't eat lobster. :(  But I bet it was yummy!! 

It was a great day all in all!!  I don't think I could have asked for a better birthday!  Thanks to everyone who was thinking of me and who spent it with me!

I feel like I'm just melting away!!

I'm so happy!!  I've lost another 5 lbs!  I'm not sure how many total that is, bit I think it's like 35 lbs now.  I'm so friggin happy!!!  I've been loosing since about mid september!  What a great way to start the year!  And loosing weight wasn't even one of my new years resolutions! lol.  I think if I had made it a resolution, I wouldn't be able to keep up with it.  But I'd like to compare pictures.  The one of me from this summer and one that was taken just a few weeks ago. :)

Here's the photo that was taken over the summer, makes me sick just looking at myself.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but i can feel a difference, mainly in my clothes.  And of course the way I look at myself in the mirror.  I feel thinner, so I guess that's what really matters! 
And that's my wonderful Grandma in the pic with me, and I'm holding my uncle's new puppy.  He was so cute!!!
I can't wait to loose more!  I'm releived that I have aboslutely no cravings for any kind of fast food or junk food.  Deffinately makes loosing weight a lot easier!  For breakfast I have an Odwalla bar, for lunch I have another odwalla bar, then I make Munchkin and I a nice dinner.  And they are small portions.  Of course I am still taking my vitamins, 2 glucosamine, 2-4 focus factor, 2 omaga-3 fish oil capsules, and 1 multivitamin.  Every now and again, i have a sip of soda, but it's like 4 oz, and no more than 8 oz that may be once a week, if i even have any.  I also conitnue to have sweets and some junk foods, I just have them in moderation anymore.  I just still can't believe how easy it is to loose the weight anymore.  I guess every other time I've tried I haven't been ready subconciously, but now I am ready.  That's really the only explanation, or it's the focus factor.  And it does help me focus in school.  I stopped taking if for like a week, and when I went back to school, I could tell a difference.  I had a hard time paying attention and retaining the knowledge.  But this isn't an add for focus factor lol.

Oh, Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Years!!!

Another year has come and gone.  It's always sad to see the old year end even if it was a crappy year, but it's so exciting for the new year to start.  I'm so curious what this year has in store for me.  Hopefully a new job!  That would be awesome!!!
I know everyone makes new year's resolutions, and sadly, I'm not different.  I originally wasn't going to, but I thought about it and there were a couple things that I would like to make sure I do this year.  I'm staying away from the obvious ones that everyone does such as loose weight, get organized, blah, blah, blah.  I never get organized and I never loose weight, so this year my New Year's resolutions are going to be.....

1) to graduate from college
2) Find a job as a Pharmacy Technician
3) Make an effort to be more crafty (make more crafts)
4) To attend craft fairs as a vendor and sell my goods.

I think those are very resonable and very attainable.  I REALLY want to make the effort to sell my crafts.  Not only because it will help offset the fact that I'm the only income now and that I only work part time.  So, if I make the effort, I can make it my second job.  That's really what I want to do anyway, I really don't want to be stuck behind some pharmacy counter counting pills all day, but the pay is good, it's a regular paycheck and it has benefits.  My ultimate goal is to work 3 12 hour days, tues, wed, and thurs.  I know it's a long shot, but hey, you never know right.  That leaves the weekends open for craft fairs.  I was a little bummed because there's one coming up in february that I really wanted to attend, but I don't have enough stuff, and I don't think I'm going to be able to make enough stuff to sell by then.  But that's ok.  Spring isn't too far off and I should be able to get enough made by then. 
Wish me luck and I hope everyone's New Year is filled with wonderful things!