Optimistically Blogging

This has become my new goal. I have a long-term relationship with china (the dishes), when I was in Junior High my grandmother decided that I should pick a silverware pattern and for every birthday or Christmas she would buy me a place setting or two.  By the time I was in high school I had my entire Oneida silverware set (and I am so grateful for that to this day), and I decided that I wanted to look at Wedgwood.  My aunt recently had gotten married and I fell in love with her pattern (she is also a china lover) and I decided I wanted one just like hers.  I went online and subscribed to Wedgwood's catalog and I was probably the only high schooler in the state of Iowa that received Wedgwood's catalog in the mail.  I never did pick out a pattern until I got married as I loved them all. I was so excited when I got engaged, not only was I marrying the man I loved but I also got to pick out a china pattern.  At the time I got married Vera Wang paired up with Wed...

A little background about my weight loss journey.  I was skinny my whole life (crazy skinny - as a teen I used to pray to be heavier), then I moved out west, stopped running and packed on the pounds, prayer answered.  I gained 50 lbs in my first year of marriage.  A few years back I was fed up with being heavy and sick all the time so I started Weight Watchers and lost 50 lbs over a year, this brought me back to my goal weight.  I was able to keep at that weight until about 5-6 months ago when the holidays/life changes/home repairs hit and I was at home more often and my love of baking and cooking took hold.  I didn't gain the 50 lbs back but I do have some extra weight that I am now looking to lose.  I decided that I lost weight on Weight Watchers so I would do it again.  I rejoined about two months ago and I soon realized that their program was completely different.  I get more points than I was used to yet the amount of the points on certain fo...

Happy Thursday!!  Thursdays are my favorite day of the week as they are Friday-eve, and who doesn't love Friday.  I haven't posted in a while as we have been super busy lately, we are doing lots of projects and activities right now and they are consuming all of our free time.  I have talked a lot about goals and resolutions in recent posts and I have come up with another goal, spend less time on social media.  I have been on Facebook for over 10 years, when I started on Facebook it was only for College students and you could type in what classes you were taking and it would tell you who was in your class.  It is a completely different system today, I find that as much as I love it I spend so much time reading articles that I don't care about and it is just distracting me from getting stuff accomplished (or sleeping).  So I am deleting the Facebook app from my phone.  I am not going cold turkey and deactivating my account (that would be craz...

Saving more money is my major goal.  I have talked about this a lot on my blog, but this week I was asked many questions detailing the tricks that work for me.  So I am going to share them on here.  They may not work for everyone, but they have worked for us. 1) Use Cash - The great thing about paying cash for everything is you know exactly where you are at, if you overspend it will hurt more than just a number in your checkbook or on your online banking screen.  When your cash is gone too soon you feel really bad and you spend it less.  People have told me in the past they don't like to use cash as it spends faster.  This is true but only for a little while.  Once you switch to a cash only lifestyle it gets easier, much faster. 2) $5 and Coin Savings - When you spend with only cash this becomes your most fun savings.  Whenever a $5 bill passes through your hands put it in a jar/bin/special place in your wallet, this soon adds up.  We started...

Every year I make the same resolutions; eat healthier, read my Bible daily and save more money.  Some years I have kept these going throughout the year and have done quite well but some years not so much.  This year I am not making resolutions but starting goals.  I know you may think that is the same thing but the difference is I am not going to hold myself to just this year, or if I fail in my goal I will just pick right up again and not wait until the end of a month or year.  Each day is a new day and if one day I fail, I will just pick up where I left off.   Here are some goals I am setting starting in this new year! 1) Eat/Live Healthier - This one is pretty self explanatory.  I need to stop all of my crazy eating habits.  I am not 18 and a distance runner anymore.  I cannot eat a pint of ice cream in one sitting.  (not that I have done that in many years, but you know what I mean.  I did eat 3 donuts in one sitting very recentl...

We are doing a remodel on our home, we are putting in tile and getting rid of our old carpet.  This project is long overdue and I cannot wait for it to be completed.  As excited as I am for this project, I am not liking the "carpet is half torn up" phase.  We are living a few weeks with cement floors and it is driving me crazy.  I hate being barefoot anyways so I am always wearing socks but they are getting so dirty with the cement.  I decided a few weeks ago that I should get a pair of slippers.  I just recently got a pair of UGG boots and I never want to take them off, so I decided UGG slippers would be a fantastic idea.  The problem with UGG slippers is they are expensive and my husband wanted a pair as well so I set a task to get them as cheap as possible.  I went on Amazon and started doing research and saw that they had a wide range of prices available for their slippers and I wasn't sure why.  I soon came to realize if you bought slipp...

My brother is in town for Christmas and last night we were down on the Vegas strip.  We were wandering around and wanted to do something that we have never done before, so we decided to check out the High Roller at the Linq.  That is the giant Ferris wheel that takes you to a heigh of 550 feet and is a half hour ride.  The High Roller is the tallest Ferris wheel in the world.  We went to purchase our tickets and they have an option to ride in a cabin with your own bar and all you can drink (not just alcohol) for the entire ride.  Since it was only $15 more we opted for that, we don't do it everyday after all.  It is Christmas time so their normally $52 per person (before $15 extra) is marked down to $20 per person.  This made our tickets only $35 per person for the "happy half hour" ride.  By choosing this deal we were directed towards a separate entrance and bypassed 150 or so people in the regular line, additionally no one around us had purchase...