Booth Manor part deux

Its a bit of challenge to parent 3 kids and to have 5400 sq ft of house to redo every single square inch; On top of trying to maintain a diet and exercise regime and be a sane wife, friend and daughter. Let me say, I am not doing any of it well right now.

Booth Manor has had some upgrades but not the pretty oh wow updates. We have replaced the gutters and fascia on the house. Expensive fix that needed to be done but not one of those things that I would have liked to spend the money on. Also, the man that came out to verify the footage needed tweeked me when he questioned my design aesthetic saying he felt sorry for the neighbors and our house because I chose black gutters. Well dude, I love them.

matthew snapped this for me and its just the fascia. I will have to update with gutters.

Mike continued to do work under the house in the crawl space which I was almost convinced he had made into a man cave with the amount of time he spent laying new vapor barrier and insulation. It indeed cleared up the smell from the previous tenant and the feline friend that occupied the space freely peeing where ever it desired. This crawl space is directly under the master so the smell was intense and I could not handle it. The previous owners had a yappy dog as well that seemed to take his pee's on the master floor, so even after we ripped up the carpet, the wood underlay was so badly stained that it too needed to be replaced. While this was happening we had to move all our furniture to the living room so it was one big sleepover for the week. 

Mike put down new sub floor and primed and painted our master this weekend. Huge difference! It doesn't feel like a dirty motel room anymore.

Whilst I was awaiting for some of these projects to get a move on I decided that I couldn't sit here and nurse Levi anymore looking at this wall that needed to come down. So I got a straight knife and a hammer and tore the bitch down.

We had been questioning if it was a load bearing wall and have since concluded that it is and will need to have a support beam installed. Even with the studs showing I am happier with it, hopefully though it wont take months to complete. 

Another project I just decided to start was to paint our brick fire place white. Eventually the floors will be a dark wood and the walls are going greyish blue, which is another project I cannot wait to complete but cannot locate the right color, everything looks purple when the light hits it. Anywhoo the fireplace is not done but here is a work in progress 

Started out white washing them but have decided to go full on paint. We have also repainted the interior of the fireplace so it looks new again. 

Lets see here, I have picked out lots of fabric and have many many ideas for things that will be done but implementing them have not been the fastest which I knew going into this but as we all know i have the patience of a toddler. 

Levi is getting a cornice board and some pillows

Levi is getting a reading tent

Lily is getting length to her drapes and some canopy action

This is the entryway to the house and I cannot a.) wait to replace the 80's style stair railing and b.) take down the painted over wallpaper, to yes, replace it with different wallpaper. 

Its a statement for sure and will be only in this corner nook which does carry to the second floor but I have coveted it for sometime now and cannot wait to see the difference it makes. 

So yes it is slow going but improvements are being made. All the while my lily turned 3, my matthew started 2nd grade in a new school with ease, and mr koala is going to be 1 before I know it. Oh and a horse dog great dane joined our family. Time is flying for sure and the chaos of living upside down gets to me some days and other days I am thankful to have a handy husband and a mom who will do whatever she can to help.

Booth manor updates part 1

It looks as if I like to wait a month between posts. We are officially moved in to our new home and it has been quite overwhelming. The previous tenants (the owners ex daughter in law) left the place a hot mess. I am talking 30+ bags of trash in the garage, trash and shoe boxes galore in all the closets, smatterings of food and grease in the kitchen and I don't want to talk about the smell of old animal stains.

The first thing we did was have the old popcorn ceiling texture removed. That is the only thing Mike was cool with contracting out. It took a 4 person crew 4 days to remove the popcorn because of the age of the popcorn and then to smooth out the imperfections and repaint. It is one of those things that you may not notice but it makes a big difference. When I came to check on the progress I was completely caught off guard because the entire house was tarped off in sections to try and manage the dust oh and in the middle of summer with no ac. ( the night before we closed and we did our final walk through we came to notice that one of the 4 ac units had been stolen. so needless to say it was replaced however it was not up and running at the time of the contractors being here for the first 2 days FUN TIMES). I ate frozen yogurt that day with peanut butter, not on the Fighter Diet but it did ease my anxiety for the moment.

While the workers were busy on the inside, mike was busy on the outside cleaning up the badly neglected yard. Whilst pruning and cutting back bushes and limbs he managed to get into some wicked poison ivy which spread like crazy and the poor guy had to endure the pain for 5+days.

Next up was to remove and replace the carpet from the kids rooms and the basement. As previously mentioned there were multiple animals and pet stains living here. We are going to hardwood the floors again but I wanted to get the kids carpet this time so they would play in their room and feel comfy. We chose a textured Berber because if I have to see carpet lines from the vacuum cleaner I might as well just call it a day in the land of coo coo things that will drive me insane. The carpet folks removed and installed 1400 sq ft of carpet and I am in heaven with how it turned out.

Multiple other small things have been done. New fans and lights in the kids room and guest room. Mike has braved the crawl space and secured it from other animals and their feces. Blinds have been removed and my old draped installed, although that is a for the moment fix as I have new ideas and color scheme brewing for the living room. We also have plans to remove a wall between the kitchen and main room which will open everything up and require new seating and area rug in my mind. Additional cabinets have been installed in the laundry room. I HAVE A REAL LAUNDRY ROOM and its possibly my favorite things about the house. And in between opening the boxes and finding space for items Lily had her first fever ever for 4 days, Levi is teething and Matthew had an abscess tooth removed and he starts a new school next week. I have eaten entire jars of peanut butter but I have also continued to make it to the gym, missing only one day. Finding a new gym closer to the house is proving to be difficult, 2 of the gyms didn't have squat racks, can you even consider yourself a gym without one?

I plan to capture the updates as they occur with the house and share them here hoping for inspiration and patience. Thats all for now!

no more push mower for us

yea thats a hole in the floor

Pet stain anyone?

out of the 80s blinds

#everysinglewindowneedstobereplaced

It's been a hot minute since my last post. We are still fighter dieting over here and making progress. I get discouraged when I see my photos from behind but it will eventually tighten up I hope.

A lot has been going on, we sold and bought a house and will be moving from 2200sq ft to over 5200 Sq ft on an acre of land, to say I am excited and nervous is an understatement.

There is a lot of work and updating to be done on the new place which I love to do but hate how long the process takes, I am not the queen of patience.

I will be sharing before and after photos of the new abode here as well. So transformations all around.

Hope you all have a wonderful remainder of your summer as back to school is right around the corner topped with hobby lobby and their pumpkin display.

8 months pp

Serenity Now

This has been a very trying week to say the least. I can say the one thing that kept me sane through it was having the routine of my diet and exercise. I did not miss one day at the gym and kept my diet on point. The scale is finally catching up and I am at my goal weight! I am planning to go a little bit further and also do my best to gain some more muscle, especially in the back, legs and glutes. Fighter Diet has helped me to stay sane and get these results at 6 months postpartum. 

Happy Dance

So this is the start of week 5 of my Fighter Diet challenge and while yesterday I as feeling a bit down today I am feeling stoked. I had my body fat measured today and am down 4% since the start of the challenge putting my at 16.8% Bf which is an awesome accomplishment for me! The fighter diet is pretty easy to follow and the challenge girls are great for motivation. I would recommend it to any of my girls looking to get inspired to lose weight and gain muscle. www.fighterdiet.com

I am still a work in progress and will be for the long haul but I am finally able to see results in myself.

I am particularly happy with myself because I have been able to eat healthy and continue to nurse Levi, who just turned 6 months over the weekend. I am tooting my own horn a little bit yes, sometimes I think we need to. I am very thankful for Mike for suggesting I join him this past January for the original challenge, having a supportive partner helps for sure. I will continue to post my journey here and am happy to answer any questions about Fighter Diet that I can. 

No April Fools

Whoa its April already! It has been 12 weeks since I started a healthier journey and I fell off the wagon pretty hard these last few weeks, not necessarily in the types of foods I was eating but more the amount of food. Today I start a new challenge called the Fighter Diet. I have been toying with it for a few weeks because the amount of vegetables you are to consume throughout the day is insane. Talking 5lbs of veggies! So at least I won't be hungry but my problem isn't fighting hunger pangs it is fighting the sugar cravings and that will be doubly hard come Sunday when sugary filled treats will be strewn throughout the house in plastic eggs.

SO back to the initial challenge. Mike and I agreed to enter the BodyBuilding 200K transformation at the beginning of the year as a kick start for us both to eat better foods. Mike of course has been super successful as he has will power like nothing I have ever seen, plus he has been lifting heavy for 10+ years which doesn't hurt. I have lost 8lbs and am a lot stronger than I was at the beginning but I am no where close to where I want to be physically. I met a figure competitor at the gym and she told me about Fighter Diet and based on her physique I would say it works pretty damn well. I looked into it and they were having this challenge and I decided that it was right up my alley. I will be focusing more on weights than cardio and am going to do my best to be 100% laser focused on my diet. I know I can do this but again plan to use you all to keep me honest.

Here are my before and after pictures from initial challenge, and the after will now become my before for my current challenge.

Yes it is embarrassing to share but I know that at my before I was 8 weeks postpartum

Almost 5 months postpartum

Happy April Ya'll

I have not missed a day at the gym since I tweaked my back, likely a total of 3 days missed since January. Tomorrow I start a new challenge and I am stoked to start this new journey and see some serious results. I will post more about the challenge and stats soon. Happy Spring Ya'll!

March Resolution... the struggle is real

As I was on the elliptical the other night I was having a fight with myself, you ever get those feelings that you are not good enough? Even though I am a mother of 3 having had 3 c-sections, that 3 months after having Levi I am allowing myself to be crippled because of 7 or 8 lbs. Because I don't have abs yet, because I am not chiseled and cannot fit into my clothes the way I used to. I do button my pants up but the fit is different, its not like I haven't brought life into this world and solely nursed him, that is not where my mind goes, it goes directly to you are a fat ass who has bull dog arms a jiggly middle and a wobbly butt. It goes to the dark circles under my eyes from lack of restful sleep. It goes to the condition of my hair since I have not seen a scissor or color since October. It goes to not feeling adequate enough being a Stay at home mom to 3 kids of various ages and needs, feeling the need to earn an income even though my dream for the last 3 years has been to stay home with the kids. My internal struggle to be fit without obsessing over it is hard.  It wasn't until after I spoke to an unbiased 3rd party and told him of my woes that I felt a smidgen better. He reminded me that I have a beautiful family and home and that raising kids is hard, that I have made my marriage work for 10 years, that we have no debt other than our mortgage, that I am right where I need to be to make my next move for myself to be happy. It's an odd feeling to recognize that perhaps I am adequate and my journey is right on path. I am going to struggle but I am not giving up the fight to get where I want to be. I was reading the Power Path and really liked the message for March and as a mini resolution I am vowing to edit and delete all the negative self talk I do on the daily and focus on the positive. Its really a hard thing to do sometimes but I am grateful for all I have and where I am so I want to be open to what is around the corner to surprise me once again.

3 Months In!

So here it is 3 months into the New Year already! I have done a 90% job have sticking to my health goals and am proud of that. It was almost a year ago that I found out I was pregnant with Levi, hard to imagine.

Fri I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and a shoulder work out:

4 sets 12 X each

Seated overhead dumbbell press
Shoulder raise
Side lateral raise
Front raise
Bent over lateral
Behind the neck press

Saturday I did a combat class followed by a quick leg workout since my back is still not 100%

Linear hack press
Leg Curls
Incline leg press
Leg extensions

We celebrated my Grandma's 91st birthday yesterday and I made everyone something different to eat. I made Mulligatawny soup, Chicken Picatta, Cheeseburgers and mac for the kids, Mike made chicken wings and for dessert I made an amazing French Silk pie with a pretzel crust and my grams homemade whipped cream recipe. TO DIE. I didn't eat TOO much but I ate more than I should have and felt guilty again as soon as the last bite was swallowed. I kept up with My Fitness Pal and was only 100 calories off but I did not take into consideration all the tasting that went into prep or the 1/2 craft beer I drank.

Happy Birthday!

Mike ate 25 wings

Today I did combat class again and will start my normal routine again for the week but plan to add a yoga class to help my flexibility so I don't strain my back again so easily. I have a lot of work to do on my love handles and lower back and want to get a lot more definition in my arms and quads but since this is a blog to keep me honest here are my latest progress pictures and one of Lily smiling just to prove she does.

Dirty ass gym mirror

Feeling renewed after a monster cheat

Doesn't feel like it has been a week since I posted.

So I missed two days last week due to being sick. Girl Scout cookies arrived Friday, bad move. I had already slacked during the week because I was sick so I hadn't hit my proteins for the day etc and may have had a bowl of lucky charms and then a Somoa cookie (since mike ate the rest of the box) and came home from leg day and ate a cheeseburger and some more peanut butter chocolate cookies. Hypothetically I fell off the wagon but I got back up and Saturday I did double duty by going to combat class and sticking around and doing back and bi with mike.

Sunday I did combat class again.

Since I have not been pleased with seeing my weight move on the scale, I re-instituted using My Fitness Pal, with the goal of losing 1.5 lbs a week until I hit my goal. This puts me eating 1370 calories a day and I still include my macros of getting 170 grams of protein a day. I have cut my carbs in half for my first two meals and have added more veggies and fruit to my diet than Mike had allowed. I have lost 3 lbs so far. It is crazy how using MFP has sort of given me a renewal on the working out and diet since I can see my progress and even though I was diligent before about what I was eating and how much etc, see it broke down for me takes it to a different level. 

Monday I did chest and tri

Tuesday Pilates Reformer and combat class

Wednesday I was down with a tweaked back

Thursday (today) the gym was closed in the AM due to snow but opened back up for me to get in a combat class again. Alas, as I was walking into class my least favorite instructor was teaching so I opted for an elliptical workout instead, burned the same amount of calories. I will hit the weights again tomorrow as I was giving my back one more day off to fully recover before lifting.

If you friend me in MYP  @ mshr12345, you can see my exact meals and workouts too.

Ice Ice Baby

I have been SICK and I don't get sick! I am blaming the husband who started this and then Matthew. It started Sunday...

Saturday morning, aka Valentine's Day, was Combat class and then we had our cheat meal for dinner which was pizza and a brownie with ice cream, I hated myself during and after the meal. The point of the cheat meal is to enjoy your cravings without guilt so that you don't fall off the wagon the remainder of the week. I think next time I cheat I will have to do so outside the house so that I don't take another extra bite. In my head I was going to take 2 cardio classes on Sunday and do weights but instead I was sick and slept in so I missed morning Combat. I did half ass it through Body Attack but was feeling sicker as the class went on. I came home instead of dong weights after and laid low the remainder of the day. I stuck to my diet though with the addition of some hot honey water for my throat. I woke up Monday feeling cruddy still but since it was President's Day and I had all 3 kiddos alone I had no choice but to get up and make the best of the day, which meant I went to the gym and did chest and tri.

Tuesday since we were iced in I did not make it to a morning workout since there was no child care available but did pull it together for a great evening Combat class.  I am again frustrated with my progress. I have asked Mike to re do my diet plan since I am not seeing any changes. I keep TRYING to remind myself that I was just pregnant with my third baby three months ago and I am able to fit into my pre pregnancy jeans, but its not satisfying yet. I want to not feel mushy and pliable. I want to not care about it. I want to not compare my stomach to that of non mothers. Not comparing is so hard to do, I think we all do it to some extent but I have realized that I do it to an extreme and am working on this flaw of mine to enjoy my journey and be thankful for how far I have come.

Wednesday was the first time I have missed the gym completely because I was feeling very cruddy. I went to the minute clinic as I do not have a regular doctor because as I mentioned I don't get sick. Alas I have pink eye in both eyes, an ear infection and ridiculous head cold, antibiotics it is. I did not stick to my diet yesterday, I made an orange juice and vanilla protein smoothie and had oats for breakfast but did not eat again until late evening which was an apple and some peanut butter crackers. Even Mike commented on how I don't get sick like this as he was nice enough to close the bedroom door and watch the kids as I took a 2 hour nap. I am feeling a smidgen better today and if I keep feeling better I will combat tonight and try to get a leg workout in as well.

I have a few friends that have been asking for tips and workouts and I hope you all are enjoying the journey as well

Wednesday's Workout

Back and Bi: 10 minute warm up
4 x 12
Low row
Rope Bicep curl
Lat pull downs front and back
Standing Lat Pull
Bent Over Rows
Concentration Curl
Barbell Curl

It was a low carb day and I was just not feeling it. I taste tested the honey mustard sauce I made the kids for their home made nuggets and I found myself with a handful of Lily's cereal but stopped myself.

Thursday's Workout

Legs- 10 minute warm up
4 x 12
weighted back squats
step ups
hack squats
dead lifts
Hack press
Leg sled
Leg curls

I went back and took Combat class as well, it is great but I feel like I am getting too used to it. I used to be halfway through class looking at the clock and now its the end of class and I cannot believe its over already. I am still breaking a good sweat for sure but I think I might start trying other classes to see which gets my heart-rate up.

Total loss of 6 pounds so far. Feeling stronger and my cardio level is increasing. I really want to focus on getting rid of the back fat, lifting my booty and removing the extra swing from my arms.

Today is my little ones Valentine's class party, so I will miss my afternoon workout. I will head out later to workout shoulders.

I have not indulged in ANY Candy whatsoever, even the peanut butter hearts. We are having a Valentine's day cheat meal and I am debating between a Philly cheese steak or a Kahlua Mudslide. Oh decisions!