Day 7: I thought I didn't need an ice scraper here?!

JJ was off today, so he offered to take my car, "The Piece" in for an oil change. The piece is up there in age, so she sleeps in the garage. This morning was the first time it got cold enough to freeze the cars, and of course, it was the morning I took JJ's car, "The Black Bean" to work. As I was scraping my car, I was temped to run inside and tell JJ he lied. He told me I wouldn't even need to keep my scraper living down here!

In honor of the cold weather, I decieded to blog some Christmas photos. Christmas Day was actually about 75 degrees and rainy... not what I'm used to!

My grandparents live in Ft. Meyers, and came here for Christmas. Here's one of Popie and my girls. For some reason all animals seem to love Popie!

My Grandma is a cookie monster, so I got her this cookie selection for her. She was thrilled!

JJ's favorite gift of the day was probably the giant bottle of Maker's Mark I got for him. Should last until next Christmas, I hope!

Pumpkin's favorite was this yellow stuffed monkey from Aunt Vickie. She played with it all day, and ripped it apart by bedtime.

One of my favorite gifts was this homemade cheesemaking kit from my mom. It makes ricotta and mozzarella. I'm really excited to try it out!  She also got me the scarf from a the Fair Trade craft fair.

Here's one of Popie, me and Grandma on Christmas Eve. Our church had a really nice service, and it was so nice to have them here with us.

So I want to thank you all for your face and hand cream suggestions. I'm going to definitely try out as many as I can. I'll stop by some cosmetic counters and ask for samples, and look for coupons for the kind I can find in the grocery store.

Today I had someone ask me about my weight-loss, and more importantly, the diet aspect of it.

For me, eating healthy was only a small part of the journey. The more important part for me was portion control. I could easily eat 2-3 portions of pasta each night along with tons of vegetables and 2 servings of beans or a lean protein and cheese. It seemed like healthy food, and most of it was, but it was just far too much. Cooking is a HUGE part of my weight loss. If you can control exactly what you put in your food and how much of it, you are really going to become so much more aware of the calories and portion size.

You can see everthing I ate as I lost weight by simply looking at the beginning of my food blog, and even up through today. I do eat more now that I did before, but mostly because I exercise more now, and I'm more in a maintenance area rather than a weight loss stage.... though I'm somewhat contemplating kicking it into gear and just working my butt off to lose the last 20. I kick that idea around a lot.

Ok, I feel like I'm starting to ramble now, so rather than ramble, I'm going to go watch the football game and do the first 3 circuits of No More Trouble Zones and Banish Fat Boost Metabolism... good night, it's almost FRIDAY!!!