G.R.I.T.

After a wonderful weekend watching a friend get married filled with greasy food, cake, and plenty of wine and whiskey, I was fully expecting a pretty high weight gain this week.  Thankfully hard work and good choices at other points made for a very small gain and one I could live with without getting down on myself.  It showed me a very important lesson.  OCCASIONALLY, it will be okay for me to indulge and eat some things that aren't good for me or have a couple of drinks.  I don't have to be scared of holiday celebrations or family functions.  That is a great turning point for me.  Life doesn't end just because you decide to make the needed changes to make that life the best it can be!

Remember all those Rubbermaid boxes of clothes that I told you about? Well, I decided to go through them.  I went through my entire closet, the 3 boxes, and 2 bags that a friend had given me.  I took out EVERYTHING that was too big, too short, out of style, or anything that I just knew I wasn't going to wear any more.  Note to self, never go that long between cleaning out the wardrobe...I had things from college in there!  Do you remember the Paul Harris store?  Yeah, lots of stuff from there...that may even be dating back to high school!!  Yeesh!  Anyway, I ended up pulling out and getting rid of 2 cabinet boxes and one plastic bag full of clothes.  The clothes that were in the Rubbermaid boxes were tried on and a lot of them fit!  Woo hoo!  I ended up having 1 box of clothes that are still a little tight, but I put them back in the box and will hold on to them.  I will be in them before I know it!

Cleaning out my closet like that left me with a lot of extra T-shirts that I am not wearing.  So, what is a girl that spends most of her time in the gym to do?  You guessed it! I'm back to cutting them up.  Here was my surgery attempt from last night.  I wish I would have taken a before pic, but it was just a white T-shirt with a blue ringer on the neckline and sleeves.  Looks a little different now!

Like my pig-tails? Yes, I am a 34 year old little kid!

In case you can not tell, the sleeves have been cut off as well as the neckline.  Neck was cut in a V as was the back.  The seams at the shoulder were cut and retied together.  I accidentally cut the back a little deep, so I cut strips in it to tie it up the back.  I tried to take a pic of it, but it is really difficult to take a picture of your back! :)  I wore it to RPM this morning and it worked out pretty well.  It is a little wide and slipped off of my shoulders some, but just looked like a cute off the shoulder shirt.  Had I not been covered in sweat, probably would have looked better!!  I can't wait to cut in to some of the others!

So, my title today is G.R.I.T.  During Spin Class this morning, our instructor told us this acronym.  I LOVE it.  I will be adding it to my list of mantras.  

GET REAL INTENSE TRAINING

Every time I walk into that gym, this will be in my head.  Real Intense Training, because going half-way just isn't an option.  I got this.

Faith. Courage. Strength. Changes.

Don't Fence Me In

We just finished up a great Holiday weekend and let me just tell you how we celebrated in our house.  We built a
cage fence to enclose our back yard.  Yep, exciting way to spend 4 days isn't it?  This is something I have been wanting to do for a really long time (pretty much since our first child was born!) and I finally was able to talk the hubs into it.  He wasn't thrilled with the idea at first, but after some gentle coaxing (not annoying badgering at all!) from me, he came around. We were able to get everything except the gates finished.  I am telling you, we worked our tails off, but it looks fantastic!  I am going to love feeling safe in our back yard!

We love our school system and have decided that we are going to stay in our house at least until the kiddos are in middle school (the residential opportunities open up greatly once the kids are in middle school).  So, that means that we are attempting to fix up the house in ways that we had put off when we thought we would move.  A couple of weeks ago, we put a fire pit in and I LOVE it!  It is so great to be able to have bonfires whenever we want (no worries, we live outside of city limits!) and the kids love the chance to have S'mores!  I have been making a list of the different things we want to do around here and my home improvement board ("Fixin' Up The Ol' Homestead") on Pinterest is getting longer! Once the fence gates are finished, I think landscaping is next on my agenda.

So, my question to you dear reader(s) is this: what DIY project have you done around your house?  Would you do anything differently with it now that you have done it? What is your next DIY Home Improvement Project?

Blessings,

Theresa