Been a while!!

Sorry it's been s while since I've posted anything, so I thought I'ld catch everyone up........ with everything!
Talmage is in his second semester at Colorado Film School and has quickly become known as "THE EDITOR" at school. He is booked with projects all semester and has even been recommended by his teachers to other students for help. He loves his classes and has been keeping busy between that and working in the "cage".
I am still trucking along at MLK, and really coming into my own groove there. I love the kiddos (most of the time) and we are currently preparing for our spring concert. I have given the kids harder music and set the performance bar really high- so far they have risen to the occasion and have really been working hard to learn parts and work all the other musicality portions into their performances. It is hard work, and I am exhausted by the end of the day, but we have fun. :)

I am still eating Primal and have loved the results! I hit my 20 pound mark this morning (I did a lilttle dance in the bathroom) and am almost at my goal weight. Even when I do reach my goal I do plan to keep eating this way because I feel sooooo good, I get to experiment in the kitchen (almond flour pancakes were a major fail yesterday, due to a stupid recipe), and the food rocks. It has become so easy to plan meals or even eat out. I LOVE IT!! I think my ma may even try to eat primal- I'm excited to see how she does :)

Had an awesome girls day out with my mom on Saturday in one of the coolest stores ever! Charming Charlies was so much fun- we spent two whole hours looking at jewelry, purses, hair accesories, and clothes. I have to say it is always so nice to spend time with the mama, she makes my heart happy:)

We had a great weekend last weekend which we were able to share with our good friends Evan and Karina. Other than Thanksgiving it was the first time we hosted at our house. I made an AWESOME salmon filet and veggies, and they brought Scattergories. Needless to say it was a night full of good company, great conversations, fun Mario moments, and hilarious answers to scattergories....(things that grow----muffin tops!!) Can't wait to have them over again.

Talmage has been encouraging me to become a certified ZUMBA instructor since I love to do it, and I have had several requests by other people to do so....... I'm thinking I will try to do that this summer and see how it goes from there. For right now I'm content to take classes at the rec center.

All in all we are moving forward, having fun, enjoying each others' company, and still very much in love. Life is good!

The Paleo continues

Alrighty folks I gotta say I officially am hooked! I have slept better than I usually do, had enough energy (on a MONDAY!!) to sew a complete pair of pants and do yoga :), and I am having fun challenging myself to try new things and create new recipes. I even bought brussell sprouts this weekend! I know- amazing right? I still haven't been brave enought to try them, but I will definately share the results. As weird as this may be I took a picture of my lunch to share with you- this is rapidly becoming my favorite lunch, the paleo BLT.

I have continued to lose weight, and feel myself not dragging by lunch time- thanks to not having a glucose crash. And I am not craving candy like I used to. The first couple of days I HAD to have some dark chocolate and 3-4 squares at that. Now if I have one square I find myself feeling sugared out- and I never thought that was possible.

Overall I LOVE IT!!

Catch up!

Alright, so as previously stated in my last post, we have gone PALEO! I think that the hardest part for me initially was cleaning out my pantry. When I saw how much stuff went into the boxes for "food storage" I had a mini panic attck. I've always loved an overstocked pantry for those just-in-case moments. Well here are the pics to prove what a loss it was:)

BEFORE AFTER

The baking goods on the bottom of this

pic were only left there due to not wanting

to move them downstairs.......

To get started with this whole process I stepped on the scale, GASP!! After a wonderful week with family and Utah I was looking at the beautiful number (sarcastic) of 186 and a smaller wardrobe selection. I had decided to follow this PALEO trip on myfitnesspal.com as well so that I can track calories and just exactly what I eat and how I lose weight with this lifestyle.

So I "half-started" on Sunday, by which I mean I ate PALEO but had some sparkling cider and a small candy bar. Even with that I still felt better (minus the caffiene headache).

Monday was hard-especially since it was my last day before returning to work, so it was easy to be lazy, but I DID IT!! Yay for a conscious effort :)

Tuesday was soooooo easy since I pre-packed my meals for my work day. I didn't have to think about what I was eating and I really enjoyed my meals and was completely satisfied. I think that Talmage is enjoying this eating style because I am cooking every night to ensure that we are eating good stuff :) My only complaint about that is the amount of dishes I have to do now hehe. I already noticed my energy levels were higher and my body felt better too.

Wednesday-I was worried about this day because it was my first day back with students and I tend to snack on junk food when I'm teaching or the kiddos stress me out. That was the first night I made sure that we had dark chocolate on hand- I REALLY needed something sweet after a full and busy day, but I stuck to PALEO, even going out to dinner with friends at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, and upped my water intake (and bathroom trips)!

So today is Thursday and I feel like a rockstar :)My second time on the scale read 179- I am down 6 pounds already!!! I am definately not a PALEO expert and I have a lot of exploring to do when it comes to preparing different dishes, but I really feel confident that this is a lifestyle that I can adopt for long term. After a lovely text conversation with the wonderful Kristyan in regards to the 21 day plan in the back of the book we are using I will be adding the appropriate

excersises and suggested plan for the day since I was not paying close attention to that. With the amount of success I've had just cutting out processed foods I'm sure that I'll be one hot mama even quicker by working out a bit too:)

YAY for PALEO!!

Going Paleo?? Our adventure starts.......

So here we are.... 2012 and already starting a new "diet"

Due to some inspiration from Kristyan and Aaron during our Utah stay we have decided to go PALEO. We are definately piggy-backing off K & A since it was their original plan, but I am excited to see how well this works for us (since I love meat😄). I thought it would be fun to blog about the experience and see how those around me feel about this eating style. If you are doing PALEO too add your comments and observations, i'ld love to hear them

So today I did a mini PALEO intro to my system. I tries to eat as PALEO as possible but I did give in to a few treats and used ranch dressing on my salad. The only complaint I have so far is the headache I have from not having had any soda today. I hope that will go away soon, especially once processes sugars (my downfall) out of my system.

Wish us luck-more info to come.

Final Walk Through

So today we had our final walk-through in the house with the builder.

Everything looks really good, and there were only a few little things to fix before

we close on Friday! This is soooo exciting!

So here is one more look into the finished great room.

This is looking into the finished kitchen -appliances and all (no fridge)

And here we are standing in front of our new place (as of next friday)

Here is the landscaping that they did this week. We have rock along the front

of the house and the side, shrubs, grass, and a couple of trees!

Almost there!!

So we are getting close to the closing date-which should be about the 8th (the 4th of July weekend messes everything up! Darn independance :)

We went on another house field trip and were so exited to see what

was going on in our house!

WE HAVE CARPET!!!!!!!

Not only that but all countertops, cupboards, sinks, and fixtures are in- WOO HOO

This is my new favorite pic of the house. This is looking down stairs into the

great room from the upstairs hallway. You can see the carpet and the entry way light fixture- SO PRETTY :) Doesn't it look like a real house?

Here we have another kitchen view with the countertops and sink in- still waiting

for the appliances.

Here's another shot of the kitchen. looking in from the great room.

This is our downstairs rec room, all prettied up with fixtures and carpet.

We are so ready to be in this house and are counting down the days!

Two weeks and counting!

So we went out again today and we found a few new things to show you all! I'm starting to get really excited and planning what I want to do with the house (girly stuff). T is already wanting to look into "energy saving" stuff like solar and wind technologies and how to landscape the back yard :)

So here are some of our doors- they have been painted and are

awaiting installment in our basement

Here is our laundry room, with LINOLEUM and the counter top base!

This is the BEST part! We have kitchen cabinets (bathrooms too) and Linoleum throughout the house! Plus the carpenter guy was there working away on putting the base for our countertops up in the kitchen and bathrooms!

This is looking into the kitchen from the great room. It's starting to feel like a real kitchen

Coming along!

So here's the latest on the house-

WE HAVE GUTTERS! :)

Not too exciting, but it's always fun to see the little things.

Here are the cabinets that will be going into the kitchen

and bathrooms. It's exciting to see them in the garage

but it will be even better to have them in the house:)

Here is a view from the upstairs into the great room

and entry way. We have texture on the walls, and rails

on the stairways and entry way walls.

Here's a look into the great room with texture on the

walls, although they aren't in this picture there are

baseboards in all the rooms now and the doors are

installed and painted.

We have walls!! (sort of)

So we went out for another visit and check on the progress of the house. So last time we went they had put the insulation in and set out sheet rock for the rooms. Today we had walls!!! There were several workers at the house taping and puttying the sheetrock that had all been put up. There was even a guy on stilts- and I thought that was so cool so I'm including that pic :)

This is looking into the kitchen from the great room.


This is looking into the great room from the kitchen


We were excited when we pulled up to the house because it's been painted! It's not completely done (a few accent colors and the handrails) but it's starting to feel like a real home.

Visit #5

So we headed over for another house visit this afternoon and found the house empty- no workers at all. Which is a first. So I figured I'ld get a shot with the garage closed and show that it is really starting to look real. They finished putting in all the insulation and it looks like they've prepared all the sheetrock to be put up soon. We almost have walls!! It's starting to feel more and more like a real house :)

Visit #4

So this week Talmage and I got to go and pick our carpets, vinyl, tile, and countertops. We had fun doing that and found that we had very similar tastes so we were able to make decisions pretty easily. The woman we worked with, Tammy, said that we were some of the fastest people she's worked with :) So here is the picture of what we chose:

The carpet(to the left) is called "fleck" since it has several tones in it. Then we have the linoleum that will be in the kitchen, laundry room, and powder room. The upstairs bathrooms will have similar colored linoleum but with a smaller square pattern. The dark square is what our countertops will look like and the tile is the backsplash. As you can tell we went fairly nuetral but we are happy with our choices!

We went out to visit the house today and there were several changes including; the driveway and front steps had been poured, the HVAC and electrical had all been finished, AND the stone is on the front of the house! Here are some pics!

Visit #3

So I'm sure you must think we are crazy having three posts in two days, but what happened was I didn't post anything until yesterday and then we went for our third visit today. Not too much has changed. They have finished shingling the roof, they are carving out our stairs, and the HVAC guys were there installing today. Here are the new pics...... Have I mentioned how excited we are??

House work

So we signed our contract on Thursday June 2nd which is the video in the previous post. Then we went back on Saturday June 4th and took some more pics, it's amazing how fast the work is being done!

BIG NEWS!!!!

Sheesh it's been forever since I posted anything! So here is a quick catch up-

-I just finished my third year teaching music at Place Bridge Academy and start teaching summer school tomorrow.

-We got to spend a weekend in Utah visiting family (ironically mine too)

-We moved to Broomfield

-Talmage got accepted to Colorado Film School and starts this August, he is soooo excited.

- Our kitty broke her leg in December (no idea how) but she's all better now

and the best news ever??? WE JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE!!

We are so excited, this is really our first big purchase/decision as a married couple. We close on July 8th and will spend the rest of the month (minus Nielsenhaven) to clean, paint, and move. We can't wait to have our own place and to have everyone over to visit!

I will try to do weekly posts since the house is still being built, we want to monitor the progress.

We hope you enjoy seeing the progress as much as we do!

This is the video Talmage took on June 3rd right before we signed the contract.

So I gotta apologize to everyone who has been receiving stupid flixter alerts and emails. They have been coming through my blog and annoying us all!! Talmage made sure to double check and delete accounts and cancel notifications....... So sorry for all the stupid stuff.

Burger King Performance

So this last Saturday, October 3rd, our choir and band kids had the opportunity to perform at the neighborhood Burger King for their "re-grand opening". We had so much fun there and the place was PACKED with parents, students, teacher, and unwitting hungry people! The Arts Director for the whole district was there and our principal rode the bus over with us. Our kids were so excited to go and they did so well with their performances.
I had 10 of my 19 kiddos that were able to come, so I admit that I was worried about our performance, but they stepped it up and sounded so beautiful. I have a great group of kids this year and they are trying so hard this year to do everything I ask them to. After our last song, the principal came up to us in tears to tell them how wonderful they sounded. What a neat experience!
The band performed as well and did an outstanding job. It was just so neat to see these kids that struggle with so many issues outside of school come together and bond as a group. I am so proud of my kiddos, and I expect many more great things from them. We have already been invited to perform at the local Whole Foods during the holiday season! So much fun!


On the home front, Talmage and I are doing great. We hit our one year mark the end of August, and have loved every minute of married life. Talmage is doing well in school, and loves his math class-which I think is sooooo weird! :) I have been sick for a while and finally got the diagnosis of walking pnemeunia so I was out of school almost a full week, but the rest was much needed. I am slowly recouperating and taking it easy whenever I get the chance.
Volleyball season has started, our first game is Monday. I don't expect much this first game, so hopefully that will kick their butts into gear for later. :)
I am taking a Thursday night class that is ORFF based (a music teaching method that is amazing!) I am having so much fun and learning so much that I use in the classroom on a daily basis. I also received a scholarship to the Rocky Mountain ORFF Association for this school year, which means that I get to attend 5 different clinics throughout the year all ORFF based. I am officially an ORFF nerd!!!
So all in all WE ARE GREAT!!!

The school year thus far

So both Talmage and I are enjoying our school years so far. I feel much more relaxed and confident in my ability and knowledge, plus my choir is ROCKIN! They are a small group (20), but it's amazing how much of a difference it makes when all the kids want to be there, woo hoo! Our schools music department has been invited to perform at the nieghborhood Burger King re-grand opening which the kids are excited about.......we'll see how that goes.
Talmage is rockin his classes. He likes them all, especially math, and is doing so well keeping up with work, school work, and me! hehe I am so proud of him and all his hard work, makes me want to go back to school. Other than that, it's life as normal.

Classroom 2009-2010

This is a preliminary view if my classroom for this year. The pic
includes my word wall, my solfege tree, and the awesome instrument
stands that my dad kindly made me! Im so excited for the upcoming year.

EDUCATION

So Talmage is officially enrolled in college classes!!! After applications, orientation, entrance exams, and a lengthy wait in the advisors office Talmage is signed up for 14 credit hours for the upcoming fall semester. I am so excited for him and what this will mean for us in the future :)

Truffles

So obviously I have time on my hands! These Oreo truffles were so
super easy and fun to make. Just thought i'ld share.