me to a T - Tracey Odachowski

is all mine!!

This thing is a gem. I could sing its praises all day. I sooooooooooo don’t clean, and yet I have been today! All because of this! Here’s what I wrote earlier about it, right after I finished cleaning with it:

Halelujah for Target 10% off coupons. I’ve been eyeing up smaller versions, and this week decided I was sick of the crud, so I had to get one NOW. This was all they had.

I. Love. It.

OMG! It makes cleaning SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO easy!!!!!!! My oven…clean. Microwave. Frig. All I did was run the steam over them, and wipe off! THAT IS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew I loved this puppy when I went up to our bathroom. Turns out that our idiot builder installed one of the shower doors on upside down. Hence, the grooves in the washcloth/towel bar that should be facing DOWN face UP and collect nastiness. I cannot clean them, and Lord knows I’ve tried. So, I took my new baby to the shower. Ran that sucker along the bar. And, that’s as far as I’m gonna go, b/c you do NOT want to know about the MOUNDS OF NASTINESS that was then spattered all over the shower walls from being instantly projected out of there! IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!! Had it not been SOOOOOOOOOOOOO NASTY, I would have taken a picture just to prove how awesome it worked. AMAZING, I TELL YA!!!!!!!! FRIGGIN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But wait, what are all of these little pieces? So, I looksee through the book, I realized just how many things I can use it for - floors, the grill, STEAMING CLOTHES, the patio furniture, apolstery and carpet cleaning…IN A LITTLE $99 PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s the Holy Grail of Cleaning Wonderfulness.

It’s one downfall? It is a wee bit bulky and a little heavy, but not too bad. I do wish it had a retractable cord or at least some place to wrap it up. But hey. I’ll deal. Cuz this sucker rocks my world.

Thanks for letting me share. Weekly enabling session over.

*****edited - Kelly so intuitively pointed out that I never told you the NAME of the thing!!! DUH! It is the Euro Pro Professional Steam Caddy Steam Machine. And 10% of at Target??? That is a direct result of the Target Visa Card. You get 1 point for every $1 you spend at Target, and 1/2 point for every $1 spent elsewhere. I use it exclusively for my online shopping so I don’t have to use my bank card. When you collect 1000 points, you get a 10% shopping DAY - online and in stores, as many times as you want in a day. That includes prescriptions! And speaking of which, for every 10 prescriptions you get there, you earn another 10% day. Plus, in December, they run a special that if you spend $250 at the store, you get ANOTHER 10% day. (and, really, how hard is that in December?????) So, in other words, I kinda racked up some coupons lately, and this is how I used it.

It sure took me long enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I FINALLY hit my 10% goal at Weight Watchers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That means 18.2 pounds GONE! Yes, when I started last April, I will now admit, I weighed a whopping 188.4 pounds. On a 5′3″ body. Yikes. And, while 170 is nothing to be thrilled about in the LONG term, is sure is great for now!!!!!

It was ironic, but at our meeting today, we talked about negative and positive thinking, and I realized that, when it comes to my weight loss, I am finally, 100% in the positive thinking category. While every day is a struggle, I have never said that I failed anything. I may be frustrated from week to week, but I have NEVER failed. How can I say that I failed when I’ve lost 18 pounds!?!? And, while it may not be coming off as quickly as I would prefer, IT IS STILL COMING OFF. It was great to sit there and realize that I had a positive turnaround for every negative comment thrown out. Yes, I still have a long way to go. No, I have not made my final goal yet. I would LOVE to hit 135 again (my wedding day, pre-kid weight), but I know it may not be possible. So I just keep losing pound by pound, and when I feel like I reached my goal, I’ll declare it. In the meantime, I try to take one little goal at a time…my next goal? Lose 0.4 pounds so I can be in the 160s again. Man, that 6 is gonna look SOOOOOOO sweet.

I do have pre-weight-loss pics that I can share, but I want to put on the same clothes and take pictures of me in them for a REAL comparison. Until then, happy goal-keeping!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thought I’d share my new digi paper kit up at Scrapvillage.

I was also super thrilled that my fellow City Planner, Jennifer Wellborn, did a matching embellishment kit! :

I can’t tell you how much it means to see this paper pack up. I actually designed it over a year ago, out of boredom. Wanted to try something new, so I designed paper. LOL. I hope you all like it!!!!!!!!!

My uber cute boy and the projects we worked on this weekend.

First, the Valentines. ‘We’ (meaning mommy did the work, Gabe told mommy to use any color but pink…ok, he did decide that he wanted a smiley face and a heart, and he did write his name on a piece of paper for me to import into the image…) made these Saturday night, then put them together on Sunday. I LOVE THEM! I’m ready to do this every year!

When I was taking the pictures of them, he begged to pose behind them. He’s so proud of them! (do you see the thumbs up sign??? LOL!)

Lastly, he also had a project due for his class. HIS VERY FIRST PROJECT! WOO HOO!!!!! He was soooooooooooo thrilled to be able to legitimately ‘play’ with all of the toys in my office. First we cut the title on my Wishblade (which is probably his favorite of all of my toys). He glued them using my glue pen, then just *HAD* to use the brayer to make sure they would stick. After putting the photos on there, he was allowed to write w/ my galaxy markers. Then he came up with the brilliant idea of punching stars around the edges. He finished it with some of the Hambly stickers that Allison sent (thank you again!) and some of my old old old Creative Memories stickers. (seeee, Traci - THIS is why I haven’t thrown stuff away! I knew it would come in handy!!!) OMG, I cannot tell you how much fun I had doing a project like this with him. Totally the highlight of my week!!!!!!!

Oh, and do you see the sentence he wrote under 2002’s picture???

“Mommy takes lots of pictures.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Yeah, lets just say that finding pictures for this project wasn’t really very difficult.

That looking up from my bags in the Atlanta airport and seeing Miss Kelly Goree standing there was the highlight of my trip? Oh yes. And when she stood in the middle of the plane for 45 minutes chatting w/ me. hehe

(There you go. I said it, ok? I’ve paid the ransom. Now send me my pictures Kelly!)

edited…

Hey look! It worked! Kelly just sent me this lovely picture. Isn’t she a DOLL!!!! Omg, girl, you have to be the cutest little bundle of energy I know! How in the heck do you stay so energized with three BOYS?????

To take some pictures tomorrow of the things Gabe and I are working on tonight. He has a project due on Monday - Has to do a poster board of a picture from each year of his life and then write captions under it and decorate. HELLO??? CAN YOU SCREAM SON OF A SCRAPBOOKER???? Oh, man, I’m trying so hard to not make it look like I did it all. He’s really the one doing it, but I just wanna say, “Put this here, and this is so cool…” Blah blah. We already did the title with my Wishblade. And he is helping me get rid of my VERY old stash of Creative Memories stickers, though. lol. And, of course, I just HAD to give him some Hambly stickers to put on there (thanks Allison! I swear your sticker care packages have made you my kids’ favorite person that they’ve never met!)

We also made digi Valentine’s cards from scratch. OMG - they are so cute. I hope they are still ‘cool’…don’t want him to be the uncool kid. They are going to be bag toppers. Just have to go buy some candy tomorrow.

Ok…gotta get to bed so we can finish this stuff tomorrow! Cannot wait to show them off!

and I’m sick. Ugh. I was jet-lagged for about 4 days after my return from California, and now it has turned into a major sore throat. Ugh. Ugh Ugh.

However, CHA was a total blast. I had the wonderful privelege of hanging out in the Dream Street booth. What a bunch of great gals! And, of course, I was running back and forth to the Uniform Designs booth, as well. I did have a bit of a chance to walk the floor. While I wasn’t as captivated w/ everything as I was last year, I still scoped some things that I will be purchasing eventually.

In the mean time, the show seemed to present itself with some wonderful opportunities that I can’t really share. Soon, baby. Soon.

I did get to room with my girl Alexis again, and the Sandra Bullock look-alike, Amy Teets. (and, evidentally, some people think I look like Katie Couric [??], so we were one celebrity-filled room!) OMG, we had SOOOOOO much fun. Thankfully, Alexis and I did get a WEE bit more sleep than we did last year! Really, it was just a great, great getaway.

Oh, and if you took a picture with me (coughKELLYcough) can you send it to me? od529@cox.net. It seems that all of the pics of me were taken with everyone else’s cameras!

So, now, back to reality. On Monday I received my most recent copy of Simple Scrapbooks Magazine. And guess who is on pages 80-82?? ME! They published one of the VERY few mini-albums I’ve ever done, and it is by far my favorite. They also decided to do an online extension, as well. Today I received an email from Lisa at Creating Keepsakes to pub another layout, so, yeah, it’s been a very good scrapping week! Well, and there is this other thing, but if I told you I’d have to kill you. OH! Wait, there is more! Memory Makers asked me to contribute to Hillary’s kit club article. I’m not sure where all of these blessings came from, but I’ll take them!

So I guess that’s about it. Gonna go stuff my mouth w/ some Hall’s cough drops and hope for the best.

Toodles!