Getting started with Cricut

I remember the first day I owned a Cricut. It was the day after Thanksgiving, 2008.

I had gone Black Friday shopping with my parents solely because I had seen a Cricut Expression (the original one) advertised at Wal-Mart for CHEAP. I think it was something in the neighborhood of $199. At the time it was a steal. I rushed into the store somewhere around 6 am, fingers crossed that they still had just one left. Well they had a whole ton left. Apparently there aren't many paper crafters in my area willing to get up at 5 am to score a Cricut on the cheap. Their loss was my win.

In the beginning, I didn't use it that much. I didn't have the space to set it up to be conveniently accessible and every time I needed/wanted to use it I had to drag it to the living room floor and spread all my papers, glues and glitters all over the floor. It was a mess and my boyfriend was not appreciative of my habits. I wasn't even appreciative of my habits. It was annoying and made me not want to use it.

So now I have a crafting area with a table and everything. It's exciting. But really this isn't exactly what this post is about. It's about things that are helpful when you're just starting out with the Cricut.

Here's a list of the top 3 things I feel are necessary to start using your Cricut, regardless of what you're using it for (be it scrapbooking, cardmaking, school projects or anything else your heart desires).

1. Extra mats - This is especially helpful if you're doing a large or long term project. It will never fail that when you're in the midst of a crafting binge or you're almost done with your project, your mat will not be sticky enough to finish up the cutting you need done and you'll realize it's the last mat you have on hand.
2. Some sort of cartridge storage - Once you get into buying more than then one or two cartridges you'll probably start out with, you're going to find that you need somewhere to put all of the books, mats and cartridges themselves. It can be easy enough to make some sort of storage (just Google it) or you can purchase something.
3. A tool kit - The spatula is nearly essential for lifting intricate designs off the mat. Some of the smaller tools available are also handy for lifting small designs and helping place them on whatever project you're working on.

 And here are a few cartridges I feel are worthwhile when you're starting out.

1. Wild Card - This is full of great shaped cards and other accents that are especially helpful if you're a card maker. It's really helpful even if you're not a cardmaker too. It's got something for just about every holiday from Mother's and Father's Day to Halloween and Christmas.
2. Doodlecharms - Lots of cute things to cut out (from ice cream to  and it even helps you make shaped tags.
3. Stretch Your Imagination - This is a great cartridge if you do a lot of vertical layouts or want tall things. It has options for regular cuts and taller, stretched out cuts. There are several options for each season/holidays.
4. Everyday Paper Dolls - This is essential if you want to add people to your projects. There are a ton of clothing and accessory options so you can mix and match. You can even make old-fashioned paper dolls (as the title suggests), which could make great gifts.

What did you start out with when you first got your Circut? What would you recommend people get when they're starting out? What is your favorite cartridge (or 2 or 3)?

Italian Parmesan Kraft Fresh Take Review - Foodie Friday

This is not a sponsored post and all products mentioned were purchased by me or family members with our own money.

I apologize in advance for the strange pictures of the chicken. I forgot to snap a picture on the actual night we had it for dinner, but remembered when my husband was eating leftovers for lunch the next day.

I've seen the coupons, received the emails and even seen a few advertisements for Kraft's new Fresh Take and I decided that some of the flavors sounded delicious, so I had to try it.

So what is it? It's a cheese and breadcrumb mixture (somewhat ala Shake and Bake, but has cheese in addition to breadcrumbs). You can use it to coat many different types of meat including fish, chicken and pork chops, as well as adding it to other recipes - the package suggests using it as a topping for twice baked potatoes among other things.

It comes in several flavors: Southwest Three Cheese, Italian Parmesan, Rosemary and Roasted Garlic, Cheddar Jack and Bacon, Chili Lime and Panko and Savory Four Cheese.

For the purposes of this review, I will be talking about the Italian Parmesan. I have other flavors in my fridge, just waiting to be sampled so there should be a few more reviews coming!

 

Zumba Fitness 2 Wii Review

This is not a sponsored post and all products mentioned were either purchased with my own money or given to me as gifts by friends and/or family members.

So last week I did a review on the first Wii Zumba game and this week, I'm going to tell you a little bit about the second game. If you'd like, you can read the first review (if you haven't already) and then come back and read this one.

If I had to use one word to describe the difference between the first game and the second game, I'd use harder.

It's not any harder to figure out, nor any harder to play. To me, it just seems like a harder work out. By the end of even a 20 minute routine (known as a short routine in this game) I was huffing, puffing and sweating like it was 100 degrees in the shade. I'll be honest - I thought that since I was getting pretty good at the first game, the second game would be a piece of cake. I'd just use it to switch up songs and be on my way.

Holy cow as I wrong!

I ordered the game from Amazon last week and got it last Saturday. I was out of town until late Saturday night so the first time I got to play was Sunday. I have played at least once, if not twice, a day since then.

I LOVE the new music. It's so much more current and some of the songs you can actually hear on the radio, so that's exciting. There's a good mix of fast songs to get you excited and get your heart rate up and there's a good mix of slower songs to warm up to or just take it a bit easier with.

As with the first game, there are a number of preselected workouts categorized by length and then by intensity. They can either be short (20 minutes), mid-length (45 minutes) or full class (60 minutes). From there, you can choose an intensity: low, medium or high. There are also 5 different venues you can play the game in, which is great for switching up the scenery.

One of the best parts, in my opinion, is the ability to make your own playlist/routine. You can choose from all available songs and put them into any order, thus making your routine the exact length and intensity you want.

I'll be honest, sometimes I feel like 20 minutes is too short and 45 minutes is too long. I've created a playlist of my own that's about 30 minutes. It's fairly high intensity and I've chosen all my favorite songs. It makes it so much easier to get through the routine when I know what songs are left and exactly how much longer I have to work out.

That said, the one thing I really miss from the first game is the countdown timer. I miss knowing that I only have a minute left of a particular song/routine when my legs feel like jelly and I'm ready to be done. It helps me be able to power through that last minute and really give it my all instead of letting my butt drag because I'm ready to be done.

I also really like that there's a next move cue in this game, not that I still don't flail around a bit while I'm learning the the routines. It's quite helpful to have a head's up of what's coming next. I'll be honest though, it's not much help when you're first learning the routines. While the cue seems self explanatory sometimes, it isn't always. It's much more helpful once you've learned the basics of the routines.

This game also has a progress tracker that keeps track of things like your weight (which you can update in your profile), accuracy and calories burned. At the end of each routine you're shown a screen that has your movement accuracy, calories burned and a score. I'm not convinced that the calorie count is accurate and prefer to base my calories burned on what MyFitnessPal.com tells me based on what I've entered.

So overall, I really enjoy Zumba Fitness 2. It feels much more intense than the original and has so far been well worth the money.

Do you have either Zumba game or do Zumba in another form? How do you like it? Would you like to hear updates on my progress with Zumba? Let me know!

 

Weight Loss Challenge Pt. 2 - Food - Foodie Friday

This is the second in a two part series about a weight loss challenge I've become involved with through a group I'm part of online. Click here for Part 1 - Exercise.

I've been keeping track of the foods I eat by and exercise I do using the MyFitnessPal app on my phone. It is amazing! I really cannot say enough good things about it, especially the phone app. It even gives you the option of scanning the UPC of whatever you're about to eat and up pops the nutrition info! Amazing!

I have still been eating the same stuff and I know that some of it isn't the best for you (but who can really resist a McDonald's Filet-o-Fish during Lent??). I've just been trying to eat less overall. I want a candy bar? Yep I'll eat it, but not the king size, or maybe even not the whole candy bar. Burger King sounds delicious? I'll have a smaller sandwich and not a big one (ie. Whopper Jr. v. Whopper) and probably share half or more of my friends with my husband.

So far it's been working, but slow going. After looking back I realized we started February 8 and just had our week 7 weigh in on 3/21. I'm down 5 pounds. I started off strong losing 2 pounds in the first week and 3 in the second. Then I gained a pound for two weeks in a row. I rebounded nicely and I'm now down a total of 5.2 pounds.

Here's a typical day in for me (calorie goal of 1,570):

Breakfast
2 eggs scrambled in 1/2 Tbs. margarine
1 flour tortilla
1/8 c. shredded cheese (really just a sprinkling)
1 chewable vitamin (I use Centrum)
1 bottle of water
(Sometimes I add some fruit like bananas, strawberries or orange juice)

Total calories: About 310 + whatever fruit for the day

Lunch
Leftovers from the night before
or
Frozen pizza
Pop (or soda as some may call it) or water if I haven't finished my water from breakfast

Total calories: Averages about 600

Dinner
This varies a lot since I'm not the only one I cook for at this meal.

Total calories: Averages 500

Snacks
Fruit
Philadelphia Indulgence (find my review of it here)
Candy
Cake

Total calories: Generally less than 200 of my calories each day comes from snacking

If you're adding that up, you might think I go over my calorie allotment every day, but I don't.
It's also important to note that my recommended calorie consumption is based on food alone and does not take into account any exercise. If I ate at/under 1,570 calories each day, I would lose about 1.5 pounds a week. When I exercise, I get to eat more. If I don't eat all of the calories I burned in exercise, I have an overage that can be a bit of a pad for days I don't work out as much or special treats.

Weight Loss Challenge Pt. 1 - Exercise - Zumba Wii Review

This is the first in a two part series about a weight loss challenge I've become involved with through a group I'm part of online. This is not a sponsored post and all products mentioned were either purchased with my own money or given to me as gifts by friends and/or family members.

Sometime about 6 weeks ago an online group I'm a part of decided to start a weight loss challenge. We could choose our own goal weight/number of pounds to lose and the challenge would end on June 1. Our check ins are on Wednesday and for the most part, I think I'm the only one still keeping track - at least according to the last few weeks of  updating the document. But anyhow...

I chose 30 pounds. In reality it's about 10 pounds more than I could really lose in that time period if I lost 1.5 to 2 pounds a week. I know this, but it's still my goal. I know that for me, it's probably unrealistic to lose 2 pounds a week, especially in the beginning. I'm trying to change my lifestyle as well as lose weight.

Tomorrow's Foodie Friday post will talk about how I keep track of food and what I eat. Today's post is about what I do for exercise.

Happy second day of spring!

Yesterday was the first day of spring and boy was it a hot one! Today is going to break the record as well with temps in the mid 80s. It's only March. I'm going to hate to see July.

The other day I walked around my yard and snapped these pretty flowers.

There were a few daffodils blooming.

And a few crocuses. I love that these are usually the first flowers of the season. They're so dainty yet so strong since they have been known to poke up through the snow.

Happy Dating Anniversary!

Who knew that about 5 years ago when my sister first brought this ginormous person to our house for a BBQ we would start dating less than a year later?

Somebody must have because I sure didn't. I'll be honest. It was not love at first sight. In fact the first real memory I have of him is July 4th. My sister, her boyfriend and him were using sparklers in the yard. They decided to play Harry Potter wands with them and someone *ahem* caught the lawn on fire. Of course that was the perfect reason to turn the hose on all of them!

So we started dating March 10, 2008 and really the rest is history. We've been through a lot, more than some couples go through in an entire lifetime together. And we've made it work.

We got engaged on March 9, 2010.

And married on April 16, 2011.

Meal Planning - Foodie Friday

After a particularly frustrating week of playing "What should we have for dinner?" and feeling mostly like I'd lost, I decided something needed to change. I feel/felt like we were eating the SAME things every night, or every other night. Dinner was quickly becoming the meal I hated to eat.

"What's for dinner?" was met with the same staples: roast, steak and hamburgers. Well we sure had the beef industry booming. Our taste buds? Not so much. As much as I love a good steak or a well cooked pot roast, there are really only so many ways to cook them - or at least so many ways that the people I have to feed will eat.

The mouths I currently need to feed include mine, my husband's, my mom's and my dad's. We're all adults and should be past the "ewww no that's icky" stage, right? Or not. My husband will eat just about anything, save a few things. My mom hates chicken that "tastes like chicken" and for the last several weeks has been fixing her own food on the side because she doesn't want what's for dinner (Want to bet what kind of evil eye I'd get if I tried that with her cooking??). My dad likes to think he's an adventurous eater, but really he likes to say "That looks/sounds good" and then only eat two bites of it before he decides it's not his favorite. I LOVE to cook and I love to try cooking new things. I find that most things I might turn up my nose at if someone else made it, I readily eat, and add to my "must cook again" list, if I make it myself.

And so that is where we stood on Wednesday. Fed up with dinner and eating the same rotation of roast, steak and hamburgers. "No more!" I said and decided that dinners will once again be yummy.

I went in search of meal planning guides. What do I need to know to meal plan? What IS a meal plan? How can it help me? Google was most definitely my friend.

And then I found Vertex42.com and their meal planner section.

I decided to use their monthly meal planner because I think it would be most helpful for me to see a month at a time so we aren't stuck having tacos every Tuesday (though we have before and Taco Tuesday was quite fun for some months).

It's got space where you enter all of the meals and sides you'd like to be options for each month you're working on and then when you go back to the main calendar view, you choose the meals and sides for each day from drop down menus. IT'S AMAZING!

It made it so easy for me to think of what we already have in the freezer and input things based on that. I also made a "Freezer meal" option for those days I don't want to actually cook much. Those are things like frozen dinners or already prepared just heat and eat type meals. (To be honest, we don't eat those all that much)

So I sat down to plan out the rest of the month and came up with a plan that repeats only a few things.

I also hope that this helps us make better use of sales on meats especially. We tend to buy a bunch of meat when we realize the freezer is empty and then continue to re-buy the things we run out of regardless of whether or not it's on sale.

How do you figure out the "What's for dinner?" dilemma? Any tips or tricks to meal planning?

Philadelphia Indulgence Review - Foodie Friday

Let me start this by saying that this is not sponsored in any way. Kraft/Philadelphia doesn't even know I'm writing a blog post about it. I (ok well my mom) purchased this with my/her own money at our local grocery store. We also used a coupon in case you're wondering.

And now on with the show!

I love chocolate. I love cream cheese. What better idea to smash them together and eat them as one, right?

Sort of.