Sick of tuna.

For the pats couple months I've been trying to lose weight. I went to my primary doctor at the end of April and weighed (keep in mind this was in the afternoon, after lunch & fully clothed)...... 275lbs... That's really not acceptable. And think how heavy I'll be when I get pregnant! ACK! So, since then I've committed to a healthier lifestyle. I'm not getting into any diet pills because of the chance of getting pregnant. So I'm doing it all natural. I used to eat a lot of cookies & such throughout the day; now I don't. That's probably the biggest, hardest change I've made. Any cookies I eat are 100 calorie packs (I generally have one a day). For breakfast I have a bowl of cereal (currently generic Honey Bunches of Oats). For lunch I either have a tuna sandwich or a frozen Lean Cuisine (of course I don't eat it frozen). That's getting old. I haven't changed up our dinners much, but we eat a lot of chicken and pork. I don't do hamburger helper or any other prepacked dinner anymore. We still do tacos, burgers, and occasionally pasta. I try to add a green veggie or salad to every meal for me (Clint doesn't like "rabbit food"). Side dishes are getting difficult. I don't do any frozen potatoes (i make my own oven fries, mashies, etc) anymore. I've switched from canned to frozen corn. But mac & cheese was a big part of our life before. I've made a healthier mac & cheese from scratch (boxed m&c has tons of sodium!) but Clint didn't love it... so I'm trying to find another recipe that I think he'll like. And I'm using wheat mac. I often get a craving at night, and I'll either have 60 calorie pudding, a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich or a SmartOnes frozen dessert. The other big change I've made is that I have completely cut out soda! I haven't even had a sip since May 1st or 2nd, and it's amazing how much I don't miss it! I used to have at least one can a day, often 2. Now, I drink green tea with lunch and fresh brewed iced tea with dinner.

I also exercise! I walk Zoey almost every day, the route I usually go is 1.74 miles. Sometimes I do closer to 2, sometimes 1.5. The past couple weeks I've been doing a work out DVD. It's a dance one... I can't remember the name.. something like "10 Minute Solution." It's got a few 10 minute segments and I've mastered the "Simple Slimmer" and have tried to move onto the next one, and its so hard! LOL. It goes too fast for me. I think tomorrow I'll just try the lower body part and work on upper body later. I feel so pathetic that I can only last 10 minutes, but I'll ease myself into longer sessions. Of course I only do the DVD on Clint's days off, so I'm aiming for 5 days a week.

With all this, there are times that I cheat. If I'm out of town it's hard to stay on a good diet. When I'm at a birthday party, I indulge in cake & ice cream. And a week or two ago I decided I'd been so good that I deserved to bake myself some cookies (something I used to do at least twice a month). I think it's important to know that I can do these things. That no one is forcing me to diet. I'm doing it for myself and I can cheat when I want. And knowing that, I don't do it often.

After all that, my current weight is 259. That, of course is first thing in the morning, haven't eaten anything, naked. So I can't really say I've lost 16 lbs since that doctors visit. But I'd say at least 10!

There's a handful of reasons I want to lose this weight. Of course I'd love to look better and be able to shop anywhere. Of course I know it's better for my overall health, especially with diabetes running in the family. But the main reason is for my future children. It certainly can't hurt with conception, and down the road, as our children are growing up, I want them to be healthier than I was. That won't happen if they see me eating crap all the time. I need to set a good example. And plus if they're not used to having cookies on hand all the time, they won't expect it, and it won't be hard for them.

Oh, I should also credit Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution as part of my inspiration. Watching that show was a big eye opener!

So, slowly but surely, I'll shrink down to a happier size... until I balloon up with a baby belly, then I hope to find the motivation to keep truckin' on with this diet thing!

Wish me luck!

Scrabooking- Current & Wedding

Because I'm bored, just waiting for clothes to come out of the dryer, I figured it was a good time to post some more scrapbook pages. The first bunch are from my current album.

This is when we first got Zoey!

In September, Rheannon & I went to Vegas for the Britney concert!
We had Thanksgiving at our house, and Holly was all about drawing pictures! Here's one she drew of our Thanksgiving table.

And a note she wrot to Clint..

Christmas weekend when we went for a Ranger ride and did some Geocaching with the Myers'!

Clint started brewing his own beer with the kit he got for Christmas. I used bottle caps for the letters. :)

Some pictures from our first lake trip of the year, in March!

Also from the first lake trip. Zoey wanted to catch those ducks! It was sooo cute!!

And my most recent page! That's my SIL Robin's little ones!

And that's where this abum ends for now! I'm waiting on Easter pictures from my BIL, but I'm starting to think I'll never get them, so maybe I should just scrap the ones I have.

So now I'll move on to my wedding album!

First dance page! I put the lyrics over that big picture.

And that's it for now!

Trying

When I started blogging, I wasn't sure if I was gonna talk about this or not. There's a reason I've kept it off of Facebook. There's a handful of people (family, BFFs) that I talk to about it regularly.

What is it?

Since we got married, we've been trying for a baby. Which means over a year now. At first, I pretty much told everyone that we planned to have a baby right away. So I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. After I realized it wasn't happening right away, I kinda kept my mouth closed. You have no idea how much I wish I would have kept my mouth shut to begin with, told everyone "Ohh we're not ready yet" or "It'll happen when it happens." Because, especially when I was working, people always ask "Pregnant yet?" Which is silly, because if I told you that we were trying, don't you think I'd tell you when it happened? And if I didn't tell you without being asked, there's probably a reason we're keeping on the DL.

But for the most part I've been lucky as far as people constantly asking. By now the people I discuss it with know I'll tell them when there's news, and when they ask it doesn't bother me at all. I know its out of love and concern. We are very lucky to have a great support system in all this. My mom's on our side, waiting for a phone call. Clint's mom & sisters have been great. You can tell they are eager for us to have a baby, and that means so much to me. My girls, my best friends- well they're amazing too. Alwways there for me.

So I've decided to come out with it in my blog. I figure this is the best way to do it. Any info that I'm willing divulge will be on here. If you are interested in our Trying To Concieve ("TTC") story, follow my blog and you'll be up to date, and I won't have to rehash everything over and over. I should warn you, there may be TMI at some point. Sorry.

So here's our TTC Timeline to date:

June 2009- We stopped preventing.

July 2009- I started researching online. I learned about charting (I'll talk about that later) and I found The Mommy Playbook (TMP). (I'll talk about TMP later too)

August 2009- Started charting.

November 2009- I started to really get emotional about it. I guess you could say I was consumed by it... its all I wanted, its all I could think about. I decided for the holidays to kind of take a break. It would be hard to keep up with the charting while out of town anyway. I still tried to do the deed, or "baby dance" (BD) as us TTC-ers like to call it, at the right time, but tried not to stress about it too much.

January 2010- I finally went to see a gynecologist (at the end of the month). Dr. L. did the basic well woman exam and everything checked out okay, which was a huge relief. He told me to come back in 2 months if I'm not pregnant yet.

April 2010- Clint had his semen analysis which came back good. Back to Dr. L. He perscribed me Clomid, 50mg, to be taken days 5-9 of my cycle. It worked out that I got to start taking it the next day- yay! Clomid helps make you ovulate and regulate your cycle. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me in April.

May 2010- Took the same dosage of Clomid, and... hurray! I O-ed! Unfortunately this happened while I was in Oregon visiting mom, and Clint was still here in AZ. Oh well, it was nice to know I O-ed, and also nice to have the pressure off for a couple weeks. And it gave me hope for th next cycle.

June 2010- Same dosage of clomid. On CD17, I had a dark line on my OPK but not as dark as its supposed to be, so I don't think I O-ed. Back to Dr. L on the 23rd and he upped my dosage to 100mg, which I'll start for July's cycle. Hopefully this will help! If it doesn't, the next step will be more in-depth testing. Cross your fingers that we don't have to go there!


I mentioned charting. Every morning I take my temperature. It's called your Basal Body Temperature (BBT) and it has to be done very first thing in the morning, before I even get out of bed, and it really needs to be done at the same time every morning (really a pain in the ass). Every day I enter my temp in my chart at Fertility Friend. I also enter any medication I take, any symptoms (headaches, cramps, etc), OPKs (ovulation tests) and of course I keep track of any time we do the deed. Why do this? After ovulation, your temps go up. It doesn't help predict when you'll O, but helps confirm when you have already O-ed.

The Mommy Playbook is kind of like an online community. It's a place for moms to go to talk about their families, get advice, share tips, etc. Obviously, I'm not a mom yet. But they have a whole section for TTC, and it's full of some wonderful women! Some of these women have been through so much. Some have been trying for several years. Some have had miscarriages. Some have been on all the medication and been through all the tests. Some already have one or more children and are struggling to complete their family. They are so full of information and inspiration. Recently one of the girls who has been trying for 2 years finally announced she's expecting. This gave everyone hope. It does happen. Miracles happen. Anytime I'm losing hope, they are there to show me the light at the end of the tunnel. Anytime I need advice, there is a handful of them who have been in my exact situation. I'm so glad I found TMP!

Over time, I'm sure I'll share plenty of stories about the heartache involved with TTC, but here's one thing that comes to mind right away...

Babies make us (anyone TTC) sad. We love babies, we want babies, but we don't have any. Seeing your beautiful newborn breaks our heart just a little bit. We're happy that you have your bundle of joy, so don't ever think we're not! Babies are everywhere, and we get jealous.

With all the sadness involved, I still stay optimistic. One thing I have come to believe is that we are meant to have a certain baby. When that egg is ready, that's when we'll get pregnant. And you know what? Our baby will be more loved than anyone could ever imagine, because we have tried so hard to reach parenthood. And we'll get there.

I thought about doing a separate blog for TTC, but it's something I deal with every day. It's a part of my Jolly life.

Autumn Turns Three

Happy Birthday Autumn!!

Autumn is the daughter of one of my besties, Jenn. She turned 3 yesterday and I went to Prescott to celebrate with them! The party was a lot of fun.

The girls had fun splashing around in the whale shaped kiddie pool that blew water out the blow hole. Autumn opened presents and of course afterward she had to play with all the toys! The T-bal set, the bubble gun, and then she put on her super cute dress up clothes (from Auntie Nessa) and played some basketball!

So I got to Prescott at noonish and met up with Jessica (another bestie) & her little one Danielle (5, seen above). Jessica had to work so she wasn't able to go to the party, but that didn't mean Dani couldn't go! So I took her, and in a way I babysat her, but it wasn't a lot of responsibility! She was good for me though, until it was time to leave (I took her to her dad's).

The party was fun, but not because of the kids or the food or the presents, but because of my friends! I haven't made it out to Prescott in a few months, and it was so good to see them! I love my girls!! But that's another blog.

Here we are- That's Melissa, Jenn, Mary and myself. We're only missing Jessica!

10 Minutes

You know you're out of shape when a 10 minute segment of a workout DVD leaves you worn out. 10 minutes is all I can take?! That's just further proof that I must lose weight and get in better shape!

My Name's Janessa, and I'm a Scrapaholic...

That's right, I admit it!

It's what I do with a great deal of my free time, and something I always seem to spend more money on than I intended. But it's worth it! Because it's perserving our memories and telling the story of our life!

When I was 12 years old I asked my mom if I could start a photo album. I went through all the childhood pictures and everything up until that time. I put together a very haphazard album. It was in no particular order and had captions written on notebook paper saying things like "me, mom, Chris" and "monkey at a zoo." Well first of all, I'll never forget that the people in that photo are my mom, my brother and I. No caption needed there! Except maybe a year. And the monkey? I clearly had no recollection of that monkey or that zoo. For all I know I wasn't even there.

As time went on, I kept up with the albums, and now they were in order! Still sloppy, but at least chronological! After high school I started doing them a little more like a scrapbook. I'd use cute stickers and try to make neater captions. I still didn't use scrapbook paper or any neat tools, except a pair of fabric scissors of my moms.. those made a nice zigzag edge.

In the summer of 2007. I finally broke down and got the basics for scrapbooking: an album, lots of paper, stickers, scissors, etc. Since then, I haven't been able to stop! Now I have a hard time going to Michael's without spending a good $80, so I have to avoid the place if I don't want to spend the money. I've got a Cricut now, and many other neato tools!

I'm so glad I started scrapping. I love it and my books are my most prized possessions!

Here's some of my work, starting with my very first page.













I was very proud of this 4th of July page. I cut out all those white strips. It was a lot of work for a beginner!












The next two are from when we rented a cabin in Show Low with all the Jolly's.












Most of these pages have a "sister" page, but I didn't think I needed to post that many pages!












That's not our address anymore, so don't try to stalk me! :-p
























This shows that I have fun with the girls sometimes! Disregard the fact that it was about 2 1/2 years ago. We just have a different, less hazy, kind of fun now.






















































My girls came to visit in April 08, this is my favorite page from their visit. This is Jessica's little one. I made a page like it of Jenn's little one, Autumn, too.












The next three are summer 2008, when we were at the lake alot! That was a great summer!!








































This is my friend Dixie's wedding!












You can't really read the caption, but in August 08 Chris & Nicole visited mom in Oregon, I was jealous, so I scrapped it!












My cutie neice, Nicole!

My fall Oregon pictures from when we lived there (for about 6 months).

And some of the snow pictures! I love photographing Oregon! The top picture is the town of Pilot Rock, where mom lives. That picture captures most of the town, at least the main parts of it.

This is from the day after our wedding, (June '09) when we went to Sunsplash with my family. It was such a fun day!!

And this is from our wedding week, my family! I don't get to see them enough! :(














And that's all I'm gonna post right now! That's the end of my last complete album. I'll post pictures from my wedding album another day, as well as pages from the current album. And as I do more I'll post those too! :) Probably not all of them.. that'd be overkill, no?

Also I wanted to mention that I'm re-doing those old sloppy albums that I mentioned earlier. I'm working on scrapbooking my entire life, from birth till 2007. I started out going backwards, so I'll share those at some point!

Okay that's all from me for now! I think I'm developing carpel tunnel as we speak... or.. type...

A Birthday & Bionic

Yeterday was my friend Rheannon's little girl's (Elexis) 2nd Birthday!

I went to Phoenix to celebrate with them! I haven't seen them since last September. Oh how that little girl has grown! She's still so small but her hair is so long and she's such a sweetheart! Rheannon throws an.... interesting... party. Not the most organized, it was entertaining! I can say that because she knows I love her! :)

Maybe I should share a few words about Rheannon. I've known her for about 5 years, maybe 6. I met her when we both worked at Subway, but we didn't start hanging out until we both worked at Wal Mart in the deli. She is such a character. She always says what she's thinking, which is good and bad all at once. I remember when we were working in the deli, we had a customer... an older guy.. with several tattoos on his arms with different female names. She said "I hope those are your daughters names and not all your ex wives!" Hahaha! You don't just say things like that! But she's also a very caring person. She was pretty much raised by her grandmother (another character- she's great!), and now her grandma is getting up there in the years and having trouble getting around. Visitng this time, I was so impressed at how well Rheannon handles things with her. They're lucky to have each other!

Anyway we had fun a the birthday party. I only had one drink, but got a little goofy anyway! I was being so silly, but I like it when I get like that. I'm fun. At least, I think I am.... :)

The other topic of the day is Christina's new album, Bionic

I recently downloaded it on iTunes, the deluxe version, of course. I've always been a fan of her. Bionic isn't her best, but its got a lot of fun dance club style songs. Now I'm not gonna go on and on (who really cares what some random blogger thinks anyway?), but I'll say my favorites are: Vanity ("Mirror mirror on the wall, Who's the sexiest of them all? Nevermind I am"), My Girls, I Hate Boys & for a ballad Stronger Than Ever. I do have to say, I wish there were more ballads. I've always loved her powerful songs!

She says "b*tch" a lot on this album, and its got a lot of dirrty songs, but I'm a perv, so it works for me! haha!

Till next time...

Summer is my favorite season, but...

There are 2 things that I don't like about summe:

1: Air Conditioning. I turn it on, I get too cold. I turn it off, I'm too hot. Never a happy medium for me! I'd much rather leave doors & windows open! But its too hot for that now.

2: I have to keep my legs shaved! Winter time, I shave once a week or so because its not like Clint cares. But now I have to shave every few days because I'm always in shorts.

So there. Now I've got to get ready for my day! Happy Monday! :)

My 1st Babbley Blog!

The following video was probably my favorite moment from the 2010 Idol fianle. I just thought it was super cool to see so many past winners and contestants! I was missing David Cook though! I wish they would have gone slower so I could see everyone better! lol.





So it's kind of a dreary overcast day today. I had planned to go to Bullhead City (BHC) today to do the Sam's shopping, but it looks like it may rain, and my wipers suck! That and there's a tire that keeps going flat and I thought I knew how to work the compresser, but apparently... Not so much. I'll get Clint to show me when he gets home. So for now I think I'll do some scrapbooking. What am I scrapping? Well, how nice of you to ask. A few months ago I got all up to date with the current stuff, so I decided to go back and scrap my life. I've always put pictures in albums, but never did them very cute. I started scrapping in June 2007, so I'm working on everything before then. Everything! I started out going backwards, starting with May 07. I did this because I didn't have enough pictures from my childhood. I visiting my mom in May and scanned a whooooooooole bunch, so now I'm all set! I better get to it, otherwise I'll end up doing nothing all day, and where's the fun in that?

I'm such a Gleek

After watching the finale last night (Hulu), I downloaded all the songs from that episode on iTunes. I've been listening to them over & over today (along with the other Glee songs I've downloaded in the past). And now I've found Wikipedia's list of Glee songs which makes it so much easier for me to download the rest of the songs (probably not all, but most of them, over time..) I thought the finale was great, even if it was on the predictable side. I mean of course it couldn't end until Quinn had her baby (didn't predict she'd reconcile with her mom, though), and it was pretty obvious that Rachel's mom would adopt the baby. I loved To Sir With Love. So there. I think I've said all that can be said!

Oh, and John Stamos is joining the cast next season! As if Matthew Morrison wasn't enough eye candy!

Our First Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary To Us!

I still can hardly believe its been a year!

For our anniversary, we went to Sedona, AZ which is about 3 hours from home. We enjoy traveling together, with the dog! When we first got there, we had lunch then just checked things out, stopped at a couple view points to get some pictures! Then it was time to check in at the hotel and relax for a bit!

We had dinner at The Hideaway. It's a nice little Italian restaurant tucked away with a view of the creek and the mountains. It has 2 patios, one of which is pet friendly, so that's where we had our dinner. It was nice... the downstairs patio was so crowded! We practically had our patio all to ourselves!When I was little, Mom used to take my brother and I to this restaurant.

After dinner, we went to Tlaquepaque. I'm not sure what to call it exactly. It's got a lot of art galleries and some shops and restaurants. Everything was closed when we got there, but we walked around outside. There's lots of different trees and sculptures from local artists. Just a lot of neat things to look at. It was just a nice evening with the hubs!

The next morning we went to Red Rock Crossing! That's another place my mom used to take us. I remember catching tadpoles in solo cups there. Clint, Zoey & I just checked it all out and took lots of pictures. We went for a little dip. Surprisingly, the water was pretty cold! We met another couple who were there celebrating their 25th anniversary. They were nice.

Instead of going back the way we came, we took the longer route. We went through Cottonwood, which is a town I lived in ages 4-6. We drove by my old house and the duck pond I remember going to as a little girl. Then we drove through Jerome which is a neat old gold mining town. Then, since we were already going out of our way, we decided to go to Bagdad and visit my sister in law and her family. It was nice to be out of the truck for a while. We stayed for dinner and had fun with the kids! We made it home around 10:30 and it was pretty close to bed time!

All in all we had a FANTASTIC weekend!

A great way to start off our second year of marriage!

Now because I can't quite get the pictures to line up the way I want them throughout the blog, here's a slideshow!

One Year!

I can hardly believe it! Tomorrow is our one year anniversary! Time flies when you're in love! Well what can I say? We're off to a great start and I know that we have many many happy years ahead!

Well after tomorrow it will be a litle late to talk about our wedding. So I better get it out of my system! We got married at The Landmark Restaurant in Mesa, AZ. The ceremony was outdoor in a covered, temperature controlled patio. My Bridesmaids were my BFFs Jessica & Jennifer, my MOH was my oldest/best friend Gwen. Clint had his BIL Freeman and two friends, Henry and Chris as his groomsman. Our flower girl was his neice Holly and the ring bearer was his nephew Jace. They were both so darn cute! I love those kids!

Pastor Mark Faul officiated and his service made me laugh... a lot! He included random personal tidbits. And, well, I already had the giggles as it was! We kept it pretty short & sweet.

The reception was at the same location, inside. All went smoothly! The food was to die for! We didn't do any taste testing beforehand, so we were pleasantly surprised! My super-talented brother sang Keith Urban's "Got It Right This Time" as Clint & I shared our first dance... not just as Mr & Mrs, but our first dance ever! Likely, our last. He's no fun!

So now please enjoy the slideshow I put together for this entry! Just a handful of pictures from the happiest day of my life!