Thank You Dear Crissy & Bare Neccessities!

Earlier this week I started entering a few high value giveaways on a whim. I am not usually one that wins the giveaways, but luck – a whole heck of a lot of it – was on my side this time and I won the biggest giveaway I’ve ever won – $300 to Bare Neccessities thanks to the awesome giveaway at Dear Crissy. Let’s just say I am beyond stoked!  So, I just wanted to give a quick little shout out and big THANK YOU to both Bare Neccessities and Dear Crissy! 

Gilt (Invitation Only Shopping Site) Giveaways

Two blogs I love are each featuring a Gilt (Invitation Only Shopping Site) Giveaway – MomDot and Dear Crissy.  We aren’t gonna discuss how much time I spend parked on the MomDot site (so don’t ask, heehee) and Dear Crissy has been open on my browser for a couple days steady now, thanks to some pretty awesome high dollar giveaways.  I’m tweeting daily. I wanna win, because I just don’t consider Christmas shopping really done until we are opening gifts on Christmas morning.  Just sayin’. 

Trisha and Crissy are both great bloggers, so if you aren’t familiar with them, now as good time as any to check their blogs out.  Trisha has actually started doing a lot of super cute DIY stuff, mainly for girls (lots of princessy stuff).  If you have girls, unlike me, you’ll like what you find there. (Ahem, I like what I see there, I just have no use for it. Wanted to clear that up.) 

Anyhoo, both have a $100 Gilt gift card up for grabs. Go enter here and here.

I entered to win a $100 credit for Gilt Children at Dear Crissy & MomDot.

Body After Baby Week 2: Dec 8-14

Body After Baby
Week Two

It’s week two! So, I am a little late with this one, but what can I say? I joined in at the last minute as it is, I’m not cleared to get back to exercise (the incision is actually still kinda painful at times) and everything seem to be upside down.  I really need to get focused on this b/c once I am *officially* released, I need to get on it big time.  I’d like a small difference by Christmas and a slightly bigger difference by my birthday.

I’m going to look into this site, My Fitness Pal, that Mama Notes mentioned and browse through some iPhone apps. Maybe it – or another app – will be helpful as I try to stay on track.

There are 2 challanges for this week (ummm, of which I have 2 days left of, oops):

#1: Write down everything I eat & drink. Ooooh, I hate these. I always forget, lol. Or, just because I am writing it down and drawing focus to it, I tend to want to eat 400 times a day. Guess my body trying to get one up on me.  Very annoying.

#2: Cut out one un-healthy habit from my life this week.  Hmmmm, staying up late may be an unhealthy habit.  Of course my inner clock is a little whacked thanks to Calen having his days & nights mixed up just recently - though I think he’s doing great now. Me, not so much.  Or, it could be drinking coke. Which I typically only do when we run out of other things I prefer to drink. Which do not include water. Because I do not like water.  I’m afraid an upcoming challenge will involve water. {sigh}  I don’t have a lot of unhealthy habits, I just don’t do a lot of healthy enough things. 

Recap: Week One: I have a “before” picture courtesy of having family portraits done just as this challenge was starting.  My intro is here if this is your first visit here from the Body After Baby Challenge.

Bare Necessities Giveaway At Dear Crissy

Dear Crissy is celebrating the 13 Days of Christmas {wait.. I thought there was just 12 Days of Christmas? heehee} with a lot of giveaways, including this one from Bare Necessities.  I’m hoping to win so I can stock up on some new PJs and nursing items.  I may even have a little leftover to do some Christmas shopping. The more I browse the site, the more ideas I get. 

I entered to win a $300 gift card from Dear Crissy & Bare Necessities!

Body After Baby Challenge: Week One

Body After Baby
Week One 

Mama Notes is hosting an 8 week Body After Baby Challenge for Dec 2010 / Jan 2011 and I”ve decided, totally spur of the moment, to give it a whirl.   Technically, I will not be cleared to exercise, etc for another 2 weeks as the baby was born on Nov 1 via c-section, but I can certainly start planning, start out slow, and work on eating habits. 

If you are coming over from Mama Notes, HI!!!  I am Christy, mama to a brand spanking new baby boy, born on November 1 and to a rowdy, keeps-me-on-my-toes four year old boy, and wife to a firefighter.  My favorite pasttime is creating blogs.  (Getting them established and actually posting on them is sometimes a different story, heehee.)  My home base is Shake The Salt, but I’ve also created Sweet Posh Baby, Florida Fun Reviews, Savvy Frugalistas, and Simply Sensational Divas Review.  Right now I am working on Christmas Gift Idea features on Sweet Posh Baby and Christmas deals on Savvy Frugalistas. I hope to welcome new editors at Savvy Frugalistas in the very near future, but there are still a lot of kinks I have to work out before I go full steam ahead with it. 

As I write this, I have a screaming one month old that I should probably get back to, so here’s to typing a little faster.  He has these times at least once a day, for hours, where he is just very restless and I almost have to hold him non-stop to help him settle.  Maybe it is meant for me to have that time each day to stop everything and take a breather. 

I am very excited about taking this challenge and meeting other great ladies that will be participating.  

From Mama Notes:

This challenge is about coming together as woman and moms to lose that extra “baby” weight and improve our overall health.

This week you should focus on what your goals are and what your plan is to get there.

 My goal is to, obviously, lose weight. I’m not setting a number, since I still have to “take it easy” for 2 more weeks AND I’m nursing the baby, but I want the number to go down.

My plan to work toward that goal:

1. Drink water.  I hate water, so any little increase will make a difference. I haven’t decided how much more, but I do want to increase my water intake.

2. Exercise.  Once I am cleared to exercise, I’ll need to start slow and gradually build up a routine. With the brand new baby, the holidays, and other things going on, plus with me quite simply not being used to having exercise in the routine, it will take some getting used to.  I have the Wii and some various workout DVDs – one with a weight ball type thing – so I will probably utilize those.  I also want to add in some walking.

3. Eat healthier.  I can’t do complicated and I eat a ton in the middle of the night since I’m up anyway.  I need to make sure that whenever & how often I eat that I am making better, healthier choices.  I have to be realistic.  If Ifeel hungry, I’m going to eat, even if it is at the worst possible time of day for my metabolism. 

 I know those are atypical plans, but it is a start.  Hopefully I can expand on them once I am able to sit and think and focus on the upcoming 2 months.  My birthday is Feb 1, so what a great birthday present to myself to have this challenge end up a success!