Temptation

Today I wanted to cheat. Not really bad, but enough. I hung tough and resisted the urge to eat unhealthy. I was at the commissary and I started making excuses in my mind on why I deserved to get a candy bar. I have been coming down sick since Friday. Just a cold and if I keep medicated I seem to keep it at bay. I have just been off I guess you could say. I lost 8 pounds so far, but then on any given day I may gain one and then I will lose it again. I added up the calories I usually eat in a day. I though I was barely making 1000 and found out it was more in the ballpark of 1400. I am soooo cutting out those little peanut butter to go cups. I was eating one of those with an apple or celery but that little cup is almost 400 calories!!! I have not been doing a good job with my water intake either. I still haven't started exercising. I know this will help me so much but I have not had the motivation to start it yet.

My patience is running on empty when it comes to my older child. He is so disrespectful at times I just want to scream. I just don't get it. I would have NEVER spoke to my parents the way he speaks to us, sometimes on a daily basis. And don't even get me started on how he acts with his brother! I wonder if they will ever be friends. I know I fought with my sisters but I also liked them. I just don't know if they even like each other.

My photography assignment this week was about lighting. She wanted us to take a picture indoors without using a flash. This isn't a problem for me since in Germany latley it has been raining and yucky so I have had plenty of practice with this. I decided to bother the dogs this time and got a good one of Piper.

Okay so this was a total gripe session. Sorry. Sometimes you just have to get it out. Well the little angels go to bed in an hour, so there is a silver lining. Tomorrow is another day and I pray it will be a better day. Til next time.

Spring Fest

Our little village had a Spring Fest today. They blocked off the main street and set up all kinds of booths selling everything from food to clothes to cars. We walked down and got all the way to the end of town with beautiful weather. I was starting to think I brought too heavy of a jacket. Then we had to walk back...the sky turned gray and the rain started. We had promised the boys we would stop and eat on the way back so that meant standing under a canopy and eating our bratwurst. Brian asked me how come all the pictures I seem to take of us is when we are eating? I guess that is just what we do best. We took the hounds with us and they did so well with the crowds of people. Cricket was getting tired so E decided she could ride in the sling on the way back home.

The boys have 4 days of school this week and then they are off for Spring Break. Let's hope that Spring arrives before this happens. I am hoping to take the boys swimming during our break. Maybe I can get A going off the highdive!!

Well it is a lazy Sunday so I am going to lie here and watch Brian play Mario Cart. Til next time.

Spring Snow

I am sitting in my bed, drinking my coffee and watching it snow. It is Spring, right? I guess Germany did not get the memo. We have not even sprung forward yet so maybe that decides when Spring actually begins? I do not know. One thing I do know is I can't wait for sunshine and warmer weather. This has been one long cold winter!!

I think I finally came to a decision on my dairy intake. I know you are all waiting with baited breath to hear more about my food drama. I do not think I will cut dairy out completely. I really like be able to throw a cup of egg beaters in a pan for breakfast. I also don't want to give up my yogurt all together either. So I will be very selective. I am not sure when I had meat last but I do not seem to miss it. Last night I made pork chops for the guys and I don't know if it was the marinade I used but they smelled bad to me! I know I am really harping on my eating issues but you just can't understand how incredibly pleased I am with myself for sticking with this. I have tried time and time again to eat better and failed miserably. I don't know what the difference is this time but I am happy and feeling better than I have in a long time, so I will take it!

The snow seems to be slowing. I hope the roads are clear when I go get the boys. Brian does not want me taking them to TKD tonight. He has to work late so I would be driving them home after dark. We will see when I go into town. I will take their stuff just to be safe. I better go get the laundry started. If I take a day off of laundry duty it seems to take a week to catch up!! Oh yeah, this is the picture I submitted for my Focal Point Assignment in my class. Til next time.

Weird Science

I think today may have been my cleaning lady's last day. I know, GASP!!! Can you believe it? After two years of not cleaning my own house I am actually considering doing it myself? The reason I got a cleaning lady in the first place was when I was PTA president for the boys' school and I was doing A LOT of volunteer hours. So truth be told I do not need her anymore. But of course that is not the reason I am letting her go. She only shows up half the time and her quality of work has really went downhill. Not to mention in 2 years she has went through 3 vacuum cleaners and broken numerous things in the house.

So what else is new and exciting in the Hosman household? It is science fair week and we have been working fast and furious to help A finish his project. It is how magnets can generate electricity. Brian and A had loads of fun making the project, although I must say I think Brian had more fun. Anything electrical always gets Brian's attention.

My photo assignment this week is on focusing. We are supposed to take a picture but not center the subject. We need to practice on placing the subject to the left or right of the frame. Sounds

easy enough, right? Well not so much when you are working with dogs!! Let me tell you those mutts would not cooperate one little bit. All they wanted to do was lick themselves and that does not make for an attractive picture.

A few weeks ago I found out my niece is getting married in Vegas and I get to go! I am so excited I can't even put it in words. I am excited about seeing ALL my family and I am excited about getting away before Brian has to do his next little "trip". I am going alone and that is so big for me because I rarely get away. I wish Brian and I could get away just the two of us. We have not taken a trip without the kids in, well forever!!! We are lucky if we can get away for a date night. But back to Vegas. I am stressin' just a bit. I want to take lots of pictures of the whole wedding day, but I do not have a good lens for low light. I want something that will be a good all around lens. I have been searching and reading everything to get many different opinions and think I may have found a good choice. It is a 28-75mm with a fixed aperture of 2.8. So basically that means it should be wide enough for larger groups (I hope) but zoom in enough for more intimate shots. The 2.8 means it should let in enough light to work in a low light setting. I am not getting it just yet since Amazon is usually super quick, I should be able to hold off and do a little more research. I guess that is enough rambling for now. I need to hit the hay.

What a Week

Boy am I exhausted!!! I spent over 3 hours outside in the glorious sunshine but not warm weather cleaning my van. I scrubbed, vacuumed, polished and washed. Seriously though, this is very sad to admit, I have had this van 9 months now and this is the first time I have washed it by hand. I clean the inside and have ran it through car washes but never done it all at once myself.

So my new eating style is going very well. Week two is coming to a close and I still have not cheated once and do not seem to have any cravings. I have cut red meat out of my diet completely and stick to chicken and fish a few nights a week. I am still struggling with the idea of cutting dairy out completely. Truthfully this would not be a bad idea since I am lactose intolerant. I take my multi vitamins daily now and added a calcium supplement so I don't think that should be a problem. I found a "butter" spread for my toast so I have that covered now. I still put creamer in my coffee but I think after I finish off my last bottle I will switch to non dairy creamer. That only leaves my yogurt which I have a cup of about every other day. Today after I came in from outside I wanted a warm lunch and had picked up some Morning Star veggie cakes in Ginger Teriyaki flavor. I was not too convinced I would like them but thought it was worth a shot. I was very pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed them very much and will definitely buy them again. Today I am trying Boca Burger veggie burgers for dinner.

Unfortunately the weight I have gained in the last couple of years is not "falling" off like I had hoped it would, but I am not discouraged. At least I know I am being more healthy and no more weight will sneak back on. I am going in the right direction finally. I have not added exercise in my daily routine yet. I kept saying once I get my eating figured out then I will worry about exercise. I guess I do not have anymore excuses!!

This week was crazy hectic. The boys had their TKD class 3 times this week. Brian and I had a pretty good routine going. I picked up the boys from school and dropped them off at his work and then he took them to class. I then would go to the commissary (if needed) and get home to make dinner and have it ready when they got home. The boys also had their dentist appointment and got their new retainers. There is no wire on the front of their teeth because they are made to push out their teeth. Both my boys need more room on top for their permanent teeth to come in. So you do not even know they have a retainer until they talk!! I also had to get the 2 Yorkies to the groomer this week by myself. That was fun, but they look so cute now and smell way better. With all this going on this week seemed to just fly by. I guess that is about it for us. Til next time.

Manual Mode

This weeks assignment is tackeling the very scary Manual Mode. The instructor of this class always explains things so well. So in manual mode you decide what is more important in your picture, aperture or shutter speed. In my pictures I wanted an open aperture so I set that and looked at my meter. It said it was going to underexposed (too dark) so I had to adjust the shutter speed to a slower speed. Candice (the teacher) also gave us these really cool rulers to print out to help us. I know all of this is very boring to most of you but if I talk about it and type it here it helps me to remember it so please bear with me and just skip the boring parts!



The boys started their new Tae Kwon Do class and were much more comfortable. I like this class because it is more organized and structured. The boys talked about class almost the whole ride home and I couldn't have been more happy. E was even talking about how quickly he thought he would get his next belt. That tells me he actually sees himself doing this for a while and that is a very good thing.

Not much to report here I just wanted to put on the new pictures. Til next time.

From Good to Great

This week on Monday and Tuesday Brian is on doubles again and has to be at work at 2am. Which means is I have to get up and get the boys ready for school. Oh the humanity!! I really am spoiled.

So I am taking yet another online class on http://www.jessicasprague.com/ this one is on photo editing. I am learning how to use Photoshop CS4. This program is amazing. If you take a picture and you think it is pretty good after a little tweaking with Photoshop that picture will be great!

I got the boys in the other Tae Kwon Do class. This means they will go Mon, Wed & Fri from 5-6. This is really going to be a pain for homework and dinnertime but we will adjust. If the boys feel more comfortable and like it more it will all be worth it. My only worry is that they really don't like Tae Kwon Do at all and this is only making them go one more day a week. Which in turn will be one more day I have to hear them complain about it. If it is just the fact that they are being lazy and don't want to do it, then they will just have to suck it up. I know I am such a nice mom.

That is about it for now. Til next time.

Life Changes

It was another quiet week. That is not a bad thing, either. The boys are still not thrilled about Tae Kwon Do. The teacher said there was still room in the other class that has kids their own age, so I am going to see if that is actually true next week. I think they will be more comfortable in that class.

My photography class this week was on aperture. Aperture probably is the most important thing to learn and has the biggest impact on how a picture looks. It is very fun to play with. It controls your depth of field. What that means is it can focus on the subject and blur the background in order to make the subject stand out better. I also figured out on my camera how to use the 11 focal points to focus exactly where I want to. The focal points are the little marks when you look through the viewfinder. Whenever I tried to take a picture it always wanted to focus on whatever was closest to the camera. So I was extremely happy to figure out how to focus on what I want instead of what the camera wants.

This week I finally decided it was time to change the way I eat. I had gastric bypass over 7 years ago and since then I have never changed what I eat. Since the surgery I definatly eat less, but I still eat junk. I cut out all sweets this week and I am eating vegan til dinner. So that means no meats or dairy til dinner time. I also started eating only whole wheat bread. I was a white bread girl growing up and always bought white bread for the family. I am amazed how easy it has been so far. Usually whenever I "diet" I do well for a day or two then I think I deserve a reward and eat chocolate. This week I had sweets in the house and they did not tempt me at all. I do not consider this a diet, it has got to be a permanent change. I am hoping my example will rub off on the kids. Eventually it will just switch for everybody. The only difference I have been doing so far is, if I am making something for the guys that I do not think is healthy enough, I will throw a piece of chicken or fish on the George Foreman for me.

That is all the news about us. I am looking forward to quiet week number 3!!!

Quiet Week

This was a pretty quiet week. The boys started their class on Wednesday. They were not very impressed. They were both the oldest kids in the class and of course way bigger than all the 5 and 6 year olds in there. They both felt out of place and did not want to go back. A was also upset that the instructor came over to him and corrected a couple of his kicks. I tried to explain to him that is his job and he is not expected to get it perfect on the first day. Friday's class went better and they both seem to be looking forward to their next class. One bad thing is there is no place for me to watch the class, so I won't be getting any good pictures of them practicing.

I submitted my photos (same ones as posted here) for my class and she said I understood the assignment. The picture with E in it was taken at a little too slow of a shutter speed and it let in too much light but other than that it was good. Just so you know, they are jumping on an exercise trampoline. We were also given a creative assignment for the week. We are to walk around our town and find something interesting that we have never noticed before. Of course many people in the class have already posted their pictures in the class gallery online. I look at some of their pictures and I start to wonder if I really do have the eye of a photographer. One person shot her subject from about the neck down and the camera was tilted and it made for a very interesting photo. I would never have thought to do something like that. I hope this is something you can learn.

Saturday was actually a beautiful sunny day. I had the cleaning bug though and decided to finally tackle by bedroom and clean it GOOD once and for all. Brian worked in the garage for hours and oh my goodness it looks great in there. While we were working away the boys decided to take their bikes and go exploring the neighborhood. They found this great hill where they would walk their bikes up and ride down really fast. They had a great time and Brian and I were extremely happy to seem them outside and being active. Another reason I can't wait for Spring.

Tomorrow if the weather holds Brian has promised the boys that we will pack their bikes on the car and drive out to the fields where the boys can ride and the dogs can run and have fun too. I guess that is about all for now. Til next time.

Lesson One

Today I got my first lesson and assignment for my photography class. It is so funny, I have many books on SLR cameras and even ones for my specific model, but it wasn't until I watched the video for my class that it finally clicked. I have read about shutter speed and aperture many times but seeing the video really seemed to help me. I guess I am one of those visual learning people. I am just happy that I learned something and I actually believe I will remember it. The lesson this week is on shutter speed. We have to take 2 action pictures one using a fast shutter speed and the other using a slow. This is to show how the object in the photo can come out clear and "frozen" in action with the correct speed.

Of course I want to run out and have the kids jump on the trampoline or do some type of activity for me, but the weather is so gloomy right now. I am praying for a sunny day. I have taken enough photos lately with the drab winter background. If I can't get some sun then oh well, life goes on. I also figure the boys' Tae Kwon Do class would be a good opportunity for me too. I also have to find the tripod in the garage.

I did play with the camera and the shutter speed today to see how it works for low light. Makes so much sense now that I think about it. Instead of using a flash use a slow shutter speed to let more light in. I was amazed to see the difference it made. If I had only known that the night of Evan's dance I would have had better pictures!

It feels so nice to be excited about something. Hopefully the feeling lasts! I need to get some shut eye. Night all.