Day 59: SUCCESS

I finished the chairs!!! Last week I posted this picture of my goodwill haul.

In that haul I got 4 of these wonderfully delightful wooden chairs that had blue pleather cushions.

As you can see they had a little white paint splatter on them, I swear it was there when I got them. Other than that they were in great condition! Really sturdy, the perfect size for our office waiting room, and in my opinion super freaking cute.

To begin I removed the cushion on the back of the chair.

I was left with a mess of staples that had to be removed. Let me tell you that this took quite a bit of time, energy, and a few choice curse words. Once that was all done I had to fill in all the little holes caused by the dang staples.

I let that dry, sanded the wood filler back and had smooth beautiful spindles on my chairs. I set about painting them shortly after.

I decided to use the same color palette that I used on the table, but I didn’t want them to be identical, so the one pictured above got a full all over coat of mineral and the 3 middle spindles were painted light blue. The other chair got the opposite treatment (the main portion is blue and the spindles mineral).

Here are both chairs after being painted, distressed, and of course waxed.

Aren’t they just the cutest! Now comes the most difficult, time consuming,  and frustrating part of this entire ordeal. Taking the blue pleather off of the seats so I could recover them.

You can’t see them in the above photo, but there were a shit ton of staples in these seats.

This was the pile I got from just one chair. I also received a huge blister on my right hand from using my needle nose pliers to pull the little buggers out of the plywood.

Obviously someone did not want this to ever come off. The second seat too me almost a full hour to remove all of the staples.

This was the pile of staples taken from both chairs as well as the 2 tools I used and now hate because they caused the most painful little blister.

After all that hard work the only thing left to do was recover the seats with this light burlap and then reassemble.

I know…I know…the lighting is awful. It’s already 8 pm here, so ya know…shit. Anyway, they look super cute and tomorrow once I have them all set up I will of course show you the complete set.

It’s been a long day. Though I don’t really have much to show for it, other than these 2 beautiful chairs and a calendar that goes in my boss’ office. Oh well.

Caloric intake: 1,566
Calories burned: 0

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 58: Good Day

Today was a good day. I didn’t have to wake up to any alarms and I got a wonderful nights sleep.

No one bullied me. I didn’t cry. Today was a good day.

I laid about on my couch with my doggies. Grocery shopped at my leisure and didn’t spend a butt load of money. Today was a good day.

I worked on my chairs and the shutters for my boss’ office. Today was a good day.

I want to keep reminding myself that just because yesterday and the day before were rotten doesn’t mean my life is rotten. It’s hard to get out of a funk that you’ve been forced into, but today was a good day.

I hate feeling awful. I don’t like to be angry or frustrated or upset, but then again I guess no one really does. Today I danced in my car, wore my shades, and had a good day. I hope you had a good day and that all the days coming your way are good.

Caloric intake:  1,924
Calories burned: 0ish

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 57: No Better

Well today was worse than yesterday. I tried my best to make it a better day, but it quickly soured around 11 am and only went downhill from there.

It’s currently 2:30 pm and less than an hour ago I did something that right now I really hate myself for. I cried at work in front of a supervisor. Death please come swiftly. I do not like for people to see me cry. Not exactly sure why, but it makes me feel stupid and low to cry in front of someone. I dislike women who get weepy to get out of trouble, I’ve never been a minpulative crier which is the number one reason that no matter how bad it’s ever been at work I breathe and remember that I know what I’m doing and I don’t want anyone’s sympathy.

Today, I couldn’t hold back my tears of frustration and anger. They came spewing out and that made me cry harder. I don’t want you to think I don’t cry, I’m a crier. Sad commercials. Sad movies. Sad songs. They all get me, but I don’t just cry when I’m sad or touched, I cry when I’m mad. I cry even more when I become frustrated because then I can’t articulate what I need to say.

So today I cried at work. My one saving grace is that it’s Friday, so everyone got to leave early, if I need to continue to cry I can do so from the privacy of my office and I don’t have to fucking come back to this hell hole for 3 days. I’m still mortified. I don’t want to ever look at the man who watched me blubber again because all I’ll be thinking about is how he must be wondering if I’m going to start bawling again.

Update: it’s now 7:30 pm and I’ve tucked myself into bed with a book and a loving dog. I’d like to tell you that the end of my day made up for the shitty middle, but it did not. I got a text while eating dinner that my water had been turned off. Apparently the city I live in has a policy that you have to pay your bill on or before the 25th or suffer late fees and disconnection. I didn’t know that, so this morning when I dropped off my payment I figured all was well…wow of course again I was wrong. Because it’s not a weekend I had to pay a freaking $50 late fee, plus an extra $10 to get them to come out and turn it on…so I’m going to bury my head in my pillows, maybe cry for a few more minutes to get it all out of my system,  and then I’m going to fall into a blissful sleep.

Tomorrow will be a great day. No alarm. No adgenda.  I may veg on the couch all fucking day with my dogs to get over the horrific day I had.

To end on a more positive note, I remembered to bring home my lunch containers and smoothie bottle every single day this week!! Go me.

Caloric intake: 1,977
Calories burned: none

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 56: Funk

Today was not the greatest day. For the first time in a long while I got really stressed at work because of my idiotic supervisor. He made me so angry that it was hard to shake the funk he put me in. I don’t like feeling this way.

It’s the one thing I despise most about being an adult. I could have used a time out after dealing with the crap he was putting me through, but because I’m an adult with bills to pay I had to suck it up and move on. Now I’m doing some recovery in my bed because my head is still splitting from the headache he caused.

Walking after work helped some, especially because I was allowed to vent for a good 30 minutes on the stupidity I dealt with today, but I’m still not feeling 100% myself, so I am going to close my eyes because tomorrow will be a better day.

Caloric intake: 2,364
Calories burned: 608

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 55: Tru Wuv

I had a great nights sleep, unfortunately prince charming wasn’t waiting to take me away in his white horse, but this morning on my way into work I forgot the name of my soul mate.

Let me give you some back story here, this may take a bit, so just bear with me please. Years ago while I was still in high school I had a very bizarre dream in which I met my soul mate. This of course was before I read a study that claims everyone you see in your dreams you’ve met in real life already (really crushed my spirit the day I read that). Anyway, I’ve been convinced for nearly all my life that I’m a teensy bit psychic (though I’m the first to cast stones when someone claims to be psychic). I’ve dreamt about things that end up happening to me, it’s never anything monumental, obviously I’ve never seen the winning lottery numbers or anything, but small things. Most explain that away with the feeling of deja vu, but in most of the cases (at least for me) I literally realize that I’ve dreamt this exact moment and I already know what’s going to happen for the next few moments. After that of course I’m flying blind just like every other moment of my life. Because of these dreams that have ended up coming true, when I had the dream about my soul mate I felt deep inside that this was one of those dreams that for sure was going to come true. Now, I’m not so sure.

A few things really dampened that dream, one of course being that dream study that claims you’ve met everyone you’ve ever seen in a dream. When I found that out I nearly cried because if that as true I had already met the person I was meant to be with and missed my chance. Another thing keeping my dream down is that the circumstances that lead us to find each other I’m almost positive are never going to happen in the future. Let’s just say it involved a river (which of course is not far fetched at all), a girl I was friends with in high school (who I barely speak to let alone go to the river with), and lastly I’m not even sure I believe in soul mates.

It’s a beautiful notion, there is someone out there in the world that was put here just to be your other half. Just thinking about it makes me sigh wistfully. However, I think that believing in soul mates means that our lives have to be predestined to a certain extent, which I’m fine with, but it turns my head to wondering who decided my destiny and then of course I get a tiny bit angry that anyone other than myself should have any control over my destiny. Perhaps our lives are like a river, there are always little bends, forks, turns, and obstacles, but we have a destination. Perhaps we have no destiny at all. I guess that’s just another of those things that each person gets to decide for themselves, like religion.

Putting aside that to believe in soul mates is to believe in predestination/higher power we don’t even meet a fraction of the people on this earth. According to worldometers there are 7.4 billion people on earth, that’s a ton of possible soul mates and I want you to consider for a moment the number of people you’ve meet/been exposed to in your life time. Chances are that number is insignificant when compared to 7.4 billion. What if your soul mate was born in a different country? Of course you’re thinking then maybe I’ll visit that country one day and then meet them by chance. Ok, good point, but what if that country is at war with yours and they don’t allow travel?then we’ll be the modern day Romeo and Juliet. To that ridiculous answer I shake my head and plead with you to not get me started on Romeo and Juliet. What if your soul mate has died? There are so many factors to consider, but maybe it’s more simple that all of that depressing stuff. Maybe it can be boiled down to if it’s meant to be then it will be and if not then who knows.

I may be more of a pessimist than I thought…uh oh. The only other problem with soul mates, this may be the biggest one to me, is how can there be just one person for you? I’ve read about love, written about love, seen love in couples I’m friends with, but I’ve also seen false love, read about false love, and even written about false love. I’ve never been in love in the truest fashion. Of course in my adolescents I thought I was in love/infatuated and maybe I was because love evolves as you evolve. It matures with you, so one day you’ll look back on parts of your life when you thought you couldn’t live without someone you’ll shake you’re head at your ignorance and then smile because while you may understand that it wasn’t “real” love at the time it felt real.

I will confess that deep in my heart I want soul mates to be real. I want there to be someone who was made just for me and I want to know that I am perfect for someone. I hope that one day I will be walking down a street and my eye will collide with someone and something will just click within me. I should mention that this part of me is at war with the part of me who loves the great loves that start out with quips and distaste. I want a Mr. Darcy or a John Thorton. This could be because we are shown that their kind of love is passionate and I so want a passionate love.

I feel as though I’ve blathered on long enough for today. I should mention that as I’m writing this it’s only 7 am, I’ve still got the entire day ahead of me, so maybe this post will have been edited before you see it. I’ll let you know below.

Yea…I did not edit. Sorry. You get my unfiltered thoughts, hopefully my fingers didn’t make many mistakes as I was furiously typing.

Caloric intake: 2,166
Calories brurned: 1,050

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 54: Explanations

Today someone asked me if was on a diet. A few different answers sprang to mind.

1. Why do you think I need to be on a diet?
2. Um, is that really your business?
3. Shouldn’t you be working and now worrying about what I’m doing?
4. Yes? (Yes that question mark was put there on purpose )
5. No.
And finally 6. No, I’m just watching trying to be more conscious of what I’m putting in my body every day.

Of course it would have been true Chelsea fashion to use answers 1-4, but today I opted for answer 5 instead of just using number 6. Both answers are true of course, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain myself or my eating habits.

When I gave my answer she then proceeded to ask, “you’re just prepping your meals for fun?” Again, I had several answer choices I could have thrown out.
1. Yea, my OCD has become so intense that I have to plan and prepare all my meals 4 days in advance.
2. Yep.
3. Whatever are you talking about? (Of course she was asking because I posted photos to facebook, my own fault really)

I’m sure there are other choices, but I simply answered yes. I could have expanded and explained that the only way I can be sure that I’m having a somewhat nutritious lunch everyday at work is to make my food ahead of time. Furthermore, to keep myself from needing to get fast food or depend on someone else to bring me lunch I like doing for myself and having control over what I’m eating.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive. That’s almost always a possibility with me. Then again maybe, just maybe, my eating habits aren’t up for discussion with people who are only asking because they’d like to judge me or poke fun. I will be the first to admit that I am a truly sarcastic bitch, but I never belittle anyone’s efforts to better themselves, at least not to their faces. This particular person always has something snark to say and I just really don’t want to hear their opinion about how I’m living my life.

On a positive note, my chicken stir fry was to die for! I felt somewhat full, my stomach is probably the size of a basketball because I tend to over eat by a lot and I was just a delight to consume. My fruit was great as well, but all I did was slice that stuff up, so of course it was going to be good.

And on an even more positive note I remembered to bring home my containers!!!

Also, exciting news I found my new couches!!! My phone was seconds away from dying so I did not get to snap any pictures, but I’ll be picking them up saturday, so of course you’ll see them then. Maybe if you’re really good you’ll get a picture of my living room after the new couches move in.

Ok, it’s time to shut my eyes and run away to dream land where I’m hoping Prince Charming is waiting.

Caloric intake: 2,366
Calories burned: very few I’m sure

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 53: I Love to Singa

Today was meal prep day for the very first time. I started with the easy stuff, my fruit/snacks and the dried sausage I bought.

I bought some food prep containers because I’m hard on Tupperware.  I forget them all over the place, break them, and destroy them with microwaving. Since I have so few good containers that match and are the same size I went ahead and splurged for some new ones on Amazon.

The package I bought came with 8 containers and matching lids, which is great since I work 4 day shifts. These first 4 containers now hold 1 cup of sliced strawberries and 1 cup of pineapple chunks.

Have I mentioned what a picky eater I can be? There are only a select few fruits (of the ones I’ve been exposed to as a girl from south Texas) that I like, so I know that I can and will eat strawberries and pineapple everyday,  I also have grapes, that I probably need to portion out in these containers as well because I like grapes, but I always forget about them and then they go bad…I guess I need to shuffle my fit around to make room. Great…

Look at all that yummy food. Now that my food prep is done for the day I wanna talk about what a pain it was. Something I struggle with is portions, even though I’ve been cooking for just 2 for months now, I still have a really hard time. I guess because for years I did the cooking for my family of 4 and we had to make food stretch, but I’ve got to get this shit under control.

Today I noticed it was a teensy bit easier to kind of figure out how much food to make for just me, but on some things I over estimated and of course made too much.

Meal 1: chicken taco/burrito bowl – I had already decided that this would be dinner tonight too, so the fact that I made way too much wasn’t so bad. I also had a cousin join me for dinner, so most of the food is gone.

Meal 2: chicken, rice, and broccoli – easy enough since I needed enough broccoli for 2 meals

Meal 3: chicken stir fry – I used broccoli from the above as well as the rice. Of course I still made just a bit too mich, but I’m sure it will get eaten soon. My stir fry is kind of a big deal.

Meal 4: chicken ranch wrap (goodness why didn’t I fry up a couple of pieces of bacon?) Missed opportunities aside it was super simple, though I need some practice for my wrapping/rolling technique. I couldn’t quite get the ends folded, but it will suffice.

Did you notice a reoccurring theme in the above meals? I used chicken for all of them. Wow. So what I did to make things more simple was grill all the chicken the same way, with the exception of the chicken for our tacos, I just gave each a very light seasoning and then threw them on the grill. Once all my chicken was cooked I sliced everything up and went about preparing each meal. For the stir fry I and nodded broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, a dash of sesame oil, and teriyaki sauce. The tacos have corn (which I also grilled, go me) black beans, lime and coconut quinoa, rotel, and of course taco seasoning. The wrap is self explanatory I think, I just slathered some ranch dip, stacked some lettice, laid out the chicken, and the sprinkled a little hot sauce over the entire thing. The last meal was just really simple rice, chicken, and broccoli.

Here’s all my little meals stacked and ready for me to grab each morning. You can also see my bag of celery, carrots, and the juice I use for my smoothies.

Now it has been a super long day. I finished up one of the shutters for my boss’s office and started painting the other chair. I’m ready for bed kids. I have a sinking feeling that this week is going to be a long one.

Caloric intake: 1,888
Calories burned: somewhere around 0

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 52: Hungry, Hungry Hippo

I worked on a couple of things today, but I don’t feel like I got anything done…so I probably didn’t get anything done. Eh, it’s Sunday and I only have 1 more day off and nothing super important to get checked off my list.

I’m getting sleepy. I was fine and then all of a sudden while writing this my eye lids started to get really heavy. Yawn.

The only things I did work in were some shutters. I have a matching set that go in my boss’s office that I’m redoing for her and then a single one that’s going back with my mom for her office.

The top photo is one of the shutters after I slipped half of the slats out, gave it a couple of coats of paint, and then distressed the paint. The next photo is just the cork board I’m going to install to one of the shutters. I decoupaged a cute floral wrapping paper to it and then set about making it look a little less new and bright. In order to do that I slapped (and I mean slapped) white paint across the entire thing and then took a wet cloth and rubbed back the paint so that the paper began to peek back theough. After I put a dark wax over and let that set for a few moments before wiping the excess off and allowing it to dry.

Oh, I also started painting one of the chiars, I had planned on doing the second one before bed, but now that I’m starting to get drowsy I’m thinking that’s not going to happen.

Since these chairs are going to end up with the half table at my office I decided to paint them with the same paint. On this chair I did 2 coats of the mineral paint all over except those 3 spindles in the back of the chair, those I’m going to paint with the light blue I used on the top of the table. I’m considering doing the reverse on the other chaur, but I’m not 100% sure about that yet…

Yum, I made bacon wrapped jalapeños for dinner. Seriously one of my favorite side dishes/appetizers of all time. I just shoved another one down my throat while I was holding the dogs back from the door.

Tomorrow I’m heading to my boss’s house to start organizing things for their garage sale and I also have to prep all my meals for the week. Geeze, I’m not even sure how that’s all going to happen epically considering that we have zumba tomorrow. I guess we will see what happens.

Ugh, I still have to make my bed before I can go to sleep. Kill me now. It’s just about 8 pm and I have no idea why I’m so tired…maybe it was the sweeping and moping I did…maybe I’m just sleepy.

Peace peeps!

Caloric intake: 1,785
Calories burned: eh…probably not enough to brag about

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 51: Early Bird…Yada Yada yada

I had too much sodium yesterday and I’m paying for it this morning. My delightful reward for all the delicious food I consumed was an early morning headache. Yay me.

Despite the gentle throbbing in my temples I managed to roll out of bed, have breakfast, and leave my house before 8 am to run a few errands. Now I’m working on getting the gar1back in some semblance of order so I can start working on my next project.

Here’s our haul from yesterday.

This is everything we got at the thrift store. Look at all those goodies!!

Cute little side table we snagged for 10 bucks, can’t pass up on that.

Second end table we grabbed, this one is bigger than the other and we paid 12 smackers! Both prices are really solid and very heavy, so I’m excited!! The plan is to take the larger one, gussy it all up, and donate it to a local auction. Philanthropy mixed with PR and a dash of hope that getting more of my stuff in the public’s eye will gain me a few clients.

One of the four chairs I got (the table I purchased with the chairs is still in the back of my car, so no pictures just yet. Once my brother gets up I’ll have him help me unload it and then I’ll set it up for a photo op. I almost always buy small wooden frames when I find them, they’re cheap, easily beautifiable, and I need stuff for my walls. We found 2 of those wooden decorative placards and they were a steal!

Cute wood screen and a few more frames. Don’t ask me why, but any time I see a funky shaped frame a grab it…it’s a real problem.

This is the other wooden placard along with some mountable candle holders (what the heck are these things called?) I’m always on the lookout for matching hanging hardware, I have a pair in my room that hang on either side of my dresser mirror and they hold my necklaces and headbands.

This is just another overall photo with the goodies I got from miachaels thrown in. They were having a big sale, so we snatched up some goodies.

I started working on the two chairs I’m going to take to work. But we will walk through that tomorrow because while it may not even be 7 yet, I’m so ready for bed. I’m so sleepy I’m fighting to stay awake on the couch right now.

Caloric intake: 2,166
Caloric intake: 767

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame

Day 50: Ri-freaking-diclious

Once again I went to several thrift stores and neglected to take pictures. What the hell? When the hell am I going to learn?

So I bought a bunch of stuff, spent probably a little too much money, got some great ideas, and had fun. Tomorrow I’ll upload pictures….

I am exhausted. I will see you tomorrow. Peace!

Caloric intake: yea…I had calamari today, so again were just going to move on

Until tomorrow, stay wonderfully wild!
Chels aka The Crazy Dame