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Makeover Monday: Refurbish, Don’t Refinish

Posted on February 10, 2014 by admin

I found this well-loved desk in Goodwill months ago. I grabbed it for $15, knowing it just needed a little TLC. It’s smaller than a regular desk, perfect for an elementary school-aged student (or a hall table until then…). I loved the shape and the little details (brass keyhole, pull-out writing surface), and wanted to retain some of the original character. So I decided instead of refinishing it like I did with the bench project, I decided to just restore it.

Desk makeover — She was a little rough when I got her.

Before: desk makeover — She had some great features, like a locking drawer and pull-out writing surface, but the wood was stained and dry and DIRTY.

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A Very Vickers Holiday Card

Posted on January 29, 2014 by admin

Every year I do something a little different for our family holiday card. I love getting photo cards from friends and family far and near, so I always like to incorporate our pictures somehow. However, since I’m a designer, I physically can’t bring myself to send a pre-designed card. Ever. So, I do my own.

This year, I was running a little behind, so I made it a New Year card. We’ve had a pretty stellar year: moved into our dream house, have a great daycare, work is going great, so the image that popped to mind when reminiscing about last year was Santa riding a unicorn. This thought would not leave my head, and so I had to go with it. Presenting this year’s card:

The trick is to use normal-looking images of us, with a little something extra going on (that you may not notice right away.)

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Makeover Monday: Flip the Switch on Switchplates

Posted on January 27, 2014 by admin

Paint your switchplates — For about 11 bucks and 2 hours, you can freshen up a room.

One of my favorite inexpensive makeovers to do for a room is to paint the switchplates. You know, the ugly, yellowing plastic covers for your plugs and light switches? I got this idea because when I touched up our basement, I found that we had like a THOUSAND different switchplates: aluminum, yellowing plastic, grayish plastic, whitish plastic. All of them were beat up and, well, hideous. Replacing all of them would have been pricey and unjustifiable to my husband, who, bless his heart, couldn’t care less about a little detail like that. I like the look of the oil-rubbed bronze, plus we have several light fixtures around the house in that finish. When I looked at buying new ones, the 2-plug covers and light switches were about $3 each, and the specialty multiple plug/light switch combos were $8 or more. Yeah, dumb to pay that much.

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Free DIY Advent Calendar for Kids

Posted on January 23, 2014 by admin

Now that the holidays are over and we’re deep into January gloom, I can reflect on our first Advent-ure with an advent calendar. (See how I did that?) I wish I could tell you that I had a deep understanding of the advent tradition. In my family, it was just a countdown to Christmas. Some years my great aunt would send us a calendar with a little chocolate behind each day, and most years, we’d move a small teddy bear around an advent quilt. Since I didn’t want to get the kiddo all sugared up every night before bedtime, and I don’t have the skills to make an advent quilt, I decided to go with what I know: Post-Its and doodles.

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Makeover Monday: Coffee Table

Posted on January 20, 2014 by admin

Some people like to rescue stray puppies, I rescue stray furniture. I see it on the street, “FREE” sign hanging limply to the side, waiting for a loving home. So I bring it home, I clean it up, feed it well, love it, and turn it into part of our family.

Because I tend to rescue LOTS of things, I received the edict from my husband not to rescue anything else until I’d rehabilitated what I’d already accumulated. That was incentive enough to get started.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I found this coffee table on the curb. It had cool lines, was in fine structural shape aside from the cracked marble top, and just needed some refinishing. So we hauled it home. I had a while to think about it, and when I pulled out the marble, it occurred to me to make an upholstered seat and turn it into a bench for the end of our bed.

Furniture makeover: bench — A stray coffee table on the street becomes a beloved bench in our home.

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Maintain, Don’t Gain: Wrap-Up (a Guest Post!)

Posted on January 13, 2014 by admin

Hey everyone, I’m excited to have my very first guest post. And I’m even more excited that it’s by my very own sister!

Since she was a more diligent MDG-er than me, I asked her to write about her experience with the Challenge. Her account is inspiring me to continue on!

As for my experience, I’m proud to say that it worked for me–with some pitfalls in the middle. I was up SIX pounds right after Christmas, but thanks to her encouragement, and my new FitBit, I was able to turn things around and get active and healthy again. Sidenote: while the measure for success was weight, I realize there are so many other factors to good health. I’ll probably be talking more about those in another post.

Here’s my favorite quote form her account: “Any time I’d tried to change my habits I tried to go all out all at once and would feel better, but would give up after a week. Taking things one week at a time and changing everything each week appealed to my need for variety.” You can read her whole experience below.

From Heather:

It has been so much fun to join the challenge this year. This was my first year joining the Maintain, Don’t Gain Challenge and the payoff was far greater than I expected. I had plans to spend two weeks in Seattle with my sister so I thought it would be fun to be on track with her when I arrive. Plus my weight was higher than I’m really comfortable with and the holiday treats were already arriving at work, adding temptation to already bad habits. Maintaining sounded realistic. I had no idea how much I would learn along the way.

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Maintain, Don’t Gain: Week 6—This is the End?!?

Posted on January 5, 2014 by admin

Week #5 of the Maintain, Don’t Gain Challenge was total redemption for all my shortcomings to this point. I’d like to thank my sister for taking the challenge seriously (more so than me) and being my partner this week. I was lucky enough to get a fitbit one for Christmas, and it’s already had an impact on how I spend my day. While I’d often take my exercise class and household chores/errands as “enough activity” — aka — “I really need to catch up on the DVR, so let’s count this as good,” I’m seeing that I’m not active enough throughout the day. So it was our guide. We also ate tons of fruits and veggies, picked up juicing, watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (free on hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix: WATCH IT! SERIOUSLY.), ran and walked more than I ever would, took functional fitness classes, and even did this:

Aerial silks class — Aerial silks: much tougher and less graceful than I thought.

The warmup and conditioning were tough, and I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to actually learn tricks! This picture is how I’d like to remember the class, but I felt more like a sweaty belly-flopper who hadn’t stretched her hammies for 20 years.

So even though it was just an exercise and water challenge for the week, we took it to the next level and made it an exercise-10,000 steps-strength-water-juice-veg-clean-eating challenge week. It wasn’t super strict, after all, there are some delightful goodies in our neighborhood. But, being focused and feeling good about our choices made it easier to stay the course. For the most part.

Goodies are ok in moderation — To be fair, our yoga-long walk day included chocolate and beer tasting. Chocolate photo via Eli Duke on flickr.

I’ll admit, the detoxing of it all made me pretty tired and headache-y for a couple of days, but I definitely feel BETTER, if that makes any sense. My mood is improved, I have more energy during the day, and it’s feeling easier to make better food choices. Hell, we actually skipped a trip to the French bakery in favor of making some juice, so that says something. Which brings me to…

This week’s challenge: You pick TWO challenges you’d like to complete this week.

By now, trying each challenge one at a time should have given you some idea of what works best for you. I’ll admit, I didn’t make the full challenge any week except for fruit and veggies and exercise/water. I didn’t feel like it was a battle royale to stay on track, and I felt better at the end of each of those weeks. Where I struggled was when I needed to restrict something. Funny thing was, when nothing was restricted, I did it naturally. The minute it was verboten, I blew it.

So this week, my challenges are:

3 days of fitness classes and 3 runs
8-10 servings of veggies and fruits (especially juice)
Get my 10,000 steps every day

Since it’s the final stretch and there may be some holiday damage to undo, pick what works best for YOU. What will make you feel great this week?

I hope you’ll join me this week and try to have a healthier ~~holiday~~ new year.

So, if you haven’t already, Print out your pdf and keep track of your challenges for the week.

Feel free to comment here, tweet, or pin your progress!

Cheers!

Please note: I am not a health professional. I am not a trainer or dietician. I am a fitness enthusiast. If you embark on a new fitness or diet regimen, please consult your doctor and pay attention to your body and health. This is a social challenge to encourage health and fitness through the holidays. Your choice to participate is not the responsibility of Committed LLC.

Maintain, Don’t Gain: Week 5—Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2013 by admin

A little late on this week’s post, but hopefully y’all are already playing along. I’m guessing the lazing around, stuffing your faces with leftovers, and running around doing all your return shopping has left you as puffy and dehydrated as me! Let me tell you, last week I was a beached whale, full of extra cookies and stuffing. I did manage to stick to the 10 drinks rule–almost. I lost track at our Christmas Eve party, but I’m guessing I was in the neighborhood of 7-8 glasses of wine. A couple of beers after snowshoeing on Friday, and a beer at the Christmas Panto show at the local brewery might have put me over the top. But what really did the damage was not enough heavy-duty sweat. Though we did get some good walks and movement in, I realize that I’m a bit of a workout junkie. I’m feeling tired, a little cranky (sorry, everyone around me!), and did I mention bloated?

So here we are, on the eve of the biggest night of regret of the year. The day we feel so guilty about all the bad habits we’ve accumulated over the year, and the night we vow to erase all of them in one night. If you can’t tell, I’m not a fan of resolutions. Mostly because I don’t think they have the staying power needed to see a real change. Did you know that 84.3% of Americans buy gym memberships in the first week of January? I didn’t either. Also, I made that up. But I do observe a huge uptick in gym activity come January, which makes me feel like a badass, since, “I’ve been doing this all year long! Let’s see how long you keep this up, you Resolution-Makers!” But really, it’s all good. Whatever sparks your inner desire to take up yoga-cycling, or trapeze paddleboarding, embrace it. If you can stick with it through a month that doesn’t end with “-ary, even better.

This week’s challenge: Drink 64 oz of water EVERY DAY & get 5 x 30-minute exercise sessions.

This is a little dejavu-ey, since we did the exercise before. But since I know you readers LOVE to party, and are hoping to be up to your eyeballs in bubbly by 10pm, you’re going to be dehydrated. And let me tell you, this water thing is the real deal. Flush all the crap out, and get started on that resolution. Even if it’s just for this week.

Again, my apologies for posting this late, but you know you’ve started this one, right?

I hope you’ll join me this week and try to have a healthier holiday.

Also, here are the resolutions I make every year. Enjoy:

Committed resolutions — Can you do this all year too?

So, if you haven’t already, Print out your pdf and keep track of your bevvies for the week.

Feel free to comment here, tweet, or pin your progress!

Cheers!

Maintain, Don’t Gain: Week 4

Posted on December 23, 2013 by admin

How was indulgence week? I NAILED IT…not. You guys, I couldn’t make it 3 whole days without sugar. I might have overstepped by restricting bread, pretzels, basically all baked goods and sweet sauces. It was misery. And I went overboard and ate candy corn. It felt terrible, not only because of the sugar and insulin spikes and crashes, but the disappointment.

However, failures are the way to success, right? And I learned a valuable lesson: moderation is key, even when talking about restricting something. So I took the cheat day easy, and allowed myself a couple of sugar-sweetened items each day. It staved off the crazy crackhead bingefest, and I actually came out of the week feeling pretty good.

But hold onto your hats, kids, because this week is a mother effer.

This week’s challenge: No more than TEN DRINKS for the whole WEEK!

(Mark how many you have in a day). 1 drink = 1 beer, 6 oz wine, or 1 oz liquor. Martinis are 3 drinks, y’all!

KILLJOY! WET BLANKET! PARTY POOPER! No, I’m your guardian angel. You’ll thank me when you second-guess that glass of homemade egg nog. Which, by the way, can have 850 calories! EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY! Wouldn’t you rather get a hamburger and small fries? Or you know, a full nutritious meal and then some? No? Well, that’s one drink you need to mark off this week.

A reason for this week’s challenge is I realized several years ago that boy, do I love my tasty adult beverages. I mean LOVE them. And when it comes to the holidays, I tend to enjoy them much much more. And it’s not the calories in the alcohol that are necessarily the problem, it’s the lowered inhibitions that come along with excessive drinking. I’m not talking spring-break-style-flashing-the-family-and-the-neighbors-style-inhibitions, I’m talking about scarfing down on extra food you don’t necessarily want or need.

This challenge is tough. I’m not gonna lie. Especially with the stress of the holidays, standing on your feet all day, cooking all day, snacking all day. But that’s why it’s a challenge. You can take it a step further and pour yourself a glass of water every time you think of reaching for the bubbly (or mulled wine, or spiked hot chocolate…).

I hope you’ll join me this week and try to have a healthier holiday.

So, if you haven’t already, Print out your pdf and keep track of your bevvies for the week.

Feel free to comment here, tweet, or pin your progress!

Cheers!

Hi, I’m Jen. I’m a Projectaholic.

Posted on December 18, 2013 by admin

I was trying to think of new names for my stuff…you know, the social media stuff. Committedgifts is indeed a terrible name, but the only one I could come up with that contained my business name, Committed, and no ridiculous Committed1357xxysz.com. Committed makes a lot of sense for who I am and what I do, but that name as a URL was snatched up some time in the early 90’s. So I’m kind of stuck with “committedgifts”…except.

Twitter and Instagram allow you to change your username. It took the usual brainstorming tricks & techniques to narrow down what my posts are all about. I realize I’m all over the place: fitness, gardening, DIY, kid activities, crafts, thrifting, food, travel. That much diversity is kinda bad in BlogLand, but it’s who I am. I’m addicted to projects.

I kind of suspected this, but it was confirmed when I overheard the cleaning ladies (yes, we have them come twice/month, which is the BEST investment for a marriage) saying, “She’s always working on SOMETHING.” The ‘She’ being ME. I start a TON of projects. You know how it goes–you get an idea to solve a problem. You get excited that the problem can go away. You shop, prep, maybe even start, then…another problem pops up requiring your attention.

For example, in addition to my freelance work, I have about 4 personal projects going at the same time (which I agree is cuckoo):

1) Maintain, Don’t Gain Holiday Challenge (I know you’ve been following along!)

2) Advent activities for the kiddo (a post to come when we’re done):

Free Advent Calendar — Use leftover poster board, Post-Its, stickers, and Sharpies.

3) 10-Minute Post-It
I take 10 minutes, and a Post-It to sketch out whatever’s on my mind. I post to Instagram and collect those sketches (and friends’ sketches) on a Pinterest board. This is more of a side project I started to get the cobwebs out. A whole large page seems to be a little intimidating, but limiting the size and amount of time seems to make me loosen up. #10MinutePostIt

4) And of course, yesterday, I decided to paint the dining room and the socket covers so we look like we have a big girl house.

Fresh paint — Nothing looks sweeter than a fresh coat of paint.

Oh yes, and there are still Christmas gifts for friends, our annual holiday card, and probably another organizing project lurking in the darkness…So. I had to admit it. As someone addicted to projects. I am Jen. And I’m a Projectaholic.

Now you can follow me on Instagram (@projectaholic) and Twitter (@projectaholic). And you can still like Committed on Facebook. 🙂