Confession time

I've been cheating on you.

I'm sorry.

It really wasn't intentional.

I've decided that the best way to deal with this is full disclosure...so here it is.

I have a new blog.

The good news is that all of you non-New Kids fans will no longer have to put up with my sappy doe-eyed posts. This blog can go back to being Simply Shannon again.

I promise that I will actually begin posting again!!! Real, honest to goodness normal Shannon posts.

For those of you who actually enjoy my psycho-stalker fan posts...please feel free to visit my other blog (http://macloversparadise.blogspot.com/) any time you wish! You should be able to find plenty there to keep you entertained!

Looking Fine Challenge

It seems that using Joe for motivations is working! I'm down 2 lbs from last week.

SO....I'm going to go right on thinking a whole lot about this...and not so much about this...

Psychic Ipod?

Things in my world have been a bit stressful lately.

To put it a bit more accurately, I'm probably the most stressed out I have ever been in my entire life. I don't feel comfortable going into detail about why, so I won't.

This blog is my "happy place" and I try to keep things positive for the most part. Not because I care about what other people might say, but just because I am not the type of person who likes to wallow in the negative stuff. Which is probably why I haven't really been blogging a whole lot lately. I've been having a difficult time thinking of cheerful things to discuss.

Instead I have been going to my other happy place. A place I like to call Joeville. It is a place that requires absolutely no brain power at all. Hormones and the senses of sight and hearing are the only things required.

Anyway, this morning I was driving to work and thinking about all of the garbage that has been stressing me out. I was listening to my ipod, and was suddenly struck by what seemed to be quite the cosmic coincidence. I have an ipod nano, so the songs that play are chosen at random from my playlist. This morning each and every song that played seemed to be speaking directly to me about what is happening in my life right now...and in Joe's voice no less. I will grant you the fact that the majority of the songs on my current playlist are either Joe's solo stuff, or NKOTB...but there are plenty of other artists as well. Not today though. At least not until the last song that played before I got out of the car. That one was the Jackson 5...and it still fit the theme of the morning.

I don't know why it happened, but it really was exactly what I needed this morning. So I guess this is my thanks to the genius people at Mac who decided that the nano should be random.

New motivation

Thanks to the girls on the NKOTB forum, I now have something new to help keep me motivated in the Looking Fine by 2009 challenge! I thought that a few of my loyal readers might get a giggle, so I'm sharing...

No Joe, No I do not.

Now I just need to make it poster sized and hang it above my bed like in the old days. (TOTALLY kidding...maybe)

Looking Fine by 2009...or not

Things are not looking so great this week. One of the many things that I hate about being this overweight is that 10 lbs is nothing. When you're thin, losing 10 lbs is HUGE, but when you're as big as I am, it's not a big deal at all. Mostly because I know that I can gain or lose that 10 lbs in the matter of a couple of days.

I had been losing consistently before without really changing my habits, and now for no apparent reason that I can see- I've gained a bunch of it back. I haven't done anything that I can think of that would have caused me to gain the weight back. It's just back.

Oh well, I'm not going to let it get me down. I'm just going to keep on truckin', and maybe next week it will be gone again.

I hope you're having better luck than I am.

I'm still alive

Sorry to be MIA all week. I just haven't felt very bloggy.

Hopefully inspiration will strike soon.

Oh, I did take some pretty sunset pictures, and a few fun pictures of Ciara playing in the leaves in our yard the other day. I suppose I can share those.

Looking Fine week 10

Bah!

Raging case of PMS + Halloween = not even going to talk about it this week.
I hope you're all in a better state than I am.

I'll be back next week after the water weight has gone away with a real post.

More Praise

I need to say a big Thank you to KD @ A Bit Squirrelly who recently presented me with two more blog awards.

I tried to do a bit of research on this one, but I wasn't really able to find anything except for other blogs written in Portuguese who also received the award. So I have no clue if it has rules or anything like that. Please forgive my ignorance and accept my heartfelt gratitude.




Here are the characteristics of the Smile Award:

~You must display a cheerful attitude.
~You must show love to others.
~You must make mistakes.
~You must learn from others.
~You must be a positive contributor to blogging.
~You must love life.
~You must love kids.

Here are the rules for the Smile Award:

~You must link back to the award creator. (IDK who it is! Sorry!)
~You must post the rules if you are a recipient.
~You must choose 5 people to pass the award to.
~You must fit the characteristics of the award.
~You must post the characteristics of the recipient of the award.
~You must create a post sharing your win with others.
~You must thank the giver of the award.

I would like to pass both awards on to the following bloggers...

Carol, Rachael, Dana, Wendi, and Julie.

Please go check them out if you haven't already.

Our little Belle

Here's a little glimpse of what Halloween was like for Ciara this year.

Today Daddy came and joined us at school for our annual evacuation drill and trick or treat parade! Ciara was excited to say hello to the big dalmatian this year...last year you couldn't get her within 30 feet of him.

Getting ready for the big ball?

After nap we carved our pumpkin. This is how Ciara felt about it...

After that Ciara got her costume back on so that we could go trick or treating around our neighborhood as soon as Daddy got home from work.

We took some pics while we waited for Daddy to be ready

She picked this pose all by herself.

Ciara was not shy about visiting strange houses this year! Here she is ringing her first doorbell...

We hope you had an equally fabulous Halloween!