I started a daily photograph challenge this month and here are some of my photos from this activity. They aren’t the best as I’ve already been stumped on some of the challenges, but I wanted to show you some of my favorites. I thought Friday Favorites by  Jenn would be a good way to share these photos with you.

Feb 1st Your View:

Feb 2nd Words

Feb 3rd Hands

Want to join me for the challenge? It’s not too late pull out your camera and catch up today!

I found Leah Segedie (aka BookieBoo) years ago! Okay so really I heard of Leah years ago, but we were in two different worlds at the time. But as I change my life and lifestyle I find that I enjoy following her more and more every day. I have had a couple great chats with her on facebook and love connecting with someone who I know understands my struggles because she has been there herself.

Leah Segedie (aka BookieBoo)

Leah is one of the biggest advocates of healthy moms and healthy families. After her own personal struggle with weight and weight loss she now has dedicated her life to helping other moms turn their lives around.

 … a fitness matriarch in the social media realm who helps “digital moms” learn and sustain healthy living practices to combat obesity.

Leah has create two amazing communities (Mamavation & BookieBoo.com)  to help women connect, get healthy, and stay healthy. If you are looking to change your life then you need to follow her today!

Recommended Reads

Here are a few posts that I have really enjoyed and think you may also:

• Shaming the “Fat” Kid is NOT Solving the Problem
• Top 5 Weight Loss Dupes to Watch Out For in New Year
• Confessions: Shame & Weight Gain During Pregnancy
• Do It For Your Kids
• Top 10 Most Influential Females in Fitness for 2011

It’s been 4 months since my surgery and I wanted to share a little more about my recovery and my progress so far.

I recently had a request for some recipes here on Pepper Scraps, now I’m the first one to admit I’m not the best cook out there. But sometimes I do a good job combining a few flavors and making something yummy. Today it was a very yummy light lunch: Creamy Shrimp Cucumber Sandwiches.

• 3 oz cooked frozen shrimp meat
• 1TB light mayo
• 1 TB cocktail sauce
• salt & pepper
• fresh dill
• 5-8 cucumber slices (cut very thin)
• 1TB light cream cheese
• 1 slice bread (my bread was 90 calories/slice)

1. Defrost the shrimp. A quick way to do this is to run the shrimp under cool water in a colander (Dry shrimp in a paper towel if you do this).
2.  Mix shrimp, light mayo, cocktail sauce, and dill in small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3.  Toast the bread
4. Spread cream cheese on bread, layer on cucumber slices
5. Spoon shrimp mix on top of the cucumbers

If you are not eating bread you can change this recipe to serve the shrimp on the cucumber slices instead if you wish or on salad.

I found this today and am very excited to do it. I will probably be posting these photos on my weekly “Friday Favorites” post. What I’m excited about is I’m going to create a google calendar just for this challenge (maybe use it in the future for other challenges too) and enter each day’s challenge into it’s day. That way I can pull up the days challenge on my phone.

Want to join me?

This is a new meme I’m going to try out doing. I am trying to take more photographs this year. I was thinking about doing a 365 project, but with working and getting life back together I think it would be too stressful. I saw Jenn’s new meme and I liked this idea much better, basically you share your favorite photos of the week every Friday.

Today I want to introduce you to someone I just met.

Corbett Barr

I found his name on another site as someone to watch in 2012 so I decided to look at some of his projects that he has started. One word of warning his sites do not have a pg rating, but maybe that’s what caught my eye he has passion!

• Think Traffic
• Expert Enough
• Million Dollar Blog Project

Think Traffic had a great post up about being At Your Lowest Point with your blog and being ready to really build a blog that matters! Yes please I want to see passion like this in bloggers! I love that Corbett’s main goal is to teach bloggers How to Create a Blog that Matters! I want to do this and I’m sure you do to!

Then I pulled up his main blog, Corbett Barr, and saw that he is talking about motivation and this is what my real focus is all about this year! Building motivation and working hard!

Corbett is now in my Google Reader and I can’t wait to start reading more!

Recommended Reads

Here are a few posts that I’m bookmarking (yes I’m at my other job, can’t read them all right now!) to read more of:

• You have to Choose to be Awesome
• Starting a Business Isn’t All Unicorns and Rainbows (the Other Side of the Story)
• How Do You Know When You’re Expert Enough?
• How to Start a Blog that Matters
• 81 Topic Ideas for Starting a Blog that Matters

One of the things that you will find on many weight loss forums is people sharing their non-scale victories (NSVs). I haven’t been really good about keeping up on my NSVs, it is one of the things I’m supposed to keep in my weight loss journal. So today lets catch up, and while we are at it lets have a little fun.

5 Great NSVs

1. Pulling out my box of too small clothes and finding things that are too big
2. Being able to run up and down the stairs and being able to do it without being out of breath
3. Having people ask me what is different about me: “Have you changed your hair?”
4. Having Hubby hug me and make the observation that there is less of me to hug
5. Being able to paint my toes, easily
6. Being able to buy and fit into a Large sweater
7. Being able to see my whole lap when I sit down
8. Being able to walk into a normal size clothes store and not feel like people are staring at me
9. Being able to run around in the parking lot with my littlest boy in the cart and having fun
10. Having  to update all my profile pictures because the old pictures look nothing like me

5 Not So Great NSVs

1. Hubby letting me know that as my face thins out my nose is becoming more prominent
2. Hubby making the observation that loosing weight is making me look older (yes he is batting a hundred here)
3. Having to buy clothes but knowing they won’t fit me in a month
4. Shoes getting too big, including my favorite boots
5. Realizing I will need my wedding ring re-sized soon or I may loose it

So what are some of your NSV with your weightloss? Have you had any Not so Great NSVs before?

I was browsing through my old drafts when I ran across this post I never published. This was written a long time ago, I’m guessing in 2009 or 2010. I almost just deleted it, but then I opened it and smiled at the memories. It also inspired me to talk to you about how going through unfinished drafts is a great way to get inspiration when you have Writer’s Block.

The Old Post

I love to listen to my little boy talk. I love to dwell on his silly yet serious words. Here are some snippets of some of the things I have heard him say just recently.

***

Mr. Z: Orange Monkey, there a orange monkey.
I look at him as he lay on the changing table wearing his orange shirt.
Me: An orange monkey?  I think I see this orange monkey! I think you are the orange monkey. (I start to tickle him.)
Mr Z:  giggle

***

As I set Zarek down to play Zane starts yelling, “Zarek need bottle! Zarek need bottle!” In hopes that Zarek may not be allowed to play with “Zane’s” toys.

***

I love to listen to him sing with his music in his car seat as we drive down the road.

***

Zane was climbing all over the chair in our living room. He was saying, “We need our mouse-ka-tools, We need our mouse-ka-tools, Ohh, Tootles!!” (If you are not an avid toddler TV watcher then you may not know this is from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse aka Zane’s Favorite Show.)

***

At the doctor’s office we were looking at the fish, which Zane loves to do. Zane points to a big fish, “Daddy Fish”. He points to a smaller fish, “Mommy Fish”. He has been doing this for a month now with everything, but then he pointed to another smaller fish, “Andrea Fish”. Andrea is my best friends who Zane adores. LOL

Any car we pass that isn’t our car he goes, “Andrea’s car”. It can be any color, any size and it’s still, “Andrea’s car.”

The Challenge

If you are staring at your computer and you don’t know what to write about go into your old drafts. Don’t just look at the titles, open up the whole post and read them. You may not find a post that is just ready to hit publish on, but you may find a post that you can add to or edit and post. You may even look at an old post and get a completely new idea from it.

The idea is that reading your old writing may bring back a previous passion for blogging you had forgotten about.

How many old drafts do you have that you have never published? Have you ever published a post from years ago before?