Reupholstering the Hope Chest

Now that we're all settled into our new house, I decided I should probably decorate it. The bathrooms are complete, the walls now have art, the table has a tablecloth, and the beds have bed spreads and throw pillows. So I decided to actually get to work on our bedroom because it is irritating me to no end. The bed sits on the floor, had no head board, no side tables and the hope chest needed reupholstering. So, first project on the list was to get the feet for the bed. However, it takes a couple of weeks for them to get here so in the mean time, it's reupholstering season.

The hope chest had a print on it from when my mom redecorated my room in a floral theme. The colors actually could have worked, but there was a massive grease stain on it plus a brownish splotch (like soda had been spilled on it or something), so it had to go.

So here is the old hope chest:

Grease Stain:

And here are all the things I needed for the jog: solid fabric, lace fabric, scissors, screw driver, and a staple gun w/staples.

I got my fabric at the old Walmart, where they cut it down to the size I needed, so I only needed to trim a bit of excess fabric. I centered my headboard fabric side down. I pulled the fabric up and folded the frayed edge under. I notice a lot of people don't do this step on their DIY projects; they just tug and staple. I'm sure it's fine in most cases, but if you have a delicate fabric or a really frayed edge, your staples can pull lose if you don't double it over. Anyway, put one staple on each side to secure and then staple all the way around like so:

you may have noticed the funny corners, how astute of you. here will always be a pleat when you fold corners. There is no real "method" of how to do it, just fold it until you find a way you like then repeat it on all four corners. You may need to cut away some of the excess fabric to make this easier (just make sure you leave enough to fold over to the back).

Since I had two layers of fabric, I didn't mind too much what the bottom layer corners looked like:

Then I repeated the process with the lace:

Then I screwed the lip back on and voila! The green is more noticeable in person, but I'm happy with it :)

Egg White Spinach and Cheese Omelette - And P90X

After completing Insanity 2.5 times (I only did month one the third time through since I got P90X for Christmas), I've officially gotten bored. Between my second and third round I did 1 month of my own workouts put together from various BodyRock (not called the daily hiit), BodyRipped (this girl was featued on bodyRock and has clearly ripped their name, but the workouts are still good), and WarriorZ (that first link is to the unofficial website, but it is very good. This next link is to Zuzanna's official new website since she and the owner of BodyRock divorced), and my pinterest.

*Jump to the omelette recipe and nutrition*

So Insanity lasted me for about 5 months before I needed something new. In all honesty, I still really enjoy month one. Month two is killer, which is fine, but I find myself wondering when it will be done because instead of being tough and fun, it gets touch and boring after the first time through all the videos, at least for me.

Perhaps it is because of the novelty, but I love P90X. Again, this may be because of the newness, but even though the videos are all about an hour (~20 minutes longer than Insanity's month 1 videos), they fly by. The warm up is also much more enjoyable and seems like much more of a traditional warm up than Insanity's mini-workout style warm up.

However, they do seem incredibly easy to me. Insanity is much more cardio based while P90X is focused more on strength training/muscle building. I think I accidentally managed to do this in a fantastic order because cardio shreds my fat but doesn't exactly give me muscle/strength (some, just not a lot). Now that my cardio is way up, turning to muscle building is disconcertingly easy.

Don't get me wrong, I am hella sore the next day. The effects seem to be the reverse; with Insanity I was dying during the workout but not very sore the following day (once I got through the first week or so). With P90X I seem to be soaring through the workouts with ease and then the next day my body is wondering why  it feel like a dump truck ran it over.

My husband is also gone for the next 8 weeks (1 week down!) so I basically have nothing to do but work out. My only real friend around here (we've only been in this area for 3 months) is pregnant so drinking is a no-go and I don't drink alone since that is weird. My friend (she is also married to a marine) has suggested I take up having a glass of wine before bed to unwind. She's been through a deployment and the wine + a warm bath apparently helped her a lot. I am struggling with the loneliness; daytime is fine since I work (oh yea, another new job alert--search engine optimization stuff) but once it gets to be around 16:00 I have to start thinking about dinner and then I get mopey because I know it's just going to be for me. Cooking for one kind of sucks since almost all recipes are geared for two so I either have leftovers I never eat or I spend forever restructuring the recipe for one. I refuse to eat like crap just because I am a mopey moperson.

On that note, P90X has been great at solving that issue. The program comes with a nutrition guide that I am
supposed to follow everyday. I don't since I have a lot of dietary issues that simply don't allow me to eat half of the things the diet plan suggests. However, they do have a lot of recipes that are great. I do modify them from time to time but the modifications are all healthy (like adding spinach or swapping our different fruit/veggies). So without further ado and whining on my part, here is the egg white and cheese omelette from P90X that I modified to not be quite so humongous and with some color (the spinach makes this look much less like a giant white circle).

Egg White, Spinach, and Cheese Omelette

		Cals		Tot Fat		Sat Fat		Trans		Sodium		Potein
4 eggs whites		68		0.24		0		0		2.2		14.4
3 oz of moz		120		9		5.25		0		255		10.5
1.5 tbsp skim milk		8.5		0		0		0		11.25		0.84
1/2 cup fresh spinach		3		0.06		0.009		0		12		0.43
dash onion flakes
dash cayenne pepper
dash pepper
Total		199.5		9.3		5.259		0		280.45		26.17
Boil water, remove from heat and add spinach to wilt. Mix egg whites, mozzarella, milk, spinach, and spices. Spray small pan with non-stick spray, set to medium heat. Add omlet mix. Cook as desired*.

TAH DAH!


*I personally don't like a liquid center, some people do but it gives me the willies. I let mine cook almost all the way through then flip it and cook the remaining raw looking parts.