Sick and Tired

Our lives are spent trying desperately to make people like us. Trying to do things that OTHERS would approve of. Trying to be the kind of people that OTHERS like. I’m tired of it.

I’m a little tired of my self as well. I worry about being hurt. How would I manage if I broke my leg? Well, I guess I’d manage. What if I couldn’t drive? Life would be a bit more difficult for a while. Boo-hoo. Kellie would drive me places. I know he would.

I’m afraid of never being the kind of person I want to be. Well, way to go. Never getting started is just making sure you NEVER, EVER get there. I’m sick of it.

Life is not lived on a computer. Life is not free from inconvenience. I may never be as thin or as organized as I would love but I will never be that person that I want to be if I don’t make the effort to teach myself more about HER. No, about me!

I need to put on the suit! I need to enjoy being me and if others don’t like who or what they see, SCREW THEM!

I’m not going to allow my stupid fears to keep me in check. I’m not going to allow my insecurities to run my life. Hell, if it makes me nervous, I’m going to do it twice as fast!

I am going to live my life with as much fun and passion as I can muster. Hopefully, I’ll remember to record most of it here!

Perhaps I forgot something

I am currently in the middle of my 3rd Whole30.  I love the way I feel.  I’m rarely tired and I feel so motivated to get things done.  I am rarely hungry between meals.  Sometimes, I snack but it’s more from habit than necessity and is probably something I should put an end to.

One of the things I really, really love about Whole30 is that I don’t have to track anything.  I don’t have to watch calories, I don’t have to log meals, I just eat real food.  Good food.  However, I haven’t lost much weight recently.  On my first Whole30, I lost 20 pounds in 30 days.  THAT was inspiring.  Exciting.  Motivating.  Not seeing a huge loss is a bit demoralizing.  So as any self-respecting American, I turned to the internet for faster ways to lose weight.  There are lots of answers there.  Not all are helpful.  So what am I doing wrong?  As I searched the Whole9 website (they would be so annoyed that I’m basing my health on a number on the scale but at this point, that number really is relevant and I also haven’t had a huge improvement in the way my clothes fit), I realized that I was missing a key ingredient in this health-improvement-journey.  I forgot to exercise.  Doh!  Oh sure, I take the dogs for a walk occasionally and I try not to be predominately sedentary but I don’t really push myself and I don’t really sweat much.  I’m missing the opportunity to really feel better and look better.

My first impulse after deciding that I need to add in a ton of workouts every single day and basically, go overboard.  I’m sort of over that now.  Sort of.  I’m not going to dive in and spend a bunch of money but I am going to give our schedule a look and see where I can squeeze in more and more workouts.  Our house is currently torn apart due to a never-ending home-improvement project so our Bowflex is buried in Jake’s furniture but I can start walking twice a day and push our limits on mileage.  That is easy.  If this project ever finishes, I can add in a weight lifting workout 3 times per week and keep it simple to start.  Look at that!  I didn’t even spend any money!  Whew!  Maybe I’ll have to buy new shoes every once in a while.

I will likely add in some stuff later on when I really get the work-out bug but first, I think I would be wise to start with what I know I can handle and move up to the other stuff as I build muscle and stamina.  Establishing a schedule is key for me.  Forming a habit is also key.

So here’s the plan – we walk the dogs twice a day building up to 2 miles/trip for the remainder of the summer.  Once the house is put back together -maybe one day, I will add in weight lifting on M-T-Th.  At the end of summer (just 7 more weeks!), I will re-evaluate my standing and my stamina.  I think this will be a good place to start.  And it’s healthy and I haven’t gone completely overboard!  Go me!

 

It’s happening.

I just posted the last week of school AND the first week of summer on the white-board calendar in our kitchen.  That is scary! And exciting.  In a few short months, Taryn will start 2nd Grade and Jake will move into Kindergarten.  He will go to school for the entire day all week long.  I’ll miss my little man!  I have grand plans for both the summer and the coming fall.  I hope they pan out. 

We are already on burn restrictions here in AZ (not a surprise because we have gotten so little rain this years) so our camping trips this summer won’t be as  fun as normal.  No camp fires to sit and talk around or roast marshmallows over.  Boo.  However, we will be enjoying our camping trips nonetheless!  I hope to finally get the boat out for a camping trip.  Kellie’s very romantic birthday present from the kids and me was a carborator rebuild kit for the boat.  Woo-hoo!  So basically, we gave him work for his birthday.  Sorry, hun!  Perhaps late in the summer we can  have some fires in the fire pit out front and enjoy dinner after some wet summer storms. 

The kids will be busy this summer with swim lessons, movies, play-dates, VBS, riding, and weekly soccer games with whoever shows up.  I have an idea for an equine anatomy chart for the kids to learn basic horse anatomy with.  If I feel really successful with it, I’ll make a western saddle and a hunter saddle as well. 

Easter was great.  We had some extra company in the form of our friend and his kids.  Our kids idolize his kids so it works great for us.  The kids did an egg hunt in the morning and had a great time playing together and dying Easter eggs.  I should have gotten his daughter on a horse but I dropped that ball.  Sorry, kid. Our kids both got Lego kits from the Easter Bunny and minimal candy, thankfully. 

I’ve managed to revert back to my poor eating habits with this dumb cold I’ve been fighting.  It’s been awful.  I think my poor eating habits have made it worse.  I’m so sore and I can’t help but wonder if it’s not inflammation from eating too much junk.  So back on a Whole30 (maybe Whole60 – should be a Whole365) I go.  Anyway, I’m more rambling than anything so talk to you later!

My Whole30 Results!

Well, it was the easiest 20 lbs I have ever lost.  Seriously.  It was easy.  I was rarely hungry between meals and most of my snacking was simply from habit.  I found lots of great recipes that we truly enjoyed.  I’ve continued to cook and eat mostly Paleo since the completion of my Whole30 stint but I don’t feel like it’s really enough.  May 1st (or maybe April 21st) will be the start of another Whole 30 for me and depending on our summer itinerary, I may end up doing a Whole60 instead.  I thought that I would do a Whole30 every odd month (except November – anniversary, Taryn’s birthday, and Thanksgiving)  while staying mostly Paleo in between.  That allows for birthdays and holidays that I don’t want to be quite so strict for and given that we want to travel this summer and go visit my side of the family in San Jose, the Whole60 would take the place of July’s Whole30.  Make sense? 

In other news, my kids are apparently going to be best buddies.  Jake waits impatiently for Taryn to come home from school and then they play non-stop once the homework and reading is done.  He asks if he can stay at school and ride the bus home with Taryn (not an option but sounds really nice to me!)  I bet by the end of the summer, though, they are tired of being together and ready for separate classes.  Jake starts Kindergarten next year so his dream of riding the bus home with his sister will be coming true.  My dream of having time to get my butt in a saddle will also be coming true!  Until then, I’m just making time.  😉

We found out today that Kellie did not get drawn for elk this year.  With our dwindling supply and the prices at the grocery store, I’m hoping that he’s successful in obtaining a leftover tag and then obtaining the elk to go with it. Otherwise, I think we’ll be buying a steer.  Although, it may be more cost efficient in the long run to just purchase 1/2 a steer from a processor. 

Tis time to read to the kids.  We’re reading The Call of the Wild now.  Given that we had to go to the Grand Canyon after reading Brighty, I wonder if there won’t be an Alaskan trip in the future for us!   See ya!

 

What’s Happening?

I’m blaming my current lack of posting on my lack of a desktop computer.  It’s difficult to type out a post on my tablet or on my phone.  Which is really a lame excuse since I have a Bluetooth keyboard for my tablet. 

So, what’s happening here is this:  I’m preparing to do a Whole30 stint.  It’s basically strict-Paleo for 30 days.  No dairy, no beans, no grains, no sugar.  Sounds restrictive, right?   I’m choosing to ignore that it’s restrictive and be excited about all the different ways I get to learn to prepare yummy meals!  Seriously, unless you are completely unwilling to search  for them, there are tons of great recipes easily found on the web.  I’m very excited about that.   After stumbling upon Foodee.com, I’m very excited.  Don’t get me wrong. I’ll definitely miss stuff like butter and sugar but it’s only 30 days.  I think I can manage.  I start February 10th so I’m preparing by finding recipes and creating a meal plan that will fit the bill of being both economical and delicious.  Preparation is my friend. 

The kids are having fun in school and Taryn is starting a new jump-rope club on Monday.  She’s very excited about that and has been hopping around the house non-stop ever since they sent the flier home.  She really likes to stay at school.  Not sure what that says about our parenting! 

Tomorrow, I get to make the trip to Phoenix for my 3 month checkup on my eyes.  I have zero complaints.  I can see everything!  Last testing showed me at 20/15 which is fantastic since I couldn’t even see the large E on the charts clearly before. 

Tax time is upon us!  I hope we get a great return but I have a hunch that we will not.  We are really wanting to pull out the carpet at hour house and put in vinyl plank flooring.  A boost from a good return would be great.  We also really need to paint the exterior of the house.  More money!  Darn house.   LOL!  Although, really, the paint is the expensive part and even that is not so bad.  It’s just the massive amount of work that will go into it.  And picking colors.  Picking colors is hard.  

So there’s the month of January!  All wrapped up!  Jake turns 5 (FIVE???!!!) on February 13th and Linda is home for a visit.  Should be a fun month!

Deliberately Deliberate

As we kick off 2014, I am feeling ahead of the game.  The house is clean including under the sinks and I’m in search of the perfect dresser to stash in our closet to make it a bit more  organized.  I’ve managed to purge quite a bit of stuff from our house and that darn closet is begging me to start flinging stuff we simply don’t need.  Heck, even our Christmas decorations are put away and the tree is now residing in the wood pile to help keep pur house warm this winter. 

Last year, for the first time in my life, I managed to read the Bible from cover to cover and this morning, I started again with a new Bible.  I find that getting up early and including some Bible reading in my routine helps my mood.  Dramatically.  So does making the time to work out in the morning!  I’ve noticed over the last few months that I can get rather cranky at certain (ahem) times of the month and I’ve realized that my hormones simply seem to fluctuate differently now than they did 5 years ago so keeping an active lifestyle has been great for keeping me off that proverbial broom! 

Another great change has been dropping gluten from our diets.  It isn’t always easy and I’m not always diligent but the changes in Jake’s eczema have been really encouraging.  My own skin reacts to the gluten and breaks out with rosacia to tell on me if I cheat!  Haha!  I’m considering doing the Paleo diet this year but I don’t really care to be completely dedicated to it as that makes it feel too restrictive, in my opinion.  Instead, I will simply incorporate lots of different and new recipes that lean that way. 

Frankly, that is my plan for almost everything this year. I determined that I didn’t really want to have any New Years Resolutions but wanted to focus on one word this year.  After some thought, I chose the word “DELIBERATE” to help me make good choices in all aspects of my life.  I want to make a deliberate decision to eat healthy and exercise regularly.  I want to make deliberate decisions to be the best wife and mother that I can be.  I want to be a deliberate equestrian and a deliberate friend.  That entails making time for working out, riding, dates with both my wonderful husband as well as my friends, family fun time, and quiet reading time as well. 

It’s a fun and new (to me) method of looking at my life differently!  I hope you have lots of great plans for the Year Of The Horse as well!

Anxiety

I was reading a blog recently in which the writer said tthat her anxiety has gotten worse in the past couple of years.  As a long-time reader of her blog, I realized that she had been in therapy for her anxiety (and other issues) for that same length of time.  It got me thinking.  What if, by giving our anxieties enough power to make us turn to therapy, medication, and/or other interventions, we are actually just feeding that anxiety and giving it more and more power?  For the record, I am not a doctor and I don’t even play one on TV.  I do randomly deal with my own anxieties as do most people. 

I started to wonder what would happen if every time I started to feel anxious, I dealt with it by changing my thought pattern and thought about how the situation would likely turn out – some situations are just not pleasant but can be much less stressful than I was making them into (think dentist!) – and make it more positive in my mind. 

Now, let me be the first to admit that my life is far from the stressful  life of a high-powered executive working mother.  My typical biggest stressor is what I am going to put on the dinner table in an hour. That said, in the situations that I do have anxiety in, it has worked!  I may have done something right!  Yippee!  I had a dentist appointment just yesterday and had been feeling anxious about it but I was able to go in and just relax.  And the appointment was just no big deal.  I hope that I can continue that trend.  I will be utilizing this method as often as possible. This weekend will be a good time to test it as we have company coming and that always gives me a bit of worry!

Happy birthday to me!

Okay, my birthday isn’t really until next month but I’m still going to do what I need to do!  I have decided to give my self the ultimate gift for my birthday and the best part is that it is free AND it gives back to my family as well.  My gift to me is Happiness.  I am going to make the changes in my life that I have been afraid to make for a long time.  Because I am worth it. 

There are a few things that I really need to work on –

1.  Healthiness.  I don’t really care if I am a size 0 but I want to be healthy enough to hike and swim and kayak and ride with my kids for many, many years to come.  My goal is to be here when my kids have kids and to be the grandma I wish my kids had.  The one who does Grandma Camp, sleep overs, Adventures, and all the other things that my kids, unfortunately, miss out on since my mother died and my husband’s mother has been ill all of my kids’ lives. 

2.  A home – Currently our house is a house.  It doesn’t feel like a refuge and that is what I want for all of us.  I want our home to feel like it hugs us when we are here.  Inside and out.  This might take some time and some money!  Yikes!  But there are simple things we can do to help make it better for free.  Like de-cluttering.  We really don’t need all this garbage.  What we need is room for us to play and be together.  And as FLYLady says, you can’t organize clutter!  Time to get rid of it all!  Okay, we can keep somethings.  Like our clothes.  Some of them, anyhow.  

4.  Patience – I am going to make every effort to NOT yell at my kids.  There will be times when I will have re-lapses but I’ve been working at this for a while now and it’s simply amazing how drastically my kids respond to this tactic.  If I don’t yell, things typically get done more quickly.  We all feel happier and our family simply runs better.  

There are probably more things I will add to this list but I think this is a good place to start today.  Right now, I’m off to declutter and sweep & mop the floors!  Yippee!!

From One Mom To Another

A Facebook friend posted this meme last year. I have to say, it really irritated me for many reasons.  The most irritating reason is that no one has any idea what personal struggles the mother he was referring to goes through on the daily basis of being Mommy.  Being Mommy is a 24/7 job as we all know.  It’s not a job where sanity breaks are common unless you mean that you have a break in sanity, I suppose.  Part of me wishes I had spoken up on her behalf but it has always lingered in my mind.  What if that woman has serious financial issues?  Maybe a serious issue with her husband?  What about any number of other issues that might be calling on her attention for the time that you see her?  No one can possibly know everything about another’s life.  Being Mommy is by far, the hardest job on the planet, IMO.  You have lives that YOU mold into what they will be.  You are totally responsible for them and their outcomes.  I can’t even fathom another job that even comes close to that amount of responsibility.  I have often wondered why God allowed ME to have kids when I have NO clue as to what I am doing!  And I think we all have those moments.  Including that FB friend with his meme. 

If there were just one thing I could tell every single mother out there, it is this:  We are all just making things up as we go along.  Sadly, our children did not come with owner’s manuals and frankly, I don’t know anyone who reads those things, anyhow!  So instead of trying to be Mother Of The Year (I didn’t even know that was a real thing until I started reading 71 Toes!  Talk about PRESSURE!!), I think it would behoove us to attempt to learn from each other.  To attempt to glean from our peers what they do that is both good and bad.  Everyone has something they can teach you, even if what you learn is that you never want to do what they do.  

Mentor Moms is an idea from MOPS that I see as incredibly valuable.  Having an older, been-there-done-that mother is a God-send!  Someone with whom you can bounce ideas off of and discuss how she handled similar situations.  You won’t want to do everything that she did but maybe you’ll learn something new and save yourself a few of those “I’ve-really-screwed-up-and-I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing!” tears. 

I think maybe the hospitals should include a little leaflet in every new mother’s paperwork about how you are not alone in this.  That proverbial village is out there.  You only have to ask.  Watch.  Learn.  Open your mind a bit. 

There will be days in which all you really need is a hug.  I know that there are days when I’m positive I am messing up so horridly that my kids are going to grow up and hate me.  I sincerely hope that I am wrong about that but those are the days when a good hug would do me wonders. 

I guess my #2 thing to tell new mothers is that even though you may not have asked for the advice, it may still be suitable to your situation.  Our society seems to scoff when anyone makes a suggestion to anyone else – especially strangers.  Perhaps, though, if we just took a moment to think it over, we might see things a bit differently?  Maybe that unsolicited advice was really helpful when implemented.  Some of it is probably garbage but I’d wager a larger percentage is actually sage advice that the person giving it thought would have been helpful to her when she was in your shoes. 

I don’t see the value in memes such as the one above.  They only seem to make an already difficult job even more difficult and demean someone who is probably trying her hardest to make it through the day and at some point, have everyone bathed and combed.  There would have been far more value in offering to babysit so she could spend some quality time with her husband without “MOMMY!, CAN I HAVE A COOKIE?” being asked of her 187 times in an hour.  Help people be better people.  Don’t belittle them for doing the best that they can with what they have got.  Parenting, especially, is not a competition.  Kids are all different as are their parents.  That’s how we end up with so many different and wonderful folks in the world!

10 Things I’ve Learned from Watching Curious George

10 – Monkeys are quite adept at city-living.  I guess they are more adaptable than me! 

9 – If you live in the big city with a monkey, it’s a good idea to have a country home as well.

8 – Monkeys are perfectly happy and content to sleep in a twin size bed just like a 6 year old.

7 – If you run a restaurant, it is perfectly acceptable to allow the monkey to not only eat there but also to cook and basically have free range in the kitchen.

6 – It is perfectly acceptable to leave your super-hyper and playful Cocker Spaniel under the care and supervision of a monkey.

5 – If you have a yellow hat AND a monkey, just forget your name.  No one will ever refer to you by your name again.  And if you’re really fortunate, they’ll make a movie about you in which they make you look like a complete and total buffoon. 

4 – Monkeys are amazingly adept at taking apart cuckoo clocks. 

3 – If your monkey should happen to climb to the top of a dinosaur in the museum and fall off and break his leg, never fear.  An ambulance will come and take him to the hospital to be seen by a human doctor and not a veterinarian.

2 – A monkey who goes to the zoo to watch a baby panda will stand there with all of the people and NO ONE will attempt to put him in the monkey cages.  But he will wreak havoc on the zoo before he goes home for the evening.

And

1 – Despite the inconsistencies with # 6, it is perfectly acceptable to leave your injured monkey in the care of the Dachshund who helps man the lobby. 

Conclusion – monkeys are much easier than children.  It is perfectly acceptable to leave them alone despite their child-like demeanor and Curious George might get into a little less trouble if he had just a little more supervision….