New obsessions

So basically it sort of started at Christmas when I got my FitBit Flex. I absolutely LOVE it. l immediately started searching about it. And I learned as much as I could about it. I downloaded the app to my Android phone and immediately changed all the stats and created a profile. I started searching for and adding friends. I even linked it to my Facebook and set it to make a daily stats update to my timeline. I never do that, I hate having apps post stuff for me. But this whole exercising thing was awesome. I felt I was truly doing something to help myself and even though it wasn't a whole heck of a lot, I still felt it was something.

I bought a treadmill in January, call me a New Years Resolutioner or whatever, but I was determined to get into shape. Not that I felt I was particularly out of shape, but I was exhausted. I have 2 little monster boys that keep me on my toes, but I felt I shouldn't be out of breath after going up our half flight of stairs to help my 3yo go potty. That just wasn't cutting it for me. I got a pair of used running shoes at the thrift store for $3, good find, but we'll have to see how they hold up or if they even really work for me. My husband's family decided to do an Atkins diet starting in January (right before my birthday!!!) so I joined it. I also decided to join in a DietBet type thing called The Meltdown Challenge, and even though I totally won and lost my allotted amount of weight (I lost 15lbs!) I forgot to do a final weigh in, oh well. I was getting my steps in almost every night, and if I didn't get them, I walked on the treadmill and watched a show. And I've got this last bit of momma-pooch I'd like to get rid of. I'm not looking to lose 50 pounds, just a few, and I'm more worried about getting into shape and getting healthy!!

Last month, I went in for a cardiac cauterization and the doctor enlarged one of my ventricles with a balloon, to help with the blood flow. Shark talked to the cardiologist because he had some questions.

1) Would exercising help strengthen my heart, and essentially give us more time before the heart transplant, or would it weaken it and make the heart transplant happen sooner?
-------Yes, exercising would strengthen my heart, it would give me more energy, it would also give me more time, but it wouldn't really make a difference.

2) About how long we were looking at until I needed a heart transplant? What was the time frame? Single digits or double digits?
-------About in there. Around 10 years is when they will really start to look at it, unless something else starts happening....

So call this a new exercise obsession, call it me trying to gain control over something I have NO control over whatsoever, call it a last ditch effort, call it what you want. I guess I feel a desperate need to change something and right now, I have all the tools to get fit and get in shape and exercise and run. Yeah my ankles and calves are burning but I am so proud that I've started something and that I've done it 2 days in a row.

I downloaded an app called C25K- Couch 2 5k. And I am so excited to use it and started jogging/running. In reading over the details of the training, I guess I'm not supposed to run on days back to back but I didn't see that until last night/this morning, so I'll be switching to either just walking tonight or yoga or Zumba or something. Part of me also feels like if I take a day off, that'll be the end of my jogging run...

I signed up for a 5K in May. My sister and I are going to do the Color Me Rad. Danger said he wanted to do it with us, we'll see how that goes. I'm not planning (nor even thought about) to RUN or even JOG the 5k, more like a brisk walk, that's all I'm aiming at. I got Danger some shades and a bought him a Color Me Rad shirt from the clearance section when I registered, he can run free. I'm pretty excited.

I know in the past, I've used my heart condition as a fall back, "Oh, I can't do that, I have a heart condition." "I can't do all those setups, run that whole mile, I have a heart condition." But when I think of the recent past, I gave birth! I've been shocked (cardio verted) like 5 times, I've hiked up mountains, I've done all sorts of things. Why on earth would my heart condition hold me back from exercising? So I'm done making excuses, I'm just going to DO!

I also feel like I have no other options. I guess part of me feels like my life is a stake, and running could be the answer... And if that's the case, than that's a pretty easy answer. So that's my plans and that's why I've got a sudden obsession with running.

You beautiful mom, you

Oh moms. Oh women. Oh ladies.

I'm going to be honest and real with you. I'm gonna level. I'm not a real big fan of how I look. I never really have been. (Ok, I thought I was smokin' hot on my wedding day and in my bridal photos!) The photos I'm sharing today, yup, not my bests...

I don't know where my negative view of myself came from. My family always said I was beautiful, ok my mom said it, my siblings did not really help build that confidence until AFTER high school... Middle school and high school were rough on me. I got picked on, ridiculed almost mercilessly. 

I was always more interested in the engineering side of everything. I loved wood shop and drafting. I helped start an archery club. I wore my brothers clothes. I didn't wear makeup or really do my hair in any style other than a ponytail. 

I was the only girl in my wood shop class, and got called a lesbian. It was hard to be made fun of for doing something I loved so much. Plus I was freaking awesome at it. I hold those projects and creations so dear. I still love building and making things. I love talking with my husband about what he's building (propellers right now) and I love drafting and design. I followed that dream and became a professional draftsman. I was the only girl on the drafting side of the projects. I got tougher though. 

As girls, we are told from birth how beautiful we are. How pretty we are. How special we are. We are told that we can do anything we can possibly think of, as long as we try and do not give up. Our families, and sometimes complete strangers, help build our confidence and strengthen us, build us up. 

When do we stop hearing that we're beautiful? When do we stop gaining that confidence? When do we stop building ourselves? When do others (and ourselves!) start the demolition? When do those sharp words and thoughts start flying?

At what point in our lives, do we, as beautiful, confident, amazing young women, allow those negative voices, thoughts, and words creep into our hearts and when and why do we ever start believing them? 

 

I'm not always (hardly ever!) happy with how I look. I'm not good at the 1-and-done selfie pic. Trust me, I take like 10 and then pick the one that I look least "offensive" and it's hard cuz my boys are only available for 1 pic! 

I'm not confident in how I look and feel in my own skin. When I sit and think about it, it's sorta sad. Look at all the abuse my skin has taken from me over the years:

-2 open heart surgeries

-countless skinned knees and elbows

-broken arm

-those years of learning to shave my legs

-my inability to remember sunscreen

-carrying 2 baby boys

-going years (probably) being technically dehydrated

-the copious amounts of superglue on my fingers

-and hot glue

-and all the pins jammed into my fingers

-my experiments with makeup

-all those greasy burgers

-all the grocery lists on my hand

-the tattoos

Yeah, skin, you've done good. I shouldn't be ashamed of you, and in all honesty, I'm not. It's just sometimes, I'm not happy looking at my skin. 

Look at that list again. Most of those are some pretty amazing things to put my skin and body thru. I should feel good about most of those. 

My body creates PEOPLE! And darn cute ones at that! How can I not be happy and confident with something that is a miracle? 

My heart is all messed up and backwards, but I'M STILL HERE! How can I not be happy and feel so blessed with something that technically and anatomically should probably NOT have functioned past my birth?

There are times I don't like how I look. And I know I am not the only one. I'm going to share some stories with you. Events that I witnessed, that made me so sad. 

#1 : I was visiting a friend, she was getting ready for work, and this friend hasn't felt good in years. Her health has been in a slow decline for a while now but she continues to push thru and she is absolutely amazing and wonderful, she's a beautiful mom and grandma and she is an incredible woman full of strength and faith! Anyways, she was doing her hair and she kept apologizing to me for how her hair looked. Honestly, it was not bad at all. She looked great! But she didn't think she looked good. It could have been that she was sick, and didn't feel good at all but she looked good! After all she had been thru, she was so sorry for how she looked. 

#2 In talking with a friend at church, she was reading a story about a "super attractive" woman, and she instantly quipped "Oh, and I didn't write that!" She totally could have written it and everyone would have agreed! She's an amazing mom to a little boy, her husband is going thru school and I'm pretty sure she works outside of the home. Why would she think she's not super attractive? If there's one thing I know about husband's and offspring, they LOVE mommas. Husbands will do anything to get "under the covers" with their wives, and children will do anything to hug, hold and kiss their mommas! These humans, who you interact with on a daily basis see and know how beautiful you are, and they don't hesitate to tell you. Why don't you believe them? Your husband picked you. He picked you to look at every day for the rest of his life, he chose you to wake up to - morning breath and bed head included! You are super attractive, trust me, if you don't trust me, will you trust them?

#3 A friend posted a picture of her awesome shirt, but she put an emoji over her face because she thought she looked awful, had just woken up, and didn't want others to see. If I looked that good waking up, there'd be way more "good morning" selfies. She's a friend of mine who married another friend of mine, and they are an awesome family and I love them. She had her 3rd baby a few months ago, and her husband works long hours, I'm not sure if she works outside of the home.  (This one goes along with #2) Those children LOVE her. I know as soon as I see my boys in the morning, I'm showered with humongous smiles and giggles and that is ALL before I have a chance to rub the sleep from my eyes or use the bathroom. Children don't care if your makeup is on, hair is styled, or even if your socks match. They just care about you. My big boy will come up and give me hugs and tell me I'm beautiful. I love that. He'll look at our family pictures and pictures from our wedding and say how beautiful I look and how handsome dad looks. He loves us. 

I want my children to be confident and strong. To know they can do ANYTHING they want to. How can I teach my boys to be confident, if they don't see me being confident? Where are they going to learn it from? 

There are qualities in myself I'm working on, patience is one. I had written on my mirror : 

The boys watch everything you do. 

Be who you want them to see.  

This momma, this one in the pictures, is the momma my boys will remember. This one, with the weird smile and sometimes lazy eye, and at some angles, a double chin. This is the momma my boys and my husband think is beautiful. This is the momma they are desperately trying to convince that she's gorgeous. Even if she's just in a t-shirt and jeans. I shouldn't have to wear my wedding dress to feel gorgeous. 

My husband LOVES looking at me. LOVES how I look. LOVES what carrying and giving birth to our 2 children has done to my body. LOVES me because I love him. Even after 7 years! When he looks at me, I feel loved, I feel beautiful. And I am so grateful for the love my husband and my children show me. 

We are beautiful creations. I know, God created each of us, with His own hands. And I know that because of how I personally am put together. It is only by some miracles that my heart functioned for 11 days before the doctors preformed surgery. It is only by some miracles that I was able to give birth to my children. I know that each of us is here for a reason. I also know, one of those reasons is to HAVE JOY! We are to be of good cheer. Not wallowing in self-doubt and low self-esteem. We are beautiful. We need to start seeing how incredible and amazing and beautiful we are. We need to start seeing how incredible and amazing and beautiful others are. We need to stop mom shaming and self shaming. Weed need to show compassion rather than criticism. 

 

 

 I also speak to myself. Please, please, PLEASE, NEVER lose that confidence and strength in yourself. If there is anything to believe in, it is most definitely YOURSELF. You, yes you, are freaking amazing. You do and can do wonderful, amazing, difficult things. You are stronger and beautiful. You are super attractive, you are incredibly smart and knowledgeable, you are amazingly strong. 

Please continue to believe in you. I love you.

From the deepest part of my broken, backwards heart, please know that you, yes YOU, are freaking beautiful! 

I ignore sizes

I ignore sizes. (Not just small, medium, or large fries either!)

I've discovered during this pregnancy, that sizes are only relative to the brand. I shopped at Ross for quite a few cute maternity tops. Yeah, Ross has name brands, but they also have off brands, like WAY off brands. You know, the ones from China, where everyone is the same size, so S M L XL just means how long it is, the L is about an inch or two shorter than the XL. I had to not take it personal when the XL fit so good and I'm usually a good M fit. 

I'm bigger with this pregnancy than I was with the first, however, I lost weight the entire 1st trimester, and didn't start gaining until a while into my 2nd. (Not throwing up, just nauseous and most often, I just wasn't hungry.) So, in all honesty, I'm just now passing my "weigh-in" weight for our Biggest Loser Challenge last summer. I'm not bragging, I was pretty worried that 1st trimester. 

Anyways, sizes don't mean jack squat. Even shirts hanging right next to each other on the rack, have different size scales. I've started to hate going shopping for this reason. Don't get me started on pants. Women's pant sizes suck. Guys pants are so easy, waist and inseam! That's it! Come on ladies, let's get our junk together and make this simple. (I've heard rumor that the companies TRIED it this way but decided to makes sizes so women didn't feel self-conscience about saying their waist size. Whatever.) All I know, is the waist x inseam sizing would fix so many problems. "When will jeans companies figure out a thick waist doesn't always go with long legs?!?" I've read that so many times on forums. Just saying. 

Anyways, so I've started just grabbing 3 different sizes of the same pair of pants and trying them on. Or if I find a fit I like, like Levi's, there's a cut I specifically like, I look for that cut anywhere I go, and buy that one. I go up and down in sizes, but I try to accommodate for The Dryer. Same with shirts. If I find a shirt I LOVE, that fits great, if it's cotton, I snag the next size up (regardless of it being an XL instead of an L.) I hate that clothes shrink, but I have so much going on, I don't want to pull certain clothes out to hang dry them, that's so annoying. Ok, I'm lazy is what it is.  

Baby clothes. You'd think, if anybody had their junk together, it'd be the baby clothes market. NOPE! A NB onesie with Carter's is NOT a NB with Gerber. I got some NB onesies from Target for Danger, they didn't fit him until he was 3 months. (Ok, Danger was a small fry, BUT when sizing his clothes, I would hold them up to what fit him, and these NB onesies were freaking huge!) Most baby clothes have started putting weights on there, just like diapers, NB is 5-8 lbs, and 0-3 is 6-10 lbs, and so on. That's a bit easier. I know the size of the child is specific on the child, but most clothes in that "age size" should fit them right? (Now, I'm not going off of sizes of babies who are born weighing 10 lbs vs 5 lbs, I'm going just off of the sizes of the clothes in regards to other clothes that say they are the same size but obviously are NOT.) 

So this pregnancy, I've started ignoring sizes completely. I hold clothes up to me, sure that could fit, I go try them on, if they fit-awesome, if not-go get the next one. And when figuring out which clothes fit Danger, I put them on him. If it's small, I toss it down to the nursery for storage. If it's too big, I just roll up the sleeves, or I go out it back in storage for later. I have the baby clothes organized by visual size, not label size, meaning, I went thru each piece of clothing and held it up to the smallest thing I had and put it in a pile in relation to the smallest item. Yes, long and tedious, but now my kid will be able to wear things that fit. Shark's clothes, hmmm, his clothes are easy. He knows what fits him, and he wears it, if it doesn't fit, he'll wear it anyway until I say something and take it. Shark's got it easy. 

I've stopped tearing myself apart when it comes to sizes. I was a 00 in high school. I was so proud of being a 00, and when I started going up, 1, 3, 5, I kinda started to worry and think something was wrong. Nothing was wrong, I was just growing up. Now, I love food too much to try anything drastic about it. When Shark and I were dating, I took a look around, NO one in real life is still a 00 at age 24. Seriously. I think we all stop desperately trying to impress people (**COUGH** boys **COUGH**) and decide to be real people. In my mind, I haven't gotten bigger, I'm still the same size I was when I was younger (ok, maybe not RIGHT this very second I'm not!) We, as a society, as women, have to stop beating ourselves up over clothing sizes. It doesn't mean a darn thing if you buy a M or an XL. Your kids don't care, your husband doesn't care, why is it such a big deal? Now, one thing I'm planning, after this baby, is getting into shape. I want to be healthy, and right now, I am so not healthy, I am so not in good shape. My heart health demands me being in good shape and I've ignored it for so long, this is the year I get it all under control. Not just for me, but also for my family. I already feel limited of time, I will do everything in my power to extend my time. I believe in being healthy, but I also believe in being comfortable with who you are. You have to love the skin you're in, do things for YOU, not for someone else. Someone else won't appreciate everything you're going thru to look the way you look, YOU are the only one who sees everything you do. Anyways, be happy, any way you can, whatever you have to do, you have to be happy. 

Now, I can focus on sharing that L shake with my son. :)

10 on 10 January

So I've decided I need a little bit of a "pick me up" because I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately with Danger. So I've decided to participate in 10 on 10 with a bit of sunshine.

Here's my 10... or close to 10..

 Started the day smiling and playing.

 Messed his diaper, his clothes, his blanket, his socks!

 Fell asleep after eating!

 Still congested so we Vicks-ed him and bubbled him -- he hates being bubbled!

 2 month Dr appointment today! 23 inches, 11 lbs 1.5 oz!

 Yes we were there for an hour, he got his shots today. :'(

 Sleeping in the carseat after we got home, I left him in it until he woke up on his own.

 I basically do a load of laundry each day - today's load was...well....loaded! {sorry, I needed a chuckle}

 He hung out in his swing, and napped all afternoon {Bandit did NOT bark at the mailman today!! yaya!} Danger woke up around 4:30 and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Finally, I ran out to the store and got him some baby Tylenol, and after crying for a LONG long LONG time, he is sleeping!

And Shark is heading over to Texas Roadhouse for our dinner. We got a giftcard for Christmas, we were going to go and eat cuz I have coupons {it WAS my birthday last week} but we decided to get it to-go cuz Danger seriously cried for an hour....

It was a crazy day, but {when I remembered to take them} the pictures ended up being fun. I also realized I'm way more boring than I ever thought.... I'm linking up to ten on ten January 2012!

Organize my kitchen

So, this past week was Week #1 of the 52 week Challenge!

And I did it! Now, I had to clean off my counters AGAIN to get the pictures, but it wasn't too bad. {I had craft night at my house on Thursday and nothing was picked up from it...}

Kitchen Table

Counter Top Island

Counter Top - It's our bottle making station. Plus, Shark and I each have 1 cup each day and we wash it out and set it back on the counter. :)

Bakers Rack

Next week is cupboards and drawers... it should be interesting!

organizing

So this year I'm planning on de-cluttering and organizing my house. I guess it's THE wagon to jump on this year. I've found all kinds of info about organizing and de-cluttering.

My secret is : every year I plan to organize my house and de-clutter it. And every year I fail.

But not this year. This year I'm going to make it happen. This year I'm going to follow thru and kick some organizing booty.

Ive found a few blogs that are going to help me out.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon Home Storage Solutions 101. {pretty sure via pinterest..}

And I subscribed and I decided to participate in the 52 week Organized House Challenge. At the beginning of each week, I get an email describing this week's challenge, and also reasons why that's our challenge. {it makes alot of sense when she's tells us why!}

Over at Six Sisters' Stuff, they have an organizing post with a WHOLE bunch of great links to organizing posts!

And who can think of organizing without thinking of Heather over at Decor-ganize Crafts? I love her car organizer using a shoe organizer! And, I know her in real life. Yeah, she's pretty awesome.

I've also found some pretty good ideas and plans over at IHeart Organizing.

Over at A bowl full of lemons, she had a 21 day organizing challenge.

Ok, so there's my inspiration. Right now, I've decided to only do 1 at a time. And right now, that 1 is the 52 week challenge from Home Storage Solutions. Because, even tho organizing is important, I really need to de-clutter my whole house. I'm throwing away TONS of stuff! :)

And technically, I'm counting this as #80 on my 101 in 1001!

Love to those whose resolutions never change, just get more desperate thru the years. :)