Confession #3

I confess:

I love my body, but can't stand the jiggle.

I love the shape of my body, so does my husband. He makes me feel like the sexiest woman alive. He loves my belly - the belly that has been stretched out enough to hold a 8 lb 12 oz baby. Yes there are stretch marks, TMI alert - which turns him on. Oh, have I mentioned this yet? I love my husband.

The only problem I have with my body is the jiggle. When I walk I can feel my sides jiggle. When I wave I can feel my arms jiggle. When I am in our Ford truck, which is extremely bouncy, I feel my stomach jiggle.

What to I need to do to fix this - well it is pretty simple:

1. Exercise!
   
2. Eat a healthy balance diet
3. Sleep
4. Drink lots of water and less beverages that dehydrate my body

Therefore lets begin. I am not much for determining if I feel great by my weight, but I do feel it is a good marker and goal maker for me. My goal weight most likely will change, because my body has changes since the birth of my child. I have also taken measurements and will take them in the end. Right now I measure at a 10 and 8, depending on what part of me is measured.. My goal is to get back to my favorite size of 6. I am very open to the possibly that I might feel perfect at a different size, so we will see!

Goal #1: Today I weight 149.2 lbs my goals is to weigh 130 lbs. I would like to lose this weight by Sept 30, two days before my fabulous friend Jamie's wedding. Here is the good ol' mathematical side of me... I have nine weeks: This will be about 2 pounds a week to lose. In my experience with weight loss this is very extreme, so we will see. I would be very happy with one pound a week, but I am going to buckle down and see what I can do.

Goal #2: Have sexy calves and arms for the wedding.

Goal #3: Fall in love with clothes again... I have noticed that my body has changed quite a bit since carrying little William. Of course there is the tummy - which I am very proud of (stretch marks and all). Then there is my wider hip. I have had a few emotional thoughts about the changes, but in the end I love the changes to my body! I carried a gorgeous baby for over nine months and my body did exactly what it needed to do to grow and deliver our healthy boy. I think the biggest transition for me for my new body has been - my clothes don't fit the same. For example - Jeans - an 8 is too tight around the waist and perfect around the hip and a 10 fits around the waist perfectly and I am swimming in the hip and thigh area...

Goal #4: Sleep - basically sleep at least 8 hours a night. I have been one of the lucky ones - my baby sleeps thru the night and has since 6 weeks old. So I have no excuse as to why I don't get a full 8 hours of sleep. I do feel like I need 9 hours, so I am going to experiment to figure out how much I need...

Goal #5: Drink water - I am going to go back to carrying around a water bottle like I did when I was preggo. I would like to drink about 10 cups of water a day.

My top goal is for the jiggle to end, so lets start today!!!

Confession #2

I confess:

I watch too much T.V.

My day usually begins around 5:30 am. While my young child eats, I make coffee and turn on King 5 News. This begins my full day of T.V...

King 5, The Today Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, The Docs, All My Children (watched this since I was in the 4th grade...), Days of our Lives (watched this since I was 12), Dr. Phil or an update on the local news, Ellen, Oprah, King 5 news, Nightly News, King 5 news (again), ET, the Insider, and lastly the Primetime shows that might go on till 11 or when we fall asleep - Ugh!!!

It is embarrassing to admit it, but there I confess: I watch too much T.V.! So much I am pretty sure I just watched my T.V. life flash in front of me when I listed all these shows.

Now lets dig the hole EVEN deeper... How many hours is this? 5:30 am to 10:30 pm = 17 hours of T.V. a day - that is 85 hours a week (usually only watch T.V. like this during the week - so 5 days). I would say over the weekend we watch about 4 hours each day - usually just the news... So then that makes the grand total to be 93 hours of T.V. a week! Now the math in me is breaking out... There are 168 hours in a week.

Therefore in one week I watch T.V. 55% of the time!!! Wow that makes me absolutely sick!

Oh the news:

The funny thing with the news for me is - I love watching it. But it doesn't stop at just watching it, for some reason I just can't get enough of it, so I pull the news up on the computer while I am watching the news, first CNN.com, then the Bellingham Herald and lastly MSNBC.com. OH can't forget the trending on Yahoo.com - kind of addicting... On Bellingham Herald, I get the local news, check the obituaries and lastly check the Whatcom County Jail Bookings - why??? Why do I over stimulate myself with other people's news???

This is the first thing I NEED to change about myself. Stop watching SO much T.V...

My Plan - Blackout:

1. Turn the T.V. completely off for one full week (might be a little difficult since my wonderful husband "has" to fall asleep with the T.V. on... So I will say it is okay to watch movies) - Aug 1st will be the first day of my full week without T.V. - Would anyone like to join me?
2. During this time I will find other activities to fill my time, from writing in my journal, much needed house organizing, cooking, baking, canning, gardening, playing with William, reading, naps, exercise, swimming, walking with friends.
   
3. The second week I will reintroduce only T.V. shows I REALLY want to watch, such as Nightly News. I will only watch T.V. when William is asleep.
   
4. The only way I will get my news during my Blackout week is via the computer. But only limited to 15 minutes a day.
   

This might be hard and I might breakdown - NOPE I will not breakdown! I will not have it! So I need a plan if the darn T.V. starts calling my name in a longing tone. If this happens - out the door I go! Rain or shine. Away from my life long companion, so I can't hear his poor, pitiful voice calling for my attention!

So here I go.. My first step on being a better person.

A Luminous Life

I am needing to make some changes in my life, so I can begin living life to the fullest. I am going to call this journey that I am beginning - A Luminous Life.

I am currently a domestic engineer (as my husband calls me) and I feel like I don't do everything I could do for myself, child and husband. I have decided to make some changes to get everything back in order.

My journey is going to begin tomorrow. My goal is to be done with the majority of my goals by Sept 30th, 2010.

My goals are:

1. Get myself and family on a healthier track for life
   
2. Get organized with A LOT less clutter and stuff
   
3. Worry less about what needs to get done and lack of time in the day
4. Enjoy my life on a daily basis
   

These goals will be ever changing, but these are the main ones.

As I go on this journey, I will make confessions about myself. Each confession will be different - it could be positive, it could be something or an event that has defined who I am, it could be something I just can't stand about myself and feel I need to change it, etc. I will be writing in my journal for the very personal stuff, in addition to blogging about my journey.

In the end I would like to feel like I am not just going through my life day by day wishing I was doing things differently.

My goal is to live A Luminous Life.

Who is my judge?

Me.

I am my biggest critic. But why do I criticize myself?

Well this is what I need to figure out.

It is not fair for me to say others judge me.

I feel like I am being judged, by the standards I think are in place for me. I developed these standards from events in my life, which have helped define them.

I need to determine what these events are and why I placed these standards on myself.

Confession #1

I confess:

I feel like I am not a good person

My husband, my sister-in-law (best friend since middle school) and my therapist (who surprised me when she said this) say, "What? Why do you think that???"

I keep wondering... Why do I feel like this? My husband just asked me again, "Why?" My answer to him surprised even me - "because I feel like everyone around me is not happy with me."

"Why do I feel like everyone is not happy with me" - I ask myself...

Well I have to figure this all out, because it eats at me. I need to gut myself out to figure out why and what can make me a "good person."

How does one do this?

One might say - "Oh my, this lady has no confidence" This is not the case... I have been a very confident person since as long as I can remember... There was a time in my young life that I could have taken the "other" fork in the road to less confidence - thank goodness for my VERY strong mother who made sure I made the right choice when I was WAY too young to make the decision for myself.

That being said, I need to first define what a "good person" is in my opinion (I have a feeling this might change as I go on this journey...):

1. Takes care of him/herself
2. Thoughtfulness
3. Goes out of him/her way for others

Flat out - I don't take care of myself. I am exhausted. I don't exercise on a regular basis. I wish I could eat better. I would LOVE to sleep more (but I sure do love my time after my little man goes to sleep at night...). I should drink more water and less beverages that dehydrate my body. I need to get the house and my life organized.

In the end - I am selfish. I feel like, other than my son, I put myself first.

Fear of judgement blocks me from going out of my way for the people I care the most about, which hurts me the most in the end and makes me feel like a horrible person. Either I feel like I do too much when others don't want it or I don't do enough when others need me. I constantly second guess myself - oh wow! This is were my confidence lacks... And I think I might have a few reasons behind why I feel like this. Later on this one - I am beginning to realize why this might be the case.

I feel extremely overwhelmed by how I feel, but these last couple of days have opened my eyes to realizing I NEED to figure out why "I feel like I am not a good person" and fix it (or at least work on it...).

Here I go...

All the pretty chickens and a lovely brown cow...

My fabulous husband working on the chicken coop in 2009

Freeing a few of my chickens into their new area.


Home sweet home

My first egg!!!

The John Deere tractor is sooo much fun!

My Nephew's chick - Cook

Miss Lady, and my boys

Miss Lady hangout out in the pond