Slipping thru the "crack"...dammit

You know, I was SO charged with zeal to attack my new outlook on life and all the stuff I have missed by internalizing and hiding. If I am to be honest, I have done very little of the things I promised I would and really I feel like hell about this. Not only did I let myself down, I feel like I let my friends down who were so supportive of me and my plan. So, with that confession, and I hope forgiveness from all who I let down, today is another day and I am going to make more of an effort. I find that I am a good "list person" and that with a list, I get more done. I have a household schedule I used when there was only one kid, and before her arrival as well, and that went great. With two kids, it is 10x harder to do that stuff, which makes no sense but its true. It is not impossible to do the list, its just hard and I have gotten complacent in my laziness and my sitting on my ass-ness and that has got to stop. A special friend recently asked me if premature death was enough of a motivator for me to lose weight, improve my health and I honestly said it wasn't. I know!!! What the hell was I thinking? So, with that said, I am printing off copies of my schedule that has long worked for me, with a couple of changes to fit the new situations I am faced with. I have actually been waking up at 6:45am, and until very recently I actually got up, not just woke up. The sad little bit of work I am getting these days is keeping me up very late as I cannot work while the kids, well Zane anyway, are up and in the room so I end up working until 2-3am. It is very rough to get up at 6:45 when you go to bed at 2, and be productive. There is a better than average chance that my job is finally coming to an end, which I have anticipated for almost a year but have been lucky - I think - so far. I do think that with as little income as there is now, and as much time as it takes from my day, my kids and my life....its just honestly not worth it. I just can't bring myself to quit and contribute nothing to the income of the house. Okay gang, I may well slip and slide a bit, and I can surely use help and encouragement, but here I go again. This time I have to get it right. It can't be that hard to be happy, lots of people do it everyday! Sorry this wasn't funny or informative, but sometimes it helps to put stuff out there where I can be held accountable. I will go back to normal, promise!

Just a Crack?

Ever have SO much stuff pile up on you that you just 'give up' and quit fighting? You might not even realize you've thrown in the towel, you just get so accustomed to more and more stuff weighing on you. Then, just as your psyche is about to cave in and render you a zombie who goes thru the motions and waits on death....there is just one thing that snaps you back to reality. With the same resolve that you used to have for denying that there was a problem, now you are by God gonna fight back and kick the world square in its ass for picking on you to start with! Who do they think they are messing with? Screw this 'woe is me' lifestyle and accepting things like advancing age, lack of energy and no drive to change things!! I am BACK baby - badder than before, better for the experience! So you ask, what was the "one thing" that kicked my butt off the couch? I found a crack in my favorite decorative wooden bowl. I know. I thought the same thing; how the hell does that translate into a life changing event? I guess it was the whole idea that the bowl was just sitting there, minding its business, doing what is expected of it and *BAM* it cracks. All I asked of it was at one time to hold some tomatoes and avocados, now it holds Nutri Grain bars. Doesn't sound like a huge burden, it just has to sit there and hold stuff. But to be fair, along with holding stuff, there is the being picked up and allowing kids to choose a treat; being moved around when its time to change the 5 gallon water bottle it is perched on; and there is the whole being in the kitchen with all that goes on in there. I am willing to bet the constant nothing it does takes a toll too. This got me to thinking, if this really great bowl that I bought can crack from doing nothing, what is going to happen to me if I also 'do nothing' about the things piling into me? The bowl is now on its way out, once wood cracks, there is little that can be done to truly restore it or keep the crack from getting worse. Am I about to be on my way out? I for sure can feel the start of little cracks all over me. Is there a way to keep me from the same fate as the bowl? With this said, I have a new determination. I will get up earlier - like it or not, and at first I will not - and DO something. Whether I go for a walk, watch the news in the morning, do some cleaning or even some work, I will get up and physically DO something. I will cut back on my Pepsi addiction. I am not going to kid myself and say I will give it up, but I will indeed work to cut way back. I will stop hanging out all day with my unbrushed hair up in a scrunchy with no makeup and in my PJs. I don't intend to prep for a red carpet moment, but really, would it kill me to take a little care with my appearance? I have approximately $7k worth of hair and makeup products, maybe I should use them? (before anyone admonishes me for spending this much money on hair and makeup, let me assure you that 99% of the makeup was free and the hair stuff, about 20% was free) I will take better care of my skin too. It is the only skin I have, even though it does continue to regenerate but the process is slower now. I will get the kids outside to play. Not just on the patio, really outside. We can play catch, tag or just hunt for cool stuff, but we will get outside at least 3 times a week. From our house it is a nice walk to the beach and there is a play park there, maybe that could be a destination now that the weather is nicer. I will make a true effort to cook real foods for the kids and get them away from the Kid Cuisine frozen meals they live on now. There is nothing wrong with Kid Cuisine, I just really love to cook and I want my kids to appreciate the talents I have and to realize all foods are not served in a divided blue plastic tray. I will find something every day to be happy about. We can all gripe and grouse about how awful things are for us, but there are surely others in far more dire straits than we. This is not to say I will become blinded to the obstacles out there, but I will meet them with a smile! I have a lot of faith that doing these things will translate into being generally happier and having other things fall into place for me too. I bet when (I almost said "if") I am happier and get used to being more active, my weight will start to come down and my spirits will go up even more! I am sure my kids will be happier and they will love the new, positive changes too. I have faith that facing the hurdles ahead of us will be easier with all of these changes too and I am actually looking forward to getting started! Wow!! I can't believe I am looking forward to getting up early and seeing what I can accomplish with that one little step. Isn't it amazing that all of this came from a crack in a bowl?