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Momma Guilt

Posted in FAMILY, life, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged #mommaguilt, #todolists, Life, Mothering, Parenting, Regrets on July 24, 2014| 5 Comments »

*Though written three years ago, Momma Guilt continues for this Momma … I bet it does for us all … and continues to the end of our Earthly lives.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was growing up. And this little girl had dreams, aspirations, hopes and goals for her future. She dreamed of one day getting married, having babies, and doing it all just like she has seen on TV.

Unfortunately, she was born in 1969, and the TV moms who she had modeled for her … were perfect!

There was June Cleaver, who, other than the obscure name her son Beaver had … was perfect.

Then there was Marion Cunnigham, who was ALWAYS making homemade goodies, not only for HER kids, but for all their friends!

Then there was Clair Huxtable, she made the concept of working mom look so easy! And she even had her, always loving, obstetrician hubby, who did most of the cleaning and cooking!

Ah, and then Caroline Ingalls … that woman could fix a fence, mend a sock, and chase Laura all over the prairies, and still get an enormous homemade dinner on the table, with enough to feed the weary traveler!

And, finally, Jane Jetson … even in space-time animation June Cleaver lives … and in size 8 (I have worn size 8, by the way … it just had a ‘1’ in front of the ‘8’).

All of these women had the same things in common …

– they were all slim … I am green with envy

– they were all pretty … so much to aim for

– they all were perfectly accessorized … this is where my love of my (faux) pearls originated

– they always made their hubbys happy … sigh

– their kids always loved and appreciated them … momma guilt!

The other day, I found myself deep in the mires of MOMMA GUILT … ever been there, ladies?

It had been a busy week, with another busy week to come (and so on, and so on, and so on …). So, Saturday was full with a To Do list that had no hope of getting done.

While hubby was finishing up his sermon (because he had spent the week dealing with ‘immediate’ stuff), and hoping to get some yard work done, I was to take our son to a birthday party, and get a few errands completed.

I got very few of those errands done, as I decided to throw in ‘dress shopping’ … grrr! I had hoped that the few ounces I’ve lost would make that a more enjoyable process … NOT! I think what I would need to lose is the whole, freaking, left side of my body! But, I digress!

Then it was time to pick my son up from the party … and I was scrambling … because I was late … again!

When I got there I was pounced upon by son … ‘mom can so-and-so and I get together today?’ Now, I admit, I hate lack of planning, on a good day, but, when my To Do list is long, my brain cells cannot even begin to think about adding more to it! So, I said … ‘NO.’

And this is where momma guilt began … Not really, of course, because that is with me ALL the time! You see, I have this dream in my mind of getting the ‘Mom of the Year’ award … and I have had that annual award … on January 1, until 12:01am, when I blow it. But, I digress … again.

Lets just say the ride home was very quiet … and I felt it! When I did try to converse and soothe, I was met with ‘but Mom …’ And, my momma guilt let me feel the full weight of his sorrow. Not because his present sorrow was so valid, but because my momma guilt is so close to the surface for me when it comes to my son.

– I was home fully with my daughters … I started back to work before my son entered kindergarten.

– I taught my daughters how to cook, to sew, to read … my son, not so much.

– He is eleven, and I still haven’t taught him how to ride a bike 😦

– I have rarely gone on school field trips with him … his sisters … many!

– I rarely play any ball sports with him.

Wow! Can I wallow, or what? Suffice it to say, that on this particular day, EVERY violation, every failure, every fault I have ever made, in the life of my son, I remembered and felt. Also, suffice it to say, I threw my own pity party, lasting most of the entire day! And, my To Do list … not so much got done.

Once I had shed my guilt-ridden tears, went out on my own (that is the key … on my own) to get groceries, had a good dinner (thanks to the grocery store providing fresh bread and roast chicken), talked to my mom on the phone (I don’t need to tell her whats happening … just hearing her voice makes me feel better), and played a very neck-and-neck game of chess with my son … the day was seeming brighter.

It’s amazing how taking the time to see how his video game system works, and playing a game with him seems to help us to reconnect once again.

I know I will never get that elusive ‘Mom of the Year’ award, but the good night hug (that just about asphyxiated me), along with an eye to eye, ‘Mom, I love you so much,’ from my boy made my momma guilt fade …

Take that June Cleaver, Marion Cunningham, Caroline Ingalls, Clair Huxtable and yes, even you Jane Jetson!

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Entertaining an Angel

Posted in canada, FAMILY, GOD, life, The Hubby, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged #angelsunaware, #entertaininganangel, #pregnancyloss, Angels, Comfort, Life on July 22, 2014| 5 Comments »

Sometimes … the past comes back to haunt, and once in a while … it comes back to soothe and reassure.

It was a sunny, warm spring day. Hubby and I had packed our modern picnic lunch (also known as fast food, picked up en route to the park), and were heading to a local park with our 20’ish month old daughter.

We drove until we found a park that we had not been to before (and I do not remember ever returning to again). The park was large, with a soccer field and baseball diamond towards the back. Parking was at the front, near the street. Also, towards the front was a small playground area with swings, and a sandbox. And near the playground were just a few picnic tables and benches.

Our daughter was very eager to get to the sandbox … we were very eager to eat our fast food picnic lunch, before the hot and crisp fries became cold and flopsy. And so, she played, and we ate … all of us enjoying the respite that a park provides.

And then, there she was …

A little girl had arrived at the sandbox, seemingly out of nowhere. She was a blond pre-schooler, who seemed older than her years. As quickly as she appeared, she befriended our daughter, and the two of them played, in the sandbox and on the swings, as though they had known each other all of their lives.

As we enjoyed watching their play with each other, we finally realized that this delightful little girl did not seem to have an adult with her. When we asked her who she was there with she pointed to the baseball game, happening towards the back of the park, and said, “they’re over there.” Although we thought it odd for her parents to allow her to be so far from them, at such a young age, we felt we had no alternative, but to believe her.

The two girls sat on the swings, and we responded to their requests to push them. As hubby and I pushed, we marveled at how the two looked so similarly, they could be sisters. Their blond hair swaying in the breeze, and their blue eyes shining with delight, their contagious giggles. Why, they could be … sisters …

And it hit us both … they could be sisters. They looked so much alike, their age difference … why that delightful little girl could be the same age as our first baby, who had never made it to live with us.

It had happened over three years before. At four months into our first pregnancy … the baby, our first baby, died (this wasn’t to be our first such loss, as over the years it was to happen four more times). We never knew the gender of that child, but we had named it, to provide for ourselves some bit of identity. We had decided on the name Alison, because it could be a boy, or a girl’s name. The name is an old one, meaning noble or truth.

The two girls continued to play happily, until it was time for us to leave.

Then we asked the little girl her name … and she smiled at us, and replied, “Alison.”

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This is your Life

Posted in FAMILY, GOD, life, women, WONDER, tagged Aging, Change, Future, Life, Sleep, Tale, Wonder on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I love music. I love Bach, Johnny Cash, U2, Ella Fitzgerald, Starfield, Elton John, Louis Armstrong, Taylor Swift, Casting Crowns, Ennio Marricone, Coldplay, ABBA, Paolo Nutini, Michael Buble, TobyMac, Adele, and this list is truly just a tip of my music loves iceberg!

Music speaks to me, it challenges, moves, and teaches me. I love the visuals that can be created in it’s combination of lyrics and music. I love the emotions that a song can bring out. I love how, out of nowhere a song can ‘pop’ into my mind, and be mulled over for hours, as though it was ‘placed’ there, just for me, like a lovingly wrapped gift. I hate songs that speak lies, I love songs that speak truth.

This morning I have had a song in my mind, ‘placed’ there, I am certain.

It is a song called “This is your Life”, by Switchfoot. Some of the lyrics are:

yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
this is your life and today is all you’ve got now
yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
don’t close your eyes
don’t close your eyes

this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

yesterday is a kid in the corner
yesterday is dead and over

don’t close your eyes

Now, maybe I awoke with it in my head because I slept miserably last night (‘don’t close your eyes‘).

Or, maybe it is because I recently celebrated a birthday … like three months ago (‘this is your life, are you who you want to be, this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be‘).

Maybe it is because this weekend I was chatting with my eldest daughter about my memories of childhood (‘yesterday is a kid in the corner’ … pretty much sums up my entire childhood, so now you know what I was like as a kid!).

Maybe it’s because today is my last day of classes with students (‘today is all you’ve got now’).

Or maybe it is playing in my mind because I awoke in a rather melancholy mood (‘this is your life and today is all you’ve got now yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have‘).

I expect it’s a combination of all of the above, but, today, it might be more of the last. Now today is not all that bad, but with the combination of lack of sleep, end of the school year, thinking of years past, a kind of recent birthday AND melancholy I’m really not excited that today (more this present season of life, than this ‘day’) is all I’ve got, and all I’ll ever have. This season is one of realizing that there are parts of my life that just simply are so far from where I want them to be.

As an obsessive compulsive person when it comes to planning into the future, today my future looks far more fuzzy than I would like. To use more song lyrics, I prefer an outlook where ‘the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades’. And it’s not that it’s an all doom and gloom forecast of the future, it is simply that I cannot see anything. And I’m an ‘inquiring mind, and inquiring minds need to know’ (more indicators of my age).

Maybe the real reason this song is in my mind is that, despite my melancholy mood, despite the lack of sleep, despite my aging body, despite the end of Spring Break, despite the fact that not all childhood memories are sweetness and light, and even despite the fact the promises get broken, and the future is unknown, I’ve been given this day, and if I don’t close my eyes, I might find a bit of wonder laying in my path.

AND, by the way, there are NO wrinkles on this forehead! See, at my age, that is something to wonder about 😉

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Hot Fudge Sauce

Posted in life, Recipe, women, WONDER, tagged Chocolate, Gift, PMS, Recipe, Wonder on June 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

Wanna know what makes my house smells g o o d?

When I make hot fudge sauce. This is a long, drawn-out process, where I am bound to my stove top for a handful of hours.’Burnt’ can happen at any time. IF the jars are not sufficiently hot, and the sauce not just the right temperature, the lids won’t seal.

BUT, it is so worth the effort!

I have to admit, my hot fudge sauce recipe is stellar! I makes jars of it to give as ‘hostess’ gifts, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, heck, I even used to sell it. But my sales were short-lived, as I had the ‘privilege’ of meeting a health inspector at one of my first ‘Farmer’s Markets’ … sigh, that too is a story for another time. But, I digress.

Other than my kids I don’t share my hot fudge sauce recipe (and they really don’t give a rip about the recipe, because if they want hot fudge sauce, they just open the cupboard and pull out a jar).

Although, now that I think of it, I did give it to a pregnant lady once. Who, in their right mind would ever say ‘no’ to a pregnant lady? Any of us who have been in those tight, water-retained feet-wearing shoes, know that whoever she is, she is not to be messed with. There’s the hormones, the stretch marks, the multiple mid-night (not midnight, but in the middle of the night … although a pregnant lady might see midnight in the middle of the night … sigh, I digress again), pee runs (ha! ha! that is funny … pee runs … oh the irony … I’m sitting here, alone, at 6:57am giggling like I’ve inhaled laughing gas … I digress again), digestion problems that lead to sounding like a sailor whenever you eat broccoli … hum, there’s enough material here to start a new blog entry … suffice it to say, she’s pregnant, who would ever say no to her, knowing what she is going through?! That said, I did have her promise, on the life of her unborn child (another area where pregnant ladies are rather … vulnerable), that she would NEVER share the recipe with anyone else 😉 … oh ya, I could have been a political negotiator!

When I give my hot fudge sauce to someone, there is often a card attached, with directions. Lets face it, it’s not every day that a person gets handed a ‘pickling’ jar with dark brown ‘stuff’ in it … hardly appealing! The directions go something like this:

Remove lid

(duh, ‘metal’ rings … but someone has to say it)

Heat in microwave, til hot and pourable

(mouth is now watering)

Serve on ice cream

(I bought some yesterday … it’s just feet away)

Or on fruit

(there’s strawberries in the freezer too)

Or, if PMS prevails,

(really women are always PMS …

PREmenstral Syndrome

POSTmenstral Syndrome)

Take a spoon,

(I have spoons)

and the jar,

(there’s five on the counter)

put your feet up,

(I’ve been up for … an hour … I need a break)

and enjoy

(all sensibilities about the fact that it is only 7am,

and I am never going to lose weight, have left my being)

So, suffice, it to say, I make good hot fudge sauce. Maybe the next time I write the directions out I will say, it is great for breakfast 😉

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Echos in the Wishing Well – Repost

Posted in life, women, WONDER, tagged Beauty, echos, females, snow white, value, wish, wishing well, Women, worth on July 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Since I did not get writing yesterday AND I slept in, today is a repost of a previously published post.

It was the first one to come to my mind, since I have noticed that it has been viewed a bit over the past couple of weeks.

Although this post was directed at one particular young lady, it is applicable to most females, as we all have days, and seasons when we are particularly hard on ourselves, and we miss out on the gift that we are created to be.

“Want to know a secret?
Promise not to tell?
We are standing by a wishing well.
Make a wish into the well,
that’s all you have to do
and if you hear it echoing.
Your wish will soon come true.”
Snow White

Since I started to read blogs, and write my own, I have gotten to know such a great and growing group of writers. Some are far away, and some are quite nearby.

One such blogger lives nearby. She is a delightful, honest, passionate writer. She shares her heart, not in a guarded way, but fully, truthfully. She is more than half my age, and she inspires me to be as transparent as she. I love to read of her experiences and her feelings about whatever is going on in her life.

I recently was reading a truthful post of hers, and it made me cry.

Her post was a post of her wishes, her deepest desires. Wishes that her physical body was different. Wishes that her spiritual walk was different. Wishes that her social life was different. Wishes that her future life’s direction was clear to her. Wishes, wishes, wishes.

This post made my eyes leak, because I understood each and every wish on her list (with just a few details changed). Some of her wishes were ones I shared with her, when I was her age. Many were wishes that I have had throughout my life, since puberty. Her wishes were ones that we females share with each other. They bind us together in our insecurities around life and living, around our rejection and acceptance of ourselves.

So, I want this to be a message to my blogger friend. I wish that for all females who read my words, may they echo in the wishing wells of your lives.

I wish for you …
that you could see how beautiful you are … inside and out. You have eyes that shine with a passion for life, and for your life-giver. You have friends who back you up, who wrap their arms around you, who walk through joys and struggles with you. I wish that you could see that your size is not as important as your presence. I wish that you could know that the numbers on the scale are not as important as you think … I wish you knew that YOU are more than a number! I wish that you could see that the habits you want to rid yourself of, also give you room for learning perseverance, struggle, strength and success … I wish you knew how how this hard work will give you ways to help others, in their own struggles, in the future. I wish you knew that God hears your heart when you sing, and it is a most beautiful sound to His ears. I wish there was a way to convince you that you do not need a boyfriend, a date for grad … but that wish you have is part of who you are, and, one day, he will arrive … he is just not ready for you yet. I wish you knew that in just a few weeks, those outstanding assignments will not matter.

You are loved, you are cherished, you are awesome … you couldn’t be better!

Oh, and did you know that your name has an ‘i’ in it? But it is a capital ‘I’.

My dear blogger friend, may my words echo, not just in a wishing well, but in your heart as well.

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Mammograms Save Lives

Posted in women, WONDER, tagged annual mammogram, Fear., First Mammogram, Mammogram, reminder, save a life, Women on July 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Well ‘it’ arrived in the mail last week, heralding in summer in a manner similar to the arrival of mosquitoes.

The ‘it’ I speak of is the reminder that ‘it is time to be done.’ No, not the time to spay or neuter your beasty (and I am referring to the canine variety of beast, not the one you are married to).

It is time to have an annual mammogram.

So, appointment made, I thought I would re-visit my post about the first mammogram I was beckoned to appear (and I mean appear) at.

Give it a read,

have a couple of giggles,

then,

if it is ‘time to be done’

(or maybe it was time quite a while ago),

make an appointment …

it could save a life …

yours.

Mammo-What? Part 1 Anticipation

I really do not mind having birthdays. I do not even mind the number of birthdays that I have had. Heck, I am not even that upset about my mid-life body (it wasn’t that great in my twenties, and I am more physically active now, so it’s actually on an upward trend … which is humerus, since most of my body parts are on a downward trend …).

What I am not excited about is the invasion of medical tests on my body just because it is over forty!

All of a sudden, my optometrist checks for things like cataracts, and the need for bifocals. My dentist is on the search for recessing gums. And, when I went for that annual ‘woman’ appointment (which I last had done … hum, five years ago), the delightful, cheery, youthful nurse (grrr!) says, “oh, you are forty-two … did you know that women over forty are recommended to have a mammogram every two years?’ Now, how would I know that, I’m only thirty-nine, with three years experience?

So today, like an inmate on death row, heading to the guillotine, I will go to my very first mammogram …

When I got the appointment, I told my hubby that I was going to blog about it, and he said, “you’re not?” And his shocked, astounded, unbelieving question cinched it 😉 (oh, the life of the woman who likes to shock her husband), so, here is the fruit of his amazement!

So, as I have been planning and preparing (mentally) for this appointment, I have been having flashbacks (not hot flashes … that is still to come … and when they do, I will probably blog about them) and nightmares.

The flashbacks have been to those mass emails about mammograms … that are ‘supposed’ to be funny. Come to think of it, they were funny … when I was too young to need to have one! Now their ‘humorous’ messages, make me feel sick to my stomach. Stories of having your ‘girls’ moved and molded like silly putty, between two cold, hard paddles of metal. Moving my ‘twin peeks’ into positions and for lengths of time that God Almighty NEVER intended them to be. I am feeling palpitations of Nascar speeds in my heart just thinking about it! What if, like my mom used to say about making funny faces behind people’s backs, that my bodacious tatas get so squeezed and twisted that they stay that way forever! What if my ‘hi beams’ become ‘low beams’?

Then there’s the nightmares … they are pretty much the same as the flashbacks, but at night, and more sweating is involved (and hubby is not involved in the sweating, other than him dialing 911, because he thinks I am having a heart attack, or seizure or that I’ve lost it … mentally … which, I have to say, I think maybe I am).

But, I am woman … and I will ‘suck it up’ because that is what we women do.

This, although unpleasant, is something that provides detection that women in years past would have, and did, die for.

So ladies (and sensitive male readers, who really do want to know what a woman thinks about the realities of her life), check back tomorrow, for the continuing saga of Mammo-What?

This must be done, and it could be worse …

I could be a man going to an appointment for a ‘digital’ check-up!

Mammo What Part 2 The Main Squeeze

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Old to New: The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – Month 11

Posted in women, WONDER, tagged accountability, diaBLOG, diet, Exercise, My Fitness Pal, Old to New, re-gained weight, Struggle, walking, weight, Weight Loss on May 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Well, here I am, at month eleven of my weight loss blog … and it has been three months since I updated my own ‘progress.’

Sigh … d999b4880f53376b2d4549f2a2fac09a-1

Well, at Christmas time I was down twenty-four pounds, and feeling like I could take on the world! Then the New Year rang in, and the scale did not move … at all … despite good efforts! Sadly, when it did start moving, it was moving in the wrong direction. From the beginning of February until today, I have gained back eleven pounds 😦

Ugh!

But worse than gaining those hard fought-off pounds back, is the reality that my head (the most important part of the weight loss process) simply does not even give a rip! I have reached a new low … weight and health related apathy.

Obviously I cannot continue as I have been, so I did the most motivating thing I knew … I re-read the posts that got myself motivated in the first place.

It was in my post, The Fat Came Back, where I shared the event that made me face the hard reality that I had lost my way, lost my focus, and gained previously lost weight back.

The following were my original goals:

* get weighed every Friday, and only on Friday
(I tend to be addicted to the scales, when trying to lose weight, and I need to work on my obsessive compulsiveness)

* use”My Fitness Pal” app on my phone (or website My Fitness Pal)
(this is NOT an advertisement for the app. I have used it before, and it is an easy way for me to know, not just the calories, but also the nutritional values of the foods I eat. When I use it, I find I will look at the minuscule package of ‘healthy’ cookies for 100 calories, and a large fresh apple for the same, and when I see the nutritional values of each, I make better choices for the health of my body, and not just counting calories).

* walking
(still three bigger (one hour or more) walks each week, preferably on my favorite trail, but added to that, one twenty minute walk each day. The beast is starting to show signs of middle age spread … just don’t tell her I told you, and she could use this too)

* abdominal exercise
(I am still not sure what shape these exercises will eventually take, but my bowl full of jelly must be reigned in. I am starting with twenty-five crunches a morning … before coffee … I need to have incentive)

* accountability
(I am planning one letting it all hang out with you, the reader … heck, I’ve been letting it all hang out visually for all around me for

These are good goals, doable goals, and they are the ones I am returning to, not next month, not next week, but today.

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Old to New: The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – Month 9

Posted in Weight Loss DiaBLOG, women, WONDER, tagged diaBLOG, diet, Exercise, losing weight, myfitnesspal, Old to New, pounds, weight, Weight Loss on March 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I do not normally post on a Saturday, but today is an exception.

And since it is also the Easter weekend, I thought I would include a little chuckle (Easter style, to the right) or two, and a reminder that we do not have to eat forty days worth of chocolate in one weekend, if that is what was given up for Lent.

It has been a month of counting days until Spring Break, followed by days of … well of not knowing what day it is!

Since I have been away for the past two weeks … away from home, from work, from schedules (from close-toed shoes 😉 ), from the scales … I have no idea what I weigh! I know there have been good days, and days that were not so great. But, whether I was successful at eating healthy, or not, I kept recording what I ate at 112aa172e046cbeb0c2c54930f697bc0 myfitnesspal … and I feel that is really a good habit!

So, it is now spring, and the days are getting more bright, and longer.

Our moods are boosted, and our bodies are empowered by natural Vitamin D that we are absorbing!

It is a great time for a walk, a run, a bike ride!

I will let you know how my weight loss is going next month … oh the suspense!

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Old to New: The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – Month 8

Posted in Weight Loss DiaBLOG, women, WONDER, tagged accountability, diaBLOG, diet, Exercise, goals, losing weight, myfitnesspal, Old to New, pounds, Shaun T, weight, Weight Loss on March 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

More than any loss of pounds, I am excited about how much more physically active I have gotten on a more regular basis.

I walk at least three times a week, for twenty to forty minutes. Finally, after months of physical stagnation and lack of motivation I have gotten my butt in motion!

So, with all this new-found activity, one would think that I would have lost a significant amount of poundage … sigh …

Well the four pounds that I added in January are gone 😀 . It seriously took until yesterday to finally be able to see it on the scales and declare it. Like house guests who came unannounced, and undesired, I thought they would never leave!

So, now it is on to March, and my five pound loss a month goal.

I am realizing that I am going to have to get really focused, both in regards to what I put into my mouth, and what I do to get active.

images-1 Next month I will focus more with regards to the area of food. For now I want to introduce a video. This video is only 15 minutes (truly we all can find 15 minutes each day … or at least 15 minutes three to four times a week). I discovered it on Pinterest, but it comes from an episode of Dr. Oz.

Shaun T is a fitness expert … and he looks the part (sorry ladies, I tried to find a photo of him wearing a shirt, to no avail). He has two exercise programs, Insanity and Hip Hop Abs. I am not sure, but I believe that he is the male version of Jillian Michaels.

What I loved about this particular video is that it is just 15mins. … a small chunk to get started with.

So, though March may come in like a lamb, I am hoping it (and I) go out like a lion!

Shaun T’s Miracle 15min Workout

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Old to New: The Weight Loss DiaBLOG – Month 7

Posted in Weight Loss DiaBLOG, women, WONDER, tagged accountability, diaBLOG, diet, goals, losing weight, modelmydiet, myfitnesspal, Old to New, pounds, weight, Weight Loss on February 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

So, confession time has arrived …

I have not started the year out very well!

As is often the case, I do very well over the Christmas season, and even as the new year gets started. Then January gets in full swing, the busyness resumes, back to work, rains pick up and the dark of winter seems … darker, now that the Christmas lights are packed away. The winter blues set in, images and carbs are the only thing giving satisfaction.

Over the month I’ve packed on 4 pounds 😦 … that’s a chihuahua!

So, back to the weight loss part of this DiaBLOG!

I am going to pretend this month did not happen and look towards the future!

In the six months of 2o12, I worked hard and lost 24lbs! Although that does not seem like a big amount (I have a friend who lost about 50 in the same amount of time), I am ahead of where I was. So, as I was thinking about that 24lb. weight loss, I found myself thinking, ‘what if I made my goal to lose 26lbs. by the end of the school year, making my total loss 50lbs. after one year of living, thinking, and eating differently?’ So, that is my plan! I want to lose 26lbs. from February to the end of June. That is a goal of losing 5lbs. each month …. very doable!

So, this past month was not so successful, and my goal of walking three times a weeks is still unmet. I did manage to get in a nice long walk each weekend, but during the week has not been successful. So, I will continue on with that goal for February.

This month I discovered a web sight that is kind of fun!

www.modelmydiet.com

If you click the link above, you will see a virtual me, the heaviest I have ever been and the lightest … sigh, how does that happen? If you play around with the details on the right of the page, then click on ‘update’ you will get to see you. It was encouraging for me to see the differences from where I am now to where I was seven months ago.

Best wishes with the month of February!

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