Sunny Florida

We're in sunny Florida for a two week vacay!  Don't even think about it burglars, we have someone staying at the house along with a very protective dog!  I won't be blogging much while we are here, but there is going to be big news when we get back.  Big news!

.....and then there will be lots to talk about! 

Retirement

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

The other day my hubby and I were talking about the future, you know what we want to do when retire.  Stuff like that. You always picture yourself living forever, being able to do whatever you want, even when you are older. But the thing is, if you don't take care of yourself, you may not be able to do all that you thought you would be able to. For example, I look at some people who have a hard time going up and down stairs, or people who can't take their dog for a walk, and they are only just starting their golden years!

I want to enjoy my abled body while I still can, and hopefully if I take care of myself I will be able to still do these things when I retire and until I am REALLY old. That's what motivates me today. 

RANT OR RAVE

Can I just say that I am particularly liking my kickboxing classes these days, and not just for the activity, but for the mental boost that I get when I go. This week I didn't get to make it as much as I wanted, but it's nice to know when I do go people are glad to see me there - and I'm happy to see them. 

RANDOMS

Ok, so lately since Maya has been crawling, she has been finding herself in all kinds of new poses and postures. She tries to climb on everything and pull herself up, but sometimes she gets stuck. You know how when you climb a tree and then can't get back down? It's kind of like that. She will get stuck and then she starts making this high pitched noise to let me know she needs some help. Sometimes it looks like she is doing yoga poses and is struggling to keep it going. A few times I had the camera nearby and took some pictures. Isn't she the funniest? 

Here she was trying to climb up on the couch but ended up leaning on her one hand and her knees with nowhere to go. She was quite distressed about this one. She didn't know how to get up, and didn't know how to get down!

Here she climbed up on a little step stool and was able to stand on her legs but was frozen after that. Her arms started shaking a bit as if to say, "Mom, if you don't get me out of this soon I am going to completely collapse on my face!". 

Here she got herself up from the floor to look out the window but didn't anticipate that her legs would slowly begin sliding farther and farther apart until she was doing the splits. She was quickly losing momentum when I rescued her. 

On the up side I think all this physical activity is helping her sleep better at night cause she is not getting up nearly as much as she used to!

Pictures

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

Ok so yesterday I googled myself. Come on, you have all done it. Don't say you haven't! I wanted to see what kinds of pictures of me were floating around in cyberspace. I do this once in while because I work in a profession where I don't want clients looking me up and seeing really personal things about where I live, etc. So basically I try to keep my facebook stuff private, avoid anything connecting me to my blog on the search engines - you know, stuff like that. I have no problem sharing my life online, but I try to make it impossible for people to track me down in real life. Anyway, I digress. When I googled myself a few pages came up - a wedding web site I was on, a photography blog, a place I volunteered once. When I was looking at the pictures it showed some of me when I was thinner than I am now, and some when I was a lot bigger than I am now. Then I realized that not only could clients try to find me, but people I went to high school with, or old university room mates, etc. 

It's crazy just how vulnerable you can become as soon as someone takes a pictures of you because you never know where that picture is going to end up. They could post it anywhere and if your name is attached to it, people will find it.  This whole thing is nothing new, but for someone who is trying hard to get back to a healthy weight it can be a real drag knowing that fat pictures of you are always going to be circulating around. It's not just in cyberspace....they exist in people's wedding photos, yearbooks, vacation scrapbooks - all the things that document your time with these people here on earth. Once a picture is taken of you it is imprinted forever. Why do I bring this up? Because it can be painful to look back on pictures of you when you were real fat because it reminds you that although you had some pretty good memories, they were tainted somewhat by the fact that you didn't look your best (and that you were not a hundred percent happy with yourself in the said photo).  But I'm still young. One day hopefully I will look back at this time and feel like I have lived so much since this time, and that this was only a small part of my journey. It would be nice when I'm 50 years old to look back at pictures of me now and not cringe. Pictures play a big role in things that motivate me because they keep me accountable. Know what I mean?

RANT OR RAVE

This time of year always kind of sucks for me food-wise because there starts to be slim pickins' in the produce section and there isn't really much local produce available. This is when I tend to gravitate to comfort foods like bread, pasta, and the like. I cannot stress enough how much I HATE winter. And where I live, it isn't really even that cold compared to other places. But we still get snow and freezing temperatures and bare trees and all that. I can't wait to hit up Florida for vacay in less than two weeks! On that note, I will be shopping for my new bathing suit this week!

RANDOMS

So we decided to invest in solar panels which we are in the process of installing in our yard. What we thought would only take a few days is stretching out to take a lot longer, but isn't that always the way? I took some pictures of the beginning stages. I'd have to say, although I am excited about getting involved in a green project, I am very sad that the view out my back window is going to be tainted by this structure. It's gonna be over 30 ft long!  I'll post pics when it is finished!

My Kid

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

I don't want to pass on bad habits to my daughter. I don't want her to grow up being confused about what healthy living is. I don't want her to have to worry about how to be healthy when she is older because I am going to teach her good habits from day one.  I also want her to know what real food looks and tastes like. I don't want her to go over to a friend's house for dinner and wonder what they are eating because she is only used to processed cheese slices and chicken fingers, like some kids these days. But most importantly, I want her to feel good and always do her best and that starts with eating healthy. I am going to try my best to instil this into my daughter and it starts with me living this example every day. 

RANT OR RAVE

Someone sent me the link to this blog post the other day.  I liked it and thought I would share 'cause when it comes down to it, I have my beliefs of how to raise my child (as mentioned above) - but I'm not gonna give you grief for how you raise yours. My only rule is don't abuse your child. Other than that, do whatever you want - I'll try not to hate!

RANDOMS

Guess who finally learned to crawl? I'm in trouble now. Watch out Gunther!

Progress

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

Ok I promise pretty soon I will start doing some more meaningful posts, but in the mean time this is what has motivated me today. I was going through my closet to see if there are any clothes that still fit me for my trip to Florida coming up in a few weeks. You remember when I went through my closet and got rid of old clothes? Well there are some more I have to give away, cause I found a bunch of stuff that used to be real tight on me and now is falling off of me. Sometimes you don't realize how far you have come until things like that happen. So that is my motivation today... being able to recognize that things do change - when you put it into action, it will happen.

Also I'm going to be making some changes on this blog soon, mostly just updating it and changing some of the pages so stay tuned for that!

RANT OR RAVE

Well the past week everyone at my house has been sick and honestly I just haven't had any motivation to really do anything. I was also not getting any sleep between Maya teething again and me not feeling well, so during the day I have been a bit of a zombie. But that all changed last night. I went to bed at 8pm while Chris put Maya down. She only got up once at 12am in which Chris offered to get up with her but I needed to get rid of some milk (still breastfeeding) and quickly fed her and went back down until 7:30am this morning! I got over ten hours of sleep in total! Holy cow I am a new woman this morning! You have heard me complain about sleep on here many times before, but it's always nice to brag about the times I do get to sleep. Also, this reminded me of a video that someone recently posted on facebook. So many things on it I could directly relate to, especially the one about millions of people enduring sleep deprivation. Anyway, take a look for yourself:

I seriously want to share this video with anyone about to have their first child or anyone who has just had their first child. While I was watching, it seemed like each one was a direct quote from friends and coworkers who had shared their experiences with me about what to expect with motherhood.  It was like, "Hey that is just like what so and so told me!". Anyway, I thought it had a lot of universal messages and I know all the Mom's out there will relate to this one.  

RANDOMS

So Maya has finally figured out that if she drops food on the floor Gunther will automatically eat it. She has been watching him sit underneath her chair since she started solids, eating her discards - but it wasn't until recently that she realized that she was the sole person responsible for feeding him in this manner. So yesterday she just started taking all of her food and just throwing in on the floor to watch Gunther eat it. This new revelation was funny so I took a few pictures.