Back Into It

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

Well I am getting back to kickboxing today. I didn't get to go when I was in Nova Scotia and then when I was back I was sick and my husband had laser eye surgery so we mostly just stayed home. I am glad to get back into it because I feel like such a blob. Going always gets me motivated again so I'm hoping today will be a good class!

RANT OR RAVE

Right now I am watching my baby girl sitting on the floor doing nothing. She was playing with her toys and then all of a sudden just stopped and started looking around and thinking intensely about something. Then I sat there staring at her wondering what she could be thinking about. "A penny for your thoughts?" I said in my head. Then I realized that sitting with her and watching her is one of the most relaxing things. Then she started staring back at me and we just had a staring contest. We didn't talk to each other we were just watching each other. My camera was sitting next to me so I took a picture cause she is just so gosh darn cute.  

This morning I have been feeling a bit stressed for not any particular reason other than usual life stuff and that was all forgotten when Maya and I were just "being",  just hangin' out,  just sitting together in the quiet.  So I guess my point is, when you are stressed, don't underestimate the power of an eight month old's ability to take it all away just by a look. 

RANDOMS

I started working on my christmas stockings .  Let me tell you, this is taking ALOT longer than I thought it would. I really thought this would be a simple project - cut out a few pieces of fabric and sew them together - and then done. Yeah..... notsomuch. 

You see, I decided I wanted to make them kind of fancy by embroidering our names on them, but the tutorial I was following didn't account for these extra steps and it kind of messed up things a bit.

First of all, it took forever to try to figure out exactly how to space the names on the cuffs of the stockings.  Then, it took even longer to actually do the embroidering that I learned to do from this video.   I seriously thought it would take like five minutes for each word but it was more like five minutes for each letter until I got the hang of it. 

Then I decided I wanted to do some kind of embellishments so I picked up some buttons at the store and tried to add them. 

But the big problem was when I was done, the buttons just didn't end up in the right places and the loop on the top of the stocking was facing the wrong direction. So I ended up with these two as my finished product.

I didn't like it so I took the buttons off and I did some rearranging and ended up with this. 

Ok it looks a bit better but now the names are way on the top of the cuff instead of in the centre of the cuff where I originally wanted them.  So I gave up and walked away from the sewing machine because I knew it was only going to get worse the more frustrated I got. 

I'm gonna go back at it hopefully today or tomorrow and eventually I will have beautiful stockings to hang by the fire place, so wait for an update and a picture when they are all done!

Meanwhile, my dining room still looks like this....

And can I just tell you that the only way to get things done around here anymore is to do five to ten minute chunks of things at a time. The days of taking on a project and getting it done in one day are over. Maya keeps us on our toes and I have had to do a lot of this in between feeding, changing, playing,   cleaning, etc.  Sometimes I wait until she is in bed and then go to town on a project but then usually by that time of day I am tired and not at my peak performance. No wonder it is taking so long to get these things right!

Memories

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

In the new year, we've got a few family trips planned with Maya. When we look back at pictures of us as a family, creating memories for our child, I don't want to be thinking "Jeez, I wish I looked / felt better then".  I don't want things like that spoiling my memories.  Instead, I just want to be thinking about the good times.

RANT OR RAVE

The other day I talked about buying this book. Well, I am done reading it. I read every night before bed. Even though I should be trying to get to sleep as early as possible (to prepare for Maya waking up 2-3 times a night), I can't help but cuddle up and have some "me" time. 

The basic message in this book is to eat a diet of non-processed foods with little or no meat, eating mostly plants. It also stresses the need to reconnect with the pleasure of food, eating socially, and thinking outside of the traditional beliefs we have about food. He also explains how processed foods came to be, which is interesting, and cautions that foods fortified with vitamins are not as good as whole foods. 

Anyhow, this book has really left me feeling much more confident about eating and much more overwhelmed about eating at the same time. There are a lot of things in the book that I agree with whole heartedly. There are some things that I still wonder about. Some of it validates the beliefs I already have about food, some of it makes it more complicated. Mostly more complicated because if I were to embrace the concept of this book a hundred percent, I would have to make some changes which I feel is very difficult to do when you are competing with how our culture has changed regarding food. 

You see, it talks about getting back to basics, cutting out processed food, enjoying eating again, having more sensible portions (not the usual portions of the Western diet), getting back to having a relationship with the makers of your food, knowing where it comes from, etc. These are not new concepts but the thing is, when you go to a kids' birthday party and they are serving macaroni and cheese or you go to a friend's house who is serving white rice and ready made appetizers, how do you politely decline what they are serving? Do you bring your own food and look like a snooty "I'm too good for your food" kind of guest? Do you eat before you go and just not have anything at the party and in turn be the only one at the table watching everyone else eat? I tell myself that eating what someone serves you once in a while is not going to hurt you but when you are invited to things more than once a week how do you cope? When I was reading this book I had a new appreciation for someone who is, say, a vegetarian or a vegan. 

This book was not suggesting that you follow a strict eating guideline, but in a way it did. The good thing is it did make eating seem a lot simpler. It gave the dieter a green light to stop dieting and just eat healthy. It gave good reasons why you should spend more money on your food (which helped me make peace with yesterdays' rant). It helped you understand that you don't need to eat food fortified with vitamins and nutrients if you just eat the good foods themselves. The biggest message I took from this book is that you have to look at food as a whole, as a culture, and we need to stop processing everything and promoting all of this factory farming that goes on. Overall I agree with the general premise of this book, but like anything, I feel you need to take some of it with a grain of salt and remember that the author is trying to make traditional "nutritionism" look very evil in order to get the reader to see his point of view.  So it would be interesting to see a more balanced argument about such issues, but nonetheless, he makes some very good points. 

See for yourself and give it a read. 

RANDOMS

A while back I talked about taking on some hobbies to keep myself busy like sewing. I think I'm gonna make some home made Christmas stockings to spice things up this year. I'll let you know how it turns out. 

Both of these are going to inspire my project:

www.polkadotchristmas.com

www.breakfastfordinnerblog.blogspot.com

Eye On The Prize

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

It almost happened. Yesterday the cookies almost won the standoff.  They have been sitting in my cupboard since last week and I thought I had won. I had no desire to even try them after they were put away. Then last night for some reason I was hungry, and nothing in my fridge appealed to me. I was getting sick of snacking on fruit and vegetables all the time. Then I heard the cookies calling my name, saying things like "Just one won't hurt", and "You can eat us and then you can start fresh tomorrow".  I actually struggled with this for a good hour. Wanting to give in but not wanting to give in. Since when did food start having such control over my thoughts? It was almost like a smoker trying not to have one more cigarette. In my head I knew it was silly, but there I was trying to convince myself not to have the cookies. In the end, my self coping talk won, I didn't eat the cookies.  True story. 

I was confident in my decision when I started to visualize the end result of my efforts - being able to achieve all of the things in which I have talked about on here: getting rid of problem areas on my body, fitting into clothes again, having pride in my appearance, being healthy, etc.  So in short, I found that keeping my eye on the prize goes a long way in breaking the years of bad habits I have developed since childhood. I no longer am going to listen to those distorted thoughts that talk me into eating things I do not need. So today, my motivation is to keep my eye on the prize and keep going. 

RANT OR RAVE

You know what I just LOVE? Homemade and personalized gifts. When we were working on the nursery for my itty bitty, we painted the walls and put up furniture, but it didn't really become Maya's room until it was filled with sentimental objects that she received as gifts. 

Almost everything in her room was given to her by someone. From the library that was started on her book shelf, to the hand-me-down clothes. Here are a few of my favourite gifts that people either personalized or made themselves!

A water colour made from the heart. 

A glass blown soother with a tag to write weight and height at birth.

A wish tree. 

Quilts made with love. 

A puzzle picture put together by a loved one. 

My two favourite dolls when I was a little girl. Mon Chi-Chi and Ragedy Ann.

Aren't these just cute! Hand made. 

Books from one of my favourite authors as a child. 

Personalized bracelet. 

Birth stones in the shape of a butterfly. 

I like to dabble in the odd project myself when trying to think of gift ideas for others. 

    

A quilt that went towards a group gift. 

With secret pockets.

Stuffed animals and pillows for Maya.

Something to stick pictures in.

I find a lot of ideas from online tutorials. A few I have tried include soft baby blocks and fabric balls. Both turned out nicely. 

I think my next project is going to be this.

Memory Game

And maybe this. 

Fabric Houses

You may be wondering what this has to do with trying to be healthy. Well, the thing is, lately I have been getting a bit bored with the monotony of keeping house and child rearing. Sometimes I just want to do something to keep busy that doesn't include folding yet another load of laundry. If I don't keep busy I tend to start snacking and so I am going to start getting back into doing little projects when Maya is in bed. I also feel that in order to live a balanced life and take care of myself, I must do some things that I enjoy.

NOTE TO SELF