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!

The Doctors

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

Today I go see my doctor for test results regarding my gall bladder. Wish me luck! Well I guess I don't really need luck cause the results are already in, but you know what I mean!

RANT OR RAVE

I came across a blog that had this post. Very interesting indeed. Actually, when I read some of this blog a lot of what the person was saying hit home. I don't agree with everything she says, but some of it rings true for me and actually describes things I have been thinking but couldn't put into words. The only thing I have a hard time with, is the fact that she is very anti-diet, which for me, is difficult to accept because I just don't see any other way to get to a healthy weight other than to diet. It's what to do after I lose the weight that will be the real challenge because eventually there will have to be a time where I stop dieting and maintain without going back to my old habits. 

RANDOMS

Dear Gunther, 

This past year has been a real change for you. You knew something was going on when Mom's belly was growing bigger and we kept bringing more and more baby stuff into the house. Since Maya has come home from the hospital, you have been demoted from being our one and only to being, well, "just the dog".  We still love you so much but you see, we just cannot fuss over you like we used to. I see your face when I am on the floor laughing with Maya, and when I am giving her a zillion kisses in the morning. I don't mean to make you jealous but taking care of a baby is a full time job! Whenever people come over you demand attention by putting your head into their laps and by wedging yourself in between them and Maya.  It's as if you are saying, "What's the deal? You used to fuss over me and now you don't even look at me!". Don't worry sweet, lovely, handsome pup of mine, you still bring so much joy into my life. Your brown eyes still melt my heart. Just like I said when you were a puppy, you will always be my sunshine. Even though you are often jealous, you are always so gentle with Maya and she loves to play with you! 

I remember before Maya was born you would sing (howl) to her. One day, after Mom woke up with her bed head (and many lbs heavier), we got it on camera. 

And now that she is here you still sing to her!

You both are a good pair. Some day I think you may even be best friends. 

Sure, we have to put plastic stuff on the couch so you won't go on them. Sure, we have to bribe you with an excessive amount of treats so you will act half decent when guests arrive. Sure, we have to vacuum our carpet a zillion times a day to get rid of all the dog hair. But I wouldn't change you for the world, no I would not! I love you g-dog!

The Way Our Mother See Us

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

When you are looking at pictures of when you are younger it is always in retrospect that you think, "I wish I appreciated my young body when I had it".  I was looking at pictures of myself and kept thinking, "If I only really truly knew my potential when I was that age. If I really just understood myself how other people saw me". But that's how life goes isn't it? And then you have kids of your own and you think, "I hope my little one always knows how beautiful she / he really is". When Maya grows up I want her to really truly appreciate her beauty (because we are all beautiful in one way or another) and I want her to really understand how one's regard for oneself can go a long way in how attractive they appear to others. If you feel good about yourself it will show. If you hate the way you look, if you second guess whether you are worthy, you will look unattractive to others. I truly believe this. But most importantly, I just want her to never take for granted the wonderful person that she is.  If only we saw ourselves the way our mothers see us - beautiful, wonderful, amazing, talented, full of potential. Really, that's what we are, but we don't always see it like that. 

Today I want to keep this in mind. I want to get to a point where I can really truly appreciate myself the way that I know my mother see's me and I want Maya to see that and do the same. If you love your body and take care of it, you are more likely to eat healthy and to feel better about yourself. So that's my focus today. 

RANT OR RAVE

I have been wanting to find a low fat butter chicken recipe and so yesterday I tried this one. I substituted the butter for a few teaspoons of low fat margarine and the yogurt with fat free yogurt. It was a day where Maya was really needy, I think her gums were bugging her, and it literally took me two hours to cook the meal start to finish. By the time Chris came home I was holding her out to him saying, "Take her please so I can get dinner done!". It wasn't until seven o'clock that we actual sat down to eat (and we usually eat by 5:30pm). 

Anyway, Chris and I gave the recipe a big fat fail. Not all recipes are destined to be low fat and I think butter chicken isn't one of them in my opinion. I thought for sure the spices would make it all come together, but.... notsomuch.  

RANDOMS

Ok in the last few months every time I go to the grocery store or anywhere else I get called "Mam". What's up with that? I used to be "Miss", sometimes even "Madam", but now I am just "Mam". It's like as soon as I show up anywhere with a baby I am now an old person, or at least that's what I think of when I hear the word "Mam".  I have definitely lost my cool, hip, young person aura and you-know-who took it from me...

Self

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

I'm a hypocrite. To some degree we all are. Let me explain.

I have these beliefs about life, about how things should be, about how we should behave and how we should live. I usually feel pretty strongly in what I believe, especially when I just know that it's the right thing, but I just can't seem to live by some of these beliefs.

You see, I believe that people should love themselves for who they are. I believe that most people are harder on themselves than they should be and if they only saw themselves as other see them, they wouldn't be so quick to criticize themselves. I often say to  people, "If that was your best friend saying that about themselves, what would you say?".  The thing is, I don't practice what I preach, because I am critical of myself all the time. Where do I get this from? Well I think society is a pretty good influence, but I also think it is just a habit that I have picked up that I need to be more aware of. I also think that I have let others be critical of me and in turn by allowing this I have disrespected myself.

I also believe that if people want to be truly happy with themselves and how they look (and feel better), they need to quit obsessing over the latest diet and just start getting healthy. Avoid process foods, stay active, indulge once in a while, eat in moderation, take time to make wholesome meals, plan ahead, grocery shop frequently. The thing is, this sounds good in theory, but it seems that everywhere around us there are messages to the contrary - and I am influenced by this just as much as everyone else. I say I want to feel better, be healthy, live a long happy life, be there for my daughter (and I do!), but I also want to look skinny, wear nice clothes, look attractive for my husband, etc. As much as it's not about the number on the scale, I still have an number in my head and if I don't reach it I will likely feel like a failure. Why do I do this? I dunno. Our society constantly focuses on how women look, and we all want to meet that standard, and I'm not sure that will ever change. I don't know one woman who doesn't wish that she looked different in some way.

I am following a lot of healthy "rules" when it comes to eating, exercising, etc. But when it really comes down to it, I am still on a diet. I say that because I am still writing down everything I eat, I am restricting certain things that I cannot eat, I measure some of my food, I am eating less calories than if I were not trying to lose weight, and I am feeling like a failure if I don't follow it religiously.  I feel like I am in a conundrum because I am overweight and therefore feel I need to diet first, then work on just eating healthy. One day I convince myself that if I just toughen up and restrict more of my eating, I will see results faster. Another day I tell myself that this is a lifestyle change and therefore I need to not restrict myself so much. And in the end the scale usually wins and this is what ultimately dictates my behaviour and my opinion of myself.

I'm not sure how to change that, or if I ever will.

I also worry about how my thoughts may affect Maya, because I am constantly saying that I want her to grow up with a positive sense of self, yet I still struggle with this at my age. Sure, I am a lot wiser than I once was (getting older does that to you) - I know that I need to appreciate who I am and what I have now - but I am not completely a hundred percent happy with who I am.

That is why I do things such as place post-it notes all over telling people they are beautiful because even though I cannot always follow my own advice, I would like to still encourage these beliefs and maybe in turn I will slowly change myself. I will always have some extrinsic and shallow reasons for losing weight, but maybe just for today, I will let myself off the hook and just be happy with who I am.

Speaking of operation beautiful, Maya and I did some errands yesterday and took our post-it notes with us.

Here is a picture of us getting ready to leave. I tried to take a picture in the mirror to go with the sticky-note-mirror theme, but didn't realize my mirror has hand prints all over it:

And Maya double checking the sticky notes.

We had to run some errands at the mall and so we stuck some notes in various places including some change rooms at women's clothing stores, the public bathroom, a coffee shop bathroom, and the book store. We took a few pictures with my camera phone but some didn't turn out very well.

Maya was at her limit and all "shopped out" so we went home with some notes still in my purse.

I put a few in the bathroom at kickboxing this morning:

RANT OR RAVE

While we are on the subject of beliefs, my brother-in-law explained this book a few years back and even though I haven't read it, the premise changed my way of thinking about food. I picked it up from the book store yesterday. I'll give a review when I'm done reading. 

RANDOMS

When I was a kid, I remember watching this one scene on sesame street where the puppet pulls a "Weird Al" and sings about cereal to Madonna's song, "Material Girl". 

For some reason I remembered this when I was feeding Maya cereal one day and started singing my own version of it. Now every time I feed her breakfast I sing it and it always makes her have huge smiles. It's hilarious. 

Maya is going to have so much evidence of why I am an embarrassing mother when she gets older. 

Who's That In The MIrror?

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

When I was pregnant I would often catch my reflection of my face in the rearview mirror while riding in the car. By the end of my pregnancy I avoided looking at myself because I could see how fat my face was getting and it didn't even look like me. I didn't gain an obscene amount of weight while I was pregnant but since I was overweight before getting pregnant my face started to look like the pillsbury dough boy.  The experience was similar to when you all of a sudden see your reflection in a store window.  But the other day I caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror and I wasn't completely disgusted. I could tell that my face is starting to look like the old me a bit. So that is what keeps me going today. 

RANT OR RAVE

So I made beef stew for the first time yesterday. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. 

I posted the recipe here on the recipe page. The only change I made is I substituted the flour with corn starch.  Next up - chicken noodle soup. 

NOTE TO SELF

Thanksgiving Dinner

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

YOWSER!!!!!  I need to keep this picture engrained in my mind when I am tempted today with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the like.  Sure, I just had a baby at the time of this picture, but still. 

On another note, I have gotten a hair cut that doesn't look so brutal anymore. It's kind of my "in between" cut - the one that you get after the brutal hair cut that helps you grow your hair back out into the one that you actually want.

RANT OR RAVE

You've heard me rant a lot about sleep, or lack thereof, many times. Well I curse the neighbour who blares his music and sets off fire crackers until 4:30am every saturday night, especially on this particular night when my sweet baby girl decides to only get up once and let mommy sleep the rest of the night, only Mommy cannot get back to sleep because of douche bag neighbour guy who is an alcoholic and keeps turning on his music after the police show up. Arrested for disturbing the peace after the third visit from the cops. Oh that's too bad, I almost feel sorry for you. Almost. 

NOTE TO SELF

Family Pictures

TODAY'S MOTIVATION

For Christmas this year I want to take a family picture sitting by the Christmas tree. I want to actually like the way I look in the picture. Just another small goal of mine. 

RANT OR RAVE

A while back I started a post talking about beautiful things around us and how beauty can be found everywhere, and when you do find something beautiful it is nurturing to the soul. 

Every spring we plant flowers in pots around our deck and a few other places. I love to sit out on the back porch and look at all the flowers growing. We planted some again this year but since Maya has arrived we have barely had time to pay attention to our gardens, let alone keeping up with the grass cutting. 

I have been guilty of not watering our flowers much this year. Actually, I can count on one hand the amount of times. Despite this, a few times when I thought for sure they were all dead it would rain and a few would come back. I always think that's pretty cool when that happens.  Luckily it rained a lot so they didn't completely die but as you can see they didn't make out very well this year. Here's what's left of the poor things. 

In the fall I usually buy some Mums and I am excited to say that they are doing better than the flowers we planted in the spring. I have been really trying to make an effort to water them as much as possible. Every time I drive up the driveway in the front yard I smile a bit on the inside when I see the array of colours. So beautiful. Aren't they purrrdy? 

NOTE TO SELF