A place to whine and cry

I feel the need to type out my feelings and frustrations.  Let's be honest here.  It's not like anyone I know actually sees this so I feel I'm pretty safe.

I'm terribly frustrated and sad.  It took literally two years after having my son to get consistent at going to the gym again.  TWO YEARS!  I'm so much weaker than I was even when I was 6 months pregnant with him.  I feel like I'm having a much harder time getting myself back.  I get injured more and I'm more tired.  Finally, I realized that I was lacking a goal.

My friend Angela suggested that I look into powerlifting, so I did.  That research led me to Strongman and that is where I feel like I found my goal.  In July, my workout partner and I went to a Strongman competition and met a husband and wife that both compete.  They told us about a Strongwoman Challenge.  It was an event to introduce women into the sport and it was to raise money for an organization called ROX and it was only a month away.  My partner and I trained extremely hard for that month.  It was very hard on us physically and mentally.  We ended up taking a whole week from the gym just to recover afterwards.  Anyway, I did so much better than I expected and felt I was in my element.

Afterwards, I got a workout plan from one of the judges and was on my way to build up to the next competition.  Unfortunately, in the two months of training, I've managed to sprain my wrist and now hurt my back.

AND that's where my whining and crying is coming in.  I'm so fucking demoralized.  I'm pissed off.  I finally figured out a goal and had a plan and it's all went to shit.  At first, it was the wrist and I ignored it.  After six weeks I saw that it wasn't getting any better, so I decided to go a month or two with light weight.  I can't even manage to do that because at the end of my first week my back muscle cramped up and I'm in terrible pain.  I guess I'm going to have to become a cardio queen for awhile until this heals.  

Teenage Angst

We were at the park the other day and witnessed typical teenage angst.  There was a young teenage couple arguing, yelling and cursing next to a very busy playground.  I can only assume that part of this was for attention of other people in the park.  Thankfully, there was no physical violence.

There were things that I could have said or possibly should have said,  but I didn't.  I wish that the young couple will realize that more likely than not, in a week this will be one of many arguments and will more than likely be part of their breakup.  In six months to a year, they will start dating new people but they will complain still about each other now and then.  In a couple of years, they will still not like each other.  In five or more years, they will not even remember that argument.  However, they will know how each other is doing because of friends or social media.  They will one day either be genuinely happy for the other person or quite possibly genuinely happy for themselves for moving on and seeing how they avoided that train wreck.

In any case, I decided to remember this moment.  It happens to everyone.  I remember being that drama loving teenager.  I remember arguing for argument sake, even into my first marriage.  I wish people could find out earlier in life that it's so much nicer when you realize that everyone makes mistakes and eventually all that drama was a waste of energy.  I guess you have to go through it to appreciate the lesson in the end.

Operation New Leaf

Well, it only took a year, but I finally got all that stuff out of my basement.  The stuff I didn't sell went to consignment shops or was donated.  I'm so please that I got that monkey off my back.  Onto the next thing...only...I don't know what the next thing is yet.

Someone said I should start a blog...

I told them that I had one, but I don't post to it much and it is pretty boring.  Maybe my Facebook statuses are more exciting.  I guess I should post my good ones here instead.

So, I was sitting at the table eating breakfast with Gibson and started having rambling thoughts:

I'm watching the cars rush by outside as parents rush to get kids to the bus stop then get to work and I'm thankful that we don't have to rush like that and I can let Montana sleep in.

Gibson finally decided to eat scrambled eggs again and with spinach in them too. This is truly a blessing since he's won't hardly eat anything healthy.

I dropped my toast with fruit spread, but I caught it! Unfortunately, I caught it fruit spread side next to my right boob.

Anyway, I was really feeling quite smug about what a fantastic day it was going to be and how it was full of win until that toast thing happened. It was like karma was telling to quit being so cocky.

Oh well, today is supposed to be warmer.

Gibson's 2nd Birthday

Here we are at the beginning of 2014.  I've signed up for the 100k Transformation Challenge through Bodybuilding.com.  I'm looking way bigger than I thought I was.  I was actually embarrassed to post my "before" pictures.  I wasn't even like that when I weighed my heaviest.  Really, there are two winners and each get 50k.  So far, I'm not off to a very good start.

Today, we celebrated my son's 2nd birthday.  We did a construction themed birthday.  It was unbelievably hard to find that type party supplies.  So, I went to Home Depot and go the cheap aprons and carpenter pencils.  I found some cheap 3 ft. tape measures at Walmart.  Finally, I found some wood coloring construction equipment.  All-in-all, I think the goody bags turned out good.  I also made his cake.  It wasn't has hard as his zoo one.  The best part is that I didn't have to make several parts of the cake a couple weeks ahead of time.

2013 Coming to a Close

Well, the year has just flown by.  I am ready to start the new year.   I think my theme for 2014 is to downsize and refocus.

 I'm continuing to work on The New Leaf project.  I found it's been easier to sell our pre-owned clothes rather than new clothes on Ebay.  I still have plenty to go through, but I'll get there.  One bite at a time.

I'm also refocusing on my fitness goals.  I'm going to focus on gaining strength and continue my 5k runs.  I'm going to start eating in a deficit and see how that goes for a month or two.

I'm also going to focus on keeping the house in better shape.  I say this the day after Christmas while it looks like a toy store puked all over my floor.  Oh well, I'll get there.

Figuring out how to let them just go...`

I've come to a realization today.  I took both of my children to the local children's museum.  This is an activity I would normally cringe about.  Me, by myself, with both of my kids, at a museum.  I was prepped for it to be stressful.  So I did what should have been second nature.  I just let them play. You may be thinking, "Well, of course, why wouldn't you do that?"  The answer is that I don't know why I haven't thought of it before.

Let me explain.  When my daughter was an only child, we had pent up all our hopes and dreams on this one little human.  I had waited for her for so long and when she finally got here I wanted to show her the world.  We dragged that little 1-3 year old girl all over the place.  We took her hiking, to the zoo, to different museums, festivals, nice restaurants and out of state vacations.  We did this in an attempt to make her life as full as possible.  It sounds great, except when we went to these places we expected her to be on our schedule.  When we, the parents, decided that she had done an activity long enough, we would push her along with promises of bigger and better things to see.  We didn't do it to rush her really or to be mean.  We did it because we felt that if she didn't see absolutely everything to see that she would miss out.  We now realize she doesn't really remember any of it at all.

Here we are with kid #2.  We've not been to near as many places with my son as we have with my daughter. One reason is because he just doesn't have the same demeanor.  He gets loud and irritated easily. Also, we just don't have the money to do all those things.  I do feel like he's missing out.

Back to my point, today I took them to the children's museum...by myself.  We went for museum day so it was free for us to go.  I finally did the opposite of what I normally do.  I just let them play.  Since I wasn't paying I didn't care if they spent the entire time playing at one station.  I didn't care whether they knew there was a whole upstairs section or not.  We spent four hours at the museum.  Most of that time was at the water table then the Lego table. Both are things they can do at home.   But guess what?  It was the most relaxing time I could have had with both kids.  So, what did I learn?  For God's sake just let them play.  They don't have to see everything and it's more likely to be a fond memory than a disappointing one.