I have seen that picture over and over online. You know the one, with the mother of 3 kids showing off her muscular body, asking what our excuses are for not looking like her. I've tried to ignore it, and then I really started thinking about it. Society shove images of these women in our faces, telling us that we must look like them to be beautiful. Most people do not look like those women, yet I still believe they Re beautiful. These women work hard at their jobs, then come home and take care of their family instead of pawning them off onto a nanny. It is a beautiful thing to take care of your children. Of course there are the women that society tells us are beautiful among us "lesser" women. Quite a few of them have such a nasty personality that it is hard to see past their rotten core. Of course not all of them are like this, I know some stunningly beautiful people who are even more beautiful inside.
I've done a lot of thinking, and I know what my excuse is. I'm physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. I do what I can, when I can, and that is good enough for me. I'm up everyday at 7 to get myself ready for work. When I'm ready I wake my four kids up, and get the older three ready for school. Then I drop off my son, and drop off my kids at school. We are out of district so they can not be bussed, we live about 3 miles away from school and there would be three major streets to cross without guards, plus a railroad, and I don't quite trust society to leave my kids alone so they can make it to school. I have to wait until 8:45 to drop the kids off, then I head over to work. I have to be there at 9 am, and with no traffic, the time it takes to get from the school to work is 20 minutes, so I have to shave 5 minutes off and deal with traffic, otherwise I'm late. And I'm usually late.
I can not make mistakes at work, or people can die. I have to put up with people who have absolutely no respect for other humans. I have to fight with bit he nurses, and assholes doctors, and angry customers after their doctor's office lies to them. I have learned to really appreciate nurses and doctors who know how to handle themselves professionally. Those of you who do, I sincerely appreciate it. When 6 pm rolls around, I have to drag myself to my car, my varicose veins on my legs throbbing the whole way. I pick up my kids, and I get home around 7. Then I get to make dinner while helping with homework and listening to the dramas of who is friends with who at school, and giving my kids as much time as I possibly can without burning the food. While my kids sit and eat, I am taking bites between cleaning up after dinner and switching the laundry. When dinner is all said and done, it is about 9 pm and time to get the kids in bed. So we do our bedtime routine, and at 10 the kids are down, and it is just me. Now I get to pick up all the toys that were gotten out, more laundry, more dishes. After I'm done with that, I have to decide if my muscle spasms in my hips and lower back are enough to keep me from finishing my chores. Usually not, but sometimes I do have to sit down for a bit until I can get the pain under control. As I'm cleaning, I have to be careful because I have a painful csection scat since it decided to adhere to things it isn't supposed to. By the time I'm done with it all, it is about 11:30, sometimes midnight. At that hour of the day, my legs are screaming at me because they hurt so much, my feet are numb, and my hips are clicking and catching so much that even if I had time to work out, I would probably collapse if I put any strain on them.
So that is my excuse. I don't care if it isn't good enough for you, but it is more than enough for me. If you're going to judge me because I don't have rock solid abs after having four kids, you can do one of the following:
1. Pay for my medical bills so I can get the physical therapy I need to fix my hips, and the plastic surgery I needs to remove the painful scar tissue.
2. Pay for a personal chef to cook dinner for my family so I can work out while dinner is being prepared.
3. Hire a nanny so I can have "me time" whenever I want.
4. Hire a tutor for my kids so I don't have to help with their homework.
(please note that 2, 3, and 4 can all be the same person if they are qualified)
5. Pay my bills so I don't have to work, or so I only have to work part time
If you are not willing to do any of the above, you may choose option 6.
6. F#c$ off.
I might not have a perfect body, but that doesn't mean I sit around and do nothing all day.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
The return
Last year I told you about how I was losing weight and planned on being at my goal weight by the time I turned 30. Sadly, that didn't come to pass. This spring I suffered an injury that kept me immobile for 2 weeks, and up until about a month ago, it still hurt to do anything strenuous. I did meet my halfway mark, but due to not moving and eating crap for 4 months, I gained 20 pounds back. I've lost some of it, but I also lost my motivation.
I'm ready to get serious again. I have 80 pounds to lose before I'm happy, and 100 until I'm healthy. Some friends and I are planning to do a tough mudder event in 2014, and I plan on finishing the course. Starting July 1, I am back on the healthy bandwagon, and I will give it all I've got. My goal is a10 pound loss per month, which breaks down to about 2.5 pounds per week. I'm also going to try to blog my success about once a week, including pictures. Pictures are a major motivation for me, to see how far I've come. I'm not looking forward to July, but August should be a lot easier for me.
As an extra incentive to help me, I'm also planning "rewards" every month to help me reach my goals. My July reward will be a treadmill, for August, a trip to the beach. A friend is getting married in Portland and if I complete my goal I will take an extra day and head to Astoria. Sept will probably be new work clothes to replace the ones that will hopefully be too big, and Oct I will allow myself to splurge on a cute Halloween costume. Nov will be a tattoo for reaching my new "halfway-to-healthy-weight" milestone, and dec I'm not sure yet. January's reward will be a new computer, and feb will be a new wardrobe. March, I'm hoping to take a vacation to arches national park to go on the trails I couldn't last year, and to take some amazing pictures at sunrise and sunset. April will be my last month if everything goes right. For April, I will get another tattoo, expand my wardrobe, and start saving for cosmetic surgery. I have scar tissue from my csections that is attaching to my internal organs and it causes me a great deal of pain daily. The only option is surgery, and if I'm going to be going in for surgery, I might as well have them do a tummy tuck while they're at it. I might continue to May if I want to lose another 10 pounds and be on the lower side of healthy, but I will decide when I get there.
I'm also going to build up my stomach muscles to have a 6 pak, something I've always wanted. :) I've got a long way to go, and looking ahead is scary. But I've come a long way, and I know I can do it!
I'm ready to get serious again. I have 80 pounds to lose before I'm happy, and 100 until I'm healthy. Some friends and I are planning to do a tough mudder event in 2014, and I plan on finishing the course. Starting July 1, I am back on the healthy bandwagon, and I will give it all I've got. My goal is a10 pound loss per month, which breaks down to about 2.5 pounds per week. I'm also going to try to blog my success about once a week, including pictures. Pictures are a major motivation for me, to see how far I've come. I'm not looking forward to July, but August should be a lot easier for me.
As an extra incentive to help me, I'm also planning "rewards" every month to help me reach my goals. My July reward will be a treadmill, for August, a trip to the beach. A friend is getting married in Portland and if I complete my goal I will take an extra day and head to Astoria. Sept will probably be new work clothes to replace the ones that will hopefully be too big, and Oct I will allow myself to splurge on a cute Halloween costume. Nov will be a tattoo for reaching my new "halfway-to-healthy-weight" milestone, and dec I'm not sure yet. January's reward will be a new computer, and feb will be a new wardrobe. March, I'm hoping to take a vacation to arches national park to go on the trails I couldn't last year, and to take some amazing pictures at sunrise and sunset. April will be my last month if everything goes right. For April, I will get another tattoo, expand my wardrobe, and start saving for cosmetic surgery. I have scar tissue from my csections that is attaching to my internal organs and it causes me a great deal of pain daily. The only option is surgery, and if I'm going to be going in for surgery, I might as well have them do a tummy tuck while they're at it. I might continue to May if I want to lose another 10 pounds and be on the lower side of healthy, but I will decide when I get there.
I'm also going to build up my stomach muscles to have a 6 pak, something I've always wanted. :) I've got a long way to go, and looking ahead is scary. But I've come a long way, and I know I can do it!
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Update
I wrote this about 3 weeks ago and due to computer problems I'm just now posting it.
A lot has happened in the year I haven't been here. I don't even know where to start. Except I'm single again, long story, more drama so I'll skip the details. The kids are all bigger. All three of my girls are in school now since my youngest daughter started kindergarten. My oldest is impatient to be a teenager. I'm not quite sure why, but she wants to be older. I told her I wish I was younger.
Last year I decided it was time for a new me. After my son was born it only took two weeks to lose my pregnancy weight with him. There were complications, I had to be on bedrest for quit a while so I gained it all back and then some. It got to be where I was completely uncomfortable, I was starting to worry about seats in public places and not being able to fit into them. So I made a goal to lose 103 pounds. Long story short I went through several scales and in the end I changed my goal to 143 pounds to be at an ideal weight. Sitting here I'm thinking, "Holy crap! 143 pounds, there are some adults that weigh LESS than that!" But yes, 143 and I will be in the healthy zone for my height. I started my journey Nov 2011. Here it is almost a year later... I've lost 66 pounds. I have 77 to go, 5.5 more pounds and I will be half way there.
There have been times over the past year that I've wanted to give up. A few days I DID give up. I would get hard on myself, I would think that I have so much more to go, what's the point? Then I would see how far I've come. I'm not willing to give up all my hard work because the road ahead is still long. During my physical transformation something happened that I didn't expect. I've learned to love myself again. I didn't realize how depressed I was and how much I still blamed myself for everything that goes wrong until I had a reason to be proud of myself. It has been a long time since I could say I love me. It is scary. To people who have never been beaten down mentally it is something that is very hard to understand. When you're told everyday that you're worthless and ugly you start to believe it. It is easier to believe the bad about yourself than the good. No matter how many people tell me positive things about me, I always wonder if they're just trying to be nice or if they want something. I don't agree with them. I don't know how to act when someone gives me a compliment anymore. I'm not used to them, I'm not good with positive.
Although my self esteem has decided to come out of hiding, it is still very shy. It doesn't take much for me to slip back into the negative feelings about myself. It is a daily struggle to keep my itty bitty speck of confidence. But I'm getting stronger. I still have bad days, but not too long ago I noticed the good days have outnumbered the bad.
The end of this journey is still quite a ways ahead, but I can see the end. A year ago today I wasn't even thinking about my 30th birthday, today I'm making plans to lose my other 77 pounds by then. Honestly it will take a lot of hard work and I'm not sure if I'll make it, but it'll be darn close. Now that I'm in better shape and I have more endurance I think I'll be able to start doing harder workouts, and perhaps adding more to it and maybe see bigger results. If not that's okay too because I know I will get there one day.
A lot has happened in the year I haven't been here. I don't even know where to start. Except I'm single again, long story, more drama so I'll skip the details. The kids are all bigger. All three of my girls are in school now since my youngest daughter started kindergarten. My oldest is impatient to be a teenager. I'm not quite sure why, but she wants to be older. I told her I wish I was younger.
Last year I decided it was time for a new me. After my son was born it only took two weeks to lose my pregnancy weight with him. There were complications, I had to be on bedrest for quit a while so I gained it all back and then some. It got to be where I was completely uncomfortable, I was starting to worry about seats in public places and not being able to fit into them. So I made a goal to lose 103 pounds. Long story short I went through several scales and in the end I changed my goal to 143 pounds to be at an ideal weight. Sitting here I'm thinking, "Holy crap! 143 pounds, there are some adults that weigh LESS than that!" But yes, 143 and I will be in the healthy zone for my height. I started my journey Nov 2011. Here it is almost a year later... I've lost 66 pounds. I have 77 to go, 5.5 more pounds and I will be half way there.
There have been times over the past year that I've wanted to give up. A few days I DID give up. I would get hard on myself, I would think that I have so much more to go, what's the point? Then I would see how far I've come. I'm not willing to give up all my hard work because the road ahead is still long. During my physical transformation something happened that I didn't expect. I've learned to love myself again. I didn't realize how depressed I was and how much I still blamed myself for everything that goes wrong until I had a reason to be proud of myself. It has been a long time since I could say I love me. It is scary. To people who have never been beaten down mentally it is something that is very hard to understand. When you're told everyday that you're worthless and ugly you start to believe it. It is easier to believe the bad about yourself than the good. No matter how many people tell me positive things about me, I always wonder if they're just trying to be nice or if they want something. I don't agree with them. I don't know how to act when someone gives me a compliment anymore. I'm not used to them, I'm not good with positive.
Although my self esteem has decided to come out of hiding, it is still very shy. It doesn't take much for me to slip back into the negative feelings about myself. It is a daily struggle to keep my itty bitty speck of confidence. But I'm getting stronger. I still have bad days, but not too long ago I noticed the good days have outnumbered the bad.
The end of this journey is still quite a ways ahead, but I can see the end. A year ago today I wasn't even thinking about my 30th birthday, today I'm making plans to lose my other 77 pounds by then. Honestly it will take a lot of hard work and I'm not sure if I'll make it, but it'll be darn close. Now that I'm in better shape and I have more endurance I think I'll be able to start doing harder workouts, and perhaps adding more to it and maybe see bigger results. If not that's okay too because I know I will get there one day.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Not quite so single anymore and other updates
These past two months have brought a lot of changes for me!
One thing, I've had a lot of people ask me to do their pictures. Yay! So far I've only done one shoot and I've been paid for a newborn shoot for October. The best part? It is for TWINS!!! I'm so excited. It is for a distant relative who saw some of my other newborn pictures I put on Facebook. I don't remember if I posted but back in May I did my first wedding and since I put those pictures up three people have asked me about doing their wedding pictures next year. So I'm finally taking baby steps with my business and I haven't even advertised yet! Very exciting.
The other big news is that I've decided to try to work on a relationship with the father of my youngest two kids. There's a lot of people that aren't happy about it I'm sure, and a lot of people that just know things won't work out. But I don't care, the conversations we've had and the things that he's said and done have proven to me that he has changed. We're taking things slow, I'm not going to jump into it like I usually do, but I'm hoping that things are going to be different this time. If not, he knows that this is his last chance. I will still expect him to be there for the kids but I won't let him have my heart.
Last, I've decided that I really do want to move to Oregon. I visited the Medford area and LOVED it almost as much as the coast. And it really isn't that far away from the ocean. It reminds me a lot of Boise, only greet trees on the hills. It was so pretty. So I've decided that about the time that Jake is in school I will take my exhusband back to court so I can move out of state. The girls will be 12 and 13 so hopefully if he fights me they will be old enough to tell the judge exactly how involved he has been. Still hasn't seen them since Easter 2010. So that gives me a little time to get things organized and some money for court and moving. Maybe I can talk my parents or siblings into coming with me.
One thing, I've had a lot of people ask me to do their pictures. Yay! So far I've only done one shoot and I've been paid for a newborn shoot for October. The best part? It is for TWINS!!! I'm so excited. It is for a distant relative who saw some of my other newborn pictures I put on Facebook. I don't remember if I posted but back in May I did my first wedding and since I put those pictures up three people have asked me about doing their wedding pictures next year. So I'm finally taking baby steps with my business and I haven't even advertised yet! Very exciting.
The other big news is that I've decided to try to work on a relationship with the father of my youngest two kids. There's a lot of people that aren't happy about it I'm sure, and a lot of people that just know things won't work out. But I don't care, the conversations we've had and the things that he's said and done have proven to me that he has changed. We're taking things slow, I'm not going to jump into it like I usually do, but I'm hoping that things are going to be different this time. If not, he knows that this is his last chance. I will still expect him to be there for the kids but I won't let him have my heart.
Last, I've decided that I really do want to move to Oregon. I visited the Medford area and LOVED it almost as much as the coast. And it really isn't that far away from the ocean. It reminds me a lot of Boise, only greet trees on the hills. It was so pretty. So I've decided that about the time that Jake is in school I will take my exhusband back to court so I can move out of state. The girls will be 12 and 13 so hopefully if he fights me they will be old enough to tell the judge exactly how involved he has been. Still hasn't seen them since Easter 2010. So that gives me a little time to get things organized and some money for court and moving. Maybe I can talk my parents or siblings into coming with me.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Decisions decisions
So many decisions to think through.
Isn't it funny how your life can be so wonderful but completely suck at the same time? Very confusing.
Isn't it funny how your life can be so wonderful but completely suck at the same time? Very confusing.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Jake's first birthday
So today my little man turned one. It was a very bittersweet day. He's my last baby so it will be the last first birthday I celebrate. I wasn't going to do a party but then decided that he will only ever turn one once and I don't want to miss celebrating my last first birthday.
We started out with a picnic and a trip to the zoo. My mom has been watching my two nieces while my sister and brother in law are on vacation. At the beginning of the week she told me that she probably wouldn't go with me because my nieces are only 2 and 8 months old and probably wouldn't have any fun. So since she said that she wasn't going I invited Jake's dad, Carl. There were a few other people that said that they would meet up with us at the zoo, but only one other person did. When I was getting ready to leave today I mentioned to my 4 year old that her dad would be joining us because I had talked to him that morning and he said he would come. For whatever reason, my mom decided to tell me that since Carl was going that she wasn't going because she couldn't be nice to him.
I get it, what he did was pretty crappy. I feel stupid and crappy for falling for it TWICE, but you can't change the past, only learn from it. I've been trying to move on with my life. It is hard because it was like he was two different people. One part of me will always love the wonderful guy I know he can be if he wants to. But my brain tells me that he doesn't want to be the nice guy unless he gets something out of it. And it is sad because he was the one guy that made me truly happy when we were together because he didn't treat me like I was there to serve him. I think that is why it hurt so much when he told me he didn't want to be with me anymore. Yeah, we've had our problems in the past and I'm sure we've both done things that we regret but it isn't about me or him anymore. It is about two kids that didn't choose to be here. He can be an amazing dad if he wants to be and I'm not going to let my feelings push him away because that only hurts my kids. I don't know why but the past month he's been more involved. He hasn't seen them as much as I'd like but he does ask about them. And unless I know that he's going to be harmful to them I'm not going to keep them away from him. He is a good influence on them and there's nothing wrong with them having their father in their life.
Anyway, we were at the zoo for 4 hours, 2 of which Jake slept. But the girls had a lot of fun and my 4 year old had some really good bonding time with her dad. I gave them as much room as she wanted me to and they had a great time. Of course Jake woke up when it was time to leave. We got home just in time for the BBQ. I had two families cancel at the last minute so I have a lot of extra food but that's okay because it will cut down on my grocery bill this month. I got the feeling that my mom didn't want me to have a BBQ, I wasn't even sure if she would be there. But she was and she had to make her comments about how I took the wrong week off for vacation (my dad has NEXT week off but I took this week off after calling her and asking her while I was at work on the last day I could request it off). As I was standing in the kitchen listening to my mom complain that I was the reason that my parents never got to do anything, the pirate ship cake I was making started falling apart. I did two test cakes, the first one sucked, but the second one was awesome. I don't know what was up with the cake today but luckily I planned on making extra in case something happened because 2 of the cakes didn't come out of the pan right. But I was able to somewhat fix the cake, and all but 3 pieces were eaten.
Just as I was getting tempted to take my broken cake and run away my brother and his girlfriend showed up. My mom won't talk about personal business with my brother's girlfriend around so it saved me. Then some friends from high school came with their kids, and my aunt brought her new baby and it was fun. I ended up having a really good time despite everything. My sister showed up after she got off work which was really cool. I wish I would have taken more pictures but at the zoo my camera got really heavy and I just couldn't carry it around much and at the party I was busy "hosting" so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. And Jake wasn't interested in making a big mess with the cake so I didn't get any of those pictures. If it isn't windy tomorrow I'm going to do his cake smash in the afternoon. If not it'll have to wait until Saturday.
I can't believe my little man is one! And a big thanks goes out to my dad for cooking the meat for me!
We started out with a picnic and a trip to the zoo. My mom has been watching my two nieces while my sister and brother in law are on vacation. At the beginning of the week she told me that she probably wouldn't go with me because my nieces are only 2 and 8 months old and probably wouldn't have any fun. So since she said that she wasn't going I invited Jake's dad, Carl. There were a few other people that said that they would meet up with us at the zoo, but only one other person did. When I was getting ready to leave today I mentioned to my 4 year old that her dad would be joining us because I had talked to him that morning and he said he would come. For whatever reason, my mom decided to tell me that since Carl was going that she wasn't going because she couldn't be nice to him.
I get it, what he did was pretty crappy. I feel stupid and crappy for falling for it TWICE, but you can't change the past, only learn from it. I've been trying to move on with my life. It is hard because it was like he was two different people. One part of me will always love the wonderful guy I know he can be if he wants to. But my brain tells me that he doesn't want to be the nice guy unless he gets something out of it. And it is sad because he was the one guy that made me truly happy when we were together because he didn't treat me like I was there to serve him. I think that is why it hurt so much when he told me he didn't want to be with me anymore. Yeah, we've had our problems in the past and I'm sure we've both done things that we regret but it isn't about me or him anymore. It is about two kids that didn't choose to be here. He can be an amazing dad if he wants to be and I'm not going to let my feelings push him away because that only hurts my kids. I don't know why but the past month he's been more involved. He hasn't seen them as much as I'd like but he does ask about them. And unless I know that he's going to be harmful to them I'm not going to keep them away from him. He is a good influence on them and there's nothing wrong with them having their father in their life.
Anyway, we were at the zoo for 4 hours, 2 of which Jake slept. But the girls had a lot of fun and my 4 year old had some really good bonding time with her dad. I gave them as much room as she wanted me to and they had a great time. Of course Jake woke up when it was time to leave. We got home just in time for the BBQ. I had two families cancel at the last minute so I have a lot of extra food but that's okay because it will cut down on my grocery bill this month. I got the feeling that my mom didn't want me to have a BBQ, I wasn't even sure if she would be there. But she was and she had to make her comments about how I took the wrong week off for vacation (my dad has NEXT week off but I took this week off after calling her and asking her while I was at work on the last day I could request it off). As I was standing in the kitchen listening to my mom complain that I was the reason that my parents never got to do anything, the pirate ship cake I was making started falling apart. I did two test cakes, the first one sucked, but the second one was awesome. I don't know what was up with the cake today but luckily I planned on making extra in case something happened because 2 of the cakes didn't come out of the pan right. But I was able to somewhat fix the cake, and all but 3 pieces were eaten.
Just as I was getting tempted to take my broken cake and run away my brother and his girlfriend showed up. My mom won't talk about personal business with my brother's girlfriend around so it saved me. Then some friends from high school came with their kids, and my aunt brought her new baby and it was fun. I ended up having a really good time despite everything. My sister showed up after she got off work which was really cool. I wish I would have taken more pictures but at the zoo my camera got really heavy and I just couldn't carry it around much and at the party I was busy "hosting" so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. And Jake wasn't interested in making a big mess with the cake so I didn't get any of those pictures. If it isn't windy tomorrow I'm going to do his cake smash in the afternoon. If not it'll have to wait until Saturday.
I can't believe my little man is one! And a big thanks goes out to my dad for cooking the meat for me!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Photography
So I took pictures of a wedding last week. My first one. I was so nervous and sick, afraid I was going to mess up the pictures.
I was there several hours. It was outside while the sun was setting and no shade. I think I got some good shots for it being my first time.
I was there several hours. It was outside while the sun was setting and no shade. I think I got some good shots for it being my first time.
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