Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Growing Up

I really need to update my blog template. For starters, I don't even have my awesome 2nd baby included. You know they say 2nd children get the short end of the stick. Poor Alex. I also saw that I have my age listed as 28. Yeah, that was 2 years ago. :)

Anyways, my birthday is coming up on Friday. It's a biggie! I'll enter the first year of my 30's. I actually don't even care that I'm turning 30. I mean, it's a number, right? Besides, if I look back on what I wanted to accomplish in my first 30 years on this Earth, I'm pretty on par for my dreams. I knew I wanted to be married and have 2 children before I turned 30. Check. I got some kind of education after high school, so that's a half-way check. I'm not at my dream job, but working towards the education to get myself there. *My dream job is to work in OB/GYN ultrasound perhaps in a hospital or doctors office setting* I'm happy with myself and who I've become. Actually, I'm in the best shape of my life as I turn the big 3-0. I'm the smallest I've ever been in my adult life. Sure there are some areas of my body that I will NEVER get back *thank you girls* but I try and see past that and look at everything else I've improved.

So, I don't look at 30 being old. I see it as a new beginning to a new life, kinda. My babies will be growing up, going to school, playing sports (?), taking dance classes, having sleepovers, and being annoyed with one another in my 30's. We plan on buying our first home in my 30's. With kids growing up, they will be more independent which means momma and daddy get some more free time sans kids.

It's going to be a great 10 years. :)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Being Grateful

It's been a long while since I've wrote on this blog. A lot has happened in the past 8 months. I'm not really going to get into what has happened since December but I wanted to clear my mind with a post about being grateful for what I have.

I try and look at the positives in my life, but sometimes it's very difficult when you're struggling to pay the bills. It seems like the expenses of life are endless and overwhelming at times. We are not a well off family, but we are also not at the bottom of the income structure. Russ works a crappy cycle schedule of 12 hour shifts in which he misses tubbies and bedtimes, breakfasts, story time, and hanging out with his family in order to provide for our family. He will also be working night shift this Christmas Eve and Christmas. Thankfully, he will be home Christmas morning, he might be groggy from only getting 3 hours of sleep, but he'll be up to see our girls enjoy Christmas morning. Anyways, as the new year approached, I realized I no longer wanted to be a massage therapist. I barely worked anyway. I worked around Russ's schedule and stayed home with the girls to eliminate the need for a babysitter. After the new year, all therapist had to be licensed and with that also came costs of continuing education, insurance, etc. I weighed it all out and decided to just leave the field entirely. I've been essentially unemployed since January. I started to toy around the idea of going back to college and changing my career path entirely. I kept thinking, "I'm too old", "I'd never pass my classes", "We don't have the money", etc. Finally, after the support of my hubby I signed up to take 2 of my pre requisites for the diagnostic medical sonography program. I started in May with English Composition and Arithmetic (due to HORRIBLE math placement testing, I had to start at the very bottom). I found it challenging but yet so nice to get back into the school life. I haven't set foot in a classroom since 2001, so it was a bit odd for me. Thankfully, I found there were other students who weren't 18 and just out of high school in my class. I got a lot of support from my family and my in laws came to watch the girls when Russ wasn't home. I passed my 2 classes with a 4.0 grade point average. I DID IT! I start my fall semester on Monday. It's going to be more challenging because I'm taking 3 classes and a laboratory (for Biology), pair that with an already busy fall schedule of ballet classes, preschool, and holidays. I know I can do it though. If I set my mind to do something, I do it 110%. After the semester ends, I have completed all my pre-classes I have to take in order to qualify for my program. It's a very competitve program and they go by a rating system to determine if you'll be accepted. I have to send in an application and essay. So, I'll be doing all the at the beginning of the year and hopefully I'll be accepted! The courses start August 2013. It's a 2 year program, so I'd be done and graduate in May 2015.

This is why we've been struggling. I don't work in order to completely be able to do my schooling without the added stress of going to work. I still am at home every day, I take care of my girls, clean the house, make meals, etc. That in itself is a full time job. It's just been hard since I stopped working. We need to be a 2 income family in order to fullfill our dreams of home ownership, vacations with the girls, and not struggling to pay our bills. This is why I'm going back to school. I want to work and contribute to our family.

So, with all the money worries I've been having over the past 9 months, I'm trying to see the better side of my life so that I can make it through these next 2.5 years.

I am grateful for:
  •  My husband, who supports me 100%. He gets up with the girls if I need to sleep, study, or just need a minute to myself even if he's only gotten a couple hours of sleep. 
  • My girls who light up my day, every day. Even when they're bad, I see them quietly sleeping at night and think how lucky I am to have them in my life. 
  • My family who's helped me mentally, financially, and watched the girls when I needed them. 
  • Our apartment. It's not huge, but it's our home for now. The neighborhood is safe and Target is only 2 minutes away. :P
  • My health. In the past 10 months, I've lost almost 40lbs. I got real about who I wanted to be and I was sick and tired of being overweight, lazy, and unhappy about how my clothes fit. 
  • Being able to run outside. It's been a real blessing to be outside, around the time the sunsets and be able to be in my own head alone. I don't have to share myself with anyone during that time and it's so nice. 
These are just a few, but the most important to me. I will just keep my head up and move on to bigger and better things. I know it may be hard now, but with some sacrifices, we will be fine. It's only for a short period of time.

I'll leave you with a recent picture of my family. My babies are growing up so fast. Olivia is 3.5 years old and Alex is 19 months.


This was taken at the park that is literally 3 minutes away from us. We go there ALL the time. My friend took these shots, she's awesome and has been photographing Alexandria since she was born.
Her website is Allenbaugh Photography if any of my local peeps want more information.

So long for now. I hope to write more often. My life is crazy, but I really do miss writing. 



Saturday, December 3, 2011

Day 3: The FINAL day

No weight change this morning. Still 167.2lbs

Yesterday went a little better than Day 1. I was less lightheaded, although I did feel very tired by the middle of the day. Luckily, Russ was home, so I was able to lay on the couch to rest for about an hour. I followed the cleanse diet all the way up until the end of the night. I was at a Tastefully Simple tasting party. I did great while the party was going on, I only had a bit of soup to try. I did however taste some bread and chocolate pound cake. Granted these things are only sampling sizes, but I still cheated.

I don't feel bad about it. It was the first 'real' food I've eaten in 2 days. It was fabulous. :)

On to Day 3... the final day. Thank goodness. Hopefully this will be the easiest of them.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Day 2

Starting: 169
Current: 167.2

I FINALLY broke 169lbs after months of sitting there.

The cleanse is hard. I constantly feel hungry and I've gotten light headed quite a few times. I'm going to stay strong to get through the rest of it.

I have a Tastefully Simple party to go to tonight, so I'm probably going to have a little tiny bit of food. Not going to eat a full meal though.

I'll update at the end of the day. :)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Day 1: Shakeology Cleanse

I know I haven't been around much, but I'm doing a cleanse in order to rid my body of the nasties and hopefully break this 3 month plateau of no weight loss.

Basically, you drink 3 shakes a day. Plus fruit (I chose clematine and bananas), 1 small salad with fat free dressing, and green tea. Plus I'm drinking 16-32oz of water in between, can you say pee much?  You can read more about Shakeology here.

I weighed in this morning and I'm right where I've been for the past who knows how many months. I've been eating a diet of about 1300 calories a day and doing cardio at least every other day if not every day. I started at 173lbs, I'm down to 169lbs.

My hopes is to lose 3lbs from this cleanse and keep them off and continue to lose until I hit my goal weight.

These are the mini goals I've set for myself as well as my long term goal.

165lbs by Christmas
160lbs by Alex's 1st birthday (12lbs under pre-pregnancy weight)
155lbs by February 1st (my weight at my wedding in 2006)

Long term goal: 150lbs by March 1st (anything beyond that is fabulous, but 150lbs is a good and healthy weight for my 5'6" medium frame)

I don't have a TON of weight to take off, but it's enough to have to work hard to get there. I'll be keeping a log of every day of the cleanse and how much weight I'm losing.

If you're interested in trying the cleanse yourself, it's about $45 for 3 days plus you get the shaker included. You have to find yourself a Beachbody Coach in your area to get it. I don't think you can order it online.

Night Update:

Today was a little hard. Especially because I'm alone for most of the day/night because of Russ's schedule this week. I've gotten light headed a few times due to the limited calories I've taken in today. I added it all up and it's just under 1000 calories for the whole day. To me, that's insane. Also, most of the calories were all liquid. I also feel tired. Probably because I've had no caffeine today. I did stick to the cleanse diet, so I'm proud of myself for that. I only hope I can stick to it for another 2 days. I have so much to get done for Olivia's party this weekend and I'm not sure I can run all day on under 1000 calories. I'm gonna try though, but if I get light headed again like I did today, I'm going to have to eat.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Hiatus

Hi, remember me?

This my first time in a month visiting my little blog.

I miss everyone.

I need a break from writing, mainly because it was seriously cutting into my family and social life. I also was having a major case of writers block.

This is what you missed in the past month:

-My father in law got diagnosed with leukemia. He was put into a hospital cancer center and stayed there for chemotherapy for just about a month. He is in remission now but will be entering the hospital 5 more times to get remission drugs to help keep him healthy.

-My baby girl hit 9 months. She's growing and getting bigger every week. She was 18lbs 6 oz at her check up. She started crawling a couple days before that. She's constantly on the move now, so my life has gotten just a little bit more hectic.

-Olivia is doing very well in school. She comes home every day with new artwork. Her teachers say she's the crafter of the bunch. Definitely more like her daddy than me. She'll be turning 3 in a month. Holy crap. I cannot believe my baby will be 3. Seriously?  Her party is planned for December 4th and she's having a fairytale princess theme. Oh, she's gonna love it.

-Halloween was pretty uneventful. Olivia was Dorothy and Alex was a cow. It rained and was cold. We ended up just going up a block and coming home. She got some candy, which she still hasn't eaten.

That's about it. It's been a crazy month. It's going to be a crazy couple of months coming up because of the holidays, Olivia's birthday, and Alex's 1st birthday.

I hope to keep blogging, but I'm not promising daily or even weekly posts for the next couple of months.

I miss you guys. :(

Oh, and here are some pictures of the girls. How can I update without some cute photos?


9 Months






Thursday, October 6, 2011

Day 6: Low Angle
























This is a tree outside our building. I love living in the woods.
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