....after I slept off all my evil.....

I am about to get my life put back together.  I hope.

This is an attempt to catch us all up to speed for the past month. It may take a few blogs though.

Amy- I have been doing my thing driving all over Hell and creation in auto-pilot as usual for this time of year.  Six or seven days a week we are going somewhere at some point during the day.  I just try to breathe my way through each day knowing somehow it all gets done.

I am still exercising my butt off....or should I say my butt on, cause nothing is still happening....on the scale anyway.  I have taken about 10 of the 16 Power classes that I need to take at at the gym in order to get the free t-shirt that labels me as a weight lifter...sort of, in my eyes anyway.  I am surely getting more muscles.  I can see a bulge in my arms where there has never been one before in my life.  My butt actually looks round like a butt should look, instead of just fading into my thighs.  My stomach is certainly more flat than it was and my pants are fitting much better and some are even a little big or too big.

The problem here is that my scale is sabotaging me.  So I had D hide it so that I could only weigh on Sundays.   The first Sunday I weighed 189.  D was happy for me cause I was finally in the 180's.  I wasn't, cause I knew the moment I ate a piece of ice I would gain 3 pounds.  He scolded me for not enjoying that small victory. In my mind I have been this place so many times that I truly am not in the 180's till it is a consistent number.

I was not too discouraged however.  I gave myself a year to do this right and I have been sticking to it.  I rarely cheat and I exercise 5 to 6 days a week 40 minutes or more.  So this past Sunday I was excited to weigh because I ate especially well chosen foods that week.  I knew I had pushed myself doing the exercise and I was hoping for a 187 minimum.

The scale said 190.  I became so angry inside that I thought I might grow some devil horns that would surely expel a blazing fury so hot they'd burn the roof off my house.  I controlled it though the best I could.  I left the bathroom, went to make coffee and get the kids moving.........and then the evil tidal wave of death and destruction that likes to throw stuff when I am infuriated hit me.

So I marched right back to the bathroom where D was blowing his hair dry, picked up the scale, stomped back to the front door, stepped out onto my front stoop, and I launched that scale as far as I could with my new arm muscles "that weigh more than fat."  I meant for it to bounce on the ground and bust every spring and gear inside of it.  On the first bounce as it hit the ground I felt a minuscule amount of satisfaction.  I wanted to throw it one more time but I refrained cause I knew I was going to church in a couple hours and I needed to get rid of this evil in me before I could praise the Lord properly for the good things in my life.

The kids get up.  D comes out of the bathroom to eat breakfast.

D- Where's the scale?

CB & Sky - She threw it in the front yard.

M- You threw the scale in the front yard?

CB- Yeah she did!  It went way over there see?!

D- (looking out the breakfast nook window) Nice distance.

A- I threw it into the front yard. Yes I did.  If anybody brings that scale back into this house I swear bad things will happen to you.  I don't know what they are, but don't test me.

When I left for church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from the gym the idiot scale was not in the front yard.  I was so mentally exhausted from my emotional torture of weighing that morning, only to find all my good eating and exercise had been in vain....months and months of not eating delicious morsels of goodness, shin splints that wake me up in the middle of the night, sweating, sweating, sweating, pushing, pushing, pushing....only to still weigh 190....I took a bath and went to bed at 6:30pm and didn't get up till 7:00 am the next morning.

BUT, not BUTT, but.....BUT, during the Power class at the gym I had likened myself to this fairly big woman in the class, like we were equals in weight.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the gym and I noticed that I didn't look her size at all.  I mean I was still bigger than I need to be of course, but I wasn't as big as I perceived myself to be by the number on the scale.  The scale doesn't change the fact that I can feel and see a muscle in my arm that has never been there before.  It doesn't change the fact that some of my pants are too big now, not all of them, but some of them.  Those are my small victories, that I should thank God for.

I am going to choose to dwell on those things.  So I can be thankful in all things to God for giving me endurance and patience to persevere when my flesh wants to quit, the spirit in me is still willing to keep my temple, in which Jesus resides, clean and healthy.

I am not going to weigh anymore.  My sister in Christ, Sarah, told me I should pick out a pair of pants I want to get into and use those as a gage for my success. I think that is the better way to go for me.....for my family too.

I found this note hanging out of my drawer where I keep my exercise wear in my closet the morning after I slept off my evil. ( you can click on this pic to get a better view if need be)

My heart overflowed and spilled all over the place with love for this oldest son of mine.

I CAN DO all things through Christ who strengthens me...... Philippians 4:13


*

Do these pants look too tight?.........

I have been exercising my butt off lately.  I determined myself to a years worth of healthy eating and exercise to see if I could really change myself, as a whole, by the time I am 41.  I am not "dieting" per say, cause that don't freaking work, just being  more aware of what I put into my body and at what quantity.

So for over 5 weeks now I have been exercising about 40 minutes a day.  Mostly treadmill and elliptical.  In this time I have managed to shave 16 minutes off my 2 mile run.  so I went from 40 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill to 24 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill.  Which sounds pretty good to me.  I should be seeing some weight come off right?

W R O N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 4 weeks I was exercising commited, eating properly and NOTHING!!!!!!!!!  Pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of freaking tweezers people!!!!!!!!!!!

My pants are surely fitting much better, but that flippin scale in my bathroom is SATAN.

My sister told me that I shouldn't count on the scale to show that I am growing more fit, to be patient, that if my clothes were fitting better something was happening......I should focus on that.  She also said that I needed to add some sort of weight resistance to my routine.  That would help burn calories.

So I did.

Last Friday, not yesterday but the one before it, I lamented to Derrick that when I got on the scale that morning....if it didn't show I had lost some weight I was was going to pick it up and throw it into the front yard and if he brought it back into the house I would kill him with it.

So I stood on the scale.....it read 195.  I was some what satisfied.  I know most of you are like WHAT?  She was happy with that number???  She needs to lose some weight!  Well, duh.  

But let me tell you this, when a fat girl commits to exercise and eating seriously healthy and really tries hard for 4 weeks and doesn't shed a single dag gone pound and some days even gains 4 pounds from breakfast to lunch (and Maysie is my witness on this) that is discouraging as shizzle.  I mean  I felt like I lost 28 hours of my life in vain.  I don't want to be a muscular & fit 200 pound girl.  I want to be a reasonable weight fit girl.

So I saw the 195 number, this meant the scale had moved down 5 pounds.

D- Well....what does it say?

A- 195...

D- (breathing sigh of relief for me, cause he knows my temper these days is not controlled easily) Oh thank God....

....but this was the day I gained 4 pounds by lunch and ate the exact same thing D ate for breakfast that was a "healthy breakfast."

I tried not to think of though.  I kept on with the idiot treadmill and adding the idiot weights to my routine.  

This morning when I weighed, I weighed 193.  I think it is surely the weights that is helping.  So that was really good advice my sister gave me.......for my body anyway.

I have gotten to the point that the exercise is becoming something I feel like I need to do everyday...not want to do everyday, but need.....and if  I don't, I feel like I have cheated myself.  Who said that? 

 In what parallel universe would I have ever spoke those words.  Cause forever it seemed to me that while I was wasting time on a treadmill things weren't getting done in my house somewhere else.

Yesterday Zac had soccer practice and I decided to go a little early and try to "jog" around the track.  I wanted to go before everyone else got there so if I looked like an elephant being stung in the butt while skinning a tight rope no one would see it but me and Z.  Z is the best encourager for me.  He constantly pushes me telling me at least I am trying. He doesn't want me to be unhealthy, over weight and die an early death because I didn't at least try.  

I said to him, "Do these exercise pants look too tight?"

Z- Who cares they are exercise pants mom, they are supposed to be tight.

A- Yeah but, you know, your friend's parents will see me and all...

Z- So what, at least you are trying. They look fine, they look good in fact.  I don't think of you looking fat that way. You always look nice to me.

My heart felt really good.

...the very first time we went to the gym together, I was feeling nervous and intimidated and relayed this to him.

Z- Mom it's a gym, all kinds of people go to a gym.  Not just body builders. There will be old people, young people, fat people, and skinny people....you are in the middle of all of those.  Just suck it up we are going in.

Which we did and had a pretty good time.  

Back to the track.....I believed that if I could run 2 miles in 24 minutes on a treadmill I should surely be able to run a minimum of 1 mile on the track.

Um, wrong.  

Running on a surface that does not give tried to make me pee in my pants.  I walked the first lap to warm up, then ran 1 lap holding my bladder by sheer power of the mind, walked it off 1/4 of the 3rd lap & ran 3/4 of the rest of it, walked 1/2 of the 4th lap & ran 1/2 of it....then my walking buddy showed up and we walked about another mile and quit.

My mind thought running at the track was not fun at all. I don't desire to do it ever again. I will walk that track from now on.  I can't say why, but the treadmill with all its faults is so much easier to do.  My brother-in-law runs the marathons and he's in the running clubs, my sister she runs the 8 miles and she is fixin to run some big run and all....I don't know how they do it, I really don't.

I guess I will just keep on keepin on till I get somewhere that is satisfactory for me.  I still have 10 months or so to get to my one year goal and assess what has become of this commitment.

We are getting 2 truck loads of mulch today.......hopefully this will appease my need to fill a space in the day with exercise.

I don't want to wear skinny jeans.  I just want to feel satisfied when I look in the mirror, whatever weight that is.................as long as it's below 150.  I could be satisfied with 150 and fit. 

I think.

watching our kids and talking about 5 lb bags of weed..........

Last night was a tornado in my mind.

First at the soccer field, this parent whom we've had contact with in very small amounts over the years, announced this in conversation with D and I, randomly and loud:

" I have been a good boy workin for the government all these years, and when I retire in x, y, z years.....I'm gonna buy myself a 5 lb. bag of weed, and a big bag of pills, then I'm gonna sit in my lawn chair in my front yard with my gun in my lap and watch people drive by."

.....then he spit out some brown dippin spit on the grass to the side of us and smiled showing us his straight white teeth.

......and D and I busted out laughing, cause who freakin announces something like that at a soccer field in front of all the other parents.

Dip Dude also tells us later that while he was coaching AYSO one year, his wife was so upset by a game that she followed a ref to the car to kick his butt. So Dip Dude had to forfeit the next game and write the assoc. in the town in which this event occurred, an apology letter. Then he relayed to us that his daddy told him he could date a girl from Ten Mile, but he shouldn't never marry one. He was warned.

A bit later in the evening, still at the field, a super fit late forty-ish early fifty-ish man, takes to the track. He pulls his shirt off in front of the concrete bleachers built into the hillside where a lot of parents are sitting, including us and Dip Dude......watching our kids and talking about 5 lb bags of weed, apparently.

The guy had super small, blue, somewhat fitted shorts on. He set his watch and commenced a full out run around the whole dang track. As he passed, all of us parents, of different fitness levels, thin to fat, watched him as he approached our visual left. He was in front of us now, our eyes glued to him...full out running, now sweating & fully upright in his posture.....he's passing us now to the right......He has all of our attention, young and old, male and female....in the need to break our trance induced by the half naked, fit man running, full out silence.....

Me- Good Lord, look at that guy go, that fellow is cuttin some air isn't he?

D- He is clocking himself...

Dip Dude - It's gotta be steroids, nobody that old runs that fast....

We join the other parents in the hoot an holler laugh....and I hear a mother say, "I don't run that fast lest I'm chasin a kid that needs thar butt whipped.....

Dip Dude - I quit runnin that fast when I got a real job.

On the car ride home that evening.......

Maysie and Sky happened to be walking on the track as 1/2 naked running man was sprinting....

M- There was this man, that was 1/2 naked, that came running past us with his boobs shaking and he said "Hi there," like he was Buzz Lightyear.

................................

So then the fun, fun, fun, begins. Cole hasn't pee'd in his "night time diapo" in weeks. So I let him wear big boy underwear to bed.

At 2:30am he is standing in front of me wreaking of pee.

C- Mommy, I pee pee on my clothes.

A- Aw, Cole, why didn't you get up to go to the bathroom like you've been doing?

C- I was tired.

I sit up, start to pull off his wet clothing and he is truly wet from head to toe, which obviously is NOT GOOD. He is going to have to have a bath, a warm rag is not going to cut it. At 2:30am I put him in the shower, and put his wet clothing in my blue eggs and ham throw up sink to soak with the water running and some soap...that I forget to turn off by the way. D happens to get up, see it on the verge of flooding the bathroom and turned it off.

I head off to his room to change his bedding. But as all things are never easy at 2:45 in the morning, his water proof padding had shifted a bit and the waterproof mattress cover had not been put back on from some weeks back. So his soft fluff thing that sits on top of the mattress with memory foam in it has a wet spot too. Just a little one, but it will need to be cleaned too. Now suddenly, naked Cole is in his room with me. He does not smell clean.

.....unzip the cover off the fluff, drag it back to the bathroom, run Cole some warm bath water, put him back in the tub, scrub him down with soap and wash his hair, drain the water, put new soapy water back in the tub, put the top 1/4 of the fluff into the tub and commence to washing it out.

When the thing gets wet it weighs about .....500 ponds......wring it out and try to be grateful it is just a small area at the top and not in the middle or somewhere stupid, hang it up over the shower to dry and get Cole dressed. Now both Cole and fluff smell very clean, he has clean sheets on and the waterproof mattress cover is in it's proper place.

I convey to him the need to not get up at 6:30 am unless he wants to take a dirt nap. He clearly understood cause it is now 8:35 am and no where in site.

But I am in a FOUL mood when I get up cause I was never able to go back to sleep and I had a headache and when I weighed this morning I had lost no weight. Despite the fact I am eating as healthy as Derrick and walking two miles or more 3 to 4 times a week AND I had aerobic activity from 2:30am to 3:30am......D has now lost 14 pounds with NO EXERCISE.

So I spout off my agitation to him. He is all, "Well just go eat the world then and give up."

Well, that is exactly what I felt like doing except my dang jaw hurts when I eat something hard and I feel sick to my stomach when I eat something sweet. So I determine my self not to blow this, cause ultimately this is good for me no matter what. However my attitude stills sucks.

D is leaving and not kissing me good bye. "Why? Cause I am ugly and crazy this morning?"

D- It's not the way you look that is ugly.....(the attitude...but he did kiss me anyway)

My devotional this morning......Unto you, O Lord, do I bring my life......Psalm 25:1

...about consecrating my my life for this day over to the Lord...not just my money, or one hour on Sunday, not just my ugly attitude, but my whole day, my whole life fully and entirely. Turning over undisciplined thoughts, weaknesses and bad habits.....closing my ears to the noise of the world and opening them to the voice of God. Intentionally distancing myself from ungodly things in my life....like my bad attitude and some other stuff.

Thank you Lord that I do have available to me and my family healthy food to choose from. Thank you Lord for the stamina you give to me to wreak havoc on time throughout the day when I feel exhausted. Thank you for shutting me down before I really get going and screw up. Thank you for my husband who tells me I am not ugly when I feel ugly.

Amen

This is how you know.........

This is how you know kids live in yer house....

When you get up and there are sticky "muscle men" hanging from yer ceiling
and sticking to other walls in the living room area......

When your dog is wearing yer youngest child's clothing.....















When you download yer photos off yer camera and yer oldest daughter's uvula shows up, because she "likes" her uvula and thinks it's "cute"......and hey.... by the way, watch she "can make it dance".....

When you go to cut tomatoes and dinosaurs are preying on them......
























....and then later in the day the dinosaur apparently needs a drink or something and needs to climb on piled up stuff to get there......