Fat Pictures and Gigantic Zits.

As I get older, I find that birthdays are buzz kills.  

However, this year was pretty good.   I received an unexpected gift from a friend and my husband did the laundry.  Then he  took me  to my favorite place to eat.

I had two bloody Mary's and fish and chips.  

Then, I felt like a greasy slob.  

But later  that evening,  as we watched the Target car skidoo out of control, smash into, then burn up a maintenance truck,  I had an epiphany.

 (Note:  Am not a Nascar fan, but can appreciate and watch a good explosion and fire.)

Perhaps it was the bloody Marys?  Perhaps it was fire?

But this epiphany was different. 

No, I wasn't happy.   And yes, it was something that I could change.  

That obvious crap has slipped past me for thirty-something years, I suppose. This is the older, and wiser, me.

I had a difficult few months, and VOILA, 25 pounds appeared on my scale.  

Well, anyone who knows about gaining and losing weight, knows that  losing weight that you have previously lost and  that you GAINED BACK ~ because you're a sorry-ass slob ~ is one of the most disheartening feelings in the world.  

But you know what?  Screw disheartening.  

At that moment, as  Juan Pablo Montoya skulked off the track in his little red Target suit ~ as if ramming his car into a wall was the most natural thing in the world ~ I realized that I  so sick of feeling sorry for myself.    Feeling sorry for myself is bullshit, man.

I was ready to fit into my closet full of awesome clothes that don't fit because I have no willpower (read: AM TOO LAZY) to discipline myself to eat better and not drink wine.    

Tell me that fat, unhappy people DON'T drink alcohol to make them feel temporarily feel better?  They do.  Because I sure did. 

My husband presented his plan to me:  he would cook and I would eat what he made.   

Who in her right mind would turn that shiz down?

Because HE was on this modified paleo-ish diet this fall  and dropped about 25 pounds in a month.   He read the book (on the left) and was inspired by the author.  

Personally, I read it, too.  I found  Tim Ferriss abrasive and annoying.  But I suppose that doesn't make his ideas of any worse.    If someone goes to the trouble of weighing his own dumps, I should at least give him SOME credit.  Right?

And my husband didn't even NEED to go on a diet.  He wasn't overweight, nor was he unhealthy.  His cholesterol level, last checked, was a freakish number....like 98.  

(It made almost everyone over 40 that he shared this information with HATE him for a moment.)    

After a month or so, the obnoxious thing is that he couldn't STOP losing for a while after he modified his eating habits back to normal.  He was getting TOO skinny.  

Now, how dumpy do you think this fat wife felt next to a super skinny boy?  Albeit a super-skinny boy that has a freakish resemblance now to Rick Scott.

No matter.  

We sat down and we talked about goals.  

Admittedly, goals are really a difficult concept for me.  Always have been.  

I know that people TALK about goals all the time, but they are intangible little bastards.  

"Goal" is just a word that has been thrown around too much, like "love,"  and "amazing."  

These words can mean almost nothing anymore.    

I have tried to write down my goals before, and that didn't work.  

This time, I made my husband write them down with me and made a plan of how to obtain the goals.  These were new spins on an old, dreary concept.   I felt as if they made a difference.  

(Also, I put a bathing suit on and had my 3 year old take pictures of me.  Which, I swear, seriously freaking messed with my head.   I mean, I couldn't POSSIBLY look like that from behind, right?  Right?!!!)

The end goal? 

 I really would like to wear a bikini.  

Wearing one never really mattered, ever, when I lived in the Midwest.   

Bikinis were novelties....I mean, like, who wore those things?    As a mom, I felt that if you wore them  to the local kiddie pool you looked impractical.  

Now, we live in  a beach town in Florida.   My perceptions have totally changed.   Bikinis are a lot more common here.   

And, in my opinion, they are entirely practical.  Anyone who has been in Florida in July wants to wear as few items of clothing as humanly possible.  

But in general, it doesn't really matter what you look like on the beach ~ as long as you don't show up clothed.  Not even joking about this, everyone: 100% serious.  

ALL YOU MIDWEST PEOPLE, HEADS UP.      It doesn't matter what you look like when you are at the beach.   What makes you stick out like a sore thumb and look like a tourist (other than feeding the birds):   Wearing clothing because you are trying to hide that you are sporting extra poundage.   

There are all shapes and sizes at the beach and all sorts of bathing suits.

A local dude even wears a speedo with socks and sneakers, then kicks a soccer ball down the beach every weekend. 

The bikini goal is going to involve more than just diet on my part.  Genetics aren't working with me on this one, and the three kids thing hasn't helped.  So, my husband promised a tummy tuck if I work at it.    

 

I broke the juicer out that  I purchased about two months ago.  It was still in the box and had collected a thin film of dust on it.     

I am now incorporating the modified paleo diet into my life with my husband.

I'll keep you posted...because  I am counting on this year to be my best one ever.  

Except the day after my birthday, I woke up with this gigantic zit on my nose.   

I haven't had a zit forever.  It is only getting worse and is not going away.   My entire nose is swollen and is seriously making me not want to leave the house.  

I said to Maggie, "Mom has a boo-boo on her nose."  Then she laughed at me.  

Usually, she would find her box of Hello Kitty bandages and attempt to solve the problem.   However, this zit incurred mockery from the three year old.

I suppose I will be thankful to be  alive, if not unblemished.   And that I am able to make changes in my life.  Oh, and that I am not a celebrity who needs to be on a red carpet anytime soon.    

New Journeys, Updates and Epiphanies

I looked over my posts lately and noticed I have not said anything about running or the gym.

That is because a.) I have done absolutely no running, and b.) I have not been to the gym in ages.

There.

Rather, I have been quite a fantabulous couch potato, valued online shopper to J Crew and trusty chauffeur.  

This is Wesley's last week of football  and I am terribly excited about it.

I am pretty much over eating dinner at 9 p.m.

Chris is completing his first stint as assistant Pop Warner coach to a mess of squirrelly  8-10 year olds.

All of the practice is all for naught because every Saturday it has been a veritable slaughter on the football field for the boys.

Our parents have begun standing and applauding for first downs as if they were touchdowns.   Yep, they are that bad.

Their last game is this Saturday.

They are playing another team that has won not one game.  This may very well be the most  interesting game of the season to attend by far;   I may even show up on time.

I have thrown caution to the wind with the diet and exercise program.  

I thoroughly enjoy my salads, so I have been still been eating those, but I also have been drinking my wine, eating regular pepperoni and cheese and have discovered that whole milk mixed with Hershey's syrup makes delightful chocolate milk.

In short, I'm sort of over myself.   And something interesting happened when I got over myself...when I got over obsessing about the diets, the running, the exercising, the gym:

I lost some weight.

Not a lot, but enough for people to notice.

I might be onto something...

I also started reading again.

I used to read a book every couple of days which now is virtually impossible with the bigger house and bigger family to take care of (not very well, but I try...sort of~).

I began a new series that I really like:

I finished the first in the series and have the second waiting in a huge PILE of books waiting to be read by my bed.

I am in the middle of a slower paced, yet interesting book that is taking me longer to get through.

I am becoming active on Paperbackswap.com again.

It is a WONDERFUL website that I encourage you to check out.

It is a great way to recycle your books if you have a lot lying around.

It's basically a book trade.  You pay for postage to send a book out if someone requests a book FROM you (about 2.50 to send a book) but if you request a book from some, they pay for postage to send it TO you.  So...it all evens out in the end.

I'm also becoming inspired by personal blogs that I am reading and am wanting to learn more about how to sew and create things...

I follow Bromeliad and I love her blog.  She has such interesting pictures and ideas and sees things in a way that I don't.   I want to learn how to make these cloth flowers to add to my t-shirts!

And isn't this an adorable Halloween flower planter???

 It is from the FlowerGardengirl blog, who has such awesome flower/pots/plant ideas.

I have also recently discovered The Good Life blog, too.  This is one of her newest Anthropologie projects:

There are so many fun ideas and inspirations out there and it is really amazing to me that I virtually have the world at my fingertips via the internet.  I have no excuse to be a boring, uninspired person.   There are ideas upon ideas....so many so that it is mind-boggling!

I have never really had a challenge for myself other than diet and exercise.

I know, beyond shallow.  Right?

At my age, though, I think it is time to think about things a little differently.   Maybe if  I do so, the other stuff (weight/health/family) will fall into place, too.

Is this what is called an epiphany?   Perhaps other people have them at earlier ages and I am a late bloomer.  Late bloomers run in my family.  Hell,  my brother is almost 40 and not married.

For me, I'm going to try a different direction.  I think that first step is going to be fixing my sewing machine.  I bought a second-hand sewing machine a couple years ago and jammed it the very first time I tried to put random cloth through it to "test" it.

There are "crafters" at our church ~ i.e. a bunch of sweet ladies ~ who would probably love to tell me how to use a sewing machine.

So, I think that this will be my first goals this week:

FIRST GOAL:  UN-JAM THE SEWING MACHINE and LEARN HOW TO USE IT (BASICS).  

Except, I am not sure where the sewing machine is because it has been moved twice since I bought it.  So technically #1 should be "find the sewing machine, then #2 should be "un-jam the sewing machine and learn how to use it (basics)."

But whatever.

Semantics.

I'll keep you updated on my new journey.