2011 is MY year. I mean that introspectively, rather than selfishly.
I'm going to list my "resolutions" in no particular order. Some will be books I want to read. Some might be foods I want to try, dates I want to keep, plans I want to make, or personal goals.
This isn't meant to be a "check list" for 2011 or even a lifetime "bucket list." Because many of the things I'm listing are going to be processes of personal development. They aren't ever going to be "done" in order to check off any list. These things I resolve to pay specific attention to this year, in order to develop myself for my l-i-f-e. These things will likely ebb and flow in their importance throughout this year, and throughout my life...But they are skills or character traits I want to develop and carry throughout my life.
*I love the freshness and promise of a new year
*Bold items are more standard "resolutions" for 2011
1. Read "Blue Like Jazz"
2. Read "The Happiness Project"
3. Read something every day
4. Scrapbook at least one page a week
5. Take more pictures
6. Take at least one yoga class a month
7. Journal every day, include prayers and gratitude
8. Continue minimizing the material things
9. Pay off the last of the credit cards this year (we haven't used them in several months!)
10. Read some of the Bible every day. Actual goal is 3 chapters a day, but I just need to read SOME of it EVERY day. period.
11. Make more plans with friends that I don't usually make plans with
12. Increase intake from the Earth. This includes: water, fruits, vegetables, whole grains. Thanks, God, for making all the stuff I need ;)
13. Less...Is...More (stole this directly from Amy ;) )
14........And this is a tough one........Wake up 30 minutes, at least, before the kids get up, to have some quiet time to ease in to the day with prayer and a cup of tea or coffee.
15. Go to bed by 10:00 pm at the LATEST. This will give me 7.5 hours of sleep at the least, if I wake up at 5:30. On nights before my early morning gym sessions I will go to bed earlier.
16. Get at least 4 massages this year. It's necessary in my line of work ;)
17.............start tossing around my book ideas................ ;)
18. Blog at least once a week
I'll add to this as the month goes on :)
xo
andrea
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Reflections
December always seems to be a good time for reflections. Not just because it is the sunset of the current year (or the dawn of the coming year depending on your outlook). But also because of my geographic standpoint in all of the Decembers of my life. I am an East Coast gal, and December is dark, and brooding of course, but also blanketed with snow, cracking fires, and hot drinks. This kind of scene lends itself to reflections. Alas, I shall reflect.
Let me start by saying that I did not weigh myself for an entire month and it served it's purpose. While I only lost 2 (TWO!) pounds in November, that beat the 2 month plateau I was on- and included Thanksgiving. However, I did decide to throw out my scale in an effort to keep the crazy at bay. I've now started weighing myself once a week at the gym and that seems to serve me just fine.
As I typed "Alas, I shall reflect," I tilted my head back and thought back to January 2010. I first remembered that on January 3rd Paige was admitted to the hospital under respiratory distress. At 2 days under 3 months old she had a touch of pneumonia and that was VERY scary. I was in the ICU with her for 2 days, nursing her then pumping for Aiden, while Scott was at home with the boys. Not all was lost on scary though. During that stay, my dear friend and former caregiver to Quinn, Meghan, gave birth to her first child, Allie, at the same hospital Paige was in. While she was in labor I would wake up in the middle of the night, feed Paige, and walk down the short hall to visit with laboring Meghan. It was quite an experience.
The "spring" of 2010 here in Saranac Lake seemed especially long. It rained a lot, snowed a lot, and the snow seemed to take forever to melt...Once we thought we were in the clear, we had a freak snowstorm on Mother's Day.....I was sick as hell and Scott had to work alllll day. It was AWFUL.
*Thanks to that snow in May that means in 2010 we saw snow in SEVEN MONTHS out of the year....SEVEN! We usually get snow in October- but it didn't happen this year (did it?) if it did and I'm simply not remembering correctly, then there were only 4 beautiful months where nary a snowflake was to be found.
The summer was great. Quinn got to play outside lots and the twins started napping and eating on the same schedules (which started more in late spring).
I spent most of 2010 (8 months) nursing 2 babies. It feels like SO LONG AGO.
At the beginning of this year, Quinn wasn't yet 2 and the twins were 3 months old. That literally seems like a lifetime ago. As I sit here, he is almost 3 and the twins are almost 15 months and walking, saying a couple of words, and responding to instruction...
This year was truly ALL ABOUT THE KIDS. I was nourishing 2 babies with my own body and starting to adjust to our new family of 5.
***While the rest of my life will certainly be "all about the kids" in some respects, 2011 is going to be about me. It will mark 10 years since I've graduated high school. It will mark the second part of my weight loss journey (a journey that has no set number of parts at this time). It will mark a renewed committment to the spiritual side of myself- YIPEE! But, as I am still a mom, this will ALWAYS be "Mommy Diaries," even if I happen to leave the kids out of a post or two. That likely won't happen too much since their lives have completely shifted my view of myself and the world.***
A whole new person can happen in a year...and not just in babies.
xo
andrea
Let me start by saying that I did not weigh myself for an entire month and it served it's purpose. While I only lost 2 (TWO!) pounds in November, that beat the 2 month plateau I was on- and included Thanksgiving. However, I did decide to throw out my scale in an effort to keep the crazy at bay. I've now started weighing myself once a week at the gym and that seems to serve me just fine.
As I typed "Alas, I shall reflect," I tilted my head back and thought back to January 2010. I first remembered that on January 3rd Paige was admitted to the hospital under respiratory distress. At 2 days under 3 months old she had a touch of pneumonia and that was VERY scary. I was in the ICU with her for 2 days, nursing her then pumping for Aiden, while Scott was at home with the boys. Not all was lost on scary though. During that stay, my dear friend and former caregiver to Quinn, Meghan, gave birth to her first child, Allie, at the same hospital Paige was in. While she was in labor I would wake up in the middle of the night, feed Paige, and walk down the short hall to visit with laboring Meghan. It was quite an experience.
The "spring" of 2010 here in Saranac Lake seemed especially long. It rained a lot, snowed a lot, and the snow seemed to take forever to melt...Once we thought we were in the clear, we had a freak snowstorm on Mother's Day.....I was sick as hell and Scott had to work alllll day. It was AWFUL.
*Thanks to that snow in May that means in 2010 we saw snow in SEVEN MONTHS out of the year....SEVEN! We usually get snow in October- but it didn't happen this year (did it?) if it did and I'm simply not remembering correctly, then there were only 4 beautiful months where nary a snowflake was to be found.
The summer was great. Quinn got to play outside lots and the twins started napping and eating on the same schedules (which started more in late spring).
I spent most of 2010 (8 months) nursing 2 babies. It feels like SO LONG AGO.
At the beginning of this year, Quinn wasn't yet 2 and the twins were 3 months old. That literally seems like a lifetime ago. As I sit here, he is almost 3 and the twins are almost 15 months and walking, saying a couple of words, and responding to instruction...
This year was truly ALL ABOUT THE KIDS. I was nourishing 2 babies with my own body and starting to adjust to our new family of 5.
***While the rest of my life will certainly be "all about the kids" in some respects, 2011 is going to be about me. It will mark 10 years since I've graduated high school. It will mark the second part of my weight loss journey (a journey that has no set number of parts at this time). It will mark a renewed committment to the spiritual side of myself- YIPEE! But, as I am still a mom, this will ALWAYS be "Mommy Diaries," even if I happen to leave the kids out of a post or two. That likely won't happen too much since their lives have completely shifted my view of myself and the world.***
A whole new person can happen in a year...and not just in babies.
xo
andrea
Friday, November 19, 2010
I am Mommy...
...and I need some ME time!
My friend Amy and I have been trying to use each other to stay honest with ourselves about eating/exercising/ goal setting, etc. on our quests to lose weight. While I need to lose significantly MORE than her, the principles are the same.
Thus far, in my quest to lose a GRAND total of 65 pounds from my weight on November 1st, I have committed to the following:
1. Weigh myself only once a month* (I will discuss the ridiculousness of the addiction in a minute)
2. Log on to www.myfitnesspal.com daily to track my calories in and out through food and excercise (shout out to my brother for introducing this to me last week)
3. Complete the Couch to 5k program- I'm in Week 2 so far
4. Work out as many days in a week as I can, for more than 30 minutes. That might seem vague to some of you, but the fact that a stay-at-home mom of 3 kids under 3 can make working out a slight priority is a miracle in itself
5. Use the D.I.E.T. F.R.E.E. "mantra" and 8 simple steps by Zonya Foco. I saw her speak and it's really been helping!
**THE SCALE**
It wasn't until Amy and I committed to only weighing ourselves once a month that I thought about how often I have weighed myself over the last several years. Since I graduated high school in 2001, I would venture a guess that I have weighed myself AT LEAST 2x a week, every week, since. This means that at the VERY LEAST. I have weighed myself 936 times since 2001. HOWEVER......It's more times than that...much more. 936 truly is the very least. I cannot recall going more than a few days without weighing myself, mostly because there was always a scale in the gym at college. There have been times, more recently, that it's been several times a week, and even SEVERAL TIMES A DAY....seriously??!?! a day?!! Yes...its out there.
So, it was like detoxing to weigh myself on Nov. 1st and say "see you in December" to my scale, which is now taking up residence in my linen closet. The first week wasn't too bad. I'd grown accustomed to weighing-in at least once a week, so going a week isn't unheard of. Pushing past that, however, was physically painful at times. I could feel a gut-pull to get the scale and check in. But, I persevered. Not just because I had made a promise to a friend, and not even that I made a promise to myself. Once I realized how insane my attachment to the scale was I realized I HAD to literally STEP OFF for a while and re-develop a healthy relationship with the thing and use it as a guide only.
My clothes will guide me, my cholesterol numbers and blood pressure will guide me-and they will all work together to help me stay healthy- not just above or below a certain number. That's my rant about the scale ;)
Until next time...
xoxo
andrea
My friend Amy and I have been trying to use each other to stay honest with ourselves about eating/exercising/ goal setting, etc. on our quests to lose weight. While I need to lose significantly MORE than her, the principles are the same.
Thus far, in my quest to lose a GRAND total of 65 pounds from my weight on November 1st, I have committed to the following:
1. Weigh myself only once a month* (I will discuss the ridiculousness of the addiction in a minute)
2. Log on to www.myfitnesspal.com daily to track my calories in and out through food and excercise (shout out to my brother for introducing this to me last week)
3. Complete the Couch to 5k program- I'm in Week 2 so far
4. Work out as many days in a week as I can, for more than 30 minutes. That might seem vague to some of you, but the fact that a stay-at-home mom of 3 kids under 3 can make working out a slight priority is a miracle in itself
5. Use the D.I.E.T. F.R.E.E. "mantra" and 8 simple steps by Zonya Foco. I saw her speak and it's really been helping!
**THE SCALE**
It wasn't until Amy and I committed to only weighing ourselves once a month that I thought about how often I have weighed myself over the last several years. Since I graduated high school in 2001, I would venture a guess that I have weighed myself AT LEAST 2x a week, every week, since. This means that at the VERY LEAST. I have weighed myself 936 times since 2001. HOWEVER......It's more times than that...much more. 936 truly is the very least. I cannot recall going more than a few days without weighing myself, mostly because there was always a scale in the gym at college. There have been times, more recently, that it's been several times a week, and even SEVERAL TIMES A DAY....seriously??!?! a day?!! Yes...its out there.
So, it was like detoxing to weigh myself on Nov. 1st and say "see you in December" to my scale, which is now taking up residence in my linen closet. The first week wasn't too bad. I'd grown accustomed to weighing-in at least once a week, so going a week isn't unheard of. Pushing past that, however, was physically painful at times. I could feel a gut-pull to get the scale and check in. But, I persevered. Not just because I had made a promise to a friend, and not even that I made a promise to myself. Once I realized how insane my attachment to the scale was I realized I HAD to literally STEP OFF for a while and re-develop a healthy relationship with the thing and use it as a guide only.
My clothes will guide me, my cholesterol numbers and blood pressure will guide me-and they will all work together to help me stay healthy- not just above or below a certain number. That's my rant about the scale ;)
Until next time...
xoxo
andrea
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