Another day, watching two movies today, and picked two of my favourites to make up for the disappointing start to October. Started with “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” - I’m not going to be typing much today because I burned my hand at the knuckle making dinner last night and it is killing my hand to type. 

Dracula is one of the best movies and one I watch quite frequently. Ironically, the first time I watched it, it terrified me. Not so much anymore, now I have a crush on Gary Oldman (even if the man is way too old for me) and I could watch him for hours. Winona Ryder isn’t my favourite actress but she does a good job in this particular movie. Same with Keanu Reeves, I know he’s a favourite for some but not so much for me, he’s kind of a one-trick pony when it comes to acting in my book. But Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins steal the show in this masterpiece. They make the movie shine and are the reason I will happily watch this over and over. 

The next movie I’m watching is Stephen King’s “The Langoliers”. I have always loved Stephen King’s works, it’s part of what got me into horror as a teen, reading his books. I haven’t read this particular one but I’d like to one day. The movie is based on the notion of time travel and how it’s not exactly all it’s cracked up to be - you can’t go back and see the pyramids being made and it explains that. It’s a fascinating look at not only science but the human mind (as most of his books are about) and despite the 80s imagery of the cannon balls from Super Mario, it is a really cool movie that I recommend people should watch. (And Balki from Perfect Strangers does a really interesting antagonist role in this movie) 

I definitely recommend both of these movies if you haven’t seen them. 

I will be back working on my Pokemon Cross-stitch piece again - it’s halfway finished currently and I’ve been just trying to get through it.  Currently working on Rapidash and Ponyta, not very halloween-y but appropriate for the mythological parts? :) 

A New Attempt

 I’ve been thinking about my blog yet again, I know, I say that every time I try to come back to this. There is a small mind block in my head in regards to blogging - when I was a teenager I used to write in a diary everyday - without fail. Multiple pages at times, it was cathartic to me to write out my thoughts and feelings. And then one day, my mom picked up my diary and read it all. She put two and two together and made 10. Next thing you know, I’m being forced to sit down at the dining room table with my boyfriend at the time (who by the way, I had only just kissed to this point) and being given the “sex” talk WITH him. From that day, I couldn’t bring myself to write, no matter how much I wanted to. Blogging for me, is very much along the same lines - I want to, I try to, but then.. there’s something that stops me internally. 

But hey, we’re going to try again. And since it’s my favourite month of the year, I wanted to try to come back with something I’ve done in the past that had good results and was something I could keep to. 

October Horror Film Reviews

I’m a huge horror film buff - I love them, they are awesome and I cannot get enough of them. Other ladies may cover their eyes and wince - I’m watching with rapt fascination as blood explodes all over the main characters. Now, mind you, I’m a lot more squeamish in real life, but movies are all safe and good because I know it’s not real. 

So being that it is after midnight on October 1st, I feel that it is appropriate to start watching horror films - It is something I do every October, I will watch at least one, if not two films per day. And this year, I will be sharing with you lovely people. I generally stitch while I watch them so this will fall in line with the “Snow Dragon’s Stitching” title. 

September 30th - first movie to start “The VVitch” (there will be some spoilers in this)  

Not a particularly new movie, it was made in 2015, but it is new to me and my collection - I love picking up movies from the discount bin for my horror collection, sometimes the best movies are the ones that the critics hated. 

This one... ugh... 

Now, I will state this at the get-go here, I generally avoid “witch” movies and for good reason. My great-grandmother was a wise-woman, she was skilled with herbs and the like and would create cures for others women of her village upon request. My grandfather was a closet Pagan, he went to church because it was expected of him, but never believed any of it. And when I was 8 years old, I turned my back on organized religion. When I was in my early teens, I was at the library and this woman came in. I spent a good amount of time hanging out in the library, since I could finish a book in a couple hours, it didn’t make a ton of sense to actually check the books out, I’d just sit there and read them. This woman seemed so different, she was so self-assured and I watched her walk over to the alternative religion section. She knew exactly what she was going for and was in and out quickly. After she left, I wandered over and started peeking at the books on that shelf. I picked up Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A guide for the solitary practitioner” and it was like a part of my brain just yelled... “YES! This is what I already believed!” For a couple more years, I kept experimenting with other religions, youth groups, etc. but nothing felt right in the same way. So I have been a Pagan for many, many years now. Years back, I went to Salem with my mom, and something about it chilled me. I’ve heard other Pagans say they felt at home there... to me it felt like someone was walking on my grave. I felt chilled and uncomfortable. The stories of what those women - what all men and women accused of witchcraft suffered devastated me and it is a part of history that should never be forgotten since other cultures and places are acting the same even in today’s day and age. 

So the stories of evil “witches” anger me since most witches were not inherently evil and were healers and  having intelligence or wit could have been enough to get you labelled as a witch. This movie chills my blood in the same way that Salem did. It is based on New England folklore and tells the story of a family who are banished from the village and go to live on the outskirts of a haunted wood. Their crops fail, and their family starts to starve. One day, the eldest daughter is watching the infant child and he is stolen from her in a moment of inattention. Her mother grows to hate her, her two youngest siblings are cruel to her and though her father cares for her, he is pious to a fault. When her brother is cursed by the witch from the woods,  her siblings blame her, her mother casts her out and her father accuses her, ignoring her pleas. So to defend herself, she accuses her siblings of being evil. Not knowing who to believe, her father locks all three children up. And that frees the evil to take the entire family. Mistrust and over zealousness are always dangerous and especially so to those who don’t fall in with the “masses”. 

Does this movie present an authentic showing of what it probably was like? Yeah... it probably does. Is it creepy and a good horror movie? Yes. Yes it is. Did I like it? No. No I didn’t. And not because it wasn’t good, but instead of terror - it makes me sad. It broke my heart knowing that has happened and could still happen again in the right circumstances. I hope beyond all hope it never comes to that, and I hope that one day people will stop persecuting others in the name of religion. It can stay in my collection but it is not one I will be rushing to put back on at any point in the near future. 

A serious topic....

I've been meaning to come back to this (I know, I know... I keep saying that, I'm terrible). My plans have been, that always during the month of October, I stitch while watching horror movies and in the past, I've done commentaries on those movies as kind of a... review of them. I was hoping to do this on here this year. Since it's already the 5th, I'm a little behind because I've only watched one so far this month "Dark House" and it was so dull that both my husband and I slept through most of it... Yes... that bad.

However, I have been watching a lot of polarizing opinions on my Facebook feed and I feel the need to put in my two cents to this. Since I am not from the US, it doesn't really affect my life, but it does affect a lot of women I care about, so I need to speak. And yes, I'm talking about the Kavanaugh case in the US and the women speaking out about him.

As I said, this issue is polarizing with people either believing Christine Blasey Ford or completely disbelieving her. A lot of people argue because she didn't speak up before that she must be lying, or because she doesn't remember all the details, she must be lying. So I want to tell you a story about my life. It is different - but as I said... deep inside myself, I need to share my truth with you.

Those closest to me already know this story, I have not been shy, or quiet about what happened to me for years. I have been living with my truth for 28 years, and for at least the past 13, I have been at peace with it (mostly). The reason I found peace with what happened to me is that I accepted that I had no control in my scenario and that there was nothing I could do to stop it from occurring. Are there things others could have done? Maybe... but I'm not here to point fingers. The only person who needs the finger pointed at him is my abuser but to be honest, if I was to go to court, I'm not sure I could win and I'm not as brave as Christine is. However, if my abuser was about to be put in the Supreme Court and into a position of so much power over women, I might be able to find the courage to accuse him openly as well.

So I will start - my abuser started when I was a child - only 7 years old. Younger than my youngest child is now. He didn't start with hurting me, at first, he considered himself my "papa" and he would "discipline" me when I did stuff he didn't like. At first, it wasn't often but as time went on, he would get more inventive in his punishments. If I didn't drink the milk in my thermos, for example, he would force me to - after it had sat out of the fridge for 3 days in my backpack and had congealed. Being a parent myself, of course I find it frustrating when my kid doesn't eat their lunch - money doesn't grow on trees - but I would NEVER make them sick to prove a point. One day, my mom came home to find him and I arguing over one of his more inventive punishments and she laid down the law with him - I was not his child and he was no longer allowed to discipline me. Unfortunately by making that ruling, she made me more of a target, though she wasn't aware of that at the time. I don't blame her, she was overworked and stressed as he was draining her bank account faster than she could blink, cheating on her and using her money to pay for the other woman in his life. He was a disgusting excuse for a human and every man in my life from that point on, has been judged based on how they relate to him. If they remind me even slightly of him, I want nothing to do with them.

Because I was no longer his "daughter", I was now a target. I cannot remember what day of the week it was, or even the time of the year.... I think fall? I do know that day I was supposed to walk home from school alone the way that he had mapped out with me. I chose instead, to walk home in a group of friends along a different route. Little did I know, he was following in his pickup truck to see if I was doing what I was supposed to do. He met me at the front door, fuming mad. How dare I not walk the way he said...

I will spare you the details of everything he did that day, but I will tell you, he took me down to the basement where I had a blanket laid on the ground to play with my barbies. It was 10 feet away from his gun rack. That to me, stands out since it was my childhood killed that day. He took a gun out of the gun rack, and told me if I didn't do everything he said, he would not only kill me, but also kill my mother when she came home from work that day. So suffice to say, I did what he asked and that day, I was forced to do sexual things with a man in his mid-30s. I was 10. As I said, I was 10. He was in his 30s and had a gun. I had no control over that situation, which is why, after many years, I am at peace with my end of this. That doesn't stop the tormenting thoughts that occasionally raise their ugly head and pierce a good day with bad memories. The wrong smell can ruin my day. I don't remember the name of his cologne, but I can't stand smelling it. The sound of his voice puts me into tears. I blocked those memories for years, pretending it didn't happen. When I was about 15, those memories came flooding back, and I had to deal with the flood of emotions and triggers that occurred. A man walked into my work with the cologne and I cried in the break room for 30 minutes. A man that sounded like  him, had me retching for an hour and huddled in the fetal position crying.

The biggest test for me, was later, when I actually ended up working at a job that had his company as a client - I worked in his territory and he was on my call list. I tried... I truly did, but just hearing him speak on an answering machine put me into full-on breakdown. I went to my boss and told her what had happened and asked to not have to call him. She listened, but then she went into the same comments that I have heard so often lately in regards to Kavanaugh - "Oh, I don't believe it of him. That's not the family man I know. I can't imagine he would do those things" I put my foot down and I would call his secretary, but never him, leaving that to my boss to speak with him if necessary. I know I couldn't have been able to handle that conversation. Not many people would, to my understanding.

To be clear, I have never pressed charges against this man. This is a choice I made for my own protection.  I could have done so, however it always would have been my word against his and what are the words of a child in compared to an adult? Especially so many years after the event. There is no "proof" of what happened that day and my mom found out about him cheating soon after, so I was safe, though not because she knew what had happened. She did find out, but not until she had me in therapy when I was a teenager.

Because of what he did, I didn't value myself for years. I still have a little voice inside my head that tells me I'm not good enough, that I'm not important enough to matter, that no one will ever care about me in truth and I battle that voice daily. I can't believe my husband who has loved me for almost 19 years when he tells me I'm beautiful because I still hear that man in my head telling me I'm so ugly that no man will ever want me. I was the first one in my group of friends in high school to sleep with my boyfriend, because I didn't value myself at the time. As far as I was concerned, I was already damaged, what was one more going to matter. And our society confirms that belief, one of my male friends (not one I dated) told me the word in the change room was that I was "a good lay if you could get past the bitch" I think he was trying to protect me but I thought it was funny. Media promotes this viewpoint and young women are encouraged in high school that they need men to value them to be considered important. In my view, at least they were thinking about me... which is terrible if I think back about it.

I can tell you that I still argue about this with myself. Should I have gone to the police about what this man did to me? Probably. I hope he's not doing it to another person, I hope any kids who might be in his life are safe. But here's what I know....

When I told my father what happened to me, he said I was "talking out of my ass"
When I told my female boss who knew him, she said she didn't think he was capable of it.
When I was 7, this man made me lie in court saying my father had abused me, told me exactly what to say but they couldn't prove it and the charges were dropped. The court told my mother "we know someone is hurting your daughter, but we can't figure out who" and NO ONE looked at him. He was an attractive man, tall, dark and handsome and no one could believe he was even capable of hurting a child. But I can promise you, if I had taken him to court, that would get dredged up by his lawyer, saying "see, she lied before, how do you know this one is true?" My mother and I were both set up in this case and both of us would be smeared.
When I told one of my best friends, she thought I was exaggerating the story.
When I told a family friend about it, she got angry with me for not trying to protect other children, even though I was a child when it happened.
After so many people have had such different opinions, especially my own father, can anyone be surprised I didn't think the police/courts would believe me?

My husband thinks I should have charged him and since I made the choice not to do so, I'm supposed to just shut my mouth and live with this silently. But damnit, I'm not the type to be silent and even if I know that I couldn't win in court, I refuse to live with this silently. Because that gives him the power over my life for the rest of it, and I will not do that. I will not give him that power.

And I'm glad that even if it has been over 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford stepped up and said this man should not be in control over women's rights. I can't imagine what it would be like to hear my abuser's voice again in such a public forum and to know he would have such power. Thank god I don't need to.

My ex-Bestie had a baby today...

So my ex-best friend announced she had another baby today.

I found out over Facebook. It is her second child. I would love to say I'm happy for her. But I can't bring myself to do so. It sounds terrible, I know, but it reminds me of us. Of how close we were. And that hurts.

We met in high school, in choir at 17 years old. She was kindness in a time where everyone was judgmental and cruel. I only recently found out that her mother showed up at my house while I was at work to "check out" her daughter's newest friend. She knocked on the door and interrogated my mother to make sure she (and I) was "good enough" for her daughter to associate with. But other than that, we were close. We saw each other through many bad ex-boyfriends, we took care of each other at countless parties and events. She mattered to me. She mattered a lot.

She had two best friends - the bitch and the slut. In fairness, I was happy to be the bitch. I much preferred that term. Time went on, and we stayed close, even through college. I started seeing "the One" for me, and she needed up dating my man's best friend. He was a shmuck - there's no other word for it, and my guy ended up dumping his best friend - over her. It was worth it... but seriously, he knew I cared about her, which is why it happened. I don't think it would have happened that way over someone random.

Time went on, she was still there for me for many important events, and I would have been there for her, but honestly, she never asked. She asked her other best friend to be there for her. Never me. But I would have been there.

Eventually I married my husband, and I asked her to be one of my bridesmaids. I was friends with other people too, and I honestly didn't think she'd WANT to be my maid of honour but apparently she did and it was something that apparently bothered her quite a bit. But it took her years to say anything to me.

She also found her "one" and came to me over him multiple times. I supported her no matter what, and though I didn't think he was good enough for her, when she came to me and told me that they were getting married, I was happy for her. I too, was a bridesmaid at her wedding. I was six months post-partum at the time, after having my first child. It was NOT easy for me, even to be in her wedding, since I was breast-feeding my daughter, and needed to have her with, and then not, and so I felt kind of like an afterthought. I was also criticized that day because of things I couldn't do or couldn't afford. She expected that her bridesmaids all should be wearing pearl earrings and necklaces, but I didn't have those, nor could I afford them at the time, so I got yelled at for wearing a different necklace that I already owned that matched the dress colour. But I let it go, because she was my friend, and I chalked it up to "bridezilla"-ness and figured it wouldn't matter. Apparently it did. Apparently me being unable to attend the bachelorette party due to my new baby mattered too. Not that she said anything to me.

More time went on, and eventually, she got pregnant too. We lived a 45 min drive from each other, and I couldn't attend her baby shower for her son. Money was tight and I had two children to take care of. Our lives had changed, and things were different for me and her. She got angry that I didn't come see her, and I felt like she didn't have time for me ever.

Eventually, we drifted apart. But the actual physical rift, happened about 2 1/2 years ago, although for me it, started 4 years ago. We were supposed to have a New Years party at our house, and I invited her and her husband. She told me she was staying in, not going out that year and I let it go. Everyone my husband and invited bailed, even up to the night of the party, except for the one person. When he showed up, he suggested another party he had been invited to as well, and made sure it was okay that we go too. Well, we went, and she and her husband were there.... I was hurt, but also kind of glad, to be able to spend time with her. She seemed angry that I was there. It hurt. So much.

From that point on, she just stopped showing up. I would invite, she wouldn't come. She claimed it was because of her son, and I was fine with that, I mean, I had two kids too. But everything was an excuse, and Facebook would so kindly show me all the things she did with other friends. It would show me all these parties she and her husband attended, it would show me all the people she was spending time with. It hurt, more and more. Finally, it had been 6 months from her refusing to come to my birthday and sending me flowers as a substitute.... I didn't want flowers. I wanted my friend.

I called her, to see how she was, and she called me back, while she was in her car. She was whispering, and said how she had only 10 minutes to talk before she got home because she didn't want her husband to find out. That was my breaking-point. I couldn't do it any more. I am fine with a lot of things, but being a secret hurt. I snapped on her. And that was when she informed me that her husband didn't like mine. That he felt my husband was lazy.

I'd had enough. Her husband was out of work, and she was suppporting both of them, and my husband was working 18 hours a day supporting our family. How dare they judge him. So that was the day our friendship ended. Since that day, she left me one voicemail, but we never spoke again. And now it's been 2 1/2 years of not speaking... and she announced she had a second child today. A child I didn't even know she was pregnant with. I want to congratulate her. I want to be happy for them. But I loved her (in the friend way, obviously) and it breaks my heart that I was excluded from all of it. I know I didn't do everything right. But...

I miss my friend.

A Small Setback

Well, trying to get back into the swing of writing more often and so here I am again. :)

It was a pretty productive weekend although a very good portion of it was spent on figuring out our taxes. Luckily we are getting a nice sized refund this year - though that will go to paying off our kitchen probably. It's coming due soon and I'm not looking forward to that bill, I'll tell you!

Otherwise I spent a very good amount of time in the backyard pulling out mini trees. I hate maple keys. I literally never thought I'd say that but with 4 maple trees on our property, the ground is littered with them and by this point in the year, we have a small forest attempting to grow less that 3 feet away from the house. Some years back we put a lot of gravel in the walkway behind the house to aid in water run-off and such. Who knew that maple keys would grow in such a strange environment. Somehow, they manage to get their little roots through 4 - 6 inches of rocks, the weed resistant fabric layer to the soil beneath. So every year, I have to go out there and pull them all one by one to prevent the mini forest from taking over. Sigh... it's a losing battle with mother Nature, I'll tell you!

Strangely here's my setback for the weekend, yesterday when I was out weeding, I hurt my right knee while I was sitting cross-legged pulling weeks. Minimal pressure, no pain at all during and I didn't bend my legs funny or anything. But when I came back inside to make dinner, I could barely stand! I thought maybe I pulled a muscle or something and put some Icy Heat on it to ease the muscles and I hoped when I went to bed that it would be better by morning... but nope! It's actually worse today and I'm more bothered because I don't even know what I did! Luckily I have a trainer (who rocks) who helped me with a workout that didn't put too much pressure on it. I hope it doesn't last too long but for now Advil and a Tensor bandage is going to have to do it's best.

I got back into designing this weekend! Yay!  I thought maybe I'd combine two of my current loves into one - stitching and skylanders and I created some elemental drink coasters. :)

Which I will now share here because, hey, why not?

Obviously I still have more to do, and I also finally decided what I wanted on my Iphone cover - which will be a beaded Spyro the Dragon! :) He's so cute - I just wish I knew what I wanted in the background!

New Beginnings...

Well, it's been a while again, I know, I know...

The last couple months have been difficult for me. I ended up quitting my "job" (I put that in quotes because it was more of a joke than a job now - I was being paid pennies and my hours were dropped as well. No - I didn't do anything wrong. I used to deliver the local paper and they started trying to make money off the backs of their carriers too much for my liking. The days were cut in half, thereby the salary was also cut in half, and they paid pennies to start with.) So now I have no extra money coming in which is putting a major strain on our finances. But que sera, sera, right?

I went back to writing again. I haven't written since high school but for some reason I felt I needed to go back to writing again, pulled out one of my best stories and started re-vamping it, elaborating where it needs it, expanding the storyline, and making it more relevant to today. I think part of the reason I felt the need was, this particular story focuses on date rape, and the shame and criticism that goes along with it. Since that's been pretty prevalent in the media lately, maybe it just struck a chord with me and I felt this would be a good story to continue. It wouldn't hurt if it ended up becoming a best seller though... that would be nice but I'd be happy selling even a couple copies.

Otherwise, I had an epiphany about a month ago. I went out shopping with my mom and L for dresses for a couple upcoming events we had - a party for Easter at my mother-in-law's house and a luncheon my mom was part of with many, many other women that she'd invited me and my daughter to. We went into a couple stores and tried on clothing. Whereas in the past, if I tried on 10 outfits, 9 would fit and look good, and the choice would be which I could afford or liked best. That day, it wasn't that problem at all. I tried on (sort of) 10 outfits. Of the 10, only one fit and looked decent. The rest would barely fit at all, and I wasn't exactly choosing the small. I was getting the XL and it still looked terrible or wouldn't even go over my hips. And I tried on one outfit that in the past, I would have loved. It was a matching teal top and skirt that just looked - Blah - on me. I wanted to like it, but I didn't. My mom came in to the change room to see and just shook her head and said "Nope. Definitely not."

But L, my sweet little girl, she looked at me and said "But mommy, you look like a princess! You look so beautiful! You should get that one!" and I had to explain to her why I wasn't buying that outfit that she thought I'd looked so good in. She looked close to tears, and said "But mommy, you're so pretty! And it made you look like a princess!" It broke my heart - and I wished I could see myself the way she sees me. I know I said I was working out in December and I legitimately did try, but it was too hard for me to keep it up with minimal support from my husband and the holidays approaching. So I gave up very quickly when I didn't lose any actual weight and started gaining instead of losing.

I went home that day and J made some comment about how he could see my underwear because my pants I was wearing had slid down and I lost it. I mean, I went so nuts, so upset that no one knew what the hell had happened. I was a mess. I realized that day that I had to do something. Because how could I raise my little girl to love her body if I couldn't love my own?

So I started looking and found a personal trainer. I took the money that I've been putting aside for Laser Eye treatment surgery for the last 12 years and now I have a personal trainer for the next 6 months. Not that J's all too happy with it. I'm really trying hard to eat healthy and exercise every day and he's still very much into the snacks and desserts. But I refuse to live another day in a body I hate. And you know what? It's working!

I miss my desserts, no doubt, I'm trying to keep them to a minimum. But I've been working out with my trainer for 17 days and I've already lost 11 pounds! Only 30 more to go (40 if I'm really trying hard!) but I'm damn well going to do it this time!

An Emotional Weekend...

The last week has been crazy. I mean, everyone has a crazy time at this time of year.. trust me, I know that. But with me and the kids being sick, and party after party, after party... well, it drains you, you know?

Last weekend was L's birthday party. It's amazing seeing my little girl growing up. She and her friends seemed to have a blast. This is the first one where we've actually invited her friends, and not just had a small family gathering. It was actually not that bad considering. The kids only got hyper after the cake, so in future we know that cake comes last. We had the party at Michael's Arts & Crafts Store and while they did an okay job I was pretty disappointed in the procedure. It's one of the less expensive party options out there, because you only pay $50 for the room and the associate to "teach" (I'm using that word loosely.) and you can choose any price craft that you want for the kids to make. Since the kids were still pretty young, we opted for one of the least expensive crafts - some Christmas hand puppets and foam ornaments. One box costs about $15 (we bought 2) and you get 8 puppets per, more than enough for the 12 kids we had there. But what bothers me is this... they say the associate will have the craft set up before the party.... the associate wasn't even in the room when it started, we had to go find her in the store, and nothing was set up. It could have gone so much smoother. And finally, every child ended up getting taught one by one. I did as much helping as the associate did, sometimes more. Maybe I'm just biased... but I worked at Michaels for 3 years. I did this woman's job and I know her job description like the back of my own hand. She could have handled it way better. Oh well. Can't change the past, right?

After we had a small gathering at home with the in-laws and my mom where we had far too much food, and not enough time to do everything. L managed to open her presents, but it was crazy rushed. I was constantly herding people back into the room so we could finish since J and I needed to get ready to leave and go to his work Christmas party! With the downtown traffic, it took us two hours to drive there which was insane, but at least we made it before the dinner started with enough time to socialize a bit. It was a pretty fun night, our table won the trivia game (we were oh so close last year!) and J also won one of the door prizes so we left with a couple $10 gift cards, very helpful around this time of year! We got home around 12:30, and collapsed into bed. How's that for a day?!

To add to that, I had a little bit of a freak-out on Friday night since the party was business casual. Now - I used to work in an office place so I have plenty of business-style clothing... or so I thought. I went into my closet on Friday night, to pull out all my clothing... and nothing fit. I mean NOTHING. I thought about it for a bit... when I was still living at home, pre-babies, pre-marriage. I put on some weight. I went up to size 8 - and I was devastated... (please note, I am only 5'2" so any weight makes me look much larger - I should be around 115 - 120, healthy). I made my mom join a club with me and we lost the extra size. Not that we knew much or how to do it, but we were determined. I went back down to my size 6, and even dropped back to size 3/4 for my wedding. But here's the realization... I am now a size 16. Which, for my height is considered obese. Nothing fits me anymore. Only my t-shirts and stretch pants which I virtually live in. I was fine with that, it only bothered me a bit - until I saw over $2000 worth of clothing in my closet that I had no hope in hell in fitting. I couldn't even start zippers. And I wondered how the hell I'd done this to myself, without even blinking an eye. How did I go from that girl who freaked out over a single size jump, to a woman who put on 50 pounds and countless inches without even noticing she was getting larger and larger. And of course, I know the answer... or both answers, really in my case.

1. Children - two of them, back to back in two years. Couple that with hypertension (your body gets all the food, and baby gets nothing) and gestational diabetes (baby gets all the sugar, and you get nothing), and by the time I finished up, I was already 175. With the diabetic training, I did manage to drop back to 155, but remember, I love to bake, so it's all too easy to put that weight back on again. I no longer have diabetes, but if things continue the way they have, I will in the future.
2.  My husband - he has never eaten extraordinarily healthy, and lately, we've been too lazy to make proper meals - so we end up eating a lot of crap. He's put on as much, if not more than me, but I guess it doesn't bother him as much.  But that's for him to do. I'm not worrying about him because, I've tried to talk to him about losing weight with me, and he - doesn't seem interested. Not sure how to do that but it's the old adage I suppose... you can lead a horse... well we all know the rest.

So after two hours of crying incessantly, and dumping all the clothing I can't fit into a plastic bin to get it out of my closet, (since there is no point in it being in there if I can't wear it!) I came to a decision. I am going to start a workout regime. I am not going to say "tomorrow" anymore. I am going to lose this weight and get somewhere back from a size 16. So I started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred on Saturday morning before all the parties started. I even deprived myself of having either of my daughter's cakes (either the store bought one, or the one I made) except for a couple small bites. I am bound and determined, I tell you! I will not fail this one! And to report, that first day of working out? I couldn't even finish the 22 minute set. How sad is that? When I was dating my husband we used to rollerblade for 20 km easy, and would only turn around because it got dark. And now, I can't finish a 22 minute work out.

But day two was better, I managed the whole thing. It took me two advil, and a hot bath, but I did it! I'm still hurting, very badly. My legs are the worst. You'd think that me being a newspaper carrier who walks around the whole neighbourhood with almost 100 papers once (used to be twice) a week, my legs would be stronger. You'd be wrong. They hurt. A lot. And my stomach hurts (which I'm actually very happy about.) It's not a hunger pain. It's a "you've worked your core muscles" pain. And since that's what I'm hating most on, thank god! I love you Jillian Michael right now! I've tried a couple workout regimes over the last couple years and none of them has tortured me so much. But it's what I need right now and I hope it does help me to shrink back down. I don't really expect to lose weight, but I need to lose those inches. I need to stand a chance of getting back into the clothing I used to wear. Because I can't face the devastating thought of not wearing it ever again. I used to love some of those outfits.

I haven't managed day three yet, but I will. Once I take some more pain meds. But I did go on a 40 minute walk this morning with my son, and it was still hurting my muscles to walk it. (which is also new, I do this walk all the time, and it never hurts like it did today) I figure couple that with some massive portion control and deprivation of the sweets I so adore (at least for a while!) and I should see some major progress over the coming weeks, even with Christmas looming. I just need to watch out for the chocolate...