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!