If heaven wasn’t so far away I’d pack up the kids and go for the day

For some reason I feel like I need to share this, maybe for me, maybe for someone else (not sure if anyone else reads my blog )

Six years ago today I lost my best friend and gained a guardian angel.  I lost my mom at the young age of 51 to complications from Ovarian Cancer. I say complications from cancer because even though she had fought the fight for nine long years she was not on her death bed when she died.  It was sudden and heart breaking.  I was 28 years old and 4 ½’s pregnant with N.  My two younger sisters were 21 and 18.  My parents had divorced half way through her fight so the three of us plus my husband were her care givers.  And it was the four of us with her at the hospital as she was taken from this world. I loved that lady.  Not a day would go by that I didn’t talk to her on the phone or see her in person and having that ripped out of my hands when I needed her most hurt.  I didn’t know how to be a mom and didn’t have anyone to turn to.  I love my mother in law but I didn’t need her telling me what to do, trying to fill shoes that no
one would be able to fill.  But I survived.  Not unharmed, I am scarred from losing my mom, but everyone is when they lose someone close to them.  I am happy that I had close family to lean on so I didn’t lean on food more than I always do.

I did learn a lot from this experience. 1) Always ask people to show you how to do things.  My mom was an amazing domestic person.  If I have a stain in something that I couldn’t get clean I would ask my mom to do it.  If I needed my pants hemmed I would ask my
mom to do it.  She always cooked the most amazing meals, and rather than standing beside her and watching her do these
things I had her do them for me.  Now I still struggle to get out awful stains because I never learned what she did to get them out.  So if someone does something you find impressive ask them how they do it not to do it for you, because you never know when they won’t be by you.

2) I learned life is precious.  I learned this lesson when she was first diagnosed with cancer.  Cancer 15 years ago was not as curable as it is today.  You said the word and everyone thought death.  I learned quickly that little tiffs are not worth holding a grudge.

3) Probably the most important thing I learned from my mom was how to love.  She cared about everyone and she always made me feel special.  We have our fights when I was a teenager but nothing like my friends.  She was is always been a best friend and because of that I always wanted to respect her and not do things that would hurt her.

Mom, I love and miss you!

Blah, blah, blah

Warning, this is a blah post. . .

I have been feeling rather blah lately and that has turned into a lack of blogging.  There isn’t one certain thing that turned my life upside down, but just a lack of mojo.  I hope I can kick it before winter starts
because that’s when I really start feeling blue and I don’t need to start out feeling down.

I really didn’t do well on following my goals either.  I am down the 2lbs so hopefully I can keep those off while I start tracking my food intake because I failed at that one.

As for finances we had good weeks and bad weeks with using the debit card.

I never planned meals out and I probably only cooked once a week, if that.  I really need to plan out go meals.  It is hard because the kids and I eat before I hit the gym and the hubby eats after and by the time I get
home from work and get the kids picked up they are hungry and wanting PB&J sandwiches and then I make me a salad.

I have spent more time just with the kids.  After we get home and eat our not so healthy dinner then we don’t turn the TV on but either read together or play and that has been great.

Compliments. . . I have been doing ok.

Goals for this week:

Healthy: Get down to 131.5. Track everything I eat. EVERYTHING

Finance: Not to debit this week

Home / Family: Work on patience with N.  He doesn’t listen very well and by the 3^rd time asking I am not the nicest mom so I need to work on that.

September Goals

Ok, ok, ok, I started this blog to be held accountable for lossing weight and paying off debt.  The debt I have been able to stay on top of.  The weight, well not so much.  Why, why is that?  I don’t want to blog about it because I don’t want to sound like a failure, but that’s why I started this blog, right?  To be able to blog about the ups and downs without anyone really knowing who I am.  So with that being said, I am going to set up goals that help hold me ACCOUNTABLE.  I really want to lose weight, but if it was easy, well I would be a size 4 right now.

Goals

Weight Loss

•  To lose 2lbs this month.  I don’t have a lot of weight to lose and would love to lose 4lbs but in reality and can’t get the scale to show less than 134 for me so it is my goal to get it down to 132 by September 30th.
•  To attain goal # 1 I have to set up smaller goals.  I am going to start tracking my food.  I hate this.  Why? Because it holds me accountable or because I am lazy?  Probably because it holds me accountable, exactly, maybe I will start lossing weight. Ah ha.  Also, I would like to increase my days working out.  I work out 3x’s a week with a trainer, but that is the extent of it.  I want to work out 5x’s a week through out the month of September.  Also, I am going to start listening to The Beck Diet Solution and spend the time I need to incorporate that into my life.

Finances

• We are on the right track with this goal, but to up the intestiny, I am going to stop using my debit card.  If I don’t have the money we don’t need it.  This will be harder for my husband, but I know we can do it.  And to help him out more we are going to have weekly budget meetings to go over the spending for the week.

Home / Family

• To plan out 3 meals a week.  I know I could probably help the diet and the pocketbook more if I planned out more than 3 meals a week, but I have to ease into it.  Plus hubby and I make the exercise swith at 7:00p.m. so we never eat as a family and sometimes the kids just want PB&J.
• Spend 1/2 hour a day just playing with the kids, no other distractions.  Life as a working mom is hard!  By the time I get home from getting the kids it is 5:00 and we only have 2 hours before I head off to the gym for an hour, then once I get home it is time for our bedtime routine.  During those 2 hours I need to make and eat dinner, plus get a couple things picked up.  But I am going to set the clean up aside or not spend as much time doing it to just play with the kids.  I miss them all day I want to show them that.
• Compliment hubby and kids at least once a day.  It is so easy to find what people are doing wrong or what they are not doing.  But that doesn’t build people up.  I want to say uplifting things to hubby and kids more (like: the bed looks great, thanks for taking the extra 5 minutes to make it, rather than, why is breakfast on the table rather than in the sink.)

What works for others to lose weight?

 

Financial Report 8/28-9/3

Monday

     No spend day

Tuesday

-     $47.03 Gas

-     $5.21 Sprite for a sick family

Wednesday

-      $2,942.17 Payday

-      $120.00 Cash (Groceries, eating out, allowances)

Thursday

No spend day

Friday

-    $833.29 Pay  day

-    $69.95 Pressure Cooker (mine died a month ago)

-     $96.99 Present for Husband

-     $5.63 Staples

-     $3.90 Office Depot

Saturday

-     $27.89 Gas

-     $21.34 Present  for Hubby

-     $11.55 Groceries

-     $79.52 Costco (I  hate that store!)

-     $16.00 Dinner

Sunday

-     $20 Cash to spend at Waterpark on Monday

-     $18.34 Drugstores

Money In:           $3,775.46

Money Out:       $543.35

Bills:                      $2,250.51

 

I went  missing in action last week, sorry about that.   I planned on listing my finances on Monday while sitting at the hospital waiting for my little sister to have her baby, but the wait was over quick once they realized her baby had flipped breach.
So they rushed her in to surgery to have a c-section.  And once the choice was to be on a computer or hold a tiny one, well the answer to that one is easy. Then the rest of my week was spent cleaning up more vomit than one mom should have
to.  My whole family came down with the stomach flu.  Yuck I hate being sick, but it is worse when I am sick and so are my kids at the same time.

Now back to this week.  I wish I could say I am proud to have 2 no spend days, but I am not. It is easy for me to not spend money during the week.  I work full time and like to work through my lunch break and then once my day is over I would much rather be with my little ones rather than out spending money.  My disappointment comes from the money we spend on the weekends. This week was hard because it was my husband’s birthday and a holiday,
but I really hate spending money.  I feel  SO quality once I spend it.  I had a heart to heart with my husband during our budget meeting yesterday to discuss using our debit card.  We are trying to use the cash system, but it seems like things end up on the debit card too, so it is a new month and a new chance to NOT USE THE DEBIT CARDS!

However, on a GREAT NOTE, did you notice the side bars? We paid off our first debt!!!  I couldn’t be happier, especially when it was only $660 left owing on it, so used the other $1,500 of my husband’s bonus on the next one.  Oh, to start feeling the debt snowball moving, I LOVE IT.  I just wish I could push it faster and faster.

How did you do?

Weighing In 8/24

This past week I was awful with reading The Beck Diet Solution or following anything from it.  I eat great Monday – Thursday since I have to plan out my meals for work but then the weekend hits and all is shot.  Like I said in an early post I am super busy with a boutique this weekend and hopefully after that I will be able to concentrate more on making meals.  I know I shouldn’t use an excuse because life is always busy, but right now life is extra busy.

I am happy because I had lost the .5lbs I had gain the week before so I am down to 134.5 again.  I can’t wait to pass that.  I weighed in at the gym Monday night and my weight was up to 138.5 which I pray is because I have clothes on and it was the end of the day, but I was very happy because I had gained 6lbs of muscle and lost 10lbs of fat since my last weigh in at the gym.  And my BMI was 24, which I think is good, not great, but good.

So all in all I am happy about the numbers but not happy about my progress cause I need to change habits.

Picking Yourself Back Up

Have you ever watched a child learn to walk?  Do they try once and then give up?  No they try and try again until they figure it out, and once they do learn how they fall down numerous times in the process and they still get up and try again.  I know this process doesn’t happen overnight and there are a lot of steps leading up to this job accomplishment, but they work and work at it until they succeed.  This example shows me that it is human instinct to succeed, to press forward, to not give into the ‘it’s too hard, I can’t do it’ which we learn so quickly thereafter.

I have thought about this a lot lately as I watch my toddler try new things, and the funny part is the more she is told no and not to do something the more determined she becomes to do it.  So fast forward to adulthood, why are we not the same?   I shouldn’t say we, I mean me.  I struggle so hard at things, like overcoming weight loss, and rather than dust myself off and try again I give up, at least for the day.  What I need to learn from my little girl is it’s never going to be perfect.  I am not going to wake up one morning and eat healthy from then on without stumbling along the way.  I need to learn after I make a mistake and
eat that cookie that I pick myself back up and say that’s ok, it’s just a cookie.  Or I can even workout a little harder that day or skip a couple bites of my next meal to make up for it.

I am going to try from this point on to look at this daunting task of losing weight as something I am not going to succeed at perfectly, but if I keep working on it and give myself a little room to fall down that I can pick myself back up and try again, without having a temper tantrum and giving up.

Spending Report 8/15 – 8/21

Monday

Dinner  (13.81)

 

Tuesday

     No Spend Day!!

 

Wednesday

     No Spend Day

 

Thursday

Gas                        (45.30)

Game Fly             (24.50)

Red Box               (4.53)

AF CC                    (100.00)

Savings                 (40.00)  (Birthday savings)

 

Friday

Payday                 643.62

Paypal                   30.95

Cash                      (20.00)  7 Peaks

Cash                      (120.00)   (60-groceries, 20-allowances, 20-eating out, 10-drug store, 10-N’s allowance)

Nordstorm Rack (99.09) (Shoes and clothes for the kiddies)

Zagg                       (3.99) (ipod cover)

 

Saturday

Winchester Gardens      (14.88) (Plants)

 

Sunday

   No Spend Day!!!

 

Money In            674.57

Money Out         346.10

Bills                        100.00

Savings                 40.00

 

3 NO Spend Days, is pretty awesome.  I just wish I could cut down on the spending the other days (likemyhubbysgameflyhepromisedmehewouldcancelbeforethefreetrialranout).  I hated spending $100 on clothes for my kids, but I could have spent SO much more.  Next time I won’t go to Nordstrom Rack, too much of an addiction.  I am hoping to do as good or even better next week!!!

This week is going to be so busy with an upcoming boutique I am doing.  More on that later.