Cough, Cough, Sniff, Sniff...

As a full-time stay-at-home-mom I find myself a little grumpy when I get sick. This challenge to my attitude comes because I KNOW if I can only get some real rest I can resume my regular duties swiftly.

But that almost never happens, does it?

So, I cook, sneeze, do dishes (feeling my brain smash up against my forehead when I bend over for to fill or empty the silverware and other items on the bottom), fold laundry, cough, sniff, cough, trying to keep the balance between sanity, good nutrition, sniff, and yes, good parenting along with trying to get some good rest. Cough, cough.

I don't know about those of you reading this but having a head cold does not promote good eating as well as good attitudes. I work hard on both when I am not feeling better when I want to.

The last few days have been a real test. This is what I've done:

 - Snuggle my kids - invite them to settle in on the couch with me

 - Once I am "up" try to accomplish something I value - like give myself a clear surface to look at while I surf the sofa with my 5yr old on my lap.

 - Challenge my guys to fun tasks - yesterday I challenged my 7yr old to make as many Star Wars space ships as he could out of his Legos. He made 6! He was so proud! So was I.

 - Close my eyes - yes, my sons have finally reached the stage where, IF I am easily available (and front and center in the living room) I can close my eyes for a few minutes and not worry about the house falling down around me. Dozing like this usually invites at least one of them to curl up with me. Something I don't usually make a lot of time for when I am busy.

 - Fuel my body for health - When I feel crappy I often eat crappy. I am trying to change that. Recognizing that nutrition remains a MAJOR key to all health and fitness goals. Eating healthy while sick HELPS me get better faster!

 - Rest my body - I am 16 days away from my first triathlon for the summer. I am in full training mode and that is the biggest reason for me to struggle with my attitude. I have good momentum built and now STOP!! I'm sick!! Grrr!!! But, this is a reminder that completing a triathlon is NOT more important than my caring for my body, nurturing or nourishing my children with my presence as well as good food, and super important, encouraging my Love as he prepares for his first tri.

 - Trust my fitness level. I work really hard, often,  on my fitness. If I take a minute to consider the condition of my body, I really KNOW I am strong enough to complete the race ahead. Would I love to be faster, stronger, leaner? - you betcha, but the progress I am making is still progress... and I don't want to make it at the expense of any of the valuable people in my life!!

There ya have it...

I still am not sure how to do it ALL the time. But I am working on it.

Being Who God Made Me to Be - No Matter What

I haven't really posted much on here consistently and a lot of it has to do with so much happening in my heart and mind. I can't really nail it down and I feel like I am hanging on for the ride.

I have been contemplating my impact on all of you, my readers. I've been asking God to give me what I need to share.

I have been feeling a lot like this lately:


It actually makes me laugh at myself and keeps me headed in the right direction.

Today I hurt myself walking into the gym. Yep. I made it into the front door, checked the kids in, visited with a good friend, then walked into the workout area only to have my annoying slight twinge in my hip escalate into full on muscle spasm.

Sometimes I can work it out with exercise, so I tried the elliptical, that hurt more, so I headed for the pool, noticing there was a water aerobics class starting in a few minutes so I tried that, too much twisting my owie hip, so I got out during class (never really done that before) and went to the hot tub. I can only imagine how great I looked backing the right side of my booty into a jet at just the right angle... ugh. That helped for a bit. Long enough to get dressed and head back to get the kids, limping.

All that to say, our hope is not in what we can "DO" but in who God has made us to BE. Today I have been fighting the "why try" and "who cares" attitudes.

The still small Voice in my heart keeps reminding me that today is obviously a rest day for my body but everything else doesn't have to go down the drain.

Being honest, I did indulge in a few peanut butter filled pretzels and about 30 chocolate chips with a cup of hot tea, but I didn't eat the WHOLE bag of chocolate chips or 17 more pb filled pretzels. I will also count those calories. :)

I have several good friends whose lives are much more challenging than mine right now. Keeping perspective that yes, my life is hard today but other's need me to engage and encourage them more than I need to feel sorry for myself.

I copied this great mini-message from one of my favorite young pastors (Chris Lauri) off of his Facebook Status:

"Faith in Christ is not about becoming an island. Salvation is not a tropical getaway where we can retreat to focus on ourselves. Share the love and the grace you've been blessed with. "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desires." Proverbs 18:1"

My thoughts - even if your life isn't a tropical getaway, sharing the Love and Grace is essential to God's design in you!

So, aching hip, praying for my husband, snuggling with my boys, texting back and forth with a friend who needs encouragement, praying for another's new baby, praying for dear ones who just had to say good-bye to their wife & mom,  making wise choices in my eating and my parenting, responding to a mommy who wants to come to MOPS, listening to God's call to pray for businessmen in my community, are all the ways God is using me to BE His Love and Grace today. 

What are you "being" (not "doing") to someone today?

Why I MUST complete my weight loss/fitness goals

“I must complete my weight loss and fitness goals, because if I don’t…” is a prompt on my spark people "motivation" discussion. The team leader posted a quote from a podcast she heard - here is part of it: "Give yourself a minimum of 5 personal and important reasons why you must do this. You need to separate dreams and wants from things that you must do. If you can come up with 10 reasons why you must be successful, you will be twice as likely to be successful."

The idea of separating dreams and wants from the things I must do intrigues me. I don't know if I have ever thought about losing weight that way. 

Here is my attempt to do so...

I must complete my weight loss and fitness goals because if I don't I will spend the rest of my life regretting it.

I believe I was designed to be an athlete and then puberty, hormonal shifting and emotional eating took over. I don't think I leaned on food until we moved to Idaho and our super active southern Cali lifestyle came to a snow-covered, ice-laden, freezing-cold halt.

After 3 boys, a miscarriage, several dear friends unexpected departures to Heaven, battling Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), and having a fairly sedentary lifestyle the pounds just keep adding up.

1) I must lose the weight because I need to LIVE every day to the best of my ability. Being overtired, overwhelmed, overloaded, overeating, prevents me from doing exactly that.

2) I must accomplish my fitness goals because I know I CAN. I have experienced an internal strength and tenacity I didn't know I had since I began working out.

3) I must attain the emotional and mental steadfastness that comes with not being ruled by lack of sleep, an unhealthy diet, and rampant cravings.

4) I must achieve my weight loss and fitness goals because anything less would be settling for second best. I have a good life. I have an awesome hubby, great kids, dear family, precious friends and to allow myself to settle for the "adequate" version of me is selling us all short on what God's design was for me and my life in the beginning.

5) I must make these changes because I really hate being run by anything that doesn't bring about LIFE. Being run by food, lack of fitness, and my emotions all leads to death or at best a complacent mind set. I want to be vibrant, fully loaded with the spectacular strength and tenacity I am capable of in order to be a completely relevant example of living life to the fullest!

That's it for now. But I will contemplate this further... without a doubt.

Me, Ben, Jerry and the Time Traveler’s Wife

It was our first camp out of the year.

My Love was off with his best buds for their annual camping weekend. He didn’t need to take our camper this year, so the kids and I decided to make use of it.

It was about 9:15pm when my youngest finally crashed into a coma, literally minutes before an amazing hurricane like storm blew through. As I listened to the wind whipping the torrential rain around our camper parked safely in our driveway, it dawned on me I had left several windows in the house open.

Feeling a little like Dorothy rushing home to Auntie Emm, I ran into the flying rain in my pajamas and zipped through the house closing windows as fast as I could, hoping some unexpected crash of thunder didn’t awaken my soundly sleeping bundles of energy.

On my way back to the camper I zipped into the garage to grab the pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk I picked up at the store as my final indulgence before returning to the no flour, no sugar eating plan I will start on Monday.

I was half-way through my frozen decadence before the ridiculous amount of previews was over and the actual movie started. I clicked on the “closed captioning” for the film because this was the first time I figured out that there is something really wrong with the audio on my CD-ROM. I am sure the irritation of the crackling interruption to the sound altered my cinematic experience.

But, I did gain a few bits of insight that I am willing to share:

-         1200 calories goes down very easily when it is creamy, chunky, nutty chocolaty goodness.

-         Lousy sound can be overcome by a really great story.

-         The Time Traveler’s Wife enlightened me on a few topics; time travel (always wanted to try it but I see now that it would be challenging if it was random and you show up everywhere naked), true love (she chose to love the dream and the reality – even when it was hard), quality time (it can be truly relative when you never know when or how long the Love of your life will be around).

Once it was over, I thanked God again for my Love (and our relatively normal life) and snuggled down in the springs of the mattress and the lumps of the camper pillow. I slept until...

  I was awakened at 4:15am by the sounds of our neighbor hitching up his boat to go fishing. I prayed my kids would sleep longer than the summer usual of 5:30, experienced annoying regret over eating the entire pint, and contemplated the value of time in my life.

Expanding on the value of time in my life will have to wait. It is 5:41am and two of my three are conscious and about to wake up my third…