A quarter at a time

Not only am I going to take school a quarter at a time but there is something else that I will take a quarter at a time.

I decided while I was eating cook dough the other night that my eating and my weight are out of control. There have been a lot of emotions about the changes coming down the pipe for me, which will get their very own post but, but a common theme is taking control/charge of my life.

My weight and eating habits are a dark and twisty place in my psyche. There is so much more attached to the weight I carry both physically and emotionally and the food I eat.  I am going to be struggling with this the rest of my life and the thought of it is exhausting but I know I just have to woman up and slap it in the face. 

I see these women who had a life changing moment when they saw what they had become and fought back and I thought when that moment comes I will do something about it, but until then pass the chips. But the fact of the matter is I am living in one of those scenarios, everything revolves around my weight, my mood, the affection I give, the affection I will receive, where I shop, activities I will partake in, who I will socialize with,  Basically, I am not living my whole life.  Is that what those women were talking about? I so badly want to be done living a limited life, I am going to be 26 and I feel like I am going on 50.

So, I decided I am going to give myself a quarter, March 26^th - June 9^th to living well.

There are some rules:

1.    Do NOT weigh myself,  base progress off of how I look and feel

2.    Do NOT blog about the experience until the quarter is over

I know, I know… how I can tell you about this and then not blog about it. The answer to why that is lies with my other attempts.  I put way too much emphasis on the number and not the overall goal and then if I am not getting results or I fall behind that is when old habits arise.

I am very proud of myself for not having purged in almost a year and I want to make this as healthy as I can so I am taking the stress factor out, which is one of my triggers anyway.

My goal is to do an active activity 3 times a week for 60 minutes; I am not going to limit myself and want to use this opportunity to find my healthy activity of 2012.

So to put this in perspective I want to challenge myself to healthy living for 11 weeks, which equals 77 days.

Within those 11 weeks or 77 days, I want to work out 33 times.

I think I am going to make a calendar that is just a quarter calendar that I can put a big black x mark through. 

What I want to take from this is to show myself I can do it, that I can live a healthier lifestyle and still be happy. That I don’t need a miracle diet or pill, all I need is myself. I am not going to say that it is all about being healthier, I do want to lose weight in the end but I think I am beginning to see a more realistic, achievable outcome than the one that I put on a pedestal. 

For years I wanted to be that emaciated looking model you see in the magazines, I wanted my rib bones to show and my hip bones to protrude from under my skin.  I am not sure if it was just getting older or what but I finally realized that wasn’t me, nor would I be happy looking like that. Over the past few weeks a feeling of acceptance has started to lap at my feet. Yes I am not happy being this size but I am not hating myself for it either. I made the choices that made me this way and I am beginning to accept it. It wasn't the constant ridicule from my family about my weight, it was me eating half the cookie dough during prep. My mom always says "that it's better to be a product of your past than a prisoner thereof". I said that the other day in a conversation about my always in some type of trouble little brother and it was almost an out of body experience, where my out of body was laughing at me and then slapped me.

I am testing these new waters of acceptance, dipping my toe in and in that I am seeing past the fat and seeing the woman that I have become. I am married to a wonderful man, I am currently sitting in MY living room in the house I own, I am taking charge of my education and taking a risk. And finally I am seeing that in gaining this weight it didn't make me less of a woman, I still have curves, a great rack and the ability to accessorize!

Lost it.

Ok, so I have ADD… big surprise right?

Anyway, I did the whole medication thing when I was first diagnosed but that shit messed me up. I wasn’t in control and I couldn’t think straight or form a sentence.

So needless to say I starting hiding my pills, in food, in my pocket, anywhere that meant I didn’t have to take it.

My mom pulled me off the meds in the second grade and turned to the school for help and they obliged. Instead of pills they made a plan that said I HAD to sit in the front of the class, I could get more time on tests, that I could use a calculator, and that I couldn’t take a test in a big group.

All of this worked wonders.  My teachers were always there to help and once that I saw it helped and it meant that I didn’t have to be hopped up on meds all the time I was all for it.

It took a lot of practice but I soon learned what I needed to do to stay on task, things like I had to be in a quiet, well lit area to do my work, it needed to be a big space so I could lay my paper out, I needed something to sooth nerves (I have a bad test anxiety that can sometimes flare up when I am overwhelmed) so I had to listen to music, but nothing with words.  I could only do one subject at a time and I tried to get as much done in school as possible. I wouldn’t let myself have breaks though because then the focus I had worked so hard to achieve would be broken.

It didn’t really fall in to place until high school, which was the first time I felt I was actually absorbing the material. It helped to that I could take classes that interested me as well as required courses.

Well, life got in the way and now I am back in school but I am incredibly out of practice when it comes to focusing.

For so long I would come home, make dinner, plop myself in front of the tv until bed.  Now, I am having problems getting off the couch and getting to that quite zone where I am retaining what I am reading or writing.

I think when we make the upstairs in to my office it will help, when I am not working full time and going to school full time it will help. I am just afraid that this quarter will suffer.  I am trying really hard but because of this lack of focus I am dragging. I haven’t been to bed before 1 am all week; the dark circles under my eyes are unspeakable. 

Does anyone have any tips on time management? I am in some serious need over here.

Yesterday

Was the average day I thought.

But yesterday something happened, a cosmic shift within my soul (deep, huh?)

Yesterday, after a day of feeling "rough", messy hair, haphazard outfit and a general lack of sleep will leave you feeling that way I guess.  I  came home and I decided I wanted to feel better, so I took a long hot shower and did my hair, threw on some makeup (which I think I may due a post about because I learned how to do eye makeup for glasses) and did a little fashion show. I got some new dudes, a huge sale at ON+coupons=wardrobe facelift. And as I was trying stuff on, I felt good.  Like real good, like I could rule the world good.

It was the first time, since I gained all this weight that I felt beautiful, that I was in style, that honestly I could command a room and not shrink away in the corner.

Also, yesterday, while re-watching glee during the "Without you" I started crying because I have that. I have someone that loves me that way, and someone that I love that way. Sometimes, it will rush over me, taking me by surprise that someone could love me that much and vice versa.

Big day yesterday.

It's still a G life

Changed my name cause life's a changing around these parts.

it's a process

 I am alive!

My husband walked in on the mess that is my closet, saw me sitting among mounds of despair and just looked around speechless “it’s a process” I tried to reassure him. The closet it 10 times worse than it was, I have stuff pulled out that I didn’t even know was in there, but in the words of my mom “you have to make a bigger mess to get the job done right.”  Wise woman right there.

I am not going to lie, sitting among these mounds is daunting, it almost makes me want to throw in the towel and maybe try again next year… almost though. I am ready to get this place, meaning the whole house, organized. Husband and I are terrible at it, I chalk it up to bad habits while husband is saying it is because we are the babies of the family. I know I am because there wasn’t a lot of structure in my house growing up, I didn’t have chores and I could keep my room anyway I wanted it. Sure I would clean up, but it was when we didn’t have any more clean silverware or socks. Husband is bad at it because his mom did everything for him, yeah I said it, but its ok he will admit to it.

I always feel better when I walk in to a clean space and I think I need that right now, my life is hectic to say the least and it is only going to get more so. I decided that after the closet organization, I want to tackle the house, one room at a time. I want to file, shred, throw away anything and everything. Then I want to clean the shit out of my house. Like really clean it . I am a beat around the bush cleaner, the main areas will be clean-ish but the rest of the house is usually in shambles. I hate this, husband hates it (to which I said do something about it if it hate it so much. Snarky? Yes, needed to be said, yes.) and I always said that my house wasn’t going to be like my house growing up, which was trashed until we had a reason to clean it, then it was like a marathon.

This process is going to be a slow one but one that will bring me some serious Zen.  Cheers! To taking control of my out of control house!

 

Downsizing

What I am about to show you is unspeakable and I am truly ashamed of it.

  This closet is huge and most of the time a mess, you would think that having such a huge closet would be a blessing but honestly it is a curse. I know clothes are a necessity but let’s not lie here and say that for most women it is way more than that, it is a form of expression for us and makes us feel good about ourselves. That is where the problem for me lies, I keep buying clothes because  I want so badly to feel good about myself, to look in the mirror and think I look good instead of “well, that is as good as it is going to get.” But because of my self-deprecating ways I have accumulated a lot. And I kept most of it. I also like the variety of it all, I think another reason I kept everything is because if it fits, which as a plus sized girl on a very limited budget, it stays in my closet until it is threadbare.

With all of this comes mountains of clothes.  I used to enjoy reveling at the collection I had created and now it is embarrassing. I haven’t had to get rid of anything in 3 years (I still did donate in the spring and fall), so my closet has just accumulated more clothing. I am actually ashamed of the amount of clothes I have and how much money I have spent on clothes that I didn’t need. Now,  I avoid my closet at all costs because it is just too overwhelming,  I live out of a laundry basket and have a week’s worth of clothing that I keep wearing over and over again, while my closet door stays closed. 

I have done that before in my closet and it ended in me getting rid of almost everything I had and not even realizing it (circa 2004).  So far I have made a list of what I know I want to keep, that way I pull those pieces out of the fray early, I have also made a list of what  I know I want to get rid of.  Then it is going to be a matter of going through everything and deciding what stays and what goes. Included in this will be the 2 bags of clothes that reside in basement, the 3 drawer fulls and finally 3 boxes.

This is going to take forever.

If I don’t post in 2 days…. Send a search party.

 

is it me? or them?

I went to the movies with husband last week and while waiting for the movie to start we people watched. I noticed that the majority of the people were girls ages 16-18 and they all looked the same.

Husband and I laughed and thought about when we were in high school did we all look like that? These girls were all wearing, ugg boots, skinny jeans, a North Face fleece, a scarf and had a Vera Bradley bag in their lap, iphones out.

I suddenly realized that I too was wearing something eerily similar, give or take the name brands. I thought to myself are they trying to look like me or am I trying to look like them? Are they trying to look 25 or am I trying to look 16?

Are the age lines that blurred? I remember when I was younger and felt that you could always tell when you were in the presence of an older woman, not your mom older, but older. When you were in college you started dressing like woman and not a teenager, then when you graduated you dressed for success and then were limited to mom jeans once you popped one out.

I remember being excited about these passages in woman hood as I saw it but since then there has been a shift. I don't know when the shift happened but I am left confused. Is it because I am in my mid 20's and am at a cross roads? I think it is.

I think it also has something to do with the fact that I am in college but I am not really college age anymore.

When I left the theater that night I told husband that it was time that I gave my closet a face lift fit for a girl that is approaching her late 20's and wants to do so with class, style and better sense of her self than she came in to her 20's with.

First stop, purging the old, to make way for the new.

Baby steps

Remember when I said I really need to refocus my life?

Well today was not that day and it really showed. It showed when my internet went down at around 9 when I was in the middle of taking a quiz and I freaked the eff out. I was stomping around cursing the wifi Gods for forsaking me. Because aaaaaaaaall day we had no problems, then it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe I should have done this earlier in the day? You know, instead of watching hours of house hunters, house hunters international, property virgins....

I did get the tree down today so that is something, yet I still found myself scrambling and in a state of panic.I will say I love the can I?, will I? approach to procrastination and it hard to deny my natural urges when I have documented proof that some of  my best work as been wire work.

Alas, I need to focus because this isn't some throw away class, it is one that I will use on an everyday basis.

I did get my planner in order and starting tomorrow I am going to follow through with my plan and leave the tv off and actually devote time to my studies. The next step is to make a space for this to happen. We have a 3 bedroom house with a finished basement. Well we have a room, our guests have a room and my mom lives in our basement so that leaves the smallest of the rooms.

This is meant to someday be the nursery but since that has been put on the back burner it is now Husbands man cave but there is a problem. I got husband a PS3 for Christmas because I am the best wife ever, the problem lies in the fact that we have to keep it in the main living space for the blu-ray player. Now that he has this awesome new gaming system, he is never in his man cave.

I decided to ask husband as nicely as I could if we could convert the man cave in to more of an office for my studies. He lamented and tried to tell me that he would still use it and I rolled my eyes so hard they almost spasm-ed  out of their sockets. 

in order for this to happen we would need to get rid of the futon, the small desk, the TV... ok pretty much everything. And when I told him this list he started talking about keeping these relics of bachelor hood and I didn't know how to angle this.

I need a quite space away from everything so I don't get distracted (ADD does that to ... SQUIRREL!)
and that is the only space available. He is considering it now because my mom said we can stash our stuff in her storage unit so we aren't "getting" rid per-say. To be honest that was probably my first misstep was using the "getting rid of" terminology. 

I did compromise and said that I wouldn't take anything off the walls, they are covered in Auburn paraphernalia.  But there is one wall, one glorious wall that doesn't have a spec on it and I have deemed suitable for my desk.I am going to be spending a lot of time in this room and I don't care how ghetto it looks but I plan to paint it and decorate that little corner of solace.

I am thinking something like this:




I am leaning more towards the dark wall with a pop of color. My decor isn't very modern and I have been dying for a little edge  and I think a grey, black, white and yellow scheme will do the trick.