Heavenly Father,
Please give me the strength to get through the rest of this day. Please help me be nice even though I don’t feel like it. Please help me look for the good in people instead of picking out all of the negative things that get on my nerves. Please help me see people through Your eyes.
I am proud to say that I’m on Day 10 of my most recent fitness efforts! I’m a little bit shocked to have made it this far to be honest. Like so many other women, I have started and stopped countless times on the elusive “fitness journey.”
Day 10 and Going Strong
What I’m doing:
Results so far:
Height: 5′ 6.5″
Starting Weight (SW): 195 lbs, 40%+ body fat percentage
Goal Weight (GW): approx. 135 lbs, healthy fat percentage
On Day 1 I was actually 192.6 lbs, but I count from 195 because that’s my highest weight. On Day 5 I was 188.8 lbs. Since then, I have not been relying on the scale because I’m approaching my period, and I’ve been working out. Between the water retention and the swollen muscles the scale will not be accurate. The scale never tells the whole story anyway. As women, our weight fluctuates quite a bit; muscle weighs much more than fat and so on. This morning my fat percentage was down to 38.8% (40.1% on Day 1), but my weight read 191.00 lbs. Never trust the scale alone! It’s ok to weigh, but pay more attention to how your clothes fit and how you feel!
I am blessed to have made it this far, and I pray that I will be able to reach my goals this time without stopping and gaining it all back. As I look at my list of things I’m doing I can’t believe it’s me talking. Trust me, eleven days ago I was bingeing and gobbling up every sugary, fattening thing I could get my hands on! Right here is where I want to use cliches like, “If I can do it you can too,” and “Once you put your mind to it you can do anything.” I don’t want to sound self-righteous though because I know where I was eleven days ago (and for a long time before that).
If you want to change start small. I’m doing several things at once because I have something big coming up (I’ll talk about that soon in another post). Perhaps you could fill up your water bottle and take it to work instead of hitting the vending machines for a soda? Eat the same stuff you always do, but have a little bit less today? Anything you can change for the better will open you up to the potential for more and bigger changes.
My Motto: I’m closer than I’ve ever been!
(No matter how many times I’ve stopped, cried, started, stopped, cried, gorged myself on fattening crap, given up on reaching my goals, cried, felt horrible about the way I look/feel, cried…)
Oh yeah, I cry a lot by the way. Happy, sad, angry, hormonal… All my emotions come straight out my tear ducts. God bless my sweet husband for talking calmly to me when I’m blubbering away into a handful of toilet paper.
I’ll be posting more about my efforts to get fit and healthy. Stay tuned, and please comment if you have questions or would like to share what you are doing to get healthier. Thanks!
Last Wednesday Tyler and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. He surprised me at work with these roses. Well, I returned from lunch to find the flowers. He had arrived not five minutes after I left for lunch with coworkers. He was so disappointed he didn’t get to see me, but I still appreciated the roses and the fact that he came to see me at work.
My anniversary flowers. That’s a picture of us I keep on my desk at work.
I thank God for a wonderful husband, and I pray for many more anniversaries to come. I feel like it is 3 going on 50. 
Next week we are expecting a new member of the family… of the canine variety. Tyler and I finally decided it was time to get a dog, and we are super excited about getting our puppy next week!
Layla is a Boston Terrier. Tyler’s friend Andrew has a Boston Terrier, and without realizing it we fell in love with the breed. I spent many hours searching online for the right breeder, researching the breed, etc. At long last I located a puppy listed as “June Bug” on a breeder’s website out of Arkansas. I tried finding a breeder I liked closer to home, but I was not successful. At first we were told she would be flying into our nearest major airport, but after talking to the airlines our breeder informed us that she would be ground shipped. We are in a little mountain town on the east coast, so she will travel for about thirteen hours. I am praying she makes it safely and that she isn’t stressed by the trip.
She was between 2-3 weeks here when we first found her.
Here she is at about 3 and 1/2 weeks.
Sniffing a leaf at five weeks old.
She melts our hearts.
Sticking her tongue out at six weeks.
I cannot wait to meet her in person… and hold her… and pet her. Won’t be long now! When we first found her it seemed like the next five weeks would take forever. I’m glad we found her as young as we did so that we could prepare for her and get her at just the right age.
I am working like crazy at home this week trying to get things organized and cleaned. We finally moved Tyler’s things out of his dad’s house, so he has to help me sort through his belongings. My wonderful sister has been helping me here and there to go through things and get my house in order. All these things need done anyway, but with Layla coming soon I want to get them out of the way so I can enjoy her (and so things are put away where she can’t get into them).
I’ve long suspected I needed a puppy to heal something inside me. I was never allowed to have a dog of my own; this will be my first puppy ever. It will be fun, but in a way I’d like to skip the messy puppy phase and go straight to an older calmer dog that just likes to curl up on the couch with me. Ah well. All in good time. For now we are looking forward to raising her. It will be a big adjustment to our lifestyle. We have never had animals in the house. I never thought I would WANT any indoor pets, but when we decided we wanted a Boston Terrier I knew she would be an indoor dog. I am really looking forward to having a little companion.
Stay tuned… More Layla Tales to come!
Today is not our wedding anniversary, but four years ago today we became “official” as a couple. Official as in watching Pirates Of The Caribbean and me saying, “So.. How would you feel about me being your girlfriend?” Turns out he was alright with that. 
This July we will celebrate our third wedding anniversary.
We Had Been Dating About A Month
I just connected yesterday that our getting together anniversary is on “pot smoking day.” Go figure. For the record, I have never smoked pot.
Us November 2011
These have been the best four years of my life. I thank God often for bringing me together with the man I’m supposed to be with!
Wednesday I had to face facts and realize how nasty I’d let my house get. I got really depressed about it. After a bit I realized crying wouldn’t help anything (I express emotion through tears), so I decided to get to work. I worked that evening and night until about one in the morning, got a good night’s sleep, and worked most of the day yesterday. There is still a lot to do, but I made some progress. Some progress is better than no progress compiled by ever-growing mountains of dirty laundry and dishes (not to mention the general dirt, dust, spider webs, etc.).
Living Area As Of Wednesday Afternoon
Remembering Fly Lady’s words of wisdom I first cleaned my sink and washed the dishes. It is amazing how much influence the kitchen holds over the rest of the home. I still have a bunch of stuff to organize in the kitchen (stuff I pulled out of cabinets weeks ago), but I did get the items all into the kitchen area rather than kitchen and living room. I don’t want to just shove everything into the cabinets. I want things in some sort of order. Part of my problem is my huge but not storage-friendly lower cabinets. (I’ll post pictures of them soon.)
My Shiny Sink Woohoo!
I washed, oh I don’t know, 5 – 7 loads of laundry. I actually had done laundry about a week and a half ago, but with that round of laundry I ended up with a mountain of clean laundry. It was so annoying that after days of wading into the heap to find something my husband folded what was left of the pile! I appreciated him doing that, but I felt terrible that I let the pile happen in the first place. He folded everything that was clean and put his stuff away; he left the towels and my clothes since he wasn’t sure where I wanted them. I re-folded most of what was left, but I didn’t tell him that. It’s the thought that counts. It was sweet that he folded them, because laundry is pretty much my department. (Note to self: A clean laundry pile is only slightly better than a dirty laundry pile!) Oh, and this time around I got everything folded/hung up and put away. Yay me!
I straightened, did some sweeping, did some rearranging in the living room, gathered trash… Started on the bathrooms. I got our shower/toilet room cleaned (not perfect, but HUGE improvement over what is was). Still have to do the rest of our bathroom and the other bathroom, but I woke up today with a splitting headache and haven’t felt like moving.
Much Cleaner Living Area Thursday Afternoon
The shower/toilet room was the most offensive area of the house. I took before pictures, but I am too ashamed to share them. Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough, but it was BAD.
Gearing Up To Attack The Nastiness
Yes, I really wore a dust mask in the hopes of breathing in a minimal amount of spores. (I sprayed the room down with strong bleach water Wednesday night and let the fumes die down overnight. I prefer to use vinegar and natural cleaners as much as possible, but I felt like this job called for Clorox.)
Cleaner Toilet/Ugly Flooring
A Huge Improvement, Believe It Or Not
Yes, this is the “after.” If you are thinking it still looks icky be glad I didn’t post the “before” pictures. And yes, that is good ol’ duct tape. The plastic shower is old and keeps cracking. (The plastic shower is also stained.) We will have to remodel the shower/toilet room at some point. Ah, one day…
I really hate parts of my house… I use the term “house” loosely; it’s actually a used mobile home. (I need to do a post about our land/home.) We went against the cultural norm and went into minimal debt starting out in our marriage. I don’t regret for a moment our decision to purchase a used mobile home (even if there are many things I would like to change/upgrade). It gives us shelter, and we don’t have a 100K+ mortgage hanging over our heads. Peace of mind is worth a lot.
The floors in particular are terrible. Patched and broken vinyl tile-like stuff and old, icky carpet. The tile-like stuff is the hardest to live with because it’s impossible to clean thoroughly. I hypothesize that that is one of the reasons I procrastinate cleaning the floors; even when I clean them they don’t seem very clean. That is disheartening. I had to give myself a talking to Wednesday whenever I decided to buck up, get off my butt, and make a dent in the mess I live in… I reminded myself why we live in an old trailer with crappy floors. One day I will likely have nicer flooring. Having ugly parts in my house is no excuse for not doing the best I can. As Tony Horton would say: “Do your best; forget the rest!” That is wonderful advice. My floors may be ugly, but I can clean them to the best of my ability. I want people who enter my home to be able to tell that I care for it and clean it.
I believe my biggest problem is laziness. I’m great at making excuses. My favorite is: “One day I will be a mom, and I will never have time to be lazy ever again.” I have used this excuse for all kinds of reasons. This week through spending time with God and reading the bible and reading certain blog posts I’ve been reminded that now is the time when I need to be preparing to BE a mom. I will not overnight learn how to keep house, cook from scratch and manage my time well. It’s ok for me to enjoy things now that will be a luxury later on (like sleeping in), but I really need to practice for the days ahead. One source of inspiration was this post by Whitney: Homemaking Without Children.
On a happy note, as part of my recent motivation I baked rolls yesterday. I really wanted to do something nice for Tyler. I’ve been talking about making more of our bread. I knew it would make me feel awesome and domestic to bake bread. I modified one of Amy’s recipes. I made the dough required for her Ham and Cheese Pockets, but I didn’t add the filling. I separated the dough into twenty balls, flattened each one with my palm, and pinched the sides together on the bottom so that the top would be smooth when they baked. They turned out great!
Hearty, Delicious White Whole Wheat Rolls
In closing, I’ll say it for you as well as myself: It is so much more fun to read blogs about keeping home than to actually get up and clean something of our own! But trust me, living in a cleaner house feels SO much better than living in filth. For the past several weeks I’ve been obsessive about blogs/blogging because I decided to start mine, and because I love reading home-related blogs! I’ve neglected my house for too long due to laziness and blog obsession. That ends now. One of the reasons I wanted to blog was to hold myself accountable for keeping home (and all the other things I need to be doing).
When I was in tears Wednesday about the house and what a “terrible wife” I was, my sweet husband assured me that I was a great wife and that I simply need to focus a bit on time management. I love that man with all my heart. I’m going to work a whole LOT on time management.
What about you? Do you need to shut the laptop and shine your sink? Do you hate to clean? Do you put off cleaning your bathroom until you simply can’t stand it anymore? This is a safe space. lol. I won’t judge you as long as you don’t judge me.
- Miriam
It’s been a week since my last post. As I don’t yet have a following this is not a big deal. Busy week last week. It was my working week. (Soon I will write a post about my awesome job at which I work 40 hours every other week.)
So, worked last week. Didn’t get enough sleep. Had a touch of the creeping crud. Went Saturday with my sister shopping for wedding dresses. She’s getting married Spring 2013. She didn’t find the one, but we got an idea of what she likes. We had a fun day together. Bestest sistery friends are great!
Sunday morning I set my cell phone alarm for 7:30 and my alarm clock across the room (thereby forcing me to actually get up) for 8:00. I was so out of it.. I didn’t get up until about ten after 9:00. Sunday School starts (technically) at 9:45. I did the basics to make myself presentable, got Tyler up, (Don’t get me started on how little time men need to get ready!) and we made it to church on time because SS doesn’t start on time much. I was disappointed to learn that our pastor was not there and a young pastor in training would be speaking. Don’t get me wrong – everybody has to learn, and this fella is a very sincere young man. I was just hoping to hear our pastor because we have not been attending this church very long, and my husband works nights so we have only gotten to attend together a handful of times. This Sunday made three of the handful of times we’ve been together that the main pastor was not preaching. The very first time we went together they had a Gideon speaker, and another time this same young guy spoke.
I felt very guilty for thinking, “Man, if I’d known the pastor wouldn’t be here I wouldn’t have made myself get out of bed.” That’s not a good attitude to have. For the record I’m extremely glad I went to church Sunday. I heard things I needed to hear, and we are instructed to worship with fellow believers.
Yesterday I was lazy most of the day. I finished watching Big Bang Theory: Season Four on DVD. I LOVE that show. Was only introduced to it recently, but I am hooked. (How about you? Have you seen it? Do you love it?) So yeah, was lazy because I still didn’t feel great from the crud. Got up in the evening and actually did dishes and got most of the kitchen cleaned up (not counting all the kitchen stuff still waiting to be organized in the cabinets). I rearranged some of my cabinets recently. Pulled all this stuff out two or three weeks ago, and most of it is still sitting around on my kitchen table and on the treadmill in the living room. As a side note: I really should be putting the treadmill to better use. I’ll probably post some before/after pictures of the kitchen cabinets.
This morning I read the entire book of Ephesians and spent some time in prayer/devotion. This is the first day I’ve done that in a long time. I’m not proud of that. I know that in order for things to go well I have to spend time with God. I know things are not going to run smoothly if I am not making God a priority. I know these things, yet I don’t act like it matters a lot of the time.
I once heard a preacher say something to the effect of: “If you want more money, give more away. If you want more time, give more away…” It was something like that. At the first of this year I got convicted about the way we tithe (I will write a post about that sometime). Now we enjoy the benefit of receiving more blessings financially because we choose to tithe better than we used to.
There are so many things I want to accomplish and many days I’m too busy or too lazy to work on the things I really want to be doing. When I do get motivated to get stuff done I make lists and then try to do as much as I can. Time with God always gets pushed to a back burner. “I know it’s something I need to do, but gosh if I sit down in the morning to read my bible and pray I’ll probably end up doing that a long time and I have so much stuff to do today…”
I have had an epiphany about this (more than once – I keep forgetting it). If I give money to the Lord and in turn He makes sure I have enough money to live on… Why would he not do the same with my time? If I choose to spend time with him each day, and as part of that time I beg for help to get my house cleaned and organized and to be a good wife and to not “eat the bread of idleness”, will He not reward my faithfulness and help me find the time to accomplish the things I need to be doing in a day’s time? Will He not mold me into the woman He is calling me to be? I believe that He will! I think He lets things be difficult so that we will come running to Him asking for help.
I must remember this, and I must make the effort to spend time with God until it simply becomes a habit. I must remember that things are not going to be okay unless I am sticking close by the Father for guidance.
How about you? Do you struggle to make time for God? Do you have a habit of reading your bible and praying? When do you do this? Was it hard to make it part of your routine?
Remember: He doesn’t just want us to come to Him when we’re whining about life. He wants us to commune with Him on the good days as well – the days when we praise His name for life being wonderful!
I have been working all evening on blog-related stuff. (Check out my “About” page.) I have been fighting with maddeningly intermittent internet (wow – say that three times fast). Alas, I do not have high-speed internet at home. Lack of high-speed service is the only thing I don’t like about this beautiful piece of land we live on. We are just far enough out of town that no good high-speed providers are available to us. Maybe one of these days they’ll make it back here to our neck of the woods.
I must turn in for the night. Busy week ahead. Was fortunate to have today off as a Holiday. We will pay for it tomorrow I’m sure. Good night!
-Miriam
I have taken great pains tonight to establish my blogging alias. I have my reasons for this second identity. It’s not what you may think. I researched this topic, and it seems that most people who want their identity to remain a secret are afraid of the public. They want a blog that only their friends and family can view.
Well you see, I’m just the opposite. I plan to grow my blog into a business (slowly, but surely), so of course I want to interact with the public. I don’t want family and friends viewing my blog. You may wonder why this is. For one I am a private person by nature. For another I have many interests that aren’t exactly the norm for a young woman in her early 20s. Also, I need to get established and find my “blogging voice” and all that good stuff.
Basically I would be really self-conscious knowing friends and family are reading everything I write. For example I am obsessed with all things baby-related. I’m not ready to have a baby right this minute, but I feel like I am already a mother in my heart. I love learning about pregnancy, breastfeeding, newborn care, and beyond. So how weird would I feel writing about breastfeeding knowing everybody I know will see it? SO weird. I realized some time ago that I would have to write under an alias to be myself and write about the things I’m truly passionate about.
Other topics I wouldn’t share with all my friends and family include my feelings about herbal healing, being a SAHM (Lord willing), having a large family (if that’s His will for us), etc.
I certainly hope it doesn’t offend you that I choose to write anonymously. It’s a small world, so if you happen to come across my true identity please don’t leave tracks linking my blog life back to my real life. That would be awkward. lol. Thanks a bushel!
- Miriam
