One week into the new year and I feel like my resolutions are already making my life easier. If you’ll recall, I basically decided to quit adding food to my plate (Thanks, Swistle) and even take some side-dishes off that are already on because while I like my food touching in real life? My metaphorical food should not contaminate it’s neighbors. Basically I have my main course (Family) and then a good helping of 2 of my favorite veggies (Blogging and Photography) and THAT IS IT. I’ve given away my craft supplies to NikkiZ’s school and I’ve stopped bookmarking new projects in my Google Reader just because they look easy.

Example: These Classroom Valentine’s Ideas are brilliant and the Pop Flowers would be so quick and easy. But you know what I’ve learned the last few years? Quick and Easy still takes time. Which means time away from something else. Namely: Family, Blog, Photography and Job Hunt. And I’m trying to simplify my life this year so no matter how Quick and Easy and SO TOTALLY CUTE something seems? I’m not even letting myself consider it. No ma’am. Move along with you and your cute candy flowers. I’m buying a bag of candy and that’s IT.

I even stopped making handmade Thank You cards. While I think the sentiment of these cards is sweet, I have 50+ so far to write to my donors for my fundraiser and what’s important is that I write them. And let’s be realistic…making 50 Thank You cards would take forever. Whereas I can go buy some and just spend more time writing the note on the inside. And let me tell you something I realized yesterday: There are some beautiful Thank You cards out there. I bought the only two packs they had of this one style with an oragami butterfly but I swear I want to send one to myself: They are THAT CUTE. Love them. If you’ve donated I assure you that you will be getting the cutest card Target offers. It may not be as unique as if I made it myself, but I promise you it will be prettier. SERIOUSLY. Check out the Thank You card section at Target next time you’re there. I’m actually considering buying some of the blank notecard sets to frame. They’re THAT PRETTY.

Sidenote: If you donated and receive a Thank You card from me? I apologize for my penmanship. I forgot how ugly my handwriting is. I’ve always wished I had pretty handwriting…why isn’t that something I can teach myself? (BECAUSE I’VE TRIED!) Oh well, I think it’s at least legible. Focus on the front of the card, that’s the pretty part.

Anyway…my point? One week of making changes in my life to simplify things? And I can already tell a difference. I sent off 8 Thank You cards yesterday. I’m not sure if I would have even commited to thanking each donor if I was going to make them all. Now? I can. But it may take me awhile because it’s been a long time since I’ve written so much. 8 cards and my fingers started hurting. The College Me is making fun of me right now and reminding me the pages of notes I used to churn out in a 50 minute Dr. Kittle Ecology class. My fingers were obviously in better shape back then.

Now, let’s not discuss my failures in other areas. Like how I gained 5lbs over the holidays and haven’t even started to lose it again. When it takes you 9 months to lose 20lbs, gaining 5 in a few weeks is mightily impressive, don’t you think? But I’m confident I’ll get back on track…not losing hope. I will, however, be losing the recipe to Cake Poppers. I think those things are my downfall.

How about you? One week into the New Year and how do you feel?

I made a deliberate effort yesterday to take deep breaths and count to 10 more often to try to see how long I could stretch my patience. I was proud of myself as I had a much better day with my kids than I’ve had the last few weeks. And let me tell you: The Universe was trying to thwart my efforts ALL DAY!

There was the rain, first and foremost. The rain that would stop completely on my way into a store while I was running errands but became a torrential downpour on my way OUT of the store. The best? Was when we were leaving Sam’s Club. Because nothing in Sam’s gets bagged. Even bags of bread which taste AWESOME soaked in rain water. I was cursing myself for always parking in the back of the lot when a wonderful lady came over with her umbrella, held it over me and the kids, and escorted us to the van. I told her she was my good Samaritan. And maybe cried a little bit on her shoulder. Of course, will this encourage me to carry umbrellas? No. Because still, more often than not? A huge pain in my ass. The rain did same thing happened coming out of Target but we didn’t score an escort that time. And then the rain stopped right when we got to the van. Which I thought was the Universe’s way of saying, “What? It stopped! What more do you want?”

NikkiZ also deliberately peed all over the floor at school because she didn’t want to stop reading to go potty. *sigh* That’s all I feel like saying about that issue.

Then…as I was cooking banana bread later that afternoon LilZ called. He didn’t have rehearsal like I thought he did. He apologized for not reminding me, but he needed me to come get him. And it was cold (and rainy!) outside and he didn’t have any money and doesn’t like waiting inside places unless he can purchase something. I’m all, “Banana Bread! I don’t want to burn the house down!” I was also in the process of making homemade applesauce (WHAT? I know. I’m insane.) and in the rush to finish it all before the bread finished – I sliced off the tip of my thumb. It still hurts.

Finally – I had to run back out to Target for ink for our printer (School-age kids are very print-y, you know.) and they were out. So was Wal-Mart. Making the trips entirely fruitless. There are few things I hate worse than fruitless errands because that just means they were a HUGE waste of my time.

All in all? I held my cool. Even while bleeding to death in the kitchen. (Knives are sharp!) Dinner turned out great and no one minded the blood in the apples. I even managed to steam some fresh veggies with dinner, which always makes me feel good about myself. I didn’t lose it on the kids once, no matter how close I came several times. I just paused, and redirected. I noticed when I was about to lose my patience? Zerberting their belly seemed to help make me feel better. (How is “zerberting” not in my dictionary?) Something about a wholehearted belly laugh coming from a child kinda snaps me out of the FREAK OUT mode. It was a good day and I felt like I faced the forces trying my patience and came out the victor. Because if you don’t freak out on your kids after a day of Mother Nature attacking you at every turn? You deserve a reward. And I gave myself one in the form of a nice cold beer and some quality time with So You Think You Can Dance and Glee.

I’ve been keeping up with Julie’s Halloween Party saga and when I read about the one child showing up my worst fears had been realized. Granted, in someone else, but STILL. WORST. FEAR. And then? The kicker piece of good advice from her reader Ellen:

Thanks, everyone, for your sympathetic indignation, your support, and your suggestions. The one that I found most helpful was the observation Ellen made, that I need to “mommy network.” Leaving aside the fact that the idea of “mommy anything”ing fills me with trepidation, she’s right: “This is all about you socializing. Sorry, that’s the game.”

Mommy Networking. Wow. That’s what it’s called. The thing that I’ve been battling/dreading for years. Hell, my oldest child is almost 15, I’ve been avoiding this for over a decade.

Except that – oddly enough – it’s something I’ve been improving on since early October. It’s a very timely topic in my life, you could say.

Let me start by telling you how I deeply I’ve been avoiding these type of parental social situations. Until early October, I never attended ANY of the parties I was invited to at my children’s school. NONE of them. (I’m very glad our school has some sort of policy that EVERY kid has to be invited if the invitations show up at school. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been invited to any I’m sure.) Even when LilZ was young enough to be invited to these gatherings, I was avoiding them. I’ve been discarding invitations for years. The only contact I have had with the parents of my kid’s classmates was at school parties and functions. And then…I usually (conveniently) found myself running between classes, or taking pictures, or doing just about anything other than socializing with the other parents. I was so awkward around them that when I happened to run into anyone outside of school? I couldn’t even say, “Hi!” without being awkward. I often found myself running away down other aisles if they hadn’t seen me yet.

Julie? DUDE. I totally get you.

Sidenote – I’ve always gotten along swimmingly with the kids. They love me. They know me from times I drop my and hang out or now, when I pick up NikkiZ halfday and I hang out at lunch, they are familiar with my face and I don’t ever run from them. Because socializing with the under-5 crowd is no problem for me.

So, fast-forward to October when we were invited to a party for one of the director’s children. I know the staff of the school very well. For some reason, I’m not scared of them. We exchange books, tell funny stories about our kids, and ask follow-up questions about other family members. I consider them friends, so it was very easy to accept this invitation. And you know what? Once I got past the fear of the situation? I actually had fun.

Then we had our own party for NikkiZ and wanted to invited the classroom. I guess that’s when I realized that there is a group of kids at the school and in the classes that are regulars at the parties. No one else bothers to RSVP with regrets even when it says, “REGRETS ONLY.” And…um….I was one of those Ignore The Invitations parents. I learned through our process that maybe that was a little rude of me. (YOU THINK?) So, between having fun at our first school-related birthday party, and having our first party we invited school kids to, I learned that maybe I should make an attempt at this Mommy Networking.

So – just this past weekend? I went to ANOTHER party. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? This party was at one of the places that has all of the inflatable slides and stuff inside. I had never been to one of those parties before and I have made a decision: I will throw MYSELF a party at one of those places before I die. MARK MY WORDS. It was so fun. Of course, I ended up with injuries:

Yes, I was tweeting during a four-year-old’s birthday party. You can take the blogger away from her computer but you can’t make her STOP BLOGGING. Anyway – it was loads of fun. I could totally Mommy Network all day long if we can break it up with the periodic romp down a giant inflatable slide. I talked with one other Mom from school who even mentioned that her child’s upcoming party is going to be at the same place. I am praying it will be on a weekend we’ll actually be in town which it may not be as her birthday is around the time MrZ and I will be going to Tucson.

That’s a sign I’ve come a long way. If I can’t come to the party – I will actually call with my regret. And even more surprisingly? I will be SAD about it.

I don’t see me hosting any Mommy functions or anything anytime soon, but I have at least become comfortable enough around these parents that I may be able to speak to them at the grocery store. As a matter of fact? I saw one of them at Publix and WE TALKED. Granted…this particular Mother is fantastically charming and makes me feel very much at ease and not insecure like I often do. Either way, I talked to her. I didn’t run and hide down the aisles to avoid her.

It’s always about the baby steps, isn’t it?

These Kids Deserve The Best ME I Can Give Them

I’ve been thinking about the Yelling issue the last few days and about how, in my own life, that negative behavior can be blamed on the same thing a lot of my negative behavior can be blamed on: Acting Without Thinking.

I am the type of person who is constantly trying to better myself. I am also the kind of person who is often failing at trying to better myself. I like to think that makes me special. I often look at my failures and try to find common threads in them…maybe the root of the problem. What is it that makes me attempt these things and fail over and over again? And I realize that the majority of the problems in my life that I tackle over and over and over again – those problems could be solved if I would just learn to THINK before I act.

Let’s talk dieting. 2 weeks ago I proclaimed my joy over fitting into my size 8 jeans again. At that point in time I had lost 19lbs. Since then? I’ve gained 3 back. And let me tell you why: I’m to stressed/anxious/irritated to think before I binge.

When the thought occurs to me (often late at night) to indulge in something I shouldn’t…I immediately do it. I don’t think about why I shouldn’t…I just DO IT. It gets worse. If I can’t do it immediately – like if the thought is about french fries at the fast food place down the road – I purposely avoid thinking about it until I get there. So that I can eat it without feeling guilty first. Yes, of course I’ll feel guilty about it afterward, almost immediately afterward, but I’ll have already eaten it so – Too Late! Ha!. So sometimes I’m driving down the road to the ice cream place thinking, but not about the action I’m about to take. I’m thinking Oh! Pretty Tree! Funny Bumper Sticker! Ugly House! Dead Armadillo!, but I’m not thinking about the fried chicken tenders I’m about to inhale in 12.2 seconds. So therefore? No annoying subconscious to get in the way of my decision making.

But if I could just STOP and THINK, there are so many things in my life that I could change. STOP. Think about eating that browning before eating it…then maybe I can talk myself out of it. STOP. Think about yelling at my kids before I do it, then maybe I’ll come up with a better alternative. And then…here’s the big one: STOP. Think about any emotional response before I have it. Responding to anything with a boat load of emotion behind it? Always fails for me. Yet I do it ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Since Dad died, I feel like this bad habit of responding to a situation on fresh emotion? Has gotten much worse. And of course, when I’m responding off of emotion? There are probably tears involved. This never ends well. NEVER. I always feel like an idiot afterward, and usually my point doesn’t even get successfully made because the emotions block the path. If you start crying when trying to communicate with someone, the tears will either screw up the message, or the person on the receiving end of the message is so uncomfortable with the tears that the don’t pay attention to it. But mostly? I just look like an idiot.

One not-so-big-of-a-deal example is the day I got laid off. I was upset (obviously) and when I went to get the kids from daycare one of the directors had to remind me that I hadn’t paid my registration fee for the upcoming year. I was confused because I had thought it would just come out with tuition but it turns out they needed me to sign something to make that happen and I’m AWFUL about not reading the fine print. Well…I felt so stupid. I felt like a failure for getting laid off and then I forgot/messed up something for my kids. I hate being the parent that forgets stuff…so I kinda started crying. And then I wanted to convey that it was not HER making me cry so I said, “I’m sorry, I got laid off today…” to try to explain my tears. That didn’t help because then, of course, she thought I was upset about having to pay the late fee with no job. But that wasn’t it…I just needed to STOP TALKING and take several deep breaths and THINK. Because my emotions were screwing up what I was trying to say which was, “So Sorry! I’ll bring the check tomorrow!” and they were making her feel bad because she thought she was the one that made me cry.

See? STOP. Think. And more often that not? DEEP BREATHS. These things would come so in handy if I would just apply them.

So…instead of saying, “Back on track! I’ll lose that 3lbs!” or “Mom Mission: Decrease The Pointless Yelling!” – I’m going to try something different. I’m going to try to get to the root of the problem when I fail in my Many Missions To Improve Myself. I’m going to try to simply STOP. And then Think. I’m going to be deliberate with my actions. If I’m doing or saying something? It’s because I thought about it for a few seconds first. Maybe even a few minutes, if it’s a big thing. If I’m too emotional to respond in that moment, stop for a minute and breathe. Maybe don’t say anything. If I feel the urge to yell? Count to 10. Think about other ways of responding first. If I want that huge pumpkin muffin? Stop. Think. Maybe I want to walk around the block instead. Or do 5 push-ups.

For the rest of this week…that’s my goal. To be very deliberate in every step I make. I’ll kick start this by exaggerating a lot of the pauses in my mind so I can force myself into the habit. I’ll pause before EVERYTHING…just to get used to the feeling. Need to Pee? STOP. Think. Do I need to pee right now? Which bathroom should I use? Do I need to put on my shoes? STOP. Think. Which shoes should I wear? Deliberate on every mundane and stupid thing there is…just to get my mind used to the idea so that when the big things come up like the urge to scream, “I HATE YOU!” to my husband when he accuses me of throwing something away for the 10th time that day…I’ll know to stop and think and say something calmly like, “You know? You really make me want to blow my brains out sometimes.”

It’s always about the baby steps, right?

All of us who have had babies have discussed Baby Weight at least once after having our babies. And probably, we thought about it more than once. Some women are lucky and they gain little and it comes off easy. (And those women are BEYATCHES, right?) Then there are people like me:

1) I gained 68lbs with LilZ – took several years to lose it all.
2) I gained 60lbs with NikkiZ – still hadn’t lost the last bit 2 years later when I got pregnant with AndyZ.
3) I gained 50lbs with AndyZ. As of today, I weight 2 pounds less than I did the day I came home from the hospital. Meaning I have lost 2lbs in 9 months.

Considering I hadn’t finished losing the weight pre-AndyZ in the first place, I choose to use my pre-NikkiZ weight as my target. So, I am currently 43lbs away from that goal. I have been struggling to lose the weight quietly, away from my blog. I’ve gained and lost the same 10lbs over the last few months. Obviously? My quiet way isn’t working. It’s time for some accountability.

Now, I know my weight battle is not as extreme as some. My need to drop 43lbs would make some people want to punch me in the face. But, I just know that there was a time when I was lighter and healthier. It’s not just about the weight – it’s about the general lifestyle I’m living now. The frenzied eat fast and crash early lifestyle that makes me feel really disappointed in my body. It is not just the extra pounds, its that I no longer feel that pride in myself that I felt at healthier points in my life. I mean – there’s a huge difference in these two bodies physically and mentally.

I just felt good the day of that race. It wasn’t just about weight because I was a few pounds shy of my goal on that day. It was about respecting my body. Taking care of it with diet AND excercise. That other body? That body gets abused. It doesn’t get enough sleep, it drinks lots of caffeine, it eats lots of junk to cope with stress and it never ever gets any excercise. EVER.

(Sidenote: While looking through all of my race photos I found this one taken about 2.5 years ago. Look! I’m totally taller than LilZ!)

Anyway…I want that other body back. I want to feel like I’m taking care of myself because you know what? I deserve to take care of myself. I deserve that pride. I work too hard at my job and for my family to put myself last on my priority list. This is about weight – for sure – but also so much more than that. This is about finally saying, “I want to treat myself at least as good as I treat everyone else, maybe even better.” Why does everyone, even the cashiers at the grocery store, get more respect from me than I do from myself? That’s completely ridiculous.

So, I’m taking the initiative today. Today? I start to put myself on the priority list. I’ll vow to start finding time to excercise because someone else can do the laundry. I’ll make a point to buy healthy foods that I like, even if no one else in the house does. I’ll take time to reflect, maybe even start meditating, because right now I cope with anxiety by eating and that’s just not working for me. I’ll demand that my family allow me to do all of these things because you know what? It will benefit them in the long run. They can attest that Anxiety Zoot? Not that fun to live with. Add Unhappy With Her Body Zoot and Super Tired Zoot in the mix and you’ll find my family is looking into a vacation home. Fr away from me.

This will be largely about losing the weight. But it will also be about finding a way to take as good of care of myself as I do my family. Finding a way to put Me Time in the schedule, even if it means that I have to ask someone else to do the laundry for a change. Or vacuum. Or grocery shop.

My basic concrete goals are this:

1) Lose those 43lbs.
2) Run a half-marathon this fall/winter.

I’ll have several other mini-goals along the way, but those are my two biggies. I found out the hard way that training for a marathon with small children and a full-time job is close to impossible. At least in my life. I mean, I did it, but not well. Not the right way. So, I’m sticking with the half-marathon which is a much more attainable goal.

I have several more vague goals I’d like to strive for along the way. I want to shake up the diet and learn to eat and cook healthy foods that I haven’t already cooked 9-million times. I want to find some sort of relaxation/meditation regiment that will possibly allow me binge-eating to cope with anxiety. I want to not wear a t-shirt and shorts over my bathing suit when we go to the beach this summer. I want to be able to wear my wedding band again without getting it re-sized.

I’ll be documenting my journey at the Balanced Living website. My page is here and will hopefully show my introductory article soon. If you want to join me, I’d love to have you. There’s a great community over there full of inspirational stories and support. They’re even holding a contest through the end of the month where they’ll give the winner $5,000 to achieve their healthy living goal. $5,000 would pay for my gym membership AND periodic days at the spa! I’d love to have you over there.

For now? It’s all about the baby steps. Like joining the YMCA. I’m going to do that this week and maybe excercise for the first time in months. Be prepared for the Holy Shit, My Body Hurts entry that will follow. I’m sure it will be a good one.