February 7, 2011

Tonight my husband and I took our 14-year-old son to registration for his freshman year of high school next year.  Afterwards it hit me like a ton of bricks!  My baby is going to be a freshman in high school!  Our older daughter will be a senior next year.  This makes me very sad.  My babies have grown so fast.  I wonder where all the time went?  It just flew by!  Realizing that half your life is over and you only have half left to live, is a very hard thing.  My husband is going to be 45 in July and I will be 43 in July, our birthdays are two weeks apart.

I don't feel deep down in my soul like I am a middle-aged woman!  I feel very young on the inside!  Sometimes I need to be reminded of my age!  I related to younger people very well.  On the outside I need a lot of improvement.  I gained a lot of weight after getting married and having babies.  I lost it all once, in about 2002, for a class reunion.  As soon as it was over, however, I went back to my old ways.  I really want to workout more to get back in shape.  My problem with that is that I work 3 part-time jobs, and work nights, weekends, days, whenever.  In some ways, I know I use this as an excuse.  Hopefully starting tomorrow I can get back into it.  Get with it!

I also need to really figure out where I am going with my career/job.  I don't want to continue to work 3 jobs.  I am seriously considering going back to school very soon.  I'm not really sure for what though.  I am afraid that I will go back and get a degree in something else and still not be able to find a good job.  I currently have two BAs, journalism and English. I'm thinking of going back for teaching English.  I think I would enjoy this. I'm thinking this would take at least two years.  I feel like I'm running out of time.  My daughter will be starting college in a year, and I may be in college at the same time!

When we are young we romanticize about what our life will be when we are older.  Nowhere in there did I work 3 jobs!  TV and magazines really give a false interpretation of what life really is like.  I am a small town Iowa girl who grew up on a farm.  Sometimes I think location, location, location!  What would my life be like if I grew up in a major city like New York?  Then maybe I would work for a magazine or a publishing company.  In Iowa, I could have worked for a small town newspaper where I wouldn't get paid very much.  We lived in Denver for about 3 years.  The closest I got to a writing career was working as a secretary in an advertising department for a business newspaper, The Denver Business Journal.  After our daughter was born we decided the city was not for us and we moved back to Iowa.  I suppose really that I never tried to find a writing job in Iowa.  I sort of just fell into being a secretary, having an English degree.  I was a secretary for about 18 years.  The last two years I have worked part-time in customer service at a grocery store, part-time at GNC as a sales associate, and part-time as a merchandiser for Nabisco cookies and crackers.

Something does need to be said for living in Iowa.  I believe our ethics and beliefs are also stronger.  We were raised well.  We are glad to be raising our children in small town Iowa. I'm sure they will spread their wings and explore the city at some point in their lives.  But I am also sure they will return to Iowa.

The future is the future and what will be will be. :)

Peace & Love

Hitting the Jackpot

One day I dream of having a stress-free life!
Oh, man, would that be nice!

Hell yes, I'd love to live like a queen!
That is my ultimate dream!

I know that it is the little things in life that are most important.
Having a little extra money would make enjoying them more potent!

To travel the world as a family,
Would be living the dream like Disney!

Being able to give your kids all their desires,
Nothing could make me higher.

Oh, and I would give some to charity.
I am more than willing to spread the winning spree!

I would love having resources to help others,
Such as all the unwed mothers.

A little to the church I'd give too,
Giving to God is what I'd do!

Let me win the lottery!
That would mean everything to me!

Show Me the Way

Lost in the dark,
myself I find falling a part.

Where is the light to point my direction?
Has it been extinguished without my recollection?

How does your inner spirit, your sense of self, disappear?
What does it take to see it all clear?

A free mind, a free heart,
That would be the way to start.

How do you release the demons in your soul?
Please tell me where I need to go?

It's like being lost in a foreign land.
I need someone to take my hand.

Walk with me,
Help me find the light,
Then everything will be alright.

It will be then that it all makes sense.
I'll know how my life must be spent.

Weight Loss Update

I got on the scale this morning and got a huge surprise!  I have lost 5 lbs.  I'm hoping when I get on tomorrow that it doesn't go up again, but it probably will.  My goal is to exercise more next week.  Starting tomorrow I plan to hit the gym!  I can do this! 

I did eat kind of bad today.  I had a poached egg sandwich for breakfast, but didn't eat it all.  For lunch I chowed down on a sub with two packs of mayo.  For supper Jeff and I went to a Mexican restaurant.  I only ate half my food and had one Corona.  Tonight I've had a diet dessert that I made from sugar-free ingredients and three half glasses of wine.  The good thing is that I'm hardly hungry ever.

How the Diet/Healthy Lifestyle is Going

Well, I have been keeping up with the eating part, but I haven't been back in the gym yet.  I'm still down 3 lbs.  I have been eating very little during the day, and then eating a bigger meal at suppertime.  I have cut down to no pop at all. However, I have been drinking energy drinks lately - AMP and Rockstar.  These are both good and bad.  Good because of all of the vitamins and herbs in them, bad because they have lots of calories.  Actually, the Rockstar I have been drinking is sugar free, just remembered!  Yeah!


I've still been doing the Hydroxy-Cut and CLA.  I've been taking Abdominal Cuts, which is CLA and GLA and some other things, like sesame seed oil.  A lot of celebrities use this, such as Kendra Wilkinson and Trista from the Bachelorette.  A friend let me borrow some from her.  They are somewhat expensive, on sale right now for $44.99, and usually I think $48.99.


The only exercising I've been doing faithfully are resistance band exercises for my tendonitis in my shoulders and tricep.  I have to do them every other day or I have pain.  I also have to do stretches for my shoulders twice a day.  I wish I could walk on the treadmill at least every other day too!  I guess I need to make time to do this, no matter how tired I am.  It has been freezing outside and I haven't felt like going out once I get home.


I have been drinking lots of water also.  My husband bought some water and I was drinking it until I started having some digestive issues with it.  Now I get water out of our fridge at home and put it in the water bottles.


With cutting down what I'm eating, I found that I have to be careful because on day I didn't eat enough and by night time at work I thought I was going to faint.  Not good.  It's hard to eat when you're not hungry though.

New Year's Resolution

On Tuesday, January 4th, I started my New Year's resolution.  I have started eating lots of fruit and drinking loads of water.  I actually lost 3 lbs in the first day.  It really works if you eat small amounts every two hours it increases your metabolism.  I actually did this once before and lost 35 lbs.  I also am taking some supplements - Hydroxy Cut and CLA from GNC.  I went back to the gym for the first time one Wednesday night after work.  I walked 2 miles on the treadmill.  I will keep it up.  I have about 45 to 50 lbs to lose.

I thought I would really miss drinking Mountain Dew, but I really don't.  I have drank some diet pop, but I really have cut down to about 2 cans a day.

I will try to update my blog to let you know how it's going and to let you know I'm still doing it!  I'm hoping to be bikini-ready this year. :)  The last time I was in shape was two years ago.

Christmas 2010

I haven't written on my blog for a very, very long time.  I'm not sure why.  Either, I haven't found time or lost interest.  Well, I decided to update tonight since one of my two followers has said she misses my blogs!  :)

Well, I'm still working 3 jobs.  I don't bitch about it as much as I used to though.  I have figured out how to control my own schedule and not let the work control me.  Thank God!  I was very stressed out before discovering how to do this.  I also changed from checking to customer service at Hy-Vee.  There is a lot more freedom in CS.  It can be very busy and crazy at times, but overall, good.  I work about 28 - 30 hours at Hy-Vee, 9 hours at GNC and about 10 hours for Kraft Foods.

My husband switched jobs from being a sales rep for Dr. Pepper/7-Up to being a bread truck driver for Sara Lee bread company.  The alarm goes off for him at 2:15 am five days of the week.  I have found myself waking up automatically at that time, even when he doesn't need to get up.  Interrupted sleep isn't good. :(.  Such is life though.  Sara Lee is being bought out by a company called Bimbo and we are just praying that Jeff doesn't lose his new position with the company.  That would be quite devastating to say the least.

Dalton was playing competitive traveling basketball for a team out of Marion, Iowa - 3 hours away, but has quit.  The coaches were not the friendliest people.  They wouldn't even say hello to you at a tournament.  They also didn't want Dalton to shoot 3 pointers.  This is a problem because he is a 3 point shooter.  He is still playing for his school team in 8th grade.

Elle, our junior, didn't go out for basketball.  She is concentrating on her studies, which is paying off.  She is doing excellent in school and has taken college classes.  She has a boyfriend who has been spending a lot of time with us on the weekends.

I was supposed to settle my lawsuit this month, but I decided to go to an orthopaedic doctor to see if I had anything more serious wrong with me than tendonitis.  He just concluded I had tendonitist in my tricept muscle.  I went back to physical therapy and it is now out of my bicept and I am feeling much better.  I should be done with physical therapy for the second time next week.  Then, hopefully, we can get this thing settled and behind us.  Can't believe it's almost been a year since the accident happened.

Today is Christmas Day 2010.  It was a great Christmas.  The kids got clothes mostly and I-Touches.  I'm not sure what that is.  Elle and I also got new Blackberrys.  That was a big surprise!  I was using a really old one that is huge and people can't believe it's a phone at all.  It will be nice when we get them switched over on Monday.  The kids are home for another week or so, until after New Year's.  Jeff and I are planning on going to Des Moines for New Year's Eve night.  Probably hit the casino, my favorite thing to do! 

Well, I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and will have a terrific New Year in 2011!  That is scary to say!  Elle graduates in 2012!\  Where has time gone?