Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Here I go again.....

Here I go again…..although unlike the song, I’m not on my own. Ha, love me some Whitesnake. No, I have God on my side, a wonderful hubby and I’m sure lots of other people I can count on. I find myself in the same spot that I found myself in every stinking year. I’ve gained weight, letting myself go to a place I never thought I would go to again. And in fact if you look at my weight loss app, you will see that almost exactly 11 months ago, I was at my current weight. My weight loss chart looks like the elevation chart of the Rocky Mountains. Yes and I do exaggerate at times too, but that is how I feel.
On my run this morning with a friend, we were talking about the Lent season and I found myself again in the same spot I was last year. All things controlling…..food controls me and money does. It saddens me to say that. I don’t want to be controlled by those two things. Both can bring me down in a heartbeat. Both can make me extremely sad but neither can make me happy. Now don’t get me wrong. I love me some good food, especially anything Mexican or Italian. I love to be able to pay the bills, buy things, etc but more often than not, it worries and/or stresses me out. There never seems to be enough of either to comfort me. Hence, moving towards the comfort of God rather than food or monetary things…..
Self-control is what it’s all about. I don’t nor have I ever done drugs. Don’t have the desire. Now I have dabbled in alcohol from time to time, more when I was younger than now, but again the aftermath hurts too much if you know what I mean. So I use self-control. Why then can’t I use self-control over food? Time and time again, I can see example after example of how not utilizing self-control can hurt, destroy or even in some cases kill when it comes to food. So why is it so hard……
The disciplines you establish today will determine your success tomorrow. But it takes more than just willpower for lasting self-control. It takes a power greater than yourself. Think about this promise from the Bible: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7 NLT).

Obviously I need to empower myself with God's power. May be I'm fearful of where I will be when I lose the weight. Five years ago I wasn't in a good place and didn't insert myself in a good place. I almost lost everything, in fact I did lose myself. I don't want that to happen again and I know it won't, but ah the past is powerful.

So here is to the determination of being empowered by God......not by the past, worries or doubt. Here I go again but this time not on my own.......

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Wrestling with the time sucker........

We all know the expression….so much to do so little time. I can so relate to that! And today I’m adding so many books to read so little time……I have over 370 books on my “want-to” read list on Goodreads. I’ve often caught myself saying, if I could find a way to read all day long and get paid for it, I would jump on it but then again I’ve said that about many of things…….
Could you image Jesus saying the same thing? “So much to do so little time” I mean he lived 33 years (or so I’m being told), a short life in our human terms. And yet even though he isn’t here physically, he is still doing so much. Could you see him sitting at Starbucks drinking a latte kicked back reading on his IPAD? I totally could. Just an everyday man sitting back relaxing before he goes out and saves some more souls! Awesome!
Anyway, back to my original thought. I sit and ponder sometimes how I can incorporate more reading. What is it that I’m doing that is taking away for one of the things I enjoy? I mean really, there is the evening routine of cooking dinner, clean up, homework, eating etc….but what is it that I am doing? We flip the TV on, easy peasy right? Ugh, that just confirms that I do need to get rid of that cable box. I mean even last night if we hadn’t found Hope Floats on the upper channel we probably would have watch some re-run or senseless show that is a waste of time when it really comes down to it. Really, how much Storage Wars, Pawn Stars, Survivor Man can one watch? Apparently many, many episodes. TV can be such a time sucker. We always seem to have one on, somewhere. And with the exception of the bathrooms, we have one in every room, yes including the garage.
No, I need to either go in the other room or just sit back with my Nook and read, I’m pretty good about zoning out noise when I read, especially if I am in a good book so it shouldn’t be a problem. I challenged myself to read 42 books this year. I would actually like it to be 50 but I figured since I’m going to be 42 it is a good number. I’m already behind. It is the 9 days into the month and I’m supposed to be ready on average 3 books a month…..hmm…..better get on it.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Expectations

As like many today I'm thinking of what I want the new year to bring or better yet what I want to accomplish this next year. This is the first time in a long time that I'm not sitting down to decide what races I'm going to do although I already have at least two planned. One marathon in April and one in November. What happens in between is anybody's guess. I really have no expectations on that front. I might do a triathlon or two and I would like to do a few trail races too. But I'm not thinking too much of that right now.

My word for the year I think is expectations. Wikipedia says this: In the case of uncertainty, expectation is what is considered the most likely to happen. An expectation, which is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_(epistemic).
This is something I need to work on because my expectations often give rise to the emotion of disappointment. And then I have to deal with that aftermath. No, I set my expectations very high then when they don't workout the way I have planned them to or in the TIME I want them to I hit the bottom. Sometimes I can recover but lately I have not been able to recover as well. And I have dwelled at this bottomless pit for some time now. But I'm climbing out.

Here are my big expectations, and not in any particular order:
~Lose weight (50 pounds). I have let myself become out of control. Or as I say, my give a dam is busted. I'm not sure why. I used to care a lot but because I have the "I don't care" attitude I have gained almost all my weight back. I hardly workout and I definitely don't watch what I eat. And because I lean more towards the addicting personality I have a hard time doing some things in moderation, including cutting down or back on certain "bad" foods. So I think I have to cut them out all together, at least for a while.
~Reduce debt/pay off debt/save: I grouped these together because it really goes hand in hand. Several things will be paid off this year including our car. But I still have a huge student loan and we have no savings. I want to develop a budget and stick to it. I want to do a lot to the house, I want to take a nice family vacation, etc, etc. But most of all I want peace of mind that we have everything paid on time, we have savings, we can tithe and I don't wake up at night trying to figure out how to rob peter to pay paul.
~Daily devotion: This is something I've never been good at. I have every opportunity to get up in the morning with Jim and use that quiet time yet I don't. Of course I've said several, several times that I would get up when he does and I don't. I know if I don't devote the time in the morning, I probably won't any other time in the day.
~Have a weekly date night with hubby: I really enjoying going out and it just be us. Even going to shoot pool or go get a glass of wine somewhere. Of course this usually happens on Friday nights and he works on Saturdays so our nights can't be too late.
~Family game night and family movie night: most likely to be Sunday and Monday nights. I want Sunday to be an unplug day where none of us get online, text, email or watch TV although I think the latter is probably pushing it. I would say no video games but we could play the xbox as a family. I just want it to be us doing something as a family. Of course this is our only day to get things done to the house as well so we will have to see how that goes.
~Don't over schedule......I'm getting better at this. But with two kids in sports as well as my own activities sometimes it feels like we are over scheduled. But if we utilize those days were we don't have anything "schduled" and use that time as a family then I think it will help.
~Be better organized and get things done....I'm good at some and not so good at others. I sometimes suck in the Mommy department, something I need to work on.
~Work on the house....I think we if choose one thing to work on until it is done things will start to get done.
~Take a vacation.......I would love for Jim to make it back to Pennsylvania to see his family. And I would love to go to Colorado again...there are several places I would love to go.
~Get rid of excess things....not buy too many new things, try to reuse, re-purpose and swap. Thrift store, craiglist, word of mouth shopping.....we waste a lot as a family. We eat out way too much. We buy too much food at the store and don't eat it. This also can go hand in hand with the above saving and budget.
~Work with the backpack program at Elliott's school and maybe a food pantry at the church.
~Develop my blog more.....blog more.....I have a lot of good ideas and I like to share and talk so what better way than to do this.

Well that seems like a mighty list. I'm sure I have other thoughts and I should write them down but then I have more to write about then don't I.