I Can't Believe How Fat I Was

Steve and Mai pulled out these old pics last night and they just blew me away. Can you believe that on this vacation to Cancun I felt fat? 5'8" and 118 pounds at that time. I had come out of a relationship with someone who had stomped on my self-esteem and was in a brand new relationship with my future husband - I guess my brain wasn't quite in the right spot yet, though.

Looking back, I see such skinny arms and legs and it's no wonder my friends gave me grief, but I remember that vacation well and I felt FAT. I remember my food intake at that time and although it wasn't very healthy, it was apparently not too abundant in calories - AND I remember why it was so easy to NOT eat too much - I was BUSY!

I would have coffee and toast for breakfast, go to work, Top Ramen for lunch, back to work. On my way to my night job I would stop at Burger King and get a deep fried, breaded chicken sandwich with MAYO (yum) and then to bed somewhere around 1am. Next day, repeat. On the weekends, instead of going to my night job I would eat pizza and drink beer and play pool with friends at our favorite bars.

Now I work from home and have a fridge full of healthy food and way too many opportunities to eat and I am getting fat! I wonder if I'll look back on pictures of myself from this time and think, "girl, you were so skinny and you just didn't realize it!". But in reality, that won't happen, because my mirror is not lying to me this time around. If I look back on today's body and think I looked skinny, my future holds more trouble for me than I want. More thoughts on that later.

I LOVE THE START OF A FRESH NEW YEAR!! I have only two resolutions this year - keep a clean house (if you've visited my very dirty house, you know this is huge for me...I'll let you know how it goes) and the second is to chop my monthly grocery bill in half ~ At least 1/2!! First shopping trip of the new year comes a day early (today)- maybe I should leave the kids at home, this could be traumatic for me.

Good reading for today: http://scottabel.blogspot.com/

Stories

TWO FROGS IN CREAM

by T.C. Hamlett

Two frogs fell into a can of cream,

Or so I’ve heard it told;

The sides of the can were shiny & steep,

The cream was deep & cold.

"O, what’s the use?" croaked Number One,

"’Tis fate; no help’s around.

Goodbye, my friends! Goodbye, sad world!"

And weeping still, he drowned.

But Number Two, of sterner stuff,

Dog-paddled in surprise.

The while he wiped his creamy face

And dried his creamy eyes.

"I’ll swim awhile, at least," he said-

Or so I’ve heard he said;

"It really wouldn’t help the world

If one more frog were dead."

An hour or two he kicked & swam,

Not once he stopped to mutter,

But kicked & kicked & swam & kicked,

then hopped out...

via butter!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I love the story of the mule who fell into an old dry well many feet deep. All efforts to rescue him were fruitless. Finally, the owner of the mule, supposing that the poor creature was severely injured in the fall, decided it would be more merciful to kill him than allow him to starve to death. Unable to think of a better way of dispatching him, he had a truckload of dirt thrown in onto him. Instead of allowing himself to be buried alive, the mule quickly shook off the dirt and pressed it down with his feet, thus raising himself a few inches above his original position. Another load was thrown into the well with the same result.

Slowly but surely, inch by inch, the mule ascended until the well was filled within a few feet of the top. Then, as complacently as if nothing strange had happened to him, the mule stepped out on firm, safe ground. It may offend a few people to look at a mule for a lesson in living, but some people have never learned what that mule already knew - that the very setback originally designed to finish a person off, when properly used, can become the thing that brings him or her out on top. (excerpt from Think on These Things).

18 inches

18" of snow!! Not much else to talk about - sledding, more sledding, resting, hot cocoa, more sledding. I did hop on the treadmill for 4 miles this morning. I was unsure how it would go since I tweaked my left knee sledding and it hurts to walk...but it did fine running AND>>>> no shin splints!! Hooray! Tried to upload another boring sledding video but blogger wouldn't take it, so you can all rest easy for now ;o)

If You Are Bored With LIfe...

If you are bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things - you don't have enough goals. - Lou Holtz

You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming. - Jim Rohn

2009 Goals

I have some very specific goals this year so I thought I would put some out here:

*I will finish the mud run in Feb (on my 41st birthday) under 2:38:00.
*I will be at 10%BF on June 13th, 2009 and on that same day...
*I will finish the Blue Lake Oly Triathlon under 2:40:00.
*I will raise $4000.00 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by June 15, 2009.
*I will finish Pac Crest 1/2 IronMan under 6:45:00 on June 27th, 2009.
*I will obtain my personal training certificate by the end of Summer 2009.
*I will run a sub 4 hour marathon at the Portland Marathon on October 4, 2009.
*I will be Crossfit certified by 12/31/09.

The above goals are all leading to some significant goals for 2010 and I know that I WILL achieve them all with persistence.

s'more snow

We're on our 7th day of snow!!! I love snow so much!! We got some, lost some, got some more, lost some more, got about an inch overnight and about another three since waking. They're predicting 6" for us today. There was only one day mid week where we weren't able to sled and school was out all week with snow days which makes us with a VERY long Christmas break. I am positive I will be ready to get these kiddos back in school by January!!!!

I'm working on goals today so will hopefully be able to put some up tonight if my butt ever defrosts - right now I need to just get myself to a heating pad while I contemplate 2008 and 2009.

Sledding

We had a great time sledding earlier. The snow has continued to come down so we'll be able to do some night sledding on the street tonight. We have two big hills to choose from and I pray we all come out of it alive. Here's a little clip of the kids and neighbors sliding in our backyard from this morning.

Fat Flakes

Well, the weatherman started calling for snow yesterday so of course the kids were all beside themselves. Ki and I headed up to Powell Butte early in case the snow hit and made it troublesome getting down our hill. We got some snow and rain mix slapping us in the face due to the wind, but by the time we got back home, nothing but rain. By 6pm Mai was fed up with the weatherman's inaccuracy and she went to bed early in protest. At 2:30AM Steve found her on the couch and very pissed at the weatherman (still). I finally got her back to sleep at 4:30am and was able to wake her up at 7:30 to lots of fat flakes falling down. She's in heaven! Hopefully I can get some footage later of us sledding down our hill!

Sock Its

Ki almost got a long run two days in a row, but at the last minute Mai decided on this most rainy and dark cloudy Sunday that she wanted to go with us, so we hiked 4 miles at Powell Butte. Mai was a trooper! She didn't complain about keeping up with the pace or the rain or anything. It helped that the last mile I let her hop in every single mud puddle she wanted since I figured by the time she realized her toes were completely frozen we would be back at the truck with the heater blasting.

Well, we had the Christmas tree up for almost a full 24 hours before 2 crazy kids using the couch as a trampoline tumbled into my masterpiece ;o)

The kids are so funny ~ for some reason they can't remember what the stockings are called and they keep checking their "sock its" each morning for presents from the Elves. It's the most wonderful time of the year!!! I love December!

Kiara Tackles the Trails #12 Banks-Vernonia State Trail

Yesterday morning looked beautiful and sunny and cold - perfect for a long run with Ki, so I perused a couple of blogs with my coffee and thoroughly freaked out for Julie B and her bear experience this week. Thought to myself, Thank God I don't have to worry about bears today. Got in the truck for a beautiful drive to The Banks-Vernonia State Trail to arrive at the trail head and find this:




















Dang it! Would not have been a big deal if I hadn't just read Julie's report, but I did read it, so I'm freaked out a bit. The first part of the trail is pretty dark and and it was very foggy and cold, but we warmed up good right away. At one point I heard some voices in the distance, but they didn't really sound like in the distance, more like muffled and in right behind my ear. Took my brain a minute but realized it was my phone talking to me, so since I was a little freaked out from bear watching, I pulled it out and saw my mom had called, so I called her back and we did a little Christmas shopping talk before I told her about the bear situation. She assured me I was fine until I told her about all the gun fire I was hearing. What color are you wearing she said? Black says me. whoops, bummer. Now I'm sure the hunting was going on quite a ways away from where I was, but it was still weird hearing so much gun power. Steve assures me it wasn't even hunters, just a bunch of red-necks playing in their backyards (to be sure, I was way outside of Portland and the fact of gun playing big boys was def a possibility).















I would occasionally break into some area where the sun could shine down through the vanishing fog and it was beautiful. Just me and Ki and a lot of quiet and trees.














It wasn't until we came to our SECOND Railroad sign (duh) in the middle of nowhere with no tracks around that I realized we must be on part of the Rails to Trails project. The trail was about 8 feet wide of paved and 4 feet wide of woodchipped horse trail (which felt much better on my shin splints and not too much horse poop to sidestep). I read later that this trail is built on an abandoned railroad bed that stretches 21 miles from Banks to Vernonia. The railway dates back to the 1920s when it was used for moving lumber to Vernonia and passengers to Portland. It also makes since now why the trail was SO incredibly clean. Not a leaf on it, not a piece of litter, horse poop cleaned up. This park is maintained! as I found out for myself when in a moment of bear terror, I was looking back, looking foward as I heard the hum of something coming upon me, when all of a sudden a huge sound of a Jason like attacker came towards me with chainsaw roaring for me...around the corner comes an old guy on his John Deere mini street cleaner. Phew. I had to pick my heart up off the ground and put it back in. Jeez, Julie B - you really freaked me out.



















We came along this Diary Box towards the end of our jaunt. It had lots of little notes in it and even a Hilton key card. I imagined all sorts of romantic meaning it could have had to the person who left it there until Steve ruined my story with his man-view that someone lost it and someone else picked it up and saw on the back where it reads "if you find this card, put in nearest mailbox for return". Boo Hoo on man-views.














So that was our run on Saturday - probably about 8 miles. Shins are for shit and I'm ready for them to be healed.

Freedom

I have gone back and forth on whether to do this post or not, only because I don't think I can do it justice on how impactful it was to me, but here goes.

First, I just finished up a 10 week bible study yesterday - it was Beth Moore's "Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit" based on Galations 5:22-23 ~ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Now, as soon as I saw "self-control" in there, I was like..."Let's do THAT chapter FIRST!", but of course, I had to wait until the last week to get there. It did not let me down. She (Beth Moore...and if you haven't done one of her group bible studies, GET OUT THERE AND JOIN ONE!!) focused the chapter on Self-Control by comparing two lives: Samson and Daniel (whoa - huge difference in behavior) and also focused how we as women in particular need self control on that which enters the mouth and on that which exits the mouth.

In the video we watched yesterday she really got down into the nitty gritty of women in today's society and how we live in terms of our nutrition and physical activity and used a great visual of the grid of where we are in this country in terms of our bodies and how we treat them/perceive them/idolize them, etc.

NEGLECT <---------------->OBSESSION (which in another term, can be idolatry). So many of us are neglectful of our health and so many are obsessed and can also be obsessed while being neglectful (think: skipping our workouts and bingeing on food, while all the time immersing ourselves in fitness magazines, trying new "diets", fasting, and all the while being neglectful of our bodies). On the other end is obsession where you cannot enjoy going out on a date or have family dinners because you are so obsessed with weighing and measuring and tracking macros and eating on the hour, etc (Visionquester III and Kelly O. have had great stuff about this lately).

Beth told a story about a previous Ms. Kentucky who shared her own story about this Neglect <---------->Obsession and finding a balance (or as she called it "Freedom"). She shared that she's been a size 4 and she's been a size 14 and that obviously there was neglect at size 14 and she CANNOT stay at size 4 without obsession (keep in mind that this will completely vary from person to person)...but that for HER, there is NO Freedom at either of those extremes. I would guess that many of us have been at both extremes and know exactly what she's talking about. She ultimately determined that FOR HER, a size 10 is FREEDOM. She stays healthy, she doesn't obsess, she IS FREE. I know in my heart that that is truly what so many people on the blogs want for themselves. I'm not talking about someone who is getting ready for a comp (although, there might even be a way for that person to find some Freedom in that scenario as well) but for us who have caught the bug to be fit and happy in our skin and have somehow fallen into the depths of current media that have made our brains not ever let us get to the point of freedom.

Something else that hit home with me yesterday as we ended our study, was that Beth asked her entire audience as well as us watching on our movie screen to pray with her if this message at all hit home with us today ~ to sit in our chairs if we were comfortable there or to drop to our knees with her and I tell you, every single woman in our large room bowed their heads and many many of them dropped to their knees: very gray haired women, skinny women, women you would never guess battle with these same troubles of neglect and obsession ~ they all began to pray in earnest and I realized that it DOES affect us all and we don't even know that the soft sweet grandmother or the slender woman who appears to have it all together next to us is as neglectful or obsessed with her body as the one sitting in our own chair and that we are all searching for freedom in this area. I believe that it (whether you choose to be neglectful or obsessed or both) is blocking so many women and so many women of faith to find their freedom that I want to do something about it. I don't know how to start anywhere but myself, so that is what I am doing.

I am so sad this study is over and I'm so excited that the new one starts up in Feb/Mar. It will be another Beth Moore study ~ on ESTHER. I don't know what I'll do with all this time on my hands (Beth's studies are pretty time intense) so I decided to FINALLY get to my "Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible" study. I hope it's as good as the REALLY bad girls of the bible. If anyone is interested in joining me, I'll open up a side blog for it for discussion.