day 2...

another day of eating right and exercising under my belt!  i still feel so full with eating all of this food, but i'm doing it haha.  I also decided how i'm going to work on my running.  I'm only running a mile right now.  That doesn't seem like a lot, i know, but hear me out.  I'm running a mile until i get it down to 10 minutes a mile. then i'll start to increase my distance.  i figure if i do that, then i'll be giving my body time to get used to the idea of running and adapting to it, making me more likely to develop back into positive running habits?  who knows, it could be an awful idea, but i'm giving it a shot.  what do you think?

otherwise not much is new really.  my bedroom is being attacked by stink bugs tonight for some reason.  don't they know it's like 30 degrees outside?  geez, go away already, it's january!  work was actually ok today.  i had pretty good help today and that always makes a huge difference.  we'll see how tomorrow goes, i'm sure it will go back to sucking.  it was nice while it lasted.

i'm going to start reading a book tonight.  i go in these spurts where i read all the time, and then i stop.  i want to get in the habit of reading for at least a half an hour each night.  i think i spend entirely too much time on the computer and watching tv.  reading always relaxes me as well, and i've been having some serious trouble falling asleep at night (which lead me to waking up late today, lame) so i'm hoping that reading more will result in me falling asleep easier.  i usually fall asleep with a book in my hand when i read haha, so keep your fingers crossed that it works!

hope everyone's having a great start to their new year!

day one..

I actually ran today!  granted I only did a mile, but i figured if i started out slowly then i'd gradually increase and maybe stick with it better?  who knows.  all i know is i ran a mile.  and my legs are killing me.  and i've never felt so out of shape.  but, i'm going to keep going!  i think i can, i think i can haha.  anyway, yeah so i forgot just how MUCH food you have to eat when you're eating healthy.  im' using my sparkpeople app today to track all of the food i'm eating, and i'm having a snack now because i'm still not up to all the levels i should be at for the day.  i'm not a huge eater so i feel like i might explode.  it's funny how making poor food choices just sets you back so much.  if i would have just kept eating the amount of food that i usually eat, but eat good thing then i wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with.  oh well.  that being said i ate well today and resisted snacking even though my day at work sucked, so i was impressed with myself.  i already made/packed my food for the day tomorrow adn pulled out ground beef for dinner, and i'm planning to get another run in tomorrow, so i'm getting there.  slowly but surely i'm getting there.

back on the horse...

so for the millionth time i'm getting back on the horse with the losing weight mission.  maybe if i make a list of things that i need TO do and things i need to NOT do then i'll have a reminder and stick to it?  i don't know, all i know is that i no longer fit very well in the snow pants i bought in the beginning of the year.  thats awful, time to fix that nonsense! i'm not buying new freggin snowpants! haha.  anyway here we go...

Things I need TO do:

• pack my lunch every day.  that involves actually having to think about my meal and measuring out my food.  i've never really officially measured by serving or whatever, i always just kind of eyeballed it.  maybe this will work better.
• go to the gym every day after work.  there's really no excuse why i can't do that.  i work AT the gym for pete's sake.  If i know i can't get there after work then i need to go on my lunch break.  5 days a week, no excuses.  i'll let the weekend be my "rest" time .. unless i'm feeling especially motivated haha.
• get better sleep.  i don't know why i expect to stay up til 1 am and then feel normal and energetic when i wake up at 5:45.  maybe if i get more sleep at night i'll be more ready to go work out.  
• do more cooking. fast food has become way too common around here ... which attributes to the fat around my waistline that's become way too common as well.  it's not great for saige either, so i need to stop.
• along with cooking comes meal planning.  start planning dinner the night before so it's thawed out and ready to go when i get home from work.    
• use the sparkpeople app on my new itouch (thanks hinkle!) to keep track of what i eat.  also use it for working out when i run (nike+ app).
• don't get discouraged.  it's hard to not be bummed out when not seeing immediate progress.  i think that was one of my big problems before, i was always bummed that it took so long and that i wasn't seeing a change.  the scale said i was changing, but i couldn't SEE it.  i need to be patient with myself and know that change will come if i stick to it, and it will be worth it, i just have to give it time.

Things I need to NOT do:

• don't hot out on snacks.  at work i get so stressed out that i eat everything in sight.  so, until i can find a way to deal with my stress another way (or find a new job) then i need to stop snacking and stick to what i bring with me and only that.
• don't order out all the time.  that crap is terrible for me.  and it's making me look like a weeble.
• don't eat the same stuff every day.  switch it up, so i stand a better chance of not getting bored and not sticking with eating healthy.  
• stop dressing like a teenager.  and i don't mean in a skanky way ..i mean a lazy college teenager.  i've found it easy to hide my fatness behind lots of big baggy hoodies.  no wonder i can't find a man!  maybe if i start dressing a little nicer then i'll be able to see a change more and i'll get some confidence back.  spiraling effect?  lets hope so, cause andrea would love to find a man and get married before she's 40! haha
• and last but certainly not least...DON'T MAKE EXCUSES!  do what you need to do!  (i'm talking to myself here, ha).  you know what needs to be done, so just do it and stop the complaining!  

wish me luck!!!!

2010 ends ... 2011 begins

lets recap the major "milestones" of my 2010 first:

• saige started kindergarten
• saige started to wear glasses
•  took my first trip to disney world (and first trip on an airplane for that matter) for saige's 5th birthday in august (are you seeing a pattern here? haha)
• major shift in things at work
• drifted apart from a few friends, formed new friendships with people i unexpectedly call close friends now

It was a pretty decent year honestly.  There's definitely some things I would change or do over, but when do  you ever not feel that way about something that happened within an entire year?  I'm hoping for a better 2011.  I don't necessarily mean better.  Perhaps hoping for a "different" 2011 is a better choice of words.  I want to better myself this year.  I WILL lose weight, I will NOT be this heavy at the end of 2011 ... or ever again.  I WILL find a new profession.  I want something I can call a career.  Something I can actually make a life for myself with.  Something that allows me to provide for myself and my child without assistance from others.  It's my fault that I've lived this way for this long, but this year will be different.  2011 is going to be used to better my life, thats my resolution.  I'm sure there's a whole long list of things I could write about that I want to change, but I'd rather leave it at bettering myself.  Things seem a lot more reachable that way.  I hope everyone had a safe new years eve, and that everyone has a fantastic new year!  

totally random post...

I look forward to these "chart topper" remixes every year this time of year haha.  I enjoy this one a lot this year, so I thought I'd share.  enjoy :)

on a serious note...

I had my first run in with "bullying" today with Saige.  She wasn't the bullier or the one being bullied, but she was a bystander who did nothing.  With all of the crazy suicides and things happening with bullying lately that you see on the news, this was kind of a big deal for me.

When we were driving home tonight she said that a girl threatened to beat her up.  I immediately was concerned, obviously.  I asked why and she said that the little girl who threatened her was being picked on by another girl (who i personally know from working at the daycare and don't particularly care for this little girl to begin with) and that the girl who was being picked on thought saige was involved and retaliated by threatening her.  Oh course saige swears she wasn't involved, and said that i can ask her teacher tomorrow (which i'm going to do, and she knows darn right well i'm going to so i'm sure she's not lying ...usually when i use that threat she fesses up the truth ha).  I explained to her though that by standing there and not helping the little girl who was getting picked on (not by directly involving herself physically, but even by just telling a teacher) that she in turn was hurting the little girl as well.  i also explained to her that if i find out she's ever involved in picking on a child that she'll have severe consequences that she's never even experienced yet in life.  This is a situation that i will not tolerate now, or ever.

I'm always concerned that Saige is going to get picked on, especially now that she has her glasses, because I'm her mother and all mothers worry about that kind of stuff i'm sure.  However, a thought crossed my mind when i was dealing with all of this tonight.  Why do we never worry that are kids are going to be the BULLY instead of worrying that they're going to be picked on?  After today, I now kind of question this myself, but i hope that I handled the situation well enough that she won't turn into that kind of mean girl we all dreaded in school.  Saige is a sweet girl and generally enjoys helping her friends so I'm sure she'll be a good girl (i'm her mom, i'm allowed to think positively haha).  Why is this an issue in kindergarten?!  When did kids get so mean?  Why do we allow are kids to act this way?  I don't believe that kids are naturally mean spirited, it's obviously learned behavior.  Is it tv?  bad parenting?  lack of rules?  what causes this?  All i know is that it is an issue I will be consistently re-visiting with her to continue to instill in her the proper ways to treat someone, because i'll be darned if i'm going to raise a bully, or an enabler for that matter.  I'll be speaking to her teachers tomorrow, and hopefully together this can be handled properly.  While saige wasn't directly involved in the situation, I feel that it's an issue that needs to be addressed to the entire student class.  perhaps i'm over-reacting, but this kind of stuff just cannot go on, especially when they're 5 years old.  what a crazy world we live in.

bats & other updates

So I once again have slacked on updating this, big surprise right?  yeah i know.  i'd say i've been busy, but, I really haven't.  Oh well, here's my attempt at an update!

So about a week ago we had an interesting thing happen.  We had a bat in our house.  Yes you read correctly, a bat in the middle of december.  The story that goes along with it is even more bizarre then that!  Around 6:30 at night I went into the powder room to go to the bathroom.  As I was sitting there in the bathroom, I looked at my foot and saw this black furry thing.  Nsow, our neighbor just moved so we've been getting the occasional mouse in the house as she's disturbing her things (we live in a twin house).  The bottom of this "mouse" looked flat and wet and wasn't moving, so I assumed that my cat had gotten a hold of it and chewed on it and left it for dead, as he always does.  I turned away and finished my business and got up and walked out of the bathroom.  When I went out into the dining room I told my mom there was a dead mouse on the floor.  We argued about who was going to pick it up.  As i stood there arguing the "mouse" slowly turned it's head back towards us.  I freaked out and started yelling "it's not dead!!!!!!" and we pulled the door shut and argued about how we were going to get it out.  After a few minutes we decided on a course of action and opened the door to get it.  Much to my surprise, the undead "mouse" was nowhere to be found.  We looked around the room and didn't see it anywhere, so we set a mouse trap with some cheese in it behind the toilet and called it a day.  I went off to do some christmas shopping and no one heard or saw the thing.  Fast forward to about 11:00 that same night.  My sister starts screaming from her bedroom in the basement that there's a bat in her room.  She saw it creepily crawl across the floor and go under the baseboard heater.  have you ever seen a bat crawl?  it's gross.  Anyway, I was still saying that it wasn't a bat, that it was a mouse.  Well, after a lot of googling i determined that she was right, it was a bat.  What was worse was that since it was crawling across the ground instead of flying, all signs pointed to it being sick/rabid.  Great news right?  So after an hour of the thing not being found anywhere my sister turns her light off to get ready for bed.  When she does that she starts screaming because it came out and tried to fly, but it failed.  I went downstairs to help her get it, but the thing was wedged under the heater.  My sister looked at me and said "maybe you should call dad" and I just hung my head.  I knew he wasn't going to be thrilled because this is the third time in my life I've had to call him to come get a bat out of my house.  The first time involved me calling him collect from a pay phone because I left my cell in the house, but thats a whole other story haha.  Anyway, I called my dad and he was like "you've gotta be f&^^%& kidding me! how many times in your life do you think you plan on calling me for this reason!" haha.  He comes over and after 20 minutes, and him being macgyver, he caught the bat using only a plastic cup, a piece of cardboard, and a broom handle.  On his way outside with it he told me the thing was probably going to die because of how cold it was out.  I said "awww should i put a blanket out there for it?" and he response was "why are you so stupid?" LOL.  he threw it outside and that was the last we saw of the bat, but what a crazy story right?  It sounds better/funnier when you actually HEAR the story but you get the idea.  I just keep thinking about being in the bathroom with that thing.  what the heck would I have done if that thing came at me while I was sitting on the toilet?! I don't even know! haha, bats are attracted to me for some reason.  My sister finds the mice, and I always get the bats.  I think I'd prefer mice, but I guess I don't get to choose haha.  Oh well, hopefully thats the last one i see for a very long time.  Gross things.