Found a new site that’s called www.weightlosswars.com. It’s all about encouraging each other in your weight loss journey. I lOVE it! When you are doing a whole body makeover like I am it takes ALOT of motivation to keep going. It’s hard work that I’ve gotten myself into and I need the extra encouragement. It also offers the chance to join competitions for money. I joined one that pays a $1,000.00 to the winner. If you wanna join or just follow my journey, check it out.
Tate’s party
So I’m a schmuck….I managed to get caught up in the flurry of events the day of Tate’s party without assigning the duty of “Picture Taker” to ANYONE!! Now I’m going back and asking everyone if they happened to take a picture with their phone or anything. No luck so far. I am so mad at myself. I’d like at least one picture to document his special day!! I feel terrible. Well IF I can track down a picture I’ll post it. Wish me luck.
Note to self + anyone else planning a party: Don’t forget the picture taker!!
Christmas 2008
I’m so disappointed that it turned out blurry. But this is the first time I’ve seen this picture. Tanner already had his workers take down our lights so I can’t retake the picture. We’ll try again next year. We never even finished decorating the outside this year. We normally have blue lights on top of the flagstone path in the flowerbeds to look like a river. Then there’s animated deer that are scattered around, some looking like they are drinking out of the river. We’ll go all out next year. Oh well. Sorry guys.
Time for me to dig.
While reading through Brandylady’s blogs I’ve really sort of come to a truth about myself. I’m a really ugly person. Outside…well that’s a low self esteem issue but not what I’m talking about. I mean ugly on the inside. Brandy…maybe I sound like I’m idolizing her. But I’m not. Generally speaking it’s like she’s a supermom. Not because I think she’s perfect. I’m not stupid, everyone has flaws. But it’s that when I read her blogs it’s about how she desires perfection in her life and really strives for it every day. That is beautiful to me. I see a selfless person. I see a strong person. I see a beautiful person inside and out. It emminates from her. And that’s the thing. I’m soooo not like that. I wish I could be. Brandy is my “person” so she’s really all I have to compare myself with. I’m really not good at expressing myself and opening up….especially to countless “strangers” online. But it’s a new year and I’m trying something new, so bear with me. Here’s how I see myself. I’m totally selffish. I feel immature for a 28 year old. I have a big temper. I cuss like a sailor when I’m angry in spite of being a Christian (which reading Brandy’s blogs makes me feel even more guilty.) I feel lazy and unispired and unmotivated. Yes, I am depressed. That’s nothing new….but I’m on drugs so at least that’s good. I’d take counselling if we could afford it, believe me. So for now, it’s just me trying to deal with myself. I wish I was a strong enough person to will myself to be better. I was stronger. I used to be. Before I was married I was a determined person. The type that would be able to set my mind to something and do it. No problem. I was organized. I was neat. I took pride in my appearance. It all has seemed to unwind over the years. A downward spiral. I look at myself with shame. I don’t try anymore. I feel like I’ve given up on everything and feel no will power to change it. Why? I want better for my life but feel powerless in this life. I really hate my life these days. I don’t enjoy being a housewife. I struggle to get up. I struggle to get off the couch. I struggle to do anything with my house. This is not me! But it has become me. Very few things bring me joy. But the things that do bring joy I tend to overdo in compensation. I LOVE to volunteer for my church Fellowship Church of Grapevine. But when I do I tend to spend too much time on it. Why? Because I love it so much, I’d rather be there volunteering than back in my unhappy home. I LOVE to create things. Decorating the house, painting, making crafts, gardening, landscape designing, photography, all the things I believe I mentioned in the “About Me” section. Especially at Christmas time. Christmas is like an addiction for me. I go over the top with it. I love it so much I decorate OTHER PEOPLE’S houses just so I can do it more. It brings me such joy. But I do it to escape my life. I have vices…..like shopping. Some may not believe it but shopping can be just as much of an addiction as drinking or smoking, etc. It is for me. I actually have been banned by my husband from Target, a place I’ve dropped thousands of dollars at. But I’ll just shop and shop. It’s ridiculous but I find if I can just buy something, anything, it brings this momentary bit of peace and happiness. Fleeting, yes, I know this, but still for that moment….happiness. I have a definite addiction to Chai Tea. An addiction that started in Missouri. Brandy worked as a barrista at a coffee stand-there I was introduced to The Chai, I’ve never been the same since. (:)) It has to be a part of my day or I can’t focus on anything else. But it’s worse than that at times actually. And then the third addiction would be to food, of course. I’m not so much of an emotional eater, though it has been that at times, just more of a chronically unhealthy eater. I get physically nauseated with healthy food. I have zero appetite for it. And forcing myself to eat it is not an option because it makes me gag. Seriously. But back to my point I over indulge in these things I love because it’s my escape. Why am I so unhappy? I’m not happy as a housewife because I feel so unfulfilled in that occupation. I feel guilt with that at the same time. I feel like I SHOULD enjoy this job. I chose this job. I’ve become this job. But I hate this job. I’m a type “A” person for sure. I don’t like that my job feels as if it’s never “done”. I liked when I was single how I could clean something and it’d STAY clean. I could take pride in that. I hate how now I clean something and it doesn’t STAY clean for more than 5 mintutes! It makes me feel unappreciated. Yes I’ve tried to train my husband, really to no avail….that’s another blog in itself trust me! And I’m still TRYING to train my 5 year old. Doesn’t seem to sink in much when he doesn’t have parents that lead that great of an example. But that’s another thing. I feel mostly like a failure as a parent. My child doesn’t listen to me. I feel like, “Why am I even here?” most of the time because I don’t feel listened to. I really start out with any simple request to my son in a nice tone of voice, asking him to do something. He seriously doesn’t acknowledge me till I escalate to yelling! Why do I have to yell to get his attention?? It’s so frustrating because that’s not the kind of mom I want to be but it’s who I’m becoming. I don’t know how to change it. I’ve tried self help books. I’ve got em coming out my arse. And why is it that my son can remember EVERY single name of a character/train from Thomas The Train but he can’t remember how I’ve told him to do something else a thousand different times?!? I know he has the ability/capacity to remember a great deal of information…so why does he selectively choose not to remember the instructions I give him. I feel completely disrespected. And I always hear from people that some of this is “normal” but I can’t help feeling that it’s not. And what if this too shall NOT pass? I am terrified that my son will grow up with a wretched and angry mother. He can’t respect that kind of person. And I don’t want his childhood to be filled with a bunch of unhappy memories of his mother always yelling. I feel guilt. But I feel powerless to change any of it. And all this is what I think of when I read my dear friend’s blogs about her life. I’m sure she has struggles of her own. But the difference is that she has the desire to be a good mom/wife. I feel like I’ve lost my desire to be….because I don’t know how to be. I’m sending this out to the public in a small attempt to get some help. I’m hoping that just like how my friend Brandy opened up on her blogs and has found friendships and support because of it, that I can too.
Take n Bake Dinner Anyone?
If you’ve never been to a take n bake style store. I highly reccommend finding one. Mine is called The Dinner Station. I go once a month paying about $150 for a months worth of dinners for the 3 of us. And truly I could get away with buying half as much with how much we eat fast food, eat at my mom’s house or someone else’s house. I have a freezer full of prepackaged meals. Lemme just tell ya…this is where it’s at. It’s fresh food put in individual ziplocks that you pretty much open and dump in a pan together and bake. You save money, you save effort. And you don’t have to worry about all the nasty preservatives! They are all healthy meals too. It’s a fantastic idea. Wish I’d have thought about it first. Some of these meals are actually like casseroles or “bakes” in a pan that you litterally just put in the oven with zero work. I’ll never go back to regular cooking. The most work you’ve gotta do is when it’s a skillet meal. But with the ingredients premeasured and mixed together still all you do is pour it in the pan and then stand there and cook it. But the skillet meals take a maximum of 15 minutes on average. I tell ya, I’m in love. At my store you have the option of scheduling a time to go in and put your meals together yourself if you want to. I did that the first time. It’s actually totally fun. It’s never been fun for me to cook at home. I hate the planning involved. I lost creativity in coming up with new and interesting meals. And after always having the same things after a while it got old, real old. With this place you walk in and everything is planned out for you. Takes a huge load off my shoulders. And you can even pick and choose which ones you want and how many of each. It’s cool how they set it up in there too. You go in and see tables set up with designated meals at each one. Everything you need for each meal is set out. Down to measuring spoons and cups and mixing bowls. Above the table the recipe is displayed. They make it very easy for you. If it calls for a tbsp. of flour on the recipe then you’ve got a huge bowl of flour in front of you with a 1 tbsp. measuring spoon already in it. They take the thinking out of it. So litterally you just dump each item in a bag and walk on to the next one. Instead of me spending 2 hours in the kitchen per night I spent a total of 2 hours putting together a months worth of meals. It’s a beautiful thing ya’ll. I actually had fun in a kitchen for the first time in years. Now if you don’t have time to do that you can pay them $25 to do it for you. The cool thing with that is…when you come back to pick up those meals, take a look at next months meals, if you pick out what you want ahead of time they knock off the $25 and prep those meals for you for free. And you can go back and do the same thing month after month. Totally awesome. They even give you freebies on a points system, you’re almost always getting something extra for free. Now they go by different names. But they are all over the place. Another place I know of is called SuperSuppers. Tried them too. There’s got to be something like that near where you live. But all these places come highly reccommended. Beats the heck outta take n bake pizza.
Tate’s 5th Birthday!
So we’re going to PeterPiperPizza this time. It’s like Chuck E. Cheese only it’s a lot less Little Mexico-ish. It’s way less busy. I once swore I’d never have a Chuck E. Cheese party. EVERYONE goes there. Last year we went to too many parties there. It’s just unoriginal. BUT….it’s what Tate wanted. So I compromised and said, “We can go as long as it’s P.P.P. instead of C.E.C.” I’m just telling myself that since they aren’t the same place it’s completely different. Oh well, this will be the ONLY party we have there. And THAT’S a promise. I can hold to that promise because I really don’t wanna do the same party twice. His first two parties were stay at home type with only family. Even had it at my mom’s house instead of mine! Then there was McD’s. Got that one for free cause I actually won a drawing for that! Highly reccommend that! Last year was at BounceWorld. The ever popular bounce house party. Got to invite some of his preschool friends. It was a blast! This year I was stumped for ideas. I’m not ready for a party at my house. Mainly cause I’ve still got Christmas stuff up that I’m not willing to part with. But two, I’m not mentally prepared to play hostess to a housefull of kiddos. We’ll save that for next year and maybe Tate can have a small sleepover or something. We’ll see. I actually wanted to have his party at ColorMeMine this year. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a big store with nothing but unfired pottery. You pay a sitting fee, and the cost of the unfired item and that’s it. Paint is free, and when you’re done they fire it for free. Totally cool. I’ve been there twice with Tate and we had fun. I just thought it sounded like something kids would love to do. Oddly enough I didn’t get a big response back about that idea. Why?? Anyhow….so pizza and games it is. And hey Brandy, you’re invited too….it’d just take a minor plane trip to get ya’ll here though. (:)) Maybe I’ll attempt to post some pictures of it afterward. We’ll see.
WooHoo my shows on tonight!
Grey’s Anatomy….or as I lovingly call it Grey’s Anemone. (:)) I’ve missed it. And actually my FAVORITE show, LOST, starts January 21st! If you’ve never seen it….rent the previous seasons and get started. It’s amazing. I’ve said on my Myspace page how the writers of that show are geniuses. There’s all these twists and turns. And completely original, not the predictable crap that’s on most shows. It actually has “clues” to plot details hidden within the show, I’m not smart enough to notice these but I’ve read about them online. I’m totally in love with the characters. Never have I been so invested in a show since Alias, with my girl Jen. Oh, and my other favorite show is HEROES. Another original show. And another great thing about Heroes and Lost is that you don’t really see hardly any s.e.x. so it’s guilt free television. Tate can watch it if he wants to. And there’s no stupid Gay/Lesbian plotline. WooHoo. Wholesome t.v. even for 2009. Hope it stays that way. Almost had to write off Grey’s Anemone because they were tryin to turn whatsherbutt into a lesbo. I just try to stay away from shows that encourage that. I LOVE the Ellen show but just can’t watch it. My own personal conviction I guess. But that’s a soapbox I don’t want to hop on. Just happy some of my shows are back. My life’s not complete without them. (:))
For the love of blogging…
I REALLY wish I could understand how to use this dumb thing. I am soooooo technilogically challenged that I could scream. Seriously whoever made this website and TWITTER should be shot for lack of making it easier for people like me. #1. I’d like to know how to dress up this friggin website like Brandy’s with the Twitter thing-e on the side. I’ve been ALL OVER both sites trying to figure this dumb thing out. I got nuthin. #2. I’d like to know on TWITTER what the heck the difference is between a regular “update”, @ replies, and direct messages? Seriously isn’t it all the same friggin thing??? #3. Isn’t it supposed to beep or ding or chime or SOMETHING when I have a reply on these websites?!? There’s got to be an easier way to keep track of the responses on these two sites.
This all just makes me feel like an idiot. Seriously. I took several different computer classes in highschool. I USED to know what I was doing. There’s something about getting older that has me thinking I’m getting dumber each year when it comes to technology. Grr. I’m annoyed. Any tips? Crash course? Info for dummies? Pass on the knowledge, someone, please.
UPDATE: I think I got the TWITTER thing working on my page. But meanwhile I discovered another annoyance. Why is it that this is my most recent blog today yet it shows up on my page as being the first one today? First it was “I’m sad today..”, then it was “Time to dig..”, then it was “For the love of blogging..”. So what gives? Does this happen all the time? Is it something I’m doing wrong or is it yet another glitch in the matrix? Please, enlighten me.
I am sad today….
I was just reading through Brandylady’s blogs. Something I really haven’t done before and I feel like a schmuck for it. And I’m sad. Sad for so many reasons, but for this minute I’m sad because I miss my Brandy. One of the many things I was reading was some old random blog where there was a lot of talk about what foods everyone eats. Healthy vs. Preservative Rich foods. And Brandy mentioned how some friends of hers in Missouri used to be so impressed with her 3 course meals and such. I have a pretty good idea that she was talking about me. It made me smile. 1) because I was actually suprised that she’d mention her silly lil friend in Missouri forever ago. 2) I remember those days so vividly because she was my absolute best friend (still is to this day) in a time when I had no one else and desperately needed a friend. Let me go off on a lil tangent if I may. When we were both stationed in Missouri @5 years ago. We met, by chance through our church. I didn’t really have close friends there. Only acquaintences. We were pregnant together and had an instant bond. We had all kinds of things in common-which was unusual for me being such a quirky person. And we had our babies together. Most importantly she’ll always have a special place in my heart because after my son was born I dove into a deep depression. Crushing. Dark. I had no family there to help. And Brandy came over and really let me pour out my feelings and made me feel like I was “okay” for feeling that way. She actually encouraged me to get some happy pills which ended up being a lifesaver for me. But I give her credit for that. It made all the difference in the world to me to feel like it was okay to take a pill. We had a bond though. And shortly after that we both were reassigned to different states. Silly that I’m crying right now. But it just hit me how much I miss my friend. Haven’t been able to hang out with her in @5 years. It makes me sad. I’ve never found anyone else that I have so much in common with. I feel truly blessed to have found her and truly blessed to have been able to hang out with her for that brief year or so that it was. But sad again because it was SUCH a short time. I needed more time with my friend. I look at all these blogs she’s done. All the friends she has. I wish that for myself. I wish I had that circle of friends that keep you in check. Someone who pulls your head out of the “fog” with love, support, logic, and a lot of faith to keep you on track in your life. I feel like it’s almost cruel that we have to live so many miles apart now. She’s in Minot, North Dakota while I’m all the way down here in Lewisville, Texas. She’s the type of friend that you could go shopping with, or even just to the grocery store together, run errands together, go for walks together, take our kiddos to the park, or just hang out at each others houses. Just a companion to go through those sometimes MUNDANE tasks in life as a stay at home mom. The funny thing is, she’s what ANY good friend would be like. I’ve just never had that for myself before, when it’s supposed to be a common thing. Who DOESN’T have a friend like that? But just like on Grey’s Anatomy they say, “She’s my person.” I don’t have PEOPLE right now, I just have a PERSON. I’m sure it’d be way more healthy for me to pluralize that. But that would be another blog. Wish I would have found her sooner, and kept her close longer. She’s a great person. I’m just lonely I guess. It certainly doesn’t help that I’m on day 4 without my happy pill….that’s another story though. Got more happy pills today and fully intend on getting back to “normal” tomorrow. But still. I miss my friend. And I need more of them….hopefully a lot closer geographically too would be nice. But that’s enough for this post. I’ve got another one brewing.
Discovery
I realized me and Brandylady have completely opposite taste in movies. We are alike in almost every other area. But in just the last few days we’ve watched the same movies resulting in completely different opinions. Eagle Eye: Brandy, annoyed. Missy, entertained. Dark Knight: Brandy, horrified. Missy, satisfied. Pirates of the Carribean: Brandy, can’t watch it. Missy, can’t stop watching it. Jurassic Park: Brandy, not interested. Missy, One of my favorite movies since Middle School.
I guess it’d be difficult to watch a movie together. (If we didn’t live thousands of miles apart that is.) Don’t take my movie recommendations I guess. So what movies does Brandylady like?
