Scrap it all!

Hello all!  It has been far too long.  The winter was long, it's just starting to get warm in...mid May! 

I tend to only write on here when something is either gnawing on my mind or some sort of exciting event has happened in my life.  Today, it is the latter.  Ish.  Not so much an event, but a sudden realization.  I was going to keep it to myself, but heck, I have a blog and I'll write it down.  If you're crazy enough to read it, have at it!

The realization is this:  I may actually, in fact, be somewhat creative.  

I know.  It's crazy, right?

I have spent the majority of my life avoiding the creative process.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  It makes me uncomfortable and queasy.  I need structure and order.  That's why academics always came relatively easy to me.  The arts...not so much.  I left that to my siblings.  
Since mid-high school, I've toyed with the idea that I like to scrapbook.  I want to like it.  I like scrapbooks.  I love pictures and memories.  Scrapbooks are SO beautiful.  Mine are not.  Mine are sad and, well, pathetic.  I have no concept of color coordination and no imagination when it comes to layout.  

So, the cycle goes like this:  
I want a scrapbook.
I buy a scrapbook.
I buy all the stuff for a scrapbook (including TONS of pictures).
The scrapbook, photos and stuff sits there for YEARS - nearly untouched.

My wedding/honeymoon scrapbook is still sitting in a box waiting to be made.  I think I've managed about 4 pages.  Maybe.  We got married in 2008.

Fast forward to this past summer.  A neighbor was having a yardsale.  Apparently they either upgraded all their crafting supplies or decided they no longer wanted to paper craft.  Either way, I left with $15 worth of crafting supplies.  That's $15 in yard-sale items.  Needless to say, I suddenly found myself with a great number of stamps, ink pads, scrap paper, etc.  A friend had given me a hefty amount of scrapbook paper a year or so back (you know, for my scrapbooks!).  I found myself with no excuse.  Scott looked at all the supplies I came home with from the yard sale and asked what it was all for.  Now, I REALLY had no excuse.  

Still, the scrapbooks sat.  

Soon, it was birthday season in my family.  Both my and Scott's family birthdays are heavily centered in the fall.  We try to buy, in the very least, a card for each individual.  It's getting expensive! 

Enter brilliant idea.  I'll use my supplies to MAKE cards!  We'll save SO MUCH MONEY!

I sat there and stared.  Blank paper.  So many stamps.  I quickly pulled out all my scrapbooking supplies and found my 3-D stickers.  Dimensions really make a 'blah' card look amazing!  

My first few cards were less than stellar.  I didn't care much.  They were going to family anyway!  It's the thought that counts, right?

I learned 2 things right off the bat:

1) I really don't like the look of cards with JUST stamps.
2) Stickers can be just as expensive as buying pre-made cards at the store!

The clearance rack at Michael's became my best friend and then, in a lucky break, I mentioned to my sister that I'd discovered I actually kind of like making cards.  She had a bunch of card-making stuff sitting in her garage that she gave to me.  Suddenly, I had two paper cutters, more stamps and even some powder embossing tools!

In the last month or so, I realized I can look online for template ideas.  My Pinterest page has exploded with handmade card examples and techniques.  I've even started making cards for non-family members!

It may sound silly, but it is super exciting to me.  This realization that I just might be somewhat creative!

Etc.

I've been feeling like writing a post for a couple weeks now.  The problem is that I honestly have no idea what I want to write about.  Usually, I'll be mulling over something in my mind for a few days...or even a week...and then write a post.  This time, I just want to write, but have no idea what about. 

A lot has been changing in my life lately.  It's definitely in a place of incredible flux...but there's no one focus to it.  Just day-to-day boring things that I wouldn't want to read about, so why should you?  

Moving On

My journey to health has always been about more than merely losing weight.  It's been a focus on healthy living.  Not just physical; but mental, emotional and even spiritual.  It's been about taking a really hard look at myself as a whole and discovering who I am and what kind of person I am...then making the necessary changes when I cringe.  

Honestly, as difficult as it's been, the physical health journey has been the easiest.  All I have to do is change what and how much I eat while getting out and moving more.  Pretty simple when you get down to it.  The other aspects are what have been giving me trouble.

I have struggled with strong emotion my entire life.  I'm a very emotional being.  I am an extreme personality.  I either love or despise.  Learning moderation is one of the hardest things I've ever done (and continue to do...because it's a process).  That said, I hold on to to things much longer than is healthy and when something sticks in my brain, it tends to stay.  There are times when this can be a good thing; mulling something over in my brain that just doesn't sit right.  It's how I process.  Hell, it's how I got through college and writing papers.  It's how my mind works.

The problem comes when I can't come to a satisfactory solution inside my head.  Then, the mulling becomes obsession and I can't let it drop.  This opens the door for confusion, hurt, anger and, eventually, bitterness to enter the picture.  Once it's there, bitterness tends to infect everything I think and feel to some degree.  I opened the door to bitterness over 8 years ago and am just now making some headway with moving on.  

I'm honestly not sure what happened recently.  Maybe it's the running.  Maybe it's that I'm really taking a hard look at who I am and what I've become.  Maybe it's that I'm finally starting to mend my broken trust with the Church and God (which, to be honest, is where all this started in the first place).  Maybe it's because I'm finally feeling comfortable with the idea of who I am.  Me. Myself. Alone.  Without being dependent on anyone telling me who that is.  No-matter the reason; I have found myself finally, inexplicably free of bitterness and anger.  It's gone.  I just woke up one day (Monday, to be precise) and it wasn't there.

It's like I'm seeing the world in a completely different way.  I am still me.  I am more me than I ever have been.  But, things that bothered me no longer do.  Ideas and individuals who drove me to utter frustration  no longer have a hold on me.  My mind is able to let go.  I am able to move on.  Leave the past in the past and look to the future.  

It feels amazing and I never want to wallow in bitterness and anger again.

Hi

Hello All!  

It's been some time since I've sat down and put fingers to keyboard on here.  Not that I haven't thought about it and not that I haven't had time.  I just haven't.  It's the nature of things.  I'm kind of lazy at heart and have had a lot of other things in my life that are changing at a staggering rate...so my writing has suffered.  

I own a house now!  
To be more specific, my husband and I borrowed a TON of money from a bank and are now living in a house that has our names attached to it.  Yay!  

Oddly enough, this house of ours is in the very same town I grew up in.  In fact, it's not even two miles away from said plot of land I grew up.  I'd say 'house I grew up', but that's not exactly true as the house I grew up in no longer exists.  I'm less distraught about that than you'd expect and actually celebrated they day they tore it down.  The new house is much nicer - and safe!

Even more exciting, the road my house is on abuts the very same woods I grew up exploring!  You know that whole article I wrote about the woods and how it was 'home' to me?  Well, I live RIGHT NEXT TO IT now!  And so do my children (one would hope)!  That means my children will grow up exploring the same woods I did!  I cannot convey to you the excitement I feel knowing that.  We've already gone to the river and looked for blackberries - though they're a little too young to enjoy that bit quite yet.  The prickers can be a bit overwhelming...and painful.

I run now!  

"What?!" You say.  "I thought you swore off running last fall!"
I did.  I really did.  
I actually took a bit of a break from all healthy activity from September-December last year (right after I ran a 5K).  It wasn't my best decision ever and I reasoned it away by excuse after excuse.  Some of them very good (ie: I'm looking at a gazillion houses and that's taking up all my time, my treadmill is behind a mountain of boxes, we're moving, my treadmill is in the shed so I can switch it out with the elliptical my dad has a mile away, it's winter and I don't want to work out because it's dark and cold and miserable...etc, etc).  It being the winter and holidays, my eating wasn't all that healthy either.  Suffice it to say, January rolled around and I tentatively stepped on the scale only to face the bitter truth that I'd put back on 10 of the 50 lbs I'd worked so hard to shed.    

I took a good, hard look at myself and decided I really had absolutely no more excuses not to be healthy.  True, I'm far away from most gyms, but there are a lot of things one can do to be healthy with no gym in the picture.  I had an elliptical, for one.  So, I started to use that.  I also have an Amazon Prime membership - which has Instant Watch (and some pretty corny workout videos), so I started using that to get moving when the elliptical was too monotonous.  

Then, we got cable TV.  I was nervous that it would turn me into a couch potato.  TV is one of my weaknesses and it sucks me in.  That's when I realized there was an entire fitness video section On Demand!  What?!  Cardio Kickboxing?! Pilates?!  Seriously, who needs a gym?

Once I got warmer outside, I started walking around my new neighborhood.  It's about a mile and a half loop.  Not bad.  By June, I was bored.  I started to have the urge to run, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Not on my road.  Not where all my new neighbors could see me struggling.  After a week or so of this, I got fed up with myself enough to stop caring what others might think and gave it a go.  I ran until I couldn't and then walked for a bit...then ran...and walked...and ran...and walked.  No real rhyme or reason...though hills played into whether I ran or walked a lot (walk up hills, run down...and run as many straight-aways as I could manage).  I did this for about a week before I asked for help from a professor I had in college who is a runner.  She suggested a book, Running for Mortals.  I finally got around to reading it a couple weeks later and it completely changed my outlook on running.  
I was actually heading in the right direction (with the running and walking), but now I have it all timed out and I am keeping my energy up through my run instead of killing it in the first ten minutes.  Woot!
Now, I find myself looking forward to running and am sad on the days it's not scheduled.  

And that's it for now because my kids are waking up from their naps and parental duty calls!

~Sarah

An Apology...of sorts.

It hit me recently that my opinion doesn't matter.  I'm not saying 'ho, hum, nobody cares what I think' nor am I insinuating that I don't feel important.  What I am saying is that, in the grand scheme of things, if I don't agree with or understand actions or beliefs of other people, it makes absolutely no difference.

It shouldn't.

So, why have I spent the better part of my life thinking it should? Thinking that my opinions of people are somehow the be-all and end-all of their lives?

Throughout my life, I have wasted so much time and energy trying to figure out peoples reasons and motives for doing what they do.  Though this isn't bad in itself, it starts to cross the line when I compare their actions and motives to my own perceptions.   I get confused, hurt and angry over it.  The truth is, I know very little about these people.  Only what I see on the outside and maybe a conversation or two's worth of small talk.  Even for those I've known better, it doesn't excuse me trying to force my life's perspective on them.  It's just idiotic of me to think that I know better than they do.

I've lived most of my life under the impression that I am a good judge of character.  It occurred to me that to judge a person's character solely on my misguided opinion that I 'read people really well' is nearing narcissism.  Even if, from where I stand, their actions are hurting those close to me, or even hurting me, they may see it a completely different way.  I have to allow for others to be human.  I can't hold them to a higher standard than I even give myself.  I may never understand.  I may never see their perspective.  I have to accept that, as much as no one will fully understand me because I am the only one who has lived my life and been inside my head, the same goes for them.

I have to let go of all my confusion, hurt and anger.  It's doing no one any good - least of all me.

Into the Woods

My childhood home was nestled against acres and acres of State Forest.  I spent much of my childhood in those woods - exploring, berry picking, fishing, swimming and aimlessly wondering. Sometimes I miss having a place like that where I can just go off and be alone.  Even if I take a walk by myself now, I'm surrounded by people, cars, planes...you name it.  The joys of living in the city!  

The woods and I had an unsteady relationship.  There were times I loved it there and times I was terrified of it.  For much of my childhood, I was afraid to go in there alone.  I'm not sure why.*  I'm also not sure it was a bad thing - it was the same forest that stood behind the County Jail a few miles down the road. As I grew older and I needed a calm place to be alone, I found solace in walking down to the river to a tree a bit off the path.  It had a low-hanging branch that had grown almost like a seat and I'd sit there, letting the sound of the water calm my mind.  It was my quiet space in this crazy world.  

The woods wasn't always such a serious place for me, though.  I spent much of my time having fun with my siblings.  We'd walk or ride our bikes to the river and go fishing, pick wintergreen and then try to make tea out of it (it never worked, but we never stopped trying!), and pick blackberries.  Lots and lots of blackberries.  There were times we would head out with a five gallon bucket (or two!) and fill it up with blackberries.  Through the years, we discovered different places in the woods that had mind-blowing amounts of blackberry bushes.  We'd come back full of yummy goodness in our bellies and in our buckets...completely scratched from head to toe, but we really didn't care.  The thorns never deterred us.  

At one point during my childhood, the State decided to turn part of the forest into a Veteran's Cemetery.  I understand now why they did it and it's a very noble thing to have.  However, from a child's perspective, they were tearing down the best blackberry bushes - not to mention the homes of countless Lady Slippers!  I got over it eventually - it was only a fraction of the woods and there were still lots of acres left to explore - which is how we discovered the swimming rock and rope swing.  

The swim rock was a large rock that you could walk to out in the river.  Depending on the depth of the river at any given time, sometimes you had to wade through some water-covered rocks, which could be a bit slippery, but it was worth it for that rock.  On one side was maybe an inch or two of water.  On the other side, a sheer 10 or so feet of water.  Water so deep, you could dive off of it (though I never did).  A little ways down river, there was a rope swing complete with a deck/ramp built into the river bank.  Obviously, the rope swing wasn't a secret place because we didn't put the rope swing up - or build the deck.  However, we rarely met anyone else there and had the place to ourselves most of the time.  I never had the guts (or arm strength) to use the rope swing, but I still had fun spending time with people and swimming in the river.

I only hope that when The Husband and I buy a house, there is a place like The Woods nearby so my children will have the opportunity to enjoy as versatile a playground as I did.

*Actually, I lied.  I do know why.  When I was young, a group of my family and friends went to take a walk through the woods to the river.  I had to stay behind for a little while and they told me to just come and catch up to them when I was ready.  It was the first time I remember being in the woods alone and just as I came to a split in the path and hesitated because I wasn't 100% sure which way to go, a large bird (I think it was a Turkey, though it might have been more of a partridge-type bird...do we have those in NH?) decided that was a perfect time to take off from the ground into the trees above.  Scared the living daylight out of me and I turned and ran home screaming.  THAT is why I was afraid to go into the woods alone for the majority of my childhood.

A Journey to Health

I have been unhealthy for a good portion of my life.


Scratch that.


My mom was a health freak when I was little.  We had carrots and celery for snacks.  If we wanted something 'sweeter', we could add peanut butter and raisins to the mix.  She shopped at the whole foods store whenever we could afford it and made everything from scratch.

Me in my younger, healthier days.

Two things changed all that:  Mom went back to work and I started earning my own money.

Not only did Mom have less time to make dinners from scratch, she was too busy (along with Dad) making sure we had a roof over our head, little things like the fact that I now spent the majority of my money on junk food and candy either escaped her notice or she just hoped it was a phase - or she was just overly exhausted.
Also, I no longer enjoyed the amazing home-cooked meals I had been spoiled with in the past.  I still remember the first time I had store-bought tortillas and thought, "This tastes like plastic!"  Although, they did roll up better, so there was that. Not to say that we never had home-cooked meals, but they were few and far between.  Generally, it was chicken in a crock pot or something along those lines.  Still decent, just not what I had been used to up until then.  I'm not sure why it never occurred to my siblings and I that we could make a home cooked meal.  I guess we were just innately lazy that way.


Anyway, where was I?  Right.  Mom working, no super healthy meals like I was used to, disposable income for the first time and puberty in general.  Oh, I didn't mention that third one before?  Right.  I got kinda chunky around 5th grade.  I was about a year older than most other 5th graders.  I had no people my age in my general day-to-day viewing (middle school started with 6th grade) and I didn't realize (or had ignored those who told me) that it's completely normal to get a little chunky when you're just about to have a growth spurt.  I still remember very clearly being in the bathroom while two skinny/short girls discussed weight.  They were bemoaning the fact that they were almost 100 lbs!!  *gasp!*  And that they had to do something because they just couldn't live with themselves if they were that fat.  I knew full well that I weighed 114 and suddenly, I got very depressed.  If they thought 100 was fat, 114 must be morbidly obese!

4th Grade

This is the first time I remember feeling ashamed of my weight.  I'm not sure that I ever really noticed it before.  I may have, but not like this.  I went home and did what any girl my age would do in that situation:  I ate.  A lot.  Candy, chocolate, any junk food I could get my hands on or create.  Not to say I binged or ate it all at once.  However, over the next year or two, I was in a downward spiral.  I got depressed about how I looked and how much I weighed, so I ate because I eat when I'm depressed.  So, naturally, I gained weight.  I would get depressed about that and the whole cycle would start again.  By the time I was between 6th and 7th grade, I weighed 150 lbs.

I remember crying to my mom about it and her response was a very practical one:  try to stay that weight and you'll grow into it.  I'm glad to say, she was right.  I managed to stick to 150 and grew into it.  Only, I didn't see it that way.  I just saw that I was 150 and 150 was fat.  I look at pictures of me then and wonder what made me think I was so fat?!  I really wasn't.  I look good at 150.

Sophomore Year 2002 ~150 lbs

Anyway, I stuck to 150 through my sophomore year of high school, then stress, bad eating habits and sheer laziness rocketed me up to 174 by graduation.  I won't bore you with all the mundane details and weight milestones on my way up.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so have two:

High School Graduation  2004 (with my parents) ~175 lbs

College Graduation 2008 ~200 lbs

Suffice it to say, I gained weight so gradually, I didn't notice how MUCH weight I was putting on.  A pound or two here, a couple more there.  Before I knew it, I was pregnant with my second child and weighed 248 on the day I went into labor.  Some of you out there might be saying, "But wait!  You were 9 months pregnant.  That doesn't count!"  I say to you, I didn't gain all that much with my pregnancies.  That's the one good thing about being obese!  My official non-pregnancy high weight was 230.   

October 2010  ~230 lbs 
(with The Husband and The Boy) 

Nursing was a godsend for me.  By my 6-week postpartum appointment, I was down to 220.  I got lazy, though.  I figured I would just keep losing weight since I was breastfeeding so I went back to eating like crap and found a lot of excuses not to exercise (having two babies - one being a newborn - was excuse of choice).  I got a wake-up call in late November of last year when I bought a scale, stepped on it and was still 220!  I hadn't lost one pound since September.  Also, in the back of my mind, I kept hearing the nutritionist I had seen during both pregnancies warning me about my chances of contracting Type 2 diabetes since I have family history and had Gestational Diabetes with both my children.  If I didn't do something about my weight, I had a 50% chance of getting it in the next 5 years.

One night soon after realizing I really needed to do something about my health and weight, I was up in the wee hours of the morning, nursing The Girl and surfing the web to stay awake.  I was getting down about how I was a horrible example for my children.  How could I raise two healthy children if I couldn't be healthy myself?  In my web browsing, I came across mentions of a website by the name of MyFitnessPal.com and decided to check it out the next morning.  Somehow, I remembered to do that.  I created an account and started logging my food.  I hadn't made it half the day before I realized that something had to change IMMEDIATELY.  I couldn't believe I was putting all that in my body!  Seeing the numbers just made everything click in my head.  

April 2012 ~190 lbs

From that day on, I worked on portion sizes, fat intake and exercise.  I started small and cut back more when I felt ready.  In the past, I had tried to lose weight by either cutting something out of my diet completely or just exercising.  I'd never really tried tempering my diet and exercise.  The combination of smaller portion sizes, regular exercise and nursing worked wonders for me!  

By June, my weight plateaued.  Part of it was because I wasn't getting in exercise as much as before, but I also took that time to take a good look at my diet.  True, I was doing well with portion sizes, but this time I took a good, hard look at what I was eating.  I realized there were way too many carbs & sugars and not nearly enough fresh veggies and fruit.  About two weeks ago, I drastically cut bad carbs and refined sugars.  I refuse to cut anything out completely because that just makes me want it more!  If I tell myself that I can still have it, just few and far between, I'm fine and rarely crave it.  Go figure!  Since I made the cut, I have lost another 10 pounds and am only a little over 20 lbs from my goal weight of 150!  


Since I started my health lifestyle change in November, I have lost 47 pounds and went from a size 20 to a 14 (though I'm starting to fit into some 12s now)!  More than the weight, though, I feel better about myself.  I feel like I'm actually living life, not merely watching it pass by.  I have more confidence and am genuinely more happy.  Not just because I think I look prettier.  That helps, but it's more because I am so happy and proud that I kept at it.  I didn't give up a month into it.  I am actually taking care of myself.  I feel like I am finally a good example for my children and that, in truth, is the best reason of all. 

July 15, 2012 ~173 lbs