Back Home

After two weeks trecking the kiddies all the way to Maple Ridge BC, then to Whistler, and then around Washington I'm pretty spent.  I had a blast visiting my sister and brother-in-law, and of course my nephew but it felt like not an hour went by where we weren't doing something, but if you spend more than 2.5 seconds in my family you'll learn that's not unusual.  It always sounds nice to sit around and do nothing, but in reality it's pretty boring.  We hit some museums, 3D minigolf, bowling, shopping, gondolas, mountain viewing, more shopping, eating out, swimming and more shopping, bbq, cooking lesson, and yes, we even managed to squeeze in 3 training sessions for the marathon.

But being home means back to business.  I'm going to hit the ground running (literally) with my last 8 weeks of training and I'm back full swing into my calorie tracking.  I tried adding my calories for the first few days away, but that went quickly by the wayside as I popped this and that in my mouth.  Plus it was a rare opportunity to enjoy some home made food from my chef brother in law, who can pass up coconut crusted halibut with homemade mango salsa, roasted zuccini, carbonara from scratch or big bbq cheese and bacon burgers? Ummm, definetely not moi.  And surprisingly with all that I only gained 1 pound, so I'll call that a win.

It was great to go shopping and try on Large shirts, then put them back because they were too big and buy the Mediums.  It was also great to get back to one of my favorite USA stores and pick up my favorite jeans in a 8/9 instead or 12!  Maybe by September I'll pick up some 7s?  I know I went way over my daily calorie limits most days but I still felt like the work I have been doing at home paid off because it taught me to listen to my body more and know when I really don't need anything to eat or at least not as much to eat.  We went to Golden Coral Buffet in the States and it was crazy how yellow the food was.  You were hard pressed to find a veggie and the salad bar had the creamy dressings, bacon bits, croutons and cheese for toppings.  I literally saw someone make a "sandwich" out of two huge biscuits, a monster piece of fried chicken, and gravy all over it.  I was able to see that sandwich and know that if I ate that, it would probably be more than what I should eat in an entire day. Although I judge not because I did buy 4 bags of marshmallows in Target (chocolate, mint chocolate, cinnamon, star shapes), I don't know why we only have white boring ones in Canada?  lame. 

trecking sleeping baby

Chris and his massive grill

sisters

the fam -Elliot sleeping in the van

Greg back to nature

 When I got home my 1200 Calorie a day cook book had arrived and tonight I'm making cajun crusted chicken breast and some spinach salad.  I can't wait to try these recipes! More on those later....

Sockbun Sunday

If you don't already have a sockbun maker from *Clairs then you need one.  It will change your hair life.  After watching this 2 minute video on YouTube where this girl made a super cute hairdo in no time flat I was on the next Toyota ride outta here to get one and I love it.  I've been looking for cute but really fast hair styles to do now that I'm running more and not about to do my hair twice in a day (or sometimes once in a day).  Plus my hair is getting longer and I need some fresh styles.  The sockbun maker is essentially a mesh puffy elastic that you put your pony through (like a donut) and then you wrap your hair around it, or pin your hair around it depending on how messy or tight you want your bun to look.  If you're really thrifty you can take an old sock, cut off the closed end so you have a tube and then roll it up into a donut which would be like the mesh thing from Clairs, but to me the Clairs holder gave more volume and was also the color of my hair so if my bun is not perfect then you won't see a white sock underneath, plus it's really only $4.  I love this do because you can wear it loose like this, or tight with a flower or a ribbon if you're going out! Enjoy! 

20 down!

aesselmont lost 1 pound since her last weigh-in! She's lost 20 pounds so far.

I kinda felt like that status update on myfitnesspal homepage deserved an exclamation mark today, am I right? I finally cracked into the 160's and I'm so glad to be out of those 70s.  I seemed to have sluggishly trudged through the last half of the 70s but I finally came out on the other side and I hope to never go back up there. It feels good to have seen the 80's go by, and then the 70's go by and now I'm looking forward to breaking some new ground as I make my way through the 160s.  I was 166 lbs before I was pregnant with Liam, and I was back to that (on a broken skinny scale) for a few short weeks 3 years ago but I really have never weighed less than 166 in maybe 5 years.  I'm only 3 pounds away from beating that goal and then I'll be on new ground as I sink into the 150s.  I can't wait!  I even sold some of my chubby clothes online this week and it felt good to have people take them away never to be seen again.  I have my goal jeans washed and ready to button up (alllmmost there but it's a nasty muffin top) and a cute white blouse that my mom bought me in 2006 that I have NEVER been able to button up and it still has the Banana Republic tag on it.  Goal Outfit ready to go baby.  Maybe 10 weeks to go?

The big obstacle coming up is a trip we're taking to Vancouver next week to visit my sister and her family.  Travel is not a friend to weight-loss but I have some tools that I hope I can use to try and stay on track and maybe even lose some weight.  Of course myfitnesspal is my best tool, but next to that I plan to do 7 miles and then 8 miles with my sister while I visit.  I also have a pact with Greg to split meals when we eat out.  No way do I need an entire restaurant meal to myself.  Sharing the food helps cut the calories but it also keeps away that nasty bloated feeling you get when you ate your own Happy Meal. I really hope that with those I can still come home in two weeks being on track.

Another thing that's been a reality for me lately is that my running is not the major player in my weight loss.  At first it was hard to separate the calorie counting and the running to see which was really responsible for the numbers going down, or at least which was more responsible. It seemed logical that running would make me burn calories and therefore lose weight, but after dropping the calorie counting ball for a few weeks and not seeing the scale move, it became clear that running alone will not take these pounds off.  I was stoked today to break that 20 pound mark so I picked up our two 10 pound weights and tried to remember what it felt like to walk around with these on me only a few months ago.  It felt so heavy and I was feeling sorry for my muscles and my heart.  It also became obvious that a pound is a lot of weight and that's why it takes a lot of hard work to get one pound off your body.  One pound is not going to fall off, but it will melt away with hard work.

14 more to go....better get to work!

My 10 K

 Well I did it! I ran my first 10 Kilometer race!  I remember when I used to work at a gym (and was in horrible shape), there was a girl who told me she had run 3 10K races.  I couldn't believe how awesome that was.  She was asking me to join her in this local 5K run for something-or-another but I was too scared and thought that a couple months was not long enough to get into shape.  I'm so excited that my hard work is paying off.  5K is my short runs in the week and now my long runs will be passing 10K as I get closer to my half marathon day!   Really only 4 short months ago I headed out in the winter to try and run 10 seconds and walk 50 seconds and repeat that for about 20 minutes.  I remember Greg's first run with me was 2 miles and after the first mile I said to him, "wow, we are half done! We only have 1 more mile to go...we can do it!"  - in a voice where I was trying to talk myself into it more than encourage him.  And now I'm here, ready to go out and run for about 60 minutes and walk about 5! 

Did I mention I have the BEST and most supportive family ever?! They all showed up with signs and cheered my on around my halfway mark!

including Liam who wanted to block my way to make sure I could see the sign.

 

 

 

I feel like training to do 11K and beyond to 21K will be tough in the next few weeks but I have more confidence in my body now, better form, newer strategies and a much more comprehensive knowledge of what running entails and how to succeed live through it! 

Tidy Things Seen and Unseen

I was spending some time online this week checking out blog decorating tips, when I came across this blog.  Her post I was interested in was about building your own blog header, but my eyes were quickly drawn to her links in the side bar.  She had tips on organizing, beauty, fashion, organizing, health and organizing.  I can't believe someone's house actually looks like this.  I feel like even if I spent a month doing nothing but cleaning and organizing I still could not achieve this...

her linen closet

our linen closet   

 

   

 

 

 She obviously loves taking care of her home, and I totally admire that.  She loves her family so she shows them that by keeping the house (and her body) ship shape, nothing wrong with that.  But then I scroll farther and farther down and see...

her kitchen drawer

our kitchen drawer

her kids closet

our kids toy room

 Uggg.  Feelings of horrible mother and housekeeper flood my body. Don't get me wrong, I do wash the floors, clean our bathrooms and our dishes, do our laundry and put it away (mostly).  I don't have a dirty house or moldy rotten things around, but I'm also so so far from this.  There's nothing wrong with being like her, but I also know there's nothing wrong with being like me.  One person is not better than the other, they just simply have different priorities and different uses of time.  It takes a lot of energy to keep your house like this, and if my house was like this but the rest of my life was in shambles then I feel like there would be something weird about that. I personally would rather invest the amount of time and energy it would take to keep that house up into something else; playing movie theater with the kids all day, making mini-golf courses in the back yard and putting all afternoon, picnics, living room tents, baking sprees, serving our community, coffee with a friend, painting my mom's toes, a walk with my husband. 

I admit I do go through sprees where I clean like a freak and organize an area to perfection, but only to see it undone in a week or so and the aggravation of continuous up-keep is too much to fuss over.  I would rather keep the house in a functional clean state and live with a more laid-back attitude.  And the truth is, when I'm in a big cleaning mood I feel like I have to constantly say, 'Not now Liam, mommy is busy'.  He'll only remember the fact that mommy was always busy, not the fact that our linen closet looked like a hotel laudry room. 

2 Corinthians 4:18 says, " So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal".  The perfectly organized home is seen, perhaps by everyone (especially if you blog about it) but it will fade away.  But invested time in people, in relationships, in children, that will last for eternity. 

Today and Everyday Matter

Are you a self-motivator?  I'm slowly becoming one, but it has taken me a long time to see that by default, I'm really lazy.  In fact, if I could write this post horizontally I probably would.  While Greg was gone I had the evenings to myself and I realized that I'm no good alone.  If left unattended I might eat a box of cookies, not shower for a day or so, sleep in really late (if I had no kids), and be pretty gross.  It's hard for me to get motivated enough to finish a project or task by sheer will power, or convince myself to exercise for simply the health benefits.  I work best with accountability and deadlines and the "sheer satisfaction of meeting my own goal" has been something I envied in others until quite recently.  I have a friend who will cut out sweets for a while, go running for exercise, be disciplined enough to do daily devotions and all by her own will power.  She doesn't need strict rules to do it, because her own mind is enough to get her excited about it. Hmm, wonder what that's like. 

I was looking up runner's mantras on the internet one night, and one really stuck with me.  This one runner repeats to herself, "love the life you live, and live the life you love".  It's kinda cheesy but the truth is, when I'm unmotivated and lazy, I'm not happy.  I'm much grumpier when I'm sedentary and unproductive, which makes sense because God made us to work and be busy 6 out of 7 days of the week.  Although I complain that this MAT leave is so busy I can't wait to get back to work, I'm also glad to be living a life I can start to love.  It feels good to make every day count, not just 'get through' the week and live for the weekends or vacations.  We waste so much time living for the future instead of in the present.  Life is about each day, finding routine, finding community and friends you like, find moments to seize, opportunities to embrace, and if you're not self motivated, then put something in place to keep you going. 
 

When I started this blog, I intended to capture 2012 because I was determined to make it a big year.  I knew I was signing up for big commitments but I also knew that I didn't want December to roll around and there was another year gone by where I did very little, changed not at all, and impacted very few.   Instead I intend for December to come and I can look at my marathon medal, my contributions to Pro-Life, my investments in friendships and my commitment to reading the Bible.  And here we are in June, half way through the year and my decision to make each day count has been greater than I thought.  I've definitely missed out on some days, and had set backs but I'm determined to tackle the rest of this year with as much vigor as I can muster up.