A quickie.

I know I haven't been on here in awhile. Life has been crazier than usual. In my free time during the months of November and December I worked part-time at Toys R Us (late nights) in addition to my full-time daycare job and mother of 4 job. So I've either been working or sleeping. My house went to shambles and then we had the holidays. But hopefully I'll be back here next week to give you a much better post. Until then however I want to tell you what I did!!

The bad news first. Always start with the ripping of the band aid. I have had no self-control in the eating department and I have been so tired I have not been active at all outside of working. So with that combination I've gained about 5 pounds (not to mention all the holiday treats).But now the ointment to heal that horrible wound. With some of my Christmas money I have bought the Biggest Loser Cardio Blast video, Biggest Loser Bootcamp video and Jillian's 30 minute Fat Buster video. I am very excited to get those and start using them. Hopefully it will be the turn around I need. To date I now weigh as much as I did 9 months pregnant with Tess. That is a horrible statistic and I am determined to change it! Keep me in your thoughts.

Better post next time I promise!

Over the Shoulder Boulder Holder!!

Before I get to the subject at hand, I just wanted to say two things! First, Tony and I just had to take out a loan from his 401K this last week because we were so behind in bills. We still had a few bills from Sept. due plus all of Oct. and now Nov. Life has been VERY stressful to say the least. But even as I sit here at 12:40am writing on my blog instead of sleeping, I feel relieved. For the last two hours or more I balanced the checkbook and wrote out bills that paid off all of Sept. and Oct. bills and most of Nov. It is only the 7th of the month (I guess technically the 8th now), and I only have 4 or 5 bills left for the month! Yay, maybe we can actually get caught up and ahead of bills instead of sadly behind. So this my friends makes me feel VERY happy at this early morning hour.

Secondly, because of said financial trouble and now the news that two of my daycare kids are leaving on the 19th which leaves a vacancy in finances (!!!!), I went and got a part-time job at Toys R Us for the holiday season. It was supposed to give us EXTRA finances but instead it will supplement what I will be losing with those two daycare kids (unless I get new kids, but not getting any seekers at the moment). Today I finished my first night of training and actually am very excited for working out of the house and in a fun environment. PLUS, I get a 10% discount and can "shop" for gifts for my kids while I am working. There is potential to stay on part-time even after the Holiday season, so we will see how it goes. On a side note, I am also applying for a part time job at the church where I can work mostly from home as an Outreach Person. They got a grant to hire someone and I'd be working directly with the Pastor and the Church Secretary and that would be cool. Plus I have prayed very hard about it and feel that God is pulling me in that direction, so I am going to fill out an application and see what happens. That position wouldn't start until Jan. 1, but the idea of being involved in the Church at a deeper level, gets me very excited! So pray for me too.

Ok....on to the thoughts at hand. Since most of my readers are women I am guessing, you should know immediately what the title of this post should mean. If you don't then you have never watched the blessed movie 'Beaches' and therefore might not be a real woman after all. Shame on you. Again back to my financial troubles as of late...

About a month and a half ago I was minding my business when suddenly I felt this sharp poke under my armpit. I reached into my armpit to find that the underwire of my nursing bra (spit angrily at the thought of this type of bra because with four kids I have yet to find one that lasts or is comfortable) had poked through the top and was now stabbing me painfully in the armpit. The best I could do was slide it back into the hole because I didn't have money to buy a new bra. So since that time I have gotten in that habit of sliding the underwire back into the bra because for almost two months I have NOT had the money to buy myself a new bra. But I had had it with the poking and now it was worse cause the hole had stretched out and was harder to stay put. So I found a small safety pin to try and pin the hole closed (worked for about half a day). So now I have a holey, safety pinned bra.

Then on Friday I couldn't stand it anymore (if you haven't noticed I only have one nursing bra left - this is why it is so perturbing), and swore I was going to get a new one when Tony got paid on Friday. So I went about my business and went to dinner with a friend at Olive Garden. Nearing the end of dinner I  reached down to get my cell phone to see if Tony had called and I felt this pinch under the OTHER side of my bra. This time I quickly learned that the underwire on the other side of the bra had snapped in half. That meant I absolutely with out a doubt had to buy a new bra the very next day. So now I had a holey, safety pinned and broken underwire bra. What a sad state of affairs! The things us women do to support our families. If I didn't have size 42 DD bra at the moment and wouldn't scare half of the world with my flapping boobs sticking to my stomach, then I would have said to heck with it and thrown it to the wind and let it all hang out. BUT I thought that'd be a bit too much for the world. :)

So I am happy to announce that on Saturday I finally bought myself two new nursing bras that are semi-comfortable, but I am comforted by the thought that Tess will be 10 months old this Friday and I never nurse my kids past 12 months, so hopefully these bras will last these last two months. Don't get me wrong, breastfeeding has been one of my favorite moments of parenthood with each of my children and I am pro-breastfeeding all the way. I would have NEVER done it any other way. But now that I am done with babies and Tess is so close to the end of this stage of her life, I am excited for our new adventures where I am not tied down to a nursing kiddo and I can actually leave all four of my kids somewhere for more than a few hours at a time.

But ladies, I lift my glass high to each of you brave women that put on a bra everyday just to be miserable and uncomfortable for the sake of humanity. You are truly brave women!

Oh Motivation...

As of lately since my back is feeling better and I have some Physical Therapy appointments lined up for my back and abdominal muscles, I am feeling more motivated to begin some sort of workout routine. I am hopelessly lost when it comes to the eating aspect of my life right now, because I am having some addiction to chocolate that I am not being able to kick. I have always been a choc-o-holic, but lately it's gotten to a scary point where I almost can't live with out it! I joke that I would bleed chocolate lately, but seriously folks, does that mean I am missing something physically from my body (hormones, chemically imbalanced, stress relief or simply addicted to the lovely taste of chocolate?)

I've decided to put some of the eating habits on the back burner for now, since I am failing in that respect to my weight loss and have decided to switch up what I had originally seen as a common sense way to start...that being to eat healthier first then build up to working out - I now think I will reverse that. I think now that if I start working out then I WILL eat healthier. So we'll see what happens.

When it comes to working out I need a goal though. You'd think just knowing I could be thinner and healthier and happier would be a goal, but I need an actual tangible goal in order to have a sort of deadline. My inspiration for this goal that I am about to tell you about comes from a number of people that I know that have recently been doing it. My sister-in-law, and MANY of my friends and my oldest sister has always done it - run a race!! I know you probably think I am crazy, and I am not talking like a 20 mile race or a sprint or anything of the sort, but a 5K. I'm only in the preliminary moments of this thought process so bear with me, but I don't know where to start! I am seeking help from my oldest sister and from a friend of mine that has been a runner her whole life and is in races all the time. I also found a website that is called from Couch to 5K, and it seems pretty reputable and has a workout program for the very beginner runner to be able to work up to running a 5K! It has really good articles on it too.

My second dilemma is finding time to work out, especially now that it's getting dark out earlier and entering into Winter (however the next few weeks into Nov. seem like a beautiful weather season to start a workout program). I cannot afford a gym membership and have no workout equipment at my home except a pair of dumbells and a exercise ball. Plus I don't know when, that's actually the biggest question! So any help any of you readers could spare, would be AWESOME. The final dilemma is finding a race. I want one soon enough that I have a sort of immediate goal, but also far enough away to train for it. I don't want to rush myself. Maybe early Spring??

I'm very excited about this decision and I really hope I can stick to it. But before I ACTUALLY start, I need to figure out the logistics of how and when to exercise. So help if you can and if not pray for my success and for my motivation to withstand!

Happy Halloween!

Family Pictures!

I LOVE getting pictures taken of my family. I love all the aspects of it. Luckily I have a great friend that is trying to start her own Photography business and she wanted to take my family's pictures for a dirt cheap price. Of course I accepted because I have NO family pictures since Tess was born and I was super excited. So yesterday we went and spent two hours at a terrific park where there are wrought iron bridges, lots of cobblestone stair cases, lots of changing leaves and trees and awesome picture places. In fact there were like 5 or 6 other photographers taking pictures at the same time!

Tonight she posted my pictures on her Photographer Facebook page (Laura Knobbe Photography) and they turned out AWESOME! For her not technically being a professional photographer, she did a great job. The only downfall to the pictures are me. If I weren't in them they'd be even better and it PAINS me to feel that way. I know everyone does this, but when I look at the picture, instead of seeing all the smiles, I see my double chin, and my rolling gut. YUCK! I love two things about myself...my awesome red hair and my bright blue eyes. Everything else I can find to criticize. But besides that fact I am still like a kid on Christmas with my new pictures. I can't wait to pick up the cd from her tomorrow and start getting them printed out! Yay for new pictures. Now if I can only get my back fixed so I can do something about my double chin and rolling gut, this might just be the motivation I need....but I need to be able to walk first!!

But I must say that as overweight as I am and disappointed in myself for getting this way....I could never be upset about the 4 most wonderful things I created! Aren't my kids just gorgeous?!!

Happy October!

what a pain in the back!

So my back went out about a year ago when I was pregnant with Tess, it was SOO painful and incapacitated me. Since then I will get an occasional twinge in my back in that same spot if I've overdone it a bit, but I can usually stretch those muscles, take some Tylenol and it will go away.

Not yesterday though. It had hurt in that spot all morning and felt on the verge of going out and I tried to stretch but it wasn't really helping. I loaded up the van and took kids to school and when I went to load up the 3 two year olds and Tess that I had with me at the preschool to head home my back popped in that spot and I about passed out it was so painful. It took all my energy to shuffle out of the van and shuffle to the drivers door already in tears. A couple of preschool parents asked me if I was ok, and I just said my back was out and I needed to call someone. I got my cell phone (very painfully) and called my mother in law first and asked her to meet me at my house to help me get kids out of the van, then I called Tony to ask him to take his lunch at preschool pick up time to pick up the preschoolers. I finally got myself in the van but drove only about 15 miles per hour slumped over in the drivers side and in tears the whole way home.

Once home it took me over 10 minutes to get out of the drivers side and work my way around the front of the van to open the doors where the kids were. I stood there trying to not move and breathing through my pain until Holly pulled up behind me. She got all the kids unloaded and I got inside where I made the mistake of trying to sit in my computer desk chair. I took a muscle relaxer and sat without moving for about an hour while Holly ran around and took care of the kids. I finally called all the parents to have them pick up their kids earlly and to tell them I had to close the daycare for Tuesday.

Finally Holly got me up to go to the bathroom and then I laid down on the heating pad flat on my bed which felt so much better than sitting up and I stayed there the rest of the night. So that was about 11am-7pm. Finally I got out of  bed by myself to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and feed Tess and was back in bed with my 3rd dose of muscle realxer and Tylenol PM and fell asleep. I got up at 7:15 this morning and felt much better and have increasingly felt better all day little by little. Yesterday I literally couldn't physically get myself out of bed and today I could with ease (but slowly and still with the chance of it going back out). So tomorrow the daycare will be open, but am giving myself serious lifting limitations and lots of time to sit down. Please pray that my back heals completely and that I can get into the physical therapist soon to start once a month appts at least to prevent this from happening again. I can't work on my seperated abdominal muscle if I don't get my back fixed first cause right now I can't do situps or any such activity.

So say a prayer for me and remind yourself to be mindful of the way you lift things!!

It's Fall and life is good!

My favorite time of year is finally here. It's a time of year where fat or skinny, young or old, stressed or poor it doesn't matter! It's Fall. I love everything about this season, from the pumpkins, to the falling leaves to raking those falling leaves and the smells of the cold air and dead leaves and the wood burning stoves of the neighbors. MMMMM. Love those smells. I love apples and stews and the changing colors. If you can think of something about fall, I can promise you I love it! It makes me euphoric. It makes me feel like I am floating on a cloud of with not a care in the world. Seriously. As crazy as it sounds! For instance right now I am a failure at losing weight and just keep eating like I have a death wish and finding NO time to work out, and we are in an extremely bad financial way right now, but I don't feel stressed one bit about it. It's the season I tell ya, it calms me like nothing else can!

It's a good thing my 30th birthday also lands in the month of October (exactly two weeks away in fact) because the season is making me less stressed out about the fact that I am about to be 30!!!!! But let's move on from that fact. My 30th birthday is looking to be a fun party. My sisters and parents and best friend and her family are all coming into town to celebrate ME! (see it IS all about me!!) :) My birthday just so happens to land on a Saturday so I am making the whole crew follow me to Vala's Pumpkin Patch in the Omaha area (a HUGE and AWESOME pumpkin patch that you spend all day at and still don't get to do everything) for the day and then getting babysitters that night so the grown ups can go to a nice dinner and drinks to follow. I hope I have something cute to wear that won't show off my huge gut. :(

Despite my failed attempts a weight loss as of late, I am feeling a bit more motivated these days to accomplish things I hadn't made time for before. I am proud of myself of a couple of things too. First being that I used to be a night owl not by choice but because that's the only time I have to myself after the kiddos and hubby go to bed. BUT  I have been so exhausted lately that I have decided that I need to make a bedtime for myself. So lately I have been making myself be in bed at 10pm, no matter what I need to get done. Just leave it for the next day. Let me tell you I have felt renewed all week because of extra sleep I have been getting. That is one thing that might help me lose weight because I think somewhere I read that people that get better sleep tend to lose more weight. So here's hoping!

The other thing I am proud of myself about (even though it technically hasn't happened yet) is that I told Raymond and Owen that once my 24 pack of Caffeine free diet coke ran out I wasn't going to buy anymore and I could only have soda when we go out to eat as a treat because I drink entirely too much soda. So they are going to help me moderate my soda intake. These two changes are significant in my life so I hope I can keep them up because that too will make me happy!

Anyways...these are just a couple of little things I had to say. I am so excited that it is October and that I can finally enjoy my favorite time of year! I will post some pictures soon, but tonight Tony took Owen to the semi-pro local football game and he took the camera with him that has any new pictures on it! So you'll just have to wait. Sorry.

I am off to fold more clothes and bask in my euphoric Fall.

P.S. I am the best bargain shopper in the world!!! (yes I am bragging) I find end of season stuff for Tess for less than $2.00 a piece at Old Navy and Target all the time. She is almost stocked up to 2T!! Tonight I found her 12 MORE things that were all under $5 to start with and they were marked 50% off of that at Old Navy! Sorry I had to brag a bit because it's like a high to find such bargains!

Happy Fall everyone. Go play in the leaves, go for an evening stroll with your honey, eat caramel apples and beef stew and carve a great pumpkin! I will chat with you soon and definitely will post 30th birthday pictures in a few weeks, but for now, go enjoy the FALL!

It's all good

First I'd like to apologize for my meltdown, even though it was honest and how I feel quite frequently. Your responses were overwhelming and so nice to get such an outpour of support. It's hard to understand that people really are cheering you on in the cyber world and sometimes it feels pointless to continue the blog effort. But with your responses, I feel renewed to keep my thoughts floating around the blogging world, no matter how meaningless!

My efforts with weight loss have been on a stand still lately because I am having trouble adjusting to my new schedule and routine of running around like a crazy person taking 6 kids to 4 different schools and picking them up 3 times a day, potty training my 2 1/2 year old (with SUCCESS!!) and being a mom to 4 kids of varying ages. It's tiring, time consuming, but I LOVE my kids more than words can describe, so that should be description enough! ha ha.

I will be 30 in a month and that is very sad for me. I know that I'm not on my death bed....yet....but I have a very strong fear of death and to think that 40 is only 10 short years away and how fast the last 10 years went by, that scares me. But I am going to try and celebrate by inviting my family and a few friends to spend the day at the HUGE pumpkin patch in the area (because Fall is one of my favorite things in the world), then get cute and go out to dinner at this cool restaurant in town. It should be fun. I never do anything for my birthday so this will help me keep my mind off of it.

But the weight loss thing will have to start again. I have added walking at least every other day to the school down the end of my street and back again to pick up one of my daycare kids. So there is a start. And it feels good, and I speed walk to make my muscles work and get my heart rate up. Hopefully there will be results. I am going to aim to build on this walking and even do it in the Winter.

But to end this post I just want to share with you all how excited I am to be typing this post from my new laptop that my mother-in-law's husband built for me with my wireless internet!! Woo-hoo. Love it. I've NEVER had a laptop before and it's difficult to learn how to type. So happy Fall day, I hope you all are enjoying beautiful weather like me!! Cheers!

Table for uh...one please :(

So I have been awfully busy lately so that is why I have not posted any new updates. I've been exhausted and mentally drained from all that I have been doing to get kids ready for school and the sheer stress of all that scheduling. In fact I have had the HARDEST time getting up in the mornings and have no energy all day.

My weight loss progress has been hindered by all the stress and busy stuff I've been doing. I have NO good excuse other than I am a failure. Every time I try something new to lose weight and get healthy, it is a flop. I thought for sure this would be a great way to have others keep me in line and help support me, but I don't think that there are any people out there reading this. I think I am once again writing to myself. What a very lonely thought. :(

Probably the only people who are reading this are my sisters and my mom and maybe my sister-in-law who was inspired by my blog at first, but has probably since given up on me as well. I think that lonely feeling that I get when I think about nobody caring enough to read my blog is the same lonely feeling I feel day in and day out with never getting to communicate with people and be a member of the social world because I am cooped up in my house with a group of kids all day. It is the same lonely feeling when I think of my one and only friend Sheila that moved to Illinois this May and now I feel like I am isolated even more. It's the same lonely feeling that I feel when I realize that I have no friends, not one! And it's this same lonely feeling that makes me eat and makes me feel bad about myself and makes me gain weight.

I told you from the beginning this blog was going to be honest - so there you have it. I am a miserable lonely person that fears I will die and have no one besides a few family members to miss me. I have acquaintances but when it comes down to inviting people to do things I am NEVER on the invite list...never have been. I don't know what it is about me that people like and can be my friend when we have to be together for school or something, but not enough to ever include me in anything. It makes me sad. I feel the same way now as I did in High school when My Best Friends' Wedding came to the theaters. I wanted to see it so badly because Julia Roberts is one of my favorite actresses and I called everyone I knew to see if I could find a friend to join me and no one said yes. I felt so bad after that that I cried for awhile until my mom grabbed her purse and dropped what she was doing to go see a movie with her sad and lonely daughter. What a nice mom. I think this will happen again soon. A decade or so later, I want to see yet another Julia Roberts movie, Eat, Pray, Love, and I am saddened by the thought that once again I have no one to see it with, only this time my mom lives 6 1/2 hours away and can't really come with me, though I know she would if she could.

So there you have it. I'm a clown (Kelly you know what I mean) smiling on the outside, but sad on the inside. (I promise I'm NOT depressed and don't need an intervention, but when I think about my lack of friends and lack of life outside my house, it makes me sad). I just want friends. I think that if I had friends and a life outside my house I wouldn't weigh so much. Just a thought.

See how handsome my 6 year old big First grader is?

So sorry for such a depressing post! Man, what a mood killer! You probably all weigh as much as me now after reading my post cause I drove you to your own depressions causing you to eat in pity for me!! :) So there is yet another root to my eating problems. Any suggestions for trimming this weed?

Shame, shame, shame...

I've not done nearly as well the last few days as I had intentions to do. However, my weight still went down a bit. I think it's been because I've been sick all week and being sick unmotivates me like it does everyone, so I care way less what I eat or how messy my house looks at the moment.

Keep thinking of me on m journey! I'll do better so you can all be proud and post thousands of comments!

Ta ta for now!

To School or Not to School...How Crazy can I be??

My Crazy Life
a one scene play by Stacey....


Eyes wide, sweat pouring off my forehead, I look at the calendar and gasp for air...could it be? Could school really only be starting less than four weeks away?? I dash to the computer panicked by the mere thought of it. The school website confirms it!!! What am I to do? Loading and unloading and transporting all over again all those daycare kids and my own, my head spins. Then I sigh. I am ok with my craziness, but the only question that lingers is how will I get them there? By boat? No, I lent mine to Beyonce. By plane? No don't have that either, it's flying around the world right now. By Suburban? No, mine only seats 7 and I will have 10-11 kids. Aaaahhhhhhh! The panic sets in again as a wave of stress washes over me. (end scene).

This is my current state of mind. I know a bit dramatic but when you think of the predicament I am in, not so over the top. I truly am panicked by the fact that school starts exactly 4 weeks from this past Monday. I have 5 kids to take to and from school three times a day. I have seven spots in my Suburban, IF I strap Owen and Raymond together in the front seat illegally like last year. However, I will have 10-11 or 12 kids to load and unload everyday. I've been trying to find a 13-15 passenger van, but we can't get a loan because our credit is in the crapper from all the debt we racked up in college and just post college. We obviously don't have the cash to pay out of pocket, so I am literally between a rock and a hard place. (sidenote - Stacey's Daycare accepts all cash donations to: Help a poor Mom Out at Omaha, NE). Ahem, anyways. :)

When I started this blog it was to discuss my weight loss (or lack there of but hopefully the first one) AND my life in general that had to do with me. So this post just happens to primarily be about my constant state of mind as of late. I apologize if you were hoping to hear about the HORRIBLE Taco Johns taco I ate last night after we went swimming. :(

I will be on the run starting Aug. 16 when school starts, I have to take kids to school, pick up preschoolers, then pick up Elementary kids 5 days a week, I have a household to run, a daycare to run, 4 children of my own, a husband, two dogs, a rat, a yard that is desperate for some weeding and trimming attention, I volunteered to help teach preschool midweek at church on Wednesdays from time to time, and now I'm considering taking one online class at the community college here in town. Hello. My name is Crazy, with a capital C. The only reason that I am considering this is because I am too nervous to call the people that pay for my scholarship that just recently sent me a check for $150 in back pay (long story) and want me to resign my contract with them, I just deposited. I am afraid if I say I'm not taking a class, they will want me to pay it back. They might not, but that's just the type of person I am. A person that accepts free money and asks questions later - a.k.a. a poor person.

So call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but while you are making all these calls, can you please call the car loan people to give me a loan on a big van so I can at least relieve one major stress in my life??

-I sigh. I walk away from the computer and go to the kitchen cabinets to look at all the wonderful food and yummy snacks......that I can't eat. Oh bummer.

The End.

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back...

Well if you read the title you probably guessed that I had a few slip ups this last weekend, but as long as I'm still two forward and only one back then I am doing better than not!

I did really well all through Friday until dinner. Tony's brother and wife and son came to town so we ordered pizza. I ate less than I normally would (old me = 4-5 pieces, new me = 2 1/2 pieces). It was veggies and hamburger on it I think. But I can justify it because Saturday we spent the day walking the Zoo, so I pretty much walked a good portion of that off. Then I was good Sat. and Sun. until Sun. night when I didn't feel good and neither did Tony, so we got Chinese take out. I can honestly but grudingly admit that I ate my whole meal and then some, but my proud point with the whole Chinese thing is that today I would normally have eaten all of the leftovers myself - BUT I used it for daycare and they had a Chinese buffet of sorts. So there! :)

I'm not being too hard on myself for a few reasons. First being that I lost a total of 5 pounds already from Tuesday until Sunday. So that's awesome for me!! Just 70 more to go!! But for number two, I keep telling myself not to get depressed about a slip up here and there because I am new to this whole eating less than I normally do thing. It really does take training! You wouldn't believe how exhausting it can be sometimes when I think I need a snack (when I don't) and to keep walking into the kitchen and rummaging through the cabinets and fridge, just to tell myself that I don't need anything and walk out. That alone should earn me a few walking exercise points right??

Which brings me to my next topic. Exercise. I wish I could be a fly on someones wall to see when and how they exercise on a daily basis. I don't get it. I don't understand how ANYONE, especially with kids, can find the time in their day to work out. It stresses me out actually that I still cannot find a time slot in my day to work out. You might ask why not work out instead of blog. Well the simple answer to that is because it's easier to get on the computer during nap time than it is to do a workout video when 4-6 kids are quietly watching a movie during nap time. I am still working on this part, but for now trying to keep tackling the eating 1/2 my portion size is enough to worry about. I have to master that part first.

So please keep cheering me on. I need some support! I need people to tell me NOT to eat snacks and NOT to give in to yummy temptations!

Right now I am feeling the urge to eat too because I am a bored eater and a stress eater and my constant stress right now is trying to figure out how I am going to get all the kids to and from school this next year. I have too many kids to fit in my Suburban and I need a solution before Aug. 16. 

Alright I better go throw together a small meatloaf for dinner tonight. I have to take Owen and Raymond to their first swimming lessons at 6:20! I'm very excited for them.

Fat and Sunburned

I know the title is not very nice about myself, but I've learned that the truth hurts. Just like seeing pictures of myself from this weekend at my parents lake house with the kids!! WOW! I knew that I am overweight but for real? How did I get this way?? I understand how I have stayed this way...but how did I get THIS way?

So I hadn't posted in a few days because I was first getting ready for my trip to MO with just me and the kids and then I was in MO until late last night when we finally made it home. I had NO intentions of starting my diet until after getting back from vacation because I knew it would be a horrible trip if I was just starting a new health craze, so instead I went through an eating frenzy. I know, totally unhealthy and gross, but my mom made enough food to feed us all for a week, and no one rarely cooks different and yummy foods for me, so I took advantage. I ate, then ate some more, then even when my stomach was full and stretched to the max I ate some more. I drank a little wine and enjoyed myself. Glutenous. Terrible, I know. However I looked at pictures of me with the kids and almost cried at myself. I am my own worst enemy. I so want to crop myself out of the pictures with the kids, but it's pictures of me helping the boys learn how to fish and cook hot dogs over a fire and put Tess in the pool for the first time. So they are all memorable moments, so it'd be sad for me to not be there. So I will stay in the pictures and they will be a reminder that I cannot look this way again.

I got back home last night and wrote in my food journal my goals for today which were very simple....eat less, skip the junk, try and keep track of my weight watchers points and drink less caffeine free diet coke (which is a staple in my current diet). So far so good. I'm proud of myself today. I thought because I ate so much this weekend that I would be hungrier today, but I think the pictures of me are branded onto my brain and I am embarrassed at how I look.

Today I have enjoyed foods such as a small slice of home made banana bread for breakfast and a fat free blueberry yogurt. For lunch I had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat flat bread with some veggies and that's it for the day so far. If any of you have any really good low fat recipes for meals for the family that even Tony would eat I'd love to try them!!

Beyond the fat part and the glutenous weekend, I had a fabulous time! We spent a great deal of time on my dad's boat, fishing, or riding around, sipping wine, cooking hotdogs over the fire, making smores with the kids, watching fireworks. I missed Tony, but still had a great time. I felt good about being able to do a trip with four kiddos too. That was a super ego boost. The kids had a ton of fun too. None of us got sunburned until our last day there when we just jumped on the boat for about an hour. I lathered up the kids in sunscreen and my arms and some of my face but missed my chest and neck and now have a HUGE red sunburn there. Oh well. It's evidence that I had fun in the sun!

So start your cheering. I need all the encouragement I can get! Today is the official start of my diet and I NEED to do well. I WANT to do well and I want to be a skinnier, healthier me.

Babies, Babies everywhere!!!!

So I hope that many of you got to read my last post - my inaugural post, because it describes my goals with this blog. If not, please take the time to do so, it will explain this self prescribed blog.

The best place to start is at the beginning. I have four kids for those of you that don't know this. I have been married for seven years this August and for the majority of my adult life I have been pregnant. My kids range in age from 6 years to almost 6 months. Things I have learned about myself during this process is that for my first three pregnancies I loved being pregnant, my fourth I knew it was the last because it just was very confining to me. During each of my pregnancies I never really gained that much weight, less than the average woman I've been told, but it's the post baby weight that I never really lost with each kid. So, I'd gain baby weight and not lose it then get pregnant again and gain new baby weight and not lose it and so on and so forth, so by the end of the whole process I had gained about 60 pounds that I haven't lost. I had gained about 10 pounds when dating Tony, so overall I am hoping to eventually lose about 70-75 pounds. Now as everyone knows, even blogging about it, doesn't mean I'm going to tell you my weight! That would just be crazy!

Here is my main dilemma. I work from home running my own daycare, therefore I don't get out of the house which poses three problems. I don't get real outside exercise, I don't interact with other people and I have a kitchen at my disposal for constant snacking. See my problem? On top of this I am not skilled enough to juggle my schedule to figure out when to exercise. As it is I don't get to bed until midnight most nights, and though I am on the blog right now, kids are here and I can't really  start a workout video when I'm working as easily as I can type up a quick blog. As soon as daycare kids get picked up at 6pm, then it's dinner, baths, play with the kids for a bit, then off to bed for them. After they are asleep I work on paperwork and cleaning up things I couldn't when they were here. So you see suggestions are welcome as to when and how to exercise!

My first step to success I am hoping is to start journaling the things I consume. Then I can see what I actually eat and drink and can then start to see how to start eating less. I need to keep in my head that the kitchen is closed except at mealtimes and that even the cook can't get a taste before then.

So here is a little background info. and a little guide to my life. I wasn't always a fatty, in fact I used to think I was even a little hot! (grins sheepishly) but now I have gone from hotty to self conscience and insecure.


So I plead with the blogging world.....please help me keep myself in check and help me stay sane in the chaos that is my world. More later....

Finally it's all about me!!!

This is my inaugural post. Welcome to my new blog that doesn't just talk about my kids. For too long I have submerged myself into my kids' lives and feel like I have lost my identity. I dearly love my children and don't mind most of the time devoting my life to their needs and wants, but am scared that when they are grown and gone (which is happening much faster than I would like) I will not know what to do with myself. Once an avid reader and somewhat of a literary, I have read maybe five books in the last 6 1/2 years. This is just an example of something that is lost - a part of me. When I stop and think about things I am interested in, I just don't know. (As a side note, I had to go back in my photo archives to find a picture of me for this blog that did not involve kids - there were like a total of 5!!!! It's almost like I am the camera woman of my life, but I'm not in it.)

This blog will be about me and generally speaking only me. Yes there might be a kids or husbands name thrown in the mix from time to time, but usually only in reference to how they have made me feel about something. My goal of this blog is to keep it light hearted and to make my life seem funnier than it is. When something is depressing me or making me feel bad I want to take the negative out of it by sharing it with you all and in doing so making it seem funny or find the good in the bad. I hope I succeed. Amidst the "feelings" of this blog I am also going to use this blog to journal my (hopefully successful) weightloss. I've discovered that I am not a good motivator of myself. But if I put it all out there for you to judge and read, I will be more likely to try harder so you all can cheer me on! :) And in doing so, hopefully I will find myself thinner, healthier and happier.I feel like I have so much to say and no one to say it to. I spend my entire day surrounded by kids that the most important thing to them is if they got a new toy or got to do something fun. I feel a little starved for adult communication at times and my poor daycare moms sometimes get caught in my chatty web. I don't have many friends these days and rarely get out of the house because of working at home and then my large family. I'm not complaining but I do desire to be one of those women that has a small group of girlfriends that go to monthly lunches or go to get their hair done together or take their kids to the park together. You know very Sex in the City-ish. Recently my best friend moved out of Omaha, and though we didn't see each other as much as I would have liked, we talked non-stop and now I don't really have that because we are so busy with our own lives. So my goal with this blog is to hopefully put it all out there - speak to my audience, if there is one, and communicate with people older than 5.

Please comment! About my posts, about my weight loss, about my thoughts, about me in general - but try and be kind! This is your window into my brain so tread lightly! :)
I hope to entertain you a bit and keep you coming back for more. I already have like the next 50 blog posts in mind because as many of you know I like to talk, so this is just one more way to do that!

Well I will close for tonight and start my weight loss posting tomorrow. I intend on trying to post daily no matter if it's just one sentence (which might be impossible for me) or a books worth of commentary. I will still have my family blog at coffeylifeomaha.blogspot.com where I will talk about my family and things the kids are up to but this one is just for me. So check often for updates and welcome to a blog that is all about me.