SELF LOVE MONTH

If there is something that I am greatly missing in my life it is self love. I don't like to spend time alone with me. I am so very hard on me. I put myself down a lot and feel like I never measure up to others. I am so very tired of this. It is stupid and a huge waist of my potential.

         "Wanting to be someone else is a waist of the person you are." - Marilyn Monroe 

Because I am tired of this and don't want to spend another year, because there have already been way, way, way to many years of dealing with this, it is time to do something about it. I have some things I want to work on but I am going to make myself sit down and focus only on this topic and come up with a plan.

So far these are the things I am thinking will be my focus:

• meditation
• yoga
• walk for exercise  (I love to lift and have been doing a running app but I want to be gentle for a bit)
• healthy food habits.

This is all I got for now but I will be back with a  plan.

THEY CHANGED MY PLANS

Don't you just love it when you have laid out a plan for yourself and then someone goes and changes it on you? Well I don't know about you but I can't say I am a fan of it.

I was suppose to have the week to myself, from Monday to Saturday. My two boys and my husband were going on a 70 mile hike. Well one got sick, one's back started hurting, so the rest decided they were ready to be done, too, and it is only Tuesday.  Sounds awful I know. I knew my one was coming home because he was sick and I was ok with that, which sounds even worse. It's not that I hate that they are coming home, I just was looking forward to my week and the things I had planned for myself.  The one great thing is my hubby has the time off and we might get to get away for a night.  Which I love the idea of, especially since next month is our 24th anniversary. We are thinking Seattle, but we will have to decide after our youngest is taken to his doctor's appointment to see what is up with him and why he has not been feeling good the last week.

PEACE REMINDER

I have another Art Journal page to share with you.  This month's focus on https://braveheartsisterhood.blog is Peace.  Oh man peace, such a simple word but can be such a hard thing to achieve.  Google search on peace brought up the definition: freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.  Sounds so wonderful, like a  moment in time when your eyes are closed and you see yourself standing in the sand, looking out at the ocean and all you can hear are the waves crashing, I love that vision.  

Well this is my reminder page.  This is something I should make a constant reminder, EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Since you don't know anything about me I will tell you that these are things that I struggle with all of the time.  I don't know what it is about taking things personally.  Sorry about the repetitiveness but this is something I struggle with 'all of the time.'

Also, peace is a choice.  A choice we get to make a million times a day.  Makes me laugh when I was going to say the choice is ours and it is up to us.  Yeah, the choice is ours but man do things push our buttons to the limit that makes that statement seem, laughable. But ultimately it is up to us.  A quote I heard somewhere, as I am sure you have heard it before, fake it till you make it, or fake it till you believe it.

Peace, it is such a wonderful feeling. One I don't allow myself to feel as often as I should. I feel like when I let peace in, then my walls are down and things sometime take me off guard and knock me in the face.  I guess then I should be grateful that I made this page to remind me that I have the choice 'to practice peace'.

FINDING PEACE ART JOURNAL PAGE

I am apart of this awesome journey of creating.  I stumbled across this blog not to long ago. and  I am so lucky that I did. It has been such a creative, fun, eye opening, connecting experience.  Leslie, the creator of the group, is such a caring person.  I have never met her but she shows it threw the videos she posts.

It's called Art Journaling.  Leslie will give a topping and then you will create.  Some of the items I used in these are magazines, flower cut outs, and paint chips.  I really do enjoy creating them.  There are some amazing videos that I have found of what people have created.  I hope to find new ways to to add to my art journal pages.  I have even done some with napkins.

Creativity, no matter how small and simple, can make you feel so good.

JULY 12, 2018

What to you is the biggest part of losing weight? Diet or exercise?  I think it is self love.  You know if I am thinking about myself and what I really want, downing a full row of Oreos isn't included in that self love. Now I'm not saying I wouldn't eat any but instead of that whole row, maybe 2.  Not because I am telling myself I can't because I don't want to feel and look fat but because I know how yucky I am going to feel after I am done.  I hate the loss of control I feel when I get in that way.  I can't eat a whole row and seriously only taste the first couple, after that it isn't so much about the way it tastes.  Maybe Oreos aren't you thing, maybe your thing is something else but I think you get the idea.

There are other things that I think contribute to weight loss that go beyond diet and exercise, things you have heard before...i'll leave that to next time.

This is a picture that someone took of me at a church activity.  I couldn't believe it when I saw it.  I was so surprised with how I looked.  But I will tell you it has been a long time since this girl here has had any self love for herself.

START 7/9/18

Today is the start.  Below you will find my stats.  Ugh!!!

*  Weight - 196.8
*  Bust -43.5
*  Waist - 41
*  Upper Arm - 14.5
*  Hips 47.5
* Thigh - 28
*  calf - 16 3/4

START OF THE PROJECT July 11, 2011

  So here I am starting for the umpteenth time trying to loose weight.  I am greatly surprised at times when I pass by a mirror and see myself.  I have 2 big bins in my closet of clothes that no longer fit.  Everything I have that does fit is to tight.  I can't say I don't know how I got here; sadness, stress, and lots and lots of eating.  I eat if I am happy, bored, stressed, celebrating, and sad.  It has been a very hard few years, for certain reasons I don't feel like getting into.  I feel awful, and don't look that great either, it has definitely caught up with me.  Like I said I have started this progress more times than I can count.  I am so tired of starting and stopping, roller coaster is my life.  I heard this question that fit me perfectly: are you where you want to be in a year from now?  The answer is I definitely don't want to look or feel this way.  I weighed myself the other day and I was 4 pounds away from 200 lbs. 200, that is my future by the end of this year if I don't get my crap together.  

This is me about the beginning of 2018