In Search of Myself

Easter, part 1.

for those of you new to my life, the chick in the bottom picture with me is my best friend, the girls are hers, the boy is mine.  Good times.  :o)  More to come later.

$90 shoes!

I don't spend money on shoes.  I just don't.  It just seems stupid, since I wear them out so quickly.  Well, and I wear 10's now, and how many great shoes do you find in a women's 10?  I buy whatever I can find, for cheap, and wear them until they fall apart.  Then I buy another cheap pair.  That's just how I am.

So when my mom got a treadmill in January and I decided I was going to start working out, I bought a $15 pair of sneakers at Target.  Now I've been working out 4 times a week for 3 months (and what SUCKS is I have yet to lose weight or clothing sizes but WHATEVER, I'm in much better shape), and last week my right foot started hurting so bad I could hardly walk.  The muscle right in the middle of the bottom of my foot just hurt like I had pulled it or something.  And my husband, who considers shoes an investment -- and takes weeks deciding on the perfect high dollar shoe to buy whenever he's going to buy a pair -- told me I had to go buy myself some GOOD running shoes if I'm going to keep working out (and if I want to be able to walk at all.)

So I walked across the street during lunch to the Athlete's House, had a long talk with a salesperson, and tried on SEVERAL different pairs.  I'm now the proud, although semi-reluctant, owner of a pair of white and lime green Nike running shoes.  I think now I'm even MORE motivated to work out, since I spent so much damn money on those shoes.  LOL.

Side-note: I'm not a fast runner.  Asthma and bad knees makes it hard.  Plus, I've been out of shape for quite a while.  I have to alternate running and walking fast.  When I started, I was doing a mile in like 23 minutes.  (Sad, huh.)  Slowly I got faster and more in shape, and my time would go down 30 seconds at a time.  So I would finish exercising and tell my mom I'd finished a mile in 19:50, then 18:30, then 17:50, then 17:10.  My latest was 16:40 -- and I know that for MOST people that's totally slow.  But for me?  A HUGE accomplishment.  I couldn't even get it done that fast in high school, when I was actually playing sports (then again, my asthma was worse in Montana and I had to slow down more to catch my breath.  The Tennessee air has actually been GOOD for my asthma.)

So here's today's question: how fast do YOU do a mile?  If it's under 10 minutes, you don't get to answer.  LOL.

Believe in dreams.

What I'm reading:

The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Our Lives and Why We Never Talk About It by Susan Maushart ~ view the book at Amazon

I LOVE this book.  I love all books like this.  I just do.  It's hard to describe why without quoting entire big chunks of the book. 

I'm a few chapters into it, and the overwhelming concept that I'm really relating to is that we're all so caught up in telling ourselves and telling other people that we're perfect as mothers and motherhood is so easy and just a walk in the park . . .  Screw that!  There are times when the JOB of motherhood sucks.  Not BEING a mother, mind you.  'Cause being a mother is great.  But the day to day changing diapers, feeding the kid, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, cleaning the kid, changing more diapers, being thrown up on, never getting decent sleep . . . I mean, what kind of a crazy person signs up a 24/7 job with no pay like that, then faces the world grinning and saying "I'm GREAT, no worries, how are you?"  But in the name of motherhood, we do.

I think that blogs help.  I don't think the writer of the book took blogs into consideration when she was writing it -- because through blogs, we ARE real with each other sometimes.  There are some of us who DON'T sugar-coat everything, and we will willingly admit when things just plain suck.  And I think that's terribly empowering.  And it's less of a shock to the system when you're alone with a newborn and completely overwhelmed with how HARD it is, if you were semi-expecting it in the first place.

This is really just a random ramble, but reading the book made me think of a scrapbook page I did not too long ago, that I haven't posted here yet.  So here it is.  I could have made the page about how great the day was, how it was the day Jake was dedicated at church and family came down and we were all together . . . but seriously when I look at that picture, all I remember is how overwhelmed and tired I was.

April 4th randomness

April 4th was my mom's 52nd birthday.  So I bought dinner and cakes, Priscilla brought her girls over, and Kathy just showed up.  Here are some random pictures from that night.

 

 

Dude, I rock.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking I rocked the house with this page.  This is Shabby Princess' new "Studio Chic" kit.  Dude, I freaking LOVE this kit! It's SOOOOOOO pretty and funky and fun! I love you, Shabby Princess. LOL. The 3 smaller flowers I recolored using the big flower. And that group of flowers at the bottom of the page? The kit totally comes not only with each individaul flower, but a file with this grouping for lazy people like me! These pics are my younger sis, last year. No journaling needed, since it's for my dad's album, which is mostly just about getting our favorite pictures on pages!

3 birds with one stone.

1.  new blog entry.
2.  scrapbook page for my book.  (and Priscilla's.  heh.)
3.  used a kit for the design team I'm on.  This is Lauren Grier's "Sandra" kit.  click here to view in the store.

Hi.

Hey there.  I've been ignoring you again.  I'm tired.  Busy at work.  And tired.

love you all.