Decisions

I finally made my decision.  I needed to take some time this week and think and pray and come to a decision about wanting to be the chapter leader for Enchanted Makeovers for Massachusetts.  I've decided that I want to be a part of this organization.  I want to do more for my community.  I've decided that I want to use my love of creating to help others.  I am hoping that Terry Grahl is interested in having me part of her organization.

After spending about forty five minutes on the phone with her, I was even more interested in being a part of her organization.  She told me stories that made me tear up and cry, stories that made me feel even stronger that this was something I wanted to do.  I was scared of failing at being the chapter leader, and still am, but I am trying to get over my fear of failure and trying to be more positive about things that I want to do!

My goal is to spend some more time reading the website for Enchanted Makeovers.  You can check out the website for yourself at http://www.enchantedmakeovers.org/.  I plan to spend some more time talking with other chapter leaders.  I have gotten a lot a great positive feedback from the other chapter leaders and I'm sure they will be a great source of support and help if I am the chapter leader for MA.

I am looking forward to starting this new chapter in my life, that is if I become the chapter leader.  As time goes on, I will be posting more about this wonderful organization, even if I am not the chapter leader.  I believe in the mission and look forward to telling more people about it.

Amy

Complete and Utter Failure!

Thankfully I don't have a ton of followers and not too many people read my blog.  I have been a complete and utter failure with my eating.  The only good thing I've done is try a couple of new recipes that were how I wanted to eat!  Unfortunately, I ate horrible along with them so it basically negated any good that I did.  What is it about being healthy that I can seem to follow through with?  I have a feeling that this blog is going to be more of an online therapy session for me.  It will be a place for me to talk about the issues that I have and hope that some how I can figure out what the hell is wrong with me and why I can't seem to be the healthy person that I want to be.  I will keep trying to get to the point I want to be at.  I am due to complete week2 day 3 of the C2 5K.  I am hoping that after I put the kids in bed, I can head out and go by myself.  I want to see if I do better without pushing the stroller with 2 kids. 

On a more positive note, I finished my apron for the flirty apron swap I am in.  I am always happy when I can make the tuck-ins.  For me, I feel like I want to make them since we are creating an apron.  I want to create the tuck-ins I send also.  I need to mail it out tonight and then I get to wait for my package.  I am truly loving sewing and I am pleased to say that even though it is a simple apron, I made it without a pattern and I actually love it and would have been happy to keep it for myself!

Onwards and upwards to becoming the healthy person I want to be!
Amy

The Best Laid Plans

I had planned to be this natural, holistic mother/woman, but in reality, so many of my goals just don't seem to be happening.  Since I started dating my husband and learning about holistic health and holistic living, I have really wanted to change my lifestyle.  In some ways I have, but in many ways, I still need work. 

For myself, I really need to change my diet.  I often make changes and then for whatever reason, I don't follow through.  I really need to start following an anti-candida diet so that I can see if eliminating certain foods makes me feel better.  I need to stop giving into my craving and start being strong and having resolve.  I need to continue to exercise and hopefully this time, I'll meet my goal of running a 5K.  I need to continue to be creative, since I feel like this is my therapy.

For my family,there are so many goals that I had that just never came to fruition and now I have  no way of meeting those goals.  Overall, I have given myself permission to say that it is ok that I didn't meet those goals.  Sometimes, there are just certain things that get in the way that one has no control over.  One of those goals, was to have a natural child birth.  I attempted it with my older son, and due to different complications, I ended up with a c-section.  When I found out I was pregnant again, I decided I wanted a VBAC.  Then I found out it was twins, and that there would be certain requirements to meet.  I ended up not being able to have a VBAC due to my son, baby B being breech.  I had also wanted to breast feed my kids, but againthey just got a little time with breast milk, and my twins got barely anything.  Again, there were certain circumstances that contributed to this, but sometimes I wonder if I could have/sould have tried harder.  the other thing that I wanted to do was be a really great mom to my kids.  I am not trying to say that I'm a bad mom, I am just saying that there are so many things that I could an dcan do better.  I am really trying to make a point of doing what I want to do to be a great mom!

At this point, I just need to let go of the past failures and move forward with my current goals.  I need to not let any failure become something that continues to make me go down the road that I really don't want to go down.  I need to be clear with myself about what I want and what I need and make every effort to follow through.  I also need to make sure that I am honest with what I can do and not make goals that will be certain to end in failure.  My next post should probably be what those goals are so that I can have in writing what my goals are and I can make certain that they are attainable.  If I learned anything from my social work career, it is taht goals should be attainable, something just out of reach and then once you attain that goal, you can change it again.  Goals can also be changed to go backwards.  If, for some reason, I find that I can't attain the goals that I have set for myself, I can always change it to something less stringent so that I can meet that goal and feel like I have made some progress!

God, I feel like I just had a little mini therapy session with myself.  Not too many people read my blog, but I am realizing that those that do and  comment mean the world to me, and even if I don't get comments, I think it really helps me to get out what is in my head.  There is so much more I could write, but for now I will stop and start antoehr therapy session another day!

Amy

New Recipes and New Thoughts

I have been wanting the book "Clean Start" as well as "Crazy Sexy Diet" for some time now and yesterday, I sucked it up and bought them.  I was thinking about trying a new recipe from "Clean Start", but I didn't have enough ingredients in the house.  So I went to the web and found a blog:(http://www.nomeatathlete.com/clean-food/ ) with a recipe for millet and black bean burgers only to find out that the recipe was from "Clean Food" another cookbook by Terry Walters, the same author as "Clean Start" which I already own.  I bit the bullet and tried a new recipe for my family which the kids hated but me and my husband loved.  The amazing thing is that in the past, I haven't been all the impressed with millet recipes.  The last two recipes I've made have been from this "Clean Food" cookbook and I have loved both of them.  I am psyched because millet is really cheap, and I can enjoy some healthy food.  I only wish that my kids would be better eaters.  I am really looking forward to trying out more recipes in my new books and

My newest thoughts have some from a few comments that people have left regarding different posts that I have done.  One of my postive qualities, yet one of my worst qualities is that when I get a thought in my head I totally dive right in full force and expect that everything is going to go just the way I want it to because I am so resolved about some idea.  Well, it is one of my worst qualities because when things don't go as planned, for whatever reason, I tend to back off.  A lot of time I want to make one huge change instead of multiple changes with the end result being the big change that I ultimately want.  I hae decided to go slow and make all the changes that I want to make on more of a smaller scale or at least over a period of time so that I can maintain the really important changes that I want to make.  I also think that I need to give myself permission to fail, but not give up.  Again, I don't like failure, but like I said, I also tend to dive in head first instead of just dipping my toe in and going slow so that I will be less likely to fail!

It's funny, I sometimes think that blogging is really not all that I thought it would be.  I don't have all the followers that some blogs have.  Granted, I tend not to be able to be as active with other blogs as I would like, and that may be the reason for my lack of followers.  My lack of followers may also be because what I am writing about is on little to no interest to others, but I am slowly realizing that those that follow and comment have really helped me with some of the issues I am having.  So, thank you to all who read, and I really thank those that comment since the things that you write have really helped me.

Amy

Blogging

This blog seems to have become a public place for me to talk about my struggles/failures/set backs with my diet. I will admit that it is also a place where I can writebabout the few successes that I have. For example, I started my day out just the way I wanted to and had a great green smoothie. Unfortunately that is all I had until about 3:30 this afternoon when I down a bunch of cookies. Granted they were Newman's so they were better quality, but they were still cookies. Then, to make matters worse, I got pizza at work. The one positive is that I did not get soda. I don't think I had soda all day, pretty impressive! Writing this you would think that things can't get much worse, but yes they can! I came home and had 3, yes 3 english muffins with butter and jam. I totally started my day out great, yet I totally failed the rest of the day. I also had salad with chicken. Not so bad you say, but I am trying to cut out meat. Yes, tomorrow is another day, and I will be making some positive changes, but I am really disappointed in how thugs went today. I will definitely be starting out my day with my green smoothie and hopefully, I can end my day and look back and say that I had a great day. No excuses, but today was a little busy, I just should have made better choices! I'm off to read more blogs and get more inspiration. Maybe some day, I'll have people that follow and comment, but for now this is a great place to document my trials and tribulations of eating healthy, living green, making and creating handmade items, and teaching all of this to my kids.

For those of you who read and don't comment, thank you for reading! If you'd like to take a moment and comment, I would love it. Thank you for ny support that you can give!

Amy

Failure Follow Up

So far I got one response to my Failure post.  This response made me think that maybe I could just cut out dairy (cow) and wheat and gluten.  I am wondering if this may make things easier if I can have some things that are not crazy.  At least there are a ton of gluten free sites and even some gluten free dairy free blogs that I maybe able to look towards for some help in remaining on the right type of diet.   I know that something makes me feel horrible and I would have to say that cow's milk is definitely something that affects me.  I can't say for sure now if wheat and gluten make me also feel horrible.  I am hoping that getting rid of these foods will not be as limiting as getting rid of all the allergens in theallergy test.  As always, this is going to be a work in progress.  It will be interesting to see how I do with these changes.

Thanks Momma B for the suggestion fo slowly eliminating things and seeing how I do with that!

Amy

Failure

Why am I such a failure when it comes to eating the way I should be.  I know that I often have stomach issues, but really could never relate it to certain foods except dairy products.  Now that I have been tested for allergies, there are so many more foods that I need to check to see if are true allergens.  Why is it that I can not stop eating these foods long enough to see if I truly have an allergy to them.  I feel like a complete and total failure when it comes to food intake.  I guess this must be what a drug addict or alcoholic feels like on some level.  I know it isn't the same, but I truly crave these foods and I know that they make me feel horrible.  I just need to bite the bullet and start doing what I need to so to be healthy.  I had to eliminate something (substance that I craved) when I was in grad school for my substance abuse class.  At the time I chose caffeine.  Not a bad choice at the time, but thinking back I wish I had done something more like wheat.  According to my blood test (which there are many false positives supposedly) I need to cut out cantaloupe, cheddar cheese, swiss cheese, cottage cheese, egg yolks, gluten, malt, cow's milk, rye, tuna, watermelon, wheat, brewer's yeast, and baker's yeast, and maybe even yogurt.  Because of these potential allergies, it is even more important that I cook my own food and eat healthy.  I am on the path to eating correctly from here on out.  I know that there will be more failures, but I will always get back on the horse and do what I need to do for my health.

As for creativity, I still need to get better at creating.  I am making the cake for my mom's birthday.  I can't wait to play with the decorating.  It's going to be fun.  I can't wait to get better at making time to create.  I am working on a knit dishcloth for my husband's aunt and I will be giving her a pattern book for her to make things from.  Hopefully she'll like them.  I am also thinking that I don't really want to sell things I create, but I actually want to teach others the benefits of living a creative life.  Some day I'll figure out what my passion within creativity really is.

I'm off now to get the kids dressed and go to the natural grocery store with them.  I need to plan my meals and start thinking about how to be healthy for me and my family!

Amy