Changing Perspectives.

I love food. No, I really love food. Any food. All food. Well, except mushrooms. Oreos and Diet Coke for breakfast? Yes, please. 2 glasses of wine during and after dinner? Yup! A mountain of spaghetti? Right here. I love going out to eat, I love eating, and I love cooking and baking. I tend to overeat. I eat when I'm stressed, when I'm sad, and when I'm happy! Yes, I eat my feelings, Mr. Psychoanalyzer-er. I have an unfortunately loooong 2 week PMS where I can't get enough carbs, sugar, and yummy goodness.

It comes as no surprise, then, that I struggle to keep my weight down where I would like it to be. I used to tell myself that I had "curves." But then I looked at my naked body and I could find nothing I liked. Even my tiny ankles were starting to swell, the dimples on my butt could hide a quarter, and my thighs looked like small children were still clinging tightly to them.....under my skin. I felt in no way, shape, or form "curvy" or sexy. I wasn't obese, but I was overweight. And for my 5'4", an extra 20 pounds is alot...especially when it concentrates in one general area. I didn't like feeling squeezed into clothes, and I didn't like the size on the clothes I had to buy.

I felt OUT of shape, and OUT of form, and I was so unfit that my muscles were weak. It was absolute work carrying my beefy son upstairs. (side note: how come baby pudge is so cute, but mamma pudge is not?) I was tired and winded. I was jealous of friends on FB posting about running and working out. I wanted to be fit, too! I wanted to be a young, skinny mom!

I'm not saying curvy isn't beautiful. Most women, no matter their size are curvy. It's biological, people.  I know many different sizes of women who are comfortable in their skin. I just wasn't comfortable in mine. And that's what its all about. It doesn't matter if you're a size 2 or a 22, all women can feel insecure and uncomfortable. I felt like an athletic girl trapped under a snowdrift of PB cups, oreos, sweet tea, and stuffed crust pizza. But I've been working hard to change that. I started out walking. Then a mild jog. I'd come home with sweat spots so bad it looked like I wet my pants. Like I got a "runner's thrill" if you know what I mean..HA! Then I was jogging faster, then running. I took up paddleboarding, and biking. I tried rollerblading, and hated it, so put the money towards an even better bike. It's taking a LONG time, but the pants sizes are going down. I've only lost 4 pounds in almost 3 months, but maybe I'm growing some major ass-kicking muscles....

I admit, in the beginning, I just wanted to be skinny. Along my run, I'd daydream about fitting into a certain dress, or a pair of Paige jeans. I wanted to be hot for my husband. But somewhere along the road, somewhere between mile 50 and 75, my perspective changed. Now, I want to be fit. I just want to be in shape. I want to be athletic. I want to be strong! And that to me means more than fitting into a certain size. I used to yearn to have the physique of a Victoria's Secret model. Now, I want to look like the strong women in the Altheta catalogue. Powering that bike up the hill with 70 pounds of kid in tow feels awesome. When I reach the top, I gain a fresh perspective on the day. Burned the dinner? Psssh. Bad hair day? Oh well. Baby teething? Oh, he's sleeping in the trailer behind me- and look how sweet and peaceful he looks leaning on his sister.

It just makes the day go so much better when I can whirr those pedals as fast as my legs can go. And I don't feel so guilty about sometimes making unwise food choices because I know I will burn most of it off anyway. I eat what I want, because if I went on some restrictive diet, I get so crazy-irritable, no one wants to be around me :) I don't need to be a certain size or weight anymore. I'm still curvy, and always will be. But now I can race my kids- and WIN! I have energy to spare, and my omni-present depression stays at bay a little better, because the more I can do, the better I feel, and I'm looking better too, which helps all that self esteem, which in turn makes me feel like I can do anything.

I still slip, and call myself "fat" sometimes. It's a product of the wonderful world in which we live. We are brainwashed from a very young age. Sexy slim people sell everything from fast food to furniture to vacuums, and we all have access to the best food anytime, anywhere. Celebrities are expected to lose their baby weight months after having their babies, wives are expected to be "hot" and sexy even while taking care of the demanding needs of a young family, the anti-aging market is booming, and the diets just get crazier every day. People talk about the obesity epidemic, but what about the anorexia epidemic? It's almost impossible to know what's healthy anymore. It's all messed up. It's hard to find a balance between taking care of yourself and getting carried away as a mother, and even harder to teach that balance to your daughter.
I'm doing my best to teach my 4 daughters the values of honesty, kindness, compassion, virtue, and taking good care of the body they were given.

And all that is so much more than a dress size.

Handy Dandy Back to School Fun and Totally Awesome Rad Tips

We have a relatively small house compared to the number of people inside. We have 8 of us in a 1900 square foot house. We counted closet space, the entryway, the nook with the wood pellet stove, and the corner where Pa Ingalls plays the fiddle and whittles animals out of wood for the kiddies to play with.... In an age where couples without children build mcmansions of upwards of 4,000 square feet with man-caves and sewing rooms and piano rooms and rooms to play yoga in, our home is the size of a spacious outdoor toilet. I've stumbled ass-backwards blind into some things that actually work well.

• I don't fold underwear or socks. Eff that noise.
• I buy each kid a 10 pack of socks in a specific style, and then it's easier to sort them to that kid. 
• I sort the laundry to each room, and then the kids in that room put their own clothes away. Each kid folds their own laundry after about age 4. 
• I don't sort laundry for washing. If  red shirt makes all the stuff pink, the pink shit goes to the girl it fits. They get something new. Yay!
• Under each sink is a few supplies- rags, bleach cleaner waaay in the back for those poop accidents that always happen in my house right before we are supposed to leave for church or some other pure activity, toilet cleaner (for the toilet), that scrubby powder- Bon Ami for counters and tubs and sinks, and some vinegar in a spray bottle. Makes everything metal shine, and if the kid sprays it in their face, the worst thing that happens is that they have pickled eyes. 
• I only have knick knack bullshit on one bookshelf in my house. Every surface is dustable/wipeable and able to be unsmeared/undrooled/unshitted/unboogered in under 10 minutes for whole house. You'd be surprised at how many boogers I find while cleaning. Kids have a gene that makes them stick boogers on random surfaces. Sometimes they grow out of it during puberty. If not, they grow into men who pick and eat their own crop of snagglers.
• The aforementioned bookshelf is my "happy place." No one is allowed to touch mommy's happy place....except daddy...Ha! (Yes, I'm snickering like a stupid 13 year old boy.) It has all of my favorite books, treasures, and photo albums. I can see it from my favorite spot in the living room, and just looking at it makes me happy. Every mom needs a "happy place." Heck, you need a few happy places that kids just aren't allowed to touch. No booger smearing allowed.
• Each kid has their own "special box" for treasures and a shelf to put their rock collections, random found hair collections, and dried booger specimens. In our house, these special boxes are those canvas boxes in various colors from Target. Oh, wonderful, happy, magical target. The land of unicorns, glitter, and sexy hairy men with goat bodies....Each kid is allowed to decorate their "bed space" as they wish and everything else is streamlined in their room for easy cleaning.
• THE SCHOOL PAPER AVALANCHE: I have a spot on the counter designated for school papers. I go through them each night (because of those sadistic wonderful teachers who send permission slips for next day school trips the night before said trip), hang up cool art, and stuff to save goes in a big canvas box up on a shelf, to be sorted later into each kids own big plastic bin. I save special artwork, important papers, grades, and such in the plastic bins. Each tote is labeled with the kids name. Someday they get to look through their container of crap, and laugh because the macaroni on the paper is moldy and sick. They will thank me. The boring schoolwork like math goes in the bottom of the trash. Shhhh. If they knew I threw away their papers, they would all form a plot to stand eeerily beside my bed at night while I was sleeping. Standing there...breathing...staring.....hissing "mommmmm" at me while I sleep...Oh wait, they already do that when daddy send them up to wake me in the morning....Such a nice way to wake up.
• Each kid has a basket for their hat, mittens and scarf. There is a bench for backpacks and hooks for coats. Unused or ripped things get religiously donated or tossed. The extra sets of mittens and hats and coats and snowpants get hung in the coat closet. 
• Every few weeks, I go through every square inch in our home and take inventory of what we use and what we don't. If it;s been unused, it gets donated. I haven't missed anything yet. Cross my fingers that I won't ever need that shrunken head maker or the creepy doll that grows hair or the sausage maker with the packet of "wild" seasoning.
• Each kid has a box in their closet of clothes they need to grow to fit into, and a bag for clothes they grew out of. Each season, we take stock of all of their clothes, and rotate as needed. Each season, kids get new stuff without having to spend a pantload, and nothing gets missed. God forbid, we miss the Hanna Montana shirt with the "real" pigtails busting out of it...
• I don't understand the parents who don't have their kids cleaning and helping more. My kids clean out the family vehicle, vacuum, do the dishwasher, clear the table, and lots of other stuff. Yeah, sometimes they suck at whatever they did, but mostly they do an acceptable job. 
• We have a big dry-erase calendar to keep track of all our schedules. At first, I thought some smartass kid would take one swipe at it with their hand and thoughtlessly swipe away my oh so carefully color-coordinated mosaic of daily scheduled commitments, but it turns out the ink dries well enough that you need to rub with a cloth to get it off. Cool beans.
• Each kid dresses their own self. I'm not one for those ideas from parents with waay too much time on their hands who go through outfits and lay them out at the beginning of each week, and then put them in some 5 day hanging organizer they stenciled with handmade paints colored with organic beets grown in the distant fields in Russia with the Omnipresent guidance of the Divine Almighty Pinterest. At best it would last a day or two in my house, and then it would be back to reality with petrified toad shit collections on the hanging shelves. I don't fight the little people. If my boy wants to wear the same spiderman shirt 23 days in a row, fine. Who cares. Gap is not banging on the door to  photograph my kids. (Although they should. My kids are insane-cute.) Any parent who bases their absolute fulfillment as a mother on making sure their kid has the perfect apple green striped hair bow to go with their layered leggings and scarf and tee is a bubble brain. Period. There are more important things, people.
• Speaking of that, I don't understand why some people keep their kids hopping with all the activities they can possibly sign up for. Basketball, football, fencing lessons, flute, knitting lessons, power yoga, pottery, Spanish....Do your kid a favor. One extracurricular. All the "free time" can be spent catching up around the dinner table eating together, homework, having family time, and relaxing. Get to know your kid They are pretty cool people. After all, they came out of your va-jay-jay. They are funny little midgets of yourself before you got old and boring. Hang with them. It keeps you young.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed my Rad Tips. Now for the Funny-of-the-Day:

You're welcome.