6 days down!!

I thought by now it would be getting easier, or I'd be a little less sore at least. But that's really not the case. At all. My abs hurt more and more every day. My upper back has started aching. My quads ache. I've been taking naps, a lot of naps. If I don't get any results out of this I just may hunt down Jillian and sit on her for 30 days and see how she likes it!

I keep thinking, if THIS is what I'm feeling after only doing 20 minutes of a Jillian Michaels workout a day...what on earth do those poor bastards on The Biggest Loser go through? *shudder* Don't even want to think about it. This has cemented my decision to NEVER audition for that show!

But I guess the pain's all good...at least I know I'm doing *something*. And somehow this workout is keeping me motivated. Even on the days when I was really, really dreading it...I still got up and did it. One time I even did it at 10:45 at night (and after I'd had a big meal out that night.) I don't think I'll ever do that again, I seriously wanted to puke...but the point is, I still did it.

So, yay me!

3 days in a row completed!

Well I've managed to torture myself for 3 days in a row now, woo hoo!!

Actually, its really not that horrible because of Jillian's 3-2-1 system. You do 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs...repeating this 3 times. You only do each move for like 30 seconds to 1 minute at a time. So, by the time you want to die its time to move on to the next thing.

And I'm already noticing results. Don't know how much I can attribute this to the fact that I didn't wake up at 5:30 this morning and did my workout at 8:45 instead of 6 am, BUT... I was able to do more reps of some of the exercises before it felt like body parts were going to fall off. AND, I was able to go longer/more intense on the cardio things before I was sure I was going to have a massive coronary in the middle of my living room.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Eat a bunch of really delicious, fattening food for me!

Its been 24 hours...

And I don't want to die, yippee!

BUT...I am definitely feeling the effects of yesterday's workout. My lower back is a bit sore, I'm sure from all that jumping around. And my abs, which I thought I didn't really put much into (because of my fear of getting dizzy) are pleasantly feeling that after workout soreness. There's a slight twinge in the butt region as well.

Jillian says its a total body workout...and it is! (And Brenda, its really not THAT bad, if I can do this you totally can!)

And here I am ready to get up and do it again.

Its been 12 hours...

and my shoulders and neck are not happy with me. At. All.

I think I should have started with 2 lb weights instead of 4.

Going to go cry now.

First order of business...

is Jillian Michaels 30 day shred! If I can grow my hair for a year and a half I can bust my ass for 30 consecutive days...right? Sure, I say that now, we'll see what happens when the pain REALLY starts to kick in, LOL!

We've got exercise tv on demand and I found the 30 day shred workouts. Last night I glanced through level 1. It looked hard. I was scared. You should be scared of Jillian, right? But this morning I woke up (at 5:30, ugh!) and decided to just do it.

Well, it wasn't QUITE that easy. I got up, put on my workout duds...and then had a mini panic attack thinking of actually playing the workoug.

Then I had a little Jillian-esque peptalk in my head. "What are you afraid of? Sweating? Working hard? Looking like an idiot? Not being able to do all the moves or reps? Dying a slow miserable death after Jillian has turned you into a quivering blob of goo? Well get over it!! You're never going to know what you can do unless you get up and do it!!

There were lots of jumping jacks...an almost 290 lb woman doing jumping jacks is SO not what anyone wants to see, or hear. How does anyone do those anyway? Every time I come down its like all the air just gets pushed out of me in a big WHOOF, and then I have to gasp it back in on the up part before it all gets pushed back out.

I was really scared to do the ab work considering what happened the last time I tried such a thing...but I made it without any dizziness or migraine, woot!

The arm work is what I'm really feeling, oooh my shoulders are aching!

It'd be nice to lose the 20 lbs in 30 days that she claims you can...I'm not setting my goal that high, but if it happens I'll surely be celebrating!!

I made fudge today...

No I'm not going to post a wonderful homemade recipe complete with pictures and rave about letting my kids help and how amazing it all was. I admire anyone who does that, I really, really do. But I am not that mom. I am the mom who will post about the quickest and easiest way to do something...which is exactly how I made fudge today.

Yesterday as I was tooling around the grocery store ALL BY MYSELF with my steaming Starbucks non-fat raspberry mocha with whip cream thanking my lucky stars that for once I was not one of those parents with the huge ass car cart with the 3 kids hanging over the edge...I came upon the the most wonderful product! (Er, well, I suppose not so wonderful if you're of the Nestle banning persuasion, of this I am not. I couldn't be even if I wanted to as my son depends on one of their products to...well, to live and grow and all that jazz.)


It was a box with all the fixings for deliciously rich, creamy fudge all right there and ready for me to make. It came with a "sugar mix" (no I don't care what all was in that...we're talking about fast and easy here, its not always the healthiest way), a bag of chocolate chips, a can of condensed milk, and a package of marshmallows. All put together nice and easy with directions I didn't have to search for. And it was only $6, had I bought all that other stuff individually it certainly would have cost a lot more.

And, it even turned out really good. I don't usually have the best luck with fudge, I always get it too dry. But even I, as inept in the kitchen as I am, was able to make this successfully!!

Ok...really I wrote this because I am procrastinating, but I do like to share some of the better quick & easy products I come across.

Well I did it...

I cut my hair. I didn't make it completely to my goal length, about 2-3 inches short, but I still consider the endeavor to be a success! I might not have made it all the way, BUT, I did grow it for over a year and a half and I put up with it annoying the crap out of me and being very tempted to cut it all off on several occasions. I stuck it out no matter how much I didn't want to, I got to see what it would be like if it was that long...and that's what I set out to do. Mission completed.

I have been having a lot of headache and neck issues lately and I thought the weight off all that hair probably wasn't helping, so that's what made me decide to finally end my journey...well that and that fact that I couldn't see anything if I ever leaned forward because there was just too dang much hair in the way.

Now to take this long term, stick it out to a goal success and translate it into other areas of my life. Most specifically, my weight loss. Not that I've had much of that lately...but that IS going to change. Right now in fact, I'm going to go hop on the elliptical and burn some calories!

I'll try to post pics later of the hair change. Don't have any of the shorter 'do yet. I really should make that my next goal I suppose, LOL...finally getting aroung to posting all the pics of things I promised I would!

All I did was chew a piece of gum...

and I've been in pain ever since. First it was my jaw hurting so bad it felt like my head was going to explode. I'm pretty sure its a TMJ issue. I go see the chiro cuz I'm desperate...next day jaw feels a bit better, but now my front lower teeth are killing me. Well not so much the teeth, but the gum area under those teeth. Like they are being pushed out of place somehow. Maybe its some phantom pain from way back when I had braces, lol.

*sigh* Why must there always be SOMETHING???

Is it too much to ask for that my head feel...right. If its not a headache or dizziness, now its jaw pain and wishing I could just yank my dang teeth out.

Who knew crunches could be bad for your health?

So yesterday I was watching a show before I had to pick the boys up from school. Unexpectedly I had the thought, since I'm just sititng here maybe I should do a few crunches while I'm watching this.

And so I did...

Except after about 4 I started to feel a little funny. So I sat up and was feeling pretty woozy. Not like totally dizzy, but the world definitely didn't feel right.

It didn't get any better after a minute so I got up and sat in the chair. Then I started to get really hot and was sweating and slightly nauseous.

After a few minutes it just wasn't going away and I had to get K up from her nap so we could leave. I decided to take some Excedrine Migraine because of my recent issues with vertigo and migraines. My head didn't hurt, yet, but I wanted to ward off any pain that might start. Anyway, as I walked into the bathroom I saw that I was totally pale and with the sweat pouring off my face I really looked like hell. And I still wasn't completely stable. By the time I got back from the school my head was hurting and the diagnosis of a migraine was complete.

I went from feeling totally fine to feeling like total crap in the matter of about 30 seconds...all from doing crunches. Isn't exercise supposed to make you feel better??

I. Am. Unbelievably. Excited!!!

My parents came to visit last week and they said they wanted to buy us a new dining set. The one we had was pitifully small. They actually got that one for us too because we didn't have a table (we didn't have children then so it wasn't a big deal to us to just sit on the couch and eat, ya know.) Anyway, we outgrew it long ago. K was still in a high chair for the singular reason that we didn't have a real chair for her. When my parents do come visit meal time is always fun. Someone sits on a step stool and another on the computer chair and we're all scrunched together thinking it'd be easier to just eat off our lap.

Anyway, back to the important part. My new table and chairs were delivered TODAY!!! I immediately wanted this set the moment I saw it, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! The wood is this caramel-y brown, there is a slate design on the backs of the chairs. AND, when I showed it to C he actually liked it too, woot! Honestly I didn't care if he liked it or not, it spoke to me, it was meant to be mine. I do feel bad about how much my parents spent on it, really wasn't expecting them to shell out a ton of money, but they are awesome and really wanted to get it for us!

So now I feel like an actual grown up, with real grown up furniture! Who knew I'd ever be so excited about furniture. Its so pretty I'm almost tempted not to allow my kids to eat on it, or touch it, or walk by it, or breathe near it...maybe I'll just kick them out of the house just to be safe. I'd post a picture of it, but I have no idea what happened to the memory card dealy that C bought after we got our new camera. I thought it was like *right here*, but its not, so now I'm wondering if I imagined the whole thing. I was sure it was there before... *scratches head* I suppose I could *gasp* read the directions on how to upload them directly from the camera...but I'm too dang euphoric about my table to be able to concentrate on something like that!!!

I. Am. Desperate.

Or I've just lost it completely, which is more likely. Yesterday we're driving down the highway, the radio was on quietly. And I hear the words "Are your children disrepectful like mine were? Do they blah, blah, blah??"

Yes they are, and YES they do!! Let me turn this up!! Some woman goes on to explain how James Lehman and his Total Transformation system changed her life. How she couldn't take her children out in public for fear of their behavior, and now everything is wine and roses. I sat there listening with rapt attention. I almost got out my cell phone and started dialing when she rattled off an 800 number several times. (I might have except for the fact that I couldn't hook up that hands free thing fast enough!) It felt like this radio commercial was changing my life!! Wow!!

Once it was over my 7 yr old from the back of the van says "I'd like to have that so....." Well its not important why HE wanted it, I don't just want it, I NEED it!!

In the past I would have scoffed at it and said, yeah right...your kids were probably angels compared to mine lady, it probably didn't take much to turn them around. In fact, I have done that...I've heard of this program before, even looked at the website, BUT didn't want to shell out money for something to sit on my shelf with my library of parenting books on kids who are spirited, strong-willed, difficult, defiant, etc. Obviously they've done me so much good... If anyone out there would like 1 or 2 or 10, just let me know, they're yours!

But for some reason, THIS time I didn't scoff at it, THIS time it spoke to me... I haven't been able to get that lady's voice out of my mind telling me that my life could be so much different if I just try this guy's system, it would be a miracle.

Well, damnit, I need a miracle! So I went to the website...I was enticed and drooling...I knew I shouldn't, its not actually going to be a miracle, and the cost, well, we just won't talk about that...but, but...there is a 30 day trial period! When it doesn't work I can just send it back, right?

So before I really even knew what I was doing...I ordered it.

I know, I should probably be ashamed of myself. I am kinda ashamed of myself. But yet, there's the tiny part of my brain that KNOWS that our family can't go on the way it is, my children can't go on behaving they way they do, their issues go way beyond C & I totally screwing up as parents. You know its bad when every time your own parents visit you they ask something along the lines of "how are you not an alcoholic or a drug addict by now??? Seriously, how do you do it???" The answer is: I would be if only I could afford it. Dang, maybe I should rethink the whole getting a job thing...

So what the heck, lets give it a try, if by some tiny chance it actually DOES work, it will be the best money I have ever (and will ever) spent. I may even build a shrine to James Lehman right in the middle of my living room.

I heart Keith Olbermann

He says it much more eloquently than I, but this sums up EXACTLY what I feel!

Just watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21xdFUp-vVU

Well, unfortunately the closed-minded and judgemental have won.

Its a sad day for the states of California, Florida, and Arizona (Arkansas as well for a related but different reason) as the gay marraige bans passed in all those states.

I would like to extend my apologies to the gay and lesbian community, I know it probably doesn't mean much, but I really am sorry that this is the state of our society.

I would like to extend my apologies to my children and all the young people of this country for that fact that they are growing up in an environment of such bigotry. I hope you will find a way someday to do what the "adults" of this country couldn't.

So bravo "traditional marraige", you have been "restored"!! I really must say though...I don't see how it can be called traditional when there isn't any sort of non-traditional allowed. And seeing as how marraige between a man and a woman never went away, I don't see how it needed to be or could be restored. But whatever...