Goals Part 2 and Update on Other Goals

First an update on the goals I made last week:

• Track what I am eating everyday no matter how junky. Hold myself accountable. When I have a bad day, don't let it defeat me and start over the next day. I tracked everyday except Sunday! Quite proud of myself and probably going to consider Sunday my free day from now on (even though from the looks of my food diary, a couple other days were also free days eek.) Definitely made me realize how many calories I am consuming and made me feel a little gross. Hoping to watch the amount of calories I consume fall this week or at least meet my goal.
• Take the stairs more. Even just going down them. Face it going up them in my shape might kill me. The first few days I did really well making an effort to move more. But towards the end of the week I didn't do so well. Got tired and just plain lazy. Going to try and start momentum up again this week.
• Park further out in the parking lot even if the front row spot is available. I have been parking about in the midpoint of the parking lot so walking a few more steps than I was.
• Invest in some sort of activity tracker in the next month or so. So I can see how much I am moving and challenge myself to do more. A work in progress still....budget kinks being worked out....more on that next.
• Walk the dog at least 3 times a week. No excuses. Even if just for 5 minutes. Didn't even attempt this one. Getting colder here in Michigan and I am hating it. Started Vitamin D and hoping that helps my energy and mood, may have to get some B vitamins as well.
• Be under 300 lbs by the end of 2013. (Baby steps I know but I have to start somewhere) As the scale in the picture shows(So far away because I am tired and don't feel like figuring out why it won't move.) I am down 4.5 lbs :-D. Decided to make the goal 15 lbs by the end of the challenge with my friends which should be around the end of 2013.
• New goals for this week: 
• Do not eat 2 hours before bed. 
• Dedicate 30 min to exercise this week.

As I eluded to earlier some of our household budget kinks are being worked out. Since Matt and I moved in together in 2010 we have pretty much said what's mine is yours. We got a joint checking very early on, mostly because Matt's credit was so bad, he couldn't get one on his own. I married a man with bad credit but I said for better or for worse and money problems happen to everyone so didn't really phase me. We have dealt with these things pretty much since the beginning. We are making steps to help improve his overall credit but there is only so much you can do. You have to live. Rent, food, gas to make a living etc etc are necessities not things we can cut the budget for. But our spending in the last couple years has been out of control for lack of a better term. Now in the grand scheme of things we have not done that badly. We have been able to pay our bills and other expenses but there have been months when we just made it, with no extra. We haven't thought about the future. About the family we are working on starting and what that means financially. In recent months I have spent hours scouring the internet for financial advice. For ways to budget, expense track, save money, spend less etc etc. I started by looking at our checking account for a month in June and was blown away by how much money we were flushing down the toilet on gas station stops, eating out and random impulse buys. The next month I took it a step further and actually saved receipts and tracked expenses more specifically. Same story. I continued that for a couple months and then decided I needed to take it a step further and start to use a budget. So began my search for the perfect excel template because this seemed to be the easiest way to do it. This is how I tracked our expenses but the template I had found for that didn't allow me to include an actual budget and see what I spent against what I budgeted. I finally found it in Pear Budget .

Pear Budget began as an excel template a few years ago and has since developed into an actual web based application. I have only used the spreadsheet template so far but I love it. It lays everything out clearly and allows you to create your own categories divided into regular, variable and irregular expenses. Here is a screen shot of what a month looks like:

 

I used this tool in October and again realized we spend too much money. So Matt and I decided together to change some things. We are going to start using cash for groceries, fun money, misc and eating out. Once the cash in that category is gone, we are done spending money in that category. I am hoping this will curb our impulse buys when grocery shopping especially. I want to focus on paying down debt. We also decided to car pool to work as many days as possible (hence I am sitting at McDonald's writing this as we speak at 7:45 AM). This has proven a little more difficult now that we have a dog. My husband has to be to work at 6 AM and I start around 8:30 AM so we are gone from 5 AM until about 5:30 PM. I feel bad making Ace hold it that long so we carpool on days when someone can let him out (days my sister has off or like this week my parents were gracious enough to help out). My husband also has school two nights a week so those nights are out as well. So our goal is once a week if we can do more, we do. But onto the actual goals part. Here are my financial goals for the next 6 months:

• Pay off one credit card. 
• Stick to a budget throughout the month of November (barring extenuating circumstances) and continue to adjust according to needs and new findings about things that work for us.
• Build a savings of at least $500
• Start to tithe at least 1%. By the end of 6 months be tithing 5%. (This may seem very small but I have always struggled with the concept of tithing. I am happy to give money to my church and those who need it but giving away 10% of my income has always scared the bejeepers out of me. Praying I become more comfortable and that God moves me to give as much as possible.)
• Keep Matt more involved in our finances. (I have no problem taking the reigns with paying bills and balancing the checkbook but I want my husband to be more aware of where we are financially. Financial issues have caused some strain in our marriage the last few months and I really don't want it to be something that puts a wedge between us)
• Use our tax return to pay ahead on car insurance and pay down debt. If enough, use small amount for something fun. (April falls at the end of the 6 months since I am starting them from November, should have our tax return by then as long as the government doesn't shut down again or some other crazy thing happens, you never know I suppose as it is all in God's hands)

I forgot how much I love making goals and how much I love accomplishing them. This last week accomplishing just a couple of my goals for the most part really gave me motivation to continue on my get healthy journey which is a work in progress as well. Still not making the greatest nutritional choices but trying to incorporate more veggies and fruits and drink more water. And added new goals for this week. 

Also starting to fall in love with writing again, as evidenced by this post. And starting to fall for blogging......this getting up early thing makes me feel so much more accomplished. Time for work!!! Happy Hump Day! (And happy Friday to me, yay for 4 day weekends spent with the hubby, even if we aren't doing anything super special besides spending time together.)

Until next time!

Pulling Myself Back Up

Here we go again.....I am down, feeling low, can't seem to be happy but for brief moments. Time to make changes. Do things differently so that I don't feel pathetic, worthless, in general like a giant blob. Life isn't about sitting around waiting for things to happen. If I want to feel be happy I need to go out and change my day to day life.

So I have decided to make goals to improve my spiritual, physical and mental well being. First things first, time for a lifestyle change.I am convinced that I feel like crap most of the time because that is what I eat most of the time. Junk with no nutritional value. Started a weight loss challenge with a couple of friends to help keep motivated.

Lifestyle Change Goals

• Track what I am eating everyday no matter how junky. Hold myself accountable. When I have a bad day, don't let it defeat me and start over the next day.
• Take the stairs more. Even just going down them. Face it going up them in my shape might kill me.
• Park further out in the parking lot even if the front row spot is available.
• Invest in some sort of activity tracker in the next month or so. So I can see how much I am moving and challenge myself to do more.
• Walk the dog at least 3 times a week. No excuses. Even if just for 5 minutes.
• Be under 300 lbs by the end of 2013. (Baby steps I know but I have to start somewhere)

This is where it begins..........

Friendship Defined

I realize I have been writing a lot about change and moving forward and growing up etc etc etc and this I feel pertains to that in ways as well. I am truly starting to realize what it means to be a friend. It isn't always about how much time you spend together or even necessarily knowing every single thing about a person. Friendship can be defined in a multitude of ways. I feel like I have always had different types of friends. In high school I had friends I talked to pretty much every single day. I had friends who I said hi to in the hall aka acquaintances. I had friends that I hung out with at sporting events and dances. But I had one friend who I spent pretty much 75% of my time with outside of school. And I loved every minute of it. There are days when I sincerely miss high school (which if you know me says a ton) just because it gave me the opportunity to see my best friend everyday and to truly share our lives. She became part of my family and to this day still is along with her husband and son. But today I see this friend once a week during a good week and talk every two to three days. That doesn't mean that our friendship has weakened but that life has moved on and we have other obligations and responsibilities. But we still love and support each other. We have had ups and downs but we are still there for each other.

Some of the other friends that I was very close to in high school I am still friends with today but in different ways. I don't really text or talk to them on a normal basis. I see them once a month(ish). But again that doesn't mean I don't love them. It just means that life moves us all in different directions. There are days when I have a hard time relating to my single friends and I know there are days they have a hard time relating to me and where I am in life as well. As we grow older keeping friends becomes much more difficult. Keeping that relationship where you are hanging out with a close knit group pretty much every weekend and then slowly that stops happening, On one hand this is sad and on the other it is exciting because it means we are living our lives. Not that friends become less important when growing up but because we start to build our own families, careers, and adventures.

Life isn't about quantity, it's about quality. Such a cliche but so much truth there. I don't have an abundance of friends by any means. The girls women who stood up with me at my wedding are the best group of friends I could have ever asked God to bless me with. There are 5 of them. Jess who is the friend I was referring to earlier, I wouldn't know what to do without her. Linds, who can make me laugh through anything and I see her way less than I would like. Meag, my hair stylist and one of the sweetest most caring people I have ever met. Andrea, who I have been friends with since middle school the one who I can not see for months and our relationship picks up where it left off who has a heart of gold.  Even my sister who is flaky and self centered at times but I know she loves me and wants me to be happy. All of my friends have flaws as do I. My sister's are just more evident the last few years and have hurt me especially around my wedding. This is why I mention them now. But I have changed directions.....

I have been writing this post for a couple of weeks at least. I always sit down to do it and get distracted. Plus writing it for me is a little bit touchy. I love all of my friends and there have been issues between some of us recently and putting it in words has been difficult for me. But I have come to realize these are more growing pains. Figuring out how to relate to those you care about most as their situations change. (I really feel like I am repeating myself lately but the same thoughts have been plaguing me for months) I pray and pray about ways to bring us back to where we were but then realize I don't necessarily want to go back where we were. We have grown as people and made mistakes and there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes people don't realize they are hurting those around them and there is something wrong with that. Finding the words to tell your best friends that they are being hurtful is truly difficult, so I pray to find those words. I am still struggling with it.

On a somewhat related note I have been feeling a strong call back to church as well. Matt and I have attended only a couple of times this entire year. We have let the call of our bed on Sunday mornings deter us from attending regularly and I believe as a result our marriage has struggled. We have really been fighting off demons lately. And I can't help but feel that not being in the Word has contributed to this.

As I seem to have gone off topic again and can't concentrate to bring this post to a full conclusion, I think I will end it now and hope the next post is more centralized and cohesive.

The Growing Pains Continue

No, I'm not referring to traditional growing pains that you experience as a child/preteen/sometimes even teen years or the show but instead to that feeling you get as life moves on and people move in different directions, grow in different ways and with different people even. When I told one of my best friends how I felt she used the term growing pains to describe it and it really resonated with me. Ever since graduating high school, my friends have moved in different directions and through different walks of life. I love having friends who have varied interests, backgrounds and paths in life. Keeps life exciting but also sometimes makes you question your own path which can be painful and helpful. I have friends who are married with children and I see the joy (and the exhaustion, hard work, and selflessness) that goes into being a parent and watching this child that came from two people's love and was created lovingly in God's image grow into their own person. I want that. No question in my mind.

But then I have friends who are still single or dating or whatever the case may be who also have fulfilling and happy lives in different ways. I am a firm believer that everyone should follow the path they feel is meant for them and spend a lot of time in prayer and contemplation if they are not sure what that is. I know this may be TMI for some but Matt and I had completely unprotected sex for the first time the other night. Without going into too much detail, we just got caught up in the moment and it was beautiful, truly making love the way God intended. Afterwards I remembered that my ovulation test for that day had been positive meaning that I was pretty much as fertile as I could be. And I got excited and scared all in the same minute. I know that there is only a chance that I am pregnant and no guarantees, but knowing that there might be a tiny human growing inside of me right now fills me with joy. And with fear. Spending time with Matt's best friend and some of his band mates and friends Friday night made me kind of miss that feeling of going out to the bar or wherever and just being silly. With or without alcohol lol. I just missed the carefree feeling of it all. I had to go to work in the morning and really didn't want to, I wanted to spend more time in that place. Feel that way a little longer. I found out they went to breakfast and talked about the stupid funny things that happened the night before and I felt like I missed out. I know that leaving that part of my life behind will be such an immense blessing in the long run but I just feel a little sad about it. Just a little bit like the carefree (ok somewhat stupid and naive) girl that I was is truly gone. It has been years since I have really "gone out" on a semi regular basis and really I should have had this feeling a while ago. But there are days when it just hits me, especially now with a big change coming to our lives, hopefully soonish.

This post has been in the works for a little over a week now I believe. Have felt like there is more I want to say and express but not sure exactly how to put it into words. It doesn't help that I have been physically exhausted with no energy. Not sure exactly why. Might be PMS. Might be something else though at this point the pregnancy test is saying no at 10 days post ovulation. We shall see what God has in store. This weekend has been re-energizing, spending time with family, doing some much needed housework, making plans, reading, and just enjoying being at home. Hoping to have another relaxing day with the hubby tomorrow before we head back to work.

Growing Pains

For some reason I feel as if the past is repeating itself. I feel people slipping away again and time marching on. For reasons of my choosing and for reasons that are out of my hands. A friend I thought I could depend on and that we were really close has really shown herself to not be the type of person or friend I want in my life right now. I am hurt. Deeply. I feel it more deeply than I have felt much of anything in a while. I feel torn between being the bigger person and loving her through it and being petty and treating her as she treats me. I am trying to find the balance of loving her and letting go. Because a (not so) long time ago when a boy cut my heart deeply over and over again ( some of this being because I allowed him to continue returning to my life time and time again but I digress) I had to learn the hard way to let go, because that didn't mean that I was giving up but moving on and continuing to love the person from afar where they couldn't hurt me so deeply. There are deeper betrayals then not responding to someone or failing to get back with them or not making time in your life for someone who is supposedly important to you but they are hurts none the less. For the time I am choosing to stay away from the situation and see if my absence makes a difference which is still putting my faith in someone that at this point I don't feel I could trust. In the midst of all this change weighs once again heavy on my heart. To watch my friends change right before my eyes in various ways is hard sometimes. But at the same time, Matt and I are planning some big changes in our life. Talk of babies and puppies is what fills our house. Especially babies. It is just about that time, to start trying to make babies :-D I am so excited and thrilled to start a family with the love of my life but deep in my heart I have fears about the growing pains it will cause in my relationships, especially with friends. Having kids changes EVERYTHING. I am prepared for most of the changes but from past experiences I am afraid of a few of those changes. Friendships move down a little on the priority list when you have a little one and that is perfectly natural, it is the order of things. It doesn't mean your friends are less important, just that communication changes. Texts and phone calls are more frequent than visits and there is nothing wrong with that. But when people don't understand or don't even try to understand it makes things difficult.

No matter what stage in life you may find yourself, learning a balance is difficult. Time, money, resources, energy, and so many other factors have to be taken into consideration and balancing family, friends, work, kids, housework is taxing but in the long run there is such a pay off to living a fulfilled and balanced life. BUT mistakes happen. Life happens. You can't stop it. None of us are perfect and none of us should pretend to be. Apologize when necessary. Make amends. Move on when there is nothing more to be done or when the pain becomes something that need not be part of your life. Pain should not be synonymous with any relationship.If I have learned one thing in my relatively short time here on earth it is that. Letting go and Letting God is vitally important to staying balanced. If there are people in your life who stand by you and make you want to go on and be a part of their life no matter what. In the good and the bad, for better or for worse, never let those people go. That shouldn't just go for marriage but for all relationships.

"...Alice kept thinking about that passage from one part of life to another. She kept thinking, Is this it? Will I know if it is? Will I be ready?Will I make it across? Will I chicken out? Will I know when I'm saying goodbye? When I look back, will I still be able to see what I've left behind? She thought she would know when it happened.But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were." Ann Brashares, The Last Summer (of You and Me)

Reflections

Running into old friends can really make you think sometimes. About where you have been, where you are and where you are going. I ran into someone I was very close with not all that long ago while grocery shopping and boy has she changed. It made me a little bit sad and nostalgic in a way. This girl had become like a sister to me and some things changed and we kind of just stopped talking. On Facebook and in text messages, we have said hey I miss you and we should get together when you are in town but it never happens and it probably won't ever. We won't be in that place in our lives again. We were friends who weren't meant to be forever but just for a passing moment in time. I miss her. I didn't realize how much until I saw her but also seeing the changes made me see why we hadn't stayed close. There are other people in my life who I know will be there no matter what and for a very long time, hopefully. Though I guess in reality, we don't ever fully know.

In a half hour, it will have been a year since I married my best friend and the best thing that ever happened to me. A whole year! Sometimes I still can't believe that this is my life, no matter how much I sometimes complain or don't say thank you to God enough, this is my very blessed life. We have a home with two kitties whom we love and can't get enough of, even if they drive us crazy. We have been on the hunt for a dog to adopt because we would like the dog to be used to us before we introduce a baby into the mix. Speaking of babies, September has been the decided on month to start trying for a baby. I am excited and nervous and a million other things all at once. I have been doing research on trying to conceive and learning how to use the website fertilityfriend.com so that I can easily keep track of my ovulation cycle. I want to be informed and do what is best for me and baby. I have lost 12 lbs and feel good about it but stress is starting to creep in from finances and just life so my eating habits have slipped a bit parts of this week and into this weekend. Need to get back on track and be more serious about exercise habits. I need to get up to at least 30 minutes three times a week before September because I don't want to have to quit exercising because I get pregnant.

Well getting late and we are getting up somewhat early to go to zoo tomorrow to celebrate our anniversary :-D Also we both have Monday off so we can relax an extra day before heading back to work, so looking forward to some R&R with my superman!

Back to Busy

♪Working nine to five, working nine to five♪
This song runs through my head on a pretty much daily basis as I make my way to work where I work 9-5 lol. It has been such a blessing to be able to sleep a little longer than I was able to with my last job. But when you get home at around 6, you have little time to do much else for the day. Finding a routine has been a little tough, just with taking care of things around the house, appointments and such. Plus money has been a huge stressor for us lately. Being on unemployment really set us back financially, we are pretty much scraping bottom at this point until my paychecks start coming. Once we get back on track, it will be time to buy another car and set ourselves back again lol. If it isn't one thing it is another, I guess.

Matt and I are going to start trying for a baby this late summer/ early fall :-D. I am so excited to start a family. Though I just went and picked up my prescription for prenatals and they were rejected by insurance so I need to double check that prenatal care is (eek!) covered. I don't know why it wouldn't be. I don't want something else holding us back but I also have to think about the decisions we make and what it means for us and our future child/children. (Side note been writing this for like a week now lol)

I have also been bit by the forum bug, I joined a ttc(trying to conceive) community and have started talking to a few women who are planning on starting to try around the same time as Matt and I. I am still up in the air about when exactly to stop taking my birth control. Because I would like to start tracking my cycle and on birth control I rarely ever get my period so that may make it difficult. But we shall see, been discussing it with the hubby but he is not too keen on wearing raincoats again (lol I know tmi). I guess we could just leave it up to God for a month or so, really leaning towards stopping birth control at the end of June, so my cycle can regulate.

In other news, well there isn't much to say as that is mostly what me and the hubby have been talking about :-)