What Counts

I ran yesterday. I had a slight headache and wanted badly to not run, but I ran and that's good. It was stupid hard and I'm not good at it and I was embarrassed but I did it. And, in the long run, that's what counts.
What counts is getting off my butt and moving more. What counts is NOT making excuse after excuse and finding 'reasons' to continue being lazy. I don't love working out. I don't love eating healthier. But, I will do these things. I will make these changes. And eventually, I will enjoy them more. And that is what counts.
I weighed myself the other morning. I won't tell you my weight because my shame is too large (though not larger than the number on the scale, apparently, or it would not have crept up so high). What I will do is say that my number ended in 6.5 and that my first goal is to just get that last number to a 0. I will be giving myself the last few days of this week and then the next two weeks to hit that number. This is the first REAL goal I've set for myself in a while. I think that the 6.5 pound loss will make a difference in the way that I fit into my clothes and the way that I feel, though it might not be a huge deal to most. It's a start. And making a start, as I've said, is what counts.

Couch to 5K

I think I'm really going to do this. I'm planning on signing up for the Glow Run in St. Louis on Oct. 6th. I have never, ever,ever run for fun in my life. I've barely ever run because it was expected of me. I don't run. I don't like to. Or, I didn't. I know that if I want to succeed I have to lose the defeatist attitude and look at this positively. I have to say "I'm going to love running in the long run!" "I"m going to have so much fun doing races with my friends!" and things like that.
The truth is this: My favorite thing in the whole wide world is taking a bath while reading a book. You do not get much more leisurely than that unless you add in wine and now I want nothing more than to do just that. Bath. Book. Booze. Anyway. That does not sound like a recipe for me to be a runner. But I want to be. I want to lose weight and I want to feel better and I've been told this is the way. So here I go.
I'm looking at the Couch 2 5K program, but does anyone have any other suggestions?

Do you wanna take my picture?

This weekend Eric, one of his buddies, and my father worked all day Saturday to put up drywall in the new bedroom in our basement. When we built the house, we did not have the money in the budget to finish the basement and I didn't feel like taking on renters to finance the project, so the basement has been and empty, concrete hole since then. Well, Eric's parents are coming for Christmas and since we had Audrey, we no longer have a guest room. I wanted to take pictures of that space coming to life and share them with you but then Eva "took a picture" of Daddy and proceeded to drop the camera on the bathroom tiles, denting the lens casing (or whatever you call that), thus rendering the camera useless.
Awesome times.
This weekend also marked the first time I've gotten to be with my three long-term best friends at once in.... right about two years. There are lots of pictures from that night, but I didn't take any of them since Eva destroyed my camera right before we headed to the party.
I want to buy a really nice camera. I want a DSLR or whatever the heck they are. Because they take gloriously good pictures and I want to have that capability. I don't, however, have the money in the budget for such a camera, so I'm going to have to go with a more affordable model.
Anyone have any recommendations?

This week

This week has been a struggle for me. I go through phases where I just feel sort of in limbo with life. I want SO MUCH to be Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart and Nanny Jo from Super Nanny all rolled into one and I have a hard time accepting that I am just myself. I get home from work, after my long commute and I am tired. I don't want to make dinner or clean the house. Usually dinner gets made, but the house is left to it's own devices which is to say it's left in the hands of a three year old and a one year old who are on a mission to get every single thing out of every drawer and bin and just drop it where they wish. 

Something has to change and I think we all know it's me. I have to find contentment with my life as it is or make changes to make it what I want it to be. And I think I pick the latter. I say that often and don't follow through, but today I am feeling strong about it. So next week will find me up early to get on the elliptical. That will hopefully get my body moving and get a positive start to the day. Every night will find me at least picking up the house and making sure the counters are wiped down. I will smile more and say yes more to my children. I will find the time, even if that means going to bed a little later, to enjoy the small things in my life. 

Eva.

Today, my Eva turns three. I had her at 5:01 p.m. after something like fourteen hours of labor and thirty one minutes of pushing. (TMI?) There may be a day when I feel like telling that story, but today is not that day. She was giant. Her head was huge and she weighed 9lbs 10oz. She was delightful.
Except that the kid did not sleep. And she was the clingiest child ever.
All of those things still hold true. She is marvelous. She is loving and sweet, but does not want you to cuddle her or touch her too much. She does not like a lot of people, but the people she likes she LOVES. She is cleverer than you want a kid her age to be. She is funny and too smart. Her use of language is both hilarious and fantastic. The kid knows how to turn a phrase.
She also still does not sleep worth a damn.
I am, according to her, her best friend. And that is my favorite role in the world right now.
Because at three, it's awesome to have Mommy be your best friend. And, as a Mommy to a three year old (who stubbornly has been calling you Mom lately....) it's awesome to be her best friend.
When gets a little older, I will no longer have the role of best friend. And that's how it should be. But, for now, I adore that title.

30 by 30

I want to lose thirty pounds before my thirtieth birthday. As I don't turn thirty for right around nine months, I don't think this is an unattainable goal.
Except that I love to eat. And to sit.
I'm not a huge fan of working out. I don't 'get the bug' or whatever it is that some people feel when they've been working out for a while. I work out for a while and then think "That's enough. I don't like this." and then I sit down and eat a Twinkie and read a book.
I am not afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting older while still so overweight. I want to be in some semblance of a shape that is not 'round'. I want slim(mer) hips. I want a waist. I want to only possess the one set of breasts, rather than having a smaller, unattractive set right below the ones God intended me to have. (sorry. That sounds terrible written out, but it is the truth.) I want to be able to enjoy the next decade running after my girls and not feeling put out every time Eva wants to run the length of the house (which is her favorite pass time). I want to WANT to take them on walks and bike rides. I want to embrace their youth and what's left of mine.
So the plan looks like this:

• Cut out most soda. I'll still have it ON WEEKENDS ONLY and ONLY when we are out to eat. And only Ski (which is a delicious, high calorie, high caffeine local soda) which will cut down on the soda intake even on weekends since not everywhere serves it. 
• Replace some of the sugar in my coffee with Splenda. I like my coffee with an embarrassing amount of sugar. More sugar, probably, than a woman should have in a day, in general. And, I generally dislike artificial sweeteners. But, I found today that if I use just ONE Splenda, I can cut down on my sugar by about a teaspoon at least. So there's that.
• No sweets except on special occasions. I have come to treat 'treats' as if they should be a staple in my diet. I'm going to try to make them actually TREATS rather than everyday occurrences. 
• Be more active in general. Not sitting on my ass every night should help.
• Work out three or four times a week over my lunch hour.

I don't think these are things I can't handle, but we'll see. I'm hoping that putting it out there for you all (all zero of you?) to see will help keep me honest. I'll be updating every Monday with how I did on my goals.

Goals

I have no pictures to share with you. I haven't got a fancypants camera and my regular old point and shoot is floating somewhere either in the bottom of my bag or in my car. Or maybe a kid ran off with it. I'm not sure. But, someday when I get around to properly cleaning my house, I will take pictures of it and you can see what I am (and am not) working with.
Anyway.
I want to make a lot of changes. We built our house in 2008/09 and we built a house I did not love from the start. We bought our lot. We bought beautiful, one story, big covered front porch, ideal layout plans. And then we had the land surveyed and were told our beautiful house was not going to happen on that particular lot. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac and our lot is very narrow at the front and we would not be able to comply with the easement requirements. So, back to the drawing board on houses. I found a two story (Cheaper to build! Separate living and social areas! hooray!) that we liked well enough, but it was not my dream home. My resentment grew. We built it anyway. So, now I am unhappy in it and want to change it. All the time.
Here is a quick rundown of what I want to do:
Jump on the board and batten bandwagon in my dining room. Also maybe add some interest to the ceiling with some beamy treatment. And paint it. I hate the green color in there.
Crown. Everywhere. It wasn't in the budget when we built but I need it in my life.
Paint the entire downstairs, really. We have a pretty open concept and so almost everything is one color. Butter Cookie by Behr. Loved it when we put it in and still like it, but I'm craving a calm blue.
Deal with Eva's giant closet. seriously, that space could be an apartment in New York City and I haven't even painted it. It's shameful.
Finish our bedroom.
Finish the basement. I'm hoping to sand and paint the stair case as I've seen so many homebloggers do. It's beautiful.
For the rest of this year, I'm mostly focusing on the basement as my husbands parents are coming to stay for a few weeks at Christmas and I don't have anywhere to put them if I don't finish that!

Getting started

I keep trying my hand at this blogging thing, only to fall off of the wagon, hard, on my ass and then delete the whole mess two months after I quit bothering to post. So, for my first entry here, I'm not going to set up you up with any expectations. I'll post when I can. I'll try to make that three times a week, but if I'm being real, we'll be lucky to hit once a week at first.
Here's a little background on me.
I'm married to Eric. We have two daughters, Eva and Audrey.
We built our house about three years ago and I already hate everything about it. Building was stressful and I was pregnant with Eva and had not yet discovered the world of design blogs, so now I'm working to change things and make them more along the lines of what I want. If Eric will let me.
I work full time and have a stupid long commute.
I'm about sixty pounds overweight and sort of working on that, but not as well as I should be. Hopefully I can get on it and stay on it this time. Kind of like this blogging thing.