Work Out. Weigh In.

The past few weeks/months, if you were standing on the outside looking into my heart/life/soul, you'd find one discouraged chickie {off and on}.

For whatever reason, life has accumulated and has left me feeling weary and heavy-hearted and failure-laden. There have been plenty of days when I just wanted to roll over and forget that I was a mommy or a homeowner with home management responsibilities. I've not wanted to do another load of laundry or wash another dish. I've felt like my life seemed ridiculously irritating and that never feels good. I've felt completely overwhelmed by mundane living. As in so much to do that just gets immediately undone that I don't know where to start so I find the couch, plop down on it, and eat some potato chips.

Just too overwhelmed.

I just haven't been able to focus on the positive. All the things I'm doing well or right or good enough. Somehow, at the end of each day, I was narrow-sighted enough to simply catch glimpses of the moments where I screwed up. Or felt empty or discontent. Again. Or so it felt.


Somewhere along the way I sort of just fell into feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I was fat and lazy and not doing a great job at being a mommy {or anything else for that matter} and not able to keep up with the house work and the cooking and the grocery getting and the bed-making and the floor washing and the errand running. And the children. Oh, how the little people in my life have been at each other which leaves me feeling absolutely exhausted. 100% of the time. {But they sure are cute!}

With a to do list a mile long and growing. Just generally feeling incapable of pulling it all together.


Every couple of years {give or take a couple of years} these feelings hit, and when they do, I tend to wallow a bit and come to the end of myself, and then eventually I'm able to, with God's help and the help of those I'm closest to, figure out what's going on in my little head/heart, put some solutions to the problems in place and climb out of the valley. {How was that for an incredibly long sentence?}

And I'll admit this time the climb out feels harder and higher. But ....


Somewhere about a week and a half ago, it hit. It was time to "buck up little camper" put on the hiking boots so-to-speak, and put one foot in front of the other and begin the long climb upwards. Time to start making good choices. Healthy choices. Wise choices. Positive choices. With my thoughts and actions. With my time. With my energy. I needed a complete overhaul.

And below I leave you with a completely random picture of corn. I love it and took it at a recent photo shoot, which, by the way, has been a highlight for me in the dark times of late. Photo shoots that is. Not corn.

So this week if you were riding along in my mini-mini, you'd see a totally different me. And maybe secretly you'd think I was a little bit looney tunes and a whole lot of mid-life crisis. {Perhaps.}
Let's see.

Got my hair coloured and cut {way over-due for both and very pleased with the results. Very pleased. And was happy to hear both the color gal and the hair cut guy confirmed my crazy hair issues - course, very thick, very gray right up front, frizzy, etc. Sometimes it just feels good for the professional to acknowledge that you have tricky hair and no wonder I can't do it myself! Ever feel that way?}


Had my eyebrows threaded {for those of you that don't know, it's like plucking your eyebrows with thread and it hurts but they say you need a little bit of pain in the beautifying process.}


Signed up for Weight Watchers. As in, go to the meetings. Have a random stranger weigh me and actually know that number. {Terrifying but at this point, necessary.}


Signed up for a gym membership. {Getting the photo i.d. picture taken and as I looked at it for the first time, saying to the skinny girl that took my picture, "And this is EXACTLY why I need to be here. Oh mercy." She was nice enough to do the kind, "Oh stop, you look great." And as I turned and walked away I thought, "NO really, lady, I wasn't fishing for a compliment. I really need to be here." And that's okay. It's reality.}


Got some books to read on parenting strategies that I will read while at the gym. It wouldn't be me if I wasn't multi-tasking. {If these books/strategies don't work on sibling rivalry issues I think I might just check myself into the nearest psych ward, because I'll be there soon if this doesn't get under control ASAP.}


I share all of this because through the last few years, when I share these types of posts I get all sorts of private emails and facebook messages about how it touched you, my sweet readers. Sometimes it just takes someone else sharing, out loud, her struggles, so that you don't feel all alone. My prayer is that by sharing all the junk in this post, you'll know you're not alone. That you'll know others out there struggle with their weight. Or their looks. Or their parenting. Or discouragement. Or feeling like a failure. Or feeling discontented for a season.


I blog for a lot of different reasons.

• It's a cheap therapy session for me. When I write, I process.
• It's my memory bank for kid stories and thoughts on parenting because I think I will remember the cute little stories but I just don't. Like take this one. The other day Jackson says to me, "Mom, do people have yellow hair because they eat a lot of mustard?" So cute! But I won't remember it 3 years from now unless I write it down.
• It's a place where I can share my love and passion for photography and the journey I'm on in my Water Street Dreams business.
• It's a place where I can be me. Out loud. And hopefully, in the process of being me, you'll be you. You'll feel safe and not alone and encouraged. A lot of people dog blogs. And that's okay. They're entitled to their opinion. I happen to be quite inspired by the blogs I follow.

And I hope over here, in my corner of the world, you'll leave feeling encouraged. Like we're in this together. Whatever 'this' is that we might have in common. Or if we have nothing in common, perhaps it will open your eyes to another point of view. Another way of doing life.


All that to say, as I told my hair colourist and stylists today, that I had joined Weight Watchers. And joined a gym. And was turning over a new leaf effective immediately, I thought I'd best share that information with you, my dear friends. My family.

Because I don't even know them but it's sort of just oozing out of me right now so I had to quick get home and jot you a little note about it all. Hope has a way of doing that. My hope is that through my blog you never look in, from the outside, thinking I have the perfect life or that I have it all together. So that's why, from time-to-time, I share the raw stuff. So that you have the outside looking in perspective that I'm on this journey, doing the best I can, asking God to help fill in all the gaps, traveling with my friends and my family, whether in person or in blog-land.


All of that mush to say that I do feel hopeful. I feel motivated. I can do this. I need to do this. I have to do this. I will do this.


And maybe today you need to hear that YOU can do this. Whatever your "this" is. And that, my friends, is all she wrote. It's time to go work out. And weigh in. And jump over the hurdles in front me.


OH, and in other completely random news, Jackson informed me yesterday that he wants to be a pig for Halloween. As in, one of these little guys...

I wish I could be overly ambitious and make him a piglet outfit from scratch. But I'm going to be too busy working out and weighing in to re-learn how to thread the bobbin on my sewing machine. If only my mother could whip me up a pig outfit, size 5T and get it in the mail ASAP so it would arrive all the way from Canada on time. A girl can dream.




Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you're leaving encouraged. And full of hope. Because you know what, if I can make necessary changes, I know you can too.