" I understand why this can be so hard"

So I've been away for a bit because I just started my internship and classes and it consumes lots of time. I was checking my email today and I had signed up for this site called sparkpeople.com and I get emails from them and some of them are from people's blogs on there about their weight loss. ( Its a very cool, free weight loss tool)  I randomly choose to click and read that email and I am glad I did, yes sometimes I just delete them, especially if I don't think they really apply to me. This one was titled " I understand why this can be so hard", and I guess my thought was well yeah, that applies to me, b/c this is certainly hard, and I am getting no where especially when I weighed in yesterday and after doing the cleanse with advocare managed to gain 3 lbs! Who manages to gain 3 lbs while on a cleanse?!? UMMM that would sadly be THIS chick! So anyways this is what it simply yet eloquently said:
"To lose the weight would mean to allow myself to hurt. To lose weight would mean not numbing myself anymore. It would mean experiencing pain to its maximum. It would also mean experiencing happiness. I tend to forget.

My weight is a barrier between me and others. I've allowed it to define me because I am afraid of defining myself- and being disappointed. To lose weight would mean to experience. To lose the weight would mean to break down the walls that have protected me for so long.

To lose weight also means living in the present. To accept your failures and go for your successes. It would mean leaving the realm of "When I lose weight" and enter that of "Today I will".

It is difficult to be thinner because it would entail in living. And life is scary. And life can hurt. But I will find the strength to lose this safety net I have made of my body and allow myself to be for the first time in a while ..." 

As I read this it really spoke to me, something stirred inside me, and  I cried.  I had a feeling there was more to why I was/ am struggling so much to loose weight, and reading this has helped me to identify it. People don't do things unless they are getting something beneficial out of it, it is plain and simple. While one would think that people don't benefit from being overweight, I would say Au Contraire. It in some odd way allows me to have an excuse besides anxiety, for why I don't do some of the simplest of things. I eat as a way to keep from feeling some painful things, some hard or uncomfortable things, because I eat as a coping mechanism. I am constantly afraid of taking a chance and doing something anything in the event that I fail or that I disappoint someone or myself.  I am always telling myself, I will go to the beach when I loose weight, I will go on x,y,z vacation or outing when I lose the weight b/c right now it just wont be fun, but I am really just nervous about going or what might happen out in the world if I go or do whatever it is... so I use my weight as an excuse.  I am putting off life and many great experiences, with my weight as an excuse because I want to be and stay safe and not experience any bad things.  I know this makes very little sense. This is something I hope to gain a better understanding of about myself, and realize I may not have as good a handle on my anxiety as I had thought. I think by realizing that these deeper feelings are apart of my weight loss journey I can get further than I have been able to, especially the more I understand and address these feelings, so that I can stop hiding in myself! <3 AJ

pinteresting inspiration

This is another idea that I saw on Pinterest and looked easy enough to make. I had some cardboard laying around and used it to stabilize my collages. I love messages and sayings and decided to add a stamped one to this magnet.  You paint the front with mod podge to seal the paper on the front.                                       

 I used my glue gun to add the magnet to the cardboard.

 Here it is on the fridge.

 These are the three magnets I made. See how much cuter our fridge is! It would be really easy to make them more personalized like the one with the J or you could do initials or even a special photo!

Advocare 24 Day Challenge: Day 1

So I started the Advocare 24 day challenge today. It is a weight loose plan/ diet/system ( whatever word you wanna use, it's really all the same America) that starts with a 10 day cleanse. It begins with you taking a fiber drink mix mixed with water, I mixed mine with this stuff that comes with it called Spark, that you are supposed to substitute in for coffee ( for mental alertness), I mixed it because I had read about the fiber drinks weird consistency but that if you mixed it with the mandarin orange spark it wasn't too bad, and it wasn't if I didn't think too much about the pulpy consistency in my mouth that wasn't orange juice! Right after you do the fiber drink you are supposed to drink down two 8 oz. glasses of water... well I was in a rush because I woke up at 9:30 and had to be at church for 10 and so I was only able to do 1 8 oz glass of water instead because with the fruit( breakfast) and the fiber drink I was full  up to my throat ( or so I felt). I was ready for something else after church though and had some oatmeal, fruit and lots of water... my husband said you know your drinking enough water when you are inconvenienced by how much you gotta pee... well no kidding b/c I had to pee all day, which is good I guess means I'm hydrated and that I will prolly loose some water weight ( I still don't get out drinking tons of water helps you loose water weight not gain it... but I'll leave the understanding that to the nutritionists and other pro.'s out there). I had a salad with chicken on top for lunch and did some grocery shopping for foods to benefit me during the cleanse. When I got home it was time for another snack ( you eat every 3 hours or so) some fruit and plain rice cakes with almond butter on top( this was a favorite today, even though I'm not sure I like the almond butter flavor alone, or the plain rice cakes alone..strange) For dinner I had baked salmon with seasoning, broccoli and cauliflower and some brown rice, and took four omegaplex with it. Right before dinner while I was cooking I had another water with spark mixed in ( you can have 1-3 a day), the hubs and I realized that for a few hours before that and especially right then when I was talking I couldn't think of words or what I was saying was somewhat mixed up and I was struggling to concentrate on what I was saying, I don't know if this was related or not, but maybe I should have had a spark between breakfast and dinner to help my brain out :).  After dinner, right before bed I had to take these horse pills called herbal cleanse and I was supposed to eat another fruit after dinner but decided on my fav. snack of rice cakes and almond butter instead. Sadly the fruit and veggies I ate today were the most I have eaten in awhile, but I don't think I had my ungodly 8 servings for the day... all progress begins with a single step! First day is done, can't wait to see how I do overall! If you have any questions about my experience on Advocare I'd be happy to answer them, and I hope to document my journey of the 24 day challenge, so that others can see what it's like!

A Fashionable Finding

So I was inspired by something ( many things really) that I saw on Pinterest. It was a bracelet made out of a zipper. Naturally, I repinned it to one of my boards. The other day I realized I had several gift cards to a local craft store and they were taking up too much room in my wallet so I decided to go through some of my crafting boards on Pinterest and get supplies to make some of the projects. So here is one of the ziprelet that I made. I will add a charm or two later when I find a coordinating one that I like. I am going to start selling these because they are easy to make and don't take tons of time! Let me know if you are interested, as of now I can make silver or gold( not real obvi.). In naming this post I named it because a "finding" in jewelry making are the parts to make a finished piece like clasps and in this bracelet the zipper becomes one of those. When I looked back at my title I realized that I named this post appropriately because the idea was also a fashionable finding on Pinterest.

Finished lighthouse painting

Here is my finished lighthouse painting, to see the first post about my painting please see my post titled painting.  I realized how much I enjoy painting and think it is something I will do more of!

painting

So my hubby recently saw a nautical map of Cape Cod with a painted image ( probably of some sort of US Coast Guard plane) on it and since we are a USCG family and have a nautical guest room decided he wanted one to put up framed in there as wall art. That was all well and good, and I was impressed he was interested in decorating :), until we saw the price to buy one. Well I happen to be somewhat artistic, more crafty and so he bought two of these nautical maps and gave them to me ( stating that one was in case I messed up, knowing my lack of confidence, but really thanks for the vote of confidence, lol, he tried to dig out of the proverbial hole by saying one was for me to sell if I decided I really enjoyed doing them!). Anyways I got to work in a sketch book and tried to draw the lighthouse he picked out ( I guess because a plane would be too difficult?) I don't know if it is my complete and utter lack of spacial intelligence that hinders me or some other lack of intelligence that hinders me, but for the life of me I cannot look at something and draw it. So when I showed him my drawing I wasn't surprised when he found things to tweak on it and didn't seem excited for me to draw on one of the actual maps, nor was I excited to. I let them sit in my craft room secretly hoping they'd magically vanish, if I ignored them, intimidated by what they represented me having to do! I saw something about a month ago, something that took me back to my childhood as an assistant principal's kid. Since my mom worked in the school I was able to use the opaque projector as a child for my school projects (and loved every minute of it), well I saw that they now made smaller, less accurate, less expensive versions! I half jokingly told the hubbs that if we bought one I would do his Cape Cod nautical maps and forgot about it. Well he did buy me one and so I started to work drawing ( okay okay your right, I was simply tracing) the chosen lighthouse onto the map the other night, then I got to painting it last night. I haven't painted since my High School art classes, and had forgotten just how relaxing and enjoyable painting was and how because I am so cautious in life I was actually good at it, getting into the tight spots, but really enjoyed the larger spaces as well because I could paint with reckless abandon ( within the lines :P). So after all of this rambling you are dying to see it aren't you?!? Well here are a few pics of my  first night of painting, it is not done yet but I will post more pics later! oh and by the way when I was in art class I got blessed with an art teacher who didn't compare the students' abilities to each other because if she had I would have failed. I loved watching others' do their masterpieces and always left feeling like I was an elementary level artist and all my peers were in college art and I walked into the wrong room. I say this to say that when I posted the pics on my FB wall a few of the kids from those art classes, who were far superior, actually liked my pics! I have included the pic that I traced from and am using as a reference, I don't think I want the yellowy color on the light house as is in the pic. Thanks for looking, I'd love for you to leave me comments!

Candle gift

These are some candles I made for my mom and mother in law for when they came up for Thanksgiving. I just wanted to give them something as a token of thanks for coming up to spend the holiday with us. These make great simple gifts for teachers, neighbors, coworkers, family and friends. Buy a candle ( or make it if you are so inclined) and buy some ribbon that is in a coordinating color to the candle color or the holiday and simply take off the label on the candle glass and hot glue the ribbon to the glass.  You could also make a cute tag with some sort of sentiment for the gift as well. Happy Giving!