I received my ipsy bag today.  I'm not impressed.  Okay that's not accurate…I got some pretty good stuff, in good size samples but they did an awful job color matching me this month.  Let's look.

Let's open the bag. 

Let's look inside

Healthy Sexy Hair Soy renewal beach spray.  I wanted to use this right away but apparently I have to apply it to damp hair.  And then what?  I have stick straight hair.  No amount of spray is going to give me that sexy little wave so I'm not sure what to do with this besides make my hair smell pretty.

Da Fuq? Pop Pouty Crayon in Fuchsia Flirt.  Exactly what part of my preferences made it seem like I would wear this.  Let's try it on shall we?

Oh sweet baby Jesus I look like a clown.

Maybe another angle?

Good god.  That shit is bad.  Why ipsy? Why would you send me hot pink lipstick?  No no no bad!

Then I got this Nailtini nail polish in Mai Tai.  It's a redder version of Giant's orange.  I don't hate it.  Shit. I'm supposed to swatch this stuff aren't I?  Hang on be right back. 

No, wait.  That's not a good representation, let me try again. 

I don't hate it.  It's sort of SF Giants colored.  It goes on pretty smooth.  This is only one layer of the polish so it coats well.  It also dried super duper fast.  Not to mention it's smooth as shit.  Seriously I've never felt such a silky smooth polish before.  

Okay next up.

BH Cosmetics California collection.  I don't even know what to do with this.  Reason one…look at these colors.

First of all I don't know how to apply eye shadow to save my life.  Even if I did I would have no idea what to do with these colors.  I don't even want to attempt to swatch this because I would look like a clown.  A really bruised clown.  

Updated*

Someone told me to just try brushing the eye shadow on with my fingers.  As you can see this worked great….yeah, no i failed and as predicted I looked bruised.  

Can you see it?

I only did one eye. My lord I'm bad at this.

Finally I got some Coola tinted moisturizer stuff.  I don't moisturize.  I don't tint either.  This will be passed off to a friend.

Although looking at these pics maybe I should use some moisturizer.  And possibly some wrinkle cream.  Does ipsy send Botox because wow, my forehead.  Ouch!

The bag is mega cute though. I can't wait to cram something in it and put it in my purse. I really love getting the cute little bags every month.  I adore cramming stuff in small bags just to put them in bigger bags.

I have mixed feelings about this month.  I got some rad stuff, in good sizes but color wise..I'm afraid.  I hope ipsy does better next month.

Friday when I got off work I was tired.  My husband has been working so hard, and taking on so much more responsibility so that I can have time to go to the gym so when I got home I decided before I sat down and started reading I would put away the dishes and load the dish washer.  Then I remembered him telling me he wished the cup cabinet was organized because for about five years we have just been cramming all sorts of cups and shit in one cabinet and it would barely shut anymore. So I cleaned out the whole cabinet and organized it.  Then I cleaned out the kids lunch / Tupperware drawers.  But then I looked at the play room downstairs. It was a mess.  Not a noticeable mess.  The floors were picked up, the table cleaned, the couch wasn't messy, but on closer inspection the shelves were a fucking disaster and the toy box was over flowing.  See:

I knew that bothered my husband too.  The room started as his man cave and then slowly became a play room.  It's never stayed clean and it drives him crazy.  I've been promising to organize it but between the gym and relaxing it never happens.  Friday night I had enough.  I decided it was time.  I packed up all of my old shot glasses and personal shit, I ripped every single thing off the shelves and I drove to Walmart.  I bought some bins and set to work.

The beginning and the middle.

Almost done (my stool and cleaning supplied were still there.)

The finished product.  I emptied the toy box, and it's actually going to move out of the room next weekend when I clean the shed out.  The shelves are spotless and once I make labels with pictures the kids can never tell me again they don't know where stuff goes.  Aside from Codi cuddled on a blanket in the corner on top of the giant bean bag, that is the cleanest the room has ever been.  The boys have strict rules now that they may play with one box at a time, and not touch another box until the last one has been cleaned up and put away.

After that I remembered how much my husband hates looking at my side of the bedroom. My husband does laundry.  I help fold and he puts away.  Everyones laundry gets folded and put away but mine.  I have a shitty set up.  My dresser is crammed in my closet and I don't have near enough drawers for everything.  When I met my husband I had two dressers and a very large closet.  Now, he has one of my dressers and I'm supposed to cram all of my stuff into five drawers.  It doesn't work.  I end up so mad I just refuse to even fold laundry.  I live out of laundry baskets.  Saturday after we worked out, got the kids hair cuts and went to the gym I decided to just get it out of the way.  

This was my side of the bedroom.

That is all of my laundry.  His side of the room is immaculate.

This is how it looks now.

My husband was thrilled.  Then I looked in my closet. 

Dear God.  I pulled out all of my shoes…see

Then I set to work vacuuming and mopping the floor in my closet.  I bought a shoe organizer at Walmart for $18.00 and a three drawer plastic bin and set about folding and hanging, and cleaning, and hanging, and folding, and more folding.  I had my husband put some nails in the wall so I could hang my bras up instead of mashing them into a drawer.  They are now hanging in the closet behind some shirts so no one sees my bras when they walk into the room. Last week I had cleaned out my night stand which is a huge deal since two weeks ago the drawers wouldn't even shut.  

Look how pretty it is now.

I dusted the rest of the room, cleaned up any other random shit and then my husband changed the sheets and we were able to relax.  

I hate my summer bedding, it's boring.

The only thing left in our room was some picture frames I wanted hung.  They were cluttering my husbands side of the room so I went ahead and push pinned them into the wall so he could rehang them correctly and now we have officially started our picture wall in the staircase. 

It's blurry because I was shaky after the gym.

I still have a shit ton of projects.  I need to organize the front hall closet.  I need to take all the clothes off the top of Brandon's closet and sort them into bins by sizes so I can hand them down to Codi.  I need to do the same in Codi's room so I can donate stuff.  I need to mop the whole house, and clean all three bathrooms, and I still need to take everything off the kitchen counters and wash the counters and all the shit on them.  I need to clean the stove top.  I need to do  a lot.  But doing these few things, really, really really made me relax some.  I am thrilled with the look of the play room.  I was so happy getting into bed last night in a clean and organized bedroom.  I love when I get into these little moods and want to clean all of the stuff.  It doesn't happen often but I'm glad when it happened this time I picked big projects and actually finished them all!

If you are tired of hearing about my weight and exercise, I'm sorry…find another blog to read.  This is important to me so I'm going to talk about it here.

This morning I posted this picture of myself:

Someone replied shortly after , "Oh you look tiny in that picture".  The first response that came to mind was, "oh it's a good angle."  In fact that has been my go to response for a while now.  I know all about angles.  My second response was wanting to point out that if they looked close enough they would see my arm fat and buddah belly. I stopped myself and instead replied, "And you are officially the best part of my day."  I allowed her comment to add some swagger to my step for the day and I chose to just believe it. 

Of course I right away took a different picture to get a better angle and hopefully appear less fat. 

I've been working out a lot.  In fact if you follow me on any sort of social media you will often see photos like this:

Sticking with the gym this time has not been hard.  I'm enjoying the gym.  I'm enjoying getting stronger and having better endurance.  I still need to get my eating under control and if I could do that maybe I would see better results in the weight loss department.  As it stands I'm down 2% body fat.  When I heard that I was mad.  I've been working out since March 24th and in that amount of time I wanted bigger results.  But…the number didn't go up and that is all I should care about.  My husband has to keep reminding me to stop calling myself fat.  I usually say it in a joking matter but he's had enough.  I keep telling him that technically according to the BMI and my body fat percentage that I am in fact FAT.

If you see my photos lately you will notice there is always an angle involved.

I took this photo recently.  I made sure to angle the camera from the top. I only shot myself from the side and I made the photo concentrate on my cleavage in hopes that it would distract from any fat.

In this photo even though the dress is cute as shit and I looked good for the photo I bent over, again made my boobs the star, and posed both arms to avoid any fat or jiggly parts. 

My husband and I are avid Chivers and he's been trying to get me on their website for a while now.  I've never felt pretty enough, no one else on that website has three chins like me, or cellulite on their legs, or five asses.  But he keeps telling me I'm worthy.  So I started submitting my own photos.  I submitted the one below when my new Chive panties arrived in the mail.

Look closely, they are both cropped on the sides so you can't see the part where the underwear kinda pushes into my skin, and you can't see how wide my hips and waist really are.  

I also submitted this photo. My husband loves this photo.

There are so many angles and camera tricks here.  Unfortunately I don't know how to Photoshop so my stretch marks are still visible.  I'm learning to take those as pregnancy battle scars instead of ugliness.  I haven't made it onto the website yet and I've convinced myself it's because I'm not like the other size 2 tiny girls with implants.  Of course a girl with a real body and real boobs wouldn't make it…no one wants to see muffin tops on their morning Chive viewing. 

Finally I decided that I wanted to wear a bathing suit that wasn't a tankini or a one piece.  I got brave and I bought this.

The bathing suit is cute, but obviously I cropped the photo above my ass, and my legs, and I turned to the side so you couldn't see my stomach fat from the front.  My arms are lifted so they don't appear fatter when they press into my body.

After that a friend posted this on Facebook:

It kind of struck a cord with me.  I have been wanting to wear a bikini forever just so I could have a full body tan.  I was tired of spending my summers with tan arms and legs and a pasty white stomach.  So….this weekend I did it.  I went into public in a bikini. 

Obviously I worked with the angle a lot on this.  And if you look hard enough behind my tattoo you can see my back fat.

The only picture of myself I have taken lately that I can't immediately complain about is this picture.

Although upon further inspection I see arm fat near my tattoo causing some kind of fat crease. 

The point of all this is that I wish that for one day I could see myself how others see me. Everyone around me keeps telling me I look good.  There are fleeting moments where I see it, but for the most part I really don't see it.  I haven't lost enough weight to justify their comments in my head. 

I've been trying to follow this:

But I will be honest.  I fail daily.  I fail 100 times a day at not comparing myself to others. The girl in my office has nicer legs then me.  My best friend who does weigh more then me wore a bathing suit to the pool this weekend and all I could think was, "she has no cellulite on her legs, they are so smooth, and her stomach isn't all full of stretch marks.  At the beach women who seemed bigger then me that were wearing bikinis I looked at and though, "okay well if she can wear a bikini I can wear a bikini."  But then I thought, oh my God, maybe she isn't bigger then me. If she is wearing a bikini there must be a reason, so obviously I'm bigger then I thought in my own head.  

It wasn't until maybe this last weekend that I realized, that those women were in fact bigger then me, they probably just hated themselves far less then me.

When I go to the gym, instead of being proud of my work I'm constantly looking at the smaller girls wearing tiny clothes and getting mad.  I get mad that I'm not as small as them, and I get madder that they go to the gym in such tiny clothes.  I understand they are small and skinny and fit, but did it ever occur to them that they are discouraging people like me. I look at them and know, most of them had the genetics to start out small, and since they do a lot of prancing around and flirting at the gym they obviously aren't working out as hard as me, yet they are so much smaller then me.  I hate it, girls like that aren't an inspiration.  They do nothing but make me shame myself and be mad that God created some people with good metabolism and fantastic genetics and I got stuck in the short, fat, slow metabolism gene pool.  For a long time I hid out in the girls weight room just so I didn't have to see those skinny girls, and I didn't have to feel like the sexy fit guys were laughing at the fat chick struggling to lift weights.  Thankfully I've gained enough muscle to feel confident in my lifting abilities now.  I know people aren't laughing at the chick who can't even lift the bar, but I do know they are all laughing at the size of my thighs in their head.

Loving myself is a huge battle.  My husband hugged me yesterday and told me I felt smaller.  I didn't reply. The reply on my tongue was, "I've gained three pounds, I can't feel smaller."  Instead I just shut up and said nothing.  People comment left and right on my social media photos telling me I look good.  Instead of replying I think, "it's because of the angles, if they saw me straight on they wouldn't think that. 

In fact I posted this progress shot on Instagram the other day.  It's me about a month after I started working out, and me this weekend at the spa.

After posting it I thought, "this is it, everyone has seen my legs from the front now.  Everyone knows how fat I really am." I wanted so badly to crop that photo above the thighs but I couldn't or no one would have been able to see the progress I've made.

I was so confused when people commented that I looked good and was making progress.  Didn't they see the fat?  Didn't they see the cellulite?  Didn't they see the cottage cheese hiding under the skin of my thighs, and the fat pack surrounding my belly button?

Or…is it possible I'm the only one who sees this? Am I really so filled with self hatred that I can't take the compliments I'm given?  I used to love my eyes and my smile.  Now when I take a face photo, I notice my eyebrows are bushy and ugly, my nose looks large on my face, my front teeth are big and they are no longer in line, and my complexion is shit.  When did I get so far gone I can't even appreciate what used to be my favorite thing about myself?  There has to be some way to fix this. There has to be a way to learn to love myself.  This madness has to stop.  The hatred in my head needs to go away.  I've had enough.  I want to love myself.  I want to take a picture and just see beauty, not pick it to pieces.  I want to take a photo with my kids where I'm not hiding behind them. Or take a photo of my family that I'm not afraid of posting just because I look fat.  I want to be able to take a picture without thinking about angles and cropping and hiding.  How do I do this?  How does a person learn to love themselves? How does a person learn to say thank you to a compliment instead of cringe.  

If there is a secret I would love to know it.  

At the end of Pitch Perfect when Anna Kendrick is getting ready to tell the new people what song they will audition for right before she says the song the movie cuts off.  WHY!  The entire movie is about music, it's about her music and when we get a chance to hear what song she would pick for people to sing it cuts off.  

That right now there is not a single Criminal Minds or Law and Order CI on any channel.  That is criminal.

People who smell like cat pee at the gym.

People who let out a fart so stinky I question whether or not they crapped their pants while I'm trying to run on the treadmill.

When I put sun screen on, still burn, and then two weeks later when I think I've avoided peeling I look down at the gym to see this:

Those would be blisters from the sweat that occurred while running.

When I obviously had no choice but to rub the blisters leaving my chest and shoulders looking like this:

Isn't it sexy?

When a new coffee creamer comes out and I can't find it anywhere.

When Pop Tart finally decides to come out with an amazing peanut butter Pop tart that taste exactly like a soft, melty peanut butter cookie, and I can't eat them because my son is deadly allergic to them.

When the doctor refuses to refill my sleeping medicine on time and I've gone over ten days now without my sleeping meds.

When the doctor said she will only prescribe .5mg Xannax pills instead of 1mg pills and then only give me 60 pills. It takes 1.5mg for me to sleep and 1mg for anxiety attacks.  Meaning no matter what happens, I will never have enough to get through the month. The least she could do is refill it on time.

Removing nail polish.

The fact that I cannot manage to not put my fingers in my  mouth after removing the polish.

When my dog shakes himself off right near my food and I can actually see the shit fly off him and onto my food.

That my husband weighs less then my 1st goal weight.

That he can't gain weight.

That I cannot lose weight no matter how much I work out.

That my car does not have a sun roof.

That no matter what soap I switch to, or what I do my arms, back and neck will not stop breaking out due to some kind of allergy that no one can pin down.

 

A few months ago I showed you all what was inside my SakRoots purse.  Remember, it was this purse. I loved that purse.  Stuff fit just right.  So imagine my dismay when one day the strap ripped clean off the bag.  I was a bit mad.  A lot mad.  Okay I was fucking pissed.  I went back to the store I bought the bag from, and since I had paid cash for it and lost the receipt they did not want to exchange the bag.  This was doubly annoying since the same bag was still sitting on the shelves, so obviously I wasn't trying to return an old ass bag.  I kind of threw a fit.  I told the store that this was the THIRD…THIRD!!! bag from their store that had ripped.   I finally told the lady to just fuck it, keep the bag and I would never shop at their store again.  The lady felt so bad for me that she went over the managers head, grabbed the new bag and made an exchange for me.  

However.  The sales lady also made a big production of begging me not to buy that same purse.  She said the brand had gone down hill, and considering my bag weighed 9lbs that she knew the new bag would break also.  I didn't have time to shop so I took the new bag and left.

27 days later the replacement bag broke.  In the same damn spot.

THE SAME SPOT.

I was seething.  I went back up to the store, receipt and tags in hand this time and asked for a store gift card.  I found this new purse by Fossil (whom I love)

It's basically everything I love in a purse.  It has front pockets for my keys and phone, and a second one for fast access lip gloss, lipstick, perfume and gum.  Inside there are four small pockets (most purses only have two) for tissues, lotion, and other random shit.  Then there is a full size zippered pocket along the liner of the purse.  It's as deep as the whole purse which I love because it means when I fill it up it doesn't weigh down the top side of the purse causing it to sink in. It's sturdy as shit, seriously this thing never bends.

In fact, it's so sturdy that my gun fits inside one of the pockets and that still doesn't bend the outside wall of the purse.  WHAT!

Everything fits in it perfectly.  My iPad mini drops right in.  Everything has a perfect spot.  It's just so much happiness.

But wait there is more!

I added a new bag inside of my purse.  The gym bag.  I took my first Ipsy makeup bag and converted it into my gym bag.

That means that now at all times I have my headphones, my new Polar watch (lurve), my gym locker lock, and my iPhone 5 adapter for the machines with the old chargers on it. 

Plus the new purse even has room for my water bottle and my towel, so now when I head to the gym I can carry every single thing I love in one bag.

But that's not even the best part.  The best part, is that I happened to walk into the store on a day there was a sale without knowing it.  So I picked up this bag, saw the price and found it was the same price as my SakRoots.  When I got to the check stand the purse was on sale.  It rang up at only FORTY DOLLARS.

SWOON

Fuck yeah!  Now I had extra money to spend.  So I did the most logical thing possible.  I went to the bra and panties section and purchased some new thong underwear and some of the cutest damn bandeau bra tops to lounge around the house in. I had enough to buy some chocolate truffles also.  I still have a $1.00 left on the gift card after all of that. So in the end it was a win win for me.  I am a little upset however that I contacted Sakroots on Twitter three times, even including a picture of the destroyed purse and I didn't hear a peep back. I was pretty shocked.  I expected a, "we are so sorry that happened," response or something. But I heard NOTHING.  I even posted to their Facebook.  I plan to email them letting them know that two of their purses broke within 50 days, in the same spot and that I'm not the only one because both of the stores sales associates told me the brand has gone down hill and that they have seen a decline in quality.  I'm pretty bent because they used to be a fairly decent brand.  

I'm thrilled to pieces that this whole mess led me to my fun new Fossil purse.

I swear everywhere I look lately is spiders. Today I went to workout in the garage gym at my office and when I lifted the garage door a 14″ x 16″ web went floating up the door as it opened. Long story short I spent the entire workout looking over my shoulder for a spider. Lately though it seems like everything is a spider. A speck of dust, a piece of dropped food or, the spider who crawled over the back of the couch into my shoulder.
For a long time I had a house cleaner who would come monthly. But that became one of those expenses my husband wouldn’t let me keep. So I’ve been trying to keep up on it for the last 8 or so months. You guys I live in a two story house with all hard wood, two children and the dustiest dog ever. I can no longer keep up. My kitchen table is black so I always see dust and smudges. My floors, always dusty from the dog and because they are hard wood my steps always have dust bunnies in the corners, big big ones. The toilets with three boys are never clean. I don’t have near enough room in my closet or dresser so the couch in my bedroom is always full of shit.
I’m surrounded by one big mess and it seems like I’ve been so busy with work, the gym, and little league that when I have time off I just want to relax or take the kids to the lake or maybe go shopping for new workout clothes. Cleaning is the last thing I want to do. I think my house is just about the dirtiest I’ve ever seen it, (yes my dirty is still cleaner then most people’s clean) but its bugging me. There is clutter and dust and its driving me insane. I’m now taking applications for a house cleaner who will work for free or the cost of a six pack. Tomorrow is my only day with zero plans and it looks like I will be at the gym and then cleaning all stupid day. I hate being grown up.
*if there are no spaces between paragraphs or errors in this post I’m sorry. I’m attempting to blog from my phone. There is no spell check feature on here.

I received an email from my mom last night.  It was some kind of music email and it said she spent money.  I wanted to bonk her.  If she had bought another Rolling Stones ticket I was going to kick her butt. Before I could read the whole email she texted to say, “I kind of spent some money, you need to read your email.”

Holy shit!  She bought me tickets to see Willie Nelson.  I actually couldn’t process what I was seeing.  Willie Nelson was a really close friend of Waylon Jennings.  Seeing Willie before he died has been a life long dream of mine.  He was here recently and I missed him.  I was devastated because I just knew as old as he was I wouldn’t have a chance to see him again.  But, Willie can’t stay off the tour road and he’s coming back.  

She got us the Premium package that comes with all of the stuff listed above. 

I’m beyond excited.  I’m crossing an official item off of my bucket list and I get to be in the same room as a man who was a close friend of Waylon.  Honestly, I still haven’t processed it.  I’m so excited, so so very excited, but I really don’t’ even know how to handle it.  I know I’m most likely going to cry through the whole show.  Willie is a special man, he’s a unique man and I love his values.  His books are hilarious, and he’s had a very interesting life.  

Thank you mom.  I didn’t think I would be crossing anything off of my bucket list for another ten years.

…..

Now I just hope this tan line is gone before the concert.

Because I just cannot look this ridiculous while one of my hero’s is playing!

For quite some time now I've been having an issue with my youngest Codi.  He likes to lie.  Codi will lie about anything.  Codi will pour purple paint on a plate and turn right around and tell you the paint is green.  It's been a huge problem.

One of the biggest things I want is for my kids to never be afraid to talk to me.  For their entire lives I want them to feel like they can come to me with anything.  

ANYTHING.

I want my children to know, no matter how bad they fuck up, what they do wrong, whatever happens that first and foremost their mother loves them.  That I am on their side always.  

When Codi's lying got to be a little bit ridiculous I started a new tactic.  I started telling him that if he tells me the truth there will be no consequences.  But if he lies there will be.  That means that even if he went and smashed the TV to pieces for no good reason, as long as he told me the truth he would not be in trouble.  This made my husband insane.  His thinking was that if the kid smashed the tv (there was no tv smashing) he should be in trouble regardless if he told the truth.  This is one of those times I laid down the parenting law and said we are doing this my way.  

For many months Codi and I have suffered with the lying.  He would lie an obvious lie and I would ask him if he lied. He would of course say no.  Instead of yelling or punishing him I would just talk to him.  I would explain the reasons I knew he lied, and give him one more chance.  One chance would turn to four or five chances. Sometimes there would be tears and yelling I'M NOT LYING MOM, but eventually he would tell the truth.  I had to stick to my word.  I never punished him.  Most people would say he should have been punished for continuing to lie, but I needed him to understand that the truth was the best answer.

It has slowly gotten better, now he usually only says "No" one time before admitting the truth.

But just now his brother came in and told me that Codi said, "shit."  I called Codi in and I said:

"Codi, before you answer I want you to remember it is always best to tell me the truth right?"

He said yes.  I asked if he said a bad word and he said, "No."

I paused for a second and rephrased, "Codi, did you say shit?"

He looked at me, thought for a second and said, "yes, I did."

I was so proud.  So I explained to him that was a bad word.  That only grown ups should say that, but that it's a bad word and grown ups really shouldn't even say it.  I thanked him for telling me the truth.  I told him he wasn't in trouble for doing it because he told the truth, and then we discussed it.  I told him if he said it again he would be in trouble.  Then I explained to him why I needed him to tell the truth.  He may only be five but he needs to know that his mom is his best friend for life.  That no matter what he needs to always feel like he can talk to me.  He understood.

My goal is to create an environment where my kid never dreads talking to me.  I don't ever want them to do something bad, or get a bad grade, or just…anything bad and have a fear of talking to me. I don't want them to ever have the feeling of dread as they come home knowing they have to talk to their parents.  I want them instead to know, that they can come talk to us and tell us anything and we will talk it out.  If they get bad grades, or skip school or punch each other, or whatever it is, I want them to feel comfortable enough to talk to me.  More then that I want to be a good enough mom to be able to always listen first and then talk.  I have made a huge effort not to yell lately. If you've read me for a while you know yelling is my problem area.  I am working on that. After reading Willie Robertsons book (the guy from Duck Dynasty) I realized there are better ways to parent.  When I talk to them I expect them to look me in the eyes.  If the TV is on and I'm talking, they turn it off.  If I ask them to clean up, they turn off the tv and do it.  When I tell them to do something they need to reply, "yes mom," instead of "uggggg" or "but moooom."  

They are getting better at it.  If they answer with a "but mom" I just look at them and say, "is that the correct answer?"  They always change their answer.  I've gotten better about just talking to them.  If they are fighting I try my hardest not to yell. Instead I try and ask them to work it out.  I find consequences to their fighting.  If they can't stop fighting then they have to stop what they are doing (riding scooters, playing a game, etc) and go to separate rooms in the quiet until they can decide to like each other again.  

I am really trying hard to parent differently.  I still mess up, I still yell, I still get totally overwhelmed and call my husband for back up, but I am trying.  When I first had Brandon I had so many illusions about what parenting would be like.  I would be the worlds best mom. I would never yell and my kids would never fight and everyone would envy my family. Somewhere along the lines I forgot to hold up my end of the deal.  I am a work in progress.  Today though, today was a perfect way of letting me know I am getting better.  Codi told the truth.  He told the truth and we discussed it and it was all over with in under two minutes.

Does this mean he can break the TV in the future and not get in trouble? NO.  What this means, is that I hope to also parent in such a way that my kids don't even cause the kind of trouble that would make them afraid to talk to me.  I am also aware that kids will be kids and they will cause trouble.  I'd rather have them do something wrong and get away with it while earning their trust, then have them do something wrong and react in a way that makes them afraid to ever talk to me again.  I'm hoping that at this young age I can make them realize they can trust me with anything.  If someone makes them uncomfortable, if they have a broken heart, if they are being bullied, if they are having trouble in school, even if they don't like how I'm parenting. I want them to feel like they can talk to me. 

My husband is working on it too.  The other day Codi lied to him, pretty good and instead of getting really mad he calmly talked to him, and was super patient with him and he got the truth out of him.  Even though he was furious at what Codi had done he handled it well and he earned Codi's trust by reacting calmly and evenly.  

My hope is that I can look back on my life in twenty years and tell myself I was exactly the kind of mom I dreamt of being when my first baby was still in my belly.  Those two boys are my whole life and I'm going to do every single thing it takes to be their whole life, and to give them the best life possible, even if that means that the person I need to work on the most is myself.  I'm trying.  I'm trying very hard to be the mom these boys were born deserving!

Because these two, they deserve the whole world.

Step one: Go to Whole foods to purchase healthy protein powder, carrot sticks and an apple.

Step two: Decide rather smugly and proud of yourself to purchase a salad from the salad bar.

Step three: Congratulate yourself when you add some roasted veggies into your lunch.

Step four: Remind yourself you are going to the gym so you should add some mashed potatoes for carbs to your lunch.

Step five: Spy the cookie bar at Whole Foods.  Smartly grab one vegan ginger cookie and applaud the fact that you only grabbed one.

Step six: Notice they keep the ingredients to the cookies on the side of the cookie bar. Tell yourself that you are only going to check the nutrition facts to see if they possibly sold any cookies made without eggs.  Discover two new cookies without eggs.  Decide to purchase one of each for future knowledge.

Step seven: Walk away from cookie bar and then decide to just taste half of each cookie to make sure I was making smart purchases.

Step eight: Turn around and go back to cookie bar and purchase 8 more of each cookie because WHAT IF THEY NEVER HAVE THESE EGGLESS COOKIES AGAIN.

Step nine: Eat other half of cookies walking around the store.

Step Ten: Come to work and take two bites of salad, one bite of veggies and then hoover down all of the mashed potatoes.

Step eleven: Reward myself with another cookie.

Step twelve: While stressing about what to make for dinner, snack on chips telling myself I can't go to the gym on an empty stomach.

Step thirteen: On drive to gym notice cookies in the car and eat one more.

Step fourteen: Fuck it, lets just eat one more because I've already fucked it all up.

Step fifteen: Sit in gym parking lot and enjoy one more cookie, while texting your best friend that you cannot believe you are actually eating cookies in the mother fucking gym parking lot.

Step sixteen: Go to the stupid gym with a belly ache.

Step seventeen: Wake up the next morning and avoid the scale like the plague.  Also wonder…should I just finish all of the cookies today so I am never ever ever tempted by them again?

And that my friends is how to lose weight like a goddamn professional.

 

Update**

Obviously my no willpower having ass ended up finishing all of the cookies today.  I need adult supervision. Lots of it!

I've been buying my jeans from the Gap lately.  I love them.  They make a pair of jeans called "curvy" that fit people with a J-Lo ass and a small waist.  Every once in a while I get the idea to try something new though.  About two years ago I purchased a pair of jeans from Tilly's.  If you aren't familiar with it, it's one of those stores that caters to 16 year old teeny boppers, but also has a super fantastic flip flop section.  I bought the pants and wore them exactly one time before I got too fat to fit into them.  

Recently I decided to try them on again and I was sad because they didn't fit.  I pulled them up and then I started doing that thing women do to get our pants on…you know first you grab the waist of the pants and you bend your knees and pull up, then sort of wiggle your legs and ass back and forth while pulling, then you resort to grabbing the belt loops and kind of hopping up and down, while shimmying left and right and tugging up as far as they will go.  So here I am hopping and bending and shaking and wiggling and lifting up one leg and stretching it out while pulling on the belt loops, then bending and lifting the other leg and tugging some more while my husband is just watching me like I'm fucking bonkers.  At this point I'm on the verge of tears because these fucking pants will not pull up.  I decided to just button them and see how bad the muffin top would be.

That's where I got confused.  The pants buttoned perfectly.  But…how is that possible they weren't pulled up. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and that was the moment I discovered that the pants were pulled up.  They were pulled up as far as they would go because they are those new fangled low rise teeny bopper jeans.  Meaning, I could have tugged for hours and the damn things wouldn't have budged another inch.  I was fuming.  The pants are cute.

Look how cute they are:

But they felt wrong.  I spent the entire day constantly trying to pull my pants up.  If I went pee I would instantly forget they were low rise and sit in the bathroom at work hopping around and jumping, and thrusting my leg out trying to pull the asshole pants up until it would dawn on me again, that these pants were built for 15 year old girls who think it's fun to walk around showing their asscrack.  

I have worn the pants one other time because dammit I paid money for them and they fit, but I can tell you for sure I will never ever ever ever buy another pair of pants from a teenager store again.  The Gap and I are going to be life long friends.  Because seriously, I need my jeans to cover my ass crack…and then some.

And that explains the moment I realized…I'M OLD.  My thirty one years is starting to show friends.  I haz a sad over it!