This week has been great! Monday morning started off with a series of errands, most of which were to get me ready to start college in the Fall. I went by the local Health Department to get my immunization records. I had to get a new DTaP shot and my shoulder soreness is finally easing off from that. After that I went by the post office to send out my tax information and the immunization form to the college. I also sent off a written request for my high school transcripts to be mailed to the college. I’ve done everything I need to, at this point. Now I just wait for all of the proper forms to arrive and the decision.

I had to go pick up a copy of my daughter’s birth certificate (btw, why the hell does it cost $25 to get a copy of that now?!) so that she could be enrolled in pre-k. Upon arriving at the pre-k to fill out the registration forms, I notice a sign on the door that says teacher requests won’t be done this year because of budget cuts. The teachers are having to apply at the elementary schools and they are unsure how many teachers and which of them will be around next year. It’s a first-come, first- serve program, so I hope she gets in. If she doesn’t, I will have to postpone college for another year. Unless I can get her into Head Start.

I had to get various items for the kids’ classes for their Easter celebrations. I spent Monday afternoon stuffing candy into plastic eggs.

Our budget is coming along great. There were a few unexpected things that came up this time. Like the things that needed to be paid for, for college. I lucked out at the Health Department because they were still sorting out a contract with my insurance company. My shot was going to cost me $50 out of pocket since they didn’t take my insurance until one of the women in the back told them that it qualified me for the uninsured/underinsured price of $14. Phew. Other than that, most things are right on track.

I did find out, Thursday afternoon, that my (step) sister is prediabetic. She’s only 19 and it was kind of scary. I’ve been telling her for over a year that she needed to get to a doctor and that she needed to take care of herself. She works in a gas station and her boss refused to allow her lunch breaks, so she would often come in without eating and work an 8+ hour shift. The choice of food in convenience stores is not very healthy, so she’d grab a pastry or something to tide her over until she finished the day up with a huge fast food meal because she was starving. Recently she began shaking, a lot. When I asked about her eating habits, it was always that she hadn’t eaten yet. I told her it was her blood sugar dropping. Now that a doctor has confirmed this, she’s on a medication to try to help balance it all out and a new diet that’s low in sugars and high in fiber. She’s gotten a doctor’s note saying she has to have a lunch break and eat every 4-5 hours to keep her blood sugar balanced. Hopefully her boss will stop being a douche bag.

There was a nice bonus with her doctor’s orders. She was told she needed to come over to my house and take walks with me and exercise every 3 days, if not more. I’ve been trying to get her to exercise with me for a while. I got a chance to let her do Turbo Fire with me yesterday and she wound up loving it. I hope she wants to do it more. It’s a lot of fun to exercise with someone.

Speaking of Turbo Fire — I’ve finally broken my weight loss plateau! I stepped on the scale yesterday and was 242 lbs! I’ve been hovering between 243-247 for 3 months, which put me at a 21-25 lb loss. I’m so happy to finally be making progress with weight loss again. There have been incredible changes in my body, including my strength, muscle tone and measurements. I know there’s more to health besides weight, but to be honest, it’s freaking hard to do exercises with 100 excess pounds on your body. It’s hard to hold a plank position, do push-ups, bend into some stretches and what not when you’ve got more fat in certain places. I have built up incredible endurance and stamina, but I’d like to be able to stretch and bend and do more yoga poses.

I’m getting ready to have a delicious breakfast and spend my Saturday reading Name of the Wind. I hope everyone else enjoys their weekend!

Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your “innocent” pleasure.

This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such “psychological sterilization” [my word choice] is not known.

What in the world could this mother have done that would warrant telling her to set up an account to fund psychotherapy for not just her kid, all the other kids who would be affected by it?!

She painted her kid’s toe nails neon pink. Oh yeah, and her kid is a little boy.

Cue dramatic music.

Dr. Albow goes on to compare painting a boys toe nails to little girls being hyper-sexualized (pants with writing on the butts, padded bikini tops and and hoochie clothes) and suggests it will lead to gender confusion and possible homosexuality. Everyone knows that the second you let little boys do things little girls are suppose to do, they catch the gay and wanna go chop off their beloved penis.

He even suggests that taking it a step further with people “tattooing themselves brown and claiming African-American heritage.”

Don’t let your little white kids do black things, y’all. We don’t need more brown people in this country. They vote for Democrats. Then all those brown people would ‘bleach their skin to playact as Caucasians’  and we’d all be confused about who was really deserving of all the white privilege.

After they’re done cutting off their wieners and painting their skin brown, they’ll spend hours in front of the mirror trying to look like Pauly D and The Situation, refusing to join the military because they aren’t manly enough to defend our country anymore. Little girls will spend the rest of their lives getting into fist fights that get posted on YouTube and no one will ever want to raise a family anymore. Then the Plain-Belly Sneetches are gonna paint Stars on their bellies and all hell is going to break loose.

Yes. All of these tragic events will happen because one little boy had his toe nails painted pink in a magazine photo.

Dr. Albow does ask how Jenna Lyons would feel having little Beckett pose in a sundress for the catalog or if he wanted to dress like a cowboy and play with a gun. To that I say: Why not?!

Painted Piggies!

These are my kids. 3 boys. 1 girl. I painted all of their nails tonight. They chose the colors, which nails they wanted painted and if they wanted to take the polish off before school tomorrow.

Ethan: My 8 year old who loves reading, playing with his best friend (who lives next door and happens to be a girl) and wants to play soccer in the fall. He chose purple glitter polish for his toes and a pale pink for his fingers.

Dylan: My 6 year old who is stubborn and emotional with a fondness for fart jokes. He loves cowboys and guns. Funnily enough, he also likes playing dress up with his sister. He chose blue glitter for his toes and purple glitter for his fingers.

Ty is my 5 year old who has a sweet and sensitive demeanor. He loves cars, trucks, trains. He also likes playing school with his sister and brothers. He chose grey polish for his toes and pink for his fingers.

Kristen is my 4 year old little girl. She’s got enough attitude and sass to go around. She’s expressive, loves playing various types of imaginative games and has a fondness for puppies (just like her mom.) She chose blue glitter toes and a mauve shade for her fingers.

All of them are great kids. They enjoy doing things that are traditional for boys and they enjoy doing things that are traditional for girls. It doesn’t matter to them, so long as it’s fun and they get to spend time with each other. I talked to them tonight about the little boy who got his toe nails painted pink and how someone wrote an article saying it would confuse him. Ethan looked at me like it was the craziest thing he had ever heard. He assured me that he is not confused about being a boy (though he has expressed a desire to be a girl before.)

You see, when you tie up a child’s worth in how well they fit into their gender roles, it can cause a lot of the psychological trauma that Dr. Albow was so concerned about. When their bodies or interests aren’t aligned just right, and they don’t feel masculine or feminine enough, they feel inadequate as a person. It dampens their self-confidence and affects other areas of their life. It’s not our job to hold our kids up to a measuring stick of gender normalcy.

The best thing we can do for our kids is to love them unconditionally and show an active interest in nurturing who they are. If that means we spend Friday nights watching Disney Princess movies with our little boy while painting his toe nails, so be it. If that means taking our little girl to football practice, who cares?! We tell our kids that they can be whatever they want to, and as long as it’s not actively hurting anyone, they should be able to do just that.

I found a few free spreadsheets online and plugged in our information to help sort things out. It’s so much easier to keep track of our budget and snowball our debt when it’s all laid out like that. Why have I not discovered this before? We’ve gotten two cards paid off. We found some mistakes that we needed to get sorted out like:

1. According to the tax office, there is no house on our land. We had a house built in July of 2008. They’ve got the land on file, and we’ve been paying taxes on our land, but because there’s no record of the house, our escrow account is off. We’ve got to get this sorted out. The lawyer who closed on our mortgage is at fault for not properly handling the paperwork and we’re currently trying to contact them to explain the situation. There has been a whole lot of phone calls and circular explanations in the past week. Chad’s going to call the office again, Monday morning, because she’s been with other clients or at lunch and never called back.

2. I was retroactively charged several ‘account management fees’ for the balance left on my bill at the foot doctor. I was diagnosed and treated for plantar fasciitis in 2009 and have been paying down what was left after insurance. In February they started the fees, but I had several charges for different amounts, all in February. I called the office and the receptionist explained it was automated and immediately removed the fees. She did explain there would be a $3 fee each month from now on, but that I shouldn’t have been charged the previous fees. My bill went down from $274 to $227.

3. I had an account from one of the doctors I saw last year about my hormone/period issues sent to collections (despite making payments on it.) I had set up a payment plan with the agency, which I had also paid on. I noticed it was on my credit report, despite the payments and assurance from the agency that so long as my payments were made it wouldn’t affect my credit. After faxing a copy of my bank statement as proof the money was taken from my account, giving them the transaction number from the verification email I was sent and spending a lot of time on hold, they figured out that the original woman handling my account (who was fired) had given me the wrong account number. Basically, I’d been paying someone else’s account. They adjusted the numbers, fixing the mistake, and I set up auto-drafts for the remaining balance over the next few pay periods.

Most of our debt issues seem to be with medical bills. Whenever you go visit a doctor, you have doctor fees, lab fees, xray fees. It seems like every branch has their own bills and it’s difficult to keep up with every account owed. It would seem more logical to set it all up under a single account and then have the doctor’s office or hospital cut everyone a check. Our health care system is so screwed up. Fact is, I shouldn’t be having these issues. We pay $400+ a month in premiums and we still have a huge family deductible (something like $10k, or $2k per person)! I just wish it wasn’t so complicated and expensive. I know it’s even harder for people who can’t afford insurance to find care.

I’m feeling better about my weight loss, despite still not having lost any weight. I’ve maintained, but I’m noticing changes in my body with the new exercise program. I’ve been doing the Turbo Fire schedule for about 2 weeks now (including the Inferno plan and the first week of the program). I’ve got muscles! Big ones! Everything is toning up, a lot. My moods balance out if I exercise daily. My body feels sore, but it’s a good sore. I’ve got before pictures from my first week, and I think I’m going to do monthly pictures to show the progress. I don’t wanna post the before pictures until I get the after ones. It’s hard to wait. I’m excited to see the differences.

The more I exercise, the more I want to exercise. It feels so good to be able to move my body. I sometimes find myself struggling with internal dialogue, telling me I can’t do something and trying to discourage myself. Like certain stretches are more difficult or just different because of the shape of my body, but I have been successful in reminding myself that I’ve come so far. That 6 months ago, 9 months ago, I was no where near this level of fitness. I know I’ll get there.

I hope to take pictures of all the decorating I’ve been doing soon and post them. I hope to post before and after pictures of my progress with exercise and weight loss. I’ve got some reviews to crank out. Life is pretty good. I hope everyone had a great week.

I am, and I'm losing it.

I bought a BodyMedia Fit (from Costco for $235-ish. Best price, hands down, for the unit, 12 months subscription, an extra armband and 3 skins.) It’s this little armband that you wear on your left arm that uses all sorts of things to figure up how many calories you’re burning, how well you’re sleeping, how many steps you’re taking and how vigorously you’re exercising with about 90% accuracy. I wanted it because I hit a major plateau in my weight loss and I felt like a needed a better idea of what was going on with my body.

When I got my BMF, I went to the website to set up my account. It asked me a series of questions. Basic stuff like my height, weight and activity level, what I wanted to do and how much weight I’d lost in the last couple of months. Based on this information, it guessed I’d been eating 2930 calories a day. That’s what a woman my age, weight and height would be eating to maintain her weight while living a sedentary lifestyle.

I’ve been eating between 1300-1500. Except for days when I ‘cheat’, which are date nights. Even then I don’t go nuts and typically adjust my intake for the rest of the day so I can splurge a bit at dinner. This is accurate. I measure my food. I record it quickly after each meal via myfitnesspal.com and I read labels every time I make food for myself. I’m not absentmindedly grazing on snacks all day with no idea how many calories I’m eating. I’m meticulous about my eating habits. So much so, that it aggravates Chad when I ask him to measure out my food if he’s preparing something for me. I just had him go pour 2 ounces of milk back into the jug, this morning.

Yesterday I spent some time reading a book (Name of the Wind). It was an easy day, but I did do some chores around the house. I also did a 30 minute workout and burned about 300 calories. I hadn’t worn my BMF overnight so it estimated my calorie burn, based on what I usually did during the hours I wasn’t wearing it. I had it on the rest of the day though. By 8 pm I had only burned 2091 calories, with only 4 hours left to burn the estimated 400 calories to reach a 2500 calorie goal. A goal that is based on my height/age/weight and assuming I sat on my ass all day. Even with vigorous exercise and light activity throughout the day, I’m barely reaching this goal.

With what I’m burning compared to what I’m taking in, I should be seeing some losses. Even with me averaging less calories burned than the median for my age/height/weight/sex group!

But I’m not and it’s pissing me off.

I try to be patient. I try to think about all of the other environmental factors that could be influencing my results. I just started a new exercise program that is more intense. More intense exercise causes your muscles to hold onto water so they can repair themselves, until they’re better able to handle the impact. I think of period weight fluctuations, but even then I’m not seeing a gain before or a loss after. Just a steady fluctuation between the same 3-5 pounds.

I’ve had tests done before. My thyroid hormones, female hormones, and other tests to see what was going on. Everything is within normal limits. Yet my numbers aren’t adding up. Even with a 500-1000 (sometimes more) calorie deficit each day, I am seeing no losses.

Chad keeps telling me that there are other changes, and there are. He keeps reminding me that these things take time. I know this, but when I am doing everything right and not seeing the results I want to see, it messes with my head and makes me want to binge. Not because I’m hungry or craving anything, but because that was how I coped with shit for a long time. I ate until I was numb. I ate until the kids fighting and the bills didn’t bother me anymore. I’ve learned different coping skills and most of the time I stick to them. I listen to my body and am able to tell the difference between real hunger and boredom.

I’m tired of losing this game. I want to see more progress, higher numbers and better results. I’m tired of seeing people that I know aren’t trying nearly as hard as I am losing weight and dropping clothes sizes. It’s not fair, and yes I am acting like a brat about it. I’m exercising, getting winded, sweating profusely, pushing myself to do intense cardio and plyometrics even though I know my shins will hate me for it. I’m the one counting every morsel I eat and trying to make sure that most of them have excellent nutritional value. I’m the one who rarely puts anything besides water in her glass. But I’m not the one boasting about losing 50 lbs and being in a size smaller pant than I was a month ago.

Logically, I know that if I keep it up the changes will come. Three months without a change in the direction I want it to go it is a long wait though. I did the 5 day Inferno and I’m on day 3 of the 20 week prep schedule with Turbo Fire. I took my ‘before’ pictures and measurements. We’ll see what nearly 4 more months does for my body. I’m hoping I can post something happier at that point.

Now What?

A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I were leaving the mall in Warner Robins, GA. We saw a poster that stopped us in our tracks. Here was a black and white photograph of a beautiful little girl with a sad look on her face. It was deliberately made to look like a mugshot. It said ‘It’s hard to be a little girl, when you’re not.’ and it said visit stopchildhoodobesity.com.

My sister and I discussed it on our walk to the car. We were shocked about the sign. As if fat kids don’t have a hard enough time growing up, now we’re going to put them on billboards and make an example of them. I had intended to blog about the poster, but it slipped my mind as things at home took over. Then I started seeing commercials for the website this week.

I decided to visit the website. I had every intention of contacting the creator of the campaign and telling them exactly what I thought of it. Only, there is no contact information on their website. There is actually nothing worthwhile on there, at all. It’s just a giant black page with red scary words about fat statistics and a picture of another fat kid. There are videos of the commercials with the option to share them on various social media websites and links to their Facebook page (asking you to like it), Twitter and their Youtube channel.

The name of the damn website is Stop Childhood Obesity. How exactly do they propose we do this? By sitting on our asses watching a bunch of grim commercials they created? You would think that a website like this might have some solutions on how to get Georgia out of the #2 position for childhood obesity in the country.

Nope.

But you can follow them on twitter.

Why is there no information on healthy living on the site? There’s not even a link to anywhere that would provide this information. If you’re not even going to bother trying to be a real solution to the problem, then you’re just doing what has been a million times already. You’re telling fat people that they are fat. You’re telling them that their weight and health is exposing them and making them vulnerable to many weight related illnesses, conditions and diseases. You’re pointing your finger at them and making them feel like they’re nothing more than their fat.

Bravo. Bravo.

I am beyond tired of seeing people feign compassion and concern for fat people’s health. Only fat people’s health, because the skinny person shoving Big Macs and a large order of fries down their throat is obviously fit as a fiddle. No matter how much research is done to prove that weight is not an automatic indicator of health, people still act like obesity is killing our country.

It’s not.

Obesity is a symptom. Our lifestyle is the problem.

We spend hours living our lives behind electronic devices. Many people work behind computers or sitting at a desk. Many people are so busy with work that they don’t have time to eat properly. Most of us are so exhausted after a day at work that we don’t feel like exercising and preparing a healthy meal for our families. People are slaving away at work, busting their behinds to barely make ends meet. They don’t have the time and energy to devote to learning to curb their eating habits. They don’t know how to shop for healthy foods. They’ve learned a lifestyle of convenience. The cycle gets passed down to the kids. If they see mom and dad stopping off and buying high calorie, low nutrition take out food, that’s what they’re going to do. If they’re being fed pizza, burgers and mashed potatoes made of dehydrated flakes for school lunch, that’s what they’re going to learn to like. If we shove our kids behind a desk for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week then they’re going to learn to be lazy.

I don’t understand why we’re suddenly condemning people for doing what they’ve been taught to do. A lot of people are praising the organization and saying that it’s a much needed wake-up call for parents. I think the ads are a waste of space at best, and more likely a detriment to kids’ self esteem at worst. Without offering advice and resources to people about what to do to change the fact that so many children are obese, you’re simply making an obvious statement.

These kids? They’re perfectly aware that they’re fat. They know because they look at themselves in the mirror every day. They know because the kids at their school make fun of them. They know because countless weight loss shows and diet ads are on tv. They know because their parents are probably walking around the house regurgitating damaging and negative dialogue (with themselves, and the kids.) They don’t need anyone else telling them that they’re fat. They need someone teaching them how to be healthy and fit. They need someone to teach their parents how to be healthy and fit. They need opportunities to use that education and incorporate it into their lives.

Changing your lifestyle and habits is hard. It’s even harder to do when you don’t have the education and resources to do so. At this point, the organization behind this campaign is just trying to create controversy. But for what purpose? Controversy for the sake of controversy isn’t helping anyone out. The chairman says that this is phase one and won’t reveal details about what they intend to do in the future. At this point, I don’t think it looks very promising. If it turns into something more beneficial, I’ll eat my words.

I postponed my Shakeology purchase because it’s actually $20 more after shipping and taxes, making it $138 for a 30 day supply. I’m having a really hard time justifying that expense. I don’t need it and we’ve got other things we’re trying to take care of. My siblings have moved out (2 weeks ago, finally) so there’s much less of an expense with having to support them. It’s just me and Kristen here, most days, during the week. I have more time to really focus on what I’m putting into my body. I guess I’ve gotten a little bit lax with guessing measurements. I need to invest in a digital scale and some more measuring cups. I’m sure there are hidden calories I can afford to cut out.

I’ve been watching shows like MTV’s I Use To Be Fat and somehow getting more frustrated and inspired. Here are these college kids who are losing 90-100 lbs in about 3 months. I’ve been doing this for 6 months and have only managed about 1/3 of their weight loss. Granted, I’m not on a restrictive diet or exercising 4-5 hours a day, but still, I would love to see more progress. I have time to exercise more than I do, and I feel better when I get in an extra workout, so I guess I need to get off my butt and do it.

I know I’m making progress, but I want to see more progress. I’ve got a month until Chad and I head off for a (late) anniversary trip. We’re going to sunny Orlando and I want to be able to get some new clothes. I want to see a huge difference in pictures from this trip and last years trip. I’m hoping to be down to 238 lbs (30 lbs down) by February 28th. That’s the day we’re leaving. Goals, I guess.

Can I lose 7 lbs (or more) in a month? I hope so.

I use to be about 145 lbs. I crept up to 204 lbs over the course of my first pregnancy, managed to get back to about 170 lbs afterwards and before getting pregnant again. Over the next 3 pregnancies my body fluctuated between another 30-50 lbs, each time, eventually working my way up to 268 lbs.

All of 147 lbs and already hating my body, despite the full of myself pose here.

I could hardly recognize myself.

Around 260 lbs. Chad at his largest as well. Sympathy pregnancy weight, ya know?

The loose skin. The stretch marks. The bloated face. What had I turned into? How did I get there? I hated myself for the weight I’d gained and the scars pregnancy left on my body. Then I found Kate Harding’s blog, which led me to find videos by Joy Nash, which led me to the F Word, Big Fat Deal, and many other blogs that were all about fat bodies, disordered eating and how the media made sure we never felt good about ourselves. I remember thinking I was fat and disgusting when I was at my tiniest. I was already exercising for about 3 hours a day during the week for flag corps practice. Vigorous exercise, running the track (because I always forgot part of my practice uniform), push-ups for when we messed up, dancing, twirling, running from one end of the track’s mock football field to the other, dodging band members, because the flags looked their prettiest when they were flying through the air. I’d come home and practice even more. I’d walk all over my neighborhood. I’d rummage for diet pills and try to restrict my calories, but I was hungry from all that exercise so I’d beat myself up for eating.

Luckily I never wound up developing a full blown eating disorder, but I got pretty close. I had enough going on between church, school, flag corps and my social life that I didn’t have time to really focus on the food and exercise. Fast forward to today and I have been focusing on those things, but I’ve been able to moderate them and do them healthily. All because I found a soft place to fall when everything else (aside from my husband) was telling me that I was gross and I needed to do whatever it took to get skinnier.

Yes, I’m responsible for how I allow things to affect me, but when all you’ve been told for your whole life are negative things you will eventually start to believe them. Someone, somewhere in your life had to encourage you and tell you it was all a lie. I’ve been doing really good with how I feel about myself since I began exercising. Yes, I’ve still got stretch marks, loose skin and places I’m working off, but it’s helping. Not just with toning everything up, but it’s helping me mentally. It boosts my mood and makes me feel great. But I’ve been busy with the holidays. We travel to see family and eat a lot. After eating the goodies we came home and indulged in some alcohol to help us relax and shake off some of the stress from driving and spending all that time with family in such close quarters. I also haven’t exercised in about a week. Needless to say, I’ve got some major fluid retention going on (between 5-8 lbs worth thanks to the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol). The lack of exercise has affected my mood and I’m sure being bloated isn’t helping either. Top it with the kids being off for winter break, and you’ve got a fairly anxious Sarah.

As I sat here procrastinating about the workout that I will eventually have to get off of my ass to do, I’ve seen countless commercials for weight loss. Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and ediets are all new and improved to help you lose even more this year. Gyms are offering cheaper memberships. There are a million infomercials trying to sell you the next big workout plan. There are new diet pills and supplements that are even better than the ones they sold last year. Even doctors are banking on the new years resolutions and showing commercials for their surgical procedures to help people lose weight.

Then, on top of all of this, a ‘sex positive’ author wrote an article on a site that’s suppose to be geared towards breaking down the taboos about sex that was so offensive that it made me speechless. Actually, I bit my tongue until I cooled off enough to formulate a response that didn’t sound like I was a raving lunatic. No, the article wasn’t about me and the disgusting comments the author made weren’t about my body, but it didn’t make it any less painful to read. As a person who has lived with a fat body, I know all too well the insecurities I’ve had with it. Especially in regards to sex. The only thing that I can imagine that could generate a worse feeling than being fat and reading something like that is accidentally stumbling onto it as the person who it was written about. Which is entirely possible considering this particular author has recently ‘come out’ with her true identity and has a photograph of her face attached to the article.

Several commenters posted about their disgust with the piece and it’s being justified as ‘raw’, ‘honest’ and as an excerpt from a journal written years ago. I’m getting pretty sick and fucking tired of people defending what they say by claiming they’re just being honest. You don’t have to say whatever is on your mind for the sake of being honest. Your momma gave you the good sense and social exposure to know when you need to filter something before you let it fly out of your mouth and hurt people’s feelings.

Just because something is true doesn’t mean it needs to be uttered from your lips, let alone aired on a high traffic website.

If you have trouble figuring out what’s appropriate to discuss in a public forum, you should ask yourself a few questions. Is it necessary? What purpose does it serve? What can your audience take away from it? There’s nothing wrong with pointless fluffy stuff every so often, but it doesn’t need to be blatantly offensive. If you still can’t figure out whether or not you need to post something, you should heed the advice of Thumper’s mother from the popular children’s movie Bambi.

If you can’t say somethin nice, don’t say nothin at all.

I guess ultimately you’re entitled to say whatever you want to say from your platform, but you don’t get to control how people react to it. If you’re only after page hits and you don’t care what a douchebag you sound like, write what you want. If you’d like to maintain steady traffic and actually engage your readers minds, be a little considerate of how you express whatever point you’re trying to make.

Most of this past week and the upcoming week are being spent doing prep work for the holidays. Though we took care of all of our Christmas shopping ahead of time, there are things we have to get at and do at the last minute. I have to prepare several side dishes and desserts to take to my in-laws’ house and my grandmother’s house this weekend. I’m splurging a bit and making some really yummy stuff. Squash casserole, broccoli casserole, mustard greens, baked macaroni and cheese, chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, a pineapple upside-down cake and I’ll probably even come up with a few more things to make by the time Friday comes around.

Tuesday I’m going to brave the stores to buy the groceries we need to make all this stuff, from scratch, and I am dreading going out in the crowd. We’re also going to try and squeeze in a date this week too. Friday evening we celebrate at my in-laws. Saturday morning we do our own Christmas here and then get dressed and head out for a 3-hour drive to my grandma’s.

It’s going to be a long weekend.

I’ve been making sure everything is wrapped and sorted based on whose house it’s going to. My closet looks so crazy right now. It’s packed with gifts. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a really great Christmas this year, partially due to getting a little bit all year long instead of waiting until December and having to juggle all our bills.

Today I’ve been cleaning my bedroom up. Like, heavy duty cleaning. I organized all my sex toys and put stuff I still need to review all in one spot. I sorted out my book shelf. I dusted and organized the dressers, which is really a huge task. They seem to be a catch-all for everything when we come in the room. I pulled out the tv and untangled all the cords, creating a tidier entertainment center. I finally set up our chargers for our Wii controllers beside the Wii so it’s easier to keep track of them all. I’m so tired of the kids using my batteries for them. We will have to get new batteries when we go shopping because I know there’s a lot of crap that will need them Christmas morning.

Tomorrow we’ll work on straightening up the rest of the house. It’s mostly clean. Just needs a bit of tidying. I’m hoping we can steam clean on Wednesday or Thursday. I don’t want to do it too early because the stains will seep back up through the carpet by Christmas and I don’t want to be staring and kool-aid spots in my pictures. I can’t wait to rip up all this nasty carpet and replace it. We should be able to swing it after we pay down our Home Depot card and some of our other bills. I hate carpet.

Thursday and Friday will be spent doing prep-work and cooking. It sounds like a lot to do, but I can not wait until Christmas. My kids are all finally old enough to really get it and they’re so excited.

I’m also nearing my goal of losing 30 lbs by Christmas. It was originally 25 lbs, but I reached that at the beginning of the month so I pushed it to 30. I’ve lost 27.6 lbs so far and I’m hoping I can get 2.4 more lbs in 6 days. I can’t believe I’ve made so much progress. It feels really good to meet my goals.

This week will probably be a bit slow on posts. I might finish a review or two and I’ll try to stop spamming you with the #reverb10 posts. I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season, no matter what they celebrate. This weeks Song for Sunday is my absolute favorite Christmas song. ‘Baby it’s Cold Outside’ by Dean Martin. I do love the version from the Elf movie because I adore Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel is adorable, but there’s nothing quite like the old fashioned version.

This month I’m participating in #reverb10. Every day a new prompt is issued and I will write my response. The goal is to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011. Want to learn more? Visit www.reverb10.com.

The prompt for December 12 was:

December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

I’m not really sure where to go with this one. The only things I can think of are all the times I’ve exercised or faced something difficult. I realized that I had to get my mind to cooperate with my body and encourage myself to get through it. It wasn’t that I couldn’t run, it was that I hadn’t run for so long that I feared it. Once I just did it, I found out that it felt amazing. This year has been all about forcing my mind to align with my body instead of holding me back.

This month I’m participating in #reverb10. Every day a new prompt is issued and I will write my response. The goal is to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011. Want to learn more? Visit www.reverb10.com.

The prompt for December 10 was:

December 10 – Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I’ve made a lot of decisions this year. The wisest of those was to get serious about my weight loss and health. I committed to going to the doctor and getting my hormones and such checked out, fixed them, and began eating better and exercising. I feel incredible. I’ve had less mood swings, my mental health is better, my physical health is better and I’ve lost almost 25 lbs (and counting). This decision will affect me for the rest of my life and I hope that I continue to make the decision to be serious about my health every day.