I really hate my alarm sometimes

4:30 am

That's what time my alarm goes off. I'm not a fan.

I'm not a morning person. I don't enjoy getting up and leaving the comforts of my bed. I do it though. Why? Because I have a goal. I'm seeing small progress. Small progress is no progress right? I'm learning re-learning things about myself that I had forgotten I could do.
1. I get excited when I have to raise my weight limit. Ya'll I'm starting from scratch. I retired from roller derby four years ago. Stopped everything. Being active, moving all the time. That took a toll on my muscles. I have HAD zero muscle. And I'm sure that my upper body was in the negative.

2. I like to try new-ish things. I say "ish" because some of ya'll out there probably have done this kind of stuff for ions. Squats.......I have a love hate relationship with them. Sumo squats same thing. WEIGHTED sumo squats....I get a rush from them. Why is that? Becuase I'm a BAMF. HA. Seriously though it's an adrenaline rush for me to push myself. I look like a complete dipwad while doing them (alone & staring in the mirror) but I do them and I feel like a superhero while doing them.

3. I love weights more than I do cardio. I enjoy the elliptical machine and I can go for long distances on it. However, because it's not weight bearing when I go to the tredmill it is a COMPLETELY different story. I feel like I want to DIE! I'm fine once my 30 minutes or so are up and I can move on to weights. Again I feel like a BAMF

4. I tell myself every morning that I wake up and go to the gym that I am a BAMF. It's my go-go juice to get me pumped on my drive to the gym. I'm not one of those crazed gym rats that grunts and flexes in the mirror, I do however look at myself in the mirror and I think "Holy mother of all that's holy, I've got my derby butt back!

Meagan's new passion

She runs. A. LOT.

She joined the cross country team back in August and has been in love with it ever since (she is on her 3rd pair of running shoes)

This past weekend she ran her first BIG race. Cross country meets in elementary school do not even come close to comparing to what this race was life for her. She is used to running with MAYBE 100 other girls around her age. This race was everyone 6 and up. There were a total of 5334 people running/walking and I was nervous for her.

That little shit can run.

Mind you she just turned 10 a month ago. Out of over 5000 people she came in 1375! WHAT THE WHAT!!!!

When the results were broken down here's how it looks:
21/133 females 14 and under
417/3101 total females
1375/5334 total participants

Proud moment for this momma.

Making lifestyle changes

When I first started this journey in December I didn't know what to expect. I was dedicating a lot of time to working out in a gym. It definitely scared me


***Backtrack*** anyone who knows me knows that I've been terrified of the gym. I have this preconceived notion that everyone is there and staring at my horrible form, my rolls jiggling, and noticing my sweat stains. It doesn't help that there was a jackass egotistical male trainer who made me feel like the chewed up gum coming out of my dogs asshole. I'm not saying all trainers are like that, but you don't tell someone that their goals are not realistic unless you are willing to pay $500 a month.

Anyways back to present day. I constantly ask Dustin if it's ok if I do go to the gym. I'm not asking permission to go, I'm basically just making sure that my gym time isn't interfering with family time. There have been days where I skip the gym because 1)my body is completely worn out and I just need that extra hour of sleep 2) the temperamental weather 3)kids. I try to keep consistent with getting up and going to the gym. I had to keep telling myself that it takes 21 days to make a habit. I'm pretty sure that the newly formed calluses on my hands are a good indication that I made the right choice.

One of the biggest changes that I am noticing is that I'm not craving sweet stuff nearly as bad as I used to. Instead it's more salty type things. I don't add salt to anything. I never really have, but that's another story. There was one morning where I came in from working out and instead of going for cereal I wanted tater tots. They were the best tater tots ever. I never fry any of my food so I threw the remaining tater tots that were in the freezer onto a cookie sheet and waited for them to bake to a nice crispy golden brown. Oh it was perfect.

Another thing that I notice about working out so early in the mornings is that I am able to fall asleep at a normalish hour. Of course I'm also still having to take 5 mg of Ambien to accompany me so that I stay asleep but I'm falling asleep easier.

Is it spring yet?!?

So let me tell you a story about snow storm 2015. Yea it happened. Rain, ice, and 12+ inches of snow. 2.5 days of being stuck in the house with two very stir crazy kids who have been stuck inside since Tuesday.......pass the vodka, tequila, makers, you name it. I am about to go crazy. This is the second extended period of time that they have been out of school.......the first was two weeks ago where they were out for an entire week. Dear sweet baby Jesus in a tuxedo shirt have mercy on my nerves. I don't think that there is enough prozac. I'm hoping that this was winter's last hoorah and spring will be making an appearance in the near future. I'm ready for my flip flops and sun dresses. I'm ready to sit outside in my rocking chair and enjoy being outside and not cooped up on the couch.

Game of life....

It's been quite a bit of time since I last updated this thing.  Sorry y'all. Life took precedence and I was off doing the "mom" thing.

June was the last real post that I did and shit has really upped its ante since then. Lets see, we finished up summer by going on a nice week and a half long vacation. It was fabulous. We spent every day on the lake soaking up sun, fishing, kayaking, and just making a ton of memories.

August came and we were in full swing with school starting. That was a different kind of mountain to climb. This was the first year that the kids were going to be on a different bus and different schedules. Tracey now had to adjust to getting up at 530 so that she could be on the bus by 630. Meagan got to be the lazy bird and sleep till 730.

Tracey tried cheerleading for a little bit of time and it wasn't her cup of tea. I'm still proud of her though for giving it a shot. Little Meagan tried out for cross country and is a beast when it comes to running. I feel like I should be quoting Forrest Gump. Her legs just keep on running.

October I said "hell yea" to Dustin as we had our super small incredible awesome wedding. Ya'll the day was absolutely everything that I wanted it to be. We had less than 20 people, I cooked all the food, the rain stopped just before the ceremony, and everyone had a great time.

November/December was busy with the holidays. The kids went to their biomom's for thanksgiving which really sucked. My family was out of town and Dustin's family lives 2.5 hours away so we stayed in and kept things really low key. We had steak for our Thanksgiving day meal and celebrated with a turkey when they made it home that following sunday. We let them go to their moms for 5 days-FIVE-and they come back with lice. My nemesis. I cringed still to this day when one of them even slightly scratches their head. It makes me want to scratch just thinking about it. Ugh nasty nasty things. Christmas came and went just as fast as December. We were all super busy with work, family things, this that and everything else.

January is the butt of winter in my book and around the point when the kids ALL start to go stir crazy because they can't get outside to expel some of their energy. C'mon spring I know you have it in you to make an appearance.

February brought my annual bronchitis which caused me to be out of the gym for a week. Oh! That reminds me I'm working out again. I'm waking up at 430 and in the gym by 5. I'm done before anyone really wakes up. It's really weird still to this day to be in the gym so much. I still have the guilt that I'm taking away from my family, but then I remind myself WHY I'm doing this.

So there ya go, my life since June. I'm going to "TRY" again to maintain this more frequently, but I cannot make promises because I know it won't happen.

Ciao!

Testing a new kind of post

Wow, it's been a year

This time last year I would come home from work and have the girls sit outside while I picked nits out of there hair. It was this time last year that they came up here infested with lice. Thankfully, we haven't had any issues since then.

The kids originally just came up for the summer, as planned and this was the summer that was going to be a game-changer in the long run. This was going to be the first time that I was going to be more of the mother figure and less of a "step" mom. I was going to have to figure out exactly what it was going to be like to be a full-time working mom of two kids.

You might be wondering why I mention this.

Last night we had orientation for 6th grade. Ya'll next Friday I will no longer have 2 kids in elementary school. I will have a child in middle school. HOLY MOLEY YA'LL!!!

But this morning I was helping Tracey get ready for school, I asked if she was in a grumpy mood. Her face was all crinkled and pouty lips out. She said no that school made her tired. I had to laugh. I told her that work made me tired, school made me tired, being a parent made me exhausted......but I wouldn't change that last one for the world. She didn't say much, but the crinkled nose relaxed a bit and I think I may have seen a small smile pop out.