Perfection

The most common advertisement I see on my web blog is "Eating Disorder Hope"  Are my blogs geared that direction?  Well, it will be now that I just wrote that, not intentionally.  Nutrition, Depression, Raw Foods=Eating Disorder Hope, could possibly be true.   Let's throw a twist and talk about Perfection, or is it a twist?  One particular story comes to mind talking about perfection, and I have many!  I have five boys and when they were all at home we would be getting ready to head to my parents house for a holiday.  In my fury to get ready and be on time, as I have a problem about being on time (no I didn't say that backwards) I have a need to be early.  I created unnecessary chaos in order to accomplish my goal.  At that very moment, fingernails, hair, clothes, shoes, eyebrows, attitudes, and life's purpose had to be in order in approximately 1 hour.  Since, I had the brainy idea to give my children a voice at an early age by taking great consideration of their feelings and opinions, they have big voices when I decide they need to be quite.   Remember life is a process.  I learned as I went and I didn't do the right thing all the time!  The hardest part for me was I wanted perfection at the moment and not necessarily at other times.  This confused my children.  In the end the boys were yelling at me telling me I had issues with my family and then I was hurt, ultimately crying.  How does perfection relate to my story?  Perfection as my definition would be our appearance as whole family.  What we looked like, how we talked, our interests, basically socially acceptable concerns.  This would place excellence, maturity and merit on my family.  While raising my family this was an enormous challenge for me.  Starting with the first divorce dealing with guilt and the feeling of incompleteness.  Evolving from letting go of damage I felt I caused to realization of balancing it all out again was a method of letting go of perfection.  Fulfilling my life by letting go of old patterns learned which meant standing alone and not "looking" so good for awhile.  This might of entailed a messy house because I was spending time holding a crying child for several hours, carrying extra pounds for failing to find the time to exercise or eating properly, showing up late, or having less money than the average person.  Awareness has brought a quality of life where perfection does not exist.  The pendulum is swinging but my scale is mainstream.  I do care about taking care of my family in a healthy, socially acceptable way.  I also leave room for my children to make their own choices as my opinion is not always the best one which brings me to my favorite quote from Albert Einstein:
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.  Kudos, to all my friends!


smiles,

ac

Mumble Jumble

Better sign in to my blog and get to blogging before the "mommy monster" comes after me.  I opened my mother into the world of blogging.  She didn't hear from me in a couple of days so she thought she could catch up with me here.  AND there was no new news!!  So many things to talk about.  I could continue my saga of the mortgage lending nightmare, no.  Or my good morning friend named, "head cold" that woke me up this morning, no.  Well, I could talk about my amazing JUICE I've been drinking.  Aww, its my fav.  It's a staple for life, um, one of them anyway.  I've been juicing 2 handfuls of spinach, 1 apple and 4-6 carrots in my handy dandy juicer that extracts the pulp (fiber), namely Juice Extractor Hamilton Beach.  I recommend doing this only when juicing greens.  I use my "GODLY" Vita-Mixer for my fruits, protein shakes and smoothies.  FIBER is important so don't think I am ALL about the extractor.  I just like to get a large amount of greens in each day and "ME NOT DRINKING" greens in my vita-mixer I can't stomach it, no matter what.  Again (from previous posts), if we must, talk about William.  He hears that juicer and he comes running.  HE LOVES my green drink.  I have to share and I am quite stingy!  Another Little Willie story....I use to juice my greens and then mix the juice in his baby cereal when he was just starting to eat solid foods.  awwww.....how adorably sweet was that.  He has the most amazing taste buds I have ever known!  I think he has super duper taste bud powers.  That boy has to have TASTE when he is eating.  He needs at least a three course meal at a time and he doesn't want anything breaded or greasy, man!!  He wants TASTE!  I told my husband, I CAN'T take it!!  YOU FEED HIM.  He takes after his dad in the area, so guess what, he feeds him!  Well, ya know, since I am such perfect picture of health, and I am Miss Healthy, runner person, I gotta sign off, cuz I am really SICK, (sadly, again)....I'm getting concerned about this.  Oh, I know its detox...lol!  Well, whatever it is, most likely lack of sleep, mounds of running and little stress from that dern, mortgage company!   p.s. that ended today at 1:00.  YEP, refinancing, complete!

Remember To Stop and Smell the Flowers

I refrain from to many formal activities.  Our Friday night out to Olive Garden was stiff enough for me.  Reasons are many!  I was in a business meeting with MetLife as we are refinancing our home, and my phone rang, I mean barked.  (lol)  Yes, the ring tone is a dog barking.  I felt the meeting was not to formal and the professional mortgage lender was busy typing on the computer, knowing it was my youngest son, I made a special exception to make sure everything was alright.
      "Hi, Mom", William said.
      Whispering I said, "Hi, Wils what's up." 
      "Oh, nothing." Pause.
      "William, what do you need?"
      "Can I have some chocolate chips?"  Usually under these circumstances, the answer would be yes, just to get them off the phone and I could deal with them later.  But I guess without thinking to much about it I replied back a quick no of which sparked more conversation.  "Well, what can I have?  I am so hungry."
      "William I will make dinner when I get home, so just eat an apple for now."  Thinking I have to get off this phone, while somewhat whispering,  but how can you whisper in a very small business office occupying two people.  Obviously this lady could hear everything I said.  I was regretting answering the phone by now.  "Gotta go, William."
       "Wait, wait, Mom?" William panicking on the other end.
       "W H A T?" I replied.
       "What kind of apples are they?"
       "Fuji, William."  By now I was embarrassed by having this conversation, realizing it wasn't an earth shattering situation.  Feeling like I just want to hang up the phone and not discuss what brand of apples we have at home and thinking this lady is going to think we are crazy.
       "Ok, as long as they aren't Red Delicious apples, I hate those kind.  You know I'd rather have Granny Smith, but Fuji will do.  Ok, thanks Mom, I'll see ya in a litlle bit."  My embarrassment subsided by the time William finished talking because by now I was smiling and chuckling to myself.  I hung up the phone gently putting the phone back in my purse.  Properly sitting up straight waiting for Ms. Mortgage Loan Lender Lady to continue with my situation.  She turns to me with her glasses on the tip of her nose and said, "He really doesn't know the difference between apples does he?"  At that moment I realized, your right, how many 9 year old boys care about what type of apple they are eating.
      "Yes, he really cares about that." I said, smiling and nodding and thinking to myself, if she only knew how much.
       Sometimes I wish my focus wasn't so much on the biological make up of every single living organism on this earth.  But its how my mind works and I see I've passed down to my children the awareness of what we put in our bodies.  Usually in my hasten furies my most precious lessons are revealed as long as I am listening.  



 

Two Kinds of Days

Daddy says, "Hun, there are two kinds of days.  Days you get your way and days ya don't!"  Don't you love the days you spend all day on the telephone talking to computers, literally?  I know you're laughing because that is exactly what you do when you have a situation and you need to talk to someone, you can't!  Well, my situation took 4 hours.  If it wasn't one problem it was another.  AND to top it off I had to involve my husband and, yes, I ended up being mad at him the most.  So here is the steps, #1) trying to do the right thing.  #2) uncooperative people.  #3) incompetent people,  #4) technology.  All this equals a day I didn't get my way.   Seriously, I don't know how people do it.  I know the things I do to cope with stupid people (lack of better word).  But, I am a little atypical (you know, odd, abnormal).  I sit cross legged on the floor, lay my arms on my knees, palms up, back straight, close my eyes and take a million deep breaths, run 6 miles and then my quandary disappears.  But who does that?  When I went to work that afternoon my complicated morning was history!  Its a fact though, we have so much stress in our lives our health is compromised!  If we don't initiate to expound, que sera sera old chap, our liability rises.  I love to make my days my own by making the most of them.  It's inevitable life throws curves.

FOOD~~~FAMILY

Sometimes, no, all the time when talking about myself, the subject of food arises.  I have a direct path from emotion straight to food.  My emotions are connected to my family and then here we are right back to food.  When I feel good, eating healthy and exercising I'm usually in a great mood, patient with my family and life seems easy.  When I am eating senselessly and lazily lounging I become irritable and even unorganized.  There must be a correlation!  Makes perfect sense to me.  I was raised with food as the center of everything we did, from day to day excitement, sadness, fear, and even boredom.  Food was plentiful and it made life exciting when there was nothing to do or when there was something to do.  Healthy food was presented to me in balanced meals three times a day.  I also ate snacks and plenty of left overs.  I was also an athlete.  My life was centered around my survival to be strong and healthy.  Regardless, I learned early on to connect my emotions to food whether it was healthy food or not.  Everyone deals with hard times differently.  When food is a primary role in your life it can become obsessive for the good or for the bad.  My family is my main accomplishment and in raising my family food played an amazing role.  Good? Bad? It really doesn't matter, it is what it is.   I can share my experiences and I feel confident there are many other women walking down my same road and for that I am dearly thankful!!

Diets Don't Work?

August 16, 2010- LOL!  @imjustsayin'
How many times have I read that sentence, "Diets Don't Work".  Well, I will admit, I've been on a lot of diets and they do work if you work them.  So, I disagree with that statement.  I do believe in making healthier choices and as long as they are permanent choices, you got it made!  I'm wise in Nutrition but that doesn't mean I am necessarily always on the right track.  Foods are addictive.  Mix in some stress, little depression, sprinkle with "loss of control".  The key for me has been and always has been, "Never give up completely", NEVER!  I've been divorced twice, raised three of my boys by myself and then finally met my wonderful husband of 12 years and had two more boys.  I was definitely one "out of control", "depressed", "stressed", mamma.  I was thin almost all of my adult life.  The last four years times have been tough experiencing biological changes, growing older, my boys leaving, (boo hoo) and I always come back to say, "Anything works if you work it!"

Been Running, A LOT!

August 15-I've been obsessing on running for 4 weeks now. YEEPEE! I am feeling so much better. I am getting into shape, (smiling)! Yeah! I believe we all have choices, sometimes we just don't like our choices. As we make good choices than we get to make better choices, as we make bad choices than our choices are limited! Ugh, that was a mouth full! Well, jump up and make ONE great choice with me right now!! It will make a world of difference!!

kudo!

ac