Meditation

For the past month I have been working on ways to stay calm, be able to relax, take a step back and in essence, try and learn to respond and not react. I came across a book called 10% happier by Dan Harris. Having an hour drive again it was the perfect time to check out a book on tape (oh, there is my age) I mean iPod, and listen to it while I drive.

What a great book. I have always thought of doing meditation and that I needed to just start doing it. But whenever I read anything and then tried it, I basically threw my hands up in the air and figured I was doing it wrong, didn’t have enough discipline, or couldn’t find one quiet moment with three kids and a husband constantly around the house. This book makes it so plain, so simple, and so attainable. Basically to the point I thought it would be a great idea for my kids whom I can NEVER get to go to sleep. (Yes, I am constantly thinking Go the fuck to sleep!)

I started with a little research. Meditation for kids.

Yes, it is that easy.

I found a great app: Sleep Meditation for kids.

Yes, it is that simple.

It is a free app that comes with a free 13 minute meditation. In my opinion, even if it didn’t work, I didn’t spend any money. If it worked, it would be worth the extra money to buy more meditations. What is there to loose other than my sanity?

Every night at bedtime even though they are in separate rooms, Kadence and Jakob are constantly running between rooms, getting up to grab toys doing whatever it takes to stay awake. “GO TO SLEEP!” it seems that rick and I yell up at them every 5 minutes. They want water, they need a light on, they can’t go to sleep, they had a nightmare (how? you haven’t even slept yet!), I forgot to brush my teeth (really!?!) I have to go to the bathroom…you get the idea.

Then Krischan goes to bed and he is either yelling at Kadence to get out of his room, or chatting like it is the afternoon with Jakob. Every night is any mix and match of one too several of these things. Finally after an hour, seems like longer and probably is, everyone is asleep.

So the first night I tried this app I do admit I was skeptical. I played it for Kadence first. I got her all tucked into bed, kisses and hugs done and sat next to the bed on the floor and explained what I was going to do. Of course since it involved the iPad, she was all for it.

She did well with it and even though she wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t up and wondering around. Jakob was another story. Within 2 minutes he was asleep. Yes, asleep!

Every night after I went through the exercise with them and played the meditation. It calmed them down and in Jakob’s case, fell asleep so easily. I was all in and paid the extra to buy more meditations. I bought one that was 20 minutes and one that was 30 minutes. Kadence just needed longer and with her “mermaid” meditation she falls asleep when she doesn’t fight it, but even when she does, it isn’t long before the dreams come for her.

Meditation for my kids have changed my whole evening routine. It has changed my whole evening. Instead of yelling and fighting with my kids to go to sleep, I am able to relax and breath myself while they fall asleep peacefully. That makes this momma happy.

And we all know, when momma is happy, everyone is happy.

The life of an ornament

Bleck.

It is that time where all the christmas decorations get taken down and sadly enough, get put away in storage for another 335 days. All the little character ornaments, stuffed snowmen and smiling santa clauses seem to look at me and beg not to be put away. I imagine that by putting our little elf Chris T. Mas in the bag at the back of a bin somehow traumatizes him. I guess it is a little payback for causing me to drink a few glasses of wine and yell out the cursed sentence “I forgot to move that damn elf again!”

I imagine that the ornaments scream a big “NOOOOO!” as I put them back in their boxes, closing them off from the world, which I realize sounds crazy, but really, think about it. Each item is a memory all of its own. I can close my eyes and remember each and every ornaments beginning with my family. Be that it was an ornament from my childhood or one for my children. I started writing notes and placing them with each ornament that has a bit of sentimentality so that when my kids are older they can show their kids the ornament and talk about what they remember when seeing it. They are like a smell, or song that triggers moments that you forgot for a bit but come rushing back at the site.

 

The Whole 30 – Yes you really are what you eat

About 4/5 years ago my carpal tunnel really started to act up. My hand would hurt, and when I slept my arm would go to sleep. I also had several other “health” issues that of course no doctor or test showed anything wrong. (And my husband wonders why I never want to go to a doctor)

Part of the issues I am sure was due to the fact that I was out of shape. As soon as I started exercising, about 60% of the issues went away. I was exercising and still not eating well so I began reading whatever I could get my hands on about eating. Don’t tell him this, but mainly it was because my husband kept telling me that loosing weight, getting healthy was 90% what you ate.

Now let me give you full disclosure here. First, I am not a nutritionist in any sense of the term. So what I am talking about here is my own experience and my own trials and errors. Everyones journey is different and what works for one person DOES NOT mean it will work for everyone.

Second, I hate, I mean I really HATE it when people tell me what to do, or how I should be doing something. Ask any personal trainer I have worked with. (On the other hand, don’t do that, I am sure they all want to forget about me.)

“What do you mean I can’t eat pizza once a week?”

“Why can’t I eat a cookie here and there?”

“Who says putting creamer in my coffee is bad, and I can’t eat honey either? isn’t that a “good” sugar?”

So, with all that in the past, I am not going to say they were right (because I am stubborn also) …but there is one thing I discovered that made me realize how much food was effecting how I felt. (Okay, they were all right!) Whether it was a short temper, grouchy mood, too my arm falling asleep and hand hurting all the time, that one thing was: “The Whole 30”

Now, I can’t remember how I found the book, I just remember I found it and started reading it.  As I was sitting down to a large tray of tortilla chips smothered in melted cheese and dipping it in jared processed salsa, I came to the part where one of the authors said she was eating cookies and after the first discussion with her husband decided to start right there and then and stopped eating the cookies. I kept eating my tortilla chips and read on. After reading numerous testimonials, the entire book, and a few other articles, I said “Hell with it, let’s try it!” If this fixes my pain and issues, I have literally just won big time. I began the program right there, amazingly having no problem giving up the sugar (ok, I had withdraw) the dairy and the other processed crap I put in my body.

What did I find out? Dairy causes my heartburn to flair up, this is mainly caused by eating yogurt, but technically people say yogurt isn’t dairy, doesn’t matter cause I know I can’t eat it (actually, I can eat Snowville yogurt with no problem). My carpal tunnel, the pain in my arm, the way it always fell asleep…Gluten. Yes, I know, it is such an overly stated thing “I have a gluten allergy” “I am gluten free” No, I don’t have an allergy or am fully gluten free. I just found out that if I eat bread at breakfast, then lunch, then at dinner, I will be in pain the next day. If I have an egg sandwich for breakfast, then don’t eat anything with gluten in it the rest of the day and the day after, I am good. So I just have to eat homemade or the good stuff and in moderation is all. I know I have eaten too much of it when I am smearing lemongrass on my knuckles to relieve the pain and shaking my arm out to bring it back to the living.

I wasn’t bloated at the end of the day, my middle didn’t hang over my jeans and the unbelievable amount of energy I had made my workouts so much more fun and fulfilling. Sleep was so much better and my confidence because of how great I felt soared. After the sugar withdraw was over, my temper and grouchiness wasn’t so bad either. I was actually someone that the people in my house wanted to be around. That was AMAZING! (Because I am the reigning winner of the worst mom award.)

Short story long…

Being that it is a new year and everyone has the same goals of loosing weight or being more healthy, I decided that is the best road for me to take. I have started the whole 30 to fulfill that resolution and the main reason is because my body has gone back to being in pain. This time add my hip joint and shoulder joint to the mix. Temper flares that make me feel like shit after the fact and the depression that has come with thinking I have royally screwed up my life and career. Yes food even effects your emotions.

Don’t believe me? try it.

Where am I at? Day 3 and I want a cookie so bad! But I won’t. I just remove myself from the kitchen (because the thought that eating at piece of fruit helps the craving is bullshit) and busy my mind with other things and move on. Besides it doesn’t really matter how much I crave a cookie because I don’t have one damn sweet food item in this house unless I want to bake it first. Have I cheated? Yes, I did have some cheese yesterday and forgot and ate some wild rice with dinner. I am human. I will do better today and tomorrow and the next day after that and so on and so forth.

Thank God my home office is the furthest spot from the kitchen.

 

 

Minimizing. My first step.

The other night my husband and I had a nice evening without the kids. We plopped down on the couch, which we so rarely have to ourselves, and turned on Netflix. (Another item we rarely have to ourselves.) We found a documentary to watch called “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.”

Watch it, I highly recommend it.

After the movie I found myself so fired up, talking to my husband about what our next steps should be and looking up ideas and information from everyone in the documentary. The next morning we took the first step in this new process. Project 333 (I really should say my husband did.)

Easy enough for my husband, I found myself asking several things:

“Um, you need to keep SOME clothes. It wasn’t called, “throw everything but what is on your back” out.

“Why are you throwing that shirt out?”

“You can’t seriously be thinking of throwing that away?”

He didn’t do the “box things up” portion of it, he just downsized everything.

For me, Project 333 was like saying I wanted to finally jump off that cliff everyone talks about. The adrenaline started rushing as I talked about it and the closer I got, the more the excitement ran through my body. Then we get to the cliff and I say: “Wait, hang on, are we sure? I don’t know if I can do this, are we really sure about this? Let’s think about it a bit more.” and halfway through “hang on” my husband has jumped and is half-way down already.

I yell to him as he free falls, “Shouldn’t we think about this more?”

“It’s great! come on and jump already!” he yells back to me.

“I have to print out the program and the steps you need to take.” I stutter back to him. Throat dry and sweat beads starting to pop up on my forehead I start slowly taking steps backward. I think more and then yell back as he is 5ft from the ground, “We should go to the Bookstore and buy some books on this minimalism idea thing.”

“We don’t need any books about this, just jump!” By now he is on the ground, all his discarded items in the “give-a-way” bag, all his keep items hanging neatly in the closet with half of the space now open. Then there was all my stuff. I walked into the closet, looked around and started remembering how great this dress felt on at that wedding. The sweater I loved so much I had it in three different colors, the pants that felt so good on I actually bought 5 pairs. I quickly walked out and went into the family room to pick up and put the ironing board away with the last of the clean clothes that had been folded.

And this was all before breakfast.

After taking a shower and getting ready for the day, I was able to pull a few items I knew I could box up. Actually I hated them so much I just put then in the “give-a-way” pile. When I went back into the closet, anxiety hit and I left the room screaming.

I took deep breathes and chanted to myself, “Small, I needed to start small.” Over and over again.

My daughter was spending time at her grandparents and her room needed a major cleaning. I cleaned it from top to bottom, put things away and only got rid of the items that were broken. She doesn’t have a lot of stuff and clothing, so once the room was clean, it felt comfortable and as minimized as I felt comfortable doing without her there. Day one done, I made a bit of progress, even if it wasn’t my stuff per se.

Oh wait, I was supposed to go through my closet wasn’t I?

 

A new beginning

On January 1, 2017, I will begin again.