Family

It has been a little while since I wrote.  I have been struggling with many things this week.  I have sorta been following my new goals.

I have been doing good  with saying my prayers and I actually have felt the power of prayer working in my life.  I have been doing okay with my scripture reading.  Not meeting my reading goal every day but doing better than I did before setting my goal.  I will continue to work on this.

My bad eating habits are very hard for me to break.  I did so good my first week.  This week I have been struggling a bit.  I am still doing better than I was but I can do better.  I feel like my struggle is in the evening, I work so late and by the time I get home I am starving, and tired and those two things together make it very difficult to eat healthy in the evening.

I have been doing good with my professional goals, I am very proud of myself.  I have been doing well with my relationship goals too!

I am doing okay with my physical activities.  I didn't go walking today, I was so tired.  I hope dad doesn't give up on me.  I am doing my walking about 50% of the time, this is better than 0% so it is an improvement but I can do better.

I think my depression is worse than I thought.  I am looking forward to having a visit with my doctor next week.  I hope that I will be able to have a good conversation with him about what I might be able to do to help myself get over my slump.

I went to a funeral today.  My dear friend Laura lost her mom to cancer.  This was a good opportunity to ponder on my life and the relationships I have with my family.  I love you all so much and feel so blessed to have such amazing supportive family.  I am grateful for my mom and dad.  I hope that I can continue to build loving relationships with my great husband, children, parents, and siblings, in the end it is all we have.

My family brings me such joy!

Walking and Talking

I started my day out the best way.  Walking around the block with my Dad!  He is my new workout partner and he is the best!

I had a good day.  I thought it would be so stressful because of some issues going on at work but in the end nothing happened today.  This does not mean that it is over, it actually will get pretty nasty at work and probably this week.  That is why I need the prayers, to help me handle a very stressful situation.  But I am so happy that is was a calm and happy day.

I also enjoyed a wonderful night with my parents and siblings with their spouses.  I am so blessed to have caring loving parents who treat their kids to dinner!  The only thing missing was Scott, he was in S.F.  and I wish he was here with me to enjoy this night.

I am keeping it short tonight.  I am grateful for students who were happy to see me after a couple of weeks of Christmas break!

Being Renewed at Church

Today was a great day.  I haven't felt so much relief in going to church for a long time.  I think it all has to do with my state of mind and beginning fresh and new.  I have hope that this is a changing point for me and that by giving my burdens to Christ and taking one day at a time I can feel peace and joy as I did today.  Pray for me.  I need your support and good thoughts to be sent my way.  I am having a very difficult period at work.  I know this will change with time and it will get much easier but in the next couple of weeks I am facing a difficult trial.  I need to remind myself I am not in this alone and that my Heavenly Father knows me and what I face.  Through Christ I can do all things.

Thanks for reading my spiritual thought of the day.

I did fairly well with me eating today, probably because it was Fast Sunday, not really, to be honest I rarely fast.  I have never really been a faster, I have not had any real experiences when I felt my fasting really did any good, except that I donate money.  I think to understand and have power in a gospel principle you have to feel it work in your life.  I have really tried fasting with a purpose in the past but just haven't really felt that my effort made a difference.  I guess I should work on this.

I have been drinking my water today, I made a healthy turkey (left overs from thanksgiving) tortilla soup (I did have two bowls and felt very full, I don't like feeling that full).  I helped Alice make cookies in order to help cheer her up (it worked) and ate one cookie.  Pretty good for a Sunday.  Usually on Sundays I eat a lot.

I was reading my blog from the past and realized that I acknowledged blessings in my life each day.  I am going to do that again.  It really helped me see the silver linings and hand of God in my life each day.

I am grateful for my Savior.

Baptism and Depression

Saturday January 3, 2015

Today we had a baptism in the family.  Since the only ones that are reading this are my family than you already know this.  Talon's baptism was special and it reminds me of why I live in Utah.  I am so happy I was able to be a part of his day.  Some days I really wished I lived far away from Utah but today I felt happy to live here.

Alice is really depressed.  This is a very unusual mood for her.  Usually she is very excited about her life and experience she is having in Grantsville.  I feel very bad for her.  I hope she can over come this challenge she is now facing.  She is not happy about having to move.  She is very comfortable living with us, we have done our best to treat her like a family member and I know she feels the love we have for her.  It has been so good for us to have her in our life this year.  It has helped me understand what Elle may be experiencing and therefore it has helped me have even more compassion and empathy for Alice and Elle.  The only difference in Elle's experience is that she has not become attached to any of her families the way Alice is attached to us.

It is interesting how situations in life can cause us to go into a depression.  I have been depressed for the past year.  Looking back at my year I can see the progression of my depression.  I have even considered going to the dr. and seeing if maybe my dosage of my medication I take should be increased.  I have just been waiting to snap out of it though, hoping that it will pass, that perhaps I am just feeling a bit down.  I think the first step in getting the help is to recognize that you are actually depressed.  I hope by beginning to exercise and become more physical, it will help me greatly.  The other thing that will help me is admitting that I have a problem.  Because I know that I can over come this, my past experience has shown me that it is possible, I have hope that with a bit of time and help I can get past this bump in my journey in life.

Today my eating was a bit all over the place.  I did so well, choosing healthy this morning and at the luncheon not eating any sweets and only a little soup and I have been drinking lots of water, but once I got home from picking Alice up in SLC I went crazy.  I was hungry, my family was hungry, and while making dinner for everyone I had a couple of handfuls of chips, I ate dinner until I felt very full, almost sick like.  I realized that I have to be prepared!!  When I just go by the seat of my pants I can tell I will struggle.  After dinner I made a menu and grocery list to get through this week (everyone is back to work and school).  I took Alice with me shopping (she was soooooo, sad the whole time) and I stocked up on healthy supplies, no junk food.  Tomorrow I will prep my week's menu and snacks.   I know I can do this if I plan ahead!  I also enjoyed a two mile brisk walk today.

I took a before picture yesterday.  I will be downloading it and posting it maybe tomorrow.  Thanks for all the support, I love my family!

Quiz Question!  Which is my favorite??

Happy New Year! Its NEVER to late, set your goals today :)

Today is Friday January 2, 2015.  Here I go again.  I stopped blogging for some time.  I have missed it.  I love blogging.  It means nothing to the world out there but it is very therapeutic to me so I decided to resurrect my blog and document my journey this year.  I feel like for me it will help me achieve my goals that I have set this year.

Goals:

Health - Eat Healthy and Exercise Daily
All of my goals are important, but I feel this is incredibly important to my future.  I want to feel better.  Right now I feel like crap on a daily basis.  I struggle with my depression.  My body hurts.  I know if I make a conscious effort to change some of my bad habits it will change my life.  I want to be a healthy grandma and be around to see my children grow into parents.  I don't want to just be around I want to be healthy and be around!
I am starting this day at 188 lbs.  I hope by making important changes to my lifestyle I will lose weight and feel great! I hope this blog will help me stay motivated to do what it takes to be healthy!

Professional- Increase my knowledge and skill in hair coloring
                     - Study and learn a new hair cut every month in 2015
                     - Increase my eyelash/waxing business to 8 clients a month

Spiritual- Meaningful, Purposeful Daily Prayer Morning and Night
              - Read the Book of Mormon 5 to 10 minutes daily
              - Complete with Love my visiting teaching every month
              - Prepare weekly meaningful primary lessons

Relationship- Honest Open Communication with Scott
                    - Love without conditions
                    - Forgive quickly (don't become offended)
                    - Think and speak kindly of Scott
                    - Be completely LOYAL to Scott
                    - Have more fun with Scott

Personal- Read on book per month
              - Speak kindly of others (no negativity!)
              - Do one secret deed or service to some in need each month
              - Regularly blog

Financial- Build my Eyelash/Waxing business to 8 clients per month
               - Save $500 per month $6,000 this year for retirement
               - Give 10% tithing on all income.

I love setting goals!  Some years I achieve my goals some years I don't.  I feel like I have been very reasonable with my goals.  You don't see it here, but I have written in detail how I will achieve my goals by breaking it down and developing a plan.  I will be using Scott's model.  S.M.A.R.T.  which stands for: specific, measurable, achievable,  realistic and timely.

I can't wait for each day to begin because I will be getting closer to achieving my goals :)

I hope you will be entertained and inspired by my hard work to realize my dreams!  I hope everyone has a dream or goal this year.  I would like to be your cheerleader as you strive to become a better person.  Even if we don't have a perfect year it will be amazing because we will have become better for trying!

P.S. I already found my health partner (that was part of my plan).  Thanks for joining me on this healthy journey Dad!  I will be taking a beginning picture (YIKES!)  I really want to document this amazing journey to better health!