Superbowl 48 = Super Bowling

Last year we had a REALLY memorable Super Bowl Sunday. There was tons of chaos, blood, grocery store trips, etc. This year was far less traumatizing, but far more fun to make up for it. I'm not going to list anything this time because there's only one thing!

Around lunch time we went BOWLING with the kids. Because what better way to celebrate the Super Bowl!? They had a blast and because Nicko and I suck at bowling so much, the kids only barely lost. It was awesome to go bowling, since the last time I've been was when Nick took me on our second date for bowling and karaoke.

The scoreboard shows our scores in this order - Nickooooo, Abaleth, Scarsational, and Shelbybooboo. Yes, Nick gets creative when filling out the scorekeeper.







We had a lovely afternoon, and quite possibly have just founded a family tradition for our Super Bowl celebrations. And I can hardly wait until the next bowling trip!

Why I Don't Hate My Body

This post has been moved to... http://everythingisntnormal.com/why-i-dont-hate-my-body

So a few weeks ago I posted about my fitness goals. While I'm not asking anyone to disregard that post, I really feel like it's important I make it clear how I feel about my body. I never, in the post, said anything about desired weight loss, inches to lose, etc. And the reason is, I don't really care about losing weight. Let me give you a whole bunch of perspective. This picture is me, right now. My belly isn't flat, I have a muffin top, stretch marks, a slight double chin and a round bottom. I've looked pretty much just like this for two years. I've never really attempted to change any of it and I don't really care to. I love my body, I accept it and I don't hide it except when I'm practicing daily modesty, such as wearing clothes to work.

Over the last two years I've dated a few men who have seen this in person. Not one of them has been turned off, disgusted, revolted or unwilling to touch me. I've never been denied a hug or kiss due to my body's appearance. I look slimmer in my clothes that out of my clothes. Not once has anyone complained that I was hiding my "true" body or that I had tricked them about me. And without actually asking any of them, I know that they didn't dislike my chubby tummy, my muffin top, my butt, or my stretch marks. And today, my boyfriend loves me and has never once asked me to change my appearance. In fact, I'm pretty sure he actually LOVES the way I look.

But let's set aside the "men's point of view" for a minute. Why should it be about what they like any way? This is about me, and how I see myself. My physical appearance is natural and it's rare that make up ever touches my face. Not even a foundation or concealer. The chin shows up when I look down like a dork or make a silly face. It's not even important. My tummy. It's sooo unflat. It's fairly round. If I hold my breath and puff a little, I could pass myself as a roughly 4 months pregnant woman. But my pants fit and I don't bother buying pants if they don't. My blouses and t-shirts are rarely too tight and if they are, I just wear something else. And I do wear a bikini at the pool, because guess what, nobody sees my belly. Because they just don't care.

Nothing in the world is more attractive to anyone, including my own self, than the confidence I can exude. I'm sexy, beautiful, attractive, whatever you want to call me and my body is PERFECT because I'm CONFIDENT about it. If you ever hear me say "I'm sort of fat." It's because I'm stating a small fact that has nothing to do with who I am, how I live, how I succeed or fail, what kind of parent I am, etc.

I want to promote healthy body image views for everyone. I have a young daughter and it's come to light that every woman in her life can influence the way she feels about herself and I need to make sure she's confident with her body and her mind.

I'll love some twitter response to this! Post your picture of your body that YOU love and tag with #lovemybodychallenge and I may feature one or two during the next blog post about body image and talking to kids about it!

Fitness 1.12

One of my goals for 2014 is to be healthy and fit, which I’m pretty sure is on everyone’s list in some way.
So I’m going to share a few of the things I’m doing to accomplish this goal. I have a really bad habit of eating right. I mean, it’s not all junk food all the time. I love fruits and veggies. But I also love sugary, gummy candies. Cake and cookies also top the list of foods I don’t really want to give up. So while I know flat tummies are “made in the kitchen” and eating right is the first step to feeling and looking good, it’s hard for me to motivate myself to limit my intake of “goodies.”

I feel like it’s easier for me to start with the activity portion of fitness and let the desire to eat right come from that. It’s worked for me before. I previously used Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred challenge video to lose weight and it resulted in me messing up my left knee pretty badly when I pulled my LCL (lateral collateral ligament.) However, I did purchase the same DVD again, because while I know I messed up my knee pretty badly before, it was a great workout that left me with tons of energy. I just have to focus on being careful.
Ultimately, I’ll finish out “the shred” and switch to yoga/pilates (or as my friend Becca likes to call it, yogilates) for long term maintenance activity.

Blender Bottle

As for my eating habits, I’ve done a menu plan for the next few weeks that I’m hoping helps. The long and short of my poor eating habits has to do with never knowing what to eat. I’m a good cook and I’ve made pretty great meals before, but switching to full time work has me beat by the end of most days and I need to be able to plan for it.

I’m also working on just not buying easy junk foods. This one should, in theory, be easy. But my self-control is clearly something that needs to be worked on just as much as everything else.

Anyway, if anyone has any fitness tips, links, etc. Let me know. You can also follow my Health & Wellness Pinterest Board.

2014 Reading Goals - January

Last year, sometime in early January I set my Goodreads.com profile to have a 2013 reading goal of roughly 50 books. It was ridiculously steep given the amount of hardcore terribleness that happened during the year. I think I maybe finished 3-4 books. This year, I’m going to set another, probably more manageable goal. And with a little determination and hard work I should have a less distracting year. Also, I should note that while my goal this year will seem like not enough given my extreme love for books and writing, note what you hopefully already know about my really busy life.

Currently, I’m starting off my year by reading a couple books that have been sitting on my shelf just waiting to be cracked open. During my travel to North Carolina over the first week, I took advantage of long layovers and flights to read Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon I purchased this book at Books-A-Million in Ames, IA as part of a buy 2 get 1 deal back in July or August of 2013. It’s supposed to be some type of thriller about a little girl who goes missing and the events that happen exactly fifteen years later to her brother and his girlfriend. I’ll post up a review as soon as I can.

I brought a second book with me but because I didn't get the first one finished until after we got home it’s waiting to be read. Called “Dear Girls Above Me” this book is based on a blog of supposedly true events, it’s written by a guy (Charles McDowell) who is terribly annoyed by the girls that live in the apartment above him. I’m looking forward to checking this one out, I think I actually got it before I got Don't Breathe a Word.

In total, my goal for the year is 15 books. This gives me the time to relax and pace myself to just over one book a month in 2014, but also enough of a challenge to hopefully motivate me. Ideally I’d love to read two a week like I did in high school when I had boatloads of time and no toddlers to tickle. Now days it’s clearly a bit more complicated to fit everything in but reading is far too close to my heart to let it go like I have.
I’ll update with a February reading list closer to the end of the month. So far I’ve got another 3-4 unopened books on my shelf that need to be loved before I can buy/check-out anything else. Feel free to comment with any recommendations.

*This post isn't sponsored in any way and all books were purchased by me. The links to amazon are affiliate links and I'd love if you'd use them to look up the books mentioned. Thanks!

2014 is just another 365 Days

So what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't write up a goals list to share with all of you!? Not one. Which seems pretty consistent with my writing trends lately. But hey, read on and you'll see that should change with my goals.

2014 Goals
{Write More Consistently} This includes writing on here a least three times a week, writing at least 500 words a day for my current novels in progress, and writing at least one short story/article for freelance pitching per month. I'm not sure how many of you know that I've always wanted to write more. In 2009 and 2010 I wrote a fairly fun and consistent blog that related to being a military spouse and a first time mom. I quit writing consistently after about 14 months and then when my ex and I separated I shut it down completely. I started this one over a year later and have just been really slow with it. I want to change that. I also want to finish the two novels I'm fairly far into writing. Not to mention, my entire goal is to be able to just write books for a living, but having time for that is difficult while working a full-time "real" job so I'd like to be able to write freelance and make enough money to write my novels.

{Love More} I'm a loving, caring, sensitive person. That being said, I don't always show love to the people I love the very most, my kids. I'm so caught up on making sure they eat dinner, take baths, go to bed on time and learn new things that I sometimes forget to just love them. My daughter is naturally cuddly, so she's easy to show my love to. But my son isn't as much of a touchy, feely kiddo - so it's hard to remind him how much I love him. This year I want a complete habit change so that he will always have complete understanding of how important he is to me. Even if it means hugs for the smallest things and understanding of every situation.

{Have More Fun} I don't mean I'm going to go get vomiting drunk once a week. I mean I'm going to just absorb the joy around me. For the majority of 2013 I spent a lot of time with probably the most fun guy in the world. He laughs, he jokes, he dances for no reason, he plans activities, etc. But this extreme show of optimism and positiveness is something I haven't experienced such an abundance of in my entire life. I vow this year to just absorb all the fun and feel the positive energy that surrounds me. I'm excited for this already.

{Eat Healthier} This is probably a standard goal for everyone, but I really know it's something I have to do. I want to be fit and energetic and whatever I've been doing hasn't been working. It's possible I have some type of food sensitivity that causes it, but I get drowsy easily. So I'm making a promise to myself to eat better.

{Save More} This year I'm going to be moving again. I'm not sure when and I'm also not entirely sure of where, but it will happen. Moving cost so much money, the last time I had to move it was a really quick move and I couldn't afford to rent a storage space and ended up using the garage of a friend of a friend. Our entire household worth of belongings were then stolen and never have been recovered. Let me tell you, starting from scratch and realizing every day a new thing that you'll never see again, it's disheartening and devastating. So that's not going to happen again. I'm going to make every effort to save money so that I don't ever have to worry about financing an emergency.

I'm sure there'll be other things, but as of now, this is a guide for me to keep myself positive and progressive.

5 Reasons Why I Won't Let My Kids Believe In Santa

This year my oldest child, my son, is four years old and quite possibly this will be the first Christmas he will actually remember and retain. Christmases before this aren't much of a memory for him because he was younger and less aware. Before this I wasn't sure I wanted Santa to be a part of our Christmas only due to the fact that I felt really uncomfortable telling my children lies about a man that breaks into our house. They already have specific anxieties from our family dynamic (divorce, etc.) and I feared this would be a hard concept to deal with. After a long discussion with my significant other about what we should do, we came to a mutual and specific conclusion that Santa Clause would not come to our house this year, or any year. With the rules that we could still watch Santa movies and use Santa themed decorations because in that sense, he really is just a cartoon character. And the kids know cartoon characters aren't real. We're also going to enjoy stockings because stuffing them is fun and who says they can't be from Mom & Dad. Recently I read this article  online supporting reasons the author lets her kids believe in Santa, I feel I would like to share my own reasons why my kids will not celebrate a Christmas with the Santa figure.

5 Reasons Why I Won't Let My Kids Believe in Santa

1) The story of St. Nicholas may be true, but St. Patrick doesn't bring my kids presents on March 17th. It's a popular story and the legend varies depending on which origin you're researching. Most people agree though that St. Nicholas was a man that gave gifts to small children to cheer up poor villages. It's an adorable story but St. Patrick doesn't deliver gifts on March 17th. St. Valentine doesn't deliver gifts on February 14th. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't deliver gifts on MLKJr day. It's just a story. I'll let my kids believe that St. Nick existed, sure, but the gifts are a bit much.

2) Because I believe that wonderment and magic should come from real life, not fantasies. My kids will have fun with exploding volcanoes and learning the science of why clouds exist and the reason we get rain. They'll learn about water disappearing into thin air through evaporation. This stuff is magical and fascinating and fun. And it's all real. Sure, I let them play make believe whenever they want, but again, these are things they know aren't real.

3) Because I believe in teaching my children good money values and that having money comes from hard work. If they see that all the gifts they get are from their parents and possibly grandparents or friends, they see that it takes hard work to buy or make something to give tangible gifts to the people they love.

4) Because Santa Claus doesn't have anything to do with Christmas. The legend of St. Nick wasn't based on a guy giving kids gifts for Christmas. It was about a guy who gave gifts to kids that were poor. That's really the simplicity of it. I don't know or care when Santa Claus was incorporated into the holiday, but he shouldn't even be part of it.

5) Because I believed in Santa growing up and I hated it. I grew up in a family that didn't make a lot of income. I always felt like Santa didn't like me as much as the other kids and what on earth did I do wrong? I was a well behaved child, I got good grades, I didn't back-talk my teacher and rarely to my parents. I did my chores and made my bed (most of the time.) So why did the kids that bullied me and called me a dork and made fun of my love of learning and reading all get new bikes and video game systems and I just got pajamas and a barbie doll. Didn't Santa see who was bad and good? The idea of him liking them more devastated me. I also was very frustrated when I realized that my parents had lied to me. I was relieved that the gifts were from my parents, but annoyed at the deceit. I love you Mom & Dad, but I'd have enjoyed those gifts as much or MORE if I'd originally known it was YOUR idea to buy me those books and dolls and that they were a product purchased out of YOUR love.

Feel free to comment and discuss your opinions.