Beautiful For Me

This is a great song by Mercy River that I've been listening to a lot lately.  It's called "Beautiful For Me".  I love the message that it sends which is you are beautiful no matter what you look like.  I love the line "Has anybody told you, you're beautiful.  You might agree if you could see what I see."  I just focus so much on what is wrong, that I don't see the good. 

This morning Matt decided to take Lily out on a hike just the two of them, which I thought was a great idea.  He is so busy and gone a lot and I love when he can spend time with the girls.  They definitely need it.  So he went off with Lily and of course Chloe was jealous, so I took her to the park in the wagon and we had a great time just the two of us.  I really wish we could spend more one on one time with the kids, but Matt's schedule just doesn't allow for that right now. 

At the Park

The cosmic forces of the universe must have heard my decision to let go of all the emotional baggage I have been carrying because today was a very stressful day.  The kids were both incredibly moody.  We did have a good morning, although getting the kids to eat breakfast and get in the car to go the the gym went less than smoothly.  It was my first day back at Zumba and we had two new songs which was great!  I wish our instructor switched up her songs more.  I love the songs she plays but it seems we do them a lot and there isn't much variation.  I was very excited to be back at Zumba though.  After Zumba I needed to finish up day 3 of week 2 of my 10k trainer program so I went onto the treadmill with my new Altra shoes!  They worked like a dream.  They made running on the balls of my feet very easy and seem natural, there was no struggle to try and keep my form like there was when I was wearing my Asics.  My feet felt so comfortable and my blisters didn't hurt at all.  (They are almost healed but they were twinging during Zumba).  So a big thank you to Katie over at runsforcookies for recommending the Altra Paradigm shoes.  I absolutely love them.

After we left the gym was where everything started going downhill.  Chloe has been skipping naps lately.  She is in that awful stage where if she takes a nap she won't go to bed until 10pm and if she doesn't take a nap she is super cranky and moody all day.  She skipped her nap yesterday and she decided to skip it today too.  The kids watched Finding Nemo but of course were fighting over who got to sit in my lap most of the movie.  I hate that.  I ended up saying no one could sit in my lap.  After the movie Lily wanted to go to the park so after Chloe ran around the house like crazy and smacked herself in the eye with her milk cup, and then ran her head into a wall, each time resulting in major tears, we finally got shoes, socks, and jackets on to walk to the park.  Lily wanted to ride her bike, and then fell off of it which resulted in more tears.  Chloe then decided she was going to get out of the wagon and walk which is a lot slower than Lily riding her bike.  Lily got ahead and when she got close to the part where you need to cross the street she nearly killed herself.  I told her to stop three times, which she pretty much ignored.  Fortunately the cars in the street were paying attention because she darted out right in front of them.  I of course was behind a ways keeping tabs on Chloe.  Lily stopped about midway through the street and I put Chloe in the wagon and went to get her.  We turned around and went home.  That is not the first time she has not listened, and crossed without stopping or looking, it's just the first time there were cars in the street. 

So we went home, both kids throwing a tantrum and Lily went to her room.  I went in a few minutes later and we talked about stopping at the street and waiting for me and looking for cars.  Hopefully I finally got through to her, but she is only 4 so one can only hope.  That put a damper on the whole rest of the afternoon and both the kids were really cranky after that.  Lily kept pestering me to go to the park or to a friends house and kept throwing fits when I said no.  Neither of them ate the dinner I made, although Chloe did eat green beans and hummus so I guess I can't complain too much.  It was a very stressful afternoon but through it all I never felt the need to eat.  The past two days I have been focusing more on eating food to fuel my workouts and give me more energy, so I have been eating more, but of good food.  I haven't eaten any sweets although I have wanted to.  I think I am going to make a rule of one treat a week, and it has to be a reasonable size.  Not a whole batch of cookies or a whole giant bag of candy.  I really think it's the sweets that destabilizes my mood.  And of course when I eat a bunch, I keep wanting it so it is a hard cycle to break.  Which is why it usually takes 4 days to break out of it.  Anyway, back to emotional eating.  I ate my snacks, I ate my meals.  I ate pasta for dinner, and I felt better exercising.

My brother is one of those annoying naturally skinny people and I asked him if he wears a fitbit because he likes to run and I thought he might be into tracking his steps and all that.  His response was "I don't count calories, I just eat as much pasta as I can and then go run".  Well that answers that question!  Fitbits don't count calories, they count steps lol.  But the second part both intrigued me and annoyed me (Totally not fair he can eat a bunch of pasta and remain stick thin).  My brother has never really liked sweets.  He was always the one who didn't eat all of his Halloween candy or Christmas or Easter candy.  We usually raided his stash after ours was gone.  He isn't big on desserts and in general doesn't really eat them.  I am sure that plays a huge factor into his whole natural thinness.  He eats what makes him feel good, what fuels his body for the days activities.  (Okay, he is also a guy and he eats what is available.  Which means when no food is readily available he just won't eat instead of going in search of food.  That is how he lost the freshmen 15 instead of gaining it, he ended up in a dorm room without a meal plan and then didn't eat anything but rice a roni every now and then.  When we were growing up, unless his food was prepared for him and placed in front of him and he was told to eat he would just skip meals, I don't know how that happens!  His brain is totally wired differently from mine). 

That was totally a tangent I wasn't planning on taking!  Haha!  Anyway, the point is this: I have decided to let go of my emotional baggage, and so even though today was more difficult, and stressful, and Lily scared the crap out of me.  I didn't stress eat.  I didn't emotionally eat.  Now this is only the first day so I suppose take it with a grain of salt, but I didn't even feel the urge to shove my face into the Easter candy and not emerge until it was gone.  I did chew some gum when I was feeling hungry around 4pm and it wasn't yet time for dinner. 

When I have a few seconds to think, I am trying to focus on the feeling of peace, of letting go, and of embracing my life and myself with all my flaws, strengths, weaknesses, and beauty, and just not let all the other STUFF get in the way and make me upset.