More music.................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP79jDNAAK0..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCkfTCjF8SM&ob=av2e
I've always liked Mat Kearney but this song is wonderful...................

We're just fumbling through the grey
Trying find a heart that's not walking away" ~ Mat Kearney Ships In The Night

Motivation...where for art thou!?

Okay seriously...I'm getting concerned.  I have no motivation....to do anything.  I used to be one of those people who could get a lot done in a short amount of time.  Now I'm that person that can barely get anything done in a lot of time!  I'm having a hard time.  I don't know if is all that has gone on in my life within the last six months, the environment I'm in, or if I'm just becoming that lazy person I feared I could be.  I know we all have our days when we don't want to do anything, but I've now strung days into weeks and weeks into months.  I read Facebook posts of friends who are doing, getting things done and I'm envious....but then I sit and don't do anything.  I don't want to do homework, or laundry, or workout, or do crafts.  I mostly want to sit and watch TV...well TV shows on DVD.

I'm not really sure where the girl who was always so busy is but I wish she would return.  And what reallly scares me is not that she left but that I don't know HOW to get her back.  Why am I so unmotivated to do the things that once brought me pleasure.  Now the only pleasure I get is rotting out my brain.

My brother just gave me a sheet of really great quotes, how fitting since I'm writint this.  A couple that really struck me where.

"You are what you repeatedly doo.  Excellence is not an event - it is a habit"  ~ Aristotle

I repeatedly do nothing but watch TV, so how do I get back my habits I once had, so that I can be excellent once again?  Maybe I don't need to get back the old ones but find new ones.  I just wish I knew how.  I look at my to do list every day and feel daunted by it.  Perhaps it's time to return to meditation....prayer.  Maybe I need to hand this over to someone else and be guided that way.  Maybe I need to read "Seven Habits again. 

"Obstacles don't have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work arount it" ~ Michael Jackson

Music

I'm always amazed at how music can resonate a time in our lives, an event, a person.  Sometimes it's just the sound that mirrors what we feel or sometimes it's the lyrics that mean everything.  I've always loved music and how it can do this.  It can even change our mood.  It's powerful.  There are also times that we just love a song.  I just got the Florence + the Machine Lungs album and I LOVE it.  Love the singers voice, the sounds of the music, and the lyrics are exquisite.  I've never been good at expressing my feelings in a conversation with someone as Glenn can attest to but songs can say everything that you feel in the best possible way.  A couple songs that I am also loving right now for many reasons is Gotye: Somebody That I Used to Know, Florence + the Machine: No Light, No Light, and Imagine Dragons: It's Time (this one I love not so much for the lyrics, but the sound.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH-4jQZRcc&ob=av2e


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENM2wA_FTg&ob=av2e


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWOyfLBYtuU


I love when I find new music.  It can be like finding treasure.  One other wonderful thing about music, is it can bring people together.  Right now my son is at that age were he wants nothing to do with me and thinks that I'm about the most un-cool person on the planet....until we listen to music.  I love when he gets in the car and tells me he wants me to hear a song, plays it for me, and then anxiously awaits for me to say I like it.  Music is an avenue that we can still connect on.

"All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. "

Jean Cocteau

Journaling

A few weeks ago a friend of mine at work gave me some books that related to creative writing and journaling.....I didn't know what a wonderful suprise awaited me when I got home.  As I began to pull the books out from the bags I felt like a kid in a candy store. Books that gave prompts, books about different styles, books about truely artful journaling...Oh my....

 There were so many books and journals that were so much of an interest to me...it was wonderful.  That night I stayed up very late, exploring all the amazing books that lay before me.  There was not enough time to look at them all but it was all I wanted to do.







Ultimately this is what I ended up with....a bed full of books....and a night full of pure bliss!

I hope my friend knows just how much all this means to me and how privilaged I feel to have such wonderful books now in my home.  How greatful I am that he wanted to share these with me.  It touched my heart in a way that often life is without.  I will treasure each one of them.  I look forward to exploring each of them for inspiration and ideas.  They have made a permiment home with me.

Thank you

Lydia

The Confusion of it All

So I have embarked upon the eating healthier and man alive is this stuff confusing.  Don't eat this, eat that, no wait don't eat that, eat this.  I'm slowly learning that it comes down to fruit (though not too much because of the sugar) and veggies and meat.  Wow...that's a lot of choices.  I know this is not really true, there are more options and I have to take the time to find them, but at this very moment it sure is what it feels like.

A while back I found this really great website about this girl who lost a lot of weight eating healthier.  http://undressedskeleton.tumblr.com/.  She has some really great ideas and she is very inspiring.  The only thing she does that I don't like is she uses jello powder as a sugar replacement.  I'm not a fan of jello because of what it contains.  "Jello has gelatin which is a protein in the animal connective tissues. The gelatin, itself, comes from a non-kosher source such as the pig."  (http://top-10-list.org/2011/10/23/top-10-non-kosher-food/.)  Instead I think a better alternative is Truvia which is a sugar replacement that is made from stevia, which comes from a leaf.  The nice thing about Truvia is that it is not overly sweet like sugar replacements can be.

I've been trying many new things.  Some work out.  Some don't.  The other night I made egg muffins which had egg whites, turkey bacon, green pepper, mushroom, and fat free cheese.  They came out really yummy.  Today for lunch I took a red pepper, spread fat free cream cheese on it and topped it with ham.  This did not taste yummy.

It's been a learning process and I have a long way to go but with each success I feel more sure that I can tackle this eating healthy business some day down the road.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Thanks for reading.

Lydia

Time for Change

On Wednesday March 7th, we had a health screening at work.  I was very excited and only a little nervous about what my "numbers" would be.  I mean I knew that my BMI and body fat were not going to be pretty.  I mean hello I'm not THAT blind.  So the morning came, we all did the screening, I went to have my coaching session after my results came back and I almost had a heart attack....well more like apparently I WAS a walking heart attack.  Bad, really, really bad.  I'm going to be 100% honest here for the integrity of....well being honest.  At 36, I have a cholesterol of 268, a BMI of 28 and body fat of 33.9%.  How stellar are those numbers!?  Yeah so talk about a wake up call.  I realized in an instant that all the things I had "talked about" doing need to actually really happen.  I immediately changed my diet and began working out a minimum of 4 days a week.  I needed to lose some serious weight....like 40 pounds of it.  And I didn't want to find it again. 

  
In an effort to keep my overly large bum in check and on track, I'm going to tell you where I am, how I'm doing and all the ins and outs between.  I'm going to talk about recipes I make, workouts I do.
My hope is that by sharing the sometimes not so pretty details, that I will be forced to be honest with myself and work hard.

Thank for reading.

Lydia

A song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5uiFQKqTA

This song right now imbues all I feel