Monday, August 27, 2012

Mamavation Monday : Voices in My Head

It's Monday and we're back from vacation! I love our annual camping trip. Justin flies in and all four of us drive up North and just spend the time together. For the most part, we lock out the outside world and just enjoy being our little family.

This year, we went up to Wilderness State Park. For those not familiar, it's about 11 miles West of Mackinaw City, Michigan. Just for the fun of it, we took the long way and stopped off at a little ice cream shop in Benzonia. It had been suggested to me by a friend. I didn't know that it was actually her family that owned it, but let me tell you, that single scoop of ice cream was the most yummy thing! If you're ever in that area, I can completely and totally recommend stopping by Hill Top Soda Shoppe. They make all of their ice cream and use beet sugar instead of corn syrup.

All in all, it was such a wonderful trip and all of the driving gave me plenty of opportunity to think. Driving led to this picture and this picture led to me having a serious think.

One of my biggest issues, in life, are the voices inside my head.  We all have them. They're those voices that tell you that you can't do something, that something is impossible, that you're just not good enough and all of those negative thoughts that just stop you in your tracks.

We all have them but we can also all choose to ignore them. We don't have to give them free space in our heads. When I first saw this building, I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure that was the intention of the sign. However, once I stopped giggling, I started thinking. Those voices are a lot like what we put into an outhouse. To put it in a polite sense, they stink. They're the waste that our bodies (and souls) don't need.

Having the thoughts is normal. What we do with them is what matters. We can rent them space for cheap and before we know it, they take over everything. They're bacteria, they're viruses, they're cancer in our bodies. Or we can acknowledge them and then dispose of them. We can flush them out of our systems by putting in healthy thoughts. In the end, the decision is up to you. Do you live your life in a smelly, cramped space or do you do what you have to do and then open that door and step out into the sunshine?

Monday, August 20, 2012

Mamavation Monday: Exciting Life

My thanks to savagechickens.com for this comic!
Life has been never ending busy around here and for the most part, I haven't minded it. I'm still very much a creature of habit and so having the youngest start football has thrown me completely off, but for the most part, we're managing and we're getting things done.

It got me to thinking though. I've had people, who have heard excerpts of my life say to me, "Wow, your life sounds like it's so much fun and so exciting." It always throws me for a loop because I don't really think my life is all that exciting. It's just...well...my life.

So, I started thinking. Why would people, who don't know me, find my life so exciting? Then it hit me. Editing. Those people only heard small pieces of my life. Quite often, the discussion was revolving around some trip I had just taken or some comic related event I was just returning from. To them, I was shoulder to shoulder with comic book genius and I was flying off to all of these events, quite often with a media badge. I was some sort of celebrity myself.

While this makes me feel pretty dang good, the reality is that I'm just like anybody else. Due to "editing", they didn't hear about how it takes me weeks or sometimes months to prepare to attend one of these events. They didn't hear about the anxious insecurity involved in applying for one of those shiny badges. They didn't hear about the nights alone in the hotel rooms while others are off having fun because I'm attending alone.

Folks, just because something looks glamorous from the outside that doesn't mean that it always is. In the same fashion, just because someone's life looks perfect from the outside that doesn't mean it is. There are a lot of people on this planet who are very good at editing. I've had people say to me, when did depression become an issue for you? I've never seen it. Again, my answer is editing. When you mostly deal with people via online or text based forms of communication, editing is easy. It's the real world that's harder.

So, just remember. When someone looks like they have it all, maybe they do..or maybe, they're just really good at editing. Love the life you're in and not someone else's. After all, maybe they're looking at you in the same way that you're looking at them.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Mamavation Monday: Phoenix

Two days ago, I had something brilliant to write about here and of course, a kiddo started not feeling well so I never made it over here to write. Really though, that's ok because I want to tell y'all about my trip to Phoenix. Is it weight loss related? Nope. Could I tie it in if I tried really hard? Of course. If you try really hard, you can tie any two things together.

So, what to say about Phoenix? Phoenix was fantastic. Some of you know how I feel about that city, some of you don't. Let's just say we have a long and complicated relationship. I had publicly stated that if I cried sad tears while on this trip, I was never going back. I honestly can't say that I didn't cry this trip, but it was short lived and not caused by anyone or anything. I was just having a moment. I let myself have it and then I picked myself up and I moved on. Honestly, yay me because in the past, I might not have been able to do that.

Ok, I'm going to be honest here. This post is just stuck. I had planned on filling y'all in on what I did, etc but it's just not feeling right to me at this precise moment. I feel like there's something I should be writing about but I'm not even sure what it is. It may be about the fact that I bought a puppy when I was in Phoenix. It started out as a joke when I posted that my friend's cat was trying to go home with me but she needed to stay because he needed a female watching over him. His response was that he'd get a dog..I said yay puppy shopping and less than 24 hours later, he had a new puppy. Technically, we co-own her. I bought her and he takes care of her. It's a nice arrangement for someone who can't have a dog at the moment and for someone who wanted a dog.

Here's the thing though..I am filled with frustration over this sweet puppy. Why? Because we've owned her a week and she still doesn't have a name. I know you're all shaking your head in total disbelief, but it's true. I started trying to name her the night before we picked her up, (We had gone and seen her at the shelter the night before we adopted her.) but Eric said we had to wait until we were sure we were bringing her home. Fast forward through an entire week of me and others suggesting names....

There was Kayleigh, Lily, Ebony, Peanut and probably a dozen others that I've forgotten since then. At least twice I thought we had settled on a name. Once it was Kayleigh (which he insists on spelling Kaylee) and once it was Lily. Today, she still doesn't have a name. I swear that Eric is waiting for her to scratch it out in the sand or something.

As for me, I consider this like naming a child. I didn't wait for my children to start to talk so they could tell me what they wanted to be named. I/we gave them names and they've grown up with them. When they were infants, they didn't immediately respond to it but as they grew, they learned their names and responded to them. Just like them, this puppy will learn to respond to whatever name is settled upon.

How do all of you feel? Do our pets name themselves or do they learn to respond to whatever name we give them? How have you named your pets? Did you just choose a name or did you wait to see which name they responded best to? Help us out before I have to take an emergency trip back to Phoenix to sort this out!*

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Yep, this post turned into a vent and maybe that's good for my health and well being. ;) Hopefully, I'll come back next week with not only a name announcement but something relevant to weight loss and health. ;)

*Please note that I most likely cannot return to Phoenix until November, at which point, I would be far happier doing other things than calling the poor girl nameless puppy #1.

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