A Rude Awakening

I've always known I was never going to be a supermodel. Or a prom queen. I never thought I was the Elephant Man... but Heidi Klum, I am not. I considered myself cute, mostly because I had a cute personality... at least I think I have a cute personality. And I know I was a little overweight, but really didn't think I was that fat. Until I was walking through the streets of NYC and caught a side view of myself in a shop window. Wow. I was shocked to say the least. It's like that old saying...

Denial... It's not just a river in Egypt.

Boy, was I in denial. But still, it was just weight. I could change that. So, for the purpose of this post I asked my mom to take some before photos. Bring on the rude awakening.

I can't believe I went out in public like this. I am a big girl, in very saggy shorts. And don't get me started on the hair... that's a topic for another post. But again, it's just weight. It can be lost.

Thankfully, I am not going to be alone in this battle of the bulge. I've got two good friend that are inspiring me with their own weight lose journeys! Laura (BlogHer Roommate Extraordinaire) is writing about her attempts on her blog, Tales from the Geek Vest, and her husband Brian (Fellow Lego Geek) talks about his adventure on his blog, Memoirs of a Soon-To-Be Former Fat Guy! Both are incredible people and fantastic writers, so you should really check out their musings!

So, I have my inspiration... now to tackle the fat. Some small steps that I am doing to change things are:

• I stopped drinking soda. This has been very hard because I'm slightly addicted to Coca-Cola. But I started last Sunday and today is the first day I had one... and I'm only having one because I had pizza for dinner. And you can't have pizza without soda in my world! There is a slight downside and this is I am now living a caffeine free life. It was a problem for the first few days, but now I'm looking at it positively. Buh-bye addiction!
  
• I switched from kid cereal to adult cereal. By that I mean no more Lucky Charms or Froot Loops. Now it's Special K or Chex.
  
• I don't eat between the hours of 9am and 9pm. This might seem like a weird habit, but it does help. If I'm hungry at night and it's after 9pm... oh well, it's water or nothing. It's pretty much stopped the after dinner snacking or dessert for the most part.
  
• I started chewing gum in the afternoon instead of snacking. The snapping drives my dad up the wall (which is sort of a bonus), but it does kill the cravings and gives my mouth something to do.
  
• I've been keeping busy. Being busy stops me from eating out of boredom. And I'm getting a lot of things done!
  
• Water is my new best friend. I always have a bottle near me.
  
• Keeping the junk out of the house. If it isn't around... I can't eat it! Some stuff sneaks in from time to time... but I am started to learn moderation. And prepackaged items, while more expensive, do help a lot.

That's it. That's currently what I am changing. And it's paying off... in just 1 week I've already dropped about 3 pounds. I'll eventually work up to getting on the treadmill and starting some yoga, just need to recover from jacking up my knee over the weekend.

Here's to a healthier life!

A Life Updated and My 100th Post

What? An actually blog post? It's been what, 4 months? That is a sign of how things have been going lately. There has been a lack of inspiration, no motivation, and just a lot of frustration. I lost most of April and a bit of May to two bulging discs in my lower back. The disc issue combined with my dislocated vertebrae, well, let's just say me and my bed got very close. I also became very friendly with most seasons of Grey's Anatomy, Doctor Who, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was a great bonding experience for us. And Leo, the stuffed lion that hangs out on my bed.

I also thought a lot. I mean seriously... A LOT! Which, has its ups and downs. And I kind of came to some realizations. The big discovery... I wasn't really being honest with myself. I found myself pretending to like things - and certain people - for the sake of "fitting in". I also discovered I was very burnt out on Disney and crafting. Still am burnt out. So much so that the future of my Disney/Crafting blogs is unknown. I'd hate to throw away so much work... but part of me just doesn't want to work on them anymore. For now they are just sitting there. I have given myself a goal of July 1 to decide their fate. I think I'll end up keeping them, but that thought changes from day to day.

But alias... not all was gloom and doom. Thankfully, modern medicine came to the rescue in the form of two shots into my back in early June and after two days of pure hell, I was feeling pretty darn good. And I was determined to make some changes and explore some new paths.

One of those new paths I am venturing on is my love of toys. I adore toys. My favorites - Legos, Barbies, and Play-doh. To help me on this path, I started unpacking boxes. And I unpacked more boxes. Wow... there were a lot of boxes. I own a lot of stuff. The unpacking of the boxes led me to tons of toys, lots & lots of craft items, and tons of collectibles. This led me to another project... purging. So far I've sent 6 bags of clothes and stuffed animals to Goodwill and I've gathered loads of items for eBay. And I'm not even a 1/3 of the way done with the boxes.

So that's sort of where I've been lately - purging, organizing, planning. As for my New Year's resolutions, since the year is 1/2 over, I guess I will give you a little update on them.

• Do Project Life - this is going to be interesting... since I rarely leave the house - As predicted this became impossible to do. I made it *maybe* four weeks. I just really didn't have anything to record about my life... and there are only so many photos I could include about my cat. I thought I would try to start again on my birthday and record my 36th year. Well, that came and went... and I never started. Guess I'll try again in 2013. I do still plan on blogging about the whole thing and showing you what I did get done.
• Do Project 52 - going to focus this project on macro images - Made it whole 7 weeks. Again, some of my reasons are the same as with Project Life... others do to my back issue. Looks like it's another year of a failed photo project. Here's to trying again in 2013!
• Lose 50lbs - I want to/need to lose more, but I'm being a bit of a realist with this goal - Been up and down, though never more than 10lbs under/5lbs over my starting weight. Just recently I've gotten really serious about it, so there is still hope that I achieve this goal!
• Build readership on all 4 of my blogs - Not only have I not tried to get readers, I've hardly blogged this year. But I'm going to change that starting today. Also, I'm going to BlogHer `12 (more on this soon) in August and that might is going to help.
• Start up Pop Hearts Studio - HAHA. That's all I have to say about this one.
• Try to find my drawing style - Haven't even picked up a pencil and sketch pad.
• Create, Create, Create - Nope... haven't made anything at all this year. All my supplies are still boxed up.

As for my word of the year - Confidence - I've attempted. When I do things, I try to have as much confidence as I can. It's not going very well... but I'm at least trying.

But, even though it seems like I've had a number of fails so far in terms of 2012 goals, I have been working on some new things that I'm kind of proud of! I now have a Tumblr blog, April in Progress. Things you'll find on AiP are art projects in the works, photos of prep work for my different blogs, things I find pretty or cute or awesome, Legos & Barbies, and lots of Doctor Who. I didn't want to flood this blog with a lot of random items, so I figured Tumblr would be a good home for that.

I am also starting 3 new blogs - Little Pink Pumps, The Toy Box Geek, and One Brick, Two Bricks. All are still in the building stages, but I'm really excited for them! As for this blog, well I'm going to give it a little more direction, some more focus. I've started to involve myself in the hardcore blogging world. That world of PR reps and events and product reviews. I want to do all of it... as long as it fits me. I refuse to write about something that I don't believe in or that just doesn't fit me. Being the unique individual that I am, it should be an interesting experience.

Oh, and this is my 100th post. Took me awhile to figure out what I wanted my 100th to be about... figured it was a good point to do this update. It might only be a small milestone... but it's still a milestone!

Enough rambling for now. Here's hoping the next time I see you, it'll have only been a few days!