Friday, January 20, 2017

BYE FELICIA! Done with this whole week!

   First of all, my apologies for the title. I know I'm too old and uncool to use popular lingo or whatever you would call it... oh geez! That's really bad. I should give up now and just start every sentence with "Back in my day..." Okay, back to the original topic. Too much fun this weekend and not enough sleep, a cold, and a whole bunch of little things have made me a sad, crazy mess. But no more! I gotta get myself out of this funk! I'm listing some positive things to get rid of the Doubting Debbie Downer bit I've been doing!

The biggest obstacle this week is all the regrets about my last blog post... I put myself out there and told everyone one I was going to be braver and get out of my comfort zone for Sydney and now *cringes* I have to DO IT! I know myself and knew that I would have "forgotten" all about it if I didn't tell people. I got rid of my emergency exit! You guys know! The Beachbody coach thing is particularly scary and my Debbie Downer alter ego has already decided that I'm going to fail. So the positive part of this??? It was suppose to be a list of positive things, right?? Well, Syd was scared to do things this past weekend and I said to her, "Why are you scared? What is the worst thing that could happen? And if that happens, then what? Will it be so bad? What can we do then?" Guess who needs the same talk?? This is an opportunity to have actions support my words.


The kids each had well checks this week (Getting Nathan's kindergarten registration all ready to go. AHHHH!) And yes, Nathan's appointment lead to questions of testicles, but both appointments went well. I have two very healthy kids and I need to be very thankful and not take that for granted. Bonus points for the doctors and nurses thinking they were so cute and sweet!!

FRIENDS! My friends are always a reason to stay positive. They're freakin' AWESOME! I can always count them to make bad days better with prayer, encouraging and/or funny texts, virtual hugs, perfect memes and gifs for every situation, play dates for our kids *wink, wink*, and letting me hold their precious little babies!!

We went to our friend's 4th birthday dinner. I say "our' friend and not the kids' friend because he is one of my little friends. I enjoy getting to know my friends' kids. I like to think of them as unofficial nieces and nephews. They are awesome, tiny humans who don't know any better and think that I am cool and funny. Plus the more time I spend with them, the more time I have to convert them into Wiggles Fans against their parents' wishes!! What!?! It's gonna be weird when my kids are too old for the concert and I wanna go!

This Wednesday was my Mom-Mom's first birthday in Heaven. It hit me harder than I thought it would. I miss her and I especially miss the times that we would go for walks together. It was like having my very own personal cheerleader. She always believed I was smarter, talented, etc than I actually am (except for funnier, judging by that very special look she had when I was being extra entertaining, I"m the one who thinks I'm funnier than I am!) I think... I hope... That I inherited some of those encouraging genes. I can carry on the tradition with my kids and *gulps* grand kids in the future. Another plus, I inherited her appreciation of Dairy Queen ice cream but not Michael Bolton!

This morning, when asked what we were thankful for before we prayed, my dear sweet Nathan said, "Food and Potties!" Food is always one of his answers but potties was new. First I did that sigh that moms of boys always do and then I asked him why. He said, "Because we have nice potties to go in when I have to poo." There was a real nice pop with the "p" sound when he said it too. He might have been trying to look for a way to include potty talk, but he is right! We take SO MANY things for granted! A nice... more than slightly messy.. house to keep us safe and warm with lovely toilets.


This was a lot of weird rambling! I'm sorry! Hopefully, I didn't totally waste your time if you made it to the end!



Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Hold up! You're a Beachbody what now?

Okay, I promise to get back to our semi regularly scheduled weirdness after this slightly different post. It still has a lot to do with motherhood and my crazy life.


   Having a mini me can be awesome. I can not wait until Sydney is older and we can come up with all the crazy, funny plans together. It was one of the greatest moments ever when Syd and I blurted out the EXACT SAME WRONG SONG LYRICS AT THE EXACT SAME TIME! It was goofiness in stereo. I was proud. It can also break your heart when you watch your mini me struggle with the same things you struggle with. You understand the fear and anxiety so perfectly well. It kills you a little bit because they inherited it from you. Sydney is extremely nervous in new situations or situations where it is not 100% comfortable. Sometimes she is too nervous to try or do things because she doesn't want to make a mistake. She sits on the sidelines or clings to me. I struggle with knowing what to do. I know what thoughts will be running through her head if we try to push her. Pressuring or unintentional bullying will not breed confidence. I don't want to let her give in to those fears either. I turned out alright in the end but we always want better for our kids. I finally realized that the best way to teach her to be brave is to show her... Set an example!
  *cringes*  *cries* *freaks out* *tries to ignore it* *curls into a ball* I really wanted to pretend that there was a better way, but when your babies need you...
2017: The Year of Uncomfortable Awkwardness (and fondly looking back at my cozy little comfort zone)

     Why did I choose to become a Beachbody Coach, besides the fact that it's basically stuffing myself into a cannon and shooting me, flailing through the sky so far away from my comfort zone? I've been using the programs and Shakeology for over a year and a half now. I love it. It works for me.It's become part of my daily life. Muscle are appearing!?! I've been looking at posts and watching other coaches and wishing that I could do that, but I told myself I wasn't good enough. Deep down inside, there is still a little bit of the kinda chubby kid who will probably be one of the last picked for a team in gym class. I still remember ummm "forgetting" to do a lap for the mile run in high school gym because most people were done already. ( I know! Bad Jamie! ) I kept telling myself that I needed to reach some level of near perfection or I'd look like a fraud. It was making me sad and icky inside. One night when I was particularly sad, I was half standing in the pantry closet, picking out the bunches of oats out of Stephen's Honey Bunches of Oats and inhaling them. (YEP! I'm a MONSTER! I left him with a box full of sadness! The bunches are the best part!) I finally looked at myself and said this is STUPID! I'm being DUMB! I made myself reach out to my coach and started asking questions. She helped me see that I had nothing to lose by trying. Sometimes (All. of. the. time.) I can be a moron. It's time to banish the gym class fearing kid and tell my brain to shut it! First of all, perfection is lame. I don't know why I thought I had to be the perfect expert. I created this whole mom blog to be open about my imperfections because I realized sometimes the best help is the "hey, we're stumbling through this together and I care and you're not alone" encouragement. I can do the same with someone trying to get healthy and strong. Second of all, if I could get my old gym teacher to give me a Presidential Fitness Test redo, I would nail it! I did 21 day fix and then moved up to 21 day fix extreme. Then a couple of weeks ago, I decided to switch it up. Cardio is still challenging for me and I hate it so I went with Insanity Max 30!?! My current goal is to just not die! It's sooo challenging for me, like FOR REAL! But I'm gonna keep trying until one day I'm not just surviving.

     I'm absolutely terrible at sales so you don't have to worry about me pushing this on you. If you have ever been curious but don't want to ask because you're worried about being pressured. Come ask me! I won't pressure you because I don't think I even have it in me to try, I'd just start sweating a lot. Plus, I know that you need to be ready to commit. You can be scared and clueless and want to throw up when you say yes, but you need to at least whisper, "it's time for change and I'm going try this!" I'm great at encouraging so I can help you along the way and get to you saying, "Hey, I've got this! Now somebody help me up the stairs! It was leg day!" My encouragement will probably be like this because being weird is kinda my thing;)

     And have no fear, I'm not abandoning or changing the pastry chef thing. If you're gonna cheat and treat yo self, it better be worth the extra calories! There are still birthday and wedding cakes and special desserts for you when you go out to eat, but I will not be eating all the scraps and brownie trimmings. 

Here is my website link which is still a work in progress and needing photos because technology is not my thing and I'm still in the overwhelmed but excited phase:


Beachbodycoach.com/JLFord83