i'm starting to lose track of the weeks

I wanted to give you a not so quick update regarding the Year of Megan.  Namely, I wanted to let you know how weeks three through whatever have gone.

Week Three (?) was centered on reading to Katelyn every day.  This beautiful girl loves to read.  I can't remember the first time she picked up a chewed up board book to flip through the pictures.  That's how long it has been that she has enjoyed a good read.  She loves to read and it is practically the only time she can sit still.  Because of this, I have used her love of books as a moment to clean my house, make phone calls, and do other less noble things like surf Pinterest and watch Judge Judy.  But I have been feeling guilty about it because I love to read and I enjoy reading children's books.  I feel like I should be fostering her love of books rather than using it as a blissful moment of sweet, sweet quiet time.  So I made it my goal for week three to read to Katelyn everyday.  On my busier days, this means a quick book before bedtime.  But, on the days that I have really made an effort, we have found ourselves spending precious moments on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, enjoying some seriously good literature.  (Who said that Dickens was any better than Pat the Bunny?)  Week three has opened my eyes to the mother daughter bonding time that I was missing by not taking the time to read every day.

This picture is an oldie and technically she is reading a magazine but you get the idea.

For Week Four I finally got around to starting some semblance to an exercise routine.  I'm not sure I could justify calling is exercise though.  Does begrudgingly dragging myself around the block while complaining count?  I mean, true complaining takes some effort.  Kate seems to benefit the most from my "exercise" because she gets to go for a ride on her bike.  I hate exercise more than I hate dieting and I just don't feel like I'm in a place where I can talk about it cheerfully.  Give me another week and maybe I'll be happier about it.

Week Five has also been about one of those not so fun goals.  I spent week five focusing on keeping my home sort of clean.  I'm sure my visiting teachers will beg to differ as they spent an hour sitting on my couch with their feet resting on a rug that was embedded with cracker crumbs.  Anyway, I have never professed to be a great or even acceptable housekeeper.  I'm really messy and so is Dave.  I hate cleaning and keeping my home tidy is really difficult for me.  This week, I worked on making sure everything was picked up, put away, dishes done, and laundry folded before I went to bed.  I know this is basic for many people.  But I'm domestically challenged when it comes to cleaning though so it's all about baby steps for me.  Truth be told, I love a clean house.  (Because, really, who doesn't?)  So I find that I'm less stressed throughout the day.

That's it for now.  I am completely caught up in my weekly reports.  So far, the Year of Megan has been a wonderful experience, even if only to gain more awareness in my journey to self fulfillment.  I have a very, very long way to go but I feel good about trying.  Also, I mess up a lot but I'm trying not to be an all or nothing kind of person.

But that's a blog post for another day.

don't forget to pray

Week two of the Year of Megan was all about prayer.

I have always been a praying person.  I was taught from a young age to pray several times a day - upon waking up in the morning, before meals, at the end of the night before I went to bed.  I prayed with my siblings.  I prayed with my parents.  I prayed with my family, with Dave, and now, with Kate.

With so much praying, you sometimes run the risk of becoming a little rote in your words.  Often I catch myself saying the same things and getting stale in my communication with God.  I found that my prayers had started to shift from thoughtful orations to a quick task to be accomplished before leaving the house for the day and after getting ready for bed.

But I know that's not how it should be.

So this week, I have really focused on saying meaningful prayers every day.  I made an effort not to rush through them.  I've tried to take the time to say something different than the things I said before.  Occasionally, I said things that were neither thoughts of gratitude or requests of blessings.  Sometimes I just talked.

I feel like I have a better understanding of the purpose of prayer after this week.

First of all, I realized how important the act of praying is merely as a time to quietly reflect on my day, my week, my month, my year, my life.  The first part of praying is expressing appreciation for the things I have.  So many times this week, I found myself enjoying a moment of peace on my knees as I was led to appreciate the wonderful blessings in my life.  This was most apparent after a hard day of complaining and self pity.

Next, I ask Heavenly Father to bless me.  There's something about praying that keeps you from asking for things that aren't' really important.  Prayer has a way of readjusting your life's vision to the things that matter most.  If you listen closely, you might even be prompted to know how to bless yourself by making changes in your mind set or actions.

That leads me to my next discovery about prayer.  I have often wondered why Heavenly Father wants us to pray when He already knows what I'm thinking and need.  I'm sure a large part of the reason is like I mentioned above.  Prayer offers a greater level of self awareness.  After I pray, I am more grateful for the things I already have and more motivated to make necessary changes in my own life.

But I also think that He just wants to hear from us.  I thought of it this way.  I know almost everything there is to know about Katelyn.  I know when she'll zig as opposed to zag.  I can predict a temper tantrum more accurately than a weatherman standing in the middle of a thunderstorm promising a good chance of rain.  She doesn't have to tell me what she needs because I am usually on top of it already.  She also doesn't have to tell me how much she relies on me.  Trust me I know.  Despite my omniscience when it comes to my daughter, I still want to hear from her.  I still want to know what she thinks about the hot dogs she's eating with her macaroni and cheese.  I want her to tell me when she's happy or sad or angry or hurt or excited or scared.  I want to hear from her because I love her.  I want her to talk to me even if I can already guess what she'll say.

I think Heavenly Father feels that way about us.  I think He loves us and wants to hear from us.

This has been such a rewarding week of focusing on prayer.  I'm so grateful for a way to communicate with my Father in Heaven.  I have always had a testimony that He listened and answered.  I feel like that testimony has been strengthened this week.

a belated post

I meant to write a post about the first week of the Year of Megan last Wednesday.  But, you know, life happens and here we are almost a week later and well...  That's just how it is.

Last week's goal was to stick to some sort of healthy eating plan.  It was a difficult week with a few ups and downs.  Turns out it's really tough reigning it in after a few months of crazily eating with abandon.

I was grouchy, I was tired, and I was anxious.  I complained a lot.  I mean, I really whined about it.  But at the end of the week, I felt a little more in control and a little closer to my goal.  It's all about baby steps, right?

The mason jar salads really helped last week.  It was great to have a healthy lunch ready to eat without even thinking.  Over half the weight loss battle is mental, you know.  When I told my mom about the salads, she predicted that I wouldn't for more than a week which, as I'm sure my mom knows, is akin to challenging me to eat these dumb salads for the rest of my life.

She was either incredibly wrong or that was some serious reverse psychology going on.  The world may never know.

This week, I made two new salads and a repeat from last week.  The first new salad is a Southwest Chicken Salad with corn, beans, romaine lettuce, and homemade chipotle ranch dressing.  I basically just chopped up some chipotle peppers and dumped them into some store bought ranch.  Don't be too impressed.

Back by popular demand, I made a baby spinach and fruit salad with a homemade vinaigrette.  This dressing was actually homemade as in I actually made it.  But it was just a combination of honey, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper.  So, again, don't be too impressed.  Both Dave and I agreed that this was by far the best salad from last week.

Lastly, I made a chopped salad to pay tribute to my days of eating lunches at my elementary school cafeteria.  I didn't get to buy lunch very often.  I remember sitting down with my mom and the school lunch calendar carefully picking out which days I would buy my lunch.  I always picked Chicken Ring Things.  One of the options was a Chef's Salad and, while the name intrigued me for some reason, I always wondered who was choosing this option when there were rings of chicken to be eaten from off your fingers instead.  I'm still not sure what a Chef's Salad is.  This is just a mixture of all the things I would choose from a salad bar minus the beets.  I didn't have any beets and I'm still a little sad about it.

Bears.  Beets.  Battlestar Gallactica.

Name that TV show and we can still be friends.  Just kidding.  I'll be your friend even if you don't know.

In other news, my sweet baby was sick today.  Poor girl has had a runny nose for a week and started tugging at her ear yesterday.  We went to visit our friend Dr. Byrd.  It was traumatic.  I'm not sure which was worse for her, being pinned down by my mom and me while the doctor examined her ears or being force fed nasty pink medicine later that day.  Or maybe the ear infection was the worst.  Either way, it was an all around tough day for poor baby Kate.

The only upside of having a sick baby is the cuddles I got from my baby who usually whirls around like a cross between a hurricane and a tornado.  She let my snuggle her for an hour while we watched cartoons.  This was by the far the best part of my day.

the lazy chef

It should come as no surprise that my first weekly goal in the Year of Megan is to work on losing weight.  I mean, I've been "working" on it for what has seemed like an eternity now.

One of the biggest obstacles I think is standing in my way (besides myself - get it? lolol) has been this feeling of frustration with dieting in general.

Stay with me for a moment.  I know that sounds obvious.

I have been struggling with my weight since the fifth grade and probably before that.  Eleven is kind of the age that sticks out in my mind.  Maybe I really had chunked up or perhaps I was just becoming more self aware.

In any event, that means that I have been trying to diet, lose weight, watch what I eat, whatever-you-want-to-call-it for nearly two decades now.  Because of that, I know a lot about dieting.  Like seriously, I'm somewhat of a dieting expert.

First I tried cutting out sugar.  Next, I started counting calories.  In high school, I joined Weight Watchers.  And then again in college.  And then again before I got pregnant with Katelyn.  And then again after she was born.  (There should be some sort of Frequent Fatty discount for people like me.)  During my teenage years I tried the Atkins Diet for a while.  Then I read The South Beach Diet and totally revised my method of thinking on weight loss.  I drank Slimfast by the gallon my freshman year at BYU (not all at once, of course - that would defeat the purpose)  Once I tried eating only Lean Cuisines.  It was expensive and gross.  For a while, I went on Nutrisystem and had all of my food delivered to my house in a giant cardboard box.  It was more expensive and more gross.  I tried counting and measuring everything I have eaten.  I downloaded a handy little calorie counting app on my phone that I never once opened (because nobody wants to record the calories that came from eating an entire container of Blue Bell ice cream).  I've just about tried it all.

I guess there are two points I am trying to make here.

One is that I am not fat for a lack of trying.

The second is that I am burned out of everything.

And here's the kicker.  They all work.  They really do.  Every single one of those diets I've just described is pretty much effective.  Here's the key though.  You have stick to it.  Which I'll admit I haven't done.  I'm not trying to give myself and easy out and be all like, "Yeah, I just can't lose any weight because no diet will work for me.  So..."  I'd venture to say that EVERY diet will work for me if I could just stick to it.

Why can't I stick to it?

Well, that's a post for another day.

Anyway, this time around I'm trying the lazy poor person diet.  What's that, you ask?  Well, I invented it.  The lazy poor person diet is when you are too lazy to cook nutritious meals for yourself during the week but you are too poor to buy prepackaged diet foods.  I will admit that it takes some effort but not much.

Yesterday I spent about a half an hour planning my meals for the week.  I wrote everything down.  (!!! I love making lists!!!  Your mileage may vary but, besides eating, this is the best part of the diet.)  I made a list of our family meals and a list of the groceries needed.  I even made another list to organize the items needed by grocery store department.  It was truly blissful.

Next, Dave and Katelyn and I drove to the store and braved HEB on a Saturday afternoon.  In retrospect, this would have ideally been done during the week in the morning but I was really excited to get started.  I got everything we needed and triple checked the list to make sure nothing was missed.  Being lazy means that you will choose going off your diet rather than making a separate trip to the store.  Just being honest.

So tonight was where the effort came into play.  Starting at about seven, I cooked and prepared nearly everything for the week.  I sauteed, chopped up, washed and rinsed, mixed, stirred and packed away about 75% of the food we will be eating this week.  I just finished so that means I spent a total of about three hours in the kitchen which, really, is not too bad for a week's worth of food.

I made breakfast casserole muffins (which are AMAZING) to go with our smoothies in the morning.

For lunch, we have fancy mason jar salad.  (Mason jars make me feel like a hipster imposter.)  All we need to do is shake them and enjoy.

And lastly, I whipped up some baked ziti with sausage and a delicious chicken casserole (not pictured) for dinner.  So that's at least two nights taken care of.  But also there's no way we could even think about eating all that pasta so leftovers!  Holla!  Also, this will look WAY better once it has been baked.  That's kind of the point of baked ziti, I guess.

The lazy poor person diet might not have a good name but it will save you money and I think it's shaping up to be quite the healthy plan.

year of megan

Happy New Year!

I'm extra excited about this year in particular because guess what year it is...

Well, yes.  It is 2014 and it technically will be the Year of the Horse but that's not what I'm talking about.

2014 is the Year of Megan.

That's right.  It's the Year of Megan because I'm tired of hearing myself complain.  And you know what?  I've done a lot of complaining lately, which is a shame because I have a pretty good life.

I keep hearing and reading myself say that, "I am just so tired and I feel so unmotivated and I don't think I can lose weight or exercise or keep my house clean."

It reminds me of when Katelyn is in the car and she's not happy about being in her car seat and she keeps crying in that annoying whiney sound.  If you're a parent, you know which one I'm talking about.  It's the endless, "Ahhhhhhhh......" sound that only breaks for air.

I don't like hearing it from an irritated toddler and it's worse when it's coming from myself.

The worst part of it is that I have been trying to blame it on something external.  "I'm tired."  "Motherhood is difficult."  "Living on a budget isn't fun."  "I could lose weight if I could just be thin."

It reminds me of when Kate is in the midst of an epic tantrum and she throws herself to the ground and flails her arms and arches her back and hits her head on the ground.  Then she is all upset and indignant that she bonked her head when, in actuality, it was her own fault.

I'm sorry.  I'm a mother.  Most of my world is viewed through the lens of motherhood so most of my references and analogies have to do with hissy fits, children's books, and poop.  It may not be original but it's how my world is constructed at the moment.

Anyway, I have decided that this is it.  This is the year of Megan.  This is the year that I finally take charge.  I have a list of 53 goals.  I know that there are only 52 weeks in the year but, as many of you know, I can't deal with even numbers.

I have one goal for every week.  One or two weeks might get a bonus.  Some of them are simple.  Most of them are things the rest of the population is doing already so don't laugh at me because I haven't been.  A few of them require months of preparation.  At the end of the week, I'll write about it and tell you how I did and how I feel about it.

Move over horse because this is the year of the Megan.