Mist of Darkness

Not to be trite, but recently, I have really decided to take the bull by the horns and do something with my life. I have 30 pounds to lose and a life to look after. I have been brought up in


For me to post this is a big thing and I draw strength from a friend of mine, Nicole. She's wonderful and has a huge testimony of the love our savior has for us. I love that she has no fear in sharing this with people either.
Back to the thought.
I have been struggling to lose weight after baby M was born, I nearly lost my life. I have come to the conclusion that I need to be healthier and take the initiative to lose. It is ssssssssooooooo hard. I love food, and I love the wrong kinds of food. Right now, food is winning.
We have this Word of Wisdom that serves as a guideline for health and well-being. It was given as revelation, nearly 200 years ago, through the prophet Joseph Smith, and the things it contains are only now being backed up by science. For instance, eat meat sparingly, fill up on grains, exercise regularly, alcohol is for the wound and not the belly, tobacco makes your lungs black and makes you sick...and many more things.
I'll tell you what. I don't have any problems with the alcohol part because I have smelled drunk people. They smell like my babys dirty diaper bin. Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you make yourself smell like a dirty, wet diaper? tobacco makes me get headaches. No problems there.
I'll tell you what kicks my butt. FOOD. I work in a grocery store and am surrounded by food every day. I say that it's not the shopping while you're hungry that gets me. It's the working while I'm hungry that gets me. That's when I make all my meal plans and dinner plans and any kind of food plan. If it goes in my stomach, it's a well thought out plan of many hours at my place of employment. I LOVE FOOD!
I have just now, (well, three weeks ago) decided that I need to take it seriously and lose some weight. I said in an earlier post, "Me and the flap, we're good friends" referring to the lose skin around my midsection. I plan to lose it or most of it by Christmas time. I might be brave enough to post some before and after pictures.
I have been fighting with the same 6 pounds since March though. It's a lot harder than it sounds. I have been trying, earnestly, to limit my sweets and garbage foods to minimal amounts per week, and I have been putting more veggies in my meals. Not just produce in general, but vegetables. I don't eat enough veggies. Or drink enough water for that matter. I have started drinking two of those tall bottle sizes of the smart water at work every day. That doesn't account for what I intake at home either. Ahh, water tastes best to your body. (Even some of the girls at work have said that I look thinner. Thanks, Angela).

And more importantly, I have decided to take on Moroni's (More-O-nigh) Challenge. I am going to finish the Book of Mormon by the time my oldest goes back to school for the fall. The last time I did that, I was in college. in the late 1990's. When you read the Book of Mormon, you read with intent, prayer and a desire to know that it is true. When you are finished, you kneel in prayer to Heavenly Father and ask Him if it is true. The Holy Ghost will testify to you that it is and there is the beginning of your tesitmony. You then keep your life in line with the teachings therein and pray and read scripture regularly. He will bless you so much for doing good and righteous things. And I will be a better parent for this too.
Sometimes, though, we forget. I am looking at this as a "refresher course". I am going to go at this three fold. 1)Word of Wisdom. 2)Book of Mormon. 3)Teach my children with more love than I have ever done before.

Pioneering

I have known this since the middle of June. Now I am crunching at the end of June. I have so many, many sewing projects to make, I just don't know where to start.

I promised biggest sister that I would make her a new summer dress, because all she has is her fancy wintertime dresses, which are too small by now. I just finished middle-most sisters Easter dress. I only basted the zipper opening shut and poorly put the zipper in. Now it looks, and operates the right way. Whew! That was a close call.

I also finished a coin-purse/wallet that I had been putting off for the last several months. I had one of those Latin American purses that had holes in each side corner below the zipper. I took the zipper out of that one and re-purposed it to another one which I used a fat quarter for. It looks sweet. Well, for a first try I am super pleased with myself.

Now I have to conjure up two pioneer outfits for a July 10th activity for the primary. HELP. I don't know where to start. I think I will call my mother and see if she has any old patterns I can use. I know I have fabric to use. I have an old skirt I made in 2007 for a Relief Society thingy where they asked me to be Emma Smith. I can cut that up and not feel badly about it. I just need a pattern. I think they would look super-cute in matching dresses and pinafores with little bonnets. I dunno. I don't know if I have time for that. We'll see.
I promise to post some pictures. Later. After I get the pioneer thingy out of the way.

breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding

I have no idea what I was thinking when I found this, but I thought it was super funny, and quite accurate. I have been on both sides of the argument, but find this so anecdotal, that I had to share it. I even left a comment...at the very bottom.

http://wixx.savingadvice.com/2006/03/16/bottles-vs-breat-milkno-contest_6443/#comments
Or: http://wixx.savingadvice.com/
and search "Bottles vs. Breast milk...no contest."

It is about the general savings that can take place when you breast feed. Not just about the 1500 in formula, but other things as well.



Here is a copy of my response. I had to laugh at some of the others because they were so silly:

"Thank you for your humor. I for one can really appreciate it

I have 4 children. Two of them are Half-and-half babies. I was one who didn't know enough to get the right help with my first baby to successfully nurse. Wish I would have known. It was never easy with her. I felt like someone was rubbing 10 grit sandpaper on my chest. I pumped for her. It was more comfortable. She had milk for 4 months, formula for 8. She turned out pretty bright.

I couldn't keep up with little sister because of work. She had much less formula than oldest sister. Middlemost sister was exclusively breastfed for 13 months. I had milk to spare.

I plan to nurse baby as long as he wants. I have no problems with it. I also had to work with each one of them as babies and daddy had to give them bottles. I have no problem with that either.
I thought this was dead on. Having had to buy formula for our oldest was the hugest expense we ever had for any of our babies, other than getting baby boy here, (in which we both nearly died--he was born via emergency c-section and I still don't understand why they say c-section babies can't nurse...that's a boatload of b.s.)

I have had to pump for all my children. It takes up way too much time, but they all have had breast milk, they are all relatively in excellent health.

I can estimate that a can of Enfamil powder (12.9 oz.) lasts a new baby 5 days. Each can this size costs between 13 and 16 dollars. You buy more as the baby gets older and I do believe we reached an average of 12 cans/month. So it costed $117-192/month and over the course of 8 months, $936-1536 on powder alone to feed our first born. I never thought to calculate the savings of electricity and water

Don't get me wrong! there are benefits for both ways. When all you want to do is take a shower and brush your teeth, but baby wants to eat, most of the time, baby wins. with a bottle, and an older baby, you have about 20 minutes. And that time is golden. But sleep is golden also. It is wonderful to take baby to bed and go back to sleep and turn over and start again.

Even a nursing baby loses focus and looks around. We've sprayed as much as he's played while he's been eating.

And keeping with the tone of this post I will say that our savings have been phenomenal as we've given our babies breast milk. "

The June Reference

I really have no other title, but hey...here it is. I was going to write something else, but abandoned it because it wasn't something I thought I should write here. I have been jabbed at by some of my friends that I haven't updated anything lately. C'mon! It's only been a month!
I still work in retail grocery. Nothing new there: biggest sister got her first week of summer vacation done with and the next Monday waltzed into my bedroom at 6:45am and proudly proclaimed that she was "going to school today". We bantered back and forth for 2 hours about it while I convinced her that she really wasn't going to school, and that she had at least 2 more months of play time. I think she is just really anxious for the first grade:
Middlemost sister has some, well, okay a lot of left-over 2-year-old syndrome and whines so very much. I am still learning that the best discipline for her (and littlest sister too) is to scoop her up and hold her while she is pulling a tantrum. I realize that's not what I really want to be doing, when all I really want to do is throw her outside to play in the back yard, but it will only create a sadder, whinier little girl. It is, however, just what she needs. I have had more cuddle time doing this, and we end in more hugs and giggles than there would be otherwise.
Littlest sister is a mumbler. I just want to run and hide from her, but the human side of me yells in hopes that she will hear me being loud so that she will be louder. I know this is wrong, and have made enemies at times with her. She too, I scoop up and cuddle as she is tantruming. It happened just the other morning. Daddy was making pancakes for breakfast and she wanted her favorite, special plate, but it was in the dishwasher. Dirty. As much as we kept telling her that it was dirty, she kept trying to get it out and open and whine and boob about it. We kept telling her that we were going to send her back to bed and this and that, but nothing worked. In a huge rage, I took about 7 quite large, loud steps to the dishwasher, where she was sitting on the floor and I scooped her up and hugged her and we walked to my bedroom, sat on my bed and rocked back and forth as I patted her back. She eventually calmed down and we agreed that she could have a glass plate, instead of her favorite black plastic one.
Baby has learned to really crawl. He never army crawled, he would dig his toes into the floor and push at the same time he used his arms to gain forward momentum. He'd fall on his face this way but would reward us with a giant toothless smile, as if to say "look at what I just did". He's growing way too fast.
Hubby has one class left and then an internship. Please pray that he gets the right one. I don't know what to do for him, except pray. He is doing so well in school and I am so proud of him. We even think he will be able to work at the local university in the fall and teach 3 classes. (He is, after all, buddy buddy with the adjunct professor hiring guy). We hope this works out. I hope this works out. His birthday is this month. This week, actually. He will be XX. It works out for me, because I am XX. I married myself a young'in. It works out for the mortality rate, to be exact. Men tend not to last as long as women do.

Mixed Nuts and Mending the Past

Stop me if I'm wrong, but I think I have created a few enemies in my life. I would be lying if I didn't admit to it. I know I have done wrong to some and hurt some feelings. "I'm only human" right? It sounds like such a scape-goat. Sometimes I think that's exactly what I need. After all, the ancient Jews had a scape-goat. The red-haired goat they would lead up the mountain for sacrifice had to be completely red-haired. If there was even one white, brown, black hair on its entire body, they would cancel the sacrifice and the goat would get to "escape". I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
Anyway, I'd like a scape-goat right now. I'd like to escape from all the sour things I've ever said, mean things I've ever done and bad things I've ever thought of doing.
I learn this from my children. They are wonderful. The sisters love to dress M. up in headbands, barrettes and flowers. Please...let's let the boy have a chance. But I can't get mad at them because they are having fun and M. isn't old enough to know any better. We'll just have to make him a prince costume or knight costume or something. Maybe...Invader Zim.
I learned today and yesterday, from the whining littlest sisters that to pick them up and hold them through their tantrum isn't really what I want to do, but exactly what they need their mommy to do.
I'm trying to right my wrongs and it's not really working out in my favor. Just over one year ago, we moved out of my mom/dad's house. We went stealth and left while they were away. Things were going south and doing that made them go farther south. But, I will spare details, because I was pregnant and don't remember them, or choose not to remember them. 6 weeks after we left mom/dad's house, I had a real relationship with my mother. It wasn't back to normal, but it was so much better. I hope she can say the same thing. I know I hurt my dad's feelings too, but as far as I can tell, we have mended. I'd like to have a wonderful relationship with the rest of my family, but I can't. We are spread out way too far away for my taste, and it makes getting together really hard. When my mom drove from Virginia back to my home state with my and my two older girls, after hubby got out of the military, we stopped at my older brother home in XXXX. We stayed the night and he and I stayed up until 5am shooting the breeze about nothing. It was FANTASTIC! As tired as I was when I got up 4 hours later, I would do it all over again.

I think my family is nuts, and that is why I love them.