How Are My New Years Resolutions Going?

We're nearly six months through the year now and...once again, I'm not where I thought I would be six months from the beginning of the year.

First of all, I want to show you a quick photo here. Both of these were taken this year, although it has the months on there, so I'm sure you can figure it out.

I'm am just completely stunned by how different I look in a not even 6 month time period. I hardly even look like the same person.

I set up some New Years Resolutions at the beginning of the year hoping that I would stick to them if I posted them publicly and had a place to look back on them. I set 10 goals for myself.

1. Get down to a healthy BMI. Lose 20 lbs.
2. Quit Smoking
3. Learn to crochet something other than hats, scarves, and purses.
4. Eat breakfast as often as possible.
5. Keep blogging
6. Work more
7. Write letters to my aunt Janet
8. Write to my future self at least once a month via www.futureme.org
9. Maintain healthy relationships
10. Don't get pregnant

If you want to see the original post, click here.

We're halfway through the year now, and although I haven't stuck to all of these, most of them I have. Let's take a look see.

italics=original post
Bold=my new words

1. Get Down to Healthy BMI. As of right now, I'm 5.3 and weigh 158 lbs. This is not something I'm terribly thrilled about considering I was down to 145 lbs in Summer 2011. As of right now, my BMI is 28, which is considered overweight. To get down to a "healthy" BMI, I would need to get down to 140 lbs at most. So my goal over the next year is to get down to...138. 20 lbs over a whole year. That's less than two lbs a month, doesn't seem too terribly hard. I'll start by doing sit-ups everyday. Amount to be determined.

I didn't start this at the beginning of the year. Losing weight on your own is an extremely difficult task. You have to change your way of eating and you have to make time to exercise. At the beginning of the year, I wanted to look as though I had done the hard work without actually doing so. By time I finally chose to do something about my weight this year (about 2 months ago), I had gained another 7 lbs (which isn't at all surprising looking at how I used to eat) leaving me at a grand weight of 165 lbs (BMI: 29.2--.8 from being at an "obese" weight). I give all credit to kicking me into gear to Lance Elshaug. Together, we decided we were sick at looking at ourselves in the mirror and wanted to do something about the weight we had gained. Since then we have changed out eating habits (as you have probably read in my recent blogs) and began exercising. He has pushes me to work harder and longer even when I feel like I've had enough. He encourages me to keep going and not fall into old habits again. Since the terrible weight of 165 lbs, I have lost 18 of those leaving me now at 147.2 lbs (BMI: 26.1--1.2 away from being "normal" weight). This is extremely close to my lowest weight (since I became adult height) of 145 lbs and I am extremely proud of myself. My new goal for the end of the year (or better yet, the end of the summer) is 130 lbs. So, I now have another 17 to lose, but I will surely get there with the progress I've seen in just these last two months. If I keep dropping, then gain muscle, I understand that I will go up in weight. That will be just fine though as long as I feel good and happy in my body (which I'm already getting very close to, so I think I'll manage).

2. Quit Smoking. I would really like to quit smoking. It's going to be extremely hard, because well...smoking is addictive. I'm going to try, throughout these next twelve months to stop. I always said, "I'll stop smoking when I get pregnant." If I wait that long, 1.) it's going to be even harder to quit when I've got a baby inside of me to keep safe and healthy and 2.) smoking ages your eggs, so I don't want to not be able to have children at all just because i'm a smoker and waited too long.

More or less, I have completely failed at this. I have another 6 months to go though, so a lot could change between now and then. I do have a bit more motivation to quit now with beginning this healthier lifestyle, because I know if I do quit I will be able to breathe better, run longer, and have more endurance overall. I tried slowing down and quitting a few times over the course of this year, but working at Accent will sure cause you to pull that cigarette right back up to your lips. Things have been stressful with having to get rid of our cat, get into a new place, and work more to get the money that we're going to need to afford our fancy new apartment.

3. Learn to crochet something other than hats, scarves, and purses. I really want to learn to make winter gloves, sweaters, gnomes, and just about everything. I've known how to crochet for about three months and have only learned to make three things. I'm really hoping to get some variety in on this.

This is another more or less situation. Within this year, I did crochet a blanket (which is not a hat, scarf, or purse), but it's more or less like crocheting a really wide scarf, so I'm not entirely sure it counts. I do intend on soon trying to make myself a nice little summer tank top to wear to the beach, so I'll give you the update on that when I get to it. As of now, I suppose I fail at this New Years Resolution.

4. Eat Breakfast as Often as Possible. Breakfast starts up your metabolism. This is a good way to start on the whole losing weight thing as well. Also, I need to work on taking my vitamins daily. This will help as well.

This has been yet another thing that has been directly affected by achieving a healthier lifestyle. I do eat breakfast whenever possible because a) it boosts your metabolism and b) it stops me from getting so hungry at work before lunch and c) egg and turkey sandwiches are extremely awesome to have in the morning and they are full of protein and vitamins. I still slack on taking my vitamins daily, but...I'm getting on that right now. Thanks for the friendly reminder, past me.

5. Keep Blogging. I want to keep blogging. It makes me happy. I get to learn about new things and even about myself. This is definitely something I want to keep doing throughout the rest of the year and hopefully for a few years following. At least until I get caught up in a full time job, school, and/or children and a family.

At the beginning of the year, my intention was to continue blogging every single day as I had been. I gave up on that because it began stressing me out trying to find new ideas to blog about (although Lance's step-dad, Jason, gave me a few that I really should tackle sometime soon). I haven't stopped completely though (obviously). I stopped for awhile, because there were other extremely hectic things going on in life, but I'm back up and going now (although mostly with fitness related things) and blogging (usually) at least once a week.

6. Work More. I want to work more in 2013. Actually, I don't want to work more, I just want to make more money. More money=more work. In any case, I want to work enough so that I can put back $20 for every paycheck. This will give me $520 by the end of the year. You can do some mighty fine things with $520.

This one I completely failed at until it was entirely necessary (about a month ago, now).  I continued calling out of work and taking up all the ATO (approved time off) Accent had to offer. That place is overall stressful and depressing the moment you walk in the door. When we found out we were more or less getting kicked out of our apartment (it was move out or get rid of Edgeworth) a month ago, we gave our 30 days notice and starting picking up all the overtime they had to offer to get in enough hours to find us a new place. Now, we're working at least 30 of our 32 hours a week (if not more) and will be moving into a lovely 2 bedroom apartment with washer, dryer, and a dishwasher at the end of this month.

7. Write Letters to my Aunt Janet. I have fallen nearly completely out of touch with my Dad's side of the family since my Grandpa died. I'm not much of a phone talker and I don't venture to Fredricktown unless I'm actually there to see that side of the family. So, I'd really like to start writing letters to my Aunt. I know it would make her happy and I like writing and receiving letters. There's something nice about having to wait for the response instead of getting it hours after you've sent yours.

I have 100% failed at this. I haven't even managed to get my Aunt Janet's address. If I did, then I've lost it. So...I should jump on that.

8. Write to My Future Self at Least Once a Month. There's this website, it's called Future Me. You can write e-mails to yourself, and then the website sends them to your e-mail address whenever in the future you decided you wanted to send them. For example, I've got a letter coming to me tomorrow (actually, it will be sent tonight at midnight) that I wrote to myself on July 8th, 2011. I'm fairly excited to read it, actually. I'll definitely be logging into my e-mail at midnight tonight. I'm always excited for these letters, which is why I want to write a letter every month to my future self. I advise you to create an account and do the same. It's really neat.

I did really well with this the first couple of months out of the year, but alas I did fall away from it. I do have it on my favorites tab at the top of my screen and think about doing it often enough; It's just that once I actually get to the page I can never think of exactly what I want to say to my future self. I'll write one very soon and send it two or three years into the future as a gem for the 23-24 year old me to find. Oh boy, It's strange to think that it will seem like no time at all until I'm in my mid 20's.

9. Maintain Healthy Relationships. I want to ensure that my relationship with Lance stays healthy. I want to make sure we continue to talk before we go to bed. I want to be silly with him and make sure to tell him I love him as much as I do. I also want to make sure to maintain healthy relationships with my friends by being honest with them and spending as much time as possible with them.

I can't say really whether I've failed or succeeded with this one. My relationship with Lance has definitely grown stronger. We don't always talk before we go to bed, but when we do we end up doing so for a couple of hours before we finally look at the clock and decide we should probably shut our mouths and get some sleep. We've definitely gotten closer on this journey to a healthier lifestyle. We spend a lot of time talking about foods that are good for us and why, recipes we should really get the ingredients for to try out, and what different exercises can do for us. We also spend a lot of time talking about who we are and where we might be a few years from now. As far as my friends go, I can't say it has been as much of a success story. I haven't been able to spend as much time with them because I've been so wrapped up in my own life and they have been pretty wrapped up in theirs. Between me, Adam and Dani, we're all at different points in our lives and going through and doing different things. We're still all great friends and love each other until the world's end, but we don't get to see each other or hang out nearly as often as we used to.

10.) Don't Get Pregnant. Always a good resolution. I am not planning on getting pregnant in 2013. I need to have awhile to be 21. I've got to have all the fun I can. Settling down and having a family at a young age can lead to a lot of regrets and I want as few of those as possible.

I am 100% winning at this one. We're 6 months into the year and I am definitely not knocked up. I'm 20 years old and I keep seeing all my peers I went to high school with popping out two and three kids. I don't know how or why. Don't get me wrong, kids are great...sort of. I definitely do want to have a child someday and be the best mother I can be. That's exactly it though, I want to be the BEST mother I can be. I would be terrible at being a mother right now. I've barely got my own life figured out, much less can I handle having to take care of another life and putting someone else's every need and want before mine. I want to turn 21 and be able to go out and drink with my friends at the bar without having to find a baby sitter. I want to freely be able to go on hikes and out to lunch without having to worry about a rambunctious child. Mostly, I just want to be able to go to Wal-mart or out walking at 3 am. Children are supposed to be asleep at 3 am, not at Wal-mart. There are so many things that a child prevents you from doing. Again, this doesn't mean I don't ever want children, but this is something that I'll be looking forward to a few years down the road and definitely not anytime soon. I want to live my own life before I have to focus on molding someone else's.

A Year Ago Today

People change a lot in a single year. For me, every year I have changed an extraordinary amount. Each year my relationships with friends are a little or even a lot different. Usually I lose and gain friends over the course of a year. I stop hanging out with some and lose touch while others I become 10 times closer to.

Today is Lance's 23rd birthday.
A year ago today, Lance was just turning 22.

You want to know what we did?
We went up to Huhot with his family, then he drove me back to my apartment so that we could spend the rest of the day packing. That's exactly what we did. We stayed up talking and packing up my apartment and driving thing to the storage shed and to my mothers all day and night until the wee hours of the morning because I had to be out by February 1st.

I made Lancelot pack all day on his birthday.
So what did I come up with this year, you ask?
Well, today I made him be my personal crutch and help me walk around Wal-Mart and Save-a-lot.
I told him that he can only imagine what I'm going to think up for him to have to do next year on his birthday.

In any case, he is an absolute doll. He's always taking care of me and helping me out on his birthday.
I did make him some cinnamon rolls today, though. :)


This was the closest picture I could find. It's actually from Christmas of 2011, but I took next to no pictures January of 2012.

Then, here's Lance and I on New Years Day This Year. <3



_________________________

On the beginning note, a lot changes in a year.
A year ago today, I would have never suspected I'd be where I am.

That was part of my extremely tough ten months of my life.
Here is where I thought I would be in January 2013 in January 2012.

I thought I would still be working at Hunts.
I thought I would still be dating Charles.
I thought we might even be engaged.
I thought that I may be pregnant since we had originally planned to try for another child.
I thought that I would be in another apartment and maybe going to college.
I thought I would still be an only child.


None of those things are true.


My Mother told me a few months after January 2012 that she was in fact having the child that I thought I would be carrying that year. Charles and I broke up a month and  a half after he got out of jail. I am not pregnant. I am not in college and I'm now working at Accent.

You know what I have to say about that?
I am so perfectly happy. I have such a wonderful life.

Although I miss Hunts very much some days, I'm happier at Accent. I loved the people there, but some of the rules got a little bogus. I mostly quit because we weren't allowed to have our cell phones and I needed mine to keep my sanity. Plus, walking home from work every night since I don't have a car really gave me the heebie jeebies. Plus, I really enjoy working with Lancelot.

Lance makes me a very happy lady. Really, he does. Even when he screws up, it takes him less than five minutes to apologize. We sleep on the floor because it reminds us of old times. He introduces me to all sorts of new TV shows, gave me that extra push to learn guitar, and is extremely patient with me. He makes me a better person. That's what I really want in someone is just for us to be happy and to make each other better people.

I may not have the child that I believed I so wanted, but that's okay too. As much as my female hormones keep screaming "baby! baby! baby!" in my head, I know better. I don't want a baby right now. I'm 20 years old. I've got another 3 or 4 years minimum before I even really want to consider it. I'll only be this young once. I want to be able to stay up until 3 am and decide to go to wal-mart because I really want some goldfish crackers. I want to be able to spend money on yarn to crochet things. I want to have the free time to crochet. I don't want to have to find a babysitter anytime I want to go out of my friends. Most of all, I don't want to deny my child of having a full-time committed mother because I'm too busy caught up in my own life feeling like I never got the chance to be young.

I'm really happy for my mother. I now have a beautiful baby sister and she is the most precious little girl in the world. My mom gets the chance to raise a daughter the way she would have wanted. A full-time mother who already learned from the mistakes of her first daughter. Being the second kid is like being the second pancake. The first one, you just try your best and hope it turns out alright. By time you get to the second one you realize what you did wrong with the first one and take this opportunity to fix it and do it right the second time around.


I lost a lot of friends through my break-up with Charles and I gained a lot of new ones both through Lance and the experiences I had during those 10 mysterious months.

My world is nowhere I thought it would be, but I think I'd much prefer this one.
I can only imagine where I'll be a year from now.
I'll be in a new place and my sister will be 16 months old.
God knows what else will be different.

December 21st, 2012

For everyone, December 21, 2012 is supposed to be "the day the world ends." The day the rapture happens, or the zombie outbreak starts, or a shit ton of natural disasters just hit all at once.

I plan on celebrating the end of the world by sitting in my warm, cozy apartment watching the movie 2012 and I am Legend.

The day holds alot more for me, though.

When I found out I got my pregnancy with Baby Cay confirmed, I learned that my due date would be December 21st, 2011. Whether I would have actually had my baby on that day is a whole different story, but as things happened, this is the day I will celebrate the memory of my child.

Last year, this was an incredibly tough day on me. Since there would be no grave for my child, no memorial service, no way to remember him but in my heart itself, I wanted to have something. So I got a tattoo in remembrance. I figured a teddy bear would be best. I wanted something to represent that I called him my Christmas baby, so I got a Santa hat. I put flowers in the teddy bear's hands. Pink and blue since we didn't actually know the sex and a black one in the middle for his death. I also wanted to incorporate the day we lost him.

For those of you who didn't read the previous post, I call my baby Cay because we had already chosen names. Kayden James for a boy or Cadence Alexis for a girl. Cay incorporated both of those.

I will never forget my child. I plan on trying to have children again someday. Someday when I'm settled down, happily married, with a stable home. Although I will hold those children tightly and love them deeply, they will not erase the memory of my first child.

Some days, when I think of the child I have lost, I wish I was religious so that I could actually believe that I will go to Heaven and someday I will meet that first child of mine and we could catch up on things and talk of what could have been. 

December 21 is in 6 days now. Since I am broke, I will not be able to do anything in memorial for my dead child. I will not be able to have a cake that I would have had for him turning one year old. I will not be able to plant a tree. I will not have anyone to talk to about my sorrows on that day. Most importantly of all, I will not have the child in my arms that should have been on this earth a full year now.

I did find a support website with one brilliant idea that I do plan on doing for my child this year. I plan on creating a memory box. I'm still working on the details of where I'm going to get the box. I need an old shoe box, so if anyone has one that they would like to donate, that would be greatly appreciated. I plan on painting it and putting some very special things inside.

-a letter to my baby telling him how much I love him and anything else I'd like to say to him

-the blanket that my grandma gave me that i planned on swaddling my little one in. The blanket i slept with every night for weeks after my miscarriage.

-a small journal detailing my feelings

-a home made death certificate

-a poem I read that helped ease the pain

-my ultrasound pictures

-my baby book as far as I filled it out into the pregnancy

-a pink and blue ribbon like the one below

I recently, actually just today, found out that there is a support month and ribbon for mother's who have lost a child. It can be all of the month of October, but is particularly targeted for October 15th.

So for all of those who have lost a child or know anyone who has lost a child, take at least this one time of the year to maybe talk to them about it. Let them know that although you may not understand to the full extent how this feels, that you are there to talk to them if they need it. Offer to be that shoulder to cry on.