okay, so what I meant was

It's hard for me to self motivate to go do a workout, or go to the gym or something. Setting goals hasn't been too successful in the past. I've got a little over 100 lbs to lose, and I find it difficult to stay looking at the big picture. Difficult for me to celebrate a 3 lb loss when I'm looking ahead and seeing how far there is to go. 

I think I figured out what I do like about working out though, and that is the clothes. I love leggings. They do not look good on me, but reaching toward a goal of wearing Lululemon workout clothes (and omg their leggings) and Patagonia jackets and fashionable yet functional clothes and looking super cute and cozy... I can't wait for that. So of course I'm making yet another resolution that WILL stick this time and I'm doing it. I'm not sure how to get started without my classes I want to take and the money to buy my healthy food... But I'm going to try again. I'm tired of starting over. Diet change include eating whole foods, cutting back on carbs (except fruit, mmk?) and trying to eat more vegetables. Fitness change includes walking for now, wih the eventual goal of beginning to jog, continuing kickboxing, and trying out yoga. 

I'm changing my lifestyle. Taking it easy on the weekends, but staying active and healthy on weekdays. 

Go team go!

Laters,

Kiks

a workout thought

Just a thought nugget to expound on later: if I can make working out fashionable and have entertaining accessories (cute leggings, nice gym bag, cute shirts), will it be more fun?

product: sally hansen cuticle massage cream

Okay I love this stuff. 

I have super dry cuticles. I put lotion on my hands all the time, but my cuticles are just terrible. Any time I get a manicure they comment on it, so I decided to look for a product to remedy it. I bought this stuff yesterday and I love it! It comes in this little pot and feels almost like lip balm. Rub so e on your finger tip and massage that crap all over your dry awful cuticles and it's like a miracle. Already mine are looking better. And feeling better! I suffer from the skin rig there shredding a bit and leaving those awful little flaps that hurt anytime you go in your pocket or anything and this helps so much. 

Miracle product. Loving it. $5 beautiful cuticles.

ups and downs

The downs: I gained 4 lbs in the last two weeks. Fell off the Weight Watcher wagon again... But trying to climb back on. Successful so far, though I haven't been able to convince myself to exercise recently. I'm getting over a pretty fierce cold, and that was a setback. 

The ups: the cold is ending! Still got the sniffles and coughing, but it's okay. I also found some magic hair products. 

This is Organix argan oil. It's wonderful. I was skeptical of the oils on my hair myself, but I thought I would give it a try, and did a minimal amount the first time. Just on the ends. I have my hair dyed in the ombre style, so it's basically bleached blonde at the ends and tends to get knotty and split ended easily. This oil though... Smoothed my ends, made my hair lovely soft. The next day I used it a little bit more generously, and I love it. It smells nice, and when my hair air dries or dries overnight it allows for soft waves in my hair without a lot of frizziness. 

Follow up your argan oil on your wet hair with this stuff:

I love this mousse. Again, Organix product. I like this mousse because it smells lovely (coconut!) and it gives my hair some nice volume and style without adding any crunchiness. Perfect for the night before I am going to roll out of bed, run my fingers through my hair, and go to work. 

Now, I suppose I should say that I have fine, color treated long hair. Lots of hair, but very fine. It tangles easily and tends to be straight or a little bit wavy if I give it the right product. This product combination is what I use daily after a shower in the evenings (who has time to shower in the mornings, amirite?) and I love the hair I wake up with. After I straighten my bangs, of course. 

Now, I have a constant difficulty with getting out of bed on time. I am always (ALWAYS) running late if I need to be somewhere in the mornings. I basically throw on the clothes I found, put my hair in a bun, grab my lunch, and run out the door after I take my dog out in the mornings. No breakfast. No makeup. No accessories. I'm just not a morning person. I'm going to try to change that, and by the end of the year, I want to be one of those healthy people who can go to the gym in the mornings and come home and have some time to get ready! It's the dream. One step at a time. Next step: lay out my clothes every night, including accessories. Let's do this!

Next time: my full week using makeup every. Single. Day. 

Laters,

Kiks

I don't know what to do. Grosse Pointe or somewhere else? I feel like I am about to shatter into a million pieces. Moving back home will either stabilize me or just let me fall back on being dependent on my family again. I need to be an adult, but how can I be an adult when I only feel like half a person?

I know that I could never deliberately hurt myself. Friends and family who know that I've come close don't realize I never could. It would have consequences beyond my own life, I know that. But that's part of the reason it seems so endless. I cannot even begin to grasp the enormity of having a life feeling this hopeless forever. It sounds exhausting. It is exhausting. 

Daytime is okay. There are distractions. But at night the dark closes in and I feel so lost, the kind of lost where everything is pitch black and you don't even know which way is up or if your eyes are opened or closed. Why do I feel so splintered when others can at least see directions?

an ache that can't be found.

Yesterday my facade of being "fine" came crashing down. I actually told someone I felt like hurting myself. It's the first time I have ever been able to ask for help without just waiting for someone to notice. I cried for hours, and didn't think I could ever go back to work.

But today I did. I took two days off for my mental illness (even though I called it a cold--I certainly sounded and felt sick) and during the second day I was questioned and it made everything so much worse. 

I've been planning an eventual move to Atlanta but I don't think it's a good idea. My mother suggested I move back home for a year to just get on my feet, financially and health-wise. Even though I don't really want to move home and not have my own apartment, she might be right. The idea of not having money to worry about and just work and let someone else help me sounds like a retreat... At least for a little while.  So I will be thinking about that for the next few months. I have until July, and then I need to move out of my current place. 

my most recent problem...

Because all I do is bitch, apparently. 

I don't even know what I would do if I wasn't doing Speech Language Pathology. Honestly if I had my way I would probably sit at home and blog and surf the web all day. But let's be real: I am not witty enough to be a blogger. Or not a blogger that actually makes money. I'm not smart enough to do important things; I'm not crafty enough to do something really creative I could sell to others. And I have way too much pride to go do something mundane like waitressing or folding sweaters at Old Navy while I wait for inspiration to strike.

So I guess I go on being miserable, all the while suspecting that the reason I am miserable is my job. Waiting for the day that everyone realizes that I am a fraud and that I must've gotten my degree by mistake because I definitely couldn't tell you most of what I learned in neuroscience and speech science. Which is really a shame, since those are my favorite areas. I'm just not really smart enough to be part of it. 

On the outside looking in at all those people who may not know what they are doing with their lives, but at least are intelligent enough to do something. Always. I've never been great at thigs, just good enough. I'm a good enough singer for choirs (unprofessionally of course), I was a good enough dancer in high school to be in competitive show choir. I'm good enough at being funny. But only when it doesn't count. 

And I suppose I'm a good enough writer to make a blog entry about not being good enough. 

But I'm terrified I'll never be happy. 

In some ways I am incredibly fragile. A criticism snowballs for me until it means that I am a worthless person and I just want to give everything up. It takes a long time for me to come back from that. It impairs my life in all aspects when I am criticized in one. I sleep all the time. I am late for work. I am a worse driver, a worse friend, and a worse roommate. My dog doesn't get walks. I eat like shit or don't eat at all. I do. I do not go to the gym. Everything gets worse and worse until one day it gets a little bit better. But there is no formula. Everything in my life falls apart. And I don't know how to break that except not make any mistakes. 

But how can you not make mistakes? I am constantly making errors in my work or misunderstanding something or forgetting to do my chores. 

More importantly, I think, is how do you not let a criticism tear you down completely? How do you gain the self confidence to say "okay that wasn't the best. Better next time!" 

I think when you don't see anything good or special about yourself it's easy for one criticism to turn into an avalanche of self-hatred. 

How do you make it stop?

clothes.

Clothes are my best friend and my worst enemy. My favorite thing on Pinterest (besides my wedding board--shit that was supposed to be secret-- and my home decorating board) is the women's fashion. I crave being able to dress like this:

Three reasons this isn't about to happen: 1. I am a fatty fat person. 2. I work in a grimy school. 3. I am just so fucking lazy. Let's take these one at a time, shall we? Let's work backwards. 

reason # 3

I want to fix this by working out in the morning. Or at least being a good dog mom and taking Penny out for a walk every morning. How long do productive, non-sloth people give themselves to get ready in the morning? Must research. 

reason #2

This isn't going to change any time soon, I don't think. The school will. But the fact that it is a school... No dice. 

reason #3

The big one. I am big. How big? Way closer to 300 than I have ever wanted to be. I fell off the Weight Watchers wagon (I love me an alliteration) in a big way this past couple of weeks. Haven't been weighing in and haven't been tracking. Gained almost all of that poundage back. Dammit. But last week I did well tracking and this week I want to do even better. More workouts, less fat and carbs, more lean protein. I know the rules by heart. It's the following them part that's always been a struggle for me. Tomorrow will probably be sketchy because I am out of what I like to call "real food" and will probably hit up a fast food restaurant on my way home before I shop for groceries. Hopefully I will be able to give myself a kick in the ass and go to the gym in the evening to balance that out. 

Meals for the week:

Greek shrimp with orzo

Chicken with oven fries

Ground turkey enchiladas

Inspo:

Laters,

Kiks

money musings

Learning to save money... Tough thing. Do I save the money? Pay back debts? Saving to buy a new computer and a car while trying to pay back owed money is rough. 

Time to start the 52 week money challenge and pay back my debtors.