Goals

So I sat down and made myself a list of goals.

I've been doing some thinking and I need to work harder to do the things I need to do. I thought maybe a list would be helpful, even though lists have not seemed to work for me in the past. But regardless, I made the list.

I think sitting down and writing my list helps me to figure out what it is that I want.

In discussions with Allen, I've mentioned that sometimes it feels like I've put my life on hold for him. I know that doesn't sound nice but it's true. When we got married, Allen hadn't really figured himself out yet. He couldn't keep a job, was bouncing from place to place, getting laid off or quitting or whatever. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. I knew what I wanted to do, at least I had a plan. I wanted to get a job, go back to school for my Master's and then find a job teaching journalism at the college level. And though I did stick my toes in the water for graduate school, I only received a certificate. I never got the chance to get my Master's Degree because I was waiting for Allen to "figure it out." I felt like it was selfish for me to go back to school when he was still struggling to find himself. So when he decided he wanted to go to boat school, we took out a loan so he could do that (yeah that later turned out to be a dumb move). Of course, he's still one class shy from finishing and I worry that he will never finish. That's Allen. He never finishes what he starts. I wonder if that's a man thing?

Anyway, he decided that building boats was not a good idea with the economy the way it was so he moved on to something else and something else and something else and blah blah blah, there I was, the whole time, supporting him and just waiting for him to figure it out.

He figured it out maybe two years ago, when he finally decided he wanted to do the martial arts thing. He's been working on that since and I think he's finally found his "thing." But now, I'm 31 years old and have a kid so going back to school isn't a priority for me anymore. Neither are all these other things I wanted to do.

The point to all this jibber jabber is that in explaining this to Allen, he will ask me what it is that I want. What is it that I wanted to do? And then I stop and think and finally say, "well I don't know."

I guess I've forgotten all the important things I wanted to do. I've been busy being, trying to be the supportive wife, supporting my husband in his goals and ambitions while at the same time providing financially for my family while he figured it out. So I've forgotten what was important to me.

But now, I'm thinking a list may help me remember. So I'm making a list!

This is MY list. It's not Allen's list, it's not Corbin's list though because they are such a big part of my life, the things on my list will certainly involve them. But, this list is ALL FOR ME!!!!

The first thing on my list is taking time to do more devotions and reading my Bible. I've lost sight of some things along the whole life journey. I've forgotten truly how great God is. I pretend like I know but I really don't. I would like to find out again. I started reading my Bible every single day after Corbin was born. I'd read to him while he was laying on the floor. But when I finished that set of devotions, I stopped for some reason. I remember that when I was doing this, I was so much happier. I felt better about my day and my life. I want to feel like that again but I want more of it. I want to really know God and I know that I need Him in my life to overcome all the crap that I've let into my life.

The next thing on my list coincides with the first. I want to pray more. It's that simple. I don't pray much. I like to talk to myself though so I think instead of doing that, maybe I'll talk to God. I always thought you had to close your eyes and be in a quiet place to pray. But you don't. You can be at your desk, in the bathroom, driving, anywhere really! Isn't that great?! I can pray while I'm driving to work! Of course, I will keep my eyes open. But me and God talking while I drive to work makes me excited. I may even start that today, as I drive home!!!

My next two things are to stop eating so much and to exercise more. I am an emotional eater. I eat when I'm happy, sad, mad, glad, depressed. Whatever emotion, I want to celebrate, or mourn, it with food. And you can tell by looking at my big, fat belly. It's my own fault I am overweight. I've let myself get like this and therefore it's up to me to do something about it. So I am going to one day try to eat less and exercise more. I've mentioned how I hate exercising so I need to find something to supplement that. I'm still working on a plan for this one.

Even though this list is not about Allen and Corbin, one of my goals is to spend more time with Corbin. At night, sometimes I just take him in his room and sit on the floor with him and while he's playing I'll read a book, my book. There's nothing really wrong with that, as Corbin likes to play by himself but I'd like to try and get him more engaged in playing with me. I don't get a lot of time with him on some days so I want to try and take advantage of the time I do get. Last week, we took him to the park and it was the best day ever. He was so happy and I just couldn't wait until the warmer weather was here permanently so we could do it more often.

Next on my list is education. I'm not sure I'll ever go back to school. I feel like any extra money I can round up should be put towards Corbin's education. But nonetheless, I'd like to study for the GRE and maybe even take the test and see if I pass. If I do, we'll go from there. I have to believe that if it was meant to be, God will provide a way. So if higher learning is in my future, God will show me.

To help Allen, I feel the need to take a few business classes. I have this strong feeling that I will be doing a lot of the administrative work for him. He's going to be busy teaching and since his ultimate goal is for this to be a "family" business, I feel I should do my part. But I'm not a business person at all so some classes could help me figure it out, unless I fail those classes (which is possible because I suck at business) and in that case, I guess Allen is in trouble!

Forgive. I have had a lot happen in my life over the years, things that have hurt me to the core. I have had trouble letting go of those things. When I let my mom in my life, I did so because I wanted to forgive. I thought she had to be in my life to forgive her. But that's not true. Sometimes it's best for a person to not be in your life but you can still forgive the actions they did that caused you pain and you can accept the fact that even though you forgive someone, it doesn't mean it's healthy for them to be in your life. So I have to find a way to forgive, not just my mom but several others.

That's my list so far. I think it's a good start. It's a way for me to really take a step back and look at the things I need to make myself a happier, more pleasant person.

apple pie and bananas

I am pretty excited about the title of this blog because I just made it up right out of the clear, blue sky. And now, I have to find a way to incorporate apple pie and bananas into this blog.

So here goes....

Corbin has not had apple pie yet but he has had bananas and he seems to be mixed on what he thinks about them. He makes funny faces when he eats bananas as baby food but when he eats fresh pieces of bananas, he seems quite content. But my little boy likes to eat and so far, there hasn't been much, if anything, that he's turned down.

Speaking of Corbin, he's 38 weeks old. He's getting pretty close to his first birthday! Scary! In just a few more months, I'll have a one-year-old.

So far, my favorite part about being a mommy is seeing him smile. I love, love, love it when that kid smiles at me. He has a pretty melting heart type of smile so I'm concerned about all the hearts he will probably break. Laughing with him is at the top of the list too. He has the cutest, little laugh. I love to make him laugh and right now, it's pretty easy.

I was unsure about how I'd do at this whole mommy thing and even though I would definitely not proclaim myself mother of the year (especially since I poked Corbin in the eye today), I feel like I've done a pretty good job. Corbin is still alive and he hasn't been to the emergency room yet. I like motherhood. It gives me a new sense of purpose. That, I like.

So, in a nutshell, motherhood is nothing like apple pie and bananas. It's way better!

Ready or not, here March comes

So, I have nothing to report, well nothing exciting. Ok, I guess I do.

Allen's martial arts stuff gets going in March. It's really happening and I can't describe how I'm feeling right now. I'm happy for Allen. But I'm also a little nervous about things. I worry about how this will affect our family dynamic. I already never see my husband with my job and now with him doing his own thing, I wonder how that will work for us? I'm also nervous about the new role this will put me in. I have every idea that at some point, I'm going to get thrown into this whole thing and will have to help Allen. I don't mind it but I worry how I'll find the time to do it. Then I worry if this business venture will be successful enough that I may have to give up my own thing to help him? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I love my job. There are days (weeks actually) that I wonder what the heck I'm doing in this type of business when I'm not exactly a social butterfly. So sometimes, I'm excited at the thought of putting this all behind me and joining forces with Allen to take on the martial arts world. But then there are times when I'm terrified at losing my own identity and giving up what I love so that Allen can do what he loves. Surely, there's a middle point here?

Oh yeah, let's not forget my whole fear of being surrounded by kiddos. I may end up helping Allen teach and kids in large bundles freak me out! FREAK ME OUT! OH good Lord, what am I going to do? My husband is opening a business that caters to scary, little people!?!?

So there's my dilemma(s).

But really, I'm happy for Allen and I sincerely hope and pray this business turns into exactly what Allen wants. He definitely deserves it.

Basketball and kung fu

I used to be active. I played basketball every chance I got and loved any and all sports. I have never been a skinny, athletic looking person but nonetheless I was in fairly good shape. So I could eat cheeseburgers and french fries and drink sodas but I was active enough, I stayed an average size. That's not really true today. And my body can tell.

I keep saying I'm going to go on a diet and start exercising but there's two problems with that idea. One, I hate exercising and two, I love food.

Now, when I say I hate exercising, I mean waking up extremely early and running and doing sit ups and pushups and crap like that. If I'm not playing basketball or any other sport, then the only time you can catch me running is if someone is chasing me. I find people that run just to run a little weird.

When I played ball in school, I hated the very beginning and end of practice because they made you run and run and run and do push ups and sit ups and stretching. I hated that! I understand the point of it all but still, I spent almost the entire 2 hour practice running. I didn't mind running when I was playing defense or trying to get open so I could catch a pass but running just for the "exercise" of it? UM NO.

In basketball practice, at the very end of practice, after we'd run up and down the court a gazillion times, the coach made us do suicides. They call it that for a reason. Here's what you do; you stand at the end of the court, you run to the free throw line and back, then to half court and back, then to the free throw line at the other end of the court and back and then to the other end of the court and back. We did that until we were about to die, or until we would rather kill ourselves than do another one, hence the name suicides. In the middle of practice, if we messed up, we did suicides.

Anyway, the point is, I only like to be active if there's a ball involve.d I can play a game of basketball and would love the feeling of not being able to walk afterwards. In fact, I'd do it again the next day.

But the problem is, where does old, out of shape people play ball at these days? There's no way I'm going to a public park and showing my big, fat out of shape butt off.

I tried to join a gym but I'm way too self conscience and then there's that working out for no reason concept again. Why would I get on a treadmill and walk and walk and walk?

The last time I played basketball I was pregnant. YES PREGNANT! I was at my grandma's and we started playing horse. Of course, horse turned into a game. And I was like 7 months pregnant too! So picture a 7 month pregnant person dribbling a ball around, schooling a bunch of boys. Yep, that was me! Well sort of. I tried to not overdo it but when it comes to basketball, I always do. I had to force myself to stop playing because I was afraid Corbin would have just decided to come early.

So the point of this is what? I have no idea.

I watched Carolina lose to DUKE last night. DUKE of all stinking people! So basketball is on my mind. And, I've been thinking about the whole being fat thing too. So naturally, I'd write a blog about the two intertwined. Naturally.

Anyway, Allen is supposed to be teaching me karate soon. I'm still waiting though. I'm supposed to be his first student. We've tried this before and we couldn't do it because he made me do the whole stretching warming up thing before, including sit ups and push ups and well, as you read, I hate that stuff! So I complained and whined and I guess he gave up. Plus, he had an issue with being tough on me. Apparently in karate, if you have whiners, you have to yell at them and stuff. And Allen didn't like yelling at me. But, he's going to have to learn to yell and I'm going to have to deal with this stretching thing so that I can learn the art of kicking butt.

I'm excited about it. I've always wanted to learn karate. And it'll be a good workout for me because it's not like just exercising for no reason. I'm exercising so I can learn how to kick people in the face and take their guns away and all that violent stuff.

I believe it'll be good for me to because I desperately need an outlet, something to relieve my stress. In the process, I am hoping to get in better shape. It's a win win for everybody, except my body, at least at first. Later though, I suspect my body will thank me.

Have you seen my sexy?

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with an old friend from high school. She was our class president and we became pretty good friends. We didn't keep in touch a lot after high school but we did run into each other here and there.

She's been planning our 15-year high school reunion and somehow, I've gotten involved too. She wants our class to go on a reunion cruise. Not sure how that will work out, as we haven't got much of a response but we're trying!

Anyway, she's someone I can really confide in about things. She's not one of those girls that talks crap about you behind your back or judges you for your past. She knows a lot about me. I've been able to open up to her about a lot of things.

When we met for lunch, we were talking about relationships and she asked how my marriage was. I told her it was ok, that we'd had our struggles and still are working hard to fix things but that we were hanging in there. Then she asked me a odd question.

Do you feel sexy?

Well, if you know me, you know my answer. Sexy, me? Um no. No way.

I've never been one to overflow with self-confidence. I have never looked in the mirror and thought, "Man you are one sexy lady." I have always thought of myself as fat and unattractive. And lately, I've felt extremely unattractive. I don't know why.

But this friend told me I needed to find my sexy. So, since our conversation, I've been wondering where does one find sexy?

Some think of feeling sexy in a different way than what I think she meant. But regardless, I've been on the prowl for my sexy. I'm still looking and I may put an ad in the newspaper. I get free ads, you know, so what could it hurt? Wanted: Looking for my sexy. If you know where I can find it, please call XXX-XXXX.

HA! There is no telling what kind of response I would get!

Seriously, I've been doing some soul searching since then and I realized that I'm just generally unhappy right now. I can't explain it but other than this kid, I feel pretty worthless. It's my own fault. Somewhere along the way, I let myself get like this. I don't really look forward to things anymore. I walk around with this fake smile on my face and pretend that everything is hunky dory but it's not.

The highlight of my life is spending time with Corbin and reading. I like to read because it puts me in this make believe, better place. It's like watching the soap operas but instead of watching, you are reading.

I have no motivation to do any of the things I have mentioned on here; writing, doing a baby scrapbook, anything really.

So, now that I've finally realized all this, I need to change it. There's really no reason for me to be like this. I am very blessed. I have a beautiful little boy, a wonderful family, a roof over my head, a pretty neat minivan and a job that I don't worry about losing. But I guess there is something missing and maybe it's my sexy. I need to find it but I don't know where to even begin looking.