Hobbies

Here's the deal: I have many hobbies. I enjoy sewing, organizing, camping, exercising and wellness, ceramics, and cooking. I love working with horses, reading, writing, watching movies, and hanging out with my absolutely wonderful family. As a mother, I can't focus on each of these as much as I would like to. Also, as a mother, I believe it is important to focus on them as much as I can. This will not only help my sanity (thus keeping me more pleasant with my family), it will also help my family to understand the importance of enjoying life, of constant improvement, and of discovering and developing their talents.

As I said before, I enjoy organizing, weird though that may be. And so, as I work to improve myself and my abilities, I will do my best to document them. This will help to keep me accountable to myself as well as show how my talents improve from this point forward. It will also help me to prioritize and see where I spend my time. Hopefully, I will come to know myself better and also become a more round person. Well-rounded. Something. :) Stephen Covey would be proud.

To begin, I must start with a story, because that's who I am. :) Yesterday, Ryan and I went to the Temple. It was my first time going in months- understandably, I believe. I went to get dressed for the trip and ended up having a panic attack because I couldn't fit into any of my clothes. I've been just getting by for the last two months, wearing clothes that are not terribly attractive... and wearing them in the wrong places. Like a skirt that is supposed to sit on my hips, but that ends up just under my ribs because that's the only place the waistband would fit. I ended up wearing an old skirt that couldn't zip up all the way and a stretchy shirt. It worked, but I avoided mirrors as much as possible. It seems such a minor thing to be worried about, but one year ago I fit comfortably into size 10 pants. I felt so much better about myself. I had worked hard to get there! Now, I don't even fit comfortably into my size 12s. And so, my goal is to fit back into my size 10s. I am not attaching a timeline to this at the moment, because I have some added challenges from the last two times I lost weight. Really, they're all encompassed in one word: Cara. My wonderful, beautiful, happy daughter. I don't have the freedom of time that I used to have to go exercise whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted. Also, I have to maintain a certain number of calories to ensure that I can feed her. Getting my body back will do me no good whatsoever if I put her in any kind of danger. Hence, for the first little while, I am simply going to figure out how to start shedding excess pounds. The first thing I will do is start riding my bike, 3 days a week, for an hour a day. Wish me luck!