Feeling Lost

Sometimes I feel so lost.

Have you ever just felt lost and like you didn't know the direction your life was headed?

That's how I've felt, off and on, since college up until now. It hasn't been a consistent feeling, but the fact that this feeling has been ever-present in my mind for a prolonged amount of times is "no bueno" (not good), "tres mal" (very bad) and just the pits.

Well I finally am done with feeling lost.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

I am ready to do what it takes to have assurance about the direction that my life is headed.

This doesn't mean that I am going to know exactly what I will be doing with my life (besides taking care of my precious boys), but it does mean that I will have comfort in knowing that whichever direction, industry and/or purpose I take on, it will fulfill me.

I have finally put my trust and faith in God, and that means I will not be "searching" for my next career field, but letting God reveal it to me. So when an idea spontaneously pops into my head or when I have a strong urging towards an idea, that's when I'll follow it because those are the ideas from God, and after all that's the whole point of my renewed introspection.

Have you ever felt lost about a certain area of your life? If so, what did you do to navigate your way through? Did you try to organize the clutter of your mind by making lists of desires and goals, by meditation or what?

The Post Partum Pooch = Diastasis

I've missed blogging a lot. I took quite the break, huh?
Well, I've been kind of overwhelmed emotionally regarding my career or life's purpose. I just couldn't find time for blogging in the midst of those emotions.
Plus, I'm still slooooowwwwwly unpacking boxes at our new place. I'd like to get every single box unpacked and have all the miscellaneous items that we haven't seen in 2 years.

I replaced my blogging time with nothing other than the gym. LA Fitness to be exact. I'm so ashamed to admit that I still am not at a place in which I can wear a two-piece bathing suit but the rest of me is looking pretty darn good! I only do about 10 minutes of running cardio a week and spend the rest of my time LIFTING WEIGHTS. And I'm in total love with it.
I'd like to think that I moved into beast-mode this past week. I do 4 sets with 30-45 seconds of rest in between each set. Supposedly this higher intensity burns the same amount of fat that our usual forms of cardio. I'm pretty sure I need to do both high intensity lifting and regular cardio. Now that the weather is more consistent, I'll probably do early morning runs. I detest treadmill running.

Regarding my post-pregnancy tummy: I did tons of research and realized that I had a slight abdominal tear, otherwise known as diastasis. This is where your abdominal muscles were spread so much that the tissues didn't come back together after birth. I wish it didn't take me 2 years to realize it. Oh and regular ab exercises actually prevent the muscles from coming together and tightening. [No wonder I still had a mini pooch.]

I visited a couple of body-building gyms, and one gym rep said that she thought I would need to have a tummy tuck and the other gym rep said I wouldn't. Of course I started obsessing and after googling and you-tubing tons of research on proper exercises, I'm finally starting to make some headway. I also bought a diastasis splint associated with the Tupler Technique. I'm hoping I'll be where I want to be or at least closer to my goal by the end of the summer. Hey, the end of the summer is better than never.

If you have an questions about the Tupler Technique or diastasis, let me know. You're not alone!!!

New House, New Workout Shoes and A New Snack

We're finally, officially Texas residents!

 We packed up the rental house ourselves; rented a UHaul and moved all of our shit household items ourselves (with the assistance of one very helpful friend) and then unpacked...okay well almost unpacked all of our boxes.
Mother Nature, who is obviously having an identity crisis, decided to rain on our 'moving day parade.' But like NeNe from Housewives of Atlanta says, "One monkey don't stop no show." We moved in the rain, with our tiny humans getting in and out of the way.
And of course, daylight saving's time was the next day. I'm tired just thinking about it right now. Especially since I'm sitting across from 5 different-sized boxes. Sigh. Life goes on....unpacked or in boxes.

The sellers left us a bottle of champagne in the fridge!

The seller(s) also left us a very nice note filling us in on the neighbors and their families and all of the upgrades that were made to the house since its construction.
We were able to keep the refrigerator since he didn't want to ruin the hardwood floors moving it out. So now we have 2 refrigerators! Which works out perfectly since we need but never bought a deep freezer. Anyway, our congratulatory champagne was a nice surprise.
Something we can do when we sell!

Even though my life was in boxes, my work out gear wasn't. #KeepItTight

I like my shoes. :-) They're the Pegasus' and really comfortable.
Orange laces. Yellow swoosh. #TeamNeon
 

Gotta stay colorful. #KeepItTight

 

We got our new mattress!!!!!!!

Goodbye back pain and hello peaceful night's sleep.
We had to get splurge-y and buy a memory foam. Our old mattress really messed us, well me up in the head. Death to spring-loaded mattresses!!!
I gained 40-lbs with each pregnancy and our old spring-loaded mattress was my support.
"You ain't got to go home, but you got to get the hell up outta here!"
{That's how I feel towards my old mattress}

My new snack addiction. $2.98 at Walmart.

Better than popcorn and pringles! Once you pop, you can't stop!

 

 

Its Been A Long Time..... + Cash Giveaway!

"Its been a long time...
...I shouldn'ta left you...
.....Without a dope beat to step to...."

You all know how life gets in the way....so please excuse my absence. I've missed updating and staying up to date in your lives but I'll catch up really soon.

This post is really about a GIVEAWAY!!! I'm so happy that I am apart of a cool giveaway like this.
The prize? $100 cash 'mahhhhney' for 2 participants! Cool right? Yeah, I agree.

You don't have to follow tons of people that you may not have similar interests with if you don't want to....but it certainly increases your chances of winning.



KimberlyLuxe // Maybe Baby // A Lovely Day BR // GG Renee
Mackensie G // Femmes With Benefits // Love, Darbie // Elle To Elle
RC // The Urban Umbrella // Aphrodite Kinks // Call Her Courtnee
Never Jaded // Work It Out Girl // Fendi Bag & A Bad Attitude // Carmen Vogue
ThinkFeminist // Memoirs Of The Chic // Mylah


We're hosting a giveaway! And 2 Lucky Girls will win $100 each! This giveaway requires a couple of simple mandatory tasks:
[1] comment below with what you'd do with the money
[2] then enter the rafflecopter using your facebook login or your email address to submit your entry!

If you have a few extra minutes to spare, you can submit multiple entries by completing these super simple tasks on the participating bloggers' sites! And you're not limited to one entry, you can submit up to 27 entries! The giveaway closes on the 1st of April and the two winners will be announced and contacted on the 7th! Who knows, in two weeks you may just be $100 richer. You have nothing to lose, and $100 to gain!

1 Mandatory Easy Submission | Simply comment on this post with what you'd do with the money & then enter into RaffleCopter!

Quick Way To Follow Blogs | Log into blogger > Go to your blogger dashboard (blogger home page) > Click "ADD" under "Reading List" > Paste link to blog you wish to follow > Click Follow!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Time To Get Crafty! - Cardboard Box Car

When I first started this blog as well as when I first joined Pinterest, I was soooo inspired to become a crafter. Well, after a few novice-level crafts, I soon realized that I will leave that to the more artistcally-gifted group of DIY-ers. I left the crafter's group with my head held high....figuratively speaking of course. I'll occasionally venture back into it....but only for a occasional holiday, school project or maybe a birthday. My 'craftiness' will have to stay dedicated to the kitchen.

Fortunately, the wonderful thing about kids (under 4-5 perhaps) is that the crafts that you do for them are absolutely amazing in their eyes. Hmmm now that I say that, I should probably change what I said in the first paragraph and do tons of crafts this year while they appreciate it and can't notice all of the blatant spots of imperfection. This, this I will do.

Anyway, at my sons' parents day out school, there are different thematic days to get parents involved. One of those days is 'Drive-In Movie Day' where parents (along with your child as long as they like to help and not tear ish up --like my youngest) decorate cars made from cardboard boxes, wagons or laundry baskets. I'm not going to lie, last year was our first year in the program and we didn't participate. Poor Drew didn't have a 'car.' It could've been due to pure laziness or not knowing what to expect, but after seeing some really decked out cardboard boxes, I knew that we had to participate this year. Plus, I couldn't send TWO boys with no 'car.' If we're apart of the same parents day out program next year, we'll have to step it up a notch, especially since this was done in one night.

My boys are still obsessed with Disney Pixar's Cars characters. We used to have about 13 different cars (gifted from their GG) from the Cars 1 and Cars 2 movies, but my youngest with through a phase of being enamored with our trashcan and would secretly dig in and throw away different items.
How do I know? I would either catch him near the trash after the fact, look through it and recover said items OR I would put two and two together after days of searching for lost items.
As of today, we only have 7. Thanks Reid.
And, we used to have 3 different advanced-level sippy cups. Now, we only have 2. Thanks Reid.
We are preeeettttyyyy sure that he trashed them. Secretly of course. If I would have caught him at the end of the act, I would have certainly recovered them. Each Cars-themed car is about $3.50 or $4 and that cup was $4 or $5 for a package of 2. We're not buying anymore cups because he's moving to straw cups only next and we're not buying anymore Cars-themed cars until they're on a much better sale. I mean, you can get a package of 10 Hot Wheelz cars for the same price of just 2 Cars-themed car. I'm just explaining the reason of our frugality.

Soooo, out of the 7 Cars-themed cars, my oldest loves Lightning McQueen and my youngest loves to carry around Finn McMissile. So that's what my husband and I made.

And they still love it.

If you'd like to make one of these for your kid, girl-themed or boy-themed, go here for easy instructions. What we did varied from these instructions but it gave us a good starting point. Oh and paint was $0.57 at Walmart. I bought 2 bottles per color but only ended up doing 1 coat instead of the 2 coats needed, so I had paint left over. The 4 bottles were definitely enough for 2 coats for each box.

Next time, I'll actually let them paint with me.

Weekend Birthday Pictures - Food & Family

So as I told you here, my 30th birthday was this past weekend and instead of 'painting the town red,' I spent time with and consciously appreciated being with my family.
I only got fed up with constant whining for maybe 5 minutes. Yay!
I was so excited to see them have fun during our day of no schedules.
Which included skipping church and letting Thomas & Friends babysit the boys while we took a nap. Hey, they like to get up between 6:30-7:30am even on the weekends so that nap was much appreciated!
I guess that means that 'schedules' create a bit of stress..............well, maybe it has more to do with always being behind schedule that creates some of my everyday stresses.
Annnnnnnyyyywaaaaaaayy, check out some family-food-filled pictures below.

Saturday, I found a new stylist, got my hair straightened and had a 1/2 inch trimmed off. Waahhh! At least it was a cute style.

I looked pretty darn cute and of course didn't take a picture. We were late to the sitter's house and then to dinner. Ugh. One day I'll get these outfit posts together. Anyway we had theeee most delicious sushi. We pigged out, ordering 5 rolls and spending a LOT of money. Oh well, we had a great time though. If you're in Dallas, go to RA Sushi and get the Viva Las Vegas roll (shown in the picture). We ordered it twice!

Say cheese!

Wake up Sleepy Head!!!

Yep, the front exterior is a gas station. Chef Pointe is near Fort Worth, TX.

#Foodie

The appetizer on the right is SO delicious! They are 3-cheese mushrooms drenched in a buttery, scampi sauce. They are 'smack somebody's mama' delicious!

I'm pretty lucky to have tiny humans that actually stay in their chair.
By the way, my oldest is usually a photobomber and makes the face he has in the picture on the right allllll the time, unless you use your stern voice. This time we coordinated a 'silly face' picture though.
Luckily my youngest doesn't do that yet, but I'm sure he will next year.

How was your weekend?

Turning 30 and Looking 18

Source: cheune.com via Larissa on Pinterest

Yesterday was my birthday.
It was my 30th birthday.
Finally.
How does it feel?
I don't know. A birthday is a birthday.
I feel good about turning 30 because I still feel and look so youthful. Ha! Thanks to my height, healthy eating and the lack of [ever] smoking, I'm still told I look 16 or 18. I'm reeeeeeaaallllyyyy going to appreciate hearing that when I'm 50!
I'm excited to finally leave my 20's. I feel like I made so many mistakes of caring what people think, being manipulated by guilt trips and not self-reflecting enough on what I want to do as opposed to what others want me to do. Others and people = my family and my husband's family (excluding my mom). They mean well even if it is for their own personally-fulfilling reasons.
I've been viewing my 30's or maybe just my 30th birthday as a magical time when a 'fairy godmother' flies over me sprinkling wisdom dust releasing my inner Oprah.
Then I won't waste any moments regretting not speaking up when needed or giving a damn when I shouldn't.
Wishful thinking but doesn't magic happen in your 30's? Only if you make it, I'm sure.
I have no big plans. No trips across the states or across the 'pond.' No self-thrown parties. All celebrations that my single/unmarried/kid-less friends did. And of course they'll be in my current season of family as soon as I leave it. Its just the way kismet-{fate} works.
Just me and my hubs having a kids-free night on the town.
And a moderately-sized shiny new house.
I'd say those are the only gifts I need.
The season of my life right now is all about family, my husband, our boys and providing stability in our routines. In a couple of years, it'll be a completely different story. For example, my 3-year old already wipes our kisses off. Pretty soon, he'll be requesting us to not kiss him at all in public.
I'm going to enjoy this season and hope pray for more wisdom.
I'm still going to be on the lookout for my 'fairy godmother' though.

Did you have any pivotal/life-changing moments on a specific birthday or did you have any hopes for life-changing moments after you reached a certain age?