New Years Resolution - Spend less time in Crazy town!

This is a super big year for the Clark family.  Lots of growing up, and life changes are on there way! I dont want to miss a second of it and I am sick and tired of being tired and run down, so I here the way I am doing it.

I am lifting weight 3 days a week and doing cardio 2-3 times a week - this does something to my brain that kicks me out of the depression stage along with the following:

1- Daily Vitamins - I use Melaleuca

2- Whole food B vitamins ( made from animal liver ) Yes they are as sick as they sound, but they are working. -  helps with depression, mental clarrity, weight loss - etc.  a girl's best friend.

3- Iodine - for a healthy Thyroid - healthy thyroid = healthy hormone levels = less crazy

4- Krill Oil - Mental Clarity, gets rid of any inflammation ( I have a lot from working out right now) and the omega 3's balance out the overload of omega 6's ( from Corn) that I tend to overload on.  Too much corn in my body leads to inflammation and memory problems.

5- 8 hour so of sleep so I can wake up excited about the day. ( which only happens with the above supplements and working out or I would be tired if I slept for a week.)

6- Minimum Intake of sugar and empty carbs. - I love them but they make me sluggish and fat!

           ******    I have been doing this for over a week now and here are my results     ******

I wake up before my alarm ( unheard of) I'm motivated to do stuff ( by stuff I mean being a mom and a housewife) I have been living in a fog, and it is like the fog has been lifted and everything that used to take all my mental energy and focus in a day, I can get done in an hour....so crazy.
I leave my house - lol- I have dejunked my bathroom, and my laundry room, and my closet, and they have stayed clean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am just taking it one room at a time, and then I have out in those rooms because the rest of them make me want to scream.

I am doing my bedroom last, because I used to hide in there, and now it is the messiest room in the house and I dont want to be in there at all! Woot to me for using a messy room to motivate me.

I am remebering that I am an awesome person with things to offer the world.  Feels good to do it without medication!

The road to sucess.

This month's Theme -  The road to sucess is full of bumps and the occasional dip.

I should change it to Lumps not bumps, the worse part about building muscle is you can feel the fat so much better sitting on the muscle......gross.  And as for the dips, you know who THEY are, I swear if one more person tells me I am crazy for doing this I am going to scream.  That ought to simplify what is worong with this world ina nutshell, no one wants to anything hard, or that involes self control or sacrifice.

I have lower body today, and I pushed myself so hard on monday I can still barely move.  I am praying for the motivation to get myself to the gym. 

I have a pair of bright Yellow heels that are mine when I lose 5 pounds, and as much as I hate weighing myself because the scale isn't moving thanks to my muscles, i should  have said inches when I made the deal.  Stupid 5 pounds. 

This is the hardest part for me.  I am sore and tired, and I am not losing weight, and the muscles in my body are full of water.  I am getting bigger instead of smaller.  I know it goes away,  and in the next few weeks I am going to see some changes.  I am not discouraged just impatient, and I have to keep reminding myself it took two years to do this to myself, so if it takes a year to undo this mess I am doing great things for myself.

Uhm Ouch!

I am finally done going through my carb withdrawls, and have got my body into a pretty stable ketosis state. (If you are wondering what Ketosis is -  in a nutshell it means your body is getting it's energy or fuel from fat stores instead of the instant energy provied by empty carbohyrates)  I am  still a little run down, but I am going to attribute it to the fact that I can't move without hurting somewhere.  It's the good - I worked my muscle out- kind of hurt, but pain is pain and it tends to make one not want to move.

I love getting to this point because my body no longer screams for me to put garbage in it.  It always helpful to the weight loss process when your body is working with you.

I have of course gained a bit of the weight I lost last week back due to muscle, but I can already see my stomach flattening out a bit.  I don't really care what the scale says other than for reference.  If you are not doing weight it can be a great tool, but a tapemeasure is my best buddy.

My biggest setback...I hate to eat.  I find it inconvenient. 

Today is upper body again, whoooooo hooooo my favorite.  I cannot stand working out my lower body, it make me mad to think i have to do it again in 5 days...even when I was in the best shape of my life, I hated it.

Oh an in case this blog entry bored the crap out of you......i wrote it for me. :)
Later days,

Kami

Eating healthy is hard- but not for the reasons your thinking.

So I have cut out empty carbs, and preproccessed foods from my diet.  So no chips, candy, crackers, little to no fast food, no sugars, breads.   Do you know how hard it is to eat enough calories when you cut that stuff out of your life?  Hard!!!!

 I ate a marinade chicken breast, pinapple, broccoli and cauliflower, and I still had less than 400 calories, well it would have been 400 calories if I had been able to eat it all.  I ate 3/4 of it and I was so full I had to stop or empty myself of the previously comsumed calories....I had a small snack 2 hours later 100 calories, and when dinner rolled around I was still so full I almost cried when I had to eat. 

I am going to have to get some avacados and sugar free peanut butter, and nuts, or add more butter.  Something to get my calories up... People who diet are stupid.  If you eat good food you don't have to worry about ever being hungry again. 

Someone asked me why I was on a diet and I laughed.  I am not on a diet I just stopped eating the stuff that was killing me...(except one meal a week that I can eat whatever I want)

No if I could just figure out some cardio to do that i don't dread.

Sometime Utter Horror is the best Motivator

I have been trying for 2 years now to find the motivation to get back into shape, and no matter what I have done it just doesn't stick.  I have tried paying myself, I even have a 15 year reunion this year and not even that has been enough to motivate me.  I think we all have to have some driving reason to do something we don't want to do.  Well I finally found mine.

I knew I had gotten fat, and I could see how heavy I was but I was still only mildly disgusted.  Phil and I have been teaching a couples dance class which has been a blast except for the mirrors everywhere ....you would think that would have been a motivator right?......Nope I can just look at my face and my feet...I think those are cute.  At the end of the session We made a video that is a quick review of the steps so our class can pop it in if they forget a step.......you guessed it, that was my horrifying moment of true awareness.  it wasn't that I was fat, I already knew that, it was the stuff I edited out...me walking away from the camera to ready position.....I had that nasty fat lady butt. I don't know if I can describe it....it's the one that your body makes all kinds of jiggle creases and bumps when you take a step.  That jiggly fatty bouncy butt you could feed a family of four off of.

I processed it eternally since my sweetheart was sitting next to me while I edited, but inside I was a wreck....I don't see that angle of myself, and he has been looking at it for years...... :(

So it is the beginning of week #2  I am down 2 of the 30 pounds I need to lose.  Now 30 pounds may not seem like a lot, but I am under 5 feet, and I carry most of  my weight in my lower body.  5 pounds can be a full pant size for me.

Goblin project. #4

Here is the finished project. It took forever to post it I know, but better late then never right? I was so busy making costumes for my other kids I ran out of time for some of the cooler accessories I wanted to make., I turned out all right in the end though. I dont have any picutre of me making the hat, and you wouldn't want to do it the way I did anyway. I just started sewing pieces together and pinning and ticking until it was somewhat how I wanted it. Then I sewed the edges of the hat, vest, and some leather patches I sewed on on my pants ( which you can't see) with artificial sinew. The costume was about 20.00 total as I had to buy more liquid latex. I wish I could pind the pictures I took of my pants. They turned out super cool, If I come across them I will update this blog

I was feeling kind of bad that no one came and talked to me at the party, but I found out later that no one knew it was me, and I scared the crap out of most people....That is my definition of a perfect costume. Halloween is in 6 months, and I need new ideas for this years costume....anyone?

Project: Troll / Goblin Costume #2

I decided to start with the leather vest. Here are the two leather jackets I got for 3.00 each.



If you have money to go out and buy leather, you can skip this part, but if you are cheap like me and have more time than money I took a seam ripper to the leather coats. I am going to ue the smaller pieces for my hat, and the buttons will go on my vest See the big pile of leather pieces?

As I was taking the jackets apart, I realized I could keep pieces in tact so I didn't have to sew them later, I also cannot sew, so this helped a lot. I cut these peices out because in the middle there was this really ugly western pattern, that I cut away. Then I sewed these two pieces together, and trimmedit to a vest shape. I am going to distress this so I was not to worried about how nice it looked. I also changed the plan for how he vest will look, It was so easy to do it this way, so I am not going to make a patchwork one.

Here is the back panel from the same coat. I folded it in half and cut out the two vest pieces, I made a bad patter by tracing a shirt that I had. I liked the idea of the seam running down the front, a later on I am going to make this looked peiced together.

Two front pieces, that I attached to the above back panel, trimmed it to fit, and then sewed it together. I didn't worry about sewing it nice, since I want it to look like a goblin or troll sewed it, which incidentaly is the same as me sewing....coincidence?

Here is the basic structure of the vest finished. I still have to sew some on accents, and distress it, but that will be for another day. Yeah Me!!!

Project: Troll / Goblin Costume #1

I love halloween. It's a great time to use your imagination, and change the way the world sees you for a day. It is also a time of year when people spend 30-40 for cheap ugly costumes, If I am going to spend 30.00 on a costume, it bettermake people stand up and take notice.

This year my costume is going to be a troll/goblin/hobbit looking costume..I am calling it a troll, but it looks nothing like the long point nose demon looking creaters that came up when I googled trolls, and goblins.

Here are my idea sketches...note that I am not an artist, these took me all of 10 min, and were not meant to impress anyone except with the general idea of what I hope to create.

Side Profile - Helmet / hat, makeup ideas
I don't know why this keeps loading sideways, you'll just have to crank your head

Front View

Back view

Back View

I wanted the vest, and hat to be made out of leather, but leather is ridiculously expensive. I went to the thrift store and bought two big leather coats. They only cost 3 bucks a piece since they were missing buttons and had ripped liners...perfect. I am going to take them apart, and use the leather to make my costume. I am not sure what I am going to do for the pants yet. They are probably going to be some aged white capri's I got from the salvation army for a dollar.

I bought a large pair of pointy ears for less than 4.00, and a big nose for around 3.00. I already have latex, nose putty, and makeup that I will use for my face from previous years

I have the shirt already from previous halloween costumes (pirate, and mountain man) This is a great tip for saving money. We have basic a basic white dress, black dress, capes, and such that can be used as wedding dresses, vampires, witches, zombie's, zombie brides, etc.

So far total spent:

6.00 - leather coats

1.00 - white capri pants ( maybe)

4.00 - ears

3.00 - nose

------------

14.00

The goal is to stay far below 30.00, I will post more pictures as I begin my costume.

First Day of school

I have never been so excited for school to start . This was a crazy summer. The mosquitos were so bad we didn't go outside much, so I am pretty much nutso. The kids were way excited...well except chase because he is 11 and he dosen't get excited about anything.

Alora is in 2nd grade this year, She is pretty excited to be back in school, bu none of her friends were in her class, so she is a little sad about that.

Brooklyn is in 4th Grade this year, and she is so excited. She loves school, and she is the most excited about having access to the school library everyday.

Chase is in 6th grade. He is way to old to be having his picture taken, and I could only get him to smile when I told him I wouldn't come to the middle school next year and take pictures of him on the first day,

We had breakfast together as a family at the school, and then said our Goodbyes. Boston was pretty mad that he dosent get to go to preschool until next month. Poor Talli she is going to have no one to play with.

I have been busy being a mom, and I am trying very hard to lose weight and get my body healthy again. I stil love my sunday school calling, and I love the kids I teach. We have been blessed with a great ward.

It is starting to get cooler here at nights, which means less(ish) mosquitos, but it also means winter is coming. This winter is supposed to be worse than lastan I can't even imagine that.

We sure are thankful for a job and the great town we live in. North Dakota doesn't have much to offer, but the people here make up for a lot of that.

Hope you are all doing well. We Love you.

I am amazing because I can kick my own butt.

Boston was laying by Phil yesterday, and he said, "Dad I am amazing" when Phil asked him why he thought he was amazing he said, " Because I can kick my own butt!" We laughed about that for a while, and then I realize my son had given me a great life lesson.

So my theme of the month is: I am amazing because I can kick my own butt.

No one can change my life for me. I have the power inside of me to change things, so I will. Little actions can result in big changes. In my religion we believe that part of the purpose of life is to learn to overcome the carnal side of your nature or the natural man. I have been overcome more than been the one doing the overcoming more often than I would care to admit.

When you get one of those ahah moments and everything clicks into place, and it seems so simple you wonder why you never put it all together before. So today when I went outside and it had rained all night ( I hate the cold and wet) I could only glory in the smell, the chorus of birds, and the fact that my struggling lawn got a good drenching.

Little actions:

A good attitude full of gratitude
Simplify my life life - I did a lot of that when I cut down the internet and the television time.
Fill my life with little joys

I realized that while I may never be amazing at something, I have the same amount of time as everyone else and how I spend it is my choice. So all the time I was wasting surfing and watching live stream video, I am teaching myself to play the Irish tin whistle, I am keeping a journal, I am getting my house organized again, I am spending time outside everyday, and I go fly my power kite once a week. I am also taking the time to read stories with my babies and play more with my kids.

So I am trying not to beat myself up about letting myself be overcome by the world, and losing that precious time, Plus I am counting the kicking my butt as my exercise for the day. :)