Yet Another Exercise Confession

Who knew I had so many of these?  Hmm…

Well, maybe I already mentioned this, but since about March when the weather started to warm up, I’ve been going on daily walks.  I walk anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours.  Most days, I would guess I walk for about 30 minutes.  There’s so much fun stuff to do and see and I like to be outside moving my body so that’s what’s up.    I just wanted to be honest here.

Another thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that as part of attachment parenting I baby wear.  That is, I carry my 20 pound 2 year old, supported by a carrier, on my body.  If you’re curious, I’m using an ergo baby carrier.  I’m pretty happy with it.  I’m not 100% satisfied with it, but it’s good enough that I continue to use it and be happy with it.  When Lovely Girl was an infant, we used a moby wrap that she grew out of around 4 months.  I carry Lovely Girl on my daily walks and I also wear her for up to a couple hours a day doing housework.  Some days, except for going on a walk, I don’t use the baby carrier at home at all.

I’m still practicing yoga, of course.  I’ve actually changed my practice up quite a lot, so I’ll have to do a yoga update soon.  I practice for about 50 minutes every morning before Heath and Lovely girl wake up.  I also practice throughout the day, rarely doing another 50 minute practice if I’m really feeling like it.  I have been neglecting taking rest days, so yesterday I forced myself to take one (no yoga, yes walking).  I need to rest every Sunday, so I’m making a public commitment here to do that. 

I was not able to give up running, jumping and tumbling with Lovely Girl in favor of an always calm approach to fitness and daily movement.  We just have too much fun!  And Lovely Girl has so much energy; I think it’s important for her to get to run around.  Some days, I get a good work out just keeping up with her!

I think that sums up all the exercise I’m doing nowadays.

Have a wonderful day!

We’re Moving

Hello all,

I’ve been waiting a while to write this post.  Yesterday, we signed documents to sell our house.  There are still a few chances that it won’t work out, but I think they are all unlikely.  Um, this is a huge deal!  The past several months and the past few weeks have been intense!  I’m going to save blogging all about it for later though.  It’s too much to process now.  I can say that I feel more relaxed today than I have in a long while.  Whew!

So where are we going?  We’re actually not 100% decided yet.  We’re considering 2 totally different options.  Option 1 is to buy another smaller house in a rougher part of the city and option 2 is to buy land in Eastern Washington, build a house out there using solar energy, and start a subsistance farm.  Either option would be good for us even though they’re so different!  Either way, we’re getting out of our mortgage and will be debt free, which is a big deal.  It lets Heath focus on his work from home business to support us instead of going back to work in the corporate world.

This was not any easy decision for us.  We know the transition for Lovely Girl will be difficult.  We still think in the long term, a move will be better for our family.  It’s bittersweet though.

Yeah, I guess that’s it.  That’s my really big news I’ve been dying to share. 

Have a great day!!!

Happy Mothers Day 2013

Hello all,

Mothers Day was 2 weekends ago, so I wanted to wish you a happy mothers day and talk a little about mothers.  I hope you had a lovely day celebrating the mothers in your life!

This was the 2nd mothers day for me since Lovely Girl’s birth.  My day was so low key and I loved it.  I just appreciated all the everyday things about being Lovely Girl’s mom.  I love to cook for her and with her.  I love when she runs at me and throws herself into my arms for a hug while we both smile and giggle.  I love talking to her and listening to her!  She says seriously amazing things!  I am infinitely blessed to be her mother.  I’m so grateful God sent her to Heath and me. 

I also got to spend some quality intimate time with my husband on mothers day.  Well, that’s lovely because making love makes babies.  Heath is dreamy.

As you all know, I’m estranged from my own mother now, but I still prayed for her.  Truthfully, I’m incredibly so thankful she is my mother.  She is so tough, smart, capable, beautiful, creative, fun and loving.  I believe we will have a relationship again and that when we do it will be a stronger and a happier one.

Happy mothers day, everyone!

Happy Birthday Vera!

Happy 7th birthday Vera!  Vera turned 7 on May 11, so today she is actually 7 years and 6 days old!  You are a wonderful cat!  I love you, Vera!

Lovers

As you can probably guess, I’ve had sex a lot of times with a lot of people and I had sex before marriage.  For the sake of honesty on my blog, I’ve had sex with 16 people including my ultimate lover Heath.  I had sex for the first time the summer of my 17th birthday and I have barely ever stopped since.  .

I guess I just have a few random thoughts about sex and love and my personal loveolution:

-Ex Lovers: Really, I had a nice time.  I’m sorry if I hurt you. I forgive you if you hurt me.

-Heath: You are my true life destiny.  Destination you.  The moment we met there was magic.  We were transported in time and space and dimension.  I loved the way you held my hand, the way you looked into my eyes, and the way you touched me.  Then I couldn’t leave you.  I just didn’t want to go home.  You were so crafty.  You made me laugh and smile.  You saw the real me behind all my masks and you weren’t afraid to set me free.  I love to make love with you.  Oh, what would life be without you?  I’m so grateful to only ever share the moment of conception with you.  Wow, did that blow my mind!  A real act of submission.  Then we were so blessed to have a pregnancy and for me to give birth naturally to our beautiful, smart and kind baby girl.  You’re a great father.  I’m grateful for every day of my life that is filled with loving you.  You are sexy, you are handsome, you are fit, you are strong, you are intelligent, you are compassionate, you are generous, and you are patient.  We are a perfect match.  I thank God for making you.  You are my knight in shining armor.  You are the answer to all of my prayers.

-I have no regrets about anything in my past.  Every moment lead me to be the person I am today.  It didn’t happen a different way. 

-Love really matters.  Every day we have chance to love others and to love ourselves.

-Sex and love are not unrelated.  I used to think the other way and I learned through experience that I was plain wrong.  Oxytocin, the love hormone or the love drug, is released in large quantities when we have sex.  It’s the same hormone that causes a woman’s uterus to contract so she gives birth to a child.  Oxytocin has the effect that it makes you feel in love.  A child is a union between both parents, both sexual partners.  Half of each parent’s DNA is in their child.  A child is an expression, a physical representation of his or her parents’ love.  The moment when a man and a woman love each other so much that they come together, they are united, they have sex, a new soul is brought to the world.

-When Heath and I became Christians, we decided to get married and start having children.  We felt that we were already married in God’s eyes.  We wanted to fufill His command to be fruitful and multiply.  But I can’t say this is the right choice for everyone.  Sexuality and fertility are personal topics.  I don’t judge anyone for having sex while waiting to get married or having sex without the intention of getting married.  Heath and I were together for 2 years before we got married and they were beautiful times filled with lots of love.  I cherish the time that we spent together as a couple, getting to know each other and falling, easily, more deeply in love with each other.

-This post is not an invitation to have sex with me. I’m done with that! I am happy and complete to be in a monogamous relationship with Heath! I could go on and on about how great that is. Let’s just say I am a happily married wife.

On those notes, I will end with some of my favorite bible verses about sex and love:

Genesis 2:24-25: Therefore, a man is leaving his father and his mother and he cleaves to his woman and they become one flesh. And they were both naked, the human and the woman of him, and they were not ashamed.

Genesis 3:16: To the woman he said to increase I am increasing grief of you and pregnancy of you in grief you shall birth sons and to man of you impulse of you and he shall rule in you.

Genesis 6:2: And the sons of God are seeing that the daughters of the humans are good and they are taking for them women from all whom they choose.

Song Of Songs 2:7: I charge you, daughters of Jerusulem, in gazelles or in hinds of the field, do not awaken the love until which it is desiring.

Mark 10:9: What therefore the God yokes together let no human be separating!

From Darkness To Light

Hello everyone!

 

I have one final life confession for you today.  I’ve touched on each dark aspect of my past in my static page about recovery.  Except one: between the ages of 8 until 16, I was sexually exploited on the internet.  What does that mean, exactly?  I found pornography and adult chatrooms online when I was 8.  Maybe younger, but I remember for sure being exposed to pornography and adult chatrooms by 8 years old.  ASL?  8/F/ALASKA.  Except that I would lie about my age and pretend to be older.  There was an added awkward transition for me in puberty as I approached the ages I pretended to be.  Around age 13, I met an internet predator in a yahoo chatroom who I exchanged pictures with and talked to on the phone.  And that’s the confession.

 

Have a great week!

 

Happy Easter 2013

Hello loves,

Happy Easter!  I hope you all had a lovely Easter.    I know I’m over a week late but I still wanted to do a little Easter post.

We had a lovely Easter here.  The day before, we read the Easter story in Mark.  On Easter, we slept in and decided not to rush off to church.  Instead, we spent a low key day at home.  It was beautiful and sunny here, so we spent the day outside looking at flowers.  I mentioned before that we had flowers in our yard, a few tulips have come up.  On Easter, we showed Lovely Girl all the flowers that are budding and talked about them.  I just thought it was a beautiful way to spend the day.  Spring has fully sprung here in Seattle.

Well, I thought it was important to post about Easter so I can give glory to my master, Jesus Christ.  Becoming a Christian was a hugely transformational moment in my life.  It means knowing that God made me, God loves me and God is always with me.  It means knowing there is a life after death and that I am invited to share in paradise.  I am blessed to be one of the elect or one of the chosen.  I choose to believe in Jesus Christ and the blessings and miracles that result from this are endless.  Thanks, God, for sending Your son Jesus to live on the Earth and be sacrificed for all mankind’s sins so that I may enjoy a close relationship with You!

God bless you!

Gaining Weight

My friends, today I have a big confession for you all: since I started this blog, I have gained 10 pounds.

Here’s a little story to explain how this happened: Heath and I were getting a package together to mail and we wanted to weigh it so we would be able to estimate the postage.  Heath brought out the scale to accomplish this.  While the scale was out, I decided to get on it and find out how much I weigh.  Normally, I avoid the scale, but this time I’m glad I didn’t.  The scale read 108 pounds.  Heath said, “isn’t that low for you?”  I said, “Yes, but I’m happy with the way my body looks now.”  My friends, those words that came out of my mouth were the words of the eating disorder.  It took me some time to figure out that I was keeping my body at an artificially low weight.  The facts that really convinced me were that I was hungry all the time.  I was hungry when I woke up, I was hungry after eating, I was always hungry waiting for my next meal at its scheduled time.  Quite simply I was not eating enough.  I retroactively counted my calories (counting what I ate the day before or most days on average) and found out that I was only eating about 1000 calories a day.  So, I had to decide if obsessing about food and feeling hungry all the time was worth this thin body I claimed to be happy with.  I decided it wasn’t.  I also decided that not only was it not the way I wanted to live, more importantly it is not the way I want to teach my daughter to live.  So, I started to eat more.  I ate when I was hungry and I ate until I was full.  Now my weight fluctuates between 118 and 122 pounds.  It’s been stable like this for a few months.  I would be lying if I said it was not hard emotionally to gain this weight or that I don’t miss my old body.  But I believe this right.  I believe this is my optimum weight.  I’m going to continue to make peace with it.  I do love my body.  It’s strong.  It does so much for me.  It’s the only body God gave me.  I’m doing my best every day to honor it.

For fun, here are 2 pictures of what I look like now:

Happy weekend everyone!

Reconnecting With My Sister

I don’t talk to my parents. There is a lot of background family drama that explains why, but it’s too much for me to write it all out now. Also, I don’t want to write negative things about other people on my blog. An easy way to explain it is with a Nicki Minaj lyric from her song “Fly”: Trying to forgive you for abandoning me/Praying but I think I’m still an angel away.

Not talking to them has been good for me. I know this is hard for some people to understand. Other people totally get it. For now I just want to say: even our families can be toxic for us; sometimes in order to heal and to grow, we have to put those toxic relationships on hold. Sometimes I see bloggers talking about their relationships with their families and I get sad. I wish I could have that. But I know that even if I talked to my parents, our relationship wouldn’t look like that; it never has looked like that.

I know some of you are thinking that by not talking to my parents, I am unable to participate in certain opportunities. That’s not true in my case.

Well, I pray about this sometimes. Maybe I should pray more. About a year ago, God helped me get in touch with my brother. Heath fixed my old phone so that it turned on. My brother’s number was in there. I was ready to call him. That’s been great. We are friendly.

Sometimes what I pray about my family is that they will become nicer people. Like they will just magically be interested in me and supportive of me. But I think God’s calling me to help them get there. But it still takes time. I have to be ready. I don’t want to reengage only to have disengage quickly for my sanity.

Then about the time I started this blog back in October (September) 2012, I was inspired to reconnect with my sister. God told me that if I want to help my family, my sister is an ideal person to start with. He told me that she is the person who is most open to change.

I drug my feet about this for a while. I was dreading making the phone call to talk to her. But I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. So I eventually did it. I called her and we talked. God helped me prepare with this prayer, “Oh God, thank you for my sister; she is the only one you sent to be my sister. Help me to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.” Calling her wasn’t bad. We’ve talked maybe a handful of times since then. But I remained guarded.

2 weeks ago, I think we had a breakthrough conversation. I don’t want to give too much away. I have a lot of hope for our relationship to be a positive one. There have been a lot of times in my life when my sister and I have been very close. Especially when I moved back to Juneau from Fairbanks. We were nearly inseparable. I can just close my eyes and think of many happy, joyous moments with her. So yeah, I’m hopeful there can be more of that. But I’m still taking things slow. It’s ok to take time.

I think this post could be confusing without all the family background. One thing I couldn’t find a moment to mention is that I’m the oldest of 3 kids. I’m 2.5 years older than my sister. I’m 5 years older than my brother. So that means now my sister is 23 and my brother is 20. I hope I got their ages right.

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely week. Oh and happy March! It’s nice to be nearly spring again. Our yard already has flowers.

Need A Math Tutor?

Hello Blogland!

I’m going to take a break from talking about myself for a minute to talk about Heath! Right now Heath’s main job is tutoring. He teaches math, computer programming and science at all levels. He’s a great teacher. His main objective is for his students to understand the material. He has a life long passion for learning and wants to share it with others. I’m not sure if anyone reading this needs a tutor, but it can’t hurt to put this out there. He teaches primarily over Skype and charges per hour or per project on a sliding fee. He knows what it’s like to be a broke student.

If you are interested, please send an e-mail to loveolutionaustin at gmail dot com and I will put you in contact with him.

I hope you all had a great weekend!