Countdown to 40

Today is Saturday October 8th. Lately I have had a LOT on my mind. In 41 days I will be 40.

I've always had goals in my mind that I would achieve by the time that date arrived:

1 - Be done having kids.
2 - Get my body back into the best shape possible.
3 - Be doing what I want to do for the rest of my life (job wise)
4 - Be financially stable and able to start having fun.

There are others but they are more "bucket list" type things. Not necessarily things that had to happen by a specific date.

How am I doing on my goals?
1 - As far as I know we're done. Feels right. I always wanted 1 more but finances and health have put up some major road blocks preventing any more additions to our family.

2 - Working HARD on this one. I've lost 25 pounds this year so far. I have been on a plateau for the past 2 weeks but have been hitting new all time lows again this week. How am I doing it? Big one is using the "livestrong.com" website helped me be MUCH more aware of calorie intake. I find that it's not hard for me to live on 900 - 1,500 calories a day. Sometimes I get majorly hungry and I eat but just watch portion sizes. Eating small amounts more frequently. I drink a large glass of water (my tumbler cups can hold 16oz or more of water) about 10 min before I eat. I feel full MUCH faster than when I forget to do this. I also have been using our elliptical machine for at least 1 hour 3 days a week. I'm going to be charting my progress on another post.

3 - This is still sort-of on hold due to the fact that I still have a 2 year old at home. I want to get back into the film industry. I LOVE the type of personalities film draws. Everyone is super creative and slightly crazy... or is it slightly creative and super crazy? I've recently helped out with rotoscoping on some of my husband's film projects. I miss being on set though. The "hurry up and wait" environment. I also love photography. I'm saving up for a Canon 5D (my current dream camera). It will be a LONG time time before that goal is met but I have to have something to aim for.

4 - This goal is the one impacting 2 of the 3 goals above. Our finances have been hit so hard lately that my hands are severely tied. We're squeaking by only with help. I have become a genius at feeding and taking care of a family of 7 on what we bring in every month. I should have a master's degree in frugality by now.

At the moment... The one goal that I can have the biggest influence on is #2 - my fitness level. I will be posting updates on that progress in another section of this blog. I'm pretty motivated and excited.

Update at last . . .

I find myself so wrapped up in the little here and there posts on facebook that I have all but forgotten my precious blog. My blog... where I get to project a little bit more of "me" than is possible on FB.

While our lives continue to be plagued with financial stress - actually more so than I ever thought I would ever be able to endure - I do have some happy-ish developments. Since I quit nursing my daughter, my body is finally releasing much of the weight that has been my heavy companion all these years. I have lost more than what I gained with the last pregnancy. I think the last time I was this weight was around 2004 ( between "Power Ranger" and "Tinker Bell"). I've dropped about 20 pounds in the past 2 months. I should be ecstatic... why would I call this "happy-ish" developments? Well, I have noticed a sudden recurrence of symptoms I had when we left our last house. It made me sick... VERY sick. I have recently found myself stuttering, losing muscle strength for a few seconds, headaches, extreme exhaustion, fatigue, confusion, disorientation, lack of desire to do anything etc... Our old house suffered from mold. I was having major neurological problems towards the end. It was during an extended vacation (11 + days) that I realized that my symptoms were lightening up (while away from home). About a month after moving to this "new" house I began to feel human once again. Why are my symptoms suddenly returning now? While laying on the sofa, holding my head and covering my ears in an attempt to calm the rising throbbing pain in my head the thought hit me.... I'm losing fat.... the same fat that has encased and protected me from the toxins that made me ill for all those years. The fat was now being used to give me energy but it was also releasing my greatest enemy.

I am more determined to push onward and lose the remainder of the weight. In 20 more pounds I would be at my goal - what I weighed at my wedding... the same I weighed in high school. Hopefully I can lose all the nasty toxins that are stored within the fat that remains. This is a side effect I was unaware to be on the look out for.

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4 out of my 5 kids are now in school. This is the last year that everyone will be in elementary school. Next year the twins move on to Jr. High. Time is just flying by faster and faster. I don't want to miss anything. I really enjoy these kids.

I need to count up just how much reading I did over the summer. It was quite an impressive amount.
5 out of the 6 books in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. 2,142 pages
Catching Fire and Mockingjay (hunger games series) 781 pages
Beyonders (Mull) 454 pages
Twilight series (4 books) 2,446 pages (read series in 2 1/2 weeks)
Candy Shop War (Mull) 409 pages
The Last Olympian (Riordan) 381 pages

These are all I can remember reading. There might have been others.
14 Books - 6,613 pages
All this from a girl who barely cracked open a book throughout all of high school and college. I guess I'm using reading as my escape from life. It never fails to crack me up... I went from cringing from the tiniest of books to purposefully seeking out those with the fattest spines so I have a lot to read. I picked the Inkheart series based on the InkDeath book - 683 pages.