Thinking. It's a dangerous thing.

After I went through my divorce a million years ago, I learned a few things that I've shared with friends here and there who are struggling with a marriage or a partner.

First, the #1 cause of divorce is selfishness.  Abuse?  The abuser is selfish.  Infidelity?  The cheater is selfish. Money problems?  One or both partners is being selfish.

Selfishness can be fixed, but only if the selfish one wants to fix it ... and the one who is being walked on wants to stick it out.

This leads to my second point:  Forgiveness is an entirely separate issue from trust.  Whether or not you choose not to stick out a relationship, eventually you do have to forgive the other person AND yourself for whatever happened or whatever you did during the relationship.  However, if you've been abused or cheated on or the selfish person will not change, you never have to trust that person again.  Ever.

Selfishness is a sticky thing.  Yes, you should look out for yourself.  But deciding to spend money in a selfish way to the detriment of every person who relies on you is a very bad thing.  Deciding to abuse the trust of the people who love you is selfish.  Cheating on the people who chose to have you in their lives is wrong.

I've been thinking about these things a lot.  And they really apply to our country's political sphere as it is.  Congress as a whole is selfish.  Pay increases, taking payoffs, voting for lobbyists and against their constituents, blocking any measure a president from the opposing party presents just because he's in the opposing party, exempting themselves from the nationwide healthcare system, lifelong retirement income  ... SELFISH.  It's abusing the trust of those who voted them in.  It's cheating them from an honest person taking care of the people of our country.  It's stealing from their constituents.

This has nothing to do with who is president or who might be the next president.  I believe both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are good men who want what's best for our country, even if they might disagree about what that best is.  I think they both know our economy is in the toilet and needs help, but I don't know that either of them (if elected/re-elected) would have the power to do anything to fix it, because Congress is selfish.  Congress is bought and paid for, and not by the people of our nation.

We don't all have to agree on every issue to agree that the system is broken.  How do we fix our now-broken system?  If I had that answer and the power to fulfill it, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I do believe every long-standing member of Congress should be ousted and lobbying should be illegal.  Taking payoffs for votes is wrong.  Congress no longer represents the people; they represent corporations and special interest groups.  And that is wrong.

We should get rid of selfishness, stupidity, and hate, and see if that helps fix the country.  It doesn't matter what your lobbyists want.  That's not who you swore an oath to.  Who cares if someone from the opposing party presents a bill?  If you agree with a bill and believe it's the right thing and what your constituents want, vote for it!  Quit padding bills with special interests and items that have nothing to do with the bill at hand.  You are wasting OUR time and OUR money.  


Here's my open letter to Congress.


Dear Congress:


Quit being selfish.

Sincerely,

A voter

And my open letter to the next president

Dear Mr. President:

If you want to create jobs, repeal NAFTA.

Sincerely,

A voter whose medical job was offshored and is now done by people who don't speak English

p.s.  that used to say "repeat NAFTA", but that was the opposite of my intent.  HA!  Proofreading: It's a very good thing.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

I know, I know.  A lot of people think we're crazy to use cloth diapers.  But really, it saves money.  It reduces the amount of trash we're throwing away.  They get reused over and over, after a good sanitizing wash.  We recycle as much paper and plastic and metal as possible, and we don't use paper plates or paper towels, so it just makes sense to me to use cloth diapers, too.  Plus?  Look how cute they are!  (made these for a friend's baby a few years ago.)

And another friend made these for us last year!  We use them several times a week.

Why this post today?  http://castleink.com is offering scholarships for posts about reducing, reusing, and recycling!

It's amazing what happens in a couple of weeks

And I'm not talking about the whole eat-better-lose-weight thing.  Because that's pretty much not been my focus the last two weeks.  <bag>

I've really been debating this teaching deal.  I love kids.  But do I love other people's kids enough to teach them and then still come home and be a happy mommy?

So I started reevaluating things.  Talked it all over with the husband and a few other people.

I have applied to nursing school.

Nursing school can be very expensive.

We're looking for any sources to pay for this because I need to be done ASAP.  So if you win the 500 million dollar lotto, send a little love my way, eh?

I'm applying for this (not school sponsored) scholarship, which is based on a popular vote of a web essay.  I hope y'all can vote for my essay HERE.

Not Monday yet, I know

I was getting the kids ready to walk and my fabulous landlady mentioned a great walking route -- up the main road a block away, 9 blocks pretty much uphill, then it's alllllllll downhill down a nice little paved trail, and back through town.  It's about 2-1/2 miles total.  That's the longest I've walked in a long time.  Pushed the stroller most of the way, though VOD helped a bit.  We're both exhausted and the littles are all over the place.  lol

I haven't been on track with my eating as far as eating good stuff, but I haven't gone over my calories today.  And tomorrow is a new day!

Livestrong

I've been tracking my calories and walking every day.  I've only managed to stay within my 1800 calorie goal one day so far this week, but have significantly cut my caloric intake.  It's that time of the month here, so I've had a bit of bloat and lots and lots of cravings, many of which I've given into, though I have avoided chocolate completely.  I have only had one headache this week.  It was last night and wasn't too bad.

Still having a bit of Pepsi every day, but that has been drastically cut back.  I totally ate comfort food for dinner last night -- homemade mac and cheese with bacon and onions.  hello.  I also ate a huge salad and a nectarine.  lol.  Eating more fruits and veggies and less junk overall.

However, because I've only managed to stay within my calories once, I don't think I'm adding a new change next week.  I really don't want to sabotage myself because I want and expect these changes to stick.  If I stay in my calories the rest of the week, I may change my mind by Monday.  The one I will be adding is "no eating after 8 p.m." which may actually help stay within the calories.  HA!


Even on my worst cycle day with cramps and backache, we still walked about half a mile yesterday.  I'm pretty proud of myself for that.  It's been so awesome to have Little Mister ask me every day to go for a walk and run in the stroller and play outside.  He's loving having a more involved and active mommy, and I know VOD is, too.  She got really upset with me yesterday when she got in trouble, because I told her she got to stay home from the walk and clean her room.  I relented and she picked up her dirty laundry when we got home.

As of right now, I'm down 7 pounds from my high weight this week with the pre-period bloat, which is down 4 pounds from my high last week.  I know that will slow down eventually, but I'm loving seeing some results so quickly!  I feel less bloated and have more energy for the most part.  Can't wait to see what happens in the coming weeks and months!

p.s.  I have no idea why some of the words in this post have hyperlinks.  Bizarre-o.

I'm disgusted

I haven't actually tracked my food intake since like October.  I know I've been eating too much.  My body tells me so in many ways, but gaining weight to the point my fat clothes are snug is a very.bad.thing.

So, the last few days, I've written down every single thing I've put in my mouth.

I'm just appalled.

This week's change is to drastically cut my calories and track everything I eat on Livestron.  Now, I'll still be eating around 1800 calories a day.  That's the number my trainers came up with when I wasn't working out hard.  Since I'm not working out hard yet, just walking still, I'm starting there.

This change will affect other things.  How much Pepsi or sugar I can ingest.  The type of grains I eat.  Fruits, veggies, proteins.  Those sorts of things will be affected.  I intend to cut WAY back on Pepsi this week.

I'm willing to bet, though, that at the end of the week, I'll be feeling just that much better and proud of myself for sticking to it.  Like last week.  I walked Monday and Tuesday with the husband, and Wednesday through Sunday with the kids.  Even on days I felt not so great, we still got out and walked.  And that is a change I am proud of.

These shoes were made for walking

It's Thursday.  I decided this week would be the beginning of the changes.

I made a list of things I know I need to do to get healthy.  Some are smaller changes than others.  Quitting Pepsi is probably going to be the biggest challenge.

I'm not ready for that yet.

This week, I've walked 4 days.  Two with the husband, two with the kids.  It's pretty cool when I've decided, "oh, I'll walk tomorrow," to have my kids all come and ask to go for a walk with me.  That's motivation.  Maybe I can get the kids on board with keeping me on track the week I quit Pepsi.  

Anyway. I have two more days to go and intend to walk both of them, no matter who decides to come with me.

The crazy part is that I've been craving more fruits and veggies while implementing just this one change.  Still drinking Pepsi.  Still eating sugar.  Those are other things on my list.  There are a lot of them.

After successfully completing this week with walking, I'm going to choose another change to make next week.    By the end of the summer, I should be pretty far into my list and feeling much better, whether the scale reflects the changes or not.  The number on the scale isn't what's driving me.  My health sure is though.

I'm going to try and post twice a week from here on out:  Once to post the change I've chosen for the week and the other post as an update.  Wish me luck.