Friday evening I went home with a completely bummed outlook on life. I was still thinking about my dad and even though I told myself that Dad wouldn’t want me to bum around or sulk, I just couldn’t shake it. So I did what I normally do when I feel that way. I took pictures of my girls. And it’s like they knew that their mama needed to be lifted up because everything they did was so cute and whenever I need to focus or redirect I just have to look through my lens. A different view on what’s already in front of me.

Livie has this tendency to get into EVERYTHING she’s not supposed to get into. Usually I’m chasing after her telling her no but that night I decided I’d get it documented to show her that she really was quite a little spazz.

Trying to steal the remote.

Trying to reach my purse

ALMOST getting my purse which by the way I only noticed while I was editing because my focus was on Hannah in HER own purse and then I saw Livie’s little hand on the bottom of the frame. Stinker.

And while I worked out Livie got super antsy and crabby and Hannah decided to step in and be a mama to her. So in the middle of my work out I just walked away and got a picture because I couldn’t let the moment go by.

So that was my Friday and by the end of the night I was feeling ok again. My girls, once again, healed me.

And since I mentioned working out, I will say that I’ve officially lost 15 pounds so far. I’m halfway to my goal weight and I feel great.

Saturday morning I woke up and forgot it was my birthday for about 5 minutes. We just laid in bed and talked to Livie and groaned that it was too early to be up like we do every Saturday. And like every other Saturday I grabbed my phone off the dresser and checked my email. I had 27 unread emails and I thought to myself “What the heck? How do I have that many unreads?” and once I opened up my email and saw they were all Facebook messages alerting me that my friends and family were leaving me birthday messages…that’s when I said out loud “Oh yeah! It’s my birthday!” I got over 50 happy birthday messages on Facebook and about 20 on Twitter. I can’t stress enough the good those did me. The Man worked all day Saturday and I ran errands and fought with the girls who didn’t want to behave AT ALL while we were in stores. It was hot and I was sweaty going in and out of places and I finally called The Man at work with an exhausted sigh and whined that my day went from fabulous to sucking. Then he said he was coming home in an hour and that perked me up. We had plans to go to dinner and a movie later on so I put my best face on and headed home from the parking lot of Target where I had a minor breakdown. And like the night before, I took picture because I needed a pick me up. And it worked.

Dinner was good. The movie, Inception, was great. And yesterday we slept in because the girls were gone and ran more errands and relaxed before our family pictures in the evening. Hannah wouldn’t let me get a picture of her all dressed up but the baby did, per usual.

I can’t wait to get these pictures back. Livie was a mess and did not cooperate at all and it was 95 degrees and my hair was huge and frizzy and we were sweaty BUT I still think they’re gonna be awesome. I can’t wait to see them. And on our way home from the session I was thankful that I had the opportunity to get the camera that I always wanted with the lens I always wanted to get good pictures of my girls on my own because there are times, like at that session, where Livie won’t smile and Hannah complains about the mosquitos while sweat is dripping down her nose. It’s then that I’m glad I get good shots at home because my baby girl usually is all smiles.

And all of this, everything I put up in this post, healed me. And I know that is something my dad would be happy about.

Last night I finally got back into my routine. I got home from work, I worked out, ate dinner and took pictures of my baby.

Hannah was at her Nana’s again last night. I feel like I’ve barely seen her in the past week. She was with lots of family in Ohio and I maybe spoke to her once a day in the middle of running around. Then she gets home Tuesday and is off to Nana’s house by last night. It’s summer and she’s trying to live it up. I can’t blame her. So it was just me and Liv for a little bit last night until Hubs surprised us and came home early from work.

I’ve noticed the older she gets she more she acquires Hannah’s toys. In that picture she’s whining and holding up this little Star Wars computer game that she LOVES playing. It’s got worse detail than an Atari and yet she loves it.

She can’t open it on her own though so she’s constantly bringing it to me to open it while trying to keep her balance because it’s kind of heavy. I did try to get a picture of that but none of them were good. It’s super cute though to watch. I promise.

It’s been raining a lot down here lately which is not the norm. Usually summer here consists of temps over 95 everyday and crazy gulf coast humidity and the usual summer drought. No drought this year. It’s been raining for 9 days straight. I’m a bit annoyed at this point. Granted, we missed a lot of the rain enjoying the cool dry weather in Ohio last week but already, in the 4 days that I’ve been back I’ve: gotten rained on, gotten stuck in horrible traffic, and had to walk through a flooded tunnel of brown water to avoid walking in said rain. So needless to say, I’m done with all this rain. The ONLY good part of it is how green my grass is. Seriously, I mean that. Usually in the summer our grass has brown dry spots and it’s so hard to keep nice looking because the heat burns it up. Not this year. It’s so wet in fact that mushrooms are popping through and while I hate the thought of mushrooms in my food or near me, I thought they looked pretty cool in my yard.

When I walked out this morning there were about 5 more in the yard and they looked huge. It amazes me how fast they pop up and grow over night.

And so the new workout. Yes, it was started last night.

This was intense. It made doing The Shred seem like a piece of cake. I was begging for Jillian to come save me after just a few weeks ago I was cussing Jillian out. Now mind you, I liked this more. I like cardio and leg exercises because I have huge legs and need to get them under control. The Shred was circuit training and I’ve NEVER liked that kind of exercise even though it’s so effective. I think this new workout will be even awesomer. Yes, that’s a word (to me). I plan to do it 5 days a week and take off on the weekends. It has an ab burner, a thigh  burner, a bun burner, an arm burner and some stretch workout. I will probably skip the stretching one for now and probably not do the arms as much either as my lower half is what needs the most attention. Last night I did the thigh work out. It had great moves to tone thighs and lots of cardio in between to do that ever famed raising and lowering the heartrate to burn the most calories. I’m excited to see how this changes me in another 30 days. I’ll give an update in 2 weeks and again when the month is over.

Tonight I plan to make Hannah let me take some pictures of her. I need some desperately. I miss her.

I started The 30 Day Shred 30 days ago on May 31. I decided that I needed a kick start to getting in shape and the only way I was going to do this was to shock myself into it. I hate working out. I really don’t like dieting either. But the older I get the worse my blood pressure is getting and the tighter my clothes are getting. Neither are ok with me. So me and a few friends decided that this is what we needed to do and if we all did it together we’d be accountable and more likely to finish. We were right. So many days I wanted to quit. I didn’t feel like going home after being gone 12 hours a day commuting and working to work out. But I did every single day.

And it has paid off.

I forgot to take measurements before I started this but I did weigh in before and after. I’ve lost 7 pounds this month and I know I’ve lost some inches. It might not seem like a lot but I’ve also toned up so I definitely look different. People are noticing that I’ve lost weight and the pants I tried to put on just a month ago fit. I feel so good about myself right now. I feel accomplished. I’ve never in my life worked out 7 days a week for a month. I played sports all through junior high and high school but we had weekends off then.

How does The Shred work? It’s circuit training. 3 minutes strength. 2 minutes cardio. 1 minute abs. It’s it’s 3 circuits of this. The whole workout is 18 minutes along with a 2 minute warm up and cool down. There are 3 levels of intensity. I spent 9 days on level 1, 11 days on level 2 and 10 days on level 3. You move up when you feel that you are ready. I can honestly say that I was not ready to move up to level 3 but I was so bored on level 2 that I moved up anyway. I woke up sore every day. It never went away. I think not having a break in between days was the culprit for that.

BUT it worked, y’all. I will say that if you don’t diet with this you won’t lose much. I didn’t diet the first 2 weeks I did this and I lost 1 whole pound. I was so discouraged. I decided to kick it up and diet the last 2 weeks…I counted calories and did weight watchers points along with it to really keep tabs of what I’m eating all day. I lost 3 lbs a week the second 2 weeks. I’ve never lost that much before in a week in my life and I totally say that it’s the combo of diet AND exercise. BUT if you decide you don’t need to lose weight but just wanna get in shape this is still for you. Like I said, I toned up big time. Even if I wouldn’t have dieted I would have seen leaner, toner muscles. My endurance level has grown too.

What’s next for me? Well I’m leaving tomorrow for vacation and I won’t be back til next week SO I’m fully intending to enjoy the break for those days. But on Monday I’ll be back on the wagon again. I plan to still watch what I eat when I’m gone to an extent to at least maintain the weight loss. I’ve already ordered another DVD to do when I get back. It’s a more cardio based workout which is what I need now to kick up the weight loss again and at least get another 7-10 pounds off. I won’t be doing that everyday. I plan on taking weekends off because doing The Shred on the weekends was tough. It’s the only days I have with the girls and Hubs without work getting in the way and we’re always super busy.

So I’m glad I did The Shred. I’m glad I stuck to it. Special thanks to  Naomi and Lesley for keeping me accountable and doing this with me! I’m looking forward to starting back over next week and kicking ass again!

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And because no post is complete without pictures and I’ll be gone til Monday I leave you with these goodies from last year’s July 4th. It’s one of my favorite holidays and this year I’ll be flying while fireworks are going off all around the country. I’m bummed I won’t have pictures of it all this year but these were super cute from last year. See you in a few days!

Most evenings I take pictures of my girls when I get home from work. I started to realize though that the backdrop is always the same: our living room, our dining room, our kitchen. If it weren’t so hot outside I’d go somewhere else and have pretty outside backgrounds but with it being 95 everyday and the heat index being well over 100, I choose to stay inside and try to be creative. Well, I told Hannah “Alright, I’m getting my camera. Be cute!” Some days she’s all “MOM! Take my picture!” Others? Well, just look.

So I begged and pleaded “Hannah PLEASE! Just be nice. Just for 3 minutes smile and be cute like you usually are!”

“FINE Mom. But only if I can do this.”

Done!

Livie is definitely more into the camera.

She sees me take it out and she immediately starts following me around. The problem is that with the lens I use she can’t be too close or else I can’t get the picture so I’m constantly running away from her and then whipping around to snap some pictures.

So it became kind of a game. She ran after me then I’d turn around and snap snap snap.

It literally cracked this girl up!

So I was all “OMG Livie you’re being so cute. Let’s make you even cuter and put a bow in your hair! Yes?”

More like no. It stayed in for a total of about 1 minute.

And that was the end of that.

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As far as The Shred is concerned, I’m almost done! Today is day 25 which means I only have 5 more days to go! Tuesday will be my last day and I’m planning on a post dedicated to my analysis of the whole month and my thoughts/feelings about it all. And of course a weight loss total (cause there has been some!) and general overall changes. So stay tuned!

So I didn’t really almost die. But omg…I moved up to level 2 of the shred last night. Holy hell. I’d explain how I felt but really, I think my tweets from last night would do a better job.

Keep in mind that this was directly after I finished and I had to rant for a moment.

(Autotext got me there. It’s supposed to be “hell”)

And this is true. I feel like if I can keep up and actually do the workout as it’s intended without taking breaks I’d be thin and lean and TONED. Here’s to hoping I can get there in a couple days. I had to build endurance in level 1 and finally about 2 or 3 days ago I was able to pretty much do it without stopping. Now that I’m on level 2…well there is stopping. I’m hoping that in the next 5 days or so I’ll build up MORE endurance and be able to not stop. Jillian Michaels. She is effin tough. Good lord.

So after my workout, I sat on the couch in an almost comatose state as my girls ran around me and played.

Hannah was on the floor and Livie would run forward…then run backward and try not to look as she made it to Hannah’s arms. Then Hannah would hug her and Livie would crack up and then she’d burst free and run forward to do it all over again.

I was glad I had my camera nearby because I had to hobble to get it. But these are some of my favorite pictures of the girls. Livie was so happy to be playing with her big sister. And Hannah was just thrilled that she could play with her without hearing her whine or cry. They were both so happyand having fun. The whole scene was exactly what I had envisioned when we planned for another baby. Someone to look up to Hannah. Someone for Hannah to play with.

They healed me last night. Not physically but emotionally. Which is exactly what I needed.