Size Doesn't Matter!

I thought this was fitting with today's post! Size really doesn't define you, it doesn't indicate your personality, the amount of love you have to give or the size of your heart. Your size is as big as you allow it to be in your life (no pun intended).

Travel Pounds Accumulated!

Be prepared.. I think I'm about to rant!

As you know we have recently been away for 10 days and when you're traveling as I well know it is really easy to pack on a few unexpected pounds. With our schedule we are usually in a rush, needing to be somewhere at a certain time and often our travel is done in our truck so we often stop quickly and grab something to eat while in the car! Not to say that we don't try really hard to make healthy choices but on occasion that isn't possible and we need to work with what we have!

After our month of consistent travel when we left Alaska I definitely put on some weight. We are use to eating super healthy and going to the gym all the time, so while in Hawaii we did a lot of laying by the beach and pool, drank our fair share of sugar filled cocktails and tried different restaurants that had entrees too tempting not to try! Then we were on the road basically for the next 15 days straight, sitting in a car for 12 hours a day doesn't leave a lot of room for exercise, so in part regardless of what you eat you aren't doing much to burn off calories!

When we landed in Saskatchewan it was really important to us to get back to our own routine of healthy eating and gym time! In the just over a month we were here before heading out again I started to feel a lot better, I was working hard towards losing weight and feeling better about myself and really getting there... until vacation rolled around again. Truthfully I'm not sure how it happened this time, I didn't think I ate too terribly and we really were on the go a lot while we were away. Sure I ate things I normally wouldn't, but its also hard being in someone else's home and still eating the way you might cook at home. Not to mention the fact that for me at least when we go home there are certain things my Mom makes that I just have to have!

So here I am again, back at home and feeling porky! I don't know why I take it so personally, why I have such a hard time with my body image. For as long as I can remember its been a bit of an issue for me, but not until adulthood did I really put a valiant effort into trying to become more comfortable with myself. Truth be told I want to be thin, I don't want to be heavy, I don't want to be ripped, I want to be thin. I look back at pictures of myself when we lived in New York and I was in the best shape of my life and I miss that! I went to the gym every morning and my trusty walking partner Tanya McMann and I walked those city streets all day everyday! I have never felt better about my body! But yet some how I let it become something I'm not happy with.

I find myself comparing myself to others, sometimes looking and wishing I was their size only to find out I am or smaller.. but I cant see that for myself. I know very well that comparing yourself to others is the worst thing you can do and that achieving my goals is on me and how hard I am willing to work. I guess sometimes its frustrating to feel like you are working so hard and not seeing the progress you wish you were.

So we are back in Saskatchewan and back at the gym and I am on a pretty strict diet with tons of fluids because struggling to get dressed every morning and finding something I feel comfortable in is not a good feeling. 

All the while feeling like this I do tell myself all the time that I need to focus more on the great feeling going to the gym gives me and not just going to lose weight. I need to eat to nourish and fuel my body, and I need to do it in the right way.. not just to lose weight. I know the right way to go about achieving my goals and I do make sure I always choose the proper healthy way to go about losing weight even though I on occasion feel like I could achieve my goals faster with a little less eating and a little more working out!

Last night when I came home from the gym I had a shower and got in bed to do a little pinning ;) and came across this... which made me feel a little silly for how much emphasis I put on how I look, reading this made me feel good and I hope it does that for you too.

The Militant Baker: The things no one will tell fat girls... SO I WILL

Take a moment

Sometimes when the day gets to be too much, you can find solace in a hot cup of tea and a quiet moment! When things get to be too much, take a minute to look at the positive and get yourself in that mind frame, a moment now could save you a lot later!

~PiNNeR PaSSiOn ~

Have I ever told ya'll how much I absolutely LOVE Pinterest? How I regret my initial resistance when everyone else expressed their love for this brand new website that left everything you could imagine at your finger tips!

When Pinterest first transpired I heard bits of information about the website and its endless possibilities, my mom would tell me on a regular basis how I need to get a Pinterest account and would fill my emails with fabulous ideas, recipes and clothes she found on Pinterest. I don't know why I resisted, I think at the time we were living in Alaska and I was working all the time and had very little spare time to spend touring websites. Well one boring day at work I gave in and my life has never been the same!

I started my Pinterest ventures without an actual account, I would just peruse and write little notes about the things I found and recipes, occasionally sending myself emails with things that I found that I felt may pertain to my life one day, a recipe I may try, etc. Eventually I broke down, got an account and started my own boards. I believe we all start with the basic boards, My Styles, For the Home, Recipes, etc. We might dress up the names a little, give them our own personal flare but everyone has those basic boards!

As my pinning world has expanded I now have 26 boards filled with fun, exciting and wonderful ideas! I feel like my Pinterest allows you to get to know the real me! Visiting my Pinterest and perusing around will allow anyone to know my interests, hobbies, creative ventures, clothing style, eating habits, fitness goals and so much more! I find myself finding a pin that interests me, clicking on the board, then clicking on the pinner and realizing this person and I could absolutely be friends in real life! Ridiculous? Maybe so!

Having now had my Pinterest account for quite some time I have noticed it evolving and becoming much more user friendly. In the last few months you can now send pins which is a fabulous idea! How often do you see something and pin it just because you wan to tell someone else about it, or you want them to see it on their feed because you know they follow you! Well now you can just send it to them instead... GENIUS! Now the best new feature of all, Pinterest now sends you a friendly little "Psst, you've already pinned this..." and it tells you to which board you have pinned it too.. AMAZING! How often do you revisit your own boards and realize you've pinned the same thing 4 times, and then wonder why if you thought it was great enough to pin four times why you haven't done the craft or tried the recipe! Sound familiar?

I will admit my Pinning love has only intensified since obtaining my lovely iPhone.. how did I ever live without that phone? or pinterest in my hand where ever I go for that matter? To be perfectly honest (I'm putting myself out here guys, don't judge) I'm really not a patient person, at all. I hate waiting, I hate waiting even more when I feel like its unwarranted! But waiting doesn't seem as infuriating when I can just sit and pin away while doing it!

I try to make a point to go through my boards every once in awhile and erase duplicate pins (funny how that can still happen sometimes, even with a warning), and I delete pins that I look at and wonder why I pinned it in the first place. Somehow I feel if my Pinterest boards are clean and organized my life somehow is too!

Recently I have added two new boards I am pretty excited about,"Drink Up!" which you can view HERE, it is full of all kinds of wonderful summer cocktails! As well as "Snail Mail" which has been great for finding wonderful ideas to make snail mail communication a lot more fun and creative! Take a look HERE!

All in all I think Pinterest is a fabulous creative outlet, an amazing way to share fabulous ideas and put fabulous ideas to good use! If you don't have an account I highly recommend you get one, find those amazing ideas for outdoor fun with your kiddos, great recipes for the family, home decor fads, and clothing to fill your closet! If you get a minute check out my Pinterest boards right HERE!

Time Flies when you're... SUPER BUSY!

Well we are back from our trip; I apologize for not being more in touch like I had planned. We decided against taking the laptop because well, truth be told we really didn’t have room for it! Because we will be moving down to North Carolina and won’t be in Saskatchewan as long as we thought, it made sense to take some of our winter stuff down to North Carolina and leave it at friends of ours to limit the load on the way back! It was hard to part with some of my stuff I’m not going to lie but in the end it made sense, especially considering the fact that Jason may be here packing up on his own to head back depending on how things play out!

We really had a great “vacation” if that’s what you want to call it! Really for the most part we were super busy so the time actually flew by! We have decided that on our next trip, which we have officially booked for July 11^th until the 21^st, which we will not be taking the same flight as flying that early and having to drive a long distance to get there just didn’t work out!

If you read my blog the night before we left you are aware of the maintenance issue we had the night before leaving (leaking roof), so unfortunately that night I managed to get no sleep at all! I was up, dressed and drinking coffee on the couch at 1:30am waiting for Jason to get up! We left our apartment at 2:00am and although we figured there would be no traffic we didn’t really account for the bad weather we were about to encounter. Our whole drive the wind and rain was HORRIFIC, it added quite a bit of time to our trip that we didn’t exactly account for. By the time we got to the airport we parked the truck in long term parking, checked in and had enough time to grab a quick bite to eat before boarding. Unfortunately for some odd reason I was suffering from some pretty severe heart burn, I swear I have had that stuff maybe 5 times in my whole life… thankfully because that stuff is HORRID!

Our flight was pretty uneventful; it just felt long having had no sleep! We landed in Toronto on time and got our bags before entering the heat wave! Good lord when you haven’t had much heat in awhile when that humidity hits you it’s like a wall! Truthfully at this point I was so tired I felt quite sick and the heat just wasn’t helping my situation! When we arrived I had a nice little nap before getting out and visiting, Jason however couldn’t sleep probably knowing that my brother was home from work and headed over! That night Jason, my dad and brother headed North for a boys weekend while us girls were hanging around the city to indulge in some much needed city life!

Monday morning Jason and I were up and on the road by 5am on our way to Raleigh! We knew it was going to be a long day of driving but it was probably the best trip we’ve ever had down there! We didn’t hit any traffic at all and truth be told the weather was great, naturally as we got more south the humidity was a little more drastic but we couldn’t have asked for better travel! We had little time in the area so we wanted to make the most of it. We went to the home site first and when we arrived to see that they were already breaking ground and flagging the lot was so exciting!

 

Our time in Raleigh was mostly spent doing things to get ready for the house; we did manage to get in a little American shopping which was great! Good lord how I miss Target! After all our house excitement Tuesday night we headed down to see the Seavey’s and meet miss Amelia for the first time! We had a really great visit before heading back to Raleigh VERY early Thursday morning to meet with the contractor before heading back to Toronto!

Unfortunately our drive back wasn’t so stellar; we encountered rain and fog pretty much the entire drive and all that fabulous expected traffic through Virginia and Washington DC was in full force! Having spent more time with the contractor than expected and the miserable weather we didn’t get back to Toronto until almost 11:00pm!

Friday the guys headed back north and my weekend in the city was less eventful than the last but really nice! Our flight went out Sunday night at 6:50pm so we went a little early with Pearson being such a large airport we didn’t want to risk long lines! We made it back to Regina later than expected and drove back to Estevan! The last two day have been basically getting back in the swing of things, unpacking, cleaning up, and catching up on all the things you miss while away!

I promise now to be back on my blogging game, I know I have a lot to make up for! Keep an eye out for some great new blogs this week though, just because I wasn’t posting doesn’t mean I wasn’t writing!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Practice Makes Perfect!!

Everyday Counts!

Everyday counts, don't let the small things get you down! Live life to the fullest!