Keep thinking about where I was this time last week

I was most likely on the beach about now trying to tear the kids off of it so we could go get some ice cream down a few streets further. It sounds silly since I know that there are prettier beaches, but I still miss it and want to be there desperately. It certainly makes me want to save more dough so I can go back early and often. It is just a more exciting life there. I can certainly, though, in the meantime do things here to make life a little more exciting. Perhaps. We will see. I just wish we were starting vacation rather than ending it. The funny thing is that I was so leery about going. I worried about leaving the house and who would feed the cat. Pretty amusing and all isn't it!
145.3 today. Started some of my jumping exercises today. Gracious. I am going to be sore tomorrow.

Oh and a PS

I am at 146.2 this am...135 here I come. I am going to get in shape!

Did I mention that I love the beach

Maybe it is more the goings on at the beach. We got there and right in front of our hotel there was a volleyball tournament. I do not particularly care for volleyball, but it meant that something went on all of the time right in front of us which was pretty cool. I prefer the people at the beach. They are much more easy going than my suburban counterparts here. Jon Caldwell was a good friend of mine in high school. He totally personifies what I think of when I think of beach people. Very cool, calm, collected and just plain laid back.
Going to the beach invigorated me. It reminded me that I am not 70 so I should stop acting like it. I am the oldest 35 year old that I know. I have lived like this for the last 25 years. I missed so much of my youth (trying not to be so bitter about that part.) Now I feel like I need to live life and enjoy it. I want to do things with the kids and not be afraid to do it just because it might be hard or make the week difficult or put my daughter in bad mood for 5 minutes. I am ready to do things that I always wanted to do but was too afraid to do. It was very liberating going there...I guess that is the best way to explain it. Jon says that I am always controlled. I am very controlled and always afraid of making the wrong move. Who the hell cares? I am not so afraid of appearing foolish any more. I am ready to run a half marathon. I may not make one this year, but I am definitely doing one next year. I am keeping cooler weather runs on my mind too. There is sweetheart one in Feb that I would like to do with the hubby. It is an 8k. I just think it will be fun.
I am ready to get back to the beach now and I mean NOW! I want that cool, laid back feeling back. I hope to keep some remnant of it at least!!

Back from vacation.

The fam and I just got back from vacation. How rejuvenating it was. I seriously missed the beach. I forgot how much I love it. It really is the best place in the world. I have been to Aruba so all of you beach snobs, yes, there are nicer beaches out there. I am very aware of that, but there is something about being at a beach with a boardwalk. There is always something going on down there. It is just fun to watch. I could sit for hours and just watch the goings on on the beach and boardwalk. It is just entertainment pure and simple. I cannot wait to go back. How I missed it. Poor Jon. Now he is going to spend a small fortune on beach hotel rooms from now on. Poor guy.
I took an edition of Oxygen with me. I am glad that I did. It taught me a lot. I am weak. I need to work on strength. I always talk about taking "it" to the next level but never really do. My friend Ann taught me a lot last week. We were running and it was hot...about 80. Hot and humid. We did finish our 4 miles. I mentioned to her that I wanted to stop at mile 2. She said, "Well, you finished and you run even further if you had or wanted to." She was right. As much as I felt like I might fall over, I could do it. It is in me. I carried that thought with me throughout my vacation as I ran on the beach. I wanted to quit some of the time, but I kept on going because I knew that I could do it. Thanks, Ann. She is a good friend. That is clear. Back to clean eating tomorrow and I am going to do it. I am going to get down to 135 where I want to weigh and I am going to run a half marathon (I think--depends on schedule when my son starts school in the fall.) Clean eating and taking care of myself. Folks often say that life is too short to not eat dessert or sit and relax. I say life is too short not to eat well and take care of my body. I do not want to live forever, but I want to live well while I am here and that means taking care of myself and eating well and being healthy and following through on some serious dreams of mine. I tend to get into fits where I lament over what I missed out on in college because I was fat and depressed. Time to make it for it now. I can never get my youth back, but I can live now and enjoy life and enjoy this part of my youth.
No one got sunburned any place other than their face so I think I did fairly well. I totally sweat that one!

They say everything happens for a reason

but there are still some things I do not know why they happen. I had close friends lose their daughter in a tragic accident 6 years ago. I was pregnant with my first child at the time and I just remember not understanding why she had to die. I could not understand why that was part of this great plan. Then her parents later went on to have another child they never would have had otherwise. Then I understood a little more. Would they return their son to have their daughter back. I am betting not. It is a complicated issue. In theory, you would want to have both, but one would not exist without the other passing. I personally think that their son is going to do something great in life. Maybe he will cure cancer. I do not know, but there is a reason he is here. I understand that. What I do not get, though, are the types of stories I read about yesterday. A five year old found a gun in his house and accidentally shot his 2 year old brother in the head. What purpose does that serve? As a mom, I will tell you that I had I been that mother, I would have gone to jail over it. Why? Because I would never have let my 5 year old know that he had shot his brother. I would have claimed it as my own fault. I would not want my child knowing that he did that for the rest of his life, and as a five year old, he would eventually forget. They would take me to jail, but it would not matter to me. So tell me how is that accident that happened with the brothers part of this great plan. I cannot make sense of it.

Tomorrow

I got a new calender today to help me keep track of my workouts and my life in general. My old one ended so it was time. I told my hubby last night that I just want to be me and pretty much that is it. I just want to be happy with being me. That means living a little more and worrying a little less...I hope. We will see.

We had a great day....

It was a super way to spend sometime together...I have to admit that I am a bit of a fan of the Fresh Beat Band. The show is cute and I think the singing and dancing. I do not like the new red haired chick. The old one was really pretty. Oh well. Things change.
Speaking of change...lord do I ever hate getting old. We went to a water park today. The kids loved it. It made me feel old. I was thinking back to when my husband and I lived in Williamsburg. Why the hell were we working at a restaurant instead of hanging out at a water park all day working there getting sun and staying fit. How stupid we were. It would have been a much better and probably positive lifestyle for both of us. Being there today made me think of how much time I missed out on in college by being a miserable person in general and working in the restaurant only added to that. Rather than getting me out amongst kids my own age and maybe adding to who I was as a person, I wasted my time hanging out with townies who were negative, unhappy, not the best examples, and were not people who would help me be a better person. I missed out. So did my hubby. Living that way aged me and made me older than I was, and I was not one who necessarily needed any help with that either, trust me. I spent so much time waiting to be older as a kid that I never really lived in my youth. Now I feel like I missed out on so much. In some ways Jon and I still live like that so today we broke out of our shell a bit and did something completely spontaneous. Never ever before would we have woke up and had breakfast and then decided to take an hour plus road trip to go a water park without a lot of planning first. It just never would have happened before. Never.
I am tired of feeling old and tired. Some days I am so tired. I am over it. I want to feel young and energetic. I felt younger around Christmas when I was rowing on a daily basis. I want to feel that way again. I love running, though. I hope to have found a way to incorporate both. We will see how my new schedule works out. The am runs are getting tougher as it gets hotter each day even first thing in the morning.
I just find it so sad that it has taken me so long to find the best version of myself. If I had found her a decade ago, certainly life might be different, but then again, maybe not. I would never want to change all of the wonderful things about my life...my husband, my kids, or my job. Life is funny.
My largest tomato plant has fallen over. I staked it so I hope it makes it. It has the only tomatoes I will eat on it. The other plants are cherry tomatoes which I will not eat. (Although they are quite plentiful.) Gardening is tough work and so disappointing when a plant falls over and dies so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Wondering what spontaneous thing we might do next week....wondering if that will happen. For now, my only goal is to get to the gym each day and to row 12,000 meters this week. We will see.