Wow! Really?

I need to vent.  I haven't been on my blog for a bit.  There have been a number of reasons.....sick, busy with work, holidays, spending time with my family, sick, dealing with a couple of kid issues, busy with work, issues with my ongoing neck

White Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!!  As I type this, I'm watching it snow!!  In the matter of about an hour, our weather went from rain to freezing ice pellets, hail and now it is snowing pretty hard.  There is a slight accumulation on the ground. 

We're having a Happy Thanksgiving and a White Thanksgiving!!!

                                                             

As I reflect on my life, I have such deep gratitude in my heart.  We have a tradition in our family to say regularly, especially on Thanksgiving Day, what we are grateful for. 

My Gratitude List:

1.  My health.  Health, well-being - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually is everything.  It is the ticket to allow you to live your life full out.

2.  My family - my hubby, teen son and pre-teen son, even Jake the dog and Sam the kitty.

3.  My heart family - friends that don't share your DNA but share the real deal things in life.

4.  My close friends - I'm into quality, not quantity. 

5.  My job/career (including my achievement of being a PCC with the ICF, coach training instructor).

6.  Some of the people that I am so fortunate to work with in my job and professional coaching.

7.  My coaching clients.

8.  Our home and our favorite future home someday.

9.  Big Cedar - my favorite place to get away.

10.  The Blessons (Blessings + Lessons) that I have in my life everyday, that allow me to continue to personally grow inside. 

11.  The fact that I am solidly on track in my life.  I am on track with my goals and strategies I've created in my life to live my very best life.

12.  The big and small things in life that have happened in my life in the past to make me who I am.....whether challenges, difficulties, sweet successes and accomplishments and all the ones in between.  I am grateful for who I am today and wouldn't be able to be that without them.

13.  My life today that is so meaningful and fulfilling.

14.  My future and what it holds for me, my hubby, my sons, my friend-family that are all so special to me.  Future....bring it on!

P.S.  And the fact that my pumpkin pies that I made turned out awesome!!  :)

You Never Know The Direction A Day Can Go

I woke up this morning still upset and hungover from the events with my pre-teen son over the weekend.  As I got ready for work, I made the assumption that today would suck.  Well.......very far from it.  I'm so happy to be wrong.

Nothing has changed, fixed or taken care of.  I had the opportunity to talk with a close friend about what happened and gain some perspective plus some action steps that we can do.  I've still got the same concerns but am clear as to what happened.  For me, when I understand then I am able to process it to assign meaning as to what the next steps are or if any to take.  I'm wired with the need to understand so I can process it and go for there as to what to do if anything.  Friends, true friends, are a priceless part of our lives.  So....."friend" - I treasure you!

What's my lesson from all of this?  I've learned tons just since Saturday.  However, the one for today is not to make assumptions about things.  I just knew that today would suck.  For all sorts of reasons, I figured today would be one of those that you count the hours until it is over, go to bed and start new tomorrow.  Not today!  While I don't have any solutions, I have many helpful insights that will make a huge difference for my pre-teen son, myself and our family. 

Lesson learned!

Silver Lining of a Sucked Saturday

Extremely rough day yesterday.  Without the frustrating, upsetting, pushed to the limit details of yesterday, needless to say that parenting can sometimes just suck in a major way.  My pre-teen son can try my every last nerve.  Yesterday was off the charts difficult.  Today is a new day but I still have the hangover from yesterday.  I hope there will be a happy ending to the story with him. 

The bright silver lining is that I stayed on track yesterday.  I cannot emphasize how major that accomplishment is for me.  It was the parenting day from hell....the depths of hell.  Staying on track yesterday shows me that if I can stay on track on a day like yesterday, I'm solidly on track.  Solidly on track with my emotional eating but also my life in general.  I didn't allow it to detour me from my personal growth, eating on track and staying grounded - being my OWN SHINE. 

The true test was yesterday.  If I stayed on track from everything yesterday, I feel very secure in the fact that I'm honoring the commitment and promise I've made to myself to stay on track no matter what. 

Among my blessings that I am deeply grateful for as we approach Thanksgiving, my commitment to myself to stay on track and being so solid with it is one of mine.

My Minutes Today....iPhone/App Update & FLYing

I'm feeling better today.  Not sure if it is because it is Friday and that starts family and friend time or that I posted last night how I was feeling, talked to a close friend that has a way of kicking me in the butt and/or giving me warm fuzzies AND knowing exactly the right time to do either or both of those things, had a nice talk with both sons or a combination of all of the above things.  Regardless - TGIF!

Since having my beloved iPhone and all of the hundreds (yup, hundreds!) of apps that I've found, I've had so much fun with it.  I hate to be dramatic here but in so many ways, due to these little various apps, my life has improved so much in so many ways.

One of the apps I've downloaded is from the AOPA of which I'm a member as a pilot.  I love checking various airports that I've flown into and looking at the illustration of the runways with all the information on the airport.  I've relived so many fun, happy memories of flying into the airports.  Too bad I can't take those memories inside me and put them on a video or in photos! 

Becoming a pilot was such an awesome accomplishment.  One that I had to grow into.  As a teenager being able to drive, I would go to our airport and watch the planes take off and land.  I would watch that for hours.  Being in the environment of the airport (we had a small one - one runway!), watching the people but mostly the planes.  Aviation back then was nothing like it is now.  No metal detectors or body searches.  I would walk right up to the huge wall-to-wall window where I could see the entire runway and just sit for hours.  Watching the planes taxi, take off and land. 

Fast forward "FF" to a few years ahead.  I lived in California with a huge multi-runway airport.  Again, pre-2001 so easier to access.  While it wasn't as friendly and accessible as my smaller city airport, I could walk in and watch the planes.  I found a better spot outside the airport that I could sit.  It was right up to the chainlink fence that separated a parking lot from right where the planes would taxi, wait and pull up to take off.  I also had a great view of planes coming in, positioning themselves for the ILS, putting down the flaps and landing gear to land.  Like a judge at the Olympics, I would rate the landings from 1-10.  Hanging out in the parking lot by the chainlink fence was my favorite thing to do at the time. 

Hitting the "FF" button again, a few years later, I was kinda bored with my life.  I was looking to pursue.  Something fun, challenging, new skill, involved learning, an accomplishment.  I remember so clearly going to a flight training school close by me and sitting at the front of their building parked in my car.  I sat there for probably 30 minutes thinking about it.  I studied the building, still in the parked car, thinking about it.  I backed out and never drove there again.  I remember what made my decision for me not to get out of my car and go inside was that a person that took flying lessons was someone other than me, and that I couldn't do it.  I even remember berating myself for even thinking it was possibly for me.  I decided that my love of watching planes didn't extend to ME actually flying a plane because I wasn't _____________ enough (you can fill in the blank, I guarantee I said it to myself that day).  People that were pilots were things that I wasn't.  My interest and love of watching planes, airports, aviation were limited to just sitting on the sidelines but never play on the court of being one of those people that were pilots.

To be continued.......

On My Mind...

Since this is my own blog and created solely for the purpose of writing about whatever is going on with me and documenting what's on my mind, I'm going to write about it here.  This is MY space so I blog about what is going on with me - good, bad, ugly, funny, upsetting - you name it.  I'm having a hard time going to bed because my brain won't shut down.  A close friend of mine once told me to "use my voice" and it was fantastic advice.  Since she told me that, I've used my voice a lot and it feels great!  So, I'm using my voice here, on my own personal turf, so here goes my voice just venting.....

Sometimes, things just suck and aren't fair.  I feel as though I give and give and give and give, yet it isn't recognized, appreciated or valued.  Not to boast or brag, but I bring a lot to the table of whatever I do.  Many unique qualifications, experience, education and personal attributes that are ignored and undervalued.  Why is it that some of the most loyal, dedicated people are overlooked and undervalued?  Yet, you are still expected to be a bubbling brook of endless enthusiasm when you are treated poorly, excluded from things you should be a part of and rewarded embarassingly to the point that you don't want to think about it much less talk about it.  Aren't things supposed to be (at a minimum) somewhat mutual?  The expectation of 100%+ yet the treatment is way, way less is very one-sided.  Isn't loyalty a two-way street?  I am feeling very frustrated and just sick of the same old stuff.

On the flip side, I'm staying on track which is awesome.  Despite feeling some pretty intense negative emotions and experiencing some difficulties, I've stayed on track.  Woo Hoo Me!  I feel awesome about that.  Believe me, I'm going through a challenging time that in the past would have caused me to dive headfirst into my sugary, carb-laden trigger foods.  Nope, not now.  You will find none, zero, nada zippo Krispy Kreme boxes in my trash!  WOO HOO!  And the great thing is that I feel very solidly on track.  I feel very "screwed" in a certain situation in my life yet the more screwed I feel, the stronger I feel with the commitment to myself of staying on track.  I am so deeply grateful for that. 

I think I'm going to go for it for Thanksgiving.  No, not eating but cooking.  Yep, you read that right, cooking!  We've always either gone out to a nice restaurant or brought something in that we got from a restaurant or catering place.  This year, I'm doing it.  I'm going to cook.  So, I'm on the lookout for for delicious healthy recipes.  Remember, I also have to consider my picky pre-teen son when I am on the hunt for recipes.  The last time that I decided to cook Thanksgiving, I didn't pull the turkey out enough in advance to thaw.  We had to put the turkey in a water bath, set the alarm every 90 minutes to change the water.  Not a great Thanksgiving memory (but funny now that I'm writing it).

Another memory was when I was making rice.  It cooked too long and wasn't any good.  So, I poured it out in the sink, ran the garbage disposal and made some more.  Problem was that I put so much rice in the sink that it expanded.  Do you know how hard it is to find a plumber on Thanksgiving Day?

That's pretty much what is on my mind tonight as my daily minutes.

Cupcakes for Dinner?

Yep, you read that right - cupcakes for dinner.  And they were healthy!!

Update on my quest for healthy eating by my pre-teen son. 

This weekend I prepared a new dish and I had him help me.  We'd had an issue for breakfast earlier that morning so I wasn't sure how it would go.  He helped me mix everything together.  I milked the concept of pride of the chef - if he makes it he'll eat it.  It worked.  It was a delicious dish to begin with.  It included ground turkey and grated veggies.  I baked them in cupcake tin.  So, we had cupcakes for dinner! 

At first, he was so-so on the entire thing.  He slowly warmed up to eating it as he became more involved in preparing it.  We used a mini-loaf pan and the large 12 cupcake tin.  Here's the rating:

Out of 12 cupcake:

Husband:  Gave it a thumbs up - 12 out of 12 cupcake rating

Teen son:  Gave it a double thumbs up - 12 out of 12 cupcake rating

Pre-Teen:  Gave it a "This isn't bad, it is pretty good" - 10 out of 12 cupcake rating
(PB&J and pizza would get the max rating)

There were six cupcakes left over.  My teen son was getting them out to eat them.  (Do you know how much teenage boys eat??!!!  Unbelieveable.  My grocery bill is as much as our utility bill in the middle of winter!)  As teen son was heating them up eagerly to be able to enjoy them again, pre-teen son spoke up and wanted one saved for him.  After a bit of back and forth hassling, teen son had to give in and share one of his SIX after I gave him the "Mama Look"!!!  Awww, sweet success again.

I consider the cupcake dinner a success!  I will definitely prepare this dish again and make a few additions to it to make it even more fun. 

Slow but steady wins the race of healthy eating for my pre-teen picky eater. 

To be continued........