In Defense of Staying Home (or How I Learned to Embrace my Inner Introvert)

I usually hate having disclaimers on what I write, but I feel like I need to insert two here.

First, this post is not about fishing for love and affirmations from people. I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to that.

Second, this is not about self-pity. I largely write as a cathartic exercise for myself. It always tickles me when people read what I write and then say what I have written resonates with them.

Today was a good day. I forced myself out of the house last night. I have been struggling to get out of the house lately. I make plans for Friday nights, which are tricky because Bekah has dance class. This typically means I have to find someone to drive her home. I am loathe to do this because all the other moms have their own children to drive home. I feel bad asking them to drive her home just so I can get out for a couple of hours. A recent generous gift of a used Toyota has given us more flexibility; Brian could, ostensibly, go get her after her dance class. I also hate that alternative because it means he has to pile the three kids into the van. Even more, it's about an hour after the process for bed has started.

All of this means that I make Friday night plans with the greatest of intentions. Then, as the week wears on, I move the plans from the definite to the maybe. Inevitably, other complications (sick children, comfy clothes, comfy couches) mean I definitely end up staying home.

This is not all bad. After years of staying awake into the wee hours of the morning, there is something new and healthy about staying home and being in bed by 10 o'clock. I am sleeping well these days, save an occasional trip to the bathroom or other odd wake-up.

At the same time, I am still mostly an extrovert. I say mostly because I chose to celebrate my 40th birthday in a very subdued way. I had a lovely trip to downtown Chicago with two close friends. No one was more surprised than I that I chose that over a big 40th birthday party.

I still love people in a very visceral way. I have been spending a lot of time trying to cultivate relationships with people. I love praying for people and encouraging people and listening to people. But as it turns out, I have been exhausted by people. Not in a bad way, mind you, but by the time Friday night rolls around, I have expended all of my psychic and emotional energy.

Last night's venture out among people was a great case study for me. I grudgingly asked another mom to bring Bekah home. When I didn't hear from her, I figured I was off the hook. I started to make my apologies to the friend who had invited me out. "Come for five minutes," she said. "Even if you're here for five minutes, it will still be worth it to see you." (Again, I recognize I have an embarrassment of riches in this department. This friend 100% meant it and I knew she did.)

In the past, once I was out, I was out. I just went with it and stayed until I closed the place down. Last night, as I was jogging into my friend's apartment (it's a long drive and I'm working hard to hydrate and I have had four kids, so yes, I was jogging), I decided that I would stay for an hour.

In that hour, I had an absolute blast. I got to catch up with some people, hear a hilarious story or two (which was only hilarious in last night's context--at church, there would be crickets and people clutching their pearls), get a world-class hug from my friend and have a nice drive on a pleasant evening.

I was home by like 9:30 and asleep by 10:00. It was, in short, the perfect evening.

The struggle I'm having today is one that I have long struggled with--I am not everyone's best friend. (Again, this is not about self-pity, this is me realizing I'm acting like a punk toddler.) The line that's been running through my head is based on a popular meme--"stop trying to make everyone happy, you're not chocolate."

This is where Facebook does what it is supposed to do, which is show highlights from everyone's lives. It's not a full and accurate portrayal of what people are feeling. It's not demonstrating everyone's insides--it's highlighting their outsides.

I have such a good time wherever I end up. It is easy for me to laugh and I like to make other people laugh. I do my best to make small talk with anyone and everyone. I know a little about a lot of things, most of which are not important to the vast majority of the world. Aside from placing second and third in trivia competitions, my proficiency in small talk is directly related to my obsession with unimportant minutiae.

Being a mom can be lonely, but I feel I've done a good job cultivating a community around me. The problem is, there are droughts with hanging out. It recently took three weeks to have a play date with a friend and her daughter. In the meantime, we had a fever that traveled through our house. It stopped me from getting out very much at all. I had to cancel a few dates.

And that's how I find myself, on a Saturday night, up past my bedtime, writing about how I'm feeling a little melancholy but also a little ridiculous. (And also having had an epiphany that being out for about an hour is absolutely okay. I can summon the energy to get off the couch for an hour, laugh, impress people with my useless trivia knowledge, and be in bed by 10. Cause, you know, I'm 40. Ain't no one expecting me to be wild anymore.)

Practically Imperfect in Every Way

Over the past few years, I have started holy week not feeling it. I just haven't felt what it looks like other people are feeling, celebratory, hopeful, contemplative.

I had a setback with my health journey back at the beginning of the year. A snafu with my scale led to a readjustment of goals. For whatever reason, I have struggled to find the same rhythm I had before the snafu. 

I started working out more regularly, though because of what I'm doing, exercise is not the punishment it used to be.I have enjoyed lifting weights and running because I'm not doing it to counterbalance the food I've eaten.

At the same time, what has ended up being due to a shifting of my IUD turned into a month (February) where I had three periods. It was an emotional month and I know that contributed to my mental status.

I met with a friend this past Thursday and had an epiphany. I likened losing 50 pounds to someone who is clearing a horde out of their house. It has felt good, but it represents a lot of work. Further, I am finding that clearing out the horde has led to me rediscovering emotions I thought I had buried.

So coming into this year's holy week, I felt drained. I spent the week fighting off a migraine. It culminated on Wednesday night with ocular disturbances, nausea and light sensitivity. It was unpleasant and exhausting. It's been a long time since I've had such a severe migraine and I forgot that it used to take me days to recover.

We had an unexpected tragedy happen at the beginning of the week and this caused a bevy of emotions to be unleashed. (I don't have the energy to get into it on top of the fact that it's not my story to tell. I hate being vague about it, that's not normally my style. I apologize for not being more specific.)

All in all, I arrived at Good Friday feeling beat-up and exhausted. I did my best to practice self-care. I still worked out, I ate according to my protocol, I spent time in church basements. I let a few people in on what was happening and released myself from the obligation to be "Amazing Sue" to everyone else. 

My church had several Easter services. Our plan had originally been to split and have Brian, Doug and Jeremy go on Saturday night, when the Special Friends room was to be open. Then the girls and I would have met up on Sunday morning with my parents.

We decided at the last minute to try and all go to the Saturday service. Doug, however, upon learning of our plan, got anxious and balked. We have learned that for us, forcing Doug to do something doesn't end up well for anyone. We tried to coax him with the promise of a treat, but ultimately he decided he would rather stay home with Brian.

I was disappointed. My dad, upon seeing me at church and learning that Doug and Brian were at home declared, "that's called real life." And he was right, but there was still disappointment that my family couldn't have the picture-perfect Easter picture, all of us dressed up. (Well, I was dressed up but wearing sneakers, because I have four kids and Brooklyn needed dress shoes, so she got them but I had sneakers.)

Our family is just not the picture of normal and I understand and mostly accept that. We don't do organized sports--no baseball, soccer, football. We don't go to theme parks, I think it would be a disaster for us. We don't travel very much because just trying to provide for the basics for four kids is equivalent to trying to travel with a family of four.

These are all things that God has helped me to embrace. I love our family and I love our normal. We quote movie lines to each other all day. We are sarcastic. We love to read. We like to joke around. 

And the beauty of the message I heard at church yesterday (which was a bit odd because we were celebrating Jesus' resurrection before he would have technically risen from the grave) is that God didn't come into the world to condemn the world. He came to save it. For me, that means he came to save someone like me, who doesn't do devotions with her kids every day, who hasn't colored Easter eggs in years, who used tissue paper instead of grass in the Easter baskets because I did my Easter shopping on Saturday and there was no grass at Jewel.

As a woman, I cling to the fact that Jesus died on the cross for men AND women. He loved (and loves) us all, just as we are. He doesn't require us to get dressed up to come and see him. He wants us to approach him just as we are. 

The single thing that speaks the loudest to me about his crucifixion is what happened to the curtain in the temple. There was a heavy curtain in the temple that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. Only certain people were allowed behind the curtain and certainly none of those people were women.

When Jesus died, that curtain (think more a velvet tapestry from the theater) was ripped in two, from top to bottom. In dying, Jesus was saying that he was allowing everyone to approach him. There were no longer the long list of rules and rituals. We were all allowed into that holiest space.

I am also reminded that my feelings are not always the best tellers of truth. My perception is flawed, deeply, and I struggle with comparing myself to others. I have wanted to write this post for two days, but kids. I am exhausted from being at home with them 24/7 for the past week. 

But I knew I had to write this.

If you're anything like me, you are scrolling through FB and lamenting that your Easter doesn't look like anyone else's. Our family enjoyed chicken nuggets (Jeremy, Doug and Brooklyn) and salmon, broccoli and sweet potatoes (Me, Brooklyn, Brian and Bekah). We don't have a big extended family and we don't celebrate with them (we haven't for a few years). The Easter bunny put Halloween candy in the baskets because he overbought at Halloween. (The blessing there is that we were able to preserve it and not touch it since October, no small feat, but I attribute that to my new eating plan and Plexus.) We didn't dye eggs. 

We had a great Easter, though, because we were able to reflect on the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. I am so humbled by the love God showed us by sending his Son to die on the cross for us. I am humbled because even a day before he was crucified, Jesus asked for the cup to be taken from him. He knew what was going to happen and even so, he struggled with it. He did it anyway, but he struggled with it. That is such a human attribute, to struggle, but with such a divine twist, to do it anyway. That has been the overwhelming theme of my life the past couple of months. 

I hope that as the year continues to unfold, God will deal with me and my expectations. They get me every time. I am doing better at scrolling through FB mindlessly. Turning off notifications has changed my life in a dramatic way. I am still on my phone more than I probably should be, but it is much better than it used to be.

I am grateful for my faith, which has buoyed my spirits over the past week. I am also grateful for friends and family, near and far, that continue to demonstrate God's love to me through their words and deeds. 

MOTN (Middle of the Night)

I am not normally awake at 3 AM anymore. This was going to be a FB post, but I thought it would go faster if I sat at the keyboard and typed.

A couple of years ago, I was very angry with God. There was a lot going on in my life that was not great. We were struggling as a family. We had a lot of illness. There was just a lot of external circumstances that weren't great.

I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I spent a lot of time shaking my fist at God and asking,
"why us?"

Over the past few months, as I have set about trying to change the way I think, I have come to discover that life is about 50/50. Half is good, half is not so good. I have worked hard at taking my emotions out of play when it comes to eating. I have learned how to work on the thoughts that are negative. Sometimes, it means I just let them go. Other times, I have to combat negative thoughts with truth.

In any case, our lives in general have gotten less chaotic. We are not living without problems, but the problems we have today aren't awful.

I have stayed up late a few nights lately, mostly to read. I love to read a good book, but I'm awful at pacing myself. John Sandford novels, in particular, take hold of me and preclude me from putting them down.

Last night, to remedy the previous night's late hour for bedtime, I went to bed early. I was asleep before 10 PM. I was excited to get a good night's sleep.

It's a busy week. Bekah, who dances with Summers Academy of Dance, is performing in the Nutcracker this weekend. She has been preparing for months and is very excited. We have drilled into her the importance of going to bed early and getting plenty of rest. The other three kids all got diagnosed with strep over the weekend. She seemed to sidestep that and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Alas, though, she sidestepped the strep but has fallen to the stomach flu. She woke me at 1 AM to tell me that she had thrown up.

In the past, this would have set off a sequence of events and feelings. I would have been angrily posting on FB or messaging someone or feeling frustrated.

Not one of those things happened.

I navigated over to a group on FB that is one of my tribes of prayer warriors. I posted there asking for prayers. Brian woke up and we prayed together. I didn't freak out or get angry or anything. I surveyed the hallway bathroom where she had missed the toilet. I shut the door and went back to bed.

Then I realized, dried-up vomit is harder to clean than new vomit. So I went downstairs, gathered supplies and cleaned the bathroom. While I was on my knees scrubbing, it occurred to me that I could be praying for people, so I did. After getting everything cleaned up, I realized I didn't have any heavy whipping cream for my coffee in the morning. Brian is headed to Kenosha for a meeting first thing.

So at 2:50 AM, I headed to Jewel. I grabbed some flowers for Bekah, in case she misses her performance this weekend. I remembered that I have a friend celebrating a birthday on Saturday. I got her a card and before I left Jewel, I mailed it off.

I am not typically a sunshine, rainbows and unicorn girl. I have been crabby and short-tempered this week. I don't normally see the glass as half full.

But here's the thing. I feel confident that she will perform this weekend. I have faith that this is a short-acting bug. At the same time, I have absolute peace that if she doesn't perform, it's going to be okay. There will be so many opportunities for her to be in the Nutcracker in the coming years.

I feel this overwhelming sense of peace that I can only attribute to God. I don't see a point in getting all riled up. I hope no one else in the cast falls ill. I hope I can post on Sunday that another Nutcracker is in the books.

I had to write this because I am so baffled by all of this. I feel almost like I'm having an out-of-body experience. This is not fundamentally who I am, and yet I am so comfortable feeling like this.

I am not even sure I will feel like this in 12 hours (or like 4, when my alarm goes off). It might be a very rough day, where I am crabby and short-tempered and get bad news. But I'm not going to live there. I'm going to live in the feelings that I'm having now.

If you're reading this, please say a prayer for Bekah's speedy recovery. I cleaned every surface in the bathroom and every other surface that she could have touched. I have washed my hands and realize there's nothing more I can do but wait and see. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for praying!

Hump Day, Schlump Day

I have been exhausted since I woke up this morning.

Doug's sleep continues to be an issue, which means it's an issue for me. He falls asleep with no major problem, but then wakes up around 2-4 AM, as in wide awake, talking and playing. Today I met with his psychologist who tested him. (I found out at the appointment that he does have ADHD and will need medication. Now the next hurdle is to get him in to see a child psychiatrist, but I've got an appointment set for January.)

Anyway, I woke up to use the bathroom and discovered Doug in bed with us, playing with a plastic shovel. I don't know what he was playing (there are a lot of great narratives in his head) and I didn't care to ask. I did my thing, came back to bed, put my mask back on and started watching YouTube.

Here's the thing. 2-4 AM is not a great time of day for me. My brain, which up to that point in the evening has been playing crazy things in my head. Sometimes those dreams wake me up in a panic or cause me to feel very unsettled.

But once I'm awake, it's like the deejay in my brain switches. It goes from crazy to the oldies. What I mean by that is, I start reliving any painful, embarrassing, uncomfortable experience I have had at any time over the past 39 years of life on Earth. It plays in slow-motion, there's instant replay and even color commentary.

Just for fun, it's also a time when my brain likes to play the ever-popular "What If?" game. This means that I lie in bed and consider all the awful things that could happen. I worry about concrete things, like what if the bathtub from our hallway bathroom falls into the TV room. I also worry about emotional things, like what will happen if the person I said I was going to talk to doesn't talk to me or decided (s)he hates me?

So, really, good, good times. So much fun.

When I finally drift back to sleep, it is under the veil of the negative feelings I get from playing these two games (I hardly ever win). Any sleep I get is minimal and fractured.

But I'm a mom and so I don't get to sleep in or parent from my bed. I have to get up and get going right away, which I did this morning.

The problem was, the morning took a sideways turn before I could even get downstairs.

Jeremy, who is normally dressed immediately upon awakening, was still not dressed at 8:10, when I descended the stairs. I knew this because I heard Brian (my husband) shouting at him at least once to get dressed. I had to yell at him two more times before 8:30 (when my kids leave for school).

Meanwhile, he let me know that he lost his medicine. When pressed, he couldn't tell us what had happened or which medicine he had lost. I called Brian back down (he manages Jeremy's medicine) to determine what medicine Jeremy had lost.

At the same time, I have to get out of the house around 8:30 to get Doug to his therapy (play therapy) appointment. Doug has come downstairs, but is in a pull-up and groggy. I employ Bekah to help me distribute lunch boxes to everyone's backpack. I manage to send her off to school. Jeremy, who has been yelled at about a dozen different times, ends up with a nosebleed. I send him off to school with a wad of tissues and a directive to seek out the nurse if he needs her.

Then it's time for me to take Doug. This means I have to change Brooklyn's diaper, get a coat on her, get her in her carseat, get my lemon and ice water, get graham crackers and get in the van.

The therapy appointment went okay, but afterwards Doug left the building without waiting for me, which didn't make me happy. I dropped him off at school and headed home.

I had volunteer duties at Jeremy and Bekah's school today. I hadn't showered since Sunday (possibly Monday, but I really think it was Sunday), so I felt like I needed to shower. I figured I'd put something on TV for Brooklyn, sneak up, take a shower and dry my hair (cause it's cold outside). (Um, I am shaking my head at 11:00 AM me for thinking I would have time to dry my hair. Bless.)

After showering, I went downstairs and decided I should unload and reload the dishwasher. No biggie, takes me hardly any time. Except that there was standing water in the bottom of my dishwasher. Like, a lot. No biggie, I'll run the garbage disposal, it's probably backed up. Nope, that does nothing. So I start scooping water with a ladle into a bowl and pouring it into the sink. Which is fine, until water starts spilling out of the cabinet directly under the sink. In no time flat, there is water starting to spread all over my kitchen floor.

It is now 11:30. I need to be at school at 11:45. I have no time for this horsecrappery. I urgently call Brian down, we empty the entire cabinet and start trying to dry it out. I am trying to gauge how long I have to wait with him until I can discreetly leave for school.

(Luckily, we have a plan with Nicor where things like this are covered, so we just have to call and start a claim. The process is tedious but manageable and far cheaper than having to pay for crises out of our own pocket.)

After volunteering, I head to see the psychologist who evaluated Doug. Then I find out the plumber can't come out until Tuesday.

You guys.

I cook in my kitchen almost every single day. I make lunches for the kids, I make myself a salad and I cook dinner. I make bread. I make sauce. In short, my kitchen is not for show. I definitely am a heavy kitchen user. I can't wait until next Tuesday to discover the source of the issue (that's not even to fix it, it's just for them to come out and figure out what went wrong).

As I'm leaving the doctor's office, I notice that the gas light has come on, indicating that I am low on fuel. I know Brian has to take Bekah and a friend to dance class, but guys, I'm not kidding. I was so tired and I hadn't eaten lunch and so I just went home. I figured he could work out the gas situation on his own time.

I got home, had lunch and laid down for like 25 minutes.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch, but the string of bad luck made me seriously doubt we were done having our hats handed to us.

Now, I felt down in the dumps and mopey all day long. I can normally rally and send an encouraging text to someone to jump start my own good feelings, but today I just didn't have it.

It is 9:48 and I am absolutely exhausted and sleepy.

The big victory, though, is that none of these bad things that happened caused me to eat outside of my protocol. I felt bloated and gross for part of the day, but even that didn't make me feel poorly enough to dive into the kids' buckets of Halloween candy. So guess what, Wednesday? Suck it, cause I didn't let you completely defeat me.

Primary Purpose

I have a little fear about writing this post. I'm predicting that what I am going to say will not be very popular. Please know that this is a subject about which my views have evolved. I am not sharing it to be preach-y or judge-y. I am sharing in the hopes that it resonates with some, convicts others and helps even one person.

So we're on the eve of one of the biggest holidays of the year, Halloween. Doug, Bekah and I went to a trunk-or-treat event at a local church. This was our second year attending. The trunks were well-decorated and the crowd was bigger than last year.

I have had a love/hate relationship with Halloween. I have been known to have years of abstinence and overindulgence with Halloween candy. My mom reminded me today that one year in particular, I overindulged to the point of illness. I don't remember that, but probably for good reason.

A month after Halloween is Thanksgiving and then it's Christmas. All three holidays have evolved to become food-centric. It's fascinating to walk through WalMart (or any similar store) around this time of year. Front and center are mixes, candy and similar items for each holiday. Then, come January 1, everything switches to healthy eating, healthy food ideas and the like.

Here's my two cents. I will speak about my experience because that's the thing about which I know the most.

Food was designed (or evolved, however you want to look at it) to nourish our bodies and supply it with the necessary energy to function at optimum levels. We all get hungry. It's biological. Our brains have to remind us to eat sometimes if we are overscheduled or stressed out.

As a Christian, I am told in the Bible that my body is a temple. In my mind, that means that my body is supposed to be viewed with reverence. I'm not supposed to idolize my body, but I feel like the idea is that I should treat it with respect. When I don't, my experience has been that it doesn't function well.

I used to smoke. At the end of my smoking tenure, I was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. My body was not happy with me. I suffered from recurrent migraines, I was overweight and out of breath. That, to me, was not me treating my body like a temple.

For me, any time I use food as anything other than nourishment, I am not treating my body the way God intended me to treat it.

This includes using food to soothe myself, celebrate something, mourn something, get angry about something....you get the idea. Somewhere along the way, I learned that food was the perfect way to do any or all of those things. The point is, that's not what food is meant to do. God is very specific that I am to go to Him with those feelings (good or bad).

I am sure that some might consider me a stick-in-the-mud for asserting that the holidays shouldn't be about food. I get it. I love to bake and I am in my glory (usually) at Christmas. I love to make all different kinds of Christmas cookies. I love to make pumpkin pie and cheesecake and all sorts of sweets. The problem is, I end up eating a lot of the stuff I bake. My body does not respond kindly at all. I usually end up gaining a bunch of weight and spending a lot of time awash in guilt and remorse.

I am finding, the longer I am abstinent from sugar, that sugar is not kind to my body. It doesn't serve me well. Any sugar I ingest usually leads me to ingest more sugar. This ends up not serving me in any kind of positive way. I become sluggish and irritable and obsessed with sugar.

I am not meaning to sound melodramatic. This is actually what happens to me when I consume sugar. For those that are able to consume sugar in normal amounts, my hats are off to you. It's never been kind to my body.

I have also had to become better at monitoring my levels of fullness. In the past, even when I was eating healthy, I would eat too much at mealtimes. Again, this is outside of food's primary purpose. I am not meant to feel bloated, sleepy and guilty after a meal. This has meant altering my eating habits. I now drink a lot of water with my meals. I try to put my fork down between bites. I wait before I take a second helping of something. I try not to let myself get too hungry.

All of these practices serve me well. Writing down what I'm going to eat before I eat serves me well. It means I have to be planful and mindful. It means I am not going to eat emotionally. I don't have to spend a lot of time considering my food because I already know what I'm going to eat.

This also means that I have more free time to focus on God. Eating is not about celebrating, so I celebrate with God. If I'm angry, I pray. If I'm sad, I cry and then I pray. If I'm feeling anxious, I practice some deep breathing and I pray. The point is, when I am not treating my body like a temple, I am usually also not putting God at the center of my day and my life. Food can become an idol just like anything else. God doesn't appreciate us having idols, even if it's one that society tells us is okay.

I plan, this holiday season, to celebrate with friends and family by being present. That means continuing to do what I've already been doing. I will have Thanksgiving dinner planned ahead of time--that way, when the meal happens I won't be focused on the food, I'll be focused on the people around my table. I might bake a few cookies for Santa, but I won't spend hours baking and I won't triple the recipe.

My plan is to reach December 31 weighing less than I do right now. My plan is to continue to follow the protocol I've been following. I want to keep food in it's rightful place, as a fuel to power my body.

False Evidence Appearing Real

It is so cold today. Since losing some weight, I am cold a LOT. Fall is definitely here and it's probably my favorite season, but good lord, I'm freezing.

Brian is in Kenosha and Brooklyn is sleeping, so I am taking advantage of having his computer available to write a little earlier in the day than I normally would.

I listened to/watched a fascinating webinar by Bob Heilig on Saturday. He had a lot of good things to say. The one idea he discussed was about fear.

Fear and I are well-acquainted. It's been a long-term friendship, albeit a toxic one that has stunted my growth in some ways.

Bob talked about rational fear and irrational fear. Rational fear is what happens when you're in an airplane and someone is trying to push you out without a parachute. Your brain is telling you, rightly so, that you are going to die.

Irrational fear is fear that tells you you're going to die when faced with a situation that isn't life-threatening.

For example, whenever I sit down to write a blog post, my brain starts telling me, "no one wants to read what you have to say! No one is interested! Didn't you see the stats from yesterday? People aren't interested."

It can be a very palpable thing, something I absolutely feel in my chest and the pit of my stomach.

I have a choice, though, about how I'm going to handle the fear.

My first choice is to let it rule my life. I can hire it as my life's manager and allow it to make all of my decisions. Any time I'm at a crossroads, I can consult with my fear and see how it feels I should proceed. The outcome from living this way will not be good. It can rob me of rich life experiences, it can rob me of joy and it can cut me off from God.

The other choice, then, is to let faith rule my life. Faith is the opposite of fear. Having faith doesn't mean I'm an automaton. It means, quite simply, that I'm not going to let fear make my decisions. Rather, I'm going to invite God into my decision-making process. I'm going to consult with women and men who are wiser than I, who have walked my path (or a similar path) before. I'm going to ask them how they feel about the choices in front of me.

A life that is lived with faith making the decisions is a rich one. It is not always easy. It doesn't mean that I won't be rejected, that people won't choose to leave me, or that every day will be sunshine and rainbows. In my mind, this life has more peace in it because I am not fighting against God. I am trying, on a daily basis, to be a better version of myself.

Bob also talked about walking toward your fears, especially as they relate to your gifts. I firmly believe that God has given me a talent with my writing. It's a gift. I'm not bragging or being egotistical. I enjoy writing, I feel I excel at it and what I say can resonate with people.

It's really no surprise, then, that fear would attack me as I'm sitting down to write something. So Bob says I have to walk toward the fear. Sometimes, this is easier said than done.

Case in point, I had the opportunity to hang out with some women last night. I am an extrovert by nature, so normally this would have been a no-brainer. However, I didn't know these particular women very well. I love to meet new people, but I can get in my head about things in no time flat. So I made the decision to go, but I was very apprehensive. I figured if worse came to worse, I could feign an emergency with the kids and bail. Not the best solution, but it's where I was at.

When I arrived at my friend's house, I tried to settle in. I didn't feel like I immediately fit well into any of the conversations. I had brought my dinner with me, so I sat quietly and ate as everyone else arrived. One of the women was going to lead a meditation. I didn't know what to expect about that, either, but I've been trying hard to incorporate meditation into my daily routine.

By the end of my time there, I not only felt more comfortable but am even more excited to get to hang with these women again in a couple of weeks! That's not to say I'm best friends with anyone there, but it also means that the right decision was to step out of my comfort zone.

When those things happen, when I step out of my comfort zone and am rewarded (even if it's just a small reward), it makes me more willing to step out of my comfort zone again. There is a quote by Roy T. Bennett that says, "you never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone."

I can tell you, the radical changes I've made in the way I eat and in what I eat have not always been comfortable. I have been stepping out of my comfort zone in my business life. This is not comfortable. I would much rather just play mindless games on my phone. I would rather just eat the things I've always eaten and done the things I've always done.

The problem is that staying in the comfort means I'm staying in a place that isn't serving me. When I eat all the things and play games obsessively, I end up weighing close to 300 pounds, with Type II Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a bevy of other health issues.

The place I'm at now, where I'm headed toward a healthier weight and lifestyle, where I'm trying to grow my business and help more people, is serving me very well. I am off of several prescriptions, I sleep well, my clothes fit me better, I have more energy, I am much better company than I once was.

If the admission to that place, the one I'm currently occupying, is to walk through fear, then sign me up. I might still be timid and I might not gallop blindly into it, but I am ready to go. I am tired of living a small life, one with more problems than solutions. I don't expect sunshine and rainbows every day but only because that's just not realistic. Rainbows only happen after it rains. Instead of complaining about that, I'll just start carrying an umbrella.

Happy Exercise

I am exhausted but determined to write something tonight.

It was a long day and I started off feeling very discouraged about the state of my house. After some list-making and prayer, I got to work. I am so close to being done with laundry, yay! And I managed to do a bunch of other things that had been bugging me.

I've been wanting to talk a little bit more in detail about exercise. I feel like I touched on it in another post, but I have a few more things to say about it.

I grew up being very active. I swam on a team from the age of 6 through high school. I played soccer and softball as well. I enjoyed running around, riding my bike, playing volleyball, etc.

I was always the girl in gym who tried a little too hard. I ended up sweaty and smelly while the other girls stood around, afraid to break their nails.

Once I hit college, though, something shifted. I loathed running and wanted to swim. Without a formal team around me and a coach in front of me, though, I couldn't get myself to focus and complete a regular workout consistently.

I would walk some and I remember doing a Cindy Crawford workout with my friend Chante in her dorm room, but nothing really clicked.

Twelve or so years ago, when I first started trying to lose weight, I started small. I aimed to walk 30 minutes a day. I walked in all kinds of weather. I walked in all kinds of different places. I didn't have a heart rate monitor or GPS or anything. I just made it a daily habit to walk.

At the time, I was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes. I knew I needed to quit, so I started taking Zyban. About six months before that, I found a Couch to 5K program online and started following it on the treadmill at the gym. I got a watch and was able to run around the track inside the gym.

My first 5K was at Northwestern in November of 2002. It was a cold day and I didn't run fast, but I did run the whole thing.

My first half marathon was in 2003, the North Shore Half Marathon in Highland Park. Everyone had failed to mention that Highland Park was built on a ravine. I couldn't walk for two days. It was brutal.

From there, I decided to tackle the marathon. I ran the Chicago Marathon for the first time in 2004. Keep in mind, I had no kids and my (then) boyfriend was working a full-time and part-time job. I had a lot of free time and very few responsibilities. I was able to take my time getting the long runs done and then had ample time for recovery.

I took most of 2005 off because we got married that year and Brian made me promise I wouldn't do any big races that year. I was the thinnest I've been in adulthood when I got married. I got down to about 178, as I recall.

Again, keep in mind I had no kids and no real responsibilities. I was eating food laden with preservatives and following the letter but not the spirit of the WW program.

In 2006 I made a fatal error and tried to train for two full marathons. By the time I ran the Chicago Marathon that fall, I was burnt out. I didn't want to run anymore. We still had a gym membership, but I had started working retail. Those hours are not conducive to a healthy schedule. I started to put the weight back on.

While I was pregnant with Jeremy (our oldest), I hardly exercised. I was working on my feet all day and was so exhausted that the thought of working out was too much.

I did not have gestational diabetes with Jeremy, but I put on a lot of weight during that pregnancy. After he was born, I still couldn't manage to get to the gym a lot. We got pregnant with Bekah pretty quickly and I did end up developing gestational diabetes during that pregnancy (and with my subsequent pregnancies).

I have to say, it was tough to reboot my workouts after Bekah was born. There was a part of me that was kind of humiliated that I let myself go. Plus, in my mind, I was a marathon runner. How could I start all over again?

Meanwhile, I was trying to track my calories and/or points, depending on what point in time it was. For a while I had the WW fitness tracker. I got pretty active (and obsessive about how many points I had earned), but I ate all the points I could.

Before getting pregnant with Brooklyn, I rediscovered my love of running. I decided to run a half marathon with Team World Vision. I had a lot of fun doing it, but then I had three kids and my recovery time was usually nil.

Due to complications, I was not able to work out very much (if at all) while pregnant with Brooklyn. I wish I could say I tried to eat well, but I wanted comfort and chose to seek it in the bottom of cookie boxes.

My point to all of this is, I have spent a lot of time exercising as a way of losing weight. I am always interested in how many calories I've burned. I'm trying to burn and expend more calories than I eat. It becomes a very legalistic, measured thing. If I don't exercise, I hate myself. I feel like crap. It darkens the mood of the whole day.

So when Kristin told me exercise should be a stress-reliever, not a stressor, my mind was blown. I decided to find a level of exercise that fit into my day, that didn't exhaust me but did help me feel good. In June I walked an obscene amount of miles as a way of kick-starting things. It was hard to see the mileage drop in July, but now I feel like I've found the level that works for me.

I aim to walk 3 miles a day, 2-3 days a week. On the weekend, as time allows, I take Scout on a leisurely walk. I don't even start my Nike Run Club app. We just go for a walk and I let her stop and smell everything she wants. I don't stress that I'm not walking fast enough or far enough or whatever. I just walk. I look around. I pray. I say hello to people.

I have just added in some strength training. I use the Gorilla app. I started at the beginner level (which hurts my ego but is honest). I paid $9.99 to unlock all the workouts. I have started at the beginning of the fundamental challenge. I try not to think about how far along I was working for a year and a half with the best trainer ever. I am finding it takes me about 10 minutes to get through a workout. 10 minutes is manageable for me. Will my body be shredded in 20 workouts? Probably not, but I know building lean muscle is a good thing. I know I feel better when I am doing some strength training. So even today, when the day had gotten long in the tooth, I sucked it up and got it done.

It is humbling to walk for 3 miles when just two years ago, I ran 13.1. My brain still likes to sneer at my current effort. And that's fine, I try to manage my own expectations.

The thing is, it's so FREEING to not be putting crappy food in my body and then forcing myself to workout for an hour and a half to work off the crappy food. I am putting so much nutrient-dense food in my body that I don't feel obligated to workout. I workout because I actually enjoy it. I workout because I feel better when I work out.

Bottom line, if the exercise doesn't serve me, I toss it aside. I have spent a lot of time wasting energy trying to exercise the "right" way for the "right" amount of time. It's not gotten me anywhere in the long run. I feel like I'm much better off walking (and yes, eventually running) in a way that doesn't feel like punishment.