Promises, Promises...

My Dad is not a "my word is my bond" kind of guy.

My entire life he has made me promises... from promising to teach me to drive (he didn't, he said it was because I was a girl), to promising to show up for parent teacher interviews(he didn't... something at work came up and my teacher had to drive me home) to promising to come visit us out here in Calgary(a multitude of things have come up to prevent this). When I mention it to him he becomes angry and defensive and demanding.

For the past two summers he has been promising to come out and spend time with us out here. Inevitably "plans change" and he calls asking us to come out there instead. We suggest meeting in the middle (it is a 9 hour drive) and he makes a million excuses as to why that will not work for him. Last year they drove all over the West Coast in a motorhome and drove home through Red Deer and didn't bother to stop and see us.

I feel like I am digging in my heels, but I am so tired of his false promises and of being the person who is the peace-maker and tries to make everyone happy. I sent him a message telling him that we already had plans for next week and, if all else fails and he doesn't manage to visit us here this summer, like he has been promising, we will see him in September at my cousin's wedding.

I am feeling so angry right now...I think I need to go wreck my journal.

Food, health, weight....blah, blah, blah.

So, it is now week 5 of my concerted effort to be healthier and to let go of the junk in my trunk.

So far I am down 13 lbs!

I am actually quite surprised as I am stuffing my face with summer fruit every chance I get. Apparently what they say about not eating too much fruit because of the sugar doesn't apply here... and thank goodness, because I LOVE CHERRIES! I LOVE WATERMELON! I LOVE STRAWBERRIES!...

Ok, honestly, I just love food.

So, the jist of what I am doing is to eat more, more often, with more joy.

I am keeping track (because I am a list-maker) and looking back, there have been days where I eat more 100 calorie snack bags than I care mention (er...was that a snack or a meal?) and then there was my birthday (weekend)...but most days are good.

A few things I've done that seem to be helping;

I cut out the artificial sweetners. We no longer use any of them in our home...no, not even splenda. What I am using is a natural sweetner called Stevia and it is amazing! No headaches or terrible fatigue when I am using this over artificially-sweeteed beverages.

I am also drinking more water. Well, water with lime juice, a few frozen strawberries popped in and some stevia. The best, most refreshing calorie-free beverage ever! Koolaid without the sugar, dye, artificial flovour and preservatives.

Greens+. My Acupunturist turned me on to this stuff and it's amazing! I mix it into a smoothie in the morning and I have energy all day. It is available all over the place and is worth it's weight in gold. Last month I did greens+ and all-greens, this month I am trying the greens+multi. Will let you know what I think.

I WAS wearing a pedometer to record how many steps I take per day. 10000 steps per day is roughly equivalent to 30 minutes of physical activity. I was ranging between 6 and 16 thousand steps per day, depending on the day (weekends were less because Alan is home to help). I pledge to start wearing it again tomorrow and writing down the results.

Other than that, laying in the hammock, wrecking my journal (pictures to come, Sara), watching "wipeout" because it makes me laugh like a crazy person and trying to keep the boys busy (there should be an exercise catagory for this).

Wreck this Journal.

So, last night was my 35th birthday party.

Me and 10 friends went to a local "shi-shi" French restaurant, with amazing food called the Laurier Lounge. They reserved us an entire room and we sat around, sipped wine or mojitos (admittedly, many, many mojitoes were consumed), ate yummy things like seared scallops and poutine galvaude and escargot and bruschetta.

We laughed quite loudly and I, personally, had a lovely time.

One of my lovely friends bought me my very own "Wreck this Journal".

I had never actually looked inside a wreck this journal, had no idea what it was all about, but as soon as I started to read it, I realised how much I NEEDED this book.

My first act was to poke holes in one of the pages, with a pen. Followed closely by squashing a lime wedge and blueberry between another set of pages. I honestly cannot remember how many pages I completed last night...but it was so CATHARTIC!

I am so careful, in my life, to keep everything neat, tidy, looking perfect and this book gives you permission to mess it up...and to enjoy doing it!!

I arrived home to find P & L still awake at 10pm...they were baking me a cake because today is actually my birthday. So I let it go...and we wrecked a few pages in my journal...it was the first think Liam talked about this morning...how fun it was to wreck the pages...it made me realise that we need more destructive fun.

I am letting go...