Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well.
My life has been so insane the past few weeks and it’s getting very old! The best word to describe me right now would be weary.
My typical day-to-day life is pretty darn hectic, so it doesn’t take much to put me over the edge. The past few weeks I’ve had too many things on my plate and not enough time to get ’em done. Kev (a.k.a. my sanity) was also out of town for a few nights and my sweet baby was sick for several days.
It’s been rough.
I think I’ve averaged about 5 hours of sleep a night for the past couple weeks, and 5 hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it! I can handle a night or two like that, but if it goes much longer, I completely………fall……………apart.
I’ve learned time and time again that sleep, or lack thereof, is the quickest killer of my healthy living mojo! When I become seriously sleep deprived, I don’t want to eat well, I don’t feel like exercising and I turn into a giant slug.
Blah.
I really DON’T like living my life as a giant slug (it’s very depressing), so at times like these, I try to dig deep, find my motivation, cut whatever can be cut from the schedule, get my butt to the gym, cut the crappy food from the diet and reclaim MY life.
It’s usually hard at first because I’m so….dang….tired and feel so….dang…..blah, but it seems like after a week or two of consistent sleep, exercise and healthy food, I start to feel good and energized again! Imagine that!??! AND, if I make sure to keep it up, I rarely get sick and healthy living becomes almost easy!
So, right now I’m smack in the middle of one of those “rock bottom” moments and am looking forward to getting back to full health! I’m happy to say that life is calming down a bit, baby is healthy and I’m in the process of creating my next “healthy eating plan!” Yay! I love making goals. Me+goals+sleep+calmness+nice kids+regular exercise+real food=Happy Mel.
Ooookay, I’m so sorry to be Debbie Downer! On a positive note, I had a fabulous birthday yesterday! I really don’t love the whole “getting older” stuff, but I sure love birthdays! I am now 39 and I seriously cannot even believe it. I’m not kidding when I say I feel ’bout 23 or so. Strange.
On Friday night, I went out to dinner with a bunch of my high school friends to celebrate a few of our birthdays. We went to Archibald’s restaurant at Gardner Village and it was fabulous. I got the Cobb salad (with cheese this time) and I loved every bite.
I’m sure glad we all get to grow old together! It would suck to be the only one aging, right? I love my friends.
On Saturday morning, I taught a “Healthy Eating Habits” class at a Women’s Conference activity for our church. It was a lot of fun and a great experience for me.
The theme for the Women’s Conference was “RejYOUvenate.” We had a nice breakfast in the morning and then there were several classes people could go to; my class and classes about service, marriage, fashion, scripture study and others. It was great.
Sadly, I only took ONE picture and here it is…
Ha ha! Super lame. Kev and I ran over to the church late Friday night to make some copies for my class. I snapped this picture on our way out the door. I intended to take some pictures of my actual class, but I spaced it. Dang it.
On Sunday night, my cute parents and my sister and her family came out for dinner. We made pizzas on the grill (soooo good!) and then had plenty of treats.
My mom brought heart sugar cookies…
and my sister brought stuff to make a bunch of chocolate covered stuff (strawberries, “cookie dough things” and pretzels.) SO DANG awesome and dangerous!
That picture cracks me up because we started out trying to make everything look pretty and then we just thought, “Meh, who cares what it looks like as long as it tastes good, right!?”
Believe me it tasted good! We had a fun night. My sissy also got me a very nice birthday present…
Some darling LuLu pants (Street to Studio Pant 2)…
Next time I wear them, I’ll take a pic to share. I know I will love them! She also got me some fun girly things…
A beautiful car air freshener, some lip gloss (my fav!) and lotion from Bath and Body! That White Citrus smell is Ah-mazing!
What a nice sissy I have, right?
Yesterday (my “real” birthday), I had a wonderful day with my sweet little family! My husband that I LOVE so much, took the day off to spend it with ME. He let me sleep in a bit while he drove all the kiddos to school (three different schools, three different times!)
We ended up going to Cheesecake Factory for lunch and it was SO DANG GOOD! For the first time in I don’t know how long, I ordered whatever the heck I wanted on the menu! I got the Buffalo (as in sauce, not meat) Burger and it was out of this world…
Kev ordered some kind of chicken with mashed potatoes (you can see it in the back left of that pic) and it was phenomenal as well. We ended up sharing both of our meals.
I’m not kidding when I say we were both FREAKING OUT about how good the food was. I really didn’t care how many calories were in any of the food because it was my BIRTHDAY and it was so nice to just EAT and not CARE!
I know I can’t do that all the time because I value my health more than my taste-buds, but MAN, was it good! Yay for birthdays!
My cute son ordered a GIANT plate of spaghetti. By the looks of his “spaghetti face” it seems he approves of Cheesecake Factory too!
We had a really fun time and it was nice to spend the day with some of my favorite people.
That night we had cupcakes that my cute daughter made for me…
I also opened a few presents that Kev and the kids got for me…
Kev likes to take the kids to the dollar store and let them each pick out a present for me. It’s always so much fun to see what they choose.
Here are some of my fun prizes…
My oldest son picked out the bath poofs, my daughter picked out the travel mug and my cute 6 year old got me the candle.
My 11 year old got me some mini Peppermint Patties (not pictured because um…they’re gone!) and my cute little four year old got me some beautiful pink vases (on the left)…
I actually really love them! And bless his heart, he told me he picked out pink because “girls like pink.” What a sweetie poo. Kev had all the kids sign a card for me (the cupcake one) and my sweet 11 year old told me he bought that other card (the yellow one) with his own money. He was quite proud and I was quite touched.
It was a perfect day.
And I ate way too much food. All. Weekend. Long.
And I loved it so much!
But, things are about to get very serious ’round here…in a health and fitness kind of way! We have some fun things planned for this weekend and then I plan to hit it hard after that. I’m devising a killer 3 month plan and I’m looking forward to starting!
Ya know, taking a short break from healthy eating is a lot of fun (kind of like a vacation), but I’m definitely ready to get back to work (kind of how I feel when I come home from a vacation!)
I’m meeting a friend at the gym tomorrow morning, so I gotta go to bed! I will be working up my “official” 3 month plan soon and will share it with y’all.
Have a good night!
Happy Birthday!
I am so loving the pictures of that chunky baby! I want to just pinch his cheeks! So cute!!
It is so hard when kids are sick and husbands are out of town. I kind of gave up on January because we just couldn’t get healthy and things were just too upside down. This has been such a bad winter for colds and crud. February has been better but it’s going to take some extra force of will to keep it going. The girls are coughing again and Elle’s had several rough nights. Make 5 am so much harder.
The pictures of you look great though, so the lack of sleep isn’t showing! 🙂
Thanks so much Jessica! I have LOVED having a baby in our home again! I just want to eat him up all day long as well. I’m glad to hear that you’re family is starting to feel better. I sure hope you can all stay healthy! I’m hoping we can stay healthy ’round here as well. I’m impressed with your 5 AM start. WOW!
Happy birthday! Love seeing pictures of your cute family.
I agree it’s such a boost to have a day off from the strictly healthy eating and dieting. Glad you enjoyed it. My problem is I’ve taken too many such days for myself. I have to get back on that wagon.
Thanks so much! I had such a fun birthday. I can totally relate to taking “too many” days off from healthy eating….it’s tough!
Happy birthday, Mel! I love the photos of your family, especially the darling one on the mantel.
This is a great message to enjoy life with no worries and just have fun on special days, yet to maintain healthy restraints as your norm. You set a great example.
I hope you catch up on your sleep soon!
Thanks so much Deborah! It really is so nice to just take a break from everything sometimes and just enjoy life. It helps to recharge my batteries, lol.
Happy Birthday (a day late!!)!!! Sounds like your entire birthday weekend was pretty amazing!! Your family is super sweet – love the gifts the kids picked out.
Glad you gave yourself a few days to not worry about food and just enjoyed it – always nice every once in awhile!!!
Thanks so much Kim. We really did have such a fun weekend! It was so much fun to eat so many of my favorite foods as well. Yum!
Happy Birthday!! You look amazing and your family is just adorable. I love how each of your kids bought you something, that’s a cute idea.
Thanks so much! It’s always so much fun to see what the kiddos pick out for me on my birthday. It’s a lot of fun for them too and it doesn’t cost a lot of $$! Win, win. 🙂
You are the one that inspired me to have a birthday celebration week. Life is too short to just celebrate a birthday on one day. Happy Birthday friend. You look amazing and btw your adorable family pic is already out is date. 😉 love you!
Ha ha Kelly, I love milking birthdays! I always tell Kev I need at least one day to celebrate with the kiddos and one day to celebrate with him! I love a good excuse to have a party! I MISS YOU so much and hope all in well and you’re surviving all of the snow. I love you so much my friend!
Your family is just amazing. I can’t even believe you popped all those kids out, if it counts for anything you look amazing just for that alone!! Goals are so key for me too, and if I don’t have any I get into that slug rut. Can’t wait to hear more about your three month plan! 🙂
Happy Birthday!!! You have such a gorgeous family!
I HAVE those LULU pants and I AM OBSESSSSEEDDDDDDDD with them!!!!!!!
AND HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 😀
Happy belated birthday!!!! Sounds like you had a great day! Carson is so cute!
Love your photos!! And happy birthday!!! Hope to see you blogging some more… love reading your posts! <3 – http://www.domesticgeekgirl.com