Let’s Call Them “Resolutions”

Posted by Moni Brown on Jan 18, 2011 in Blog Buddies, Exercise, Health and Fitness, PostAWeek 2011, Random Musings, Weight Loss | 3 comments

I don’t make Resolutions because I’ve never been a big believer in them. In my opinion Resolutions are something you say you’re going to do but don’t. This year Jaime told me that I had to make a Resolution list as a foundation for my plans and goals this year. Of course I procrastinated with letting others in on my list, even Jaime hasn’t seen it. So you will officially be the first and since I’ve sat down I’ve also decided to add procrastination as a resolution subject on this list. So let’s get started shall we?

Resolutions:

• I will blog regularly. To me this means, I will post to this blog at least 3 times a week, to my other blog at least twice a week, and to my Weight Watchers blog I will post once weekly. I’m willing to try and put forth this effort even though that means I will be posting at least 6 times a week between all of them. Luckily my photo blog for my family will only be updated monthly unless there is a special event. I want to thank my blog buddies in advance for the help the give me by reading my blog regularly.
• I will stop procrastinating. No longer will my motto be, “why do today what I can put off until tomorrow.” That’s a pretty good one though don’t you think. Or maybe I should just prioritize what needs to be done and the order that I need to do it in.
• I plan on getting fit this year and that encompasses a different areas. I wrote a contract for Jaime outlining my basic weight control this year and my plan on making that happen. That contract was the only way I could convince him to pay for Weight Watchers. Mind you he has never complained about my weight. I was 135 when we met and my heaviest at 167. Absolutely never a complaint. He insists that I am beautiful and perfect just the way I am but in the end I know that what really matters most is what I see in the mirror. What I see is a heavy girl who will be at a happy healthy weight when I reach my goal of 139.
• • I will become more active. This will include going to the gym and continuing my Group X classes. Parking a little farther away from the gym, my weight watchers meetings, and the  market.  I am going to exercise at least twice a week whether it’s my Dance Central game, my Zumba game, Wii fit or the classes I love at the gym.
  • I will eat healthier this year. I eat more in moderation and only eat more portion sizes. So far this is going great and I’m very proud about how this is. I’m eating a lot more vegetables and fruit, a lot less sugar and fast food. I mean I still eat an occasional chocolate chip cookie or candy bar, I have to be able to have what I want or I can’t stay on plan. I also agreed in that contract that I would go to my weekly Weight Watchers meeting  and I actually look forward to them. They keep me grounded on my weight journey and I need that.
  • I will stop being lazy. I will also start walking up the stairs to announce that dinner is ready or that the dryer has stopped. No more calling, texting, or sending instant messages. This has been a little harder to keep up. I still tend to text Giavonni often but Qiarra lost her phone and Alexys hasn’t earned a phone yet. This seems to be the hardest for me but I’m being honest about it. Last night Qiarra asked me if she could ride with me to drop her grandmother off at work this morning and I told her no because she lost her phone and I couldn’t text her. I was nice enough to walk upstairs, go to the far end of the house, soothe her dog, and then wake her up so she could go. As a birthday gift she has asked for a new phone or that the family gets together and looks for her phone. I’m going to try looking for it tomorrow when they’re at school.
• I am going to visit my dad more often. This might sound like common sense but I have 3 kids and it’s not cheap traveling with that many people. So my dad is just getting to know his grandkids now. We moved to Texas from Arizona so that we could be within driving distance of him in case he needed me. His health is not good and I wanted to be able to reach him on the same day in case of emergencies. He came down for Christmas and had a fantastic time with his grandkids so I decided to make it a point to drive out to his house at least once a month but hopefully more. We are going to drive out the last weekend of this month for my daughter, Qiarra’s 16th birthday. He also bred his dogs and now is waiting to give my Alexys a brand new full blood Shi Tzu puppy.
• I am working very hard at getting services for my 24 year old brother who has MR. I would really like to get him in an adult day program. Right now he is in the house all day and I am unable to work. My brother’s doctor thinks I should apply for a care program that will help compensate me. I can live without the compensation because I’ve been doing this for years but his doctor made a valid point. With me being unable to work the compensation will help me pay my bills. I hate not paying any bills, it sounds great but I always feel like I’m being carried and that makes me feel really bad. I’m not the kind who likes to rely on others, not even Jaime.
• Once I have some type of income coming in whether it’s from employment or for my brother, it’s time to get some previous debts taken care of. For awhile there, I had to be mom and dad to my kids and I think they made it through well considering it was just grandma and I. I loved them and gave them what they needed. I drew the line on what they wanted because I had to prioritize and make some sacrifices. That didn’t keep the girls from getting sick or having to be hospitalized so I have some delinquent medical bills that I’m taking care of as I can. I’m starting to get a grip on these bills so I’ll just keep pushing through as I can.
• Finally, I have given myself this year to decide exactly what degree I want to go for. I’m having a hard time deciding because I always wanted to teach preschool and that’s what I was going to school for but I finally realized the reason I felt so aimless with my classes was because I had already taught preschool. So my move last year and trying to get settled has given me time to figure out what I really want to do and I’m going to take this year to figure it out. I also have to help my daughter figure out what she wants to do because she’ll be a junior next year and there’s a lot to do before she graduates high school.

I almost forgot that I also have to make it a point to keep reminding Alexys that when I say something, if I didn’t say “I promise,” then I didn’t promise. I make it a point to rarely ever say “I promise,” because I expect her to hold me to it. That’s what you expect of your children because that’s what they do. Lexy though, will try to hold me to promises I never made and she does this often Jaime also bears the brunt of this a lot too so I now specifically tell her “I didn’t promise it Lexy, I’m saying that I will do it if I can.”

So there is my list, what do you think of it? Maybe I’ve made too many lofty goals and should get rid of some of them or maybe this is just right since I have a whole year to accomplish it and maybe if I break a resolution that’s okay because I have the whole year to get it right. I think I’ll take that as my philosophy, “maybe I didn’t get it the first time, but I succeeded before the year was out.” I think that still technically counts.

Hi! My name is Moni and I’m shy!

If you’ve never met me face-to-face or talked to me on the phone I may not seem a little shy. I may seem like an outspoken extrovert, but boy is that light years from the truth. I’m not just shy, I am painfully excruciatingly shy. I have very few friends because of how shy I am.

In a attempt to alleviate the friend problem, Jaime suggested I join Meetup. I thought this would be a fantastic idea and joined immediately (back in 2007). I probably joined 5 or 6 groups with all intentions of attending group meetups and making new friends. You know what is said about intentions and best laid plans. I would RSVP for a meetup and get so excited that I did yet I would always chicken out when it actually came time to go. I’ve done this repeatedly without fail for the last 3 1/2 years. I mean, I have literally, never in all this time, made a single meetup.

August of ’09 I moved to north Texas after living in Arizona since ’04. When I moved and in the time since I haven’t made any friends. I took a year off of school so the move wouldn’t interfere, don’t work, and spend all day with my mentally handicapped brother (he was diagnosed at 2 with MR). There is no one to relieve me so as my kids put it “I need a life.”

In November I joined a new meetup group, Gal Pals, and have been excitedly waiting for a meetup that fit my schedule. Tomorrow is my first official meetup and I can’t wait. I know it’s only a movie but this is a big step for me. I’m going to meet with people I don’t know and it doesn’t involve the kids.

I don’t know what to say and I’m already afraid that I won’t be able to speak at all. I know Jaime’s just waiting for me to say tomorrow that I’m not going. I always wait to the last minute to bail out. I’m not doing it this time.

My family is beautiful and wonderful but they are not other female adults. Sometimes I remember that girlfriends would be great to have around, talk to and spend time with.

I’m sure that most of you really could care less but I felt like this is what I needed to talk about today. I’ve never told anyone outside of my household about me joining Meetup so you all know something I’ve kept secret for awhile. Hey, I don’t feel any worse for saying it out loud.

Mornings and other things

Posted by Moni Brown on Jan 11, 2011 in PostAWeek 2011, Random Musings | 2 comments

At 5:25 this morning something I’ve known for a pretty long time slammed me in the head again. Luckily I’m speaking metaphorically or else I’d be lying somewhere unconscious right now. I realized that there is no day on the calendar I dislike any more than the others. A Monday isn’t really different from a Thursday, it’s the mornings that I’ve got a problem with.

I hate mornings, I hate getting up at 5:10 every morning. I could completely understand if I had a job but I don’t so ugh!I get up to drive my mother to work because she lives with us and driving just isnt her thing. Amazingly she can really stick to something when she wants to, according to her she used to drive when she was a teenager but shes in her mid 50s now. She married my dad when she was 18 and didn’t drive then to this day she still swears she can drive; however, I can’t find a single person who knows of her driving and I’m including her parents and siblings.

After I drive across town to take her to work I come home and get my youngest daughter up for school. She’s 9 years old and I think she’s taking the bus to school as a way of asserting her adulthood. You know they’re adults at 5 now (in their heads). She gets up at 6:00 to drive to her home school for the bus to pick her up and taker to the school she transferred to. I preferred before they were providing transportation, she got up about 6:45 every day. Her home school was completely full so they transferred her to the other school, both of these schools are 5 minutes from here so the drive doesn’t matter. School starts at 7:45 but she’s willing to be on the bus an extra 55 minutes early just to ride the bus. I kept hoping she would change her mind so I could get a little more sleep, but of course not even when she was the only kid on the bus for 3 months.Here we are still riding the bus everyday.

Next in my morning is making sure my 12 year old son is up and ready for school. He tends to fall asleep and my fiance is supposed to get up at 6:45 to make sure that he didn’t. My son and oldest daughter get up at 6:30 “supposedly”. I come rushing in the house late every morning at 7:00 yelling his name like a mad woman because the little one’s bus was late again (it’s late everyday). My son will usually come down and sit on the couch where he does one of 3 things; falls back asleep on the couch, ask if he can stay home, or ask for a ride to school so he can take a short nap. So , I literally have to say every other minute until 7:08 don’t miss your bus because you’ll have to walk down to the other bus stop and catch the late bus in the cold. At 7:09 I have to say get out the door now. I don’t know why it’s so hard for him we live on the corner and his bus comes right across the street but of course before he can leave he has to plead with me to drop him off or let him stay home. He might be going for that last word thing but it’s mine and I don’t share the honor. He lives in the land of Moni, where there is no democracy it is a totalitarian dictatorship.

He is followed by 5 minutes of fussing at the fiance for not getting up before I got home to make sure the boy was awake. I also have the joy of heating something up in the microwave for my oldest daughter. She’s 15 (will be 16 in 13 days) and trust me she’s counting down the days. She has problems warming up her own waffles and sausage because she doesn’t get up when I tell her to, instead she lays in bed for an extra 20 minutes. She gets away with it because I’m not home. When I ask her how come she needs me to do it she says because she doesn’t have time. I tell her she’d have time if she did what she was supposed to like get out of bed. She then tells me it’s not her fault she does listen but didn’t get out of bed when I woke her up. I know the conversation because we just had it again today, we have it at least 4 times a week. I finally shove everyone out of the door at 7:20 except on Fridays.

Fridays I get the joy of driving my son and the oldest daughter to school because the fiance works 4/10s. For any one who still has to work 5 8-hour days this means he works 4 10-hour days every week and has a 3 day weekend. Friday’s are for video games according to him but I usually have somewhere I plan on him going. He whines but does it anyway and if he’s gone to bed at a decent time I’ll even wake him up to take my mom to work. These are days I pretend I can sleep in until 6:00 but I really don’t because I had to wake him up and then I can’t fall back asleep.

Now in all of this I forgot 1 person, my mentally handicapped brother. He is actually the reason I am not employed and with the way things are handled here in Texas it may be that way for years to come. My brother cannot be left at home by himself and I am the better caregiver out of the options we have. I have been taking care of my brother since his birth and had to quit paid employment as his caregiver when we moved to Texas. So this is one of the things I do as Moni. My fiance and I have decided that we can be okay financially without me having an income. He’s gone so far as to change how he behaves and what he buys so that I can do this because I need to. My brother is 13 years younger than me and I’ve never been much of a sister but always more of a surrogate mother. He’s as much one of my kids as my biological ones are and we treat him like it.

The final 2 reasons I’m not at all fond of mornings are simply I don’t sleep well at night unless I go to bed about 2:30 in the morning. If I don’t then I wake up approximately every hour and it usually takes me any where from 45 minutes to 1 hour to fall asleep. The other is it’s freezing still in the mornings, yes I’m still stuck on the weather. It was 24 degrees when I woke up this morning (felt like 10 according to the TWC app), I’m hoping it reaches 60 at some point this week. The sun is shining beautifully buuuut it is only in the low 30s again. My toes hurt I’m so cold. The cold doesn’t just cause me a little discomfort it actually causes me cramps and pains.

It was so hard for me to get this post written after getting every one out the house I sat at my computer but then I had to let one of the dogs out. I sat down again and had to let that same dog back in and the other one out. Of course that one had to come back in and I tried it again but the dreaded phone call came in. My mother was off work early again and needed her ride. So my post that I originally was going to write at 11:00 this morning is just now being published at 2. I must pat myself on the back because this is the longest post I have ever written.

I hope this year brings me…

I have so many things to look forward to this year.

The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is losing this weight this year. It’s been a roller coaster ride since 2009. I’ve tried so many weight loss plans and diets but this year I’ve changed my outlook on weight loss and I know it’s doable. So, this is the year it gets done period.

I’m going to take a vacation this summer. I can’t wait for it. I’ve been a little depressed between the extra weight and being unemployed for the last 5 months.

This is also the month that my oldest daughter turns 16. Big day for my baby and I’m so proud of her. She’s beautiful and smart. As smart as I was she outshines me by far. Every day she makes me prouder and I look forward to it more than I thought possible. She loves me, is extremely respectful, has very strong goals, and is not trying to date any one. How lucky am I? I just noticed that I tend to ramble when it comes to her.

My move to Texas also gave me something else to look forward to. My grandmother visits Texas yearly and by being here it means she also comes to visit me (her favorite granddaughter, shhh don’t tell any one). My dad is now only 5 hours away instead of 23. We spent our first Christmas together since 1995, it was fantastic. I’ve seen so much family this year and look forward to seeing more of them all year long.

I’m hoping that this year brings the help I need for my brother. All I’m asking for is a little respite care or an adult day program for him. Anything that allows him to live here at home but get out during the day so he can have socialization and I can at least get a part time job. My brother has MR with hints of other cognitive disabilities.

My son is maturing and his voice is changing. I know this isn’t the year he grows into the man he’ll become but I can still look forward to it. I do occasionally get a small glimpse of him though.

I’m a lucky woman with a bright future ahead of my family and myself. I welcome it all with open arms.