Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas, well, sort of..

After losing my sister (right before Christmas) all I remember of the holiday season last year was that it passed in a miserable blur of sorrow and pain. I'm so very sorry for my kids but I was a royal, hot mess and didn't enjoy any part of the holidays, at all. My husband had to decorate the house, purchase and then wrap every single present, alone. All I did was lay in bed, my heart broken, sobbing. Every single happy face I encountered that said, "Have a Merry Christmas!" would start me crying all over again. How could Christmas ever be merry again?

This year I am trying to make a concerted effort to suck it up and put on a happy face. Make no mistake, there is no way the holidays will ever be the same. My life will never be the same. There will always be someone, missing and it will never, ever, be the same without her. So how does life go on or how does one go on with life after such a tremendous loss?

I've been told I need to find a "new normal". Well, quite honestly, this "new normal" sucks. I miss my sister! However, this year, I will hold in all of my painful emotions as best as I can and try be stronger, for my kids. They really miss their Auntie and have been greatly affected by losing her too. I hope to try and become more like her, and likewise become to my kids what my sister was to me, which was, so inspiring. She, miraculously, stayed so full of hope, joy, selflessness, love, humor and kindness, even in tremendous suffering. Drawing upon her amazing example, and with lots of prayer, I hope I can manage to get through this.

So I will be having Thanksgiving at my house this year. And I will be doing my very best to make it happy. So have a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas, everyone, and I will too. Well, sort of....

These Are a Few of My Fav Things this week...

Books: I absolutely LOVED Suzanne Collins' sequal to The Hunger Games, Catching Fire. I could not put it down. Her pacing is absolutely perfect. I can only dream about pacing my book like that. I heard there are talks of making The Hunger Games into a movie. I'm pretty excited about that. Passed both books onto one of my besties Bonnie, waiting to see how she likes them.

Music: Lincoln Park's Minutes to Midnight is still #1 on my play list. (After having my car broken into and all of my cds stolen, I was devastated. I am only just beginning to recover and buy back every one of my missing cds. The first two I bought were Lincoln Park and Creed's greatest hits, also one of my all time favorites.

Movies: I just watched, Wolverine. Two words, Hugh Jackman, enough said. I just watched a great one, "The Painted Veil", Edward Norton. The Notebook will always be my fav though. Pretty excited to see New Moon in a few weeks.

Food & Drinks: The ever present-Starbucks: Since "the diet" I have switched my Starbucks addiction from Tall Mocha Lattes to Grande non-fat Vanilla Lattes. So far, so good.
My favorite restaurant right now is La Hacienda down near Smithville. Their black bean soup is amazing. So are their Marguaritas...

Things I Love to Do: Smithville is still one of my fav spots to visit. The girls love it there and so do I. Planning on taking my oldest to NYC for her first visit next month. Can't wait. Of course, reading and writing, a must everyday.

Favorite Place: Without a doubt, SanFrancisco, CA. I miss CA all the time, whenever I go back to visit I feel like I'm finally home. Helps that my BFF and her family is there, making me feel like I never left.

How Did You Loose The Weight?

For the past eight months I've been eating healthy and diligently working out. I've found that if I do an hour or so of kickboxing, 4-5 times a week, I can eat one or two treats and still loose weight. Treats are VERY important to me. Growing up with an Italian mother, bread was my favorite utensil. For my own family however, I am trying to create a healthier, happier way of eating. Like when my kids fall down I don't say "it's going to be ok, here's a cookie"...this is what got me in so much trouble. (I seriously have the BEST mom in the whole world and mean no disrespect, everyone in my neighborhood would come to my house and tell my mom they fell just to get her cookies). Whenever something bad happened to me well, it's going to be ok, and you guessed it, I'd tell myself to have a cookie. Or two or three and then everything feels better for a little while. Well, it feels better until you catch a look at your ass in a three-way mirror at the mall. Damn. So there I was trying to quit treats "cold cookie" and it wasn't working. Not at all. I always failed and went on huge binges. Once I started kickboxing and just scaling back on how many cookies I ate, I actually lost a lot of weight. And inches and dropped a few sizes but more importantly, my skinny jeans fit. What a monumental moment, when my skinny jeans fit and I wore them out. It's one thing for them to fit, (on your bed, laying down, sucking it in with a rubber band closing the button and with your spanks on) another to take the look outside the home. I'll admit I was a little nervous but when I met up with one of my BFFs she said "holy crap Jen your a skinny bitch now". This is, of course, is the highest form of compliment one friend can pass to another. I finally feel like all of my hard work is paying off. Now come the questions. Everyone keeps asking me how did I do it? Did I have some work done, surgery? My answer to that is "hells no". Two words that will never go together for me: Elective and Surgery. Ok, then you must have joined the gym..No. I work out at home. For real. I don't want anyone watching me get all sweaty, out of breath, panting, boobs flying left and right and just looking busted every time I kickbox. NO gym, ok then again, with the questions, you must have joined WW or Jenny or bought the homegym or something? In all honesty I did none of the above. I refuse to spend my money on any of that. I'm not saying that those programs are bad, not at all, just not for me. I am not a joiner, I don't like other people telling me what I can or cannot eat. None of that works for me. So as long as I can keep eating my treats and losing weight...to answer all of those questions, kickboxing at home, while eating cookies... is how I lost the weight.

Sunset on Long Beach Island

After work the other day, I stopped and sat on the beach alone. I was only there for about twenty minutes but after those twenty minutes I felt renewed, refreshed and restored in my spirit. Sometimes we need to take the time to just "be still and know that I am God". Can't think of a better place to meditate on God's word and pray than at the beach.

Going from "Miss to Mam"

Recently, I met a group of people who, upon meeting me, said with such shock "you're 37!" they were completely taken aback. But why? Were they shocked because I look so good (one can wish) or were they shocked because I act so immature for my age (probably). I am not really sure if I should have taken their shock as a compliment or not. Over the past few years I have noticed the gradual shift in people who have stopped calling me miss and started calling me mam. I could blame it on the three kids I have in tow everywhere I go or maybe the stubborn grays that now peek through my normally brown mass of hair. In either event, I am 37 and by all means should be considered a mam and I should be ok with that. Its just that inside, I still feel and think like I did when I was a miss. Only when I look in the mirror, a mam is staring back.

Back to School

The girls started school again today. When I was growing up I always loathed the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year but now its even worse when my girls are no longer all mine but I must share them with their teachers. With all due respect, to todays "educators" I can't stand relinquishing control over my children to them. I will hear statements such as "mom you don't know" and "but my teacher said..." The teachers will now become the all knowing and all encompassing and I will no longer be the end all be all to their little worlds. The authority is somehow passed to these strangers who have no idea how their words will now shape the minds of my children's eager little brains. I know this sounds like the ramblings of an insane home school mother who is bitter and afraid of their children ever living life without them and I'm ok with that. Sarcasm. I wonder if that familiar trait will live on in my girls or be snuffed out by some overly ambitious, fresh out of college, teacher. Hmmm.