Lent

I am not Catholic but I am married to one and my kids are all baptized Catholic. I try to give up something during every Lent just to "play along" with the religious die hards (that's a joke) in my house. This year I am giving up negativity and complaining. I credit my Brother with this revelation after a brief conversation we had a couple days that started with him asking "What do you have so much to complain about??". On the upside, at least he reads my blogs but his comment got to me. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer all the time. My good friend reminded me that my blog is my place to vent, but I would imagine it gets boring hearing about the downer stuff that happens in my life.

But for the next 6 weeks (Lent is 6 weeks, right?) I am going to be Patty Positive and really make an effort to not complain or be negative about the things that go on in my life. YAY me!

This is my picture of the day. I wear these three wedding bands daily, though I do take the bottom one off and put on my engagement ring when I go to work or run errands (For a long time I didn't wear my engagement ring because 1) it didn't fit and 2) I was always worried a stone would fall out or something would happen to it. But my Boss told me I should wear it because 1) Life is short and 2) He liked it enough to put a ring on it. Her words (and Beyonce), not mine. So I wear it now. It is a sapphire in the middle with diamonds around it: Think Lady Di but much smaller!).

The bottom band, the widest of the three, was given to me by my late Great Aunt (The ring was my dad's mom's wedding band) at one of my Wedding Showers when I was marrying Husband numero uno. I never thought much about the ring but the older I get, the more sentimental I get and though I don't remember my grandmother (she passed away when I was 3-ish), I like to wear it. The ring on the left is my wedding band and the ring on the right is a white gold wedding band Husband gave me on our 10 year anniversary. I also like to think it represents my three kids. But my Boss calls it the wedding bands of past, present, and future. As in: I all ready have wedding band three in case there is a Husband number three.

My boss think's she's funny.

Just a couple small things to share:

*If you start putting away 10 bucks every Friday from now until Nov 30, you will have $410 to spend on Christmas. Cash, no credit cards needed.

*I have gone hard ass with keeping white foods away from Youngest and guess what? Two good days in a row. I have also added iron to his vitamins and Zinc. Hoping to get some chewable magnesium tablets ordered by the end of the week. We have been eating mostly protein, fruits and veggies. I have cut out bread and have noticed a HUGE improvement in my skin. I am working on getting the family on board and some of the dietary changes can help Middle child with his anxiety. He was all for it.  It takes some planning to not eat pizza and mac and cheese for every meal, but I can tell the kids feel better eating less processed foods. Husband even lost some weight!!

Speaking of,
How are my Weight Warriors?? I am down a little bit and feel like I am in a groove again. Got a HUGE walk in this afternoon and will be walking with my co-worker several days after work. I definitely feel like I can stick to my clean eating when I don't make rice or potatoes for Husband. Lately he has gotten into the habit of saying "I will eat what you are having". That is a huge relief. The kids even ate steak yesterday and liked it! Youngest has been craving carbs but I have been trying to keep them out of sight. I think he can do them paired with high protein, but I don't want him to know about that yet. Tonight he ate cheese pizza with Flaxseeds (this in addition to the iron and zinc!) all over the top and two whole chicken breasts. He said he felt great and he drank his water with the Zinc in it. My kids are definitely the kids that "if you put it out, they will eat it". I have made it my job every afternoon to turn off Foodnetwork, put on HGTV, and prepare snacks for the kids.

I think I have lost weight just not having Foodtv on all the time. So we are heading in a good direction.

This was longer than I wanted but I wanted to share the good things that are happening. Two more days left in the week and we can relax!

Thank you all for reading.

Cat