The Big Kahuna

I was just reading in my "Simple Abundance Book" and this line really touched me and in fact the whole November 16th page rocked me today. Yes, I am not going in order. I just started in Feb or so of this year and some days I do 2 pages! Nov 16 is called "Riding The Big Kahuna" Catch the Wave! Sounds so exciting and life can be like that every day!

Think about when a surfer rides the wave. They are on top of the world and every thing is exciting and then they come crashing down with the wave and smiling and laughing and having fun. They then are just on still waters and going with the flow in peace waiting for the next big wave! wooo hooo......Life can be like that and is like that yet we are sometimes afraid of the waves in our life and choose to let them crush us and tumble us and toss us every which way....We can at any time choose to ride the wave and go with it with a positive attitude.

How? Simple..LOVE...Gods love and love of friends and family and a husband or wife and even pets! The book says we are fueled by high octane love :) I love that!

I have found love here in Colorado and in California! My kids love mom....no matter what. My family and mom loves me! :) ....I found love in good people who love me no matter what happened to me the last three years and who loved me through it and will keep being hard on me to help me make my goal! How cool is that? I found love in all my room mates and coworkers and friends! I found love in one person who wont give up on me not matter what. I am blown away.....Not romantic love yet in my life and they ask nothing in return.

Now...I will go out and copy them! And love......and know that I will be blessed to see a changed life. Life is great!

What I Do? or Woo Hoo I'm 142

I was very pleased to step on the scale to see that im down another pound! I started at 180 last November and have slowly lost a pound here and a pound there.

What is more important is that I have made some life changes and I want to inspire other women my age that its never too late in life to get healthy. I am just beginning a new life and want to start it healthy and the best Cheryl I can be :) A lot of people ask me "What do you do or What did you do" so I will list a few of the changed I have made sense February of this year.

I get up each A.M and pray and read a good inspiration of some kind. (Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach)

I go to church. I go to bible study. I go to a few groups that support me.

When I feel sad or negative I stop and start over with my thinking. I take every thought captive on most thoughts. When I stop doing that ...I START again! Even if it takes me a few hours. I do it. I have people in my life that will not let me cry or moan and expect me to snap out of it FAST.....

I surround myself with good positive people...and I become the person I would like to surround myself with!

I believe and dream big!

First thing in the A.M. I drink 20 oz of water
Then I eat fruit
Then breakfast and coffee
Fresh whole food.
No wheat at this time (may add it back someday)
No packaged processed canned foods frozen food
No fast food and limited eating out at restaurants
Organic food
Organic oatmeal
Organic fresh fruit
Organic fresh vegetables
extra virgin olive oil
organic 1 percent milk (I use the Horizon brand with the fat replaced by good oils)
Natural Organic salad dressings like Annies (I love goddess and woodstalk and ranch is good I hear, I find things to deliver Goddess (Darma)
Grass Fed Beef (maybe once a month)
Cage free organic brown eggs
I only eat meat maybe once a week or so
Hormone free chicken (organic)
Organic coffee with 1 percent milk (I use Newman's own french roast lately)
I use palm sugar which is low on the glycemic index
Think Thin energy bars (one a day and add the calories)
No white sugar
1 T honey or pure real maple syrup
Natures valley olive oil spread in place of butter (Whole foods or natural grocers)
Cheese of all sorts. Just 1 oz .....
Organic cottage cheese
Exercise 30 min a day or more outside on a jog walk
Or jog indoors when its cold
Lift weights for my arms
When i get remarried some day i will let my husband chase me for exercise :)

Chocolate: Where is chocolate here? Well.....I love it and believe dark organic chockey is great for you. I just for now am getting to goal weight so I left it out and do not miss it at all now. It took me months to get there. I did a whole super pound of peanut m and m's a few months ago in a weekend so I decided to stop.....

Alcohol: For now i am in a healing and growing mode and this is not a part of my life. Just like chocolate its gone for now. I am GREAT without it. I really am.......

When I go to someones home for dinner or out to dinner my goal is to not be a bore and talk about my eating style unless they ask...I eat a little bit of everything and enjoy myself with NO guilt and do not think of the organic thing. I do it at home enough that every now and again I can have fun. Pizza and Mexican food...:)

I went to a potluck party last Sunday and I had a bit of it all and skipped the dessert / cookies and still lost this week. I did fill up on salad and just a scoop of other things. More a taste.....

Do I cheat ever? YES...... I'm human. My angels call me on it if it seems like im out of control on the cheat. Like right now I went mad with the I cant believe its not butter spray. Not organic NOT healthy Not good ....when its gone i will not buy it again! I love love love my human angels:) smooooooooooch

and LAST....My mentor is who told me about all of the above and he does not want any credit ..:)So I put him last! He is not last in my book...

He says that in the end I did it and I listened to him and yes I do listen to him and I did not have to take his advice, yet....how could I not when I trust that his advice is the best for me and from God? Before anyone gets all thinking im perfect and always listen to everything. I don't and it grieves me when I do not listen because it only hurts me in the end.

My advice is to find a mentor! A lady or man at your church or group or a online mentor ..someone who you are accountable to.

I have decided to go to school and now its the "What are you going to take"? At first I thought I would pursue a preschool teaching degree (I did this when the kids were babies) and then after a few weeks of careful consideration I have decided that is not what im called to do right now even though I love little kids and am good with them. I then thought of my next love "cooking" and oh yea...Its my first love and my first calling in life. (Next to wife and mom) I remember standing up to the stove as a kid on a chair with my grandmother stirring the pot. Yet, its my talent and my love. Do i want to do it as a job? in a restaurant? No....I do not. Do I want to take cooking lessons for myself..You bet. That will come someday...

So what else do I love? I love make up and skin care! Love it and always have done. Can I see myself helping ladies have healthy awesome skin? Yea .....Can i see myself in a salon giving facials? You bet......Can i do this for years and not get bored? YES.....

Thats it. Im on my way this week to research schools and tuition and etc etc. I work in the health industry so it all goes along the lines of what I do now and what im passionate about!

Life is good....and a grand adventure!

Elenore

I just got back from my jog and I met the nicest lady! Her name is Elenore she lives at the top of my little hill. :) I have been walking and most recently jog walking up that hill for months. At first I could not make it to the top on a fast walk and now I am jogging half the time. It feels great when I am done as I am all out of breath and my body just feels great. I struggle once i get to the top to stay in jog mode. That is where Elenore comes in!

When I was jogging / or walking past her house she gave me the thumbs up sign. She was on her patio and came out to meet me. She said that she had watched me for a while now going up the hill daily and always gave me the thumbs up!

Again people who read this....I am inspired and in awe...Have i said that before??? YES....I am blessed beyond what I ever imagined! She told me how she cooks healthy and makes this wonderful vegetable beef soup and how to make it real healthy and to taste wonderful and sinful! Wow...that is my goal! I want to make great healthy food taste sinful and gourmet! She said her daughter cooks healthy gourmet! OK....Im excited now. Elenore said she would give me her recipe for Vegetable soup. That is me ....That is the girl people are amazed at who can just get real friendly and close to a stranger. That is me and part of my gift.

I'm excited now to go out and find more Elenore's!!! Life is full of good people and by gosh im going to go find them every chance I get. What makes me different then some people is that I always never feel rejected when i talk to strangers and they do not want to talk or they act strange. I just know that its not their deal...and its ok. I get rejected half the time I talk to people and I just smile and not take it on as my deal.

Her parting words to me were: I said "When God closes one door she opens another" and she said to me "He already has (Opened a door) and you just can not see the future yet" WOW........

Did I say im blessed?

Alannah and Trespassing!

Last Saturday I went to visit my friend Alannah. Alannah is beautiful and wise and I can not say enough about her. She is one of the sweetest people I have met here in Colorado and I have met a ton of them! She lives way up in the mountains in the forest and her home is as beautiful as she but its more then that its a feeling I get when I walk in. A feeling of love and peace. OK no more Alannah warship!

We went for a walk and she was showing me this fabulous home and what makes it so great is the fact that it sits right on a hill and a stream. They have balconies and big huge windows that over look the stream / mini river. They built a small platform right above the river and there sat two chairs. The house is for sale and Alannah said it was empty so we just hiked right in. There are not any fences as its the forest. We climbed rocks etc and marched our butts right up to the platform and sat right down. For the next hour or so we talked about dieting, relationships, exercise, relationships, work, relationships :) ..etc. Good girlie talk.

As we decided to go home we climbed the rocks again and there at the top of the stair case was a young lady! She said "hello" We were so embarrassed. TRESPASSERS! She just smiled at us as we told her how sorry we were, we thought this home was empty but we loved her platform and we had good girlie talk and she smiled. She was one of us. She knew about girie talk and how important it was and was somehow blessed that we had picked her platform to do it. I suspect she gets in alot of girlie talk herself. Women know this is a good thing.

She was so sweet and gracious and invited us in the home for a tour. The home belonged to her boyfriend who turned out to be a famous recording producer and recording artist. We just loved our visit with this new friend and she was invited into our girlie time. She is a artist as well and has a gallery in town and we are going to go visit her soon to do a big thank you.

Now that is what I call hospitality! That is what life is all about. To take the time and seize the moment! To invite two ladies in your home because you see that they are one of you and like you! How cool is that?

Divorce

The last few weeks I have avoided writing on my blog because my divorce court date is this week and I really do not feel creative. I am not in a place where i am avoiding feelings and letting them just flow and some days im all excited about my future and some days or moments I am in a state of indifference. I call it indifference because its not real sadness as in grief as I did the last three years of this divorce yet it is something serious! I am in a state of reflection on my marriage good and bad. The past three years I choose to only remember the good times and the last eight months I choose to only think of the bad times and now the last few weeks I have been in peace that it was what it was and it was a learning time for me and I growing time.

My time with this soon to be ex was a time of growth for me a time when I fell and fell hard. When I was 20 my therapist told me "Baby, when you are older you are going to crash from all this perfectness and God help those around you" She knew....and I did crash here in Colorado. Ex husband was the one to help me along with this fall. He made it possible for me to hit bottom on all levels. Emotionally, spiritually and with my health. I am grateful that I did hit a hard bottom and I came out of it after three years because now I am on my way up and im almost to the top!

I am so at peace with this ending of a chapter and I do not even look at it as a bad chapter but a growing time in my life and it happened and now what can I do with it? What will God do with it in my life? My good friends husband said to me "God closes this door and will open another" and I believe that is true. I have to trust and to wait and to stay happy and positive and as my mentor says "Dream Big"....And I do!

I feel that my usual posts here are fun and light and this one is serious yet its what I have been avoiding in my writing and I cant fake fun and happy so I was avoiding writing here. I am not sad yet I am not happy. I am in a state of healing and letting go of a marriage and I am so grateful that i am in a place where this is so natural and feels so right.

Feelings are not optional and even if you cover them up they will come out...someday when you least expect it.

No, I wont go on and tell you how wonderful my two mentors are :)....I love them both more then you can imagine! They say its all MY work. I say I could not have done it without them. Thank You...C and M.......C for being the soft heart that loved me no matter what and M for being the one very hard on me and loving me no matter what.....God Bless You Both!