Good-bye, Sugar...ILYSM

I feel like I need to kick my sugar habit.  

I have a great big sweet tooth. All of them are sweet tooths...sweet teeth? Yeah, all of them. I love sweet stuff. I'm the person who doesn't understand when people say stuff like, "This cake is too sweet." or "This brownie is too rich." For real? What does that even mean? 

There was a time, earlier this year, when I decided to try a new fitness/wellness program. It was an eating plan and an exercise plan. I lost a total of 15lb on the plan, and felt great too, so I'd definitely say it works. The hard part, for me, was the eating. The idea was to fill up on lean proteins and veggies and a bit of starches here and there, while removing a lot of processed and sugary foods from your diet. 

On this plan, I'd have egg & veggie casserole for breakfast, a big salad with chicken for lunch, and something like tilapia with rice and green beans for dinner. Very basic stuff. I allowed myself two 8oz cups of coffee with creamer per day, because I can't stomach coffee without creamer and I can't stomach interacting with human beings without coffee. I'd do a couple of short but intense work outs per week and lots of walking. I let myself have a cheat meal now and then but for the most part I stopped eating desserts. I came to love Greek yogurt with strawberries or granola in it rather than ice cream or cookies. I felt great when I followed this plan. I had lots of energy and I could feel myself getting stronger and leaner. I got to purchase medium shirts instead of larges. It was great. 

The problem I encountered first was that I was getting bored with my dinner options. I ate the same things over and over until I burnt out on them. It was challenging to find new meals that fit the plan and were low cost, not too difficult to prepare, and kid friendly. That's a lot of variables. I'm no chef, and I'm kind of picky too. Weekly meal planning brought me to tears more than once because NOTHING sounded good and I dreaded going to the store. I started to lose momentum. 

The second problem started sometime late in the summer. It was my birthday! Hurray! I ate whatever I wanted because I'm old and that sucks! We had several family birthdays all in a row and I ate whatever I wanted, including and especially desserts, until I got to the point where started craving them again. That's the trouble with sugar. The more you eat, the more you crave it.

I am at a point now where I have gained back about 5lb and I'm tired all the time. I'm eating a bunch of sugar because I am craving a bunch of sugar and I'm not eating very nutritiously. I haven't been doing the work outs and I can feel my jeans getting tighter. I know I need to make a change instead of making more cake. 

I am going to start small by cutting out desserts. I think I'll allow one each week but leave it at that. I'm going to try to go back to eating salads for lunch, and try to find some healthier dinner options to rotate in. I tend to be picky so trying new things can be a challenge. 

I'll allow myself to have my coffee creamer so that I don't kill anyone. That seems like the best choice for now. I should probably start walking again, but that is hard now that it's getting darker earlier. I can try it, at least a few times per week. I guess a few steps at a time are plenty of changes at once anyhow.

To review, and to hold myself accountable, I present you with my goals:

• Walk three days per week
• One dessert per week
• More nutritious meals most days

Farewell, delicious treats and tooth-coating sugary goodness. I miss you already. 

To bake or not to bake...

...that is the question!

A year or two ago, I toyed with the idea of making and decorating cakes to sell. So I made up a business on a whim and baked & sold cakes for three or four occasions. It was definitely a learning experience. I don't think business decisions should be made on a whim ;)

 I learned that this is a time consuming process! I also learned that unless I wanted to work for pennies, I needed to consider the cost of supplies when setting prices. And my factor in my time, unless I want to make $3 per hour. Which might not make my cakes as affordable as I'd hoped. I learned that I liked having my weekends free more than I liked earning a few bucks completely trashing my kitchen. I found out that I needed to pay attention to licensing and copyright laws, which meant that I couldn't legally sell a cake based on an existing character.

It wasn't long before I stopped making cakes for money. Except for my kids, and for my friends' baby showers and a few birthday parties. I got burnt out. Actually, it felt more like sugared out. I can still taste the sickly-sweet coating on my teeth from testing icing.

This past weekend, I made a batch of birthday cupcakes for my friend's son's 1st birthday. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed researching and sketching out different ways to make lion cake, and I enjoyed decorating. I was pleased with the fact that the whole process (including baking time and clean up!) only took 2 hours and 30 minutes. I made about $10/hour if you factor in the cost of supplies. And perhaps most importantly, I had fun with it.

Little birthday lions

So, I've been toying with the idea of making cakes now and then. For money. I like the idea of making cupcakes as they are easy, quick and cute. Cupcakes don't require specialty pans. I like the idea of matching decorations or going off a simple plan rather than trying to create some sort of character themed dessert that might infringe on copyright law. I like the idea of spending a few hours here and there working, rather than an entire weekend.

I'm trying to decide what to do next. I would greatly appreciate some input in this process too.

Is my work worth paying for?

How much would you pay for two dozen individually decorated cupcakes?

Would you prefer cupcakes or layered cakes?

How would licensing/copyright laws affect your decision to buy cakes?

Feel free to visit my Facebook page to see more samples of my work or to offer your input there: Smiley Cakes by Melissa Franzen.

Thank you! Below are some samples of recent work I've done...

Cupcakes for a Frozen party

For a friend's baby shower. Wish I had a pic of the inside- it was striped :)

Kittens for my niece's birthday

A special little cake for my niece

Cupcakes

Oreo cupcake

Baby shower cake

Ironing out some Issues

I'm about to drop some truth and share some previous blog entries that have gone unpublished for a long while. I hope that by doing so, I will help someone else.

Here it is. 

The past four years have been somewhat of a roller coaster for me. I have struggled with mood and energy issues. I have had periods of just not feeling like myself. First, it looked like anger, which I wrote about here and here. Then, it looked like anxiety, which I talked about here. It started to look like depression, which I thought I wrote about at one point, but perhaps not. The word irritability started popping up. Exhaustion came into play. I saw several different doctors. My OB-GYN, a counselor, a psychiatrist. I tried anti-depressants, vitamin supplements and hormone replacement therapy. When issues with energy level started plaguing me this summer, I finally made an appointment with a general practitioner to have a physical. I wanted to get to the bottom of the struggle and see what the heck was going on inside my body.

I hadn't seen a primary care physician since I was a teen (hence going to specialists instead) because I'd had a bad experience with a doctor when I was young and never found another one. But this new doctor came highly recommended by my family, so I decided to give him a try. I was impressed. The doctor listened carefully to all of my issues and history and then took 6 vials of blood to see what it would reveal.

A week later, I got a call and was told my iron was low and I needed to start taking iron supplements. So I did. I still felt like crap a few weeks later, so I called for a follow up appointment, wondering if I could have a yeast overgrowth, something I'd been Googling for a friend that seemed like it could fit my symptoms.  I complained to my doctor about my irritability and exhaustion and he told me right away that he knew what my problem was. He turned his computer screen to face me and pointed to where it said my iron level was 4. It was supposed to be 100. Oh. He explained that my red blood cells were struggling to get the oxygen they needed and I felt tired because my body was literally exhausted. Even rest wouldn't help because my body wasn't actually able to rest when it was supposed to. He told me it would take about 3 months for my iron stores to be built back up. I scheduled a follow up appointment for November and went home to wait. 

It's late September now. I'm feeling good some days and not so good others. There are days when I can get up and go, be on my feet and busy with the kids all day. There are days when I sleep for 10 hours and still wake up feeling tired. There are days when I look forward to to spending time socializing with friends and family. There are days when I want to be completely left alone to read or watch TV. 

It's hard. Some days I feel great and think that my iron must finally be where it needs to be. Other days, I lay in bed tired from doing nothing and wanting to be left alone. There are times when I am certain I must have some other underlying issue, and times when I think the iron is my only problem. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever consistently feel good again or if I am doomed to spend my life hunting down problems that no one can find answers to. 

It's a struggle. It's frustrating. But I've come to a new realization.

While I am waiting to find answers and to feel better, I need to keep living. And in order to do that happily, I need to give myself grace. I need to live in each day and accept that some days, I'm not going to feel well. Some days, I might sleep in. I might watch too much TV, or decide to stay home instead of going out with friends because that's what sounds and feels good to me. And that is okay. Exhaustion and irritability tend to come in waves, just as I suspect my iron levels go up and down since, y'know, I'm a woman, and our bodies do...y'know, womanly things every month. So if I need to take it easy, that is okay. Grace, grace, grace. I am only human.

It is hard to admit that.  I want to feel good all the time and have tons of energy and have the desire to get out and socialize and work out and stay active and take my kids to do awesome things. I wish I felt "on" all the time. But I simply don't, and perhaps I never will. That's something I'll have to learn to live with. I can start now by taking each day at a time and by allowing my activity level to reflect how I am feeling.

Some days the girls and I will go on big field trips, we'll go on hikes in the woods and we'll play outside. Other days, we'll stay in and paint at the kitchen table or read in the recliner. Maybe we'll all veg out and spend too much time in front of a screen. That's okay too. That's life. There will be ups and downs.

I'm doing the best job at living that I know how to do. And I'm not going to feel bad about it any more. 

If my life were a show, it would be cancelled

Fall is upon us and that comes my nearly debilitating ragweed allergy. It stinks. The weather is nice enough that I want to be outside in it, but unfortunately the air is filled with sneeze-inducing pollen that makes my eyes itch and my nose run. I spent a good portion of several days outside last week and was rewarded with gross cold symptoms that kept me (and Tim) up all night. I decided that my body needed a break, and I spent most of the weekend inside. Until I figure out a good way to treat my allergies, I am attempting to limit my time outside. Flonase, I'm counting on you!

I've been reading, ok? I've finished a book since my last blog post and have started another. There are many that I want to read but I am either waiting on them at the library or trying to decide how much of my birthday Amazon gift card I should put toward e-books. It's tricky. If I wait and get them from the library, they are free. But waiting sucks. So in the mean time...I've been watching lots of delicious TV.

What have I been watching, you ask? Apparently, the same show in different formats. As of right now, here are the shows I'm currently watching. I'm including links because you need to check them out.

1. Brooklyn Nine Nine
2. The Mindy Project
3. New Girl
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. Modern Family

Earlier, I asked my Facebook friends to share what shows they are looking forward to watching this fall, and I was shocked to find that everyone else is watching dramas while I am strictly watching comedies. I've been giving this a lot of thought while I wistfully stare outside and I discovered that I am watching different variations of the same premise.

All of the shows I like have a large cast of differing people working closely together. They're room mates, co-workers, friends or family members. All of these casts have at least one weirdo female that I find hilarious and/or relatable.  They all have a little romance thrown in there somewhere, which I like. But yeah, basically, it's the same show. Here's a bunch of wacky people living their lives with a side of hilarious antics.

I could totally have one of those shows. I'll be the hilarious lead female, and my friends and family can be part of the ensemble. Some of you are quirky enough to be on my show. Kayla, you're in for sure. We're kind of lacking in the romance department since most of my friends are married with kids. Maybe the show would be about my day to day life, dealings with the kids, homeschooling? I'm not sure how interesting that would be though. I think there'd have to be some kind of conflict to keep it interesting. I guess it could be a show about moms? And cats? Moms would watch that, but no one else would.  It could be funny...I think. Maybe I could throw in Matt and Cameron to add a different dynamic? I dunno.

I shared this idea with Tim and he told me that I could not portray myself because that would make it a reality show and reality shows suck. So which actress could be me? I've been watching a lot of SNL lately and I like Kate McKinnon. Maybe she'd be a good me.

As for the conflict...well, I guess I could see myself seeking out a purpose in life. (I blogged about that around this time last year! And it was even about TV!) I'm not sure what that would look like on TV. I kind of want to be a writer. But I'm 90% sure a show about a homeschooling mom aspiring to be a writer would be cancelled after one season.

Oh well, back to living vicariously through my shows.

A week in pictures

A trip to the zoo with friends

Teaching the cat something

Letter U and number 2

Lex made an abacus

Introducing the concept of multiplication

Demonstrating equal groups

In case you wanted to see EVERY piece in the box

Building at the library

A trip to the park with neighbor friends

Found a bee hive, yikes

Working hard or hardly working?

Lydia's favorite thing about gymnastics

Painting with berries

Taking a TV break

New baby cousins are the best!

It's her!

Can't you tell?

Roadblock

This lovely piece of furniture has been stuck in our basement for 5 years.

When we bought our house in 2010, we were surprised to discover this love seat hanging out in the basement as we moved in. "Free furniture? Cool!" At the time, we did not realize that the reason the love seat was left behind was that they remodeled the basement around it and it was literally stuck down there because it was too big to fit through the renovated doorways. 

So for the past five years, we've been shuffling it around the basement room where it was trapped. It's not an uncomfortable piece of furniture. The kids enjoyed building forts with the cushions and jumping on it like a trampoline. It was a little irritating that it was stuck there, but not a big deal.

Then one of the cats peed on it.

Then the other cat peed on it.

Needless to say, it was time for the love seat to go.  Not to mention, the kids (and their ever-growing multitude of possessions) were outgrowing their shared room and play/school room. We needed to better utilize the basement. 

I sprayed the heck out of it with a variety of chemicals and sprinkled essential oils on it (one cat in particular can't stand the smell of oils) and we tried to come up with a plan for evicting our uninvited upholstered guest. We talked about taking a chainsaw to it and just removing the pieces, but we don't have a chainsaw. 

Tim started moving it toward the doorway to try squeezing it through one last time and discovered that the feet came off! With a bit of shoving, the removal of the railings on the staircase, and a little lost paint, he and I were able to squeeze the love seat out of the house and onto the curb. Victory!

Totally worth it.

We quickly listed it on Facebook and craigslist (for free, mind you) and hoped someone would take it off our hands. It got a little rained on but I honestly think that helped because when someone finally came to take it away and Tim helped them load it up, he said the smell was gone. 

It's funny. The love seat has been in our home since the beginning but it was not until it was finally gone that I realized how much of a burden it had been. It was a relief to see it go. With it gone, we were able to move our school stuff to the basement and split the girls into their own rooms. Just getting one piece of furniture out of the house inspired us to purge a bunch of other stuff that was cluttering up the garage as well as the kids' bedrooms. I honestly feel like we've gained a ton of space, which is a big deal when you're living in a small house with growing children.

Lexi's room. I think more purging is in order ;)

Lydia's room

Our new school area

It kind of made me wonder what other baggage or burdens I need to purge my life of, physically and metaphorically speaking. Sometimes there are roadblocks in your life and you don't even realize it until they are gone. Hmm.

Five Significant Happenings of 2014

As 2014 draws to a close, I find myself looking back and thinking about how the events of this year have shaped me as a person. Here are the top five experiences that I felt made an impact on my life in 2014...

1. Meeting my birth mom and sisters.
What I learned: God has a plan

In February, I flew to Colorado with my mom and my girls to meet my birth mom and family. As a kid, I often dreamed about what this would be like. I never thought it would actually happen. I was full of mixed emotions. I was terrified because I wasn't sure what to expect. I was excited to meet the people I'd been wondering about my whole life. I was nervous about how it would go. Overall, it was a really good experience for me. It was wild to meet people that shared my DNA. Long after I returned home I continued to be affected by the experience. I learned that love can be unconditional and sacrificial. I learned that God has plans for us that we don't always understand. I learned that small choices can lead to big changes and that my choices can deeply impact the lives of others. I learned to be grateful for the people in my life despite their imperfections, because none of us is perfect. Relationships are what I make of them. I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet the people who had such important roles in shaping who I am today.

2. Feeling crazy and trying to fix it.
What I learned: Don't give up on yourself

Ever since Lydia was born, I've felt sort of off. Not like myself at all. Tense, super irritable, overwhelmed all the time by situations that are not overwhelming. It really sucked. After a while of suffering in silence, a doctor started me on medication for anxiety, which helped for some time. Then, out of nowhere, I started struggling with feeling depressed at random times. Like crying my eyes out for no reason depressed. It scared me. The medication I was on wasn't helping me any more and I had a strong suspicion that all of these issues were related to my hormones. I'd noticed some patterns to my feelings that seemed like they might be related to hormone cycles. I told my doctor but she assured me it was not a hormone related problem because she checked my hormones last year and they were fine (just shows you how little she knew about hormones) and that she didn't know what was going on but that I needed to see someone else. So I went to a different doctor, a specialist who thought I had a mood disorder and began treating me for that despite the fact that only some of the symptoms fit. Finally, I called the doctor up and asked to try a hormone treatment because what I was on was not working. She tried to double the medication for the mood disorder but I told her I really didn't think that was the case and could I pretty please just have some hormones.  I finally got the treatment I needed and now I feel like a completely new person. It only took a few days for me to notice a change, and now I feel great. I feel even tempered and able to cope with life. I feel sane. I learned that sometimes, you have to really fight for yourself. You have to be your best advocate. You can't give up on yourself. I wonder how long I would have struggled with not feeling well had I not insisted that I was on to something with the hormone issue. Three years was long enough.

3. Running a 5K.
What I learned: I can do it if I put my mind to it

Okay, so I have always hated running. But this year, somehow, I got to the point where I actually enjoyed it. In January I decided that I wanted to get in better shape but I needed some guidance. Tim got me set up with Couch to 5K Trainer and I actually completed the entire program. I went to the gym and ran my butt off on a regular basis for several months. I got to the point where I could run for 30 minutes straight. Even better, I could walk up the big hill by our house without getting winded. It felt great. This made me realize that I really can do anything that I put my mind to. I joined a couple of friends in completing the Color Run in May (not gonna lie, I walked part of it. hills suck!) and it was fun. I never thought I'd be a person who enjoyed running, but for a period of time this year, I did. Hey, the moment has sort of passed, but just thinking back on this whole experience has made me realize I can do it again, if I dedicate myself to it.

4. Driving the kids to Chicago by myself.
What I learned: I can do anything


The opportunity to visit Chicago presented itself and my friends encouraged me to save money by driving instead of flying. Plus, if I drove, there would be the opportunity to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins that I don't get to see very often.  This was something that scared me. That probably sounds silly, but it is true. The idea of being in the car alone with the kids for 7 or more hours just sounded terrible. I wasn't sure I could do it by myself. And then the thought of traveling around the city without Tim to help out...well, it was scary! But, I wanted an adventure, so I decided to go on one. I wanted the freedom of knowing I could take the kids somewhere by myself. The knowledge that we weren't stuck at home. So I decided to go for it. There were some snags on this trip involving mini fridges, Wi-Fi, uneaten meals and lost breakfasts. I learned to assume nothing. I learned to be prepared and to plan the best I could, but to remain flexible when things don't go as planned. Most of all, that lesson that I can do anything came up again. We had a great time visiting my family, the Field Museum, and even the aquarium. Now I know that if I want an adventure, I can make one happen.

It was so good to hug my beautiful aunt

I miss my cousins so much

The kids loved the Field

5. Getting a cat.
What I learned: Cherish the little things

I've talked about this before (see this post for details if you're curious) and it may seem trivial to some, but this year, we made the impulsive decision to bring home a kitten and it was one of the best decisions we made. I had forgotten how to love an animal. But this sweet cat helped me remember why so many people have and love their pets. The cat has reminded me about unconditional love and gentleness. I didn't realize how much I needed these lessons. There's just nothing like snuggling with a purring cat at the end of the day. She's patient and tolerant of the children and purrs loud enough that I can't hear the TV. She has a knack for reminding us to put down on cell phones and pet her, and I love her for that.

If you had asked me on New Years Eve 2013 what I was hoping for in 2014, I don't think any of the things on this list would have come to mind. I would have been shocked to hear about most of them, actually. But it has been a really great year. I feel like I've grown a lot and that life has been sweet.  I have no idea what 2015 will bring, but I am guessing life will continue to surprise me and that I will learn and grow in some unexpected ways.

What did you learn in 2014? What experiences shaped you the most?