It's been a really long time since I posted a time for me post here. Really, it's been way too long and today, I want to share with you something pretty special that I did with the boys today. I confess, it was mostly with Roger because Ben, while watching, was more focused on telling us just how gross this whole thing was. What was it? We made slime! Yep, I taught my children how to make slime. It's much better than the stuff you get for fifty cents and you can make it any color you want. I was asked to share the recipe, but before I do that, I want to show you a couple of pictures...



Roger made green slime and I made mine purple. Next time, I want to experiment with some darker shades. I wasn't sure just how washed out the color would become and as you can see, it's pretty pastel. Now, for the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 tsp Borax powder*
1 c water
4 oz white school glue
4 oz water (1/2 c)
Food coloring of your choice**

1. In a bowl, combine Borax with 1 cup of water and stir until the Borax is completely dissolved.
2. In a zip lock bag, combine the school glue, water and food coloring. The easiest way to do this is to empty a 4oz bottle of glue into the bag and then fill that bottle with water and pour it in.
3. Once the glue and water are thoroughly combined, pour in your Borax solution. The mixture will immediately start to look slimey and goopy.
4. Mix the two together. At some point, you will probably need to reach your hand in and start working it. For me, this is the best part! The more you work it, the more your slime will thicken up.
5. When you're done playing with it, store your bag of slime in the refrigerator. Borax is a natural bug repellent (great for use on carpet to get rid of fleas, by the way!) so you don't have to worry about bugs. If you live in a high mold count area though, it could grow mold. The biggest concern is it drying out, so when you're not playing with it, always keep it in a sealed container. Also food coloring can stain so be careful not to get it onto anything that it could mark.

* Borax is a laundry booster and be found in the laundry aisle. It's a powder and comes in a box.
** If you decide not to add food coloring to your slime, your slime will be white.




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I want to thank everyone who read and commented, though privately, on yesterday's post. I also want to encourage folks to comment here. Don't be afraid. This is a safe zone.

Yesterday, I mentioned the possibility of an upcoming post on being good enough. I've run into this a lot in my life. It started with my very parents. For those that don't know, they dropped me (and my sister) off with my grandparents and from that point on, they had minimal roles in our lives. I spent a lot of years trying to be good enough for them.

Then, one day, I realized I will never be good enough for them. My mother will probably always shriek at me that she wishes I'd never been born and that I ruined her life. My father will probably always be absentee at best. It took me a lot longer to realize that it wasn't my fault. I had done nothing to them other than being born and now you can't blame a baby for coming into the world. It took the parents doing something to make that happen.

In some ways, growing up like this helped to shape me into the people pleaser that I am today. Ask those closest to me and they'd tell you (or I hope they would cuz otherwise I'm about to lie to y'all.) that it's the little things that make me happy. I love to buy or make little things for people just to see them smile. I'm a helper. If someone needs something, it doesn't surprise me when I'm the one who gets that phone call. It's part of who I am to want to make other people happy.

Recently, I went through another round of I'm never going to be good enough for this person and that brought out a whole new reality to me. I don't have to be. I only have to be good enough for me. If there is something about me that this other person doesn't like, barring that it's a serious character flaw, that's not my problem. The only person I have to make happy is me. There are those in my life who accept me just for being who I am.

Yes, I'm goofy. I'm weird. I am a total geek, though some recently doubted my geek cred. (Yes, I'm looking at you, James.) I'm pretty. I can be funny. I can be silly. I can also be serious, quiet and shy. I can talk to total strangers about anything but there are few who I count as my closest friends. People see me as outgoing and rarely see the sometimes scared little girl behind the facade. I'm a people watcher. I'm a people lover. I am a lot of things and perhaps the best thing..I am open. If there are people who cannot accept me for just being all of those things (and more) then that's not my fault. Sometimes people just don't click.

And sometimes..just sometimes...there's a flaw within themselves that doesn't allow them to be open and accepting. That's something they need to work on. I'm not just the girl that most people see when they look at me. I'm not shallow. I have some serious depth. For those who don't want to dive below the surface, that's their loss. For those that do, I promise that it's worth the trouble and I can't wait for the adventure to start. No rolling a 1 with me, I may not be a natural 20 but with bonuses, I'm at least a 17. (Wow, how's that for getting more geek cred..lol)

For those of you out there who still feel not good enough, ask yourself who you're not good enough for. Unless it's yourself, let it go and if you have to, let the person go. It's not easy but it's a journey that's well worth taking.



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It's Thursday and you know what that means! It's time for me! Wow, that sounded egotistical, didn't it? Maybe I should have said it's time for us to do something good for us! Does that sound nicer? If not, well shoot, y'all know what I mean. It's time for all of us to do something nice for ourselves. We need to take care of ourselves because if we don't, we're no good for anyone else.

Today, I'm doing something a little bit different. I'm giving myself a reality check. As some of you may have read over at Welcoming Weight Loss, I've joined this fantastic group called the Mamavation Sistahood. They are some of the most incredible, generous and loving women you will ever meet.

Now, what you may not know is that a few times a year, they select women to become Mamavation Mamas. This is a huge thing! These ladies take trying to lose weight to a whole new level. A few people were encouraging me to apply but honestly, I'm just not ready for that. I was really worried that I was disappointing people by saying no or that maybe they thought I was making excuses. The truth is I'm not ready. This morning, one of their most fabulous mama's, Shelley and I were talking and she said what I'd been saying. She said yeah, you're not ready. This brought some serious mixed feelings. On one hand, I was almost relieved that someone else saw what I was saying. On the other hand it was a big time reality check. Let me explain why.

For a very long time, I had the worse self esteem a woman could have. In fact, I called it negative self esteem because everything I thought about myself was negative. For the past few years, I've been working hard at getting past that. One of the ways I was doing that was by telling myself that I was ok just the way I am. Now, that didn't just mean personality, it meant physically. This morning, suddenly the reality was right in front of my face. I'm not ok just how I am. I'm not. I am a beautiful person but what I have done to my body is not beautiful. It's dangerous. It's scary and it needs to change.

So, what am I doing for me today? I'm exploring this reality check. I'm working on some "assignments" to help me explore how I got to nearly 300 pounds. I'm going to write in my paper journal. Then, I'm going to spend a fun afternoon/evening with my boys. It's Family Reading Night at their school and we're going to go and have a fantastic time!

What are you going to do for you today? Are you going to find time to journal? Paint your nails a delicious new color? Curl up with a favorite movie? Spend some time moving that body to get your sweat on? Make sure you come back and let me know!



*** This post has been copied over to Welcoming Weight Loss ***
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Wow, long time no see on that graphic, huh? I've been a total blog slacker and one of the things I've slacked on is this post. That's pretty crazy since it's a post that I feel so strongly about. Then again, I feel pretty strongly about all of my themes or I wouldn't write them, huh?

Ok, well now that we have that covered, I need to tell you something. Are you ready? Ok, well here it is. I'm sick. Yep, me. I've been battle this for about a week and it finally took me down. However, I may be down but I'm not out. I'm not letting it defeat me or the progress I've been making for my health.

With that in mind, my time for me today is going to last all day because I'm making it my goal today to drink 4-5 water bottles full of water. This is going to take care of me. The water will keep me hydrated and help flush all the ickiness out of my body. Hooray for byebye to ickiness!

So, tell me, how are you going to take care of yourself today? What are you going to do to pamper yourself? Make sure you let me know by blogging about it and then coming back here to leave me a link to come check out! Just like with our Tuesday challenges, if I get a few of you regularly doing these posts, I'll add a linky for you.

I'm off to fill up my water bottle for the first bottle of the day!


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Happy super stressful Thursday, everyone! Ugh. I am so not ready for this weekend's super awesome fantastic wonderful incredible company or the camping trip next week. My house is honestly a disaster and I'm going to be honest and say that it really hurts my feelings when someone isn't even surprised that my house is a mess. I've been accused of being a hoarder. Maybe. It hurts though to hear someone say it with such disdain and without any kind of understanding. Instead, some understanding and acknowledgement of the fact that I've really spend the past year trying to get things under control would really go a long way. I am aware that I have a problem. I am also aware of why I have this problem. Please don't judge me or make me feel bad about it. Feeling bad just encourages the problem.

So, what am I doing to help with all of this? To help me feel better about me? I'm remembering how many boxes there were when I moved in. I'm remembering how many boxes of things have gone back out and the fact that I have a box almost ready to go and another garbage bag 2/3 of the way filled with clothes. Once they're ready, I'll list them and that will be a bit more of out of my house. I'm spending time cuddling my boys and hanging out with them. I'm going to read them another chapter of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan's Curse. Then, I'm going to come downstairs and see what else I can do tonight to prepare for next week's trip. I'm not going to dwell on the negative but remind myself of the positives.