Water Retention

"Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water."


Interesting fact.

Get Fit Holiday!

Current Weight: 142.9
Goal Weight: 125


Goal 1: Jan 10--139
Goal 2: Tone stomach, butt, and thighs.


Goal for break: Make it to the gym 5/7 days a week. Do cardio at least 3 days a week. Do weight machines other 2 days. Every night stretch and do basic tonight. Get into a good workout and eating schedule over break, so it sticks in the spring.

Mike Rowe discusses Dirty Jobs

If you have 20 min to spare, this is a really interesting and inspiring video.

Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs | Video on TED.com - StumbleUpon

Wallow

It's time to stop wallowing in misery.
It's time to stop wishing things would change, or go back to the way they were.
It's time to notice all the wonderful opportunities I have ahead of me.
It's time to realize that I'm beautiful, smart, funny, and a great person to be around.
It's time to realize that someone will see these qualities in me and appreciate me for them.


It's time to stop living in the past.
It's time to start living for the future.
It's time to start focusing on what can and WILL happen when I look at life from a positive stand point.

This school year I will:

• Accomplish my goals
• Strive to live my life for others, and not just myself
• Focus on making myself happy and those around me
• Not let myself get stressed to the point of break down
• Build stronger bonds with the people I care about most, my sisters and peers.
• Stop procrastinating and do what I set out to do.

This summer has yielded it's own struggles, battles, and changes. I go back to school this fall single, having shed 30lbs of unneeded weight, and with new ideas and goals in mind.

I WILL accomplish something big this year...I can feel it.

Positivity

I've decided on a new tool for achieving my goal of "Change and Growth" for this summer. Recently I received a copy of a book called "Positivity" written by Dr. Barbra Fredrickson from UNC. When I first got this book (my mom received it at a teaching conference where Dr. Fredrickson spoke) I figured I'd be reading about this woman's research in positive psychology and her findings on why positive thoughts are helpful. I have found this assumption to be true, however I've also discovered an aspect I was not expecting. 


This book inspires you to be a better person, and strive to live a positive life. Which, I guess is the whole point of positivity, right? The book is divided into two parts, tonight I finished the first part and read the first chapter of the second. Part one is all about her research, what she's discovered about positivity. She discusses her "Broaden and Build Theory" of positivity and how thinking and feeling positive can broaden your outlook and can build up to offer higher levels of resiliency. Throughout this part she inspires you with testimonials from research participants, friends, and even her own life. The most inspiring story was that of Nina, who was on the verge (if not there) of clinical depression and how the Open Heart study helped her to realize positivity's potential for change. Barb discusses how positive thinking and meditation can help you lead a more fulfilling and longer life. You end the first part of the book learning that the tried and tested Positivity Ratio is 3:1 (positive:negative). People who live this ratio are thought to have fulfilling and flourishing lives.


By now you're thinking, great positive thoughts, sounds easy...not really. How exactly am I supposed to change my lifestyle to one that's more positive? That's where Part 2 comes in! Chapter 8 (the first of part two) discusses the Positivity Self Assessment test (used in many of her experiments). She challenges her readers to take this test every day for 2 weeks to determine where their positivity ratio currently subsides. My ratio for day one was not exactly promising...I weigh it at a .67. That's a 1:3, I think I have it a little backward! 


Here's where I begin to challenge myself. The remaining chapters go on to discuss how to go about changing your life from one of negativity to one of positivity. Where was this book three months ago when I was in a slump I never thought I'd escape? Well, it's here now, and not a moment too soon because my slump is returning. I have decided to accept the challenge of positivity. I will be taking the Positivity Self Assessment every night before bed, just like a diet I will begin to change my positive out look on life. I've always been one to lean toward the pessimistic side of life, and I'm deciding now to change that to optimism. Hopefully this will result in more blogging, as journaling seems to be one of the ways to help. Not all entries will be public, I'm sure. Barbara suggests that three months of aiming to think positively will change your life, let's see where I am November 1st. With hope, I'll be on the right track.


I recommend Barbara's book to anyone struggling with something right now. It seems like a great tool to help live a more fulfilling life.

Oh the Places You'll Go

Sometimes, you just need to let go and let life carry you.

I hope your life takes you to all the places you've dreamed of.
I hope you find yourself surrounded by the people who care about you, and the ones that you love.

Let yourself float on the winds of life and take you to where God has planned.
Don't plan out life, let things happen.

These are all ideas I've been trying to drill into my head. I have so many goals and plans in my life. I'm a planner, I always have been. I'm impatient. I want to see where my life will take me, and I want to know now. I'm trying hard to let me life take the path it's meant to, without planning my future out.

You can only plan the certainties, and even those aren't that certain. I can't plan who I'll fall in love with, who I'll marry, what friends will still be around. I can plan that I want to go on to grad school, but even that is not a certainty. I have all these dreams and I'm anxious to find out if they'll happen.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

My family has been looking forward to this vacation since we were here 3 years ago. Every few years my grandparents take their family to Florida for a big Disney or Universal Vacation. Our next trip will occur in about 4 years when my sister is 6 and the twins and Alex are 5, and will be to Disney.


Our trip has included a party of 14 and it's been crazy but fun. My grandparents, mom, Aaron, Mari, Becky, Alex, auntie, uncle Erich, Madi, Jake, and Oliva and Nicholas have made for a fun and eventful week. Of course with any family vacation there is stress and anxiety, but it's full of great times. We are staying in the gorgeous Hard Rock Hotel.

Friday June 18th was opening day for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! We arrived on Saturday, and decided to only venture into Universal Studios. About 2 hours into the park we were poured on by Florida's daily storms. We hid out in the Mummy gift shop till we decided to book it for our hotel. All 14 of us booked it out from the back of the park, umbrella's over the baby strollers. Knowing we were getting up at 6:30am to head to Islands of Adventures I crashed by 8:30!

Sunday morning we got up for what we all were waiting for...Hogsmeade! Half the family was in line by 7:15...I met up with them by 7:45. We were in the park by 8am and in line of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Now, I'm NOT a rides person. Roller coasters or simulators. I get REALLY bad motion sickness (the 15 min drive from Houghton to Calumet is disastrous...). However, the walk through the castle was completely worth the wait. However, the line wait didn't seem that bad. I got a ton of awesome pictures of the castle, Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and the Gryffindor common room. They did a great job with moving pictures, which are essentially tvs inside frames. None of those pictures turned out however, because I couldn't capture a picture of the tv. They did a great job recreating the castle.

It's funny because most of the park seems empty, there is 5-15 min waits on all the rides expect Rip Ride Rocket (in Universal Studios) and HP's Forbidden Journey. Once you walk into Hogsmeade you find where all the park patrons are hiding. It's about a 2 hour wait to see Ollivander and see if you're the lucky person in your group of twenty who gets to "pick a wand." We went Sunday night during a rainstorm and only waited an hour. It was worth it though because Madison was the lucky patron who got to find a wand. It was really cool to watch! She of course decided to buy the wand that "picked her" which was a very nice wand. To get into Honeydukes and Zonko's (the candy shop and joke shop that are attached to each other) you usually have to wait in about a 20 min line, but it varies during the day. The same with Dervish and Banges and the Owl Post (these are also attached, Dervish and Banges sells clothing and the Owl Post is the location of all the wands). Right outside the Owl Post you can mail letters, which will be stamped with a Hogsmeade stamp. Sadly it's been hard to get a HP postcard, so I haven't sent any yet.

My most exciting story so far happened this morning however!! I was looking for wands Sunday morning, when they had all of them in stock. I decided to wait for the rest of my family, and to go through Ollivander's, before picking one out. And the store was packed so I wasn't sure that I was getting to see them all.  I passed up what might have been my ONLY chance to buy the Hermione wand. Sunday night when we came back, they were all gone. Sirius Black's was also sold out, and by Monday night Ginny's was added to that list. I was told last night there was a good chance they'd get a shipment of wands in last night and to check back first thing in the morning. I woke up at 6:30 am and headed to line up at 7am with Jake. After waiting for 45min or so we were finally in. Everyone was headed for the rides...so we headed for our only destination: the Owl Post. For the first time this trip I was able to walk right in...and saw the shop practically empty. I was sad when I noticed the shelves stocked with Harry's wand (which was close to sold out) but no Sirius (the wand Jake was looking for) or Hermione. Being smart...I asked the lady behind the counter. She pulled out the LAST Hermione wand. They had found it randomly sometime last night or this morning. They had debated if they should shelve it or not. Wanting to make sure someone who truly wanted it got it, they decided the first person to ask about it got it. Waking up early and waiting in line and being curious proved to be worthwhile. They lady joked that it was meant for me and that it proved good things were to come for me. So, I'm now the proud owner of a very pretty wand. (Check my facebook for a picture)

So far this vacation has resulted in getting very wet from rainstorms, sunburnt from tanning at the pool, and tired from walking so much! However, it's also resulted in some great family fun, some great food, some wonderful new shopping purchases (which by the way is practically all I've done in the parks). Check my facebook for pictures, some will be in a normal album, but some are in my mobile album.