A New Hope

(yes, I am a geeky Star Wars fan)

Things are going well with my husband, Doug, and I at the moment. We're coming off a two month long really sucky period, but I feel like we're finally on the right track. He's in with the right people who will help him become the person he wants to be, and I also have a great therapist who is helping me work on my own issues.

We read a great book that helped cement my decision to give our relationship a real shot: Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship. It's a quick book to get through. There are about 30 questions (followed by elaboration and advice to help you come to your answer), all designed to help you decide whether your relationship is worth saving. It reminded me and Doug that despite the troubles we're having right now, there are a lot of really good things about our relationship.

Of course, this is just all around a hopeful time of year, too, isn't it? The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous, and it's amazing what being outside does for my mood. We've been working on sprucing up the back yard, going to parks, and taking our dog to the beach.

The beach is especially fun. Niall (22 months) is really into Blues Clues. Well, with all the dogs running through the wet sand, there is a veritable treasure trove of 'Clues' for Niall to find. He has to point out every single one.



And here is our wonderful dog, Maddy. We got her from the Sterling Animal Shelter back in 2002. She turned 10 last November, and is definitely showing her age.. but she still has a great time playing with the other dogs at the beach.

New Goals

I have two new goals to work on this year. I'm not calling them New Year's resolutions, because we all know those always fail.

My first, obviously, is to lose weight. This time it feels right. I can't really explain it, but I feel good about changing my eating habits and increasing the time I spend at the gym. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I do think this is *my* time. I'm tracking calories on Spark People, but not otherwise doing a specific diet. I picked up the book, Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating, by Geneen Roth. I've heard wonderful things about her. I'm not very far into the book, but it's great so far. I may request some of her other books from the library if I really like it.

I'm also going to the gym as often as I can. Unfortunately, I only have about an hour and a half window in the evenings (after my husband gets home from work and before the kids go to bed), but that should be plenty. It takes me about 45 minutes to do all the weight machines, and those I should only do every other day. The rest is slated for cardio. I also have high hopes to work out at home during the day, but we'll see.. I've never had much luck with that in the past (mainly due to the kids constantly interrupting me).

My goal is to lose 100 lbs in 51 weeks - in time for our next planned vacation to Disney World. I'm pretty excited about this. You may know that Disney World is actually completely friendly to overweight people, but I would love to be able to enjoy our vacation as a much thinner (and fitter) woman.

My other goal is to work on my marriage. We're on the brink of divorce. I've thought a lot about whether I want to write about this here, but I may as well. Without going into too many details, my husband revealed some major issues last summer, basically opening my eyes to the fact that he was not the person I thought he was, and that much of our marriage was also not as I'd thought. After five months of fitful progress and astounding setbacks, we've both recommitted to working on us. We're both working hard and putting our efforts into concrete actions. We've read a lot of books on this subject, some of which I may review here. Most recently, we both read Getting the Love you Want, by Harville Hendrix. It was recommended to us by my individual therapist. The plan is to resume marriage counseling soon and work through the exercises (there is an accompanying workbook, too) together, guided by someone experienced with the method.