It can only get better

After my last post, I decided to start tracking my food on sparkpeople again.  This sounds counterproductive since I was talking about how obsessive I am where food is concerned, but believe me, it helps.  When I'm keeping track of what I eat, I choose healthier b/c I get a sense of accomplishment when I stay within my daily suggested calorie intake, I stop beating myself up when I know I've eaten healthy all day long, and it keeps me from continually berating myself for every single bite of food I eat.  I also tend to stick to the same few meals and snacks, all of which are healthy or relatively healthy, which eliminates a lot of my impulsive eating habits. It's a pain to have to add new foods into an online food tracker, so out of sheer laziness, I stick to foods on my list of favorites.  Hey, whatever works!  In 2 weeks, I've lost 5 lbs, which is all my holiday gain.  I do have an ideal weight that I'd like to reach, but tracking my food has a lot less to do with losing weight than it has to do with protecting me from myself.  I was hesitant to start so close to the New Year b/c I didn't want to confuse this decision with a resolution.  Too often we start a New Year with buckets of motivation, only to have it peter out within a couple months.  This choice had nothing to do with the New Year and everything to do with my state of mind.  My self hatred reached an all-time low & I couldn't allow that to continue.

Okay, enough of this boring, self-loathing bullshit. Let's talk about something more upbeat, shall we?!

I didn't make a resolution, but I did start something this year.  My friends decided to do a 365 day picture project and when I heard about it, I did what I do so well: I copied them.  The premise is to post a picture a day for the whole year.  My reason for participating is because I want to look back at these photos next year & remember some of the less prominent, but still happy moments I experienced in 2013.  It's easy to reflect on the major happenings, but I believe it is the little stuff that really counts.  When I look back, I'll have a very specific reaction/memory to each photo. It will be a visual reminder of every single day in a year of my life.  The good, the bad, and yes, sometimes the less flattering.  In the short term, it's just a fun challenge to try to complete.

I'm two weeks in, and there have already been quite a few days when I have snapped a random picture at the last minute b/c I realize it's nearly bedtime & I haven't posted a picture for the day.  Sometimes that's b/c the day has been uneventful and there just aren't any special moments to capture.  Those are the days when I post a picture of one of our dogs or inanimate objects.  Like this:

This is the ring our Christmas tree stand left on our carpet.
Thrilling, I know.

There have been some days when there have been plenty of moments that should have been shared, but I'm so busy enjoying them, I forget to get out my camera.  Those are days when I post a picture of the tail-end of an event, like this:

I snapped this picture as everyone was leaving.

There have also been some days when I'm so busy that I don't have time to even stop & think, let alone remember to take a picture.  Those are the days when, again, I post a picture of nothing in particular.  Like this:

This is mere moments before I went to bed.

One of my favorite pictures so far has been this one:

My Granny when she was a teenager. 

I found this picture of my Granny while I was rummaging through old boxes in the midst of a crackhead-like organizational flurry.  (That didn't last long, but I did get 1 of our spare rooms cleaned up & our Halloween & Christmas decorations organized & packed away.)

This is another of my favorites so far:

Trin & Justin on New Year's Day 2013

This was my very first #365pic2013 photo. It was a split second in an average day, but it represents the core of this challenge for me.  What seems mundane and normal now, a year from now will mean so much more.  It might show me how much my family has physically changed.  It's possible that I'll also see their smiling faces and it will remind me to be grateful at a time when I'm feeling particularly low. Wherever life takes us in the next 12 months, I've chronicled this piece of our history. These pictures will illustrate a series of seemingly small moments that come together as a reminder of where we were, where we're going, and how far we've come.