HUNGER GAMES

Very excited for this movie because of (what looks like, so far) really awesome casting! Of course I hate that there are 2 love interests for the girl (reminding me too much of how irritating Bella was in Twilight), and I imagined "Peeta" (Josh Hutcherson) to be a little bit cuter, more like Liam Hemsworth who is playing Gale and is naturally blondish. However, it will be NIIIIICE to watch "Gale" on screen--although, no one will ever be as "NICE" as Brad Pitt was in Legends of The Fall to me--because he and Jennifer Lawrence's character "Katniss" make such a good couple.  I gotta say, after Twilight, I never wanted to read another book with all that love irony. But, so far I like Katniss' character and all the poise she tries to keep. She's plain, but fierce. Strong, yet vulnerable. Because I am already setting myself up for disappointment, I try not to really glue myself to the books. Yes, I have heard that the series doesn't end favorably, which is a horrible way to get started. Barely into the 2nd book, I can sense the author's rush, so I am reading...knowing I will probably be unhappy in the end. Hmmmph. Honestly, I would not be interested if I didn't know the movie was coming out; didn't even watch the official trailer until I finished the book yesterday. March 23rd y'all, YEE! *got tickets for opening night (prob something I will regret since I hate crowds)*
 

Anyway, back to Liam Hemsworth (lol)...I didn't know he was Thor's brother, Chris Hemsworth Thor...big buff blonde guy with the hammer? Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, Oi Oi Oi--ka fefe! All of a sudden I hate you, Miley Cyrus!

SICK

Sinus-y. Cough-y. Itchy-Throat-y. Tired. Restless. Sick. 

My babies both had strep last week and when we took them to the doctor, both had the antibiotic shot that made them feel better the next day. I have caught a bad cold (maybe even strep) as a result of all these germs around me and cannot shake it. Irritates the heck outta me when I have to put on all my hats, while sick. UGH! I am laying in bed right now, dreading tomorrow because I'm doing a double shift from 7am to 1030pm, and my sickness isn't getting better. What's worse is that I eat MORE to keep my mouth busy so I'm not constantly coughing, and I exercise LESS (not at all for the past week) because it only induces coughing. I'm just glad my kids are better, but it sucks being at work and home, grumpy as hell and not wanting to do anything. Hoping to kick this sickness in the arse soon! 

Whitney Houston, dies at 48

Whitney Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012), was definitely my childhood vocal idol and easily the prettiest singer I grew up watching...I mean she just had the perfect face/eyes/nose/mouth/teeth for those video closeups and forever-long held notes. I LOVED her in the late 80s when she had that poofy, more natural hair, but even when she toned down the spunk, she was still so so beautiful. I will always remember how badly I wanted to sing "The Greatest Love of All" during an assembly at Lupelele Elementary in Samoa, when I was in 3rd grade. I would practice the song at home, but never tried out for it because I was so shy. Til this day I regret not doing it (esp because the girl who actually sang it SUCKED). In 4th grade, while on the Laie School Big Island field trip, one of the chaperon Moms put in a cassette tape of her Whitney album and I could remember the whole bus singing to "Where Do Broken Hearts Go."  And who could forget the memorable Olympic tribute during the 1988 Seoul, Korea games, "One Moment in Time" ?  Remember FLO JO? She made me wish I was black and could run like the wind. That year she took 4 gold medals, and her sister in law Jackie Joyner-Kersee took two.  I didn't really care for her I'm Your Baby Tonight album, except for the title song, so it was a good thing The Bodyguard helped to bring Whitney back to the forefront. Pregnant and glowing in that music video, her I Will Always Love You reminds me of that akward time in my life, transitioning from childhood into early teens. I didn't know a damn thing about love then, but I sure knew how to sing about it thanks to Whitney. However, by the time Waiting To Exhale debuted, I did know a little somethin-somethin', so Exhale (Shoop) takes me back to the nights Marie and I would be in my room, letting slow jams soothe our souls. LOL. The Waiting to Exhale album is still my favorite movie soundtrack of all time!!! Whitney put out a few more hits, like "I Belive In You And Me", "When You Believe", "My Love is Your Love", and my favorite gospel song of hers, "Who Would Imagine A King", but by the time I graduated high school, Mariah Carey was the new Whitney. (We actually sang "Count On Me" at my high school graduation too.) The rest, sadly is history because I couldn't bring myself to listen to anything she made after 2000. I prefer to remember Whitney the way she was in the 80s when she was still bright-eyed and  bushy-haired; still..."Bobby-free". Her amazing career speaks for itself though, and the world can not deny her effortless talent, and the many soulful ballads that filled our homes over the years. So fitting that she really is "free" now, like she sings in this video. Rest in peace, Whitney Houston! May your angelic voice fill the heavens as it did on earth.

                                       

Love the Skin You're In, Or NOT

     I couldn't go to the gym this morning because Laila was sick, so I did what I could in my matchbox-sized living room: short Yoga/Pilates videos (for beginners of course) and Breathing Meditation (first time ever). My body type can't be messing around with these things, but who knew breathing and stretching could feel so good!?? Then, as Bo and I were watching INSANITY infomercials, I started to get all pumped about working out and losing weight so that I could get to a point where I could even TRY the crazy Insanity challenge.
     I must've been thinking I would have this awesome AFTER picture, because I decided I'd take a BEFORE picture of myself. Let me tell you, it was not cute. NOT. CUTE. AT. ALL! Later, at work, I weighed myself (don't have one at home yet) and the scale read 210, but I'm pretty sure it's off by a few pounds, lower than it should be. This is about the range I have steadily remained for the last 8 or 9 years--save the 2nd/3rd trimesters of my 2 pregnancies--and I have never gone below a size 16 (ok, sometimes 17/18) jeans, unless they were a kind of exceptional [insert Nacho Libre voice] streeeetchy pants. On the same note, I haven't owned a size Medium shirt in years!  I'm so used to this range that I don't remember how it felt to be 20 lbs lighter, let alone 40 or 50. But even when I was 155 lbs. and fit from playing high school sports, I didn't feel like I was slim or skinny. In my mind, I was a thick polynesian girl. Looking back, I was actually pretty dang scrawny, and I would LOVE to have that body now. Then, in my early twenties I flirted around the 170-90 bracket, not even caring that I was cutting it close to the next hundred.  It must be that I grow accustomed to, and feel content (<------there's that word I hate) in my skin, no matter the weight. Or shall I call it poor "body awareness," because I can easily let myself go and feel normal...still feel like a thick polynesian girl at 150 or 210 lbs., with no desire to change it? I really have never been obsessed over my weight, EVER, but I definitely know the difference when my thighs are rubbing together when I walk, my arms don't fit into a top that the rest of my body does, and when people congratulate me on my pregnancy when I'm nowhere near it (happened to me last Summer).
     Is there any way to train my psyche to feel I should be a fit, size 6, limber and agile polynesian girl? [Okay, let's be real, the last time I was a size 6 was probably when I was 6, so....ummmm, size 12?] Trying to do pilates at 210 lbs was so awkward, and to make it worse, I got off work at 10:30pm and had a teri burger and chips. Lol. I know, big FAIL. I guess I need to carry my crimzon BEFORE picture around to remind me what skin I should NOT be comfortable in. PS: If I ever have a huge REVEAL (lol) I will show you that picture. For now, that's a hell naw. I'm doing YOU a favor, trust me!

Giant Sunday

After work, I went to my sister's for Super Bowl feasting and The Orator  watching with my parents.  I caught maybe 2 mins of the entire Bowl game today, but was happy to hear that the Giants came away with the win! Aside from breaking my diet, I had one of those grateful-to-be-alive-and-working days, because most of my work day was spent having deep, meaningful conversations with a co-worker about life, and family, and the obstacles that make us who we are. A lot's been a lot on my mind today. My job, my kids, the hubbz, our future...

I woke up 4 times last night, twice for my husband, and the other 2 for my 3 year old. I worked a double shift last night, so I fell asleep shortly after I got home, close to 11pm. An hour or two later, I wake up to find my husband missing. I knew exactly where he was, but it wasn't the fact that he went to faikava, it was the SNEAKY way he did it. So I called his cousin (Bo conveniently left his phone at home) so that I could let him know I wasn't happy. I felt my angry, hateful, "I'll show you", "don't make me come over there" attitude coming out again, and I decided to just sleep it off, only instead of that happening, I woke up to one of those cheating dreams. That made me angry again so I attempted to go back to sleep because I needed to sleep for my morning shift. An hour later, I awoke to ANOTHER cheat dream and at that point I just wanted to start throwing punches (in my dreams I always do)! Unfortunately, Bo was still gone, and now my 3 year old was sleeping next to me. Said 3 year old threw up in bed twice, so I had to get up and clean throw up two separate times. (No words for what I wanted to do to Bo by then.) I even heard exactly when he walked in the door, because I had just laid down after soaking the throw up clothes in the laundry soap...but I didn't have the energy (nor the time) to argue.

I got up feeling both rested and still a little irritated, but ended up having THE easiest shift ever. I felt calm, at ease and reflected on my new found ability to let...things...go... Hands down, my biggest foe over the years  because my point always had to be made, my anger always had to be voiced, and I needed to make him feel my hurt, by any means. But every time I thought my case and point was taken, all the energy spent became in vain because Bo would do exactly what he agreed he wouldn't. The cycle would continue, over and over, and over again.

I don't know if my drama LIMIT has been maxed, or if being the only worker has made me feel alpha-like and therefore powerful (like he used to be), or if I have just simply exhausted any energy allotted to fighting with/for my husband. After all, I have spent more than a decade trying to fill this man's bucket; trying to make him happy, trying to keep him on the "right" path, trying to give him what he wants, caving to his every heart-felt, short-lived "I'm sorry", meanwhile leaving my bucket for any leftover scraps of contentment I could gather. By the way, I really do believe that I have had enough of "CONTENT". 

I typically don't get angry at the things my husband chooses to do, and how he lives his life, it's THE WAY HE GOES ABOUT IT that makes all the difference. But I also see that in an upbringing where people are always trying to make decisions for you, one has no other choice but to just feel so physically/emotionally choked.  I am doing to him exactly what his parents have done and still continue to do...try to control his life. I see how he detests it when they do it, so its no wonder that when I do the same, he has no problem rebelling against me. However, I refuse to put (any) more into this relationship than he is willing to match (and he knows this now), and the same goes for his health. I can't make him want to stop his bad habits to save his life. No one can save you but YOU. No one can change you but YOU. No one can make you happy but YOU. And now that I am coming to terms with my thinking errors over the years, I realize I have spent too much time trying to change him and not myself. I am stronger now. I am not so damn needy. Content is overrated. I want Happy. Extremely Happy, even. My abilities to choose my battles have given me so much peace and gosh, I really need to work on filling MY own bucket. I've had an overflow of the bad, and now it's time to fill MY bucket with good again. A big ol' GIANT bucket!

HyperTENSION

Yesterday morning was crazy. I shot up to Bo yellin "Hun, can't you heeeeaaaar me? I've been calling you forever?" Mind you, I was sleeping in a completely different room so how COULD I have? Anyway, so he's been having the WORST migraines for a few days straight and I did a horrible thing and kind of just ignored it...not necessarily on purpose, but, you know, I work and am a mom and wife and yadda yadda. Point is, I failed to acknowledge it early on. So it's about 4am and hunny is holding his head in pain, so I take him to the ER. Mind you x2, I have to be at work @ 645 am and have no way of finding coverage since I WAS the coverage. I ended up leaving him there to run to work, didn't even have time to shower (just change, gross) but my co-workers will never know. Anyway, so Bo's blood pressure was something like 188/120. WOW! Normal is 140/90. I cannot. Just to be safe, they took x-rays on his chest/lungs and did a CT scan to make sure there wasn't anything wrong in his head (I can think of a few things), but luckily those tests came out ok. The final culprit: HYPERTENSION which was causing HYPERTENSIVE HEADACHES.

Ugh, what a headache indeed. I don't know how many years I have warned my husband about drinking and smoking (yes, they are factors) and overeating (probably the biggest factor). Yes, we Polynesians love our salty, rich in fat and high in cholesterol/carbs food but enough is enough. He is too young to stroke out and leave me caring for a paraplegic... (knock on wood). So it's time to get serious and get out of this rut. No gut. Skinny butt. You know the deal. I've got to be the agressor (as usual) and start crackin' the whip.

First step: I bought a blender to make healthy juices/smoothies and already, even my Lole loves it. Bo, not so much...but that will come with time. This morning I made him a smoothie out of 1 banana, about 4-5 strawberries (cut and froze them last night) and a handful of fresh baby spinach. Add 2 cups low fat vanilla yogurt and a bit of ice, and voila. Lovingly he looks at the green mess and says, "I hope I don't faint from all those nutirents!" Lol. Pretty sooon!

Next step: Food journal, documenting everything we eat. (Yup, I'm getting on this train too)

More steps in no particular order: Get on DoTerra High Blood Pressure regiment (first I have to buy the vitamins and all the oils, might take a while since they're so expensive), exercise at least 30 mins a day (no exceptions), gather healthy food recipes, cut out fast foods/eating out except for on special occasions (I'm gonna miss you SUSHIYA), snack healthily between meals, completely eliminate soda, cut down on fried/salty foods, and drink lots and lots of water.  I know this is not rocket science, but it's still hard and takes a lot of motivation. So all you heatlhy, fit, carb/calorie conscious friends of mine out there, HELP A SISTA OUT. I am open to all of your suggestions. Thanks in advance!