In recovery

Tap Tap....  Is this thing on???



Okay, don't throw things at me.  I've had a really good excuse.  My husband came home.  I'm in school full time.  AND I have a baby that turned into an evil mess the minute my husband stepped off the airplane.  It's been a full, very stressful two months.  I was under the false pretense that the minute he got home relief would set in.  But it didn't.  I had to learn how to live with him again all the while he was doing his best to help me with the older three kids to keep my sanity.  Life doesn't just fall into place sometimes the way you want it to unforunately.  I'm still in "recovery".  But if you can't learn from it, you don't grow from it.
While I've been gone I've been learning, and learning a lot.  Hopefully in the next few months to a year you won't recognize it around here anymore.  I've already vastly improved my photography skills, and I'm currently learning how to build a website and Adobe Illustrator.  I'm super excited about my future career.  I can't even begin to explain it.  I've been a stay at home mom for so long, and before that I had a super boring job.
Other than sharpening my technical skills I've learned I haven't been taking very good care of myself.  I've focused all my energy into raising kids and making good grades.  Things I would have been disgusted with two years ago have become commonplace lately.  So here it goes, another goal list:
Number 1.  I know a lot about nutrition, and I've been ignoring my knowledge lately.  Consuming wayyyy too many grams of sugar daily.  Enemy number one?  My morning, afternoon, evening, any time of the day coffee.  I've thought about it long and hard and it's come to my attention that I don't really like coffee.  If I liked coffee, I'd drink it black, right?  But I don't.  I drink it full of sugary syrups and fatty cream.  I drink it with artificially flavored, chemical loaded, bottled non-dairy creamer.  What I do like is the effect of caffeine.  I'm sort of dependent on it with an infant and a full time load.
Do you know what I like that has zero calories and caffeine?  Tea.  Plain old tea, hot or cold.  Nothing else needed.  So, one of my goals for a healthy change is to drink more tea and less coffee.
The adjustment to less coffee should help with eating less pastries and donuts haha.  That's a whole lot of extra calories!  If I don't go to Dunkin for a coffee, then I won't end up with a Dunkin donut in my belly.  Tea is tea.  Tea at home is no different than tea out of the house.  That gives less of an urgency for a Starbucks crafted coffee.  What the difference is there are no blueberry scones, raspberry swirl bread, cranberry bliss bars, or pink cake pops.  I'm revealing a lot here aren't I?  I like pastries more than most food, and unfortunately I know it's crap.
This brings me to point number 2.  Even when I was taking really good care of myself...even when I was going to the gym 5 days a week,  eating clean and wearing the same size I wore the day we got married, I was neglecting something.  My skin.  The largest organ on our bodies, and it gets abused more than any other.  Sun, chemically laden liquid soaps, shampoos, creams, lotions, make up, nail polish, etc.  I honestly can't tell you what things I've done to myself.  I did it all ignorantly.  All I can say is that I smelled good and looked pretty while I did it.  Now I feel like I'm paying the price.  I keep covering up the problem instead of fixing it.  I can't keep patching problem areas and expect them to eventually miraculously disappear.  I've started reading and researching how to love make up and hair products, to still be and do the things I enjoy,  naturally.  I want to learn more.  Learn from it, grow from it.
My first caveat (yes I'm adding a caveat to a goal list!) is everything in moderation just as anything else in life.  I'm not so stupid to think that I can manage to go completely without a delicious, sugary coffee for the rest of my life.  I also know that I probably won't go totally natural with my skin care.  Sure, it's ideal, but that's like trying to eat all organic.  I'd love to, but it's not realistic.  I'll be better off in the end even with little changes.
I guess with all this rambling what I'm try to say is that I plan on doing a lot of growing and learning with these changes and I would like to review and document it here.  Maybe I can help someone besides myself learn something.
If you see me at the mall buying the Naked 3 palette when it releases, don't point the finger about what is in and not in the ingredient list.  I will do that research on my own and then still probably decide that I NEED it because by gawd it's the Naked 3 palette.  What I do need you to do is point and laugh at my sweaty pits, tell me that I smell, and my natural deodorant isn't working.  Deal?  Deal.