It all starts with a decision, yes. It could be the start of something good, something bad, something hard, something exciting, something unknown and uncertain. As I near 40, I’m coming to a point in life where lots of decisions need to be made regarding how I want to live the rest of my life. Health, relationships, finances…all these things are coming to a head quickly and I need to have solid plans in place.

First and foremost, health. I had a beautiful, relaxing vacation in Belize the first week of June, and let me tell you, I needed it so much. It has been so long since I had time outside of my home to just let go with all my best, lifelong gal pals. I let go of the diet for that week and enjoyed all the foods and all the drinks (they are very fond of rum punch in Belize, as am I now). But now I am back to fighting to endless fight! I did not eat very health-consciously the first week back, but I am back to it this week. Yesterday and today were pretty rough, my energy completely tanked yesterday and I had a hard time not dozing off while getting my daycare kiddos rocked to sleep for naps. Today, energy was back up but good lord was I in a foul mood! I was woken up several times throughout the night, and I’m sure that was the main contributor to my bad mod, but cravings were horrendous, too. So here’s decision #1…I sat down with a calendar and a blank piece of paper, reweighed, remeasured, recalculated and came up with a very specific plan. I created a timeline of how much weight I will be loosing each month, as well as goals for what I want my measurements to be at the end of each monthly weight loss.

Second, relationships. I cannot tell you how fortunate I am in this aspect. I have a large group of friends that I still interact with almost daily who I have known since high school, middle school, and some even since elementary school. We have our own private chat group where we are free to talk about whatever we want with each other. Six of us from this group went on the Belize trip together, even after years of some of us not seeing each other in person, we always pick right back up where we left off like no time has passed at all. I think everyone needs to have someone like that in their life, an unconditional friend or group of friends. I am also extremely fortunate have solid, smooth relationships with all of my family and in-laws. I am blown away by the awful things I read from friends on Facebook every day about how awful their families and/or in-laws are, I cannot even begin to imagine how much harder life would be if you did not have the security and backing of your own blood, as well as the blood you married into. But there are some relationships I feel need a lot of work. The natural give and take of a relationship is always a balancing act, but that balance can fall way off and tip the scale completely to one side. I feel there are a few relationships in my life where I have been doing all the giving, all the trying, all the effort for far too long. I’m sure that my weight has affected my willingness to change this over the years, if I’d had the confidence in myself that I once did, I never would’ve kept these people around. I never would’ve let them suck away years of my life. I never would have let them think they had any power over me. So, decision #2 about the unstable relationships is this…which ones are worth keeping to try and repair, and how much longer am I willing to remain in the rest while they bleed me dry? For this, I have not yet come up with a plan, there is a lot of soul searching in my immediate future.

And third, finances. I absolutely am not happy with where I am on finances for someone turning *gulp* 40 at the end of this year. I not making anywhere near what I thought I would by this age. Not. Even. Close. Savings? Almost non-existent. Retirement? Ha, that’s funny! At this rate, I’ll be working until I die, and that’s no exaggeration. Today, I spent the first part of my morning on the phone trying to reduce 3 bills. I managed to get one of them down a whopping $30. 🙄 As for decision #3, financial decisions, I’m at a loss — for right now. I am a creative girl, though, I KNOW I can find a way to fix this. I just need to sit down and brainstorm this weekend and come up with some solid plans that I can enact straight away.

In closing, I had a great vacation with much needed time among friends, relaxing and talking about life. I realize I am no where I want to be in my life at this age, and I need to be brave enough to step up and make some big, drastic changes. AND I have already begun getting my chops back in shape so I can find some orchestras to play with in a year’s time — Tess, you know I have the Kopprasch out! #Kopprasch5forlife

In honor of my horn player soul, tonight’s music with have be my favorite horn solo I have ever played. “Hunter’s Moon” by Gilbert Vinter. G’night, everybody.

~~ Amie