Why Not Me?

Why not me?
I grew up in a fairly normal house.  We were a family of five, and I was the oldest of the three kids in the house.  As the typical oldest I was labeled "the smart one".  Not bad for a label, right?  By itself, no.  After me came my sister, the pretty one.  My sister was, and still is, a gorgeous person.  So pretty is a great term to use for her.  The baby of the family was my brother.  He was the big boy, tall, strong and athletic.  Each of these were fitting, but it left me feeling like my grades were the only important part of me.  I was short, wore glasses, and was pretty goofy looking.  Mom told me at some point I had "Thelma thighs", and a "ghetto booty".  At some point I quit looking in the mirror.  I did not see much point in fashion, my hair, or anything else since my worth was found elsewhere.
Do you remember the videos in junior high that talk about the "body changes"???  Oh those were special fun for me.  One video in particular was of a girl named Sara, she was small, and the last to mature in those special junior high ways.  In the film she was called "slow Sara".  Lucky for me.  In junior high I was still small and nerdy, and conveniently my name rhymed with Sara.  The first time I was bullied about my appearance was a group of boys that enjoyed calling me slow Sara.  Until this point in life I did not care how I looked, knowing I would not be the pretty one, or the athletic one.  After this point I hated how I looked.  I still had my big ole thighs and butt, but being short and "boobless" made me a target for ridicule.

-Tara Niemi

As my social media world is expanding, many of you don't know me very well other than from what I post on social media.  I want to share a bit with you all about my journey, I am a bit of a chatty Cathy, but I will try to keep as close to topic as I can. The best way to understand my journey is to take a quick visit to memory lane.

The image I had of my body stuck with me.  By graduation I was a size 0/2.  I still felt big in the wrong places, and too small in the others.  Around this time I met the man that would eventually become my husband.  I met James when I weighed around 100 pounds.  As a young adult, I never paid attention to what I ate, what size I was, or how I looked in the mirror.  My husband and I started dating a couple years after I graduated high school.  I had gained over thirty pounds in those couple of years, but it did not bother me.  I gave up my vegetarian, roller blading, and biking, and traded it all for the couples life.  The girl that never thought she would get married and have babies quickly fell in love, and of course started making babies.

By the time I got married I was 190 pounds.  Working full time and spending all of my free time with my love was it.  We had so much fun, we went to movies, and baseball games, had people over to the house.  Everything we did would involve lots and lots of amazing food.  Who doesn't love some garlic fries at a Giants game?  How can you go to the movies without popcorn and candy?  Every get together involved pizza and chips (a balanced meal for sure).  Still at this point I did not care about how I looked or how much I weighed.  Up to this point in my life it had not mattered, why should it now?

Then came the baby making.  In the years between 2005 and 2012 I had four children.  My post bay weight with my first child was 217.  I joined a gym after seeing pictures of myself during pregnancy and in the hospital with my precious new child.  I lost a whopping nineteen pounds and plateaued.  Stuck at 198, with no accountability partner or coach.  Eventually I tried new things, I researched about diet, and tried to exercise more by walking with my baby.  I lost another fifty pounds before we decided to have another child.  Through the years and the babies, my weight has gone up and down fluctuating between 140 and 200 pounds.  I did not do any fad diets, but none of the changes I made ever stuck for long. 

I am normally a fairly quirky person, so I am just going to take a second to apologize right here.  The point that my life turned around is not a pretty point.

In 2009 we welcomed our third child into the world.  At this point we had one boy and two girls.  Life was HARD, we were broke, and my husband worked out of town a lot, but life was AWESOME.  That summer was so fun, we spent a lot of time with friends, visited North Dakota, and that winter made a trip to visit my family.  In December of 2009, my younger daughter passed away in her sleep.  I cannot explain to you in one note all of the things this did to, and for our family.  The loss of our daughter was profound, and nothing about our lives was ever the same. 

I remember turning to a friend one day shortly after and complaining that I was too fat.  My friend looked at me and said it was ok, I had just had a baby.  My response to her, as horrible as it is was that I did not have a baby to show for it, so I needed to quit being so big.  It was not the first time I disliked what I saw in the mirror.  It was the beginning of a big change for me though.  When I looked in the mirror I saw a big sad woman.  I did not want to be that woman.  

That following year I dove into walking, jogging, and working out at home with a variety of nine dollar workout DVD's.  I got smaller, but more importantly I felt happier. That was the beginning of me focusing on myself.  Eventually my mindset changed.  I quit caring (so much) about what other people thought of how I looked, or how big or small I was.  I made a conscious effort to be healthier.  When I was supremely stressed or sad, I exercised instead of ate.  I felt better about who I was.  I wanted to be a healthier mom, and I wanted to have another baby.

In 2012 my husband and I decided to have another baby.  The baby was due in the beginning of 2013, and as per usual I was a miserable pregnant woman.  You know those glowing giggling adorable mothers to be?  I am not one of them!  I am the most uncomfortable pregnant person ever, and it is truly amazing that I purposely had four children!  I had horrible abdominal pain and migraines while I was pregnant with my youngest, which left me sleeping most of the days away.  I ate a ton, because for some reason I thought if I ate just the right thing I would feel better.  By November I was tipping the scale at 201.  Our little product of love entered the world in a nightmarish fashion on Thanksgiving morning.  I had an emergency C-section, and my baby spent a couple of weeks in the NICU.  Having a preemie sent home with oxygen tanks and a heart monitor in the middle of winter kept me fairly house bound. 

 The following summer I had lost about 25 pounds.  When you are toting around a six month old baby that is still the size of the average newborn, it really highlights how big you look in pictures.  I went to Alaska that summer on a mission.  I had found a Beach Body Coach online and had been following her for a while, doing mini challenges that she held.  I desperately wanted her help.  I wanted her help, but was not ready to commit to a workout, and was dead set on making my own shakes.  Commercially made shakes were not healthy, and I could get the same nutrients from my homemade shakes….  I thought.  That summer I lost seventeen pounds on my own.  Walking all around this dinky town we stayed in, even carrying laundry (and my baby) to the Laundromat!  I cleaned up my diet, and started reading more about nutrition.
 A year and a half ago a friend of mine gave me a sample of shakeology.  She had signed up as a Beach Body coach, and she knew I was working hard on my fitness.  She was so cute.  She told me how healthy Shakeology is, that it is soy free, gluten free, no artificial sweeteners, it could help me lose weight, and it even could help my hair and nails!  I am pretty sure I said no the first couple of times.  Eventually I tried one.  I took the little envelop of powder that my friend gave me, and poured it into a bottle of water that was on my desk.  I shook it up, and took my first drink of this wonderful life changing drink.  And then I walked straight over to the sink and spat it out.  It was horrible!!!  Something I know now, is that you don't have to blend shakeology in the blender every day, but it really should be mixed with cold water!!  So I was a no on the shakeology, I understood at this point that it was healthier than what I was making, but the money and taste really put me off.  I agreed to try working out doing t-25.

In the year and half since then so many things have changed.  I am proudly back around 135 pounds.  I don't say proudly because I like the way others see me, I say proud because I have worked hard to get where I am.  I started drinking Shakeology last June, and it is something that is a part of my daily routine now.  I have done t-25, Piyo, and am currently in the second month of Chalene Extreme.  I can run and hike now without feeling like I am dying, and I have more energy for my kids.  Oh, I am a Beach Body Coach now as well.  I mean if I was going to drink shakeology every single day, and tell my friends about it, you bet your tushy that I was signing up for that twenty five percent off :)

Some of you will say I am still too big, some of you will say how great I look, and still others will say I am too small.  I still have those thighs and some junk in the trunk.  Guess what?????  None of that matters!!!!  Don't get me wrong, if we are friends or you are my family, I value your thoughts and feelings, but I am no longer letting what other people think of me define who I am.  I have three wonderful children that love me no matter what, and just want a happy mom that can play tag with them at the park.  I have an amazing husband that has loved me over a decade that spans over a hundred pounds, life, death, pretty days and ugly days.  God did not create me to live my life based on what other people think.  I have been given so many gifts from God… my husband, my children, and my body.  I am choosing to treat my body as a treasured gift.  As a result yes I have lost weight, but I have also become healthier and stronger, both mentally and physically. 

I remember seeing a mom running with her jogging stroller.  I don't know who she was, just somebody whizzing by me one day.  I remember thinking how strong she looked, and I thought why not me??  I can be the strong and beautiful person that God created me to be, and you can too!

In the last year and a half I have still had ups and downs, but nothing drastic.  I continue to eat healthier and workout to the best of my ability.  I can lift heavier weights, I can jog, and I can hike to see the sunrise over Oahu.  The key things that have really helped me are my nutrition, and a small team of special people.  Adding Shakeology to my daily routine has given me a boost in protein, and so many vitamins and minerals that I am not going to list them all right now.  Having a coach that has kept up with me through my struggles and celebrated my victories with me, and my accountability partners.  These women help me when I start focusing on the wrong things, motivate me when I feel blah, and are tough enough to give it to me straight when I need it.  These are the kinds of women that are in my challenge groups.

As your coach, I will not be the scary trainer you see on TV.  I am not a drill sergeant.  I am just a person that has struggled, and wants to help other people through their struggles.  I am the person you can come to when you are frustrated, I am the person that will motivate you to get up and move (and throw away the junk), I am the person that loves you right where you are but is willing to help you get to where you need to be.  If you feel like you need help with your health or fitness I can be there for you.  Whether it be that you want to lose weight, or gain it, have joint pain, or diabetes.  I can be there for you. 

If you are interested in anything I have said, please feel free to comment or message me.  I will not judge you, will not push you further than you want to go.  I will encourage you and get you involved with some other likeminded people. You can find me on facebook at www.facebook.com/tarasbubble or www.beachbodycoach.com/fitniemi

September: No screen time= more us time

This whole blogging thing sure is more of a James thing than mine, but I just have to share some stuff!  I feel like if I am going to share more with you all, to allow you into this Niemi world, it is only fair to give you some sort of warning before you step through the looking glass into our wonderland.

I have a wonderful, hyperactive, diagonal form of thinking and talking.  My best of friends get this, and ride the roller coaster along with me.  My darling husband tolerates it, and at times laughs at it.  It is just how I am.  It is all connected in my head, I promise.  Warning two- sometimes I will explain to you how this is all connected.  You might get it, you might think I am crazy.  Either way you have been fairly warned.  Warning three...  I am a nerd and am not afraid of what you have to say about my thoughts.  :)  Now that you have been properly and fairly warned we can get this trolley movin...

About a month ago is when I had a great idea for a blog post.  The events played out in my mind like a wonderfully made hollywood movie.  This is going to be AWESOME!  I am going to document this little project all month, at the end of the month we will have a masterpiece.  Uh....  FAIL.
I continued taking pictures through the month of this project, but wasn't really documenting it like I had hoped for.  

About a month ago, it was Saturday morning and I was going about my light Saturday morning chores.  I really suck at the whole housewife thing, but really if I do a little bit every single day of my life, it keeps it slightly cleaner than a pig pen, and I can usually find what I need, unless it is my keys, or my phone, or wallet...  So I was desperately plunging through a minimal amount of chores, with all three kids home.  Nailing Jello to a tree would have been easier...  I felt a bit like the windshield wipers on a car in the middle of a poop storm.  Lucky me, I had a helper.

 So here I am cleaning away, and my lovely toddler is quite quickly undoing everything I am working so hard to do.  Where are my big children??  Aren't we raising them to be helpers, to contribute to the household, to be responsible??  NO!!!!  They were in Kenzie's room, on the high bed where the tot cannot reach them, playing video games.  Not playing so much as fighting.  I could feel my inner tea kettle bubbling....  Have you seen Mom's Night Out yet?  The "moment" the lead character refers to was quickly coming.

Who in this house is getting the glory?  I am frustrated, the kids are fighting, the baby, well he just yells a lot of gibberish so we aren't sure where he weighs in on this.  We are supposed to be living the good life.  We are in this beautiful place, all together, and I feel like all I do is clean, and all they do is fight...   tick tick tick....


That is it.....  KA-B...  wait...  I am making a decision right now on how I am raising this family.  I can sit down and cry.  I can yell, or scream, or I can do something else.  I hopped on the phone to by darling husband.  I wanted to present a challenge to my family.  No video games for the rest of the month.  For the next month, my family would truly live together, help each other, and hopefully appreciate one another.  Computers or other devices would only be used for communication or education purposes.  James was on board.  Later that day I presented the kids with my challenge.  Kenzie cried and cried, Matthew tried to work out some loop holes in the system to see how he could still get his screen time in.  William drooled and commented with something that may have been in German.  I explained to the older kids that this was not a punishment, but that electronics were taking up too much of our lives, and that we were not treating each other the way we should.  We spent a month focusing on family, creativity, and fun.

Here is the next time I attempted cleaning.  Yeah the tot still makes me feel like I am trudging through quicksand, but God bless him for trying ;)  This week I had even more help.  Usually when my kids ask if they can help, it is because they want something, this time they were just having fun.

What did we learn as a family during this month?  Well, have you ever seen the show Nanny 911?  It is Never the kids fault on these shows, it is always some form of less than stellar parenting with a serious lack of boundaries.  Yep.  I was falling short as a mother.  I am not beating myself up over this, there is no point.  I am not perfect, neither are you, or that other guy over there that you are secretly envious of.  We all fall short of the glory....

Glory...  So who is supposed to be getting the glory?  Are the kids supposed to fight and beg until they get their way, until they feel glorified in the eyes of their parents?  Should the parents dominate the children in a way that makes them feel respectable?  No.  I'm glancing over at my children right now.  They are playing the game of life.  They are learning to appreciate each other.  They are learning to entertain themselves and each other, and the value of contributing to their household.

1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God".  During this month of growing, As a family we are talking more around the table.  We give thanks for our meal, and spend time listening to each other.  Not just our highs and lows, but the in betweens.  Isn't that what life is about?  Sharing with each other, loving each other, build each other up.  I gave Makenzie a memory verse this month, a life verse if you will. " And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Coloassians 3:17).  She memorized it quickly.  Then we moved on to what does it mean.  For now, I ask her to focus on who she is doing something for.  Is it for herself, for others, or for God?  When she has a fit, not a little one, but the big embarrassing kind where I hear the sirens of CPS coming for me, I remind her of her verse.  In her words, and in her actions, she should be doing all in the name of The Lord, and be thankful. 

 I have heard James talk to the kids about loving each other.  Even when they are mad, they are to remember that they love each other.  In the last month we have worked on extending grace to one another as well.  Let's face it, as imperfect people we are not always going to be happy with one another.

2 Corinthians 4:15 "All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God."  I am not going to go too far into the context of this, but just look at it.  It is a beautiful thought.  I'm going a little long here.  If you haven't read 2 Corinthians before, you should.  From there you could go plenty of places.  

 We got some pretty good seats to see the Blue Angels from the back yard

Well, my topics have only swayed slightly too and fro, and my bible verses were not completely random.  At the end of the month, the kids got their games back.  I have not allowed for us all to slip back into our old habits just yet.  They are not guaranteed game time.  They are reminded gently to be helpful, to be a gentleman, to act like a lady.  Somewhere during the month, I made it halfway through my BOOM, I faltered.  I didn't fail.  I am learning to extend grace to my kids, to my husband.  I'm not perfect, why should I expect them to be?  So our adventure is not quite the paradise I envisioned, sometimes fun is too messy for me, or too loud for my husband.  That's ok.  THIS is an awesome life I am sharing with these people.  

Just to show some of our adventure, and my kids with their awesome creativity for the month of September...

Mega blocks are always fun, and too big to swallow!

 I think between the three of them they used every block!

Of course mega blocks are not as cool as Bionicles

Little man did not enjoy the boom from the planes during the airshow, so we got creative to help him out

The big kids waited for the jets to fly over the playground

We went to two luaus in the month.  Kenzie was picked from the audience to dance hula at the first one. 

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She started Hula at school, and danced her first performance at the Island Family Christian Church's 60th Anniversary Celebration.

James still hates taking pictures, so I take five rapid fire shots and you all have to live with these crappy photos.  It is evidence that we live together now though! 

Aloha from the Niemi's

New Project

Tara and I are working on a project together. It is a writing project we have talked about off and on for a bit and I brought it up again a couple days ago and when she asked what I had in mind I started typing it out in a text message and I saw the little "..." that she was typing too. I clicked send and then almost got a simultaneous response from her and I'm pretty sure we both laughed pretty hard. They pretty much said the very same things.

I had made a couple inquiries about this project that morning and kind of got the low down on what we needed to do etc. I shared what I had found out with Tara and she sent me a picture of some things she had written down. That was it, step one was done.

I think this is a big project for us. We are busy people. Not like too busy to do it but I think this will take some time to complete. I have work, she has school and together we have three children that require and deserve our attentionkjmnr6b5d5dcffth87yntfygbhj <===== Tara did this....

LIKE I WAS SAYING, we have many responsibilities and this will take some time but I will say it has been fun so far. This morning I excitedly told her I had 3 paragraphs done and she looked at me with the most serious face and then broke into this weird excited happy dance thing she does when she is being a brat.

I cant wait to share more with all of you but for now this is where I am going to leave it.

Hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend.

--James

Of course I came by to update my blog post today, and stumbled across this gem!  My Darling Husband and I see eye to eye, and yes say the same things, a lot!  But we are still soooooo different.  Plain and simple, I'm a nerd, and he is a geek ;)

This project is a very large one,  and I did not do a happy dance when James proposed it to me.  Seriously, I go to school full time, and am raising a redheaded Hulk baby!  But you know what, it is something we can do "together".  As long as he can survive my snarkasm and my very awesome happy dance we will be just fine.  And uh....  he has never complained about my happy dance, he loves when my inner nerd comes spilling out of me in a very snarky way.  This will be fun, in the rip the band-aid off fast kind of way.  I sure am glad I have a good project buddy to work on this with.

-- Tara  aka: the tiny dancer ;)

Highs and Lows Part 2

Yesterday I talked about using "James Math" or "Matt Math" to multiply your high points to outweigh any low points you may have had to make sure you end up on the plus side of the equation.

I understand that this is way easier to say than do and live by. Its something that I deal with on a daily basis. I get called a grumpy guss on occasion and sometimes even have problems applying my own mathematical  equation  to make everything come out on the plus side.

There are things that "bug" me sometimes and its almost as if those low points get their own little special multipliers. They really shouldn't though, and I should make it a priority in my daily life to make sure that they don't.

For instance....

Dorrie, our 500 year old child barks, a lot, at the wind or a tiny ant 4 miles away. Her bark pierces my ear drums. She barks, i say Dorrie. She barks some more louder and quicker and I say Dorrie louder and with more force. Sometimes that is enough and sometimes this repeats itself until I get up and make DIRECT eye contact with her and say DOOOOOORRRRRIIIIEEEE, She stops sometimes for a few seconds sometimes a couple minutes. Tonight I skipped the DOOOOOOOORRRRRIEEEEE and went to this sort of growl thing that was described to me by Tara as something Shrek said in one of the movies. Something about an onion and not a cake. Now, to her credit, she has gotten way better and I don't know exactly what I would do if Dorrie wasn't here.  

Tara posed the question last night how do you think Jesus would respond to being asked about his highs and lows?

I think thats a fair question and one that required some research for me. Yes there are plenty of low points a person could pull out really quick. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mark 15:34 (NIV). Jesus is having a really bad day here. Jesus math may even have a hard time with this one. But finding the high points, the specific high points did not come readily to me. There isn't really one spot I can think of in NIV where it says, "And Jesus smiled from ear to ear." but there are plenty of places I could think of where He should be smiling ear to ear. Luke 8:29, Jesus heals a demon posses man. THATS A GOOD DAY AT THE OFFICE!

The Book of Luke is full of highs and lows. Stories of healing and of Jesus' rejection. Highs and Lows. Luke 4:15 "He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.", you can imagine Jesus saying to himself, "This is going good! People are interested in what I'm laying down here and I''m in the groove." This is what I would consider a high point for Him. Now, its closely followed by a low point where its the intention of the crowd to essentially toss him off a cliff in Luke 4:28-29. This would be a low point. However, with application of Jesus Math, in Luke 4:30 he brushes it off and walks away.

There are many examples of Jesus' highs and lows and I encourage you to search them out for yourself. Basically the whole Book of Luke is about highs and lows.

Ill end this post with a simple challenge. - Challenge yourself to make your day full of highs. If you hit a low, shrug it off as Jesus did in Luke 4:30. Don't let your low ruin the potential highs that the rest of the day may hold.

James