Monday Motivation...Ugh.

I created this mental stigma I use to convince myself if I do not start on my goals for fitness, diet, cleaning the house, being better organized...whatever...all of it...on Monday, I can put everything off until next Monday.  I have discussed this elusive "next Monday" thing a few times for anyone who has followed my pointless ramblings on here, on Facebook, on MyFitnessPal, etc.

So here I am in that fish bowl on the right, swimming along with the other little unmotivated Monday fishies that are playing on Facebook or doing something equally unproductive. Will I make the jump today?  Where can I find the inspiration?

And in asking myself these questions I realize that I already have the inspiration, I am just in denial, and maybe if I write it all out I can go back and read this blog post to get back on track.  Because honestly, this is all the same stuff that pops up again and again for me and the cycle has to stop.  So, how about I write out some of these excuses?

*I don't have time to work out

Lie
I could be at the free gym up the road right now.  The kids are at school and all I have to do is slap on my workout clothes and go.  And really...Hailey is old enough now to go play on the playground with her big sister while I workout in the building next to it. I could take the kids on a walk to the park after school, or take our fat arthritic lazy dog on a walk.  I could fire up Dance Central like I told Kelly from TheMarriedGamers I would and do some challenges with her.

*I will eat better tomorrow

But...why not eat better today?

*There's no healthy food in the house, I'll go shopping tomorrow.

There are healthy things, I'd just rather eat the non-healthy ones. I always say I'm going to plan out a healthy menu for the week, go shopping and have all the things in the house to stay on track.  But then I convince myself that maybe I won't want the thing I planned for dinner, so it's just easier to grab whatever I want each night from the store, but of course it gets later in the day and it's so much easier to go to Panera and not have to cook or clean...

*I have too many other things to do.

This one...this one right here is the main killer of all motivation.

I am always going to have too many things to do, but do I feel good about myself when I sit here and do nothing?  Absolutely not!  But it's easy for me to sit here and get bogged down by my to do list. Right now I am not happy with myself for getting off track on my goals.  The yard needs mowed, my garden is a wreck, the house needs cleaned, laundry needs done, there are a million things I could be doing for my website The Mommy Gamers to make it better, I could be trying to earn money with my Thirty-One business that I have kind of left stagnant, and I think if I continue to make this list I  might have a panic attack.

Even my website logo is annoying me today, how is she juggling all these things and still SMILING? I want to punch her in her face.

So instead of doing anything, I do nothing.  Time to break the cycle.  If you have suggestions of what works for you PLEASE share them with me.  I'm tasking myself with not saying "I'll try" and instead will actually DO things today.

I already logged into MyFitnessPal, logged the breakfast I shouldn't have eaten, stopped avoiding the bathroom scale and logged my weight.  I gave myself a brief moment to mourn the weight I had lost and gained back, and to be disappointed in myself for eating like a hog this morning.  I can't go back and undo anything I've done, I can only move forward.

Can I get all the yardwork done in one day? No, but I can write down everything I would like to do and start ticking things off the list, or I could create an Indiegogo project and raise the money to hire someone to do it for me lol. Anyone want to chip in on that? My stretch goal would be a hottub and a tiki bar :)

But really, I think making a list might help, a realistic list that doesn't have to be all done in one week. Seriously though people, share your ideas with me because whatever it is that I am currently NOT doing is absolutely NOT working for me.

Win a Lollipop Chainsaw!

How would you like to win your very own foam chainsaw from the soon to be released awesome zombie slaying game Lollipop Chainsaw? You know you want it!! Well here is all you have to do to win this amazing piece of video game memorabilia:

Earn points into the random drawing by doing the following:

1.) Check out my video interview with Suda51, the Creative Director for Lollipop Chainsaw. You can find it on The Married Gamers site here You MUST leave me a comment.

Points Earned:
+1 - for random comments
+3 - for really amazing "you're the best" comments

2.) Post a link to EITHER the article or interview on your Twitter. Tweet me @Jaxboxchick to let me know you did it.

Points Earned: +5

3.) Tweet about this contest.

Points Earned: +5

4.) Check out my hands on article about Lollipop Chainsaw on The Married Gamers and leave me a comment.

Points Earned:
+1 - for random comments
+3 - for really amazing "OMG you're the bomb" comments

5.) Leave a comment here.

Points Earned: +1

Mostly I just need some love for my interview and article. You'll be helping me out and I'll be hooking you up with a pretty sweet prize. Winners will be selected shortly after everyone gets bored with this contest. Each point earned gets your name in the drawing, you have the potential to earn 17 points/entries into the contest by doing all the things listed above. If there is enough interest in the contest and 2nd and 3rd prize may be given out :) We will just have to see...

Fine Print:
Contest ends at midnight, Sunday April 22nd 2012.
Winner will be notified by Monday April 23rd 2012.
Prize will be mailed out no later than Monday April 30th 2012.
Entries will be accepted from ANYWHERE in the World.
The prize is foam and may get smooshed in the mail as I will try and cram it into the smallest box possible.

Push it Real Good!

I'm still going strong with the weekly Dance Central Challenges. The week 3 challenge has been posted and you can find all the details at The Married Gamers in Kelly's most recent blog. I will admit that I have yet to attempt the challenge. It seems pretty hard, if anyone else is out there reading this and wants to try it with me, I could really use some more cheerleaders or people doing it to motivate me. Kelly and I plan to attempt it tomorrow, but we'll see.

I did do amazing things today. I had everything ready to go get my gym membership this morning. Coffee pot was full when I woke up, clothes were laid out, Hailey's diaper bag was packed. The only thing I forgot to do was poop check my gym shoes. I had barely gotten out of the neighborhood when I smelled something not quite right. At first I tried to pass it off as manure, they are redoing all the flower beds in our neighborhood and I figured that was where the smell was coming from. After a while I realized the poo was coming from my shoe. There was NO WAY I was turning around and going back home.

So, I tossed the poo shoes into the back of the van, and stopped at Dick's Sporting Goods on the way to the gym. There's me with a baby on my hip, strolling into the store in socks. I got some new shoes that are WAY more comfortable than the old ones I've had for years and was on my way to the gym. Things were going well, Hailey strolled into the Kid Zone without a care in the world. I took my tour, and was getting ready to complete my paperwork when the crazy people in the Kid Zone at Lifestyle Family Fitness center decided it was time to vacuum. To make a long story short, Hailey didn't like that very much. I finished my paperwork while standing up and bouncing Hailey to calm her and didn't get my workout in.

No way was I quitting there. I waited for Hannah to get home from school, she was late...lollygagging around with her friends (which she is now on restriction for the rest of the week for) and we immediately hopped in the van and headed back out to the gym...again...for the second time in one day. Hailey was hesitant and apparently fussed the whole time, but her sister was there with her and she was fine. I got in a great workout and felt so amazing and proud of myself. We got sushi on the way home and I still had calories left for the day on MyFitnessPal. WOOHOO!

I was still on a rush from my workout after dinner so I fired up Dance Central 2 on the Kinect and did "Can't Get You Out of My Head" thirteen times and issued the challenge to Kelly Brown. Hannah stuck with me for three times on the song and then quit and told me I was crazy. Hey...I don't waste motivation, it comes so rarely for me.

I'm loving these Dance Central challenges and hope they keep them going past this month. If not, we will have to start getting creative with new challenges and maybe even incorporate some other games into the mix.

I was supposed to write today for The Married Gamers, but I used all my motivation working out so tomorrow I must, I must, I must. But right now I'm enjoying the glass of wine I earned today (and I'm still under my 1200 calories for the day)

I did play the Resident Evil: Revelations demo on Nintendo 3DS today, well partially...it freaked me out and I quit for fear of having bad dreams...lol. But I will get that done and write a little something about it this week...I promise...no really, I mean it this time...lol.

My neck, my back...

Yesterday I finally got started on the Dance Central challenge for week 2. If you want details on how you can participate in this challenge check out the article on The Married Gamers. Kelly Brown is the one who is writing about and participating in this challenge and we have been challenging each other and cheering each other on. This week we are supposed to dance the same song THIRTEEN times in a row! And while I don't completely blame Kelly Brown for the fact that my back is screaming at me today, I do like how gaming can help friends accomplish their fitness goals even if they are on opposite coasts. I see what you did there Dance Central, I'm so on to you!

I selected Cascada's Evacuate The Dance Floor for my torture yesterday. I figured since it was a one bar song on difficulty that it would be easy, so I did the challenge on the "hard" setting. What I did not anticipate was that that one evil move (can't remember the name) would have me sweating and dying. After the first song I immediately changed clothes. You really do need to wear comfortable workout-style clothing when doing this. You don't want to be hitching up your pants or trying to recover your bra strap while focusing on the moves. So I paused and tossed on some yoga pants, sports bra, and a shirt I didn't mind stinking up with sweat...and yes...I got sweaty.

My first playthrough was pathetic, only scoring 175K. However, by the 6th time I was getting the moves down a little better and found my score had gradually progressed to a mildly impressive 488K. Practice makes perfect right? It never went higher...lol. The score started dropping as I got exhausted. The "freestyle" breaks were spent catching my breath and dashing to chug water. The only thing that got me through was knowing that Kelly did her song 13 times in a row, and if she could do it then I could do it and I was NOT giving up. I gave it one final push on the 13th and last time and got 4 stars and 444K. Not great, but much better than my first attempt.

What throws me for a loop is the way they track how many calories you burn. I worked out for 25 minutes. I'm sweating and panting, and had to pop some aspirin last night because my back was so sore and they're telling me I only burned 125 calories?!?!? OH hellz no!

So I hopped on my iPad to the myfitnesspal app that I love and adore and have been using daily and did a search for general aerobics. 25 minutes is 221 calories on there and that sounded better to me so that's what I logged for my cardio for the day on my diary.

I will do my challenge again today. Kelly said the Lady GaGa song Marry The Night is a great arm work-out and that she was able to do it on Medium, so I'm going to try to one-up her and do it on hard.

I need some help picking my song for Friday though. I'll give you all three choices (in order of increasing difficulty) and let you guys pick, just leave it in the comments section:

Sandstorm - Darude

I Know You Want Me - Pitbull

Fire Burning - Sean Kingston

You have until noon tomorrow (Friday) to cast your vote!

And finally I want to add a little blurb about MyFitnessPal (yes again). I made some chili yesterday in the slow cooker and finally took advantage of the feature on MyFitnessPal that allows you to figure out your calories for a recipe you create. All I had to do was scan the things I used in my recipe. So using my iPhone, I scanned the lean ground beef, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, seasoning, etc and it gave me not only accurate calories to log per serving, but the proper nutritional value for my batch of chili. I found this super helpful and look forward to using this feature more in the future.

I still find the iPhone easier to use for scanning. I can never remember where my camera is on the back of my iPad...lol. But I still like the layout of the iPad a little better for other things. If any of you are using or want to start using the app make sure to add me "Jaxboxchick" and we can cheer each other on.

One of those days.

Today was one of "those" days. I can't say I had a bad day, nor can I say the day was great. It was just one of those days where you find yourself sighing a whole bunch. I can't properly summarize it in a dozen facebook posts, nor is it really interesting enough to blog about. However, this being my personal blog, I can post uninteresting things :) So hah!

I'll put the interesting stuff first though so you can get that and move on if you'd like. The Dance Central Challenge I've been doing with Kelly Brown from The Married Gamers is on week 2. For details about this week's challenge and info on last week's (if you missed it) click on the word here. This weeks challenge is to do the same song 13 times in a row and is appropriately titled the Unlucky Challenge.

I attempted to do last weeks challenge and I will openly admit that I only did it ONE time. We're supposed to be doing it three times a week. I'm a lazy bum and I'm not denying it.

I'm also behind on this week's challenge, but at least I have a good excuse. I got an icky stomach flu. Good for my weight loss goal for the week, but not so great for the Dance Central challenges. I tried to do the 13 songs tonight, but only made it through the song 6 times. Exhaustion and frustration at my oldest daughter made me throw up my hands and give up. I WILL try again tomorrow.

Hannah, who for the most part took care of me while I was sick has reverted back to her evil ways today in full form. For those that don't know her, she's a bit of a hypochondriac. I'm SURE there are things that are wrong sometimes, but she's SOOOO dramatic about them. She can't sleep, because she itches. So I'm trying to keep her rubbed down with lotion, because it's probably just dry skin.

Today she comes home and asks me to check her for lice. I almost die, because I've had enough of that for one lifetime. I do not find buggies, but I do find lots of poorly washed hair and tons of flakes. I've shown her enough times how to wash her hair and aside from doing it myself every night I'm not sure what else to do, but every day it's something...grrr.

Also, I'm really frustrated because I was sick. I had all these plans for a "me day" on Monday with my friends and that got cancelled. I really dislike being sick, and figured I should be done with it by today and back to normal, but my body had other plans. So hopefully if I get another good night's sleep, hopefully without the strange dreams about me being part of a Charlie's Angel's style group of crime-fighting women (that was weird last night) I'll be back on track tomorrow.

Monday was supposed to be my day to get a gym membership going too, something I've been putting off for months and talking about just as long. I'm ready to get rolling on my goals for this year, although being sick really did help me stay on track :) My goal for tomorrow is to at least try to get out of the house and do at least a mini-workout.

What else was I frustrated about? Oh yeah, Hailey is on day three of not napping until late at night and I think it's my fault though so I can't complain too much.

Anyhoooo, as I expected this was an entirely boring blog. But it gave me something to do, because going to bed at 8pm is entirely too early. Bug ya later, hope you're having a good one, and blah blah blah.

New Year Update - Part 2

Shocker of all shockers I'm actually posting more than once in a month!! As promised I'm continuing to update you all on all the new and fabulous things that are happening in my life this year. I'm cranking up the Lady Antebellum on my iPod and busting out my 2nd update for the year.

My most exciting news for the New Year is having been asked to write for The Married Gamers. When I left Sarcastic Gamer a few months ago I really thought my time in the gaming industry had come to an end. After nearly three years and over 100 episodes of doing the SGPink podcast my life had become too hectic to keep up with gaming and I was unable to feel like I had anything worthy to contribute. Once my classes ended in December and the holidays went away I was left feeling like something was missing.

I left Sarcastic Gamer, claiming I didn't feel like I belonged without a podcast, and that I didn't think I was a "writer". But the more I thought about it, the more I missed writing. I just didn't like having a "quota" to meet each week. Quota to me causes stress, the feeling that if I don't do what is expected of me that I'd be letting someone down. So I bowed out and found myself really missing writing little blurbs here and there about gaming stuff that interests me.

I participated as a host in an Xbox Live Community Playdate not too long ago with The Married Gamers and had a blast. Kelly (the wifey of The Married Gamers) and I met a few years ago at PAX Prime and have been talking on the phone on and off since then. She can be a bit long winded in her conversations, but I love talking to her and her excitement and energy for gaming always gives me a boost. For some odd reason every time I talk to her, Hailey poops too, which is odd...I'm not saying I dread her calls, but it's uncanny how that works. But I've gotten off the point of this blog....

Kelly had a great idea for a new podcast for her site that included me. Long story short, the podcast idea fell through, but she still wanted me on as a writer. To say I was insanely flattered is putting it VERY mildly. So once again, I had to stop and think...am I a writer? I wrote for SG because it was mandatory pretty much. I've never considered myself a writer, or an industry personality for that matter. Harley asking me to be on our podcast and being a part of SG was my very first experience with being a part of something like this. But somehow being asked to write and be part of a site outside of SG made me stop and think that maybe, just maybe I really do belong in the crazy world of gaming.

Most people only know me as "Jax". I created and overplayed that personality as any actress would playing a role. Jax was a personality for Sarcastic Gamer. Being new to all of this I might have overplayed her role a bit too much. So when I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to get back into the gaming stuff he kindly asked me to show them my other side, and to leave behind all the Jax craziness. Initially I was offended a bit, but he had a point. There is so much more to me than that personality I was milking too much for SG. I am a great mom, great wife, and gaming is a HUGE part of our family. So joining a site like The Married Gamers is the perfect fit for me. I look forward to working my experiences with my kids into my articles, taking them to events, and possibly even having them help me do some reviews.

I'm more than a "Drunken Gamer", and while I have no plans to change my blog name I do hope to show all of you the other side of me in 2012. There are people out there who hate me viciously, and sadly enough those people don't know me. I'd love to buy you a drink sometime and have a chat with you. The ones that do know that I'm really a pretty great and caring person. I don't claim to know everything in the world about gaming, but it is something I love and it is a very large part of my life and something I love sharing with my kids and my husband.

My first article on The Married Gamers went up today, it's not amazing, but it is a start and helped me shake the cobwebs off of my writing fingers :) You can check it out here. And pretty please if you do read it, leave a comment on the site. One thing that has always killed me is that no matter how many page views my articles get, if no one leaves a comment I don't feel like my article was ever read. Just the same as this blog. Just say hi, or something, because otherwise I feel like I've wasted my time. It's like someone writing a book, and everyone loving it but no one ever saying they did so they stop writing.

Someone please tell me you want to hear more from me...please?

New Year Update - Part 1

I have been sitting here for the last few minutes just staring at this screen, wondering how to summarize all the excitement and changes and ideas I have for 2012. I've come to the conclusion that if I were to attempt to do this all in one big blog update that it would be a million pages long and no one would read it. (Not that any of you actually read through all this crap anyway) So I am going to do this in "parts".

Since I haven't posted in over a month I'll just sum up the holidays for now and say they were great. Bill came home from Japan for a couple weeks, we had the family over for Christmas Eve and had quite the slumber party, waking up Christmas morning and enjoying it with Bill, the kids, my parents, my sis & hubbie, and my grandmother. Christmas should always be like that :)

I finished up my AA in teaching in December too. Because of all the stress and exhaustion and flat out almost losing my mind I am taking a couple semesters off. This is the first time that I can remember where I don't have work or school and can focus on myself and my family and I am LOVING IT!!!

So, my Part 1 update has to do with what I am planning to do with all of this "free" time. I say this in quotations because I do still have a toddler to chase, and a house and kids to take care of while hubbie is away in Japan. My main goal is to take advantage of this time and focus on my health and fitness, and the overall improvement of the way I feed myself and the kids. Moderation isn't a word I use very often, but I'm working on finding a good balance between the right foods and making the fun foods a special treat instead of an every day thing around here.

I'm actually starting to properly use an app I've had on my iPhone for quite some time now. It's myfitnesspal and it is a free app for iPhone, iPad, and online as well. It makes tracking your goals and the foods you eat incredibly simple. Now that I have an iPad 2 (thanks Bill!) I downloaded the app for it and it's my favorite! However using it with my iPhone is the best because you can use your iPhone a little easier to scan your foods. But I'm getting ahead of myself here...

With this app you can hop online and set your weight loss goal. Then using any of the versions you can easily track your foods during the day. There is even a scanner on your phone or iPad you can use so when I make a salad I can just scan the salad, my dressing, and whatever else I use, select the correct serving size, and it enters all the nutritional value for me. It keeps track of everything all day long and provides a summary so you can track your carbs, sodium, etc and see what you need more, or less of as you go through your day. The iPad app does everything the iPhone does and offers even MORE features like a pretty little pie chart that shows you how your nutrition is tracking for the day.

My absolute favorite thing is that you can add your friends and see how they're doing and cheer them on as they complete their diary each day, drop weight, or just give them a "good job!" when they burn off a ton of calories at the gym. Oh, and when you DO exercise those calories you burn off go back into your ticker for the day and can be used for even more snacking, or maybe even a glass of wine at the end of the night. I'll let you check out the rest for yourself, but for a free app it's amazing and definitely a valuable tool. If you use it or plan to add me as a friend: Jaxboxchick

Ok, now that I've got my food tracking I had to address the whole exercise thing. My original thought was that I would get a gym membership that provides child care. I'm still planning to do this later this month. I think it would give me a nice break each day from Hailey (especially since I have NO babysitter close by) and get us both out of the house. For now, we've been taking walks up to the big park in our neighborhood which is a good 2.25-2.75 mile walk depending on which way we go. I push Hailey in the stroller and the kids take their bikes or skates. We've also been doing some Dance Central battles in the house.

The other day I noticed a great post on The Married Gamers about a Dance Central Challenge that Kelly Brown is participating in. Check out the link for all the details. Basically Dance Central is busting out some fitness challenges every week. I came in a little late to the game this week, so in order to get my 3x in by Friday I started last night and need to do the challenge three days in a row. This week you're supposed to do 10 songs in a row by a certain choreographer.

I did this last night on EASY and almost died. My wonderful son hopped in for the last four songs to help encourage me and keep me going and we really had fun doing the challenge. My body is screaming at me today, but I plan to stick with it and try to do all the challenges this year. You can find these challenges each week at DanceCentral.com. Let me know if you're participating and we can cheer each other on.

I think this is good enough for now...lol. Look for more in the next couple weeks from me, I've got a lot more to say...as always...

Rocking Good Night, Rocking Great Day

Last night I had the great honor of hosting a room for the Xbox Live Community Playdate with my friends at The Married Gamers. They're all great people and I was flattered that they asked me to participate. After having many bad experiences gaming with people on Xbox Live I've kind of avoided it for a while, but I was pleasantly surprised that everyone I played with was awesome. Sure, there were some people that didn't get the whole idea of how the game night worked. One kid didn't even own the game and was waiting for me to invite him to play, another didn't have an XBL Gold subscription, and I did have to report one person for his "Wanna see my...?" message in my inbox. But for the most part I had a blast.

An hour or two before the gaming started I fired up the Xbox and spent about all of the 1800 MS points I had on new songs. Oddly enough I didn't get a chance to play any of them during the game night, do people not like country songs? My oldest daughter and I played (SHE likes country) for an hour before I realized I should probably not exhaust my voice before the night starts. Hailey even played along with us nicely thanks to me giving her the Little Tikes guitar I had planned to use as a Christmas present. This is a great guitar if you have a toddler that likes to play along with you, definitely worth the money. I picked mine up for only $9.99.

After we were done with our game night I recorded with the others that participated and that podcast should be up by Sunday, I'll try and post the link if I decide to blog again. Don't want to make too much of a habit of it.

If last night was great, today was even better. I had my stepdaughters over and our day was filled with Rock Band playing (them not me) and me serving up an awesome do it yourself sub buffet, and for dinner a "season your own chicken wing" buffet. The kids really liked picking their own flavors and the honey soy sauce creation was the favorite for me and Ashley. The other girls lack creativity and adventure and just stuck to BBQ sauce.

We watched the movie Beneath the Blue while we did lunch. The movie has crummy reviews and it is a cheesy predictable movie, but the kids all loved it and wouldn't stop talking about it during and after watching. It has to do with dolphins and young love or something like that.

After dinner we watched The Smurfs and chowed down on some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, I forgot how great those things are right out of the oven! The Smurfs was the winning choice of the day. All the kids were excited to watch it and Hailey even sat still for most of it, taking short breaks to beat the dog and the other kids with her princess wand. ( I didn't give her that thing...)

I even got a great present from Grandma Sally. A tshirt and kitty from The Big Bang Theory :) I'd post pictures but I'm too lazy right now, if you're on my facebook you've already seen them as most of the people I care to share my real life with are on there anyhow.

I ended my day off with a bubble bath, a good book (thanks again Grandma Sally) and am now going to try and get a little WOW time in before bed. Night everyone and thanks for those of you who love me no matter what :)