What is my GPS?

Oh my, what a week I have had since my last blog. I had so much to think about after my last posting. I have had a hard time wrapping my head around what do I do next. After all, my dream seems to keep crashing and I needed to clarify the answer as to why. Why do I so willingly take the first step yet never complete the climb? Why do I lose focus of a dream I have had for so long, to just turn around and keep starting over again and again?

I thought about the title to my blog; Logistics = supplying, equipping and moving. I picked this word because of its meaning and I realized that I am not applying it. I have figured out that I need a map. I don't want to get off track anymore. It is hard to keep gearing up and set forth at the beginning of the familiar trail and never reaching the top. Almost feels like the movie "Ground Hog Day" I keep repeating and starting over.
I have always had a good sense of direction. If I am not sure how to get somewhere, all I generally need is a quick glimpse of the map. I have never really needed great details to get where I was headed. I have driven across country a few times and other destinations and it is easy for me, so who needs a map; not me.
I am learning that in this case (losing weight), it isn't easy for me and I need that map! The concept of losing weight seems easy enough , eat right and exercise, a no brainer right? Apparently it is more complex than that, at least for me. If I am not succeeding in this endeavor I need to do something different. I can't keep repeating what isn't working.
I faced some things this week. One, I have been afraid of this journey, but not understood what I was so afraid of. I figured out that my fears are not about losing the weight, but what my life be like after I lose the weight. I have no idea what that life will be like. For some reason I haven't moved forward, because I don't have a clear and complete vision. I keep trying to invision it, but nothing.
Two, I don't seem to have strong, inspiring motivators in place to help me stay on the path. I realized my motivations are very vague, so I have reevaluated those.  One dream has been to travel, as many of us dream. To travel to far away lands seem to be out of reach for many of us, it is just a dream. Not impossible, but if I am lucky maybe it will happen. Maybe someday I will get the chance to go.This is the mind set many of us take towards our dreams. That is the approach to many of my dreams; just a thought, not something I am really working towards. The #1 place on this earth I have dreamed about seeing is the Fjords in Norway. I would love to take some sort of boat ride or cruise up one or more of these magnificent fjords. Hike across the tops looking downward. I sought out a few pictures this week to motivate me and will be alternating them on my computer wallpaper for a daily reminder. I have other dreams besides travel, but the beauty of Norway is very inspiring to me. Makes my heart long for something.

I find it interesting that when you start asking yourself questions and really seeking the answers, the answers seem to start appearing all around you. I read this quote this week which is actually an Irish Proverb: " You will never plough a field if you only turn it over in your mind" This hit me in the face with a harsh slap! I need to stop mulling it over in my mind and write out a map. I have spent to much time just thinking about losing weight and not nearly enough time on the action. I am working on the map, the action plan to accomplish it. The weight loss part of this journey has things that are SMART= Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. I have been taught how to make specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals. I have failed in taking the time to write them out. For the above mentioned reason, I thought I needed to make goals that included the life that will follow the weight loss. The thing is this, those things that follow can't be put into the SMART formate of goals. It is the unknown. So I need to just map out the part I do know and take the actions that I can do today, a week at a time. God has a plan for the rest and I don't have to know what that is, I just have to trust him and do the part I am aware of
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I read a blog a couple days ago that was written by a girl I have recently met. Her life, her words totally inspired me to weeping tears. They fit so much with my struggle and have helped me better understand myself. To bring some answers to some of my questions. This young girl from Central Nebraska left everything and everyone she knows this week and flew to South Africa. She will be there for a year. She has been planning it for a while, but it came to fruition this last week and she has landed in South Africa! Why am I so amazed by this girl? What has inspired me? It is how she is following where God has led her. Not knowing exactly why, but trusting in him, living for Him, living a dream. Quoting Jordan Alexis Schroeder: "So here's to now. Here's to being lost in a whirlwind of confusion, here's to not having a map to life. Here's to having a dream, even if you don't know exactly what that dream is, here's to chasing your dreams, even if you don't have a path laid before you. Here's to the acceptance that sometimes you have to wave goodbye, not only to your home and to your safety net, but to yourself." She also stated in a little different wordage, "Here's to following God" . You have to read her whole blog because it is off the charts inspiring! http://jordanschroeder.blogspot.com/2011/01/heres-to-day-two.html

I learned something about myself with her words, I don't have to have the path laid out before me, because yeah...we don't have a map for life! It would be boring if we could see the whole thing and just follow along accomplishing the map with check marks. We have free will!  I learned that I have to step out of my safety net and this was probably the tear jerker of all, I have to say goodbye to not only what I know, but to myself. God is changing me and I need to let down that safety net and follow him. It is my Metamorphosis, it is what I want most, it is to be changed. Changed for Gods purpose, to be healthy and fit to accomplish what God wants of me...whatever that is, I don't know. I need to change the way I have been looking at things and put it into an action that I am not familiar with. Quoting Jordan, "God taught me something so important today! ... My thought process lately has been, "I am here, so what should I be doing? Who should I be?" But today God helped me realize that my thought process should actually be, "God is here, what is he doing? How can I join him? Who does he want me to become?".

Yes, I need a map for the weight loss and I am getting that figured out with some clarity. I do not want to live in fear of what life will be after that. I want to share that God is walking this step by step with me, he is the potter, I am the clay. He will shape me and mold me for this is what I pray. I will leave the future in Gods hands and take action on what I can do, today and tomorrow. I am ready for My Metamorphosis.

Thrown into the Mixing Bowl

The holidays have come and gone and I followed the same recipe I always have in the past and it is called "tradition". I am looking at my results and it is like a cookie cutter stamping out the same cookie over and over, the same Christmas as the year before and the year before that and so on.
Over the last couple years I have contemplated "what can I do, to change up Christmas" as it has kind of becoming a blur, because of the look a like copies of each year. The first thoughts of needed change have come with the fact my children are growing, moving to far away places and we all have jobs that seem to keep us apart on holidays. I have felt lonely and a need for change, but what? In this last year I have also added the thoughts regarding a healthier holiday. Just quick thoughts about needed change doesn't really get results. Even though I think about it, that cookie cutter just stamped out another Christmas without a new recipe.
I guess I should follow all the wisdom in magazine articles and set goals in writing, make an action plan, write a new recipe. When you want change, but fail to write a recipe you will get the same old cookie, because you will fall back on the recipe you already know all to well. I let that happen as I have yet to come up with an ingredient list and instructions as to how to make it happen.  Prep work is not exactly the fun part of anything, it is the results! I have to do the prep work for the results to be enjoyed. I think part of my problem is that I am not sure what the end results will be or exactly what I want them to be. I am afraid. I don't have the complete taste or hint of the spice that will be in the end result. I read a quote lately, "You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step" Dr MLK Jr  I feel like I keep taking that first step trying to attempt a new recipe, but then I go for what is easy and don't complete the rest of the staircase. I get out of breath, uncomfortable and stop and step back to what I know best, my comfortable place, the nice cookie cutter I use all the time. Possibly afraid of what is at the top. The not knowing, but I can't think of anything negative so why not, right?
I am a big lump of dough trying to figure out what I want to be. I easily let others shape me and mold me with requests of " oh your going to make ________ for Christmas, right? I love those!" or "We are having _______for" breakfast, dinner, Christmas eve whatever the traditional cookie cutter has produced in the past. I don't like to disappoint and what I have done is created tradition, a tradition that needs to be changed. I need to be the head chef and not only for me, but the whole family. Show them all a new recipe and that change is an adventure to be tasted. There will still be memories, new memories and not the same cookie year after year.
I have mentioned in a past blog that I don't really bake very much, but at Christmas all hell breaks loose in the kitchen and batches and batches of treats get made in a very short window of time. Why, because it is part of the tradition. In a 24 hr period I made 2 loaves of banana bread 1 w/ nuts 1 w/o nuts; 3 batches of  different types of cookies = 144 cookies; 3 batches of fudge  1 w/ nuts 1 w/o nuts and 1 peanut butter fudge = 60 pieces; 1 batch of scones = 16 pieces; and 2 types of dip for all the crackers and chips and it was devoured by mostly 3 people in a little over a week.  I did give a little of it away, but not much. All of the  ingredients I wanted to try and avoid, yet devoured, because I did not take the time to write out a new recipe.That lack of planning has resulted in extra dough on my body. I am back at the bottom of my mixing bowl wanting to rise to the top and be formed into something new.
This season I have grown to a new understanding of myself. My Christmas's are a reflection of the year. I keep picking the same cookie cutter, because it is easy to stamp out what I know. Basically this years results looks alot like I just got beat from one side of the bowl to another, rising and falling like a yeast dough. I went back to where I said I did not want to ever return...the temp of 300 +. In order for my results to change I need to venture out, write down a new ingredients list and the instructions to change the shape of my cookie. It is time to roll out the dough and do some prep work. I tried a few new things this last year. I had pinches of different seasonings and I liked it. I will add the new seasonings into my ingredients not by teaspoons full, but tablespoons and cups full and look for more ingredients so the formula results in the flavors I desire and want in my life. I will no longer be the cookie cutter, I am the chef! Head chef!  A new year and beyond with new flavors to behold...head Chef!
Whats cookin' in your life? any new ingredients? Lets all get out of the mixing bowl and become the chef, molding a new recipe for the year and years to come! Yes, Head Chef! Yes!