Had to have a little "Come to Jesus" talk with the girls tonight . . .

I am so very very sick of listening to them fight, call each other names, yell, scream, and just plain treat one another badly.

I am also sick of them slacking off and not doing what they are suppose to do. I mean I know they are kids, and they won't listen, but there are some things I expect from them that they are just not giving me.

Before I went back to work, I sat down with the girls (weeks and weeks before) and told them what the plan was going to be. They would get home from school around 2:20pm. They were to go home, wash hands, eat snack, and get their homework out. They were not allowed to go play (or have others play) until 3:30. One hour, one hour is all I asked of them. Get your stuff done. Clean the cat box, do your piano, then at 3:30 (only 1 hr) you would be done and you can go play.

While I was home, this worked out fine. The first few weeks that I went to work, it was going pretty well . . .  but now . . .  not so much.

I was so sick of coming home at 5-530 and asking the kids if they did their homework only to hear "oh YEAH . . .  I forgot about it" UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHH

To ask them if they have any homework on the weekend only on tuesday to get an email from their teacher saying they haven't turned in this much needed assignment  . .. .

I know this is normal in almost every house that has kids, but I really don't think I am asking too much.

I had to talk to them all on the couch and explain the rolls of big, middle, little, sisters and where they fall into that.
I went on for about an hour saying things like "this is not the way i raised you" "Put others first. Someone else is always having a worse thing happen to them. Do what you can to help them! If that is a meal, a coffee out once a week, whatever they need  . . . it's not always about you . . .

I think I talked myself into a circle, and not sure if it helped one little bit :(

ASHAMED

Today, I realized that I am very ashamed in myself. I have always been proud to be someone that has at least remotely taken care of herself. I love to be active, be outside, and take care of myself, but I have put that aside. I have fallen into a slump and just yesterday FINALLY decided to do something about it.

I also like that I can be very honest on my blog and I don't feel like I am judged too much; at least if I am most people keep it to themselves.

In the last 6 months, I have done nothing active to benefit my own body. I have NO EXCUSE for that. I have a pool that is just about in my back yard, and a gym that I can go to every day.
I feel like have become a hypocrite. and that makes me ashamed .  I try to teach my children about exercise and being healthy and eating right and here I was not exercising myself.

I have gained about 8-10lbs in the last 6-8 months. It breaks my heart and yesterday I finally decided to get out of my rut and get back to who I really am. I went to the gym here yesterday after work and got on the treadmill. I need to build my endurance back up, so it was only 30 min . . . but that is much better than what I had been doing.  Today I swam with the girls. After a few times across the pool, my chest started to pull. Those muscles are not used to being used that much, and are still healing, so I decided that I would use a kick board and just use my legs.  It was a great workout.

I hope I am able to keep this up, I really do because I do not like what I see in the mirror right now. I do not like the example that I have been setting for my girls. I want them to see me caring about my body and not just telling them to take care of theirs.

HERE'S TO A NEW CHAPTER IN MY STORY . . . Let's see how it goes! :)

Full trip to Paris!

It sure has been a while since I last posted! I have been wanting to write for a while, but it is hard to find time to just sit down in quiet and do that~

We have been back from Europe for a week now . . . and I still don't have everything unpacked! All the clothes are washed and put away but A LOT of the trinkets and gifts are still packed!  We got back on a Saturday and then were back to work on Monday.

I am working on getting the pictures put together so I can post them . . . but from two different cameras and an iPad, it's a little more work.  I will share a few sneak peaks today though just so you can see the beginnings of the adventures we went on.

This trip was a complete dream come true for me. I can not believe how blessed I am to have been able to go to such amazing places and see such history first hand!

In Paris we got to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph, the Catacombs, and Notre Dame

The Eiffel Tower at night!

The front of the Louvre!

The Mona Lisa!

Notre Dame!

And the Catacombs . . .

Our first day in PARIS!

I still can't believe that we are here! Paris! WOW!

We got in about 6am on Sunday morning. I had a plan to get to the apartment we were staying at, unload everything and then go to the market that is a block away and stock up on food for the next few days. However, that didn't happen. It was early Sunday morning in Paris  . . . nothing was open! I didn't even think about that!

Well with us Deatons, plans always change . . . we changed into some warmer clothes and headed off to explore! I knew we were close to the Eiffel tower, so off we walked. It took us about ten minutes to get there. We turned the corner, and BAM! there it was!

I could not believe we were standing there, looking at the Eiffel Tower! The girls were squealing and I was just standing there with my mouth open in disbelief .

The weather in Paris is quite cold right now but we toughed it out! We walked across the River Seine and hiked up the insane amounts of stairs to get to the "2nd floor" of the tower. The view was insane! :)

We did a bit of shopping while we were up there and got some gifts for some family that had said they wanted something from Paris.

From there, we made the trek back down to the ground. The sun started coming out at that point and it sure felt wonderful! :)

After that amazing adventure, we started our walk back home.

Our first day in Paris was amazing! Today, I believe we are planning on going to the Louvre and I am not sure what else!!! Keep checking in and I will keep updating!!!!! :) WOOOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!

I REALLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                       Right before I went into the OR


I can not believe it has been one year since I had my first surgery and was told they got all of the cancer and it hadn't spread!!!!!!

                                               (This is right after I came out of recovery)

What a journey this has been! I have learned so much about myself in this last year. So much about other people, and so much about human nature.
I still wonder all of the time why I was chosen to stay on this earth while so many others don't get this chance. I feel like I have had a 2nd shot at life!

I want to strive every day to be better than I was the day before. To make sure the people that are around me know how much I love them.

I am getting better with accepting what is now my new sense of normal. There are things that I can't do yet . . . yoga poses that I can't do, things I can't lift or pull (like myself) and for a long time, every time I would try and I couldn't, I would become extremely frustrated.  I have come to accept that things will come back in time. It has only been one year.

I am so happy to be back with my family again!

ONE YEAR CANCER FREE!!!!!!

I just need to be done . . .

My drive home . . . One of those "Jakarta Days"

Driving in Jakarta is never without it's own adventures!
That being said, I thought I would let you all know how my drive home was today.
I take a shuttle home from work. Normally, I will just listen to music and play on my iPad, but today I looked out the window. I wish I could have taken pictures of what I saw, but honestly I was just too overwhelmed.

When we left the embassy things were as normal as a Jakarta ride home can be . . .

Then I looked out the window and saw a guy walk up to a tree, that was on the median and started to pee. He didn't care that there were hundreds and hundreds of people around, he just had to pee. That I have seen a lot here in Jakarta but usually they are on the side of the road and peeing on a wall or something with their backs to the majority of people. Sadly, you kind of get used to it, but this was different. He didn't care. He didn't care about where he was or who was around. It broke my heart. It felt like he had no pride for his country, for who he was, and where he was from.

At that point, I didn't really want to look outside anymore. I just wanted to keep my head down and go to my "happy place". That lasted for about 5 minutes until I was jolted forward. When I looked up, I saw a guy on a motorcycle cutting between us (a big bus) and ANOTHER big bus. Our bumper could not have been more than an inch from this guy. He didn't care, he just kept on going cause the point is to be ahead of everyone else.
The traffic here is AWFUL. COMPLETELY AWFUL. There are lines on the roads dividing lanes, but they are not used. The INSANE amount of motorcycles overwhelm you. There have been many times where I just feel completely surrounded by them, and I am!

This is not an exaggeration. Some days it might be better than this at times, but mostly, it's pretty jam packed. Motorcycles will weave in and out of traffic, squeeze (and I mean SQUEEZE) between cars just so they can get a couple of inches further.

About half way home, the bus went to make a right hand turn onto a street. He was blocked by another bus (the city bus) who couldn't wait their turn so they pushed through both oncoming lanes of traffic. Mind you, the bus was PACKED. 

This is one of the busses. It is in pretty good shape compared to most of the ones that you see driving around the city.

The topper of the trip was when I saw something that looked a lot like this .  . 

Right next to the piles and piles of trash, there was this sign . . . 

It looked as if there had been a demonstration held that day, and the people that were there got fed. There were white cardboard boxes COVERING the street and the sidewalk. I would have to say at least 2 blocks were like this. Everyone that was there just threw their garbage on the street. Wait, I take that back, they didn't throw their garbage, they just dropped it where they stood.  I got so very angry!!!!!

I don't understand how people that claim to have so much pride in themselves and in their country don't see this as wrong.  Why is it ok here for people to just pee wherever they want? Why doesn't anyone think it is a good idea to follow ANY traffic rules whatsoever? WHY do they think it is acceptable to leave their rubbish wherever they want?

Let me make VERY clear that I am not speaking of ALL Indonesians. There are many many people here that care about their home, and want nothing more than to take care of it. The sad thing is, they are outnumbered 10-1 by the ones that just don't give a shit.