Still No Clue What I Want to be When I Grow Up

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
 George Eliot

At 28, I might be going through some sort of life crisis.  I pretty much have a new idea of what I want to be when I grow up once a week.  There are a core few that I always return to, but let's be honest. I don't know too many kids that say "When I grow up, I want to be a recruiter!"

The only thing I've ever wanted to be was a mother. Well, that and an Academy Award winning actress. So career dreams were pushed aside.  I always knew that my work was never going to be as important to me as my family.  I guess it was hard to motivate myself to focus on a career knowing that if I ever needed to, I would drop it in a second.

So, one of the things that I always go back to is a photographer.  It varies what kind of a photographer--usually either a wedding photographer or a photojournalist or of course, a celebrity photographer (like Annie Leibovitz not like a paparazza).

I've had a passion for photography for a long time.  I took classes with a wonderful teacher in high school.  I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.  As soon as I started taking photography classes, I began to see everything in pictures.  I see the shot in every scenario, but unfortunately, I don't have my camera with me all the time and miss a lot of the good ones.

I brought my camera with me this weekend and took some pictures while on the St. Arnold's Galveston Pub Crawl.  The lighting in this bar was so cool and I knew that someone without a background in photography wouldn't appreciate it.  The pictures below were taken naturally, no filters or manipulation after the fact.

File photos. What do you think? Any raw talent there?

I've always been creative--please do not mistake creative for talented. After starting college with plans to study Math, I told my mother that I wanted to study photography. Let's just say during our screaming match, I wasn't too far from being left on the side of the NJ Turnpike.  I understand she was only doing what she thought was best for me. That's a tale for another day...

Today, I signed up for a photography class.  It's another intro. Last I took a photography class was 7 years ago. I can use the refresher.  Once I signed up today, I became really excited.  I'd really like to hone my skills and hopefully even learn to take good pictures of humans (currently my specialties are landscapes and pet photography).
 
So, maybe I can be a photographer when I grow up...

I also have a wedding planner venture going on--even have a client.

Oh, and I came up with an idea for a really great website. I just need to come up with a business plan.

And not sure if you heard, but I'm also giving writing a try.  Once I'm discovered, I have THE BEST name for my memoir. I'm keeping that one just for me though.

So this is my somewhere between quarter-life and mid-life crisis.  I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life... or at least until babies come along.

TANGENT/SHAMELESS PLUG: I got to thinking how this class could possibly be another Fresh Start... Again. And since I brought it up, for those of you wondering, I did lose some weight in my first week of doing it my way. It was less than a pound and I'm really proud of myself! I'm just going to keep on keeping on. 

Finally just for fun:
I wanna have boobies... Yeah, I went there. And, by the way, I'm not as big of a PCD fan as my blog makes seem to be!

Fresh Start... Again

So I decided today is going to be the first day (again) on my journey to lose weight.  What I've realized in all my journeys so far (calorie counting, cereal diet, Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, etc) is that I need to slow down when it comes to weight loss.

Here's the story about how I yo-yo and how I hope to stop:

I moved to Texas in September 2008.  In the four months I was unemployed, I gained 20 pounds. This brought me to the heaviest I had ever been in my life.

I started working in January 2009.  By February, I was determined to lose the weight for my wedding in July. I was on a strict diet of cereal with fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a sensible dinner. I worked out 6 days a week. And in all that time, I might have had 2-3 pieces of chocolate.

By July 18, I lost almost 30 pounds and because I was working out, I looked fit too.  My goal had been to lose 40 pounds, so I did not appreciate how great I looked.  I wanted to look like that picture of me when I was 18.

File photo. This is my husband and I on our honeymoon.

I thought I was so fat when this was shot.

That's why I'm turned to the side with my hand on my hip--all tricks of the chubby girl photo trade.

After our wedding, something inside me snapped.  I deprived myself of so many things for so long that it's all I wanted to eat. From August through December, I ate everything in sight and gained 35 pounds.  Yup, gained everything I lost and added some--just for good measure, I imagine.

This brought me to the heaviest I had ever been (again) in my life.  I had to do something fundamentally different this time.  I knew a lot of people that were very successful on Weight Watchers. So in January 2010, I joined WW. And I was good at it.  Weighing in every week really lit a spark under me.  By July, I lost 31 pounds.

I was in my best friends wedding on September 2. Because I never made it to goal, I was very much under the impression that I was still fat.  I didn't appreciate what I had accomplished and therefore had no idea that I had something to be proud of in that moment.  I was almost in tears while I was getting ready that day.  I only saw the flaws.

File photo. A shot of me and the bride AKA my best friend.

Again, I just calmed myself from a nervous breakdown when this was taken.

I thought I was so fat.

BTW, I did the bride's hair. Totally adding that to my resume!

Well, when I got back, I continued to eat and stopped being so devout to WW.  If I was already fat, what would it matter if I continued to eat?

I gained all the weight back. Every last pound.

At the beginning of this year, I considered starting over with WW. But the truth was I was very unhappy with where I was in life. No matter how much I wanted to see the number on the scale go down, I could not motivate myself to change my habits.  I eat when I'm unhappy. I was unhappy every day for the first 5 months of this year (Work related. Just couldn't beat it).

I quit my job and spent some time in limbo. No excuse for not losing weight other than I just didn't want to.  I was in another friend's wedding in July.  I lost a few pounds for that but still those pictures show the heaviest I have ever been captured on film.

 File photo. A recent shot of me at a friend's wedding.

I'm standing with an old friend of mine.

With all his weight/image issues, he's become a twig!

This does NOT help with mine.

This morning, I woke up and thought, I'm sick of this. I can't keep yo-yoing. The only thing I can think of is that I can't lose weight so quickly. Thirty pounds in 6 months is too fast and I've done that a couple of times now.  All it equates to is giving up too soon and having no self control to avoid gaining it back.

My goal that I am setting today is that I will lose 5 pounds per month.  I think this is more manageable and I can handle this.  I think at this rate I will still be able to eat my football goodies (a major weakness of mine) on Sundays and as long as I'm reasonable for the rest of the week, I can attain this goal.

So wish me luck. Because today, I'm giving myself [another] fresh start.

I'll keep you posted.