Headed In the Right Direction

Since this weekend, when I decided once and for all I would "get control of myself" again I have exercised at the gym 3 times and eaten more healthy. I also cut out the COKES again. For my need for caffeine I bought some flavored tea with caffeine packets that I can mix in my water at work. It has helped...and I'm not missing the cokes. I'm also not having caffeine withdrawal headaches because I am still getting "some" caffeine. Not as much as with coke, but it seems to be enough to get me through the nights.

I have also dropped *drum roll please* --- 2.6 pounds this week!!
Last week I weighed 200 even.
Today I weighed 197.4!!

I can't tell you how happy that made me!! It definitely made me realize how drinking cokes and not really getting any "real" exercise has hurt me over the past few months.

For exercise I have been walking/running on the treadmill at the gym. I started doing the C25K program. I gave it a trial run (pun intended) on Saturday and Sunday and then really got started with it yesterday. With my schedule I'm only going to be able to go to the gym on 3 or 4 times a week so this works really well for me. The training for the program is for 3 times a week and then it suggests doing other forms of exercise the other days. I still am having a hard time believing that I am WILLINGLY RUNNING!! and I am looking forward to it, too! Wow!!

My brother and I are going to plan a 5K race for this fall. To me that will be a very cool thing.

Ok..enough about that. I didn't get around to choosing my winners for the giveaway from last week. So now is the time!

Anna from Sincerely Anna wins the Friendship Magnet. She inspires me! She is great mom to 2 adopted kids, homeschools, and is involved in the youth ministry with her husband. I am happy to call her a friend and am even more happy to send her the friendship magnet!

Brooke from Smart, Strong, Sexy wins the Faith magnet. She is an awesome young lady with is indeed Smart, Strong, and Sexy. She also has an incredible Faith that she is willing to share with whoever listens! I am happy to send her the Faith magnet!

Thea from I'm A Drama Mama wins the Dream magnet. Thea was one of the first blogs I read when I started reading blogs. She takes fab pics and she cracks me up and her kids are following her footsteps in the drama department. They are real characters, too! I am happy to send Thea the Dream magnet!

No one commented on the "Love" magnet so if someone would like to have it just leave me a comment and I'll get it in the mail to you!

So...onward and DOWNWARD!! The weight WILL come off. I WILL continue training to run a 5K with my brother this fall using the C25K program...maybe a little slower than normal, but albeit...I'm going to do this! Have a great week!!

Another Contest...

This one is over at the Sisterhood. They hold the best contests over there. You really need to check them out. Today's item up for grabs is from BondiBand. I checked them out and I found the perfect headband for me...Cheaper Than Therapy!! It's true!! i reactivated my gym membership this afternoon and I worked out on the treadmill and the eliptical machine and I have had one of my best days in forever. Just knowing that I am working out again and trying to do something positive for myself is great therapy for me. It costs me around $60 a month for That Other Kid and I to go to the gym but I say that is WAYYYY less expensive than the therapy I was about to need because my mental outlook was sinking so fast! Besides it gives That Other Kid a chance to go play with other kids and get out of the house, too. There have been many days over the past 3 months that he hasn't gotten dressed and this will ensure that he does!! Can't go to the gym in his jammies! We can also spend some good time together after my workout swimming...and playing in the water!

So which headband fits you and your life right now??

Thursday Three -- Rethinking Your Goals

Over at the Sisterhood we are looking back to January of this year and checking in to see how we are doing with our goals we set for ourselves. Check out the post here to find out all about it. I know that this year has gone NOTHING like I had planned it but I thought I should look back at what I had hoped to accomplish and see what has gone right even amongst the trials I have gone through.
Here is the letter I wrote myself in January.

Three things I had hoped to accomplish this year...

1) Weighing in at 150 pounds by the end of the summer....NOT gonna happen. In fact, just yesterday I bounced back up to 200 pounds. Gotta get serious about his weight loss thang again. No better time the present, right??!!

2) The whole family eating right and exercising...Gotta say we haven't been stellar in this area either. Time to start refocusing. Fixing healthy meals, and finding time to exercise are VITAL to our family.

3) I had mentioned being off all medication by the end of the year...Well I am half way there. I no longer need medication for High blood pressure, which under the circumstances of this year I would say is a pretty GREAT accomplishment.

Now to just get the rest of my goals figured out. Working 3rd shift is tougher than I ever imagined, but I am determined to make the best of a bad situation. I'm hoping to no longer be working sometime this fall, but in the mean time I have decided to try joining the gym again and taking That Other Kid with me so he can play while I work out. This should help both of us tremendously since he is BORED and lonely and I am lethargic and FAT!! Gotta change both these things!

So how are you doing on your goals?? Hopefully better than me!

500th Post!!! Give-Away and Some Other Stuff!!

Well today is the day...this post is number 500!!

What a journey this has been. I started this blog as a way to make new friends (and boy have I met some great people), record my journey with weight loss and just a general journal of "stuff" that is happening in my life. I have had a great time with it and hope to continue writing it for a long time. It has been a great source of "meeting" people and I have found new and exciting ways to talk about what is happening in my life. I have loved every minute of this blog and hope that in the next few weeks I can get back to writing more consistently. I miss that part, but since my time is so limited now I just don't always have time to sit down and write about my life.

Anywhoooo, I promised something special for this "special" post. I found these great Inspirational Magnets at Walmart this week and decided that they definitely fit into the theme of what this blog means to me. It has been a place to find

"Friendship"



"Dream"




Have some "Faith" in myself and to strengthen my "Faith" in God




and express "Love"



so I would like to give-away these little magnets. They aren't fancy but I thought they were perfect for this occasion. If you are interested in winning these let me know in the comments what one you like best and "why". I will be giving them away this weekend, probably Saturday night so you have till then to leave your comment.

On to the most disturbing part of this blog post...my weigh in for this week with the Sisterhood. A few months back when I had lost enough weight to be down below 200 pounds I promised myself I would NEVER be back to that number. It felt so good to be below 200 pounds finally and I didn't want to see it again. I finally felt like I had accomplished something...and I had. I had lost 26 pounds. Over the past 4 months I have been working 3rd shift at Walmart. It is the first time in 20 years I have had to work full time. It is the first time I have EVER worked overnights. It has been HARDER than anything I have ever had to do, but I have adapted, EXCEPT my weight has been slowly creeping up again. I have picked up some of my bad habits again (cokes and junk food) and I don't have much time to exercise.

Well todayy I got on the scale and guess what disturbing number showed up again!!

200.0 I nearly cried...but decided crying would not help me any. It would probably only make it worse. So instead I decided to make some smart decisions. I will start exercising again. I will start journaling my food intake. I will STOP drinking cokes again. I will start treating my body right again. Just because I have to work 3rd shift doesn't mean I have to be FAT and Work 3rd shift!

Today is a new day...I am just gonna need some encouragement and some help to stay focused...so that is where my friends come into play! Please help me!! I'm going to need it!! So that is where I am...but I am not going to stay here! I will get this weight off and I will continue losing weight...even though my circumstances are not ideal! I am determined!!

Well I gotta go...need a nap before I go to work...please join in my give away! and keep me focused on my continued journey of weight loss!! I need all the help I can get right now!

Well I Wasn't Real Successful...

at staying in touch with ya'll but at least I am getting better. Only 15 days instead of 1 1/2 months this time! Anyway, there really isn't much to report in my life. Or maybe there is and I'm just too busy to stop and think about it and report it. The most momentus thing that has happened in the past 2 weeks is this



Yes, that's right That Other Kid FINALLY lost his first tooth! According to him "he was NEVER going to lose his first tooth!" It happened this past Thursday while he was at The Karate Kid movie with That Kid. I was blessed enough to be home sleeping! Although I am happy that I got some extra sleep, I was kind of sad to miss such a special event in his little life! Oh well there will be other teeth! He's already talking about the next tooth and when it will come out! We never did the Tooth Fairy with That Kid and hadn't really planned to do it with That Other Kid, but he was so dead set on having the "tooth fairy" show up and give him some money that we decided we would give him a dollar for his first tooth. The most amusing part of this is that dh put the dollar under his pillow while he was sleeping and then it sat there all day long till he went to bed the next night till he found it! It was sooooo stinkin' funny to see the surprised look on his face to see that dollar sitting there under his pillow! He knows that daddy put the money there but kept talking about the "tooth fairy must have come in and put it there while he was sleeping"!! I was cracking up the whole time he was talking about it...and I had to cut his conversation short so I could get to work! I laughed the rest of the night!!

Next on our agenda -- Toy Story 3. We saw that Saturday morning as a whole family! It was a great movie and well worth the time and money to see it. True to Toy Story/Pixar form the movie held the whole family's attention and had us all laughing throughout! Definitely a movie to purchase when it comes out on DVD. After the movie we celebrated Father's Day and went out to eat. After That Other Kid was in bed Dh and I watched a movie on Netflix. We called it a "at home date". Unfortunately I chose a movie that really was nothing special. Strange how a movie can sound pretty decent on the reviews and then turn out to be basically a flop when you are watching it. It was described as a 'romantic comedy' but there really wasn't much comedic or romantic about it. It wasn't a BAD movie, just not anything worth the 2 hours that it took to watch it. I hope I'm not the only person that feels like a "date movie" should be something entertaining.

In other news that I feel I must update on -- my WEIGHT!! It had been holding steady over the first couple of months of me working, but over the past 1 1/2 months it has increased some every week. I am approaching that dreaded 200 pound mark again and I promised myself that I would NEVER reach that decade again. I need to start "really" exercising again and really watching my food intake, cut out the cokes and junk food which has been increasing as my weight has. Hum....wonder if there is a connection?? NO, I don't have to wonder I know it's true. Now to find a way to squeeze in exercise. I'm contemplating joining the gym that I drive by every morning on the way home from work and stopping in for 30 minutes and getting a good workout before I come home to sleep. Working out at home just seems to be really difficult right now since I have so little time with That Other Kid and to accomplish all my normal household tasks. Opinions would be appreciated....

I was looking at my stats and noticed that the next time I post it will be my 500th post! Wow!! That is amazing to me that I have written that many post. Seems like such a short time ago that I started writing here. I'm glad I did...it has helped me tremendously. Theraputic as well as great for building friendships! I love blogging...just wish I had more time to do it right now!! So, for my next post I'm going to try and come up wtih something really special. Maybe a give away, or meme or who knows....I just know I'm going to make it happen sometime this week, so stay tuned!!

Have a Great Father's Day and a wonderful week!!

Time To Get Back In the Saddle

I have been absent lately...in fact my last post was more than a month and a half ago. Let me tell you I have MISSED being part of this little online community. I miss my bloggy friends. I miss reading blogs. I miss reading comments from my post and MOST IMPORTANTLY I miss posting things happening in my life. My weight loss journey (which has been pretty stagnant), things my boys have been doing, things I have been doing. There really hasn't been much to report on and I rarely have time to sit down at the computer long to do more than check Facebook, emails and my banking info. That has to change. I need to read about what is happening to my friends. I need to see what is happening outside the walls of my existence. So this afternoon (really I decided last night while working) I decided to post SOMETHING, at least every few days. I need it. I need to get a semblence of NORMAL back in my life.

What brought this on, you might ask? (Even if you didn't humor me, k?) This weekend my brother came into town and I had a "normal" weekend. I did things other than sleep, grocery shop and more sleep. I went to a lake and swam. I played with That Other Kid in the lake and heard him LAUGH!! Sadly I didn't take pictures...you'll just have to believe me. I drove around town with my brother. I picked up a dresser that someone was GIVING AWAY!! It's big and has storage space! YAY!! I went to bed at a somewhat "normal" time Saturday night and got up EARLY and watched my brother race in a Triathalon in the area. I tell ya it was so exciting to see him do something like this. I am so proud of him!!

This is him right before the events began!

Looks pretty good for an old guy, huh? Of course, I am older than he is so I shouldn't say he is old cuz that would mean I'm old, too. He finished the Tri ( swimming 500 meters, biking 12 miles, and running a 5k) in 1 hour 26 minutes! Can I tell you I am SUPER PROUD of him!!Way to go little brother!!

It has motivated me to participate in a 5K. I don't know when, or how, but I'm going to do it!! If he can do a triathalon then surely I can manage to run/walk a 5k. My goal is to get to the point where I can RUN (yes, I said RUN) the whole thing. Right now I don't think I could run 100 yards without feeling like I am dying, but a girls gotta have goals!

Having a "normal" weekend has made me realize how much I miss being part of the "normal" world. Since I started working just over 3 1/2 months ago (has it really been only 3 1/2 months??) I rarely do anything outside of the necessary. I grocery shop, I sleep (not much, but some), I prepare meals, do laundry and do a minimal amount of housework. I want more out of life than this so I have decided that I am going to do what it takes to make the most of this life and do some "normal" things when I get a chance....most likely on Friday afternoons and Saturdays. My son needs me to do things with him and I need it too. So I have much to thank my brother for...showing me a "normal" weekend and helping to motivate me to do something spectacular -- a 5K! Maybe my friends from the Sisterhood will join me!!

Well, I gotta go....I have to fix dinner, do some laundry, and take a nap before I go to work. Can I just say it feels GREAT to be back to writing again??!! Have a great night!!