Thankful for USMC - Happy Birthday Marines!!

Happy birthday!

I am thankful that my son is over half way done with bootcamp and in just 5 weeks will officially be one of The Few, The Proud, The Marines! I am thankful that he has found a purpose and a group of men to call his brothers. I am also thankful for the wonderful support system I have found online to help me come to not only accept his decision to become a Marine, but to be proud of him! Semper Fi means Always Faithful and that is exactly what Marines are! I'm proud to call my brother one and now my son!

Weigh in Wednesday with Thankfulness Wrapped In

Ok...so it's Wednesday and that means it's time to weigh in for the Sisterhood's Shrinkvivor challenge. I have to admit that I wasn't too shocked by the number on the scale although I'm not happy about it. I knew there would be a significant gain this week with the Komen 3 Day and all the carbs and junk I ate this weekend. I haven't really stopped with the food yet, either. I guess I'm still recovering.

So...today I am thankful that I am already in exile island! I did log in a whopping number of exercise minutes - 1560! All of this was during the time of Friday, Saturday and Sunday! I don't recommend trying to cram 26 hours of exercise into 3 days! It kind of hurts! lol But, I am ready to sign up to do it again next year! The experiences I encountered this weekend are difficult to express but I'm planning to give it my best shot! Hopefully I will have it written out in the next day or so...

I'm looking forward to seeing who gets to be in the Top 7 for Shrinkvivor! I was in the top 7 last year and it was so much fun creating a video and trying to win the Ultimate Shrinkvivor challenge! Hopefully next year I will have what it takes to get me to the place where I can train and walk the Komen 3 Day and still lose weight!

Thankfulness and Confessions

I'm going to take this opportunity to say thank you to whoever created the massage industry! Yesterday I was sore from my weekend (can't imagine why though) and so I decided a massage would be a good idea. Tried getting into 5 different places yesterday with no luck but got in this morning at 9:30 and I'm so glad I did! I feel like a whole different woman!

Now....onto the confessions portion of this blog post.

Mel posted her confessions this morning telling us about how she has been struggling! I have to say it again...I am too!

During all the training for the Komen 3 Day I felt confident that I would lose weight and hit goal weight before the actual walk. Instead I weigh pretty much the same as I did this summer when I first started training for the walk. Late last night and this morning I was looking at some of the pictures from this weekend and there were a couple of them that I literally felt sick about! Here I am walking 60 miles and doing all this training to prepare for it and I'm still sitting around the 200 pound mark! Unbelievable!

I'm sick of being in this weight range. I want to be sitting at my goal weight. I want to go see my son at Camp Pendleton, San Diego and not feel fat, frumpy and out of shape. But we are only about 6 weeks away from that time and I don't see how I can lose 20 or 30 pounds in that time (in a healthy way). I'm so frustrated with myself. I know he won't care how I look. He will just be happy to have a couple of weeks of freedom..it's all about how I feel about my appearance. It's all about disappointing myself and the lack of self-control I have exhibited.

This weekend I did walk 60 miles in 3 days! It was the most exhilarating and empowering experience of my life and I ate the whole time I was walking! I had so much food as I was walking that at "meal times" I wasn't really hungry. That is just pathetic if you ask me. So I'm almost afraid to look at the scale tomorrow morning. But...I will own up to it and accept the number and realize that my self-worth is not defined by the number on the scale or the appearance of my body in a picture (no matter how much my head screams that it is!)

I'm ready to turn a new leaf and get back to the healthy eating and exercise. Now...the million dollar question is, "will I do it?" or "will I continue to make excuses?" Only time will tell, right?

Thankfulness - Days 4, 5, 6, and 7!

Yes, I'm a bit behind....but at least I have a good excuse, right? In case you haven't figured it out I walked the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure this past weekend; that's 60 miles in 3 Days! Let me tell you that's a lot of freaking miles!

I walked from Plano, TX down to Farmers Branch, then all around north Dallas, Farmers Branch, and Addison and then I turned around and walked down to Fair Park in Dallas. If you are not from the Dallas area, you need to google map this and see just how far I traveled! If you are from the area then you already know this is a long way!!

So...here are the things I am thankful for from this weekend and today!

From Friday the 4th - I am thankful for the Angels for the Cure team that I joined back in July! Without this team I would never have been able to walk the 3 Days. From the very first training walk I joined in on with these wonderful people I felt that these women were special and really cared about me. They made getting up at 4 am on the weekends something I kind of looked forward to! They made fundraising not look so scary to me. They made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself! Because of this wonderful team I not only MET my goal of raising $2300 but I exceeded it! I am waiting for "matching funds" to come in so it doesn't look like I'm quite there yet, but I am! I owe a special thank you to our team leader Debby Rich! She is an inspiration and a wonderful leader! Out of this team I have gained another group of friends that I will treasure forever!

From Saturday the 5th - I am thankful for my legs and feet that carried me through a really rough day! Typically from what I was told Saturday is the hardest day of the weekend so I was prepared mentally for it and even wore the appropriate shirt for the day! I have often complained that my legs and calves are huge and that my feet are ugly but on this day, I was thankful that they were so muscular. They carried me over rough sidewalks for somewhere in the area of 25 miles over a time span of somewhere in the area of 9 hours. Most of those miles were done AFTER I had tripped over a crappy sidewalk and fallen early in the day. I wasn't hurt AT ALL for which I am thankful to God for...except as I was falling I tried to catch myself and tightened up my calf muscle. From that point on I had a charley horse that wouldn't go away! Do you realize how far 20 miles is when you are walking with a charley horse??? My feet carried me EVERY MILE on Saturday without a single problem! Yes, they were tired but they didn't hurt because of blisters or other issues! I owe most of that to the people that produced HikeGoo. I made it through Saturday without blisters whereas a lot of my team mates came out of Saturday with blisters and were in pain on their feet. Blisters make walking really hard, in case you didn't know that! lol

From Sunday the 6th - I am thankful for my family and friends that have supported me while I have been training and fundraising. They also came out to support me this weekend as I was walking. Hubby and That Other Kid came out several times to cheer me on while I was walking. I even had a couple of friends "walk with me" for a while. Glenna (my best friend who underwent breast cancer this year) came out and sat and watched me eat lunch Saturday and encouraged me to keep going!

Without my family, friends and the constant encouragement from everyone I don't think I would have been able to keep going during the training and then the actual walk, so THANK YOU! I received numerous letters from family and friends this weekend also and I can't express how special it was to read letters and notes from all of my friends and from my parents who each sent me a card telling me how proud they were of me! A HUGE THANKS goes to all my Sisterhood friends! Without the financial support and continual encouragement of all of you I would not have met my goal.

From today, Monday the 7th - I am thankful that I didn't have to do much of anything! I sat around a lot, soaking my weary feet in epsom salt water and caught up on emails and facebook and snuggling with That Other Kid as much as he wanted! I did have a few things to do; like laundry, changing sandboxes, unloading and reloading the dishwasher and a quick run to Target. But..for the most part I sat and vegged out today! I didn't even have to cook...For that I am MOST thankful! Tomorrow morning I get to go get a massage, so I can assure you I will be thankful for that!

Thankfulness Day 3

Today I am thankful that dreams do not make reality! I had a dream that I missed the bus to start the 3 Day and by the time I got "ready" the day was over. This WILL NOT happen to me!

I am also thankful for all the wonderful friends that have donated to make this event a reality for me!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I am also thankful that I found a way to honor my grandma who died from breast cancer 13 years ago! Grandma gets to walk with me on my wings!

Shrinkvivor and Thankfulness Day 2

Today I am thankful that my self-worth is not wrapped up in the number on the scale any longer!

Granted I'm not happy about this number but I'm not surprised that the number went up this week. If you read my confession yesterday you noticed that I'm not concerning myself with stressing out about much of anything till after this weekend. So... When the scale went up a tad bit I just took it in stride.

Life will get back to normal after this weekend when I am done walking my 60 miles!

As for the mini-challenge I bombed Monday night....with Having some tootsie rolls.

This weeks challenge is to de-stress before getting out of bed! Perfect time for me...I need this so much!

We also counting minutes again for exercise! Watch out y'all! I'm walking 60 miles this weekend and that's gonna take awhile! Lol!

A Month of Giving Thanks (With a little confession mixed in)

This is the first day of November. The month that most Americans set aside a time to reflect on the things they are thankful for. I'm going to attempt to do this on the 'ol blog. I'm pretty sure I will miss some days but I will try to keep that to a minimum!

For the first day of November I am Thankful for my family and friends - both the IRL friends and the online friends that I have "met" over the past 4 years of blogging!
I would not be the person I am without all of you!

Now....for the confessions!

I've pretty much decided that the only thing I am concentrating on this week is preparing for the Komen 3 Day. I have packing to do, costumes to make, bags to pack and all kinds of "little" details in order to prepare for the weekend away from home. I need to prepare foods that are easy to heat and eat for the hubby and That Other Kid. I need to make sure the house is in order, laundry clean and folded and all manner of things like that. Since I still have so much to do to get ready the eating and exercising are kind of taking a back seat to everything else. I got my "short" walks done this weekend and I walked for about 15 minutes this afternoon but that's pretty much it. I feel like I need to do more but I'm pretty distracted and can't seem to focus on much else.

I had WAY more than the 2 "fun sized" pieces of candy yesterday that was the mini-challenge for the Sisterhood. I tried to not eat any candy last night but then they put some toostie rolls in That Other Kid's bucket. Being the good mom that I am I didn't want him to have them around so I helped him out by eating them! (He's allergic to dairy and can't have chocolate!) Then I saw some candy bars and I decided to keep those from him, too! Ain't I a good mom?? I'm looking out for his health, right?

I need to really bump up the water over the next couple of days. I usually drink 100 ounces a day but the past couple of days I have been under that and I really need to boost it OVER that. I don't want to have dehydration issues on the walk.

If you are in the Dallas area this weekend I would love to have you come out to a cheering station and cheer me on! 60 miles is gonna be a lot of walking...but I am prepared! You can check out the cheering stations here. Let me know if you will be out so I can look for you! I will be dressed in angel wings and a halo and tutu!