Marine Corp Prayer...

The United States Marine Corps Prayer.

Eternal God, we humbly beseech You that your hand of mercy extend to all United States Marines from sea to shining sea, from ports near and far, amphibious bases and airfields, to embassies around the world. Whenever our Marines stand watch this day may they be persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pre...sent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate them from the love of God.
Lord, stand beside these Marines whom you have called to serve. Help them to serve honorable. Give them courage, strength, and skill, and if they are called to sacrifice may it be worthy of their Lord.
For the tasks that lay before the Commandant and the Sergent Major of the Marine Corps, we ask an extra measure of strength. When they pass through the waters, make known that you will be with them, and when they walk through fires they shall not be burned.
God, we pray that you would sustain our Marines, and just as they are always faithful to the Corps, we ask that you would call them by name, and they would hear your voice and they would be faithful to you. (Semper Fidelis) Amen





I received my first "form" letter from My Marine last night! I was so excited I started dancing and singing! You would have thought someone handed me $1000! Now I have an address so I can start communicating with my son! It's been a long (nearly) 2 weeks but I have survived and I'm sure he has too! lol Occasionally on Fridays I will be posting things that pertain to the marines. I hope you don't mind! It is a part of my life now and that is what this blog is all about ME and MY LIFE!!

As we end September and start October I hope you will prayerfully consider donating to help find a cure for Breast Cancer. I am participating in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure Walk on November 4,5,6th and I have pledged to raise $2300. You can donate here to help me raise this money! This weekend I will be doing training walks...of 10 miles on Saturday and 6 miles on Sunday (it's a short weekend of training before next weekend we walk 18 miles on Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday!)

Have a great weekend everyone and Semper Fi (Always Faithful)~~

Beginning Shrinkvivor 2011

This is the number I saw on the scale this morning! I'm disappointed and not happy about this number. I'm posting it boldly so that I can remember where I'm starting this challenge! I'm hoping that I will NEVER see this number again on a scale that I am on!! I've been here far too often over the past few months!

This is the beginning of Shrinkvivor 2011 at the Sisterhood of Shrinking Jeans. This was one of my favorite challenges last year and I was fortunate enough to be on the Green Tribe last year. We were very successful and won several weeks of the challenges!

This year I am on the PINK TRIBE - The PINKberry Dough Girls!

PERFECT for the month of October (being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all!) I'm on a tribe with Roo, Heather, Virginia, Tiffany, Audrey and Shera! I know Roo pretty well and I have chatted with Heather a little on Twitter but the rest of these women I don't really know YET! But we are definitely changing that now!! I'm excited to start this new challenge...I've been struggling since My Marine left for bootcamp. I've been doing ok during the day because I have been staying busy. BUT....once night falls and That Other Kid is in bed, well let's just say things have been UGLY! So ugly in fact I probably consumed more calories after 9p.m. yesterday than I did throughout the rest of the day! NOT GOOD!

I am changing that starting today. Roo and I talked this morning and every time I want to go eat something, mindlessly I'm going to text, call or chat with her! OR...I'm going to do some sort of exercise! I can't eat if I'm talking or exercising, right???!!

The fitness challenge for the week is to log minutes of exercise...This is going to a great one for me! I've already got a good start for the week!

Hope y'all have a great week! Remember....take your photo of the scale every week so you will be eligible to win some great prizes!

I took my picture so I could see how much I can change in just 7 weeks when I apply myself! I'm hoping it will motivate me to keep going once the challenge is over!

Time to Confess...

Tuesday is confession day at the Sisterhood. Sometimes I feel like confessing and sometimes I don't. Today I feel the need to get some things off my chest and butt, stomach and hips.

We are about to embark on our next challenge over at the Sisterhood (Shrinkvivor)and I am definitely ready to get the numbers on the scale to go down.I have been stagnating (or some people who are nice say maintaining) this weight for the past year and honestly I am sooooo tired of it I could spit! IT'S TIME to change!!

Last night during SisterChat (were you there? if not you missed a great time!) I was chatting with all the lovelies telling them they better really work hard cuz I am ready to become a HAWT Marine Mama when I go to SanDiego in December! That means I am going to really work hard and get this weight off! 12 weeks is gonna go fast...and I want the weight to get off fast too! BUTTTTT I REFUSE to starve myself and deprive myself of healthy eating habits! So what does that mean? I eat right, exercise right and lose the weight with the help of my friends!

@JeninRL was telling me last night I couldn't win Shrinkvivor cuz she was gonna win...Now usually I'm like ok great, but I was in a "dude I don't think so I'm gonna win this sucker" mood so we were egging each other on! It was actually entertaining, but then she threw of the gauntlet! To take pictures of ourself in a bikini/swimsuit and then post it on the 'hood! She went over and set up a group for it. I decided what the heck! I might be old but if I'm going to challenge her to lose weight while she challenges me to lose weight I may as well be proud enough of my successes to post a picture of myself in a swimsuit! She said bikini -- I haven't been in a bikini since she was 2 though so not sure I'm gonna go that far BUT I can do a swimsuit!! AND look GOOD in it!! THAT is the clincher!! That's gonna require some serious weight loss on my part! So....the challenge begins tomorrow!! There will be a beginning picture but that will not be seen YET! And of fcourse the ending picture!

Ok...onto other confessions!

That Other Kid is driving me crazy! He seems to be craving my attention every second of EVERY day! We have done very little school lately and I'm frustrated with that. We have to do school but every time we sit down to do it he starts whining and complaining that he misses his brother or he wants to "spend time with me"!! He doesn't want to do anything that requires actual LEARNING! I have to admit that I'm at a loss as to what to do. Honestly I am pretty distracted and don't want to do school either....BUT that doesn't change the fact that it needs to be done!

My Marine left on September 19 for bootcamp and I still haven't heard from him! I'm getting to the point where I can function without crying and wondering what he is doing and how he is doing but there are things that will set me off! This weekend while walking my 17 mile walk someone had yellow ribbons tied on their trees in the front yard! I started crying and one of my friends started praying for me! Only 12 more weeks till I get to see him!! I've been told that I should get a letter from him sometime this week! I hope so!

I walked 30 miles over the weekend! Honestly it was HARD but it was not impossible. What made it harder??....messing up my knee on Saturday and having to walk all 17 miles Sunday (in the heat)with a bum knee!
What made it easier??....getting the FroggTogg in the mail on Saturday and using it on Sunday and walking with a friend! (We shared the FroggTogg!!) Thanks Christie!

I am down to 6 weeks before the Komen 3 Day for the Cure Walk and I still have about $1500 to raise! Please help me raise money for breast cancer research! It could be you, your mom, your sister or best friend that you help!! You can donate here to support me!

And while we are talking fundraising I have a question for you. If you were given a chance to raise a significant amount of money at an event that you didn't really support would you participate or would you say forget it? Just curious cuz that's where I am at with an event this weekend. I am going to participate in it because I can raise a lot of money but I'm having a problem with being at the event!

Ok...I'm off to play soccer with That Other Kid! If you have confessions to make feel free to join in the confession discussion at the Sisterhood or let me know what is up with you!!

Thankful Thursday with Rambling Thoughts

My Marine left my care on Sunday evening around 7:30 pm and I have to say it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Bootcamp is 13 weeks and yes, I am counting down the days till he will graduate. Graduation is December16!

I am THANKFUL for a son willing to go do something for our country. These 13 weeks will be difficult for That Other Kid, my hubby and me but what he goes through over these 13 weeks will make him a MAN able to fight wars and defend the freedoms we all hold so dear.

As I was sitting at my computer Sunday night and Monday trying to focus on something besides how much I'm going to miss him I found several wonderful support groups for marine parents (in particular moms). We are all going through the same things (or they have gone before us).

I am THANKFUL for these groups to help me through these 13 weeks!

I am THANKFUL for the Internet to help me connect with these women!

I am THANKFUL for my sisters at the ShrinkingJeans who have been texting, tweeting, facebooking, and commenting their support this week.

This morning was pretty emotional because That Other Kid's kittens escaped the apartment. He was crying for more than 30 minutes and I was out on a walk. So I am THANKFUL that my hubby was home to rescue the kittens. I can't imagine how heartbroken That Other Kid would have been if the kittens would have been lost forever. He's already feeling sad since My Marine left.

I am also THANKFUL for all the people who have made donations in order to support me in my Komen 3 Day Walk. My parents sent me a check this week and this morning I got a donation from someone I don't even know....and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see this donation come through. I am definitely thankful for these 2 donations as I have been feeling like maybe I can't do this....

I have finally been able to conquer the blister problem and have been able to walk without getting blisters. (If you suffer with blisters on long walks/runs you should check out this great product. It has saved me over the past 3 weeks....no more blisters!! What a glorious feeling!! This weekend I will be doing my longest walks so far -- 13 miles on Saturday and 17 miles on Sunday. I'm actually looking forward to this!! Crazy but true!!

I have 6 weeks left to raise the remaining $1500 I need to meet my $2300 goal. You can help by going to visit my personal page and donating here.

24 Hours....

In just under 24 hours hubby, That Other Kid and I will turn over That Kid (My Marine) over to the United States Marine Corp. At 3:30 p.m. CT tomorrow afternoon My Marine will check in with the recruiter and he will officially be a USMC recruit. We are allowed to hang out with him till 10 p.m. tomorrow when he has to be in lockdown in his hotel room. Then EARLY Monday morning he will start the longest 13 weeks of his life (and mine) although in all honesty his 13 weeks will be a lot harder and longer than mine! I will still have the normal day to day things to take care of. Life will go on. I will still be homeschooling That Other Kid, taking care of the household stuff, exercising and training for the Komen 3 Day and having the freedoms granted to me by men and women who have gone before him to ensure that I am allowed to live a life in a free country. During this 13 weeks (which is over right around Christmas time - YAY) his life will change dramatically. He will go from a regular middle class young man struggling to find his way in this big world to a United States Marine trained to fight off the "bad guys" (in the words of That Other Kid). I'm gonna miss him fiercely but I know that life will go on all around me. He will come back from boot camp a changed person. He will go in a "boy/man" and come out a "man". I believe it will be the best decision of his life and after this 13 weeks he will be the member of a very elite club - "The Few, The Proud, The Marines". Although for the past 9 months I have been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride wondering about this decision for my son and wondering if we will both survive I have to say that I couldn't be more proud of the decision for him to become a Marine! Semper Fi (Always Faithful) seems to being a fitting way to end this post....and it fits him perfectly. He has always been faithful to the people in his life....even when they don't deserve it.

Confession of a Walker

I'm a bad girl --- Over at the 'hood they are doing a weekly meal plan and encouraging us to do the same and post it. I have FOREVER been meaning to do this BUT....when it comes to actually doing it, it never gets done! They asked if I would do it if there was peer pressure. I said I could be coerced to do it with enough peer pressure, but STILL I haven't done it! I am a slacker when it comes to meal planning but I have been preparing healthy meals with salads this week for dinner....that's good, right? As most of you know (if you've been reading my post lately) I am participating in the Komen 3 Day Walk for the Cure in November. This will be the first year for me to participate in the walk and I'm not planning on it being my last either! As I've been training for the walk we have been sweating it out in the hot Texas summer and walking early in the morning to avoid heat stroke! This weekend was actually a bit chilly and when we first started walking I wished I would have thought to bring a long sleeve shirt or a jacket but by the time we were done walking it was quiet comfortable! This week we are back in the heat of summer breaking our hottest summer on record record with 70 days of 100 degree or more! Yes, welcome to fall summer! While most of the country is already breaking out the sweat pants we are still wearing shorts and running our air conditioners 24 hrs a day! So, you might ask what does this have to do with my confession? Well it has to do with I'm tired of this freaking heat!! I thought it was going to be cooler so I could start enjoying my training walks but instead it was so stinking hot this morning at 9:45 when I walked that we had to walk in a shady area of town just so we wouldn't melt in the heat! So if you are already enjoying those nice cool fall temperatures PLEASE send me some cooler weather, k? I finally fixed my blister problems! YAY!! There is a podiatrist that offers his services to the Komen 3 Day walkers free of charge every other weekend at one of the local running stores. Every time he has been there I have been busy but this week I decided I would go no matter what was going on. I am soooooo glad I did! I have an incredibly high arch in both my feet and because of this I put a lot of pressure on the balls of my feet (like 100 pounds each foot!) . and when I walk more than an average days worth of walking I am putting too much pressure on the balls my feet, and end up getting blisters. He cut a hole in my insole of both of my new shoes and "just like magic" NO PAIN! I walked 11.25 miles on Sunday WITHOUT BLISTERS!! It was heavenly!! I'm so glad I took the time to go down and talk to him! Moral to this story....take advantage of the professionals!! Yesterday I started a 24 Day Challenge with the product Advocare. I'm also participating in a fitness class kind of like a bootcamp that meets Monday, Wednesday, Friday for 4 weeks. Yesterday was our first class and ohmygoodness my back and arms HURT! I can only imagine what the other women who have NOT been working out at all are feeling today! I'm hoping that this will boost my metabolism and I will be able to break through my plateau again! I've been working on losing the same 5 pounds all year and it has gotten very frustrating. One of the first things they told me to cut out was SODA! Duh, that one is pretty much a no-brainer but what have I been craving ever since I was told NOT to have it? You guessed it, SODA! When I first started losing weight back in March of 2009 that was the first thing I cut out and I was able to lose 5 pounds in one week. I'm not counting on losing that much this time since soda is not an every day occurance in my life any more (more like a 2 or 3 time a week occurance) but I am counting on it adding up in my weekly weight loss. I'm kind of looking forward to getting on the scale tomorrow morning...I want to see what I have lost this week, if anything! I have been VERY alert and attentive to what I have been eating yesterday and today so I'm sure that will help greatly. My Marine leaves for bootcamp on Monday morning. We will take him to the recruiters office Sunday afternoon and then I won't see my baby for 13 LONG weeks! That Other Kid and I have done school for 2 days in a row! and they have been productive days! Whooohooo! It's been challenging since My Marine has been home and a constant distraction but it has happened! That Other Kid told me he loves math, spelling and history today! I must be doing something right, huh?!! Well that's enough confession for today.... Please help me in raising money for the Komen 3 Day Walk for the Cure!! It's easy and TAX DEDUCTIBLE!! Donate here and I will love you FOREVER!!

Thinking Out Loud

Bare with me as I think out loud for a few minutes, will you. My thoughts have been pretty scattered lately, so this may not make a bit of sense. It may not make sense cuz I'm writing it from my phone too, but that's besides the point, right?

My Marine leaves on a plane for a bit of a vacation on Sunday which kind of freaks me out! You do realize that Sunday is 9/11, right? He will come home Thursday night late then I will take him to the recruiters office on that Sunday afternoon. He leaves for bootcamp Monday morning early and will be gone for the next 13 weeks. It's gonna be a long fall for this momma! But according to the calendar he will come home in time for That Other Kids birthday and Christmas so we have that to look forward to.

I bought new shoes this past weekend for my Komen 3 Day training walks and gave them a bit if a test today by walking with a friend! We had a nice walk and the shoes felt pretty good. The real test will come this weekend when I have to walk a total of 25 miles over the two days!

Y'all know that I homeschool, right? Well I do, in case you didn't! We are moving along with school doing a combination of 1st and 2nd grade although it has been sporadic and slow moving but we just finished going through the entire Hooked on Phonics program. He finished the last chapter book of the program this afternoon and declared "I never want to read another chapter book!" I thought it was kind of amusing because just a couple of says ago he was reading a chapter book in his own! So far he is loving Story of the World history and of course math! We are also listening to some of the Maestro Classics and he seems to be enjoying them which is nice since I really like them! He just finished going through all the lower case cursive letters and is ready to start connecting them to make words. After he does this for a while we will move on to capital letters. He is such a perfectionist that he gets frustrated if his letter doesn't look just like the book's letter so I have to work on making sure he isn't constantly erasing!

I want to leave you with a thought that christieo mentioned in a post yesterday that really hit home with me. She was talking about how there is nothing wrong with being average. It is actually AWESOME! It made me really think because lately I haven't felt all that special but after reading her post I started feeling like I was really pretty special. I am doing something that many people find unfeasible....I am preparing to walk 20 miles for 3 days in a row all in an effort to bring breast cancer to an end! That is just something this "average" mom is doing this fall but in reality it is AWESOME!

You are awesome too!

2 Weeks and Counting

2 weeks from today my son will no longer belong to just my hubby and I. He will belong to the United States Marines. He leaves for boot camp 2 weeks from today. I have to say sitting across from him this evening was a bit unreal. We were just having normal dinner conversation (which isn't entirely normal) when I looked up and realized that because of the schedules we all keep this could very likely be our last family meal together! So I took his picture - which he doesn't like! But I'm a mom about to send her first born off to the Marines and I intend to get as many random pictures as I can over the next 2 weeks! I hope you don't mind!