Weight Loss Struggles

I've been fighting my weight for years. After I had my son almost 4 years ago, I weighed in at 245. Not healthy. Then one day I watched The Biggest Loser results show, and I thought "Some of those people are bigger than me. If they can do it, I can do it." So I started exercising and eating better. That's been my routine for the last 4 years. I go through spurts of exercise and eating better. Then I kind of let it go for awhile. But the times when I let it go, I feel awful. I'm tired all the time, I get winded climbing the basement stairs, I don't have any energy to play with my kids. And I eat so much more than when I'm working out. It's not that I try to eat salads all the time (I'm not that fond of salads), I just don't eat as much. So it makes you wonder why, if I feel so much better when I'm trying to take better care of myself, don't I keep at it? That's a great question, and I honestly don't have the answer.
But this morning I woke with a newfound determination! One that I haven't had before. I've been determined, but it's never felt like this. I just want to be healthy! I just want to be able to be around for my family. At the rate I'm going, I won't be. So I weighed myself Sunday morning and I was at 206.8. My goal is to be at 180 before my birthday (that's January 26 if anyone's interested). I'll be 30, and I want to start my 30s at a healthier weight. My ultimate goal is to be around 160-165. I'm going to weigh every Sunday (provided I remember) and blog it. I have to be accountable for my actions!
Here I go! Wish me luck!

My Mia

This sweet little thing is Mia. We found her about a year ago in the alley behind our house. When we found her she was covered in sap, fleas, and dirt. Her ears had nasty ear mites in them. We cleaned her up, fed her, and gave her a home. She turned out to be the best cat we've ever had. She's sweet, cuddly, never snips at the kids. Mia and I actually have our breakfast together every morning. Well, ok, I eat breakfast, she just sits on my lap and purrs. But it's been our routine for the last year.
Today my son had an allergy test. He's been having horrible coughing fits for roughly the last year. We thought he was just getting a lot of colds. It turns out that he's allergic to animals. Just about any animal with fur he's allergic to. Which means (you guessed it) we now need to find another home for our Mia. I'm heartbroken. I love my cat and don't want to get rid of her. The kids love her. Even Shane likes her, which is saying something. He doesn't really like pets. But our Mia won him over too. So it's a sad day in our household. I pray we can find her a wonderful home with people I know will take excellent care of her. She's been such a wonderful cat.

Here's a thought

So I've recently been accused of being an infrequent blogger. I realize it's been awhile since I've blogged, but I haven't had anything interesting to discuss! Until now...

I'm reading this wonderful book called "He Chose The Nails" by Max Lucado. It talks about the many gifts that God gave us when Jesus was crucified. Yeah, the obvious one was our salvation. But did you know that the only requirement for our salvation was Jesus' blood to be shed? I didn't know that either. So then you may ask, why didn't Jesus resist those nails? I know I certainly would have! It's human nature to flinch when you KNOW you're going to be in pain. Jesus, though, was no mere human, was He? Here's what the book says about it. The soldier went to hammer a nail into Jesus' hand and He turned to look. Invisible to everyone but Jesus and all those in Heaven, was a list. On this list was every single one of our lies, our lustful thoughts, our greed. This list was between His hand and the wood of the cross. It was nailed to the cross and the top was covered by His hand. The bottom of the list was illegible because His blood covered the rest. He opened His hand because He saw this particular list with all of our sins, and He couldn't stand the thought of eternity without us. So, as the book says, as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of Heaven opened for us. I don't know about you, but when I read that, I have never felt so much love in my entire life! He knew exactly what was going to be done, and He went ahead and let it happen. At any point in time, Jesus could have stopped the whole thing. He could have pointed his finger at those soldiers who had mistreated Him and the whole thing would have been done. But if He had, where would that leave us? Lost. We'd be lost. There would be no hope. We'd all be doomed. So now tell me, who did He die for? Who did He go through the torture and the pain for? Me! And you! He died with my name on His lips. He died with your name on His lips. He loved us enough to die for us! Don't you think we should show Him how much we love Him too? Don't you think that since He died for us, we should live for Him? I don't know about you, but I think it's a great idea! :)

Update...

So yesterday I spilled my guts, telling about the abuse I once had in my life. I bawled my eyes out writing that, which I considered a good thing. I had never cried over it before. I had never wanted to think about it, speak about it, nothing. It was over and done. Well, my typing all that helped me to deal with it a little. It was suddenly brought to the conscious mind. When I got done typing, I called my mom. I just had this strong feeling that she needed to know how I felt before I could truly begin the healing process. I called her and told her that I had just blogged about something I've been trying to deal with, and that it was very important to me that she read it. I also gave her a bit of a heads up about the resentment I had been harboring for her for a long, long time. So I sent it to her in an email. I was terrified that she would be upset. I love my mom and have a close relationship with her. The last thing I wanted to do was dredge all this crap from the past back up. I know she suffered at the hands of my step-dad too. I believe hers was more verbal abuse than anything else. Bottom line: my mom was not upset at all. She knew that this was something that I HAD to do to begin to finally heal. I'm still a long way off of being completely healed and whole again, but it's certainly a start. I'm trying to let a few of my controlled, orderly things go. Like sweeping the floor every night, making sure the kitchen is sparkling clean, folding the towels a certain way. All that stuff is so unimportant. Last night I did not sweep the floor after dinner, and to my surprise, the world did not come to a screeching halt! And tonight I'm not cleaning up the kitchen. I wouldn't have been able to relax at night before until I had cleaned up the house. Slowly trying to let that junk go...it's kinda liberating actually!
A friend of mine reminded me that God will not give you more than you can handle. I was scared to tell Mom how I felt, but thru the love of Jesus I was able to do it. He gives me courage when I need it the most. And really when you think about it, we shouldn't be scared at all, for He is with us always. Kind of awesome when you think about it. :)

Forgiveness

I had a breakthrough in group last night. I was talking about how everything has to be done a certain way, and how I have to have control and order in my life. I don't deal well with my daily routine being messed up, towels have to be folded a certain way, etc. I was talking about this and about how my step-dad had been mean to me when I was younger. My facilitator for my group said "Do you think that the reason you have to have control and order in your life now is because you had no control over your life when you were younger?" I had never thought about it, but it makes completely sense to me. I also think I figured out why I overeat. When I was younger, I didn't feel that my step-dad loved me, and I also felt that I didn't matter to my mom because she didn't do anything about it. So to fill that void that I felt/feel, I eat. Makes you feel better, at least at the time. Food wasn't going to let me down. Food was there for me. I think that's what started a very bad pattern in my life. Now that I've figured that out, I'm definately going to deal with it.
My step-dad was mean to me. I was 7 when he started, and 14 when Mom and him finally got a divorce. He wasn't mean until my sister was born. I don't know what triggered it then, but something did. I remember one time when I didn't know what chemical to use to clean up a mess where a trash bag had leaked on the basement floor. He kept yelling at me, telling me I was worthless. (I heard that I was worthless on a daily basis for 7 years.) Eventually he kicked me in the back as I was on my hands and knees on the floor, looking at the different chemicals. I ran upstairs to my mom and told her what happened. I remember that she came down and started yelling at him. She always yelled at him, would tell him not to touch her daughter again. It never worked. I remember another time when he picked me up by my head and threw me into my room. I can't remember exactly why, but I think I had wanted to spend the night at a friend's house. I somehow made him mad. I might have lied and told him that my friend was not outside waiting for me, when she really was. I can't remember exactly. Mom wasn't home that time. I remember getting spanked, bare butt with a belt. I couldn't sit down for a couple of hours after those incidents. Most of these my mom knew about.
When I had my daughter I felt the resentment I had built up toward my mom threaten to explode. Here was my precious little baby girl, and I knew instantly that I would throw my life down for her. And I thought "Why couldn't my mom have done that for me?" I'm not saying that I wanted her to die for me, but why did it take her so long to leave? Why did I have to endure the physical and emotional abuse for so long? He was MEAN!!! He yelled at me every single day for years!!! He hit me at least once or twice a week for years! What did I ever do to deserve that? I was a child! An innocent child! If my husband (and he never would) would do something like that to either one of our children, I would leave in a heartbeat!! Every child deserves to feel loved and wanted. I didn't feel either of those.
So now I need to forgive. I want to forgive, so that all this anger can go. God wants me to forgive, or He wouldn't have brought all this to the front of my mind. Remember: forgiveness does NOT mean that we have to like what was done to us. Forgiveness means that we love ourselves enough to be able to let it go. I pray that as I let it go, all that baggage is gone too. I don't want to feel this anger anymore.

Closer to God

We went to church yesterday, and I'm 99.99% sure that the message was aimed directly at me! Right now our series is Distant: What if God is closer than you think? Well, yesterday Jason was talking about getting out of your comfort zone. God is right on the outside of your comfort zone. I have to say, I was intrigued. I'm always praying for God to help me be closer to Him, to show me the parts of my life that need to be changed, etc. Jason said alot of us beckon God closer with one hand and strong arm Him with the other. In other words, we want to be closer, but we don't want to deal with the things that God puts in front of us in order to become closer to Him. This was completely and totally me! I'm more comfortable where I am and not dealing with my issues than facing those things to become closer to God. I don't want to revisit abuse when I was a child, or my anger toward my mom for not doing anything about it. Who would want to face those things again? It was hard going through it the first time. So in the next weeks, I'm going to be doing a lot of soul searching. I believe I need to forgive a few people. The funny thing is, I thought that I had. I'm not entirely sure, since I'm so new to Christianity, but do you think it's possible that you can't fully forgive someone until you have the love of Christ in your life? I think I'm on to something here. I had a friend who I thought I had forgiven before I found Christ. Turns out, I was only telling this person what they wanted to hear. I was still seriously pissed off about how I was treated way back in the day. I even brushed this person off. The day I was baptized, I felt a strong urge to tell this person that I was sorry for behaving the way that I did and for treating her poorly. And lo and behold, I KNEW that I'd forgiven her because it just didn't matter anymore. I have no anger whatsoever towards her. We'll never be best buds, but it's nice to not feel that anger anymore. Imagine how great it would feel to TRULY forgive anybody else that needs forgiveness...I've realized that my forgiving someone doesn't condone what they've done. It's not my saying that it's ok how they've treated me. It's simply me letting it go. And suddenly that particular experience doesn't have a hold on my life anymore. I have a couple of people I need to forgive, and I pray that God gives me the courage to do it! Through God anything is possible!!! Remember that.

Sick kids...

My poor babies have been sick since Friday! Well, Jadyn's been sick since Friday, Luke's been sick since Sunday. Needless to say that our Halloween camping was canceled! Bummer. I have to say though, that I'm not all that upset about it. It was 50 degrees this past weekend with a low of about 32! We would have frozen to the tent! We were going to take a picture of the 4 of us cuddled up nice and warm on the couch and send it to Shane's mom's phone! LOL I don't think she would have appreciated it since she was camping in the cold! Anyway, there's always next year...
On another note, Notre Dame plays USC this Saturday! Go ND!! I'm pretty confident that they can pull out a win. I seriously hoping it's not going to be another heart clutcher! No joke, all the games this year (except the first one against Nevada) have nearly given me a heart attack! My poor ticker can't take much more of that!

A Few Things...

My little girl lost her first tooth yesterday! Well, I had to pull it (after much arguing). She thought it would hurt really bad and didn't want me to touch her tooth. It was hanging on my a thread (in a manner of speaking) and I tried to tell her that it wouldn't hurt and if it did, I would stop. So this is the end result of the fiasco! She looks cute without her little tooth, doesn't she?

One thing I learned the other day. I was watching the Ellen show and she had on these "plus sized" models. I'm telling you, they did not looked plus-sized to me! I'd say they ranged from about a size 8 to maybe a 12. Not what I'd consider plus-sized. According to these models, in the modeling industry, a plus size is anyone over a size 6!!! Are we serious? No wonder so many girls in this world have so many issues with their weight! My sister isn't even a size 6 and she's built like a Barbie doll! There is seriously something wrong with our society if we encourage young girls to starve themselves for perfection. The only person that ever walked this earth who was perfect was Jesus Christ, and I doubt he worried about His weight! I for one have decided to just accept myself the way I am! If people don't like the way I look, turn the other way!! I love myself just the way I am! God loves me just the way I am! Take that modeling industry!!!

Fall

I am seriously digging the weather we have today!! I love fall anyway, but this is our first real taste of it and I'm so excited about it!! It's cool, windy (maybe a little too windy), cloudy...I just want to sit in my reading chair all day and read a good book! Perhaps with my blanket and a cup of coffee too. That's a darn near perfect day! Too bad Shane is working. If he were home, we could snuggle on the couch all day! Cold(er) weather is so good for so many things. Reading, snuggling, playing in the leaves with the kids, camping (as long as it's not too cold). It's great to be able to run around in jeans and a sweatshirt too. Football is always better when it's chilly out. I know I probably sound like a kook, but I can't help it! I think I'm gonna go read now! :)

The Importance of Friends

Last night I went out with my friend Laura and her friend Kelli. $2 margaritas at Hacienda are AWESOME!!! Anyway, it's been a long time since I've had friends. When I met Shane, my world shifted to him. I only wanted to be with him and gradually all my friends just kinda slipped away. 10 years later it was starting to catch up with me. I started to feel really lonely and a bit depressed. I didn't have any friends outside of the family that I could talk to. I love my family, and Kelly is wonderful, but it's just not the same, you know? I started to feel that my defining characteristic was wife and mother, which is a huge part of who I am, but it's not all of me. There's so much more to me than just that. So somewhere down the line, I lost myself. Then I found Laura on Facebook a few months ago. It's been great finding her again. She got me started going to church, we go out every now and then (like last night). And little by little I'm finding me again. It's great! So this is why friends are so important...they keep us sane!!!

Sadness

Today my heart is breaking. A girl I went to school with has lost her little girl. I wasn't a close friend to this person when we were in school, and we didn't keep in touch after, but this still makes my heart sad. I can't imagine what she and her family are going thru, and frankly I hope I never have to find out. But at times like these we have to trust God. We have to believe that He has our best intentions at heart. Otherwise, we would get swallowed up with grief. Her little girl was only 6 months old. It doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would God take someone so small home? My only guess is that this little girl was so special that God wanted her with him. We know she's in a better place, we know that she's safe, happy, and without pain. We just need to trust in God that He'll bring the rest of the family thru this. I pray for peace and understanding for them.

Time

Aren't my babies adorable? I thought I'd mix up my normal blogs and start adding pics. This one was taken on Luke's 1st day of pre-school this year. My how the time has flown. It seems like only yesterday that Shane and I were at Memorial waiting on Jadyn to arrive (well, he waited, I did all the work!). Now here it is 5 years later and my baby girl is in Kindergarten, and my baby is in pre-school. It's like I blinked and 5 years just flew by. I guess I shouldn't have blinked, huh? I'm afraid I might have missed something.

On a completely different note, I started group last night, and I really enjoyed it. I like the other women at my table, and I'm always up for reading a book. We'll see what the future holds. :)

Just a Smidge of Gripe

Yesterday was a bit of a lazy day. We went to church, a bit disappointed w/the message, but I guess they can't cater to my likes and dislikes every week, now can they? I just wish they'd lay off the money aspect of it, you know? I don't want to go to church and hear about the new giving kiosk they've got or how much it costs to run a church. I appreciate the fact that, w/as big as our church is, it costs some buku bucks to keep the place running smoothly. I also understand that giving in offering and titheing are important. But do we really need to have not one, but two messages on it? Our series right now is 'If today was your last day, what would you do?', and frankly, the haven't even touched on that subject. It's been all about money for the past two weeks. I like the messages that mean something to me, that make me want to talk about it to someone. I want to talk about these messages, but not in a good way. I want to be able to tell people about how this message touched me, or stayed w/me. I'm getting nothing out of the messages the past two weeks. Does that make me a bad Christian? I want to shout from the rooftops that I'm a believer, that I love Jesus, that only thru Him are we saved! And yet these messages have gotten me down. I need to pray about it, that's what I need to do. Thanks for listening to me gripe! Stay tuned for more...

My (rather fast) Journey to Christ

Here's a story: I was baptized last week! It was awesome! It was a bit of a whirlwind, my return to Christ. I had always believed in God, but didn't receive Christ as my Savior. I found an old high school friend of mine on Facebook. I was going thru some things in my life at the time, feeling all alone and a bit depressed. She told me I should try GCC. I didn't see what the good of it would be. I mean, I didn't know how just going to church would help me. But I did try it. I almost didn't. I gathered up my kids and Kelly (my friend and cousin) and went to church one Sunday. The message was about judging. The crazy thing is, Kelly and I had been talking about that very same thing on the car ride to church! I promise you, when we heard the message was about judgement, our eyes were as big as saucers! It was a wonderful message, and it just reached out and took hold of me. I think I finally got it, you know? I accepted Christ that very day, and have never looked back! Then I started hearing about Baptism '09. I didn't really think much of it at first. Then on a Sunday a few weeks after I started attending church again, I was sitting at home (after church of course), watching a Nascar race on TV, not thinking about anything in particular. I suddenly had a "Flash of Thought" as I like to call it. My flash of thought was about me getting baptized. It was so awesome! And I thought maybe God was trying to lead me to get baptized. At the time, the baptism Sunday was busy for me. I wouldn't have been able to do it. So I prayed about it, wondering if God wanted me to do it this year or next year. Suddenly that Sunday opened right up! And still I questioned it. I made the decision to wait until next year, so that I was a bit more stable in my faith. The decision I made for myself didn't sit well with me. My spirit wasn't ok with the decision. So I continued to pray about it. Then I went out to dinner with my friend Laura (the one I had found from high school). She was telling me about baptism and why she thought I should do it. I figured if that wasn't God smacking me upside the head, I didn't know what was! So I came home and talked to my husband about it. I made the decision to do it this year, and I immediately knew it was the right decision! I felt peace about it. God had truly lead me to this momentous decision! I was baptized 2 weeks after that, just this past Sunday. I can't begin to tell you how great it was! I have never felt so loved in my whole life. I felt God closer than I've ever felt Him before. It was the most amazing experience of my life. I wish everyone would go thru the experience! It's truly amazing! That's it for today. Stay tuned for more tomorrow...or later today, I don't know!

A Bit About Me

Bear w/me! I'm a new blogger! I'm learning as I go. For those who don't know me, I'm Heather. Mother of 2 beautiful children. Wife to the most amazing guy on the face of the planet, and all around decent person. At least I think so! Anyway, I have no idea what to write on a blog, but I'll probably write about anything and everything! Stay tuned for more...