Life is Valuable and Precious

A week ago, my boss brought his daughter in to work with him. We will call her M, she is 17 and she has cerebral palsy.  I was brought into his office to meet his daughter and to sit and talk with them.  This girl was smiling away when I came in.  She had just had a birthday so we all talked about that and that she was going out to cheesecake factory for lunch with her dad.  Then her dad went into her story, that his wifes doctor was to busy having an affair to stop her early delivery. M was born at 31 weeks, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy because of lack of air.  Another story came up of M having a spinal fusion surgery and almost loosing her from that alone. She died on the table, flat-lined and everything and they brought her back.  He dad says how she is always smiling and always happy. It makes you think about how we find stress in so many little things, how life challenges us in little ways, or how life isnt treating us right because of this or that. How is life treating M?  She is happy in her situation, but if you ask me, life gave her the short end of the straw.  After meeting her I am reminded yet again to not take life so seriously, to be happy with what God gave you/didn't give you, also to appreciate the gift of life.

Wow-ok so it has been a long time since i blogged last.  Not alot has happened-well sorta.  I had a job interview recently-yeah! But I think I slightly bombed it, sigh... I donno.  I have started/continued to work on stuff to sell in my etsy store that I have yet to set up.  I am making photo baby announcement and photo save the date cards in photoshop then plan to sell customized ones to people.  Who knows how it will go.  really like making the stuff, but alot of people sell the same thing on etsy. I plan to try an corner the market by selling em for cheaper than everyone else, but who knows.

On other news, I recently joined a new gym. It is a really great gym, but again motivation is seriously lacking and i am not sure how to keep  motivated.  I am seriously wanting to do this weight loss thing, but i am having a really hard time motivating myself...who knows.  I need to think of a good reward that will motivate me.  On the same food note I joined a 12 step program for food, called overeaters annonymous.  It bases its teaching on the 12 step program and on the foundations from AA.  I have gone to four meetings and am enjoying it.  I really realized that I am an over eater after they read step one...omg.  Ok, it was more when they read the stuff that goes along with step one.   So now i am trying to find a sponsor through the program. I also need to find/go to other meetings, our group leader/head person/whatever suggested I go to a few other meetings to make sure that the meeting was right for me.  ok, so thats enough on that...!!

Also, I finally realized/have been able to put into words to why I have been emotional about this whole baby thing.  I am mourning a loss.  A loss of mommy's nose, daddy's eyes, ect.  The loss is of having our own kiddo with features/traites that are ours.  This year has been really hard on me for this reason. I went through a breif mourning after I found out the details, but pretty much stuffed it in.  Well this year everyone who is of baby bearing age we know is preggers (ok not EVERYONE) but ALOT of people are pregnant or gave birth to a baby.  Well I broke down on the drive to one of my friends house for her shower.  It was really hard for me to be happy for her! I know that sounds selfish, but whatevs.  So I am not really looking forward to a different shower for a different girlfriend I am going to.  She is a sweet lady, and very well deserving of a child. She has gone through alot to get a healthy baby.  Ok, so enough on that!!

Goals have sorta/kinda been on the back burner. We have had the MIL over a few times for dinner, but not my parents :(  My parents are so busy it is hard to plane a dinner that works for both of us.  Also, I did goal #17-no soda for a month. but that is as long as it lasted-a month.  I need to do this again, but i like my fountain soda!!Also, I did do goal #26-go geocaching with kev. Him, I and my neice & nephew went geocaching one day-it was fun!We did get an associated bank checking account too!  I did join the womens group at church(59), The first meeting was this past tuesday, it is like 8 weeks long and we are studying the book   "the prodigal God".  The biggest "yeah" goal was #91, have the neice & nephew over for a sleep over-i got the oppertunity to do that-i was so happy!  I cant wait until their christmas break so i can hopefully have em over again!

Ok so that is about it blogy wise. Hopefully going to blog more often-but i wont promise anything!! 

Long Awaited photos

So this post is mostly about the digital scrapbooking album i made for my parents anniversary.  I omitted the last page because it had a personal letter to my parents, but you can see the rest of the pages!

Vlogging

Hey viewers-I know I havent posted in a LONG time-sorry. I promise a blog is in the works! But in the meantime some news.  So I am doing a weight loss vlogg. Each week I will weight in and discuss what is on my mind.  Check out the first one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCbnsrZPZ0A  Thanks!

Happy 4th of July Peeps!

So, here I am sitting at home blogging on America's Freedom day.  Oh well-can you say I have no life?  :)  So over this last week or two I have completed some goals!! yeah!! So two saturdays ago, Kevin and I went on a date night.  We went geocaching (#26) with the hubby. We had a couple that we wanted to find but not enough time to really look for then all.  So we went looking for two, and found one! yeah!! It actually was fun-I think if we didnt have other plans we would have done more geocaching.  That night we also went to a budget theatre by us-saw Hot Tub Time Machine. Pretty funny movie!!
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Just yesterday Kevin and I did goal #31, get a joint checking account at associated bank.  Nuff said on that one.
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The other goal I am SUPER proud of myself (and Kevin) for is going to a farmers market-and boy oh boy did we find a good one.  Ok, so I grew up in New Berlin, we never really had a farmers market-just a butt load of farm stands, so I guess I didnt know what to expect at a farmers market to some degree.  OMG!! we went to one in West Allis two saturdays ago-spent $12, got a weeks worth of veggies and some yogurt that was yummo!  So needless to say we went back this week-prices were slightly higher on some stuff, and selection changed slightly.  Only found one stand selling broccoli this week, last week almost everyone sold heads of broccoli.  The veggies were really good-I am guessing pesticides were prob used on some of it, but still the veggies are local, not from mexico and you usually are buying from the farmer themselves.
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On othr news, I have been busy with sparkpeople.com  I am a member of the site and was recently asked to be a sparkteam co-leader for a team with over 18,000 members.  I run the challenges section of the team and am really likeing it. It is keeping me motivated to stay on plan for weight loss!!

Ok, so thats about it for now - gotta go burn some calories!!

Goal completion recap - May & June

Hey so i have finally conoured many of my goals! woot woot!!  There are some goals that i have slacked on-but life happens. I am really happy at the amount of goals i have completed in the last two months!! So to start things off, I finished goal #11 - have a large picnic party with relatives family and friends.  Well we had one on the 19th of june. It was alot of work, but fun and we are planning to do it next year. We had between 25 and 30 people at the party. We had his family represented quite well by relatives and mine was represented only by my sister and her fam. Ah well- I will remember that next time relatives of mine... We also had BUTT LOADS of food-omg next year i am not going to buy as much food seriously.  We provided the meat (beer brats and hamburgers)  I also made a grape salad and did a veggie platter and made some cupcakes. Everyone that came brought something to pass.  I am so going to only count 1 and a quarter brats at most per person next year-holy crap way to many brats and burgers left over.  Also-Kevin's dad brought ALOT of food, some awesome chinese pulled pork, some salsa and some desserts.  So with everyone bringing food to pass and the stuff we made we had huge amounts of food.  I had alot of fun chit chatting with everyone-showing off the house and playing games. We set up croquet, ladderball and had a frisbee and sidewalk chalk.  It was fun, and there was no histerics wich was also VERY good-i was most concerned about that.  Also technically I could include goal #10  - Have people from church over. But I am not.  I invited three familys from our church to the party, out of those three only one couple ended up being able to come-it was our pastor and his wife.  It was nice that they came-they got to see our house and chit chat with our friends. They had an interesting convo about godparents and the catholic faith with another couple who is our friends.  So since it was only them, I dont think I will be counting that as a completed goal.  Some photos from the event follow!

So, another goal that i completed in the last two months is #18 finish and get printed a digital scrapbook.  I finished it yeah!! I made a digitalscrapbook for my parents anniversary. I will post pictures of that-just not today. I have jpegs of the pages, i just need to combine them into one image.  Soo-you'll have to wait on that one!!

We all know that we went to the shedd and to museum of science & industry over our anniversary. That was early in may. They were goal #34 & #35.

Also in prep for our big party I completed goal #45 & #46. Clean and organize closet in basement & clean and organize basement.  Now my basement looks pretty!! well sorta-it is a basement after all!!

I also did #90 - Write "the letter." It was not as elaborate or as indepth as i had imagined it to be. She called and we talked a little. She interpreted something I had saaid on FB was about her, I explained we talked a little more. It was good. Thats all.  

So other than these I havent really worked on many goals. I am working on the no soda thing tho-I am 3 weeks in and feeling good! I have been tempted alot lately but i have avoided my temptation with some luck!!

A long ass blog!!

So here I am, falling behind on my goals but still attempting them.  This isnt the reason for todays blog.  I feel just so out of it, frustrated and alot like a failure, and really need to flesh it out-so sorry peeps!  I have struggled with my weight since I was born practically.  I have medical issues that have held me back in different ways at different times.  And currently I dont have a job. I quite my job a year ago, I worked for my dad and it just got to be to much of an emotional drain for me.  My sister also worked there-and we have never gotten along.  It was an issue of never really having a set list of this is what you do at your job. Yes there was billing and ebay, but beyond that it was whatever they had for me whether it was inventory counting, shipping, light repetitive menufacturing (making ditty bags or two ball and tee packs) or just cleaning.  And it really got frustrating to be treated as lowest man on the totem pole, even though I wasnt the newest employee.  So needless to say, I know my dad was helping me by giving me a job, but I quit.  And looking back, I really am happy about my choice.  But a year has passed, I feel so bad that I am not helping to keep the house afloat.  But I really enjoy my time at home and sometimes wish I could be a stay at home wife (cook/clean/whatever). Pretty much that is what I do now. I dont know, I am sick of  really hearing about money and how if we had x we can do y.  This last month was hard on me guilt wise about money.  We have a large medical bill, a large dental bill, and our regular expenses.

So also I have really struggled with my weight and weight loss my whole life. I have had highs and lows of weight happyness, and really until I started this list I was more on the happier side of weight happyness.  I have delt with parents getting mad at me for eating sweets from their stash, my dad bribeing me to loose weight and my parents telling me how i need to watch what i am eating cuz diabetes runs in the family.  Seriously-shut up, dont you think I think about this myself enough?  Help me/support me-dont just tell me what i need to do. I am just really frustrated about my weight. I know I have to do it, and I have to choose to do it, but i know i really need support to stay on track, and hubby isnt that good when it comes to diet support-he tells me what i want to hear-not what i need to hear.  I know he loves me for who I am, but would like me to loose weight. It is just so hard to stay motivated on my own.  But I am going to try something new - not beating my self up and changing how I think. I am "trying" to get rid of the word diet from my vocabulary and change it with lifestyle change.  As a part of my lifestyle change I am going to only tackle one or two change per month.  Once it becomes habit or at least stuck to and scheduled, I will add a new lifestyle change goal.  So far I have crossed water drinking off my list of lifestyle goals as I regularly drink 2-3 liters a day.  As of tommorow a new lifestyle goal will be added.  I have dabbled in the arena before, but never really stuck to it.  A biggie goal on my 101 in 1001 is to walk a half marathon. Well officially I start training tommorow with Kevin. He has decided to join me. I asked him though that if he says yes-he needs to not say oh im tired on a day or something, he has to stick with it so i can stick with it.  I am a little nervous and excited at the same time.  It will be something for kevin and I to do together that is free and might help us connect a little more.  I am nervous because I hurt my back the weekend of our trip (clutzo me) and it still bothers me a bit, but i am sure excersize in the long run will be good.  So after I have successfuly integrated excersize into my routine I plan to adjust how i eat, now granted I am not going to go all out now, but I will have mini goals that go along with eating change.  Another goal that i have in terms of lifestyle changes, I have decided this month would be a good month to give up soda.  We are only one week into the month but i am doing good!! No soda for me!! I am very tempted though! We recently bought a bunch of two liter bottles of soda for the party and they are still sitting in the family room... So they are tempting but I will be ok-I think!! 

So in other goals, I finished a bigg ass digital scrapbook!!! woot woot!!  It is for an anniversary for someone I love. I promise to put a picture or two up here of the pages.  I did finish another book-I know rare right?? It was the rosie odonnel book "celebrity detox" good book!  Now I am reading "The Increadable Henry House"  I am really diggin the book-check it out if you like reading about the 40's and 50's. Um, other than that I havent done many of the goals, but i have another year and a half!! :p!  Ok peace out peeps!  Gotta go swish & swipe my bathroom!!