Shrinking....

For those of you who do not know..I am losing weight.  In January I decided I needed to stop putting it off and just do it.  Of course I have help from my sister and friends.  I started January, 2012 and so far I've been doing good.  I have lost 31 pounds to date, although I weigh in the morning again so hopefully that will be a bigger number for me.  Sometimes it's hard to stay on track but I don't want to give up.  It's frustrating when you see pictures and you lost so much and worked so hard but yet you are still fat.  But I just have to keep working at it so I can see a picture and not think fat!



December 2011

This was me when I went to Tucson in December.  Seeing these pictures was part of what made me want to start.

May 2012

This picture is me in May when I went back to Tucson for Jessie's graduation.  Seeing this picture made me see that I am making progress.  So now the thing is how do I continue my journey, what is my next goal???  I have decided my next goal will be the convention at the end of July.  I want to make it to 40 pounds gone by then.  I am hoping to surpass my goal but we will just stick with that for now.  That means I need to lose 9 more pounds, I can do this!!!




I have to make small goals so I can reach my overall goal and never look back.  With the help and support of my friends and family this will happen.  Plus having my clothes fit better always helps.  Then when I have to put clothes in the give away pile that helps even more!!!  So this will turn into a blog about my weight loss journey, my ups and downs!



Happenings since July...

So since July I haven't done a whole lot or have I....

Oh yes August was fun because we got to go camping with some great friends at an awesome place called Clear Lake.  It was so much fun and the water was awesome, you could see all the way to the bottom no matter how far out you went.  They had activities for the family to do at evening and we all enjoyed that.  Friday Phoebe and I went to town because there was some laundry that had to be done and some additional food that had to be picked up.  By the time we got back to camp it started raining and didn't stop the rest of the weekend.  So we went out exploring on Saturday and got to see Lake Huron.  All in all we all had a blast and below is proof.

I also got a new bike in September and had a lot of fun riding that...twice. LOL  But Roscoe, my mini Dachshound had quite a new experience that I think he liked.

That's about it for August.

September was fun, we had the CO visit and a mini concert.  CO visit is always good for a spiritual pick me up.  Michigan happens to be a very musical place and a few brothers and sisters have bands.  So they gave mini concert to bring some bro's and sis's from all over together.  They are the Afro Horses and Spork.  It was a lot of fun but they didn't get as many as they would have liked to.  But I got to talk with a few that I haven't talked to a lot. 

Afro Horses

The bands were awesome.  Afro Horses do all kinds of cover songs and my favorite is when they do songs like Adele.  Spork did all original songs except one or two.  They sound a lot like Weezer and that's probably why I liked them so much.

Spork

That about wraps up how my September went.

October was a very busy month.  We had a girls trip to Grand Rapids to spend some fun time at the mall.  Phoebe, Tamara, and I took the teenage girls in our hall to the mall.  See here in our little town of Mecosta there is no mall.  All malls are an hour or more away so we don't get to go very often.  We had an all weekend sleep over and it was a blast.  Throw a work day at the Kingdom Hall and a going away get together for mom and dad, it was very busy.  How could I forget we also took Aubrey and her BF to a Hunter Hayes concert.  It was a lot of fun and a late night but so worth it.  It went by so fast it's like it never happened.

November will be a busy one also.  We have a special assembly day, a trip to Flint to visit Aunt Pat, and who knows what else we will throw in.  Maybe a short visit to AZ!?!

You will have to wait and see......

Coloring In The Pages...

Today was an exciting day.  I get to work, which is my official first day at my job, and immediately I'm sent off for a drug test.  Yep I love those tests, nervous even though I know I have nothing to worry about.  What do you think happens when I'm sent into the room by myself with that little cup...NOTHING!  So I spend an hour downing water and waiting around until I feel the "urge".  Finally thats over and I head back to work.  Then I get to fill out a stack of papers that seems to me like a stack that I would sign when if I bought a house.  Although when the big manual is pulled out the stack isn't so bad.  I get that paperwork done and head back to my desk.  It was an odd feeling I had sitting there knowing this was now my "permanent" spot, kind of felt like I was right back where I have always been but in a different state.  It is nice having money coming in the door though.  Work is done and it's finally time to head home.  As I'm heading home I am running through my head all the things I want to do before I go to bed to start over again...dinner, study for meeting, work on blanket, make my lunch for tomorrow, etc etc.

I pull in the driveway I see my niece Cooper sitting on the riding lawn mower in the garage.  As I approach she asks where Jake and Zack are.  Seeing as I just got home I had no idea so I told her to let me put my stuff down and then I would help her.  So I come in put my stuff down, do a couple things and then it's off to find the boys.  We walk around to where the guys are working and ask if they have seen them.  Then it's back up to the house to find them and there they are in the garage.  With that task done it's back in the house where I end up chatting with Phoebe and then mom and dad.  Then it's time for Reuben and Cooper to head home so we say our good byes.  After saying goodbye it leaves me at my desk so yes studying I need to turn on my computer.  So I turn on the computer, move papers around and oh look there is my new notebook for the assembly that I can decorate.  So I grab that and my drawer full of markers and head to the kitchen table.  I sit and color in the circles until dinner is ready.  Of course this attracts attention and Aubrey and Zack sit down to join me.  Zack helps me color in some circles and then picks some pens out for his own stash of pens.  Then it's time to eat and color some more.  I decide I should find out what time it is and look at the clock - OOPS it's now 7:30 and I got nothing done that I set out to do.  But, as I told Aubrey, it's hard to stop coloring cause it's so relaxing.  When you color you can focus on the lines and what your doing and drown everything else out.  It's like letting all the stress melt away...AAAHHH so refreshing.

But don't fret I did stop and got the most important part of my tasks done.  I am prepared for meeting and feel so much better for putting Jehovah first...um well almost first.

The moral of my story is to take time out to Color in the Pages of Life!  Have a little fun and let the stress melt away!

Singing the blues...

So I don't have a new baby to talk about, I don't have a family with lots of activities going on that I can talk about or gush over.  I have my little dog Roscoe who is so cute and always there when I need someone to cuddle with.  I am single because circumstances just haven't lent to me getting married....i.e. no one asked me haha.  I try and be a good christian and look at the positive side of being single cause I know there are some.  Like I can go shopping when I want, I can go on vacation when I want, I can go in service when I want.  But what good are those things when you have no one to share them with.  I have a very large "family"  but they all got married and now have families of their own.  I am no longer relavent in their lives many people come before me.  So this week I have been feeling very blue about this.  I tried studying for the meeting on Sunday thinking the article on singleness would help me out but to no avail I just felt worse.  I want to share my life with someone and have someone want to be with me.  I don't want to be the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc., etc. choice for someone to hang out with.  I don't want to have uncomfortable situations where people have to tell me that they are a family and I am my own family and that I just have to fend for myself.  Ok it wasn't that way but that's what it felt like.  Don't get me wrong they are totally right and if I had a family of my own I would be the same way.  I want someone to love me and want to be with me and all other people come second and third and fourth.....

So today instead of sitting at home and moping again I got up and kept my service plans with Tamara.  When I got there everyone was so happy to see me and that felt good.  Then Tamara asks me if I want to go out for the morning and then go to Midland or Grand Rapids.  I was so happy that someone wanted to hang out with me and had the same thought I had that morning but didn't bring up because I didn't want to get shot down.  I accepted her offer and had a great day in service then went to Grand Rapids where we shopped until we dropped.  Didn't get home until 10:30 pm.  I just followed her around but still it was nice to have someone there with me.  She talked about how she was so happy to have someone that would just go pal around with her and shop all day too and not have to or want to be somewhere else.  It's friends like that that brighten my day.  She is married but I never get the feeling that she is wishing she was home or that her husband was always calling asking where she was and wanting her to come home.  She was there and she was with me and we talked and we vented and we had fun.

I have a few other friends that also help me out when I am down.  Earlier in the week Crystal talked to me and tried to cheer me up some.  I also have Wendy that I can talk to about my singleness woes cause she's usually right in the same boat I am.  So even though I'm still a little blue and will probably get this way again I know that I have my friends that I can count on.  I also know that I have my family too but they get tired of me and even though they say they don't I can tell they do.

So in the end I have no major revelation on how I am going to be happy.  I have no words of wisdom for all the other single ones out there.  But what I do have and know is that if I stick with Jehovah and his organization then one way or another I'm going to make it.  And maybe just maybe I will be able to have the life I always wanted with a husband and kids in Paradise here on earth.

Going Home

I recently embarked on a girl trip with my friend Wendy who currently lives in Texas.  The trip was long and I had a lot of fun.  It was nice having another single person around that actually wanted to hang out with me.  The plan was to get to her house on a Thursday and then stay there for a week and head out the following Thursday for "home".  Well the weather was not cooperating with us since Arlington, Texas decided to have an ice storm right when we were supposed to leave.  Come Thursday we were so ready to leave that we decided to venture out in the ice and see if we cold make it.  Half way down the road and far enough away to feel that we could either turn around and fight the ice and be unhappy in Arlington or we could keep going and hope the ice ended soon...obviously we opted for the later.  It was slow going and we had one scary moment where the vehicle decided to slide on it's own.  I was able to keep us from going off the road into the median.  Once safely stopped we all took a moment to breathe and then I was able to get us going again.  After two days, on a road trip that should have only taken us one day, we were coming into Tucson.  I had an overwhelming feeling of I don't know what....a feeling of awe I'm home or was I dreaming, did I not move, am I back in Tucson stuck forever?  It did not hit me that it was really no longer home until Sunday when I was finished with lunch and had no where to go.  I wanted to just go home and relax or take a nap but I had no home to go to.  It was a sad reality but at the same time very freeing.  A place I called home for so long but didn't necessarily like was no longer home.  I was the visitor this time and I could go "HOME" whenever I wanted to.  I no longer lived in a place where I sat at home along 90% of the time.  A place that was still hot in the middle of February, for that matter a place that was hot 90% of the time.  A place where I felt sad and alone.  I now lived in a place with many people who told me many times while I was away that they missed me and wanted me to come back "HOME".  A place where it was still 30 degrees or below and had snow on the ground.  A place that changed me so much in the short time that I was there that everyone I saw told me that I had a glow about me, that I looked happier.

Don't get me wrong, Tucson ("home") will always be special to me.  How can a place where you grew up and met some of the closest friends a person could ever have not be special?  A place where most of my fondest memories reside.  A lot of close friends and even closer family members still live in this place I once called home.  It will always have a special place in my heart!

But my new "HOME", Mecosta, Michigan, is letting me experience seasons, new friends, and new adventures.  I feel free like I can do almost anything I want to here.  This is going to be a year of many changes and I'm looking forward to every single one of them!

I can truely say this is a trip that really taught me what "going home" really means!

Creating..

I've never been artistic.  I can't see paint and know it's going to look good on a wall.  I very rarely get inspired by something at the craft store.  But one day someone showed me how to knit and I picked it up pretty quickly.  Then I ventured into crocheting a little bit.  I had a hard time picking up how to read a crochet pattern so I decided to stick with knitting.  Then I moved to Michigan where my newfound love for knitting was put to good use.  Aubrei, my sister-in-law, asked me to crochet her a hat and diaper cover for my soon to be nephew.  I picked up my crochet needle and decided to try again and to my surprise.....I LOVED IT!  You only need one needle and it's so much faster than knitting.  I've been a crocheting fool ever since and I'm hooked on it.  Everyone has warm hats and scarfs.  I'm venturing into fingerless gloves and who knows what else.  Now I can look at a skein of yarn and get inspired to make a hat, gloves, scarf.  Even though I can follow a pattern I like finding new stitches and trying to make things on my own without a pattern.  I'm happy that I can make beautiful things for people.



I love that this....



Can become this....



Or this....




Or this!

 So this is what I fill my unemployment time with now when I'm not in service or going to "town".  After a day of being inspired to make something my hands hurt.  Sometimes when I go to bed my hands are still formed as if I had yarn and a needle still.  It's pretty funny and I'm hoping that my hands get used to it soon.

I hate that I can see every mistake I make, even when everyone tells me that I'm seeing things and the item is fine the way it is.  Every time I look at it I am bothered and 99% of the time I have to fix it.  But even with that I don't mind because the next time I pick up my needle I get a little bit better.

I'm off to do some more crocheting because I have a few items still to make before I venture off on my trip.







First Time

I have never done a blog before and saw all these great ones out there and decided I would give it a try.  I am going to write about my experiences being single.  As you can see, since this is my first post, they will be few and far between.  I recently moved to Michigan and I am settling into a routine and finding friends.  Thank goodness I'm a Jehovah's Witness and have a place to go to find good friends.  When I decided to move back to Michigan many people asked me why it's so cold there and they get snow.  Well here is your answer:

Need I say more?  I think not.  I would take this over 100 degree days any day.  So stay tuned for a more lively blog in the hopefully near future.  I have a trip coming up and I'm sure I will have some good experiences from that to blog about.