weight loss update

I don't know if anyone noticed or not, but I didn't have a weight loss update last week.  Why not, you ask.  Well, because there was no weight loss to speak of, that's why!!  I was so aggravated with myself for gaining a pound, that I couldn't even blog about it.

Good came out of it, however, in the form of motivation.  Friday night I broke out my workout DVD and got to it.  I know myself, and the only way I can lose weight is to exercise.  My body will just not cooperate willingly, I must force the fat out.

I did my DVD workout again on Sunday afternoon during Jack's nap.  Then I went walking/jogging with my Couch to 5K app on Tuesday and Thursday.  Brent gets home at 6:30 and because of the time change I can squeeze in my run before it gets dark.  I love it!  I feel so much better when I am working out at least a few times a week.

Anyway, all that work paid off.  I lost 2 pounds this week.  I am down to 187.2.  I've lost a total of 6.8 pounds since starting biggest loser in January.  It's not the number I was hoping for by this point, but I'll take it.

On a different note, I don't think I will be running through my neighborhood anymore.  I got chased and barked at angrily by 4 different dogs.  It was not pleasant.  My sister and I are planning on going to the park to run on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we can.

I'm taking baby steps though, because if I try and workout every single day then I just get burnt out and frustrated.  I think twice a week and once on the weekend for now ought to do the trick.

Softball and t-ball are fixing to start so my plans could be in jeopardy here pretty soon.  I'm gonna have to learn to say no to nachos and popcorn.  Uh Oh!

Next week is the last week of biggest loser.  I'm happy and sad.  Happy I don't have to keep up with all the paperwork and weigh ins, but sad that I won't have that as a form of motivation.  I would like to lose 2.2 pounds next week.  My original goal was to lose 10 pounds total, but I really don't think I could lost 3.2, so I will change my goal to 9 pounds total.

I think I can, I think I can....

a snot filled week

Wednesday after we got home from school, I walked in on this.  Austin fell asleep in Abigail's room watching TV.  This only happens a few times a year and it always means the same thing.  

He is getting sick!

I had to wake him up an hour and a half later.  He had a low grade fever and was just wimpy acting.  I gave him Motrin and the fever went down.  Luckily Brent was off Thursday, so just to be on the safe side he stayed home from school.  He was pretty much fine all day and so he went back to school Friday.  

Saturday morning he woke up sort of grumpy and out of sorts and only wanted to lay on the couch and watch TV.  He is usually very active and playing while he watches TV.  He didn't have a fever, but I gave him some Motrin anyway.   After half an hour he perked up and seemed fine the rest of the day.

For the past week Jackson has had a nasty runny nose that just won't stop.  Thank goodness for Puffs Plus Lotion tissue.

Sunday morning Austin woke up with gunky nose too.  

If you read my previous post you know that Sunday was also the day we took Abigail to urgent care for her infected ear piercing.  It is much better now thanks to antibiotics and ointment.

Monday rolls around and both the boys noses are steady running.  Austin's is clear and white runny, but Jackson's is thick green, yellow runny!  I know that's a gross mental image.  Plus now Jackson's eyes are gooping up too.  

All and all the boys were in pretty good moods and didn't seem too bad off.

Tuesday morning at 2:30 am Austin wakes up, throws up all over his bed, and is running 102.9 temperature.  

I'm praying the throwing up was a result of high temperature and drainage, because he hasn't thrown up again.    He never went back to sleep.  Brent laid with him on the couch in the living room and they watched cartoons. 

By the time I woke up at 4:45 his fever was gone and he was in a pretty good mood.  My mom agreed to keep him home with her today just in case.  

I woke Jack up at 6:00 and his eyes were so goopy and crusty that he could hardly open them.  I felt like I was torturing him when I cleaned them with a warm wet cloth.  Poor guy just can't seem to beat this cold and now it's moved to both eyes.  

You wouldn't even know they were sick from the picture my mom sent me Tuesday morning.  

I'm so tired of snot and coughing and crusty eyes and infected ear piercings and medicine droppers and ointments and sleepless nights.  

I just want all my kids to be healed up and feeling good again.  

I'm so thankful for my mom, who is willing to keep my kids even when they are sick.  I always feel bad about that because they are my kids and I should be taking care of them.  She has already taken care of her fair share of sick kids in her lifetime.  I know she doesn't mind, we just need to pray that she doesn't catch anything, because I don't have a back up babysitter anymore.

Now we have made it to Wednesday.  Austin is at school today, but still not quite himself. He is very moody and easy to cry, which causes even more snot to come pouring out of his nose.  Jack woke up with a little less goop in his eyes, but still enough to torture him while I cleaned it out.

My prayer for this week is that by the time this weekend rolls around everyone will be well and healed!!

on the brink of losing it

Oh Geeze Louis, where do I begin.  Yesterday evening I think I was on the brink of losing my mind.  This doesn't happen to me very often, but when it does, people have to duck and cover.  It's like I get so overwhelmed when something goes wrong or gets chaotic, that I can't even think straight.

Here is the summary of my day...

5:30 am - Brent left for work

6:30 am - Jackson wakes up.  He obviously didn't care about the time change and didn't think he needed any extra sleep.  I didn't mind too much though, because he will lay in bed and watch Yo Gabba Gabba now for at least 30 minutes after he gets up.  So we snuggled for a while and it was actually quite nice.

9:00 am - By this time we are both dressed and ready for church, but we have to go pick up my other to kiddos from their Aunt Kelsie's house, where they spent the night.  Jack and I stop and grab some donuts and then pick up the kids.

9:30 am - We arrive at church.  I am mad at myself for eating a dozen donut holes and then finding out that I just ate 624 calories, which is half of my daily intake right now.  Ugghhh!  Jackson doesn't cry when I drop him off at nursery, so that cheered me up a bit.

Church was good.  I had a little trouble focusing on the sermon today.  I signed up for VBS to teach Kindergarten and I am really extra excited about it this year.

11:45 - We leave church and head to Taco Bell.  I only ate a soft taco and half a cheesy potato.  This made up for my gorging on donuts.  At this point I had 395 calories left for supper.  It's not a lot, but it's doable.

12:45 - Back home and put Jack down for nap.  It was sort of dark and drizzly outside, so he fell right to sleep.

I did some laundry and then did my Jillian Michaels 20 minute workout DVD, to help counteract the donuts and Taco Bell.

I did the workout on Friday night too, and I am still so sore from it that I almost feel sick.  That is pretty pathetic.

I did some more laundry after the workout and made a list for Sams and Target.  After Jack woke up I was planning on braving the stores with my three kids to get some things we need.

2:45 - I was talking to Abigail and remember we needed to clean her ear piercing, because it had been bothering her all week.  We had been very diligent about using peroxide and antibiotic cream all week and this is how it looked on Sunday. It was gradually getting worse and not better.

After talking to Mom and us both googling some scary things about staph infections, I decided to forgo our original plans and take Abigail to urgent care.

4:00- I dropped the boys off at Mom's then arrived at urgent care.  They weren't busy.  We got in and out quickly, with two prescriptions for an oral antibiotic and a cream.

5:00 - I pick up the boys and head to walmart, where the pharmacy was closing in an hour.  I decided since I was there I would go ahead and do a little shopping.  I dropped the prescriptions off first, but there were some problems so we ended up standing at the window of the pharmacy for 20 minutes.

Jackson was losing patience and trying to break out of the buckle in the buggy. My other two kids were getting antsy were starting to fight and knock things over.  They are normally very good at the store, but that's when we are continually moving and shopping, not standing still.

On top of all that Walmart was super busy.  We finally get to leave the pharmacy, but the kids are hungry so we head over to the McDonald's that is inside the walmart.  It is pretty busy, but not to bad.

I take Jack out of the buggy because we have to park the buggy and leave it outside the McDonald's. I put him down next to me and he takes off and starts to push every one's buggies out of the buggy parking area and then he's knocking over the wet floor signs.

I pick him up and he starts screaming.  Everyone in line is looking at us now.  I somehow order our food, but the card reader messes up and takes forever to read my debit card.

At this point I am pretty frazzled and sweating.  We go sit down and wait for our food.  Of course they don't have any highchairs, so I put Jack next to me in the booth.  He wants my drink.  He loves drinking out of cups with straws, but if you don't keep a close watch on him, he will end up tipping it up like a sippy cup and spilling it all down his shirt.

All the while, Austin is constantly trying to talk to me.  He is at the stage where every other sentence out of his mouth is "Hey Mom, watch this or Hey Mom look!" and he won't stop until I respond in someway.

Abigail is constantly trying to boss Austin around and keeps tattling on him that he is licking the wall or something.  I finally tell her I don't care.  At this point I don't care if he is licking the floor as long as he isn't talking to me.  

Of course, our food takes forever and they are out of ice.  I forget all about my 395 calories left for the day and end up eating so much chicken and french fries that it makes my stomach hurt.  I am a stress eater and obviously at this point I am pretty stressed and food is making me feel better.

Jackson is breaking his fries into tiny pieces and throwing them all over the floor and tries multiple times to run back over to the buggy area.

We finish eating, and I have to pick up a few items.  I really want to just go home and leave the kids behind. (I would never do that)

I grab a few things and get in a long line to check out.  Austin and Abigail both ask to buy every little thing they see and pout when they can't get it.  I finally get up to the check out lady and she is holding some items and says "Do you mind if I run and bring these items to the return area.  It won't be but a minute?"

I almost laugh at her.  I kept a smile on my face and said "Sure, no problem!"

I wanted to say "Really, do you see me struggling with my three crazy kids!!  We are at the end of our sanity here lady!!  Can you please just check us out real quick so we can get out of this place before I lose my mind!!!

But I didn't and she was gone.  Jackson starts crying while we wait because Austin is messing with him and then Jack kicks Austin in the head.

Now Austin is crying! "Jackson just kicked me in the head!!"

I respond with "To bad, you shouldn't stand in front of him where he can kick you. Stop crying!"

I know right, Mother of the Year!

We finally check out and head to the car.  It's raining and cold.

6:30 - We get home and Brent is waiting.  I tell him I'm on the verge a break down and to be careful.  He is silent.  He is a smart guy!

Jackson is grumpy and impossible to please for the rest of the evening.  He won't let Brent do anything for him.  I continue to have a scowl on my face and close cabinet doors just a little harder than necessary. The rest of the night  everyone walks on eggshells around me.  Somewhere down deep in my mind I know I'm being stupid.  I want to stop, but I just can't get out of my funk.

7:45 - Yay for bedtime.  Jackson usually goes right to sleep, but tonight he cries for 30 minutes, which just was almost the last straw!!

8:30 - All kids are in bed and silent.  I start venting out all my frustrations on Brent and he quietly listens.  He knows he can't say anything that will really help.  I just need him to listen and then I slowly start coming back to sanity.

I hate days like this.  Not because of the chaos, but because of how I handle them.  I don't want to be the freak out mom when things go wrong.  I know how blessed I am.  I have a great life and on days like this I look back and feel like I just threw that all back up in God's face, like I don't appreciate what He's given me.

 I started reading a book called Unglued a while back.  It's about this very thing, coming unglued and losing your cool.  I think I need to keep reading.

Well good for you if you read all of this!!  I know it's a lot and most people won't read it all, but it was actually therapeutic to type it all out and dissect it.

I'm hoping for less days like this after quitting my job, but regardless the way I react to things is something I've been working on and will need to continue working on!

Here's hoping for a better week!!

Mom's Story (3rd and final part)

My parents were aboard the cruise ship Triumph that was adrift in the gulf for 5 days. My mom has been writing guest posts to tell her story.  If you missed her first 2 guest posts you can read them by clicking on the links below.

Part 1

Part 2

Thursday 

(4th day adrift)

Thursday morning we woke up very excited about getting to Mobile that afternoon.  We were able to talk to Jenifer.  She wanted to come and pick us up in Mobile, but instead we made plans to ride a bus to New Orleans where she and Kelsie would drive and pick us up on Friday morning.

When the Triumph finally limped into the port at Mobile, Alabama, everyone on board was so happy to see dry land.  Rod and I immediately boarded a bus to New Orleans to spend the night.  Jena, Kelsie and Jack were their the next morning to pick us up.  

Friday

(on dry land)

When I saw my kids faces I broke down.  God had allowed me to stay in their lives a while longer.  To touch them and hold them was so precious to me.  

When we got home, it was a wonderful feeling walking through those doors.  

I know looking back, God was always in control.  That was my advice to people on the ship.  I would tell them that we can't change our situation, so just let God have it.  I felt peace and I know a lot of that was from the prayers of all my family and friends.  Thank you to all who lifted us up during this time.  God heard your prayers and he brought us home safely.  

Two things I learned:

Do not take things for granted.  I thank God everyday for the little things.

Never leave town without hugging and telling all of your family that you love them.

I just have to say that I have the BEST  mom in the world.  Our whole family has learned a lot through this horrible situation.  You don't realize what you have until it's taken away.  I hope if you are reading this, that you can take the lessons learned and written here and apply them to your life.  I know that if my mom did not have a relationship with Christ, things would have been a lot worse for her.  She knew her God was greater and more powerful than what she was going through and that all things happen for a reason.  God knows better than we do and even though it's tough sometimes, we just have to have faith in Him.  

He will carry us through any situation!

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6

in 3 months

In three months I will no longer be employed.

That's pretty scary and pretty exciting at the same time.  I have been a teacher for the past 6 years.  I started teaching straight out of college, and started college straight out of High School.  So if you think about it, I haven't stopped going to school since the age of 5.

Why am I quitting?

Because I believe with all my heart that this is what God wants me to do.  God has put a desire in my heart to stay home and finally be able to get my priorities straight.  I don't know how everything will play out and I know it won't be perfect, but I also know that if it's God's will then that's what I want too.

What will I miss about my job?

I will miss many things about being a teacher.  I will miss seeing the light bulbs go off in those little minds.  I will miss talking and goofing off with my coworkers.  I will miss all the goodies and perks that go along with Teacher Appreciation week, lol!  I will miss the feeling that I am making some kind of worldly impact. And if I'm being 100 percent honest, I will miss the paycheck, as little as it was.

What will I not miss about my job?

There are so many crazy changes happening now in education and society that have made being a teacher very difficult.  Most teachers feel so overwhelmed and under appreciated.  Most days I feel like I'm just hanging on by the skin of my teeth.  No job is perfect, but being a teacher is not what is was 30 years ago.

I will not miss being so tired of dealing with kids, specifically misbehaving ones, that I have no patience or energy left for my own children.  That is a big, big problem that I've dealt with ever since the beginning.  After a day at work, I have very little left for my family.  I hate that.

Do I think being a stay at home mom will be easy?

No way!  I think somethings in life will be easier, but then others will be more difficult.  I'm not about to get into a debate about what is better or what is easier, because we are all different.  What's best for me is not necessarily best for everyone.

I can't wait to be home with Jack during the day, clean house, cook meals, keep up with laundry (or try to), run errands during the day, volunteer at school,  and do all those motherly and wifely duties.  I really do enjoy those things.  I get really stressed out when I am so busy with my job that I can't keep my house clean.

Not to mention the fact that our income will be majorly cut, so that will be very difficult at first.  We are trusting that if this is God's will, which I'm positive it is, then He will provide and meet all our needs.

How can you live on one income?

I think it's absolutely possible to live on one income, even if your husband or wife isn't a doctor or lawyer.  Brent recently started a new, well paying job.  Money will be tight at times, but life is not all about money.  We will have  food, clothing, and shelter.  We may not be buying all the new gadgets, or best new cars, or going on a vacation every holiday, but I don't want our lives to be about how many things we have.  I want to teach my kids that our lives are not valued by how much money or stuff we can accumulate, but by how we use what we have to glorify God and care for others.

If we want to go on a vacation we will have to plan and save for it, and that's perfectly fine with me.  I'm not going to continue working just so we can have more things.

I'm a part of a ladies bible study right now about simplicity, which was perfectly timed by God.  He is teaching me things right now that go hand in hand with the changes that are coming up in my life.

Will you ever go back to work?

I honestly don't know.  How could I know?  I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know Who holds tomorrow!!  If I were to take a guess I would say probably not any time soon, but I definitely would if I had to.  Whatever God leads me to do, I will do!  I can't wait to see what God has planned for me and my family, because I know it's far better than anything I could plan.

 

Mom's Story (part 2)

You can read part one of my mom's guest posts about her time aboard the cruise ship Triumph, while adrift in the Gulf of Mexico by clicking here.

Tuesday

2nd day adrift

We slept out on deck chairs under the stars.  It was very uncomfortable, but so much better than our rooms. We made our own little tent apartment to shade us from the sun. We found out they were planning on towing us to Progresso, Mexico to get flights home.  Some people didn't have their passports so they were nervous.  

By this point we had met a lot of people from all over.  Everyone seemed to coping all right.  We were all getting tired of walking up and down seven flights of stairs, numerous times a day.  My legs felt like they were on fire every time.  

I had no tennis shoes, so at night I would put on socks with my sandals.  By this time nobody was caring what we looked like.  

We had two sister ships deliver us food and supplies, Carnival Elation and Legend.  They removed a passenger onto one of these ships.  This person was on dialysis, so it was an emergency.  

This day passed by slowly.  They didn't give us much information during the announcements, so we just waited.  People were still hoarding food.  We were only eating once or twice a day, because we didn't feel like waiting in line for two hours for a sandwich and piece of fruit.  

At the end of this day we once again climbed into our deck chairs.  After sleeping in them the night before I already felt bruised.  It was still better than sleeping in our rooms.  They had become unbearable from the heat, and the smell made us gag. 

Wednesday

(3rd day adrift)

This day was pretty much the same as Tuesday.  I think we ate one box of cereal.  I can't remember lunch or supper.  

The crew was amazing.  They worked so hard.  They were in the same position as us, stranded and not able to communicate with loved ones.  They kept smiling and trying to make us comfortable.  

I think this was the day that I was in line for food and I saw a young man give up his spot in line for an elderly person.  It made us all feel good to see such kindness.  Most people we met and talked to were very friendly and in good spirits.  

There were some who were very critical about everything.  We tried to steer clear of those types of groups.  We wanted to stay positive   At this point we hadn't talked to our families since Monday.  We kept our phones charged at charging stations set up with power strips and extension cords.  There would be at least 15 phones hooked up at one outlet.  It was amazing to see.

Wednesday night we were really starting to get tired.  No one was sleeping very well.  It ended up raining and it turned so cold we had to move our cots inside.  It smelled and was very stuffy.  We just wanted to be home.

Stay tuned for the final installment of my mom's first hand account from aboard the Triumph.

Helllloooo March Randomness!!

Hello March, I'm so glad you are here!  March means spring time, warmer weather, spring break, time change, Easter, and all sorts of things I love!!!  

If you blink you might miss spring time in Louisiana.  Our spring weather lasts for a few weeks and then the sweltering heat hits with full force!  

I had weigh in this morning.  

The scale sucks!

I am 188.6.  That is .2 more than last week, so basically the same exact weight!  I can only be mad at myself.  I've lost my drive and determination.  So I drowned my sorrows in a cinnamon twist donut and four donut holes, and now I'm going to rededicate myself to making healthier choices! lol  

Next week will be better!!! (I hope)

I know some of you are ready for part two of my mom's guest blog posts about her time aboard the cruise ship Triumph and I promise it will be up soon.  We have been soooo busy after school every day this week.

Monday: Bible study

Tuesday: Abigail Dance and Reading Night at school

Wednesday: Team Kids (church)

Thursday: Grocery Shopping

Abigail and Austin are spending the night at Brent's mom's tonight so I'm hoping for a quiet calm Friday night.  

Speaking of Abigail and Austin look how cute they were last night.  Abigail read Austin his bedtime story.  They thought they were so funny!

Alrighty friends, I guess that's it for now!

Have a great weekend!!!