Final Scenes of Christmas

One final look at the holidays. I photographed some of my favorite items before I packed them away for another year. I missed posting this picture of myself & my daughters in the last post. They are beautiful girls inside and out!

My main tree

This little tree now houses all of our sports-themed ornaments.

The little angel on top once topped my grandma's tree.

I also have a collection of small trees. Found this one @ Goodwill and came across the mini bulbs @ Target & the mini snowmen @ a craft fair.



Another miniature tree...with some teeny-tiny ornaments

My "Jewel" tree - houses a collection of acrylic ornaments that Josh & Amy gave me one year for Christmas. Over the years I have added red and gold glittery bulbs. This tree was so beautiful this year.



One of the prizes in my Boyd's collection.

A gorgeous Santa found in an antique mall.

Found this pencil tree @ a local craft fair this past fall.

I LOVED the hand-crafted miniature ornaments on it.

A final picture of a pretty wreath hung in the large window in my dining room. Would have been beautiful with snow outside but it was not to be this year.

Some Family Pictures

Some Christmas Day pictures of the family. This Christmas turned out to be a celebration of togetherness and I loved every minute of it!

The oldest

The Boys

Oldest and Youngest

All 4 of my children....all grown up!!



All 4 of my children with their proud (and thinner) parents!!

Where Does The Time Go?

This was Thanksgiving, 1999 or 2000. It seems just like yesterday! My household is so different these days and I think more than any other year I am really missing having little kids around for the holidays.

Putting up our Christmas tree used to be a rather chaotic process but a good kind of chaos. This year I decorated pretty much alone. The kids each put on their ornaments but it was here and there when they were home...and Amy now has her own tree out in her new room.

It seemed that every time I had a baby, an older, wiser woman would tell me to savor and enjoy the days while my children were young. I believed them to a degree but when you're a sleep-deprived young mother, it sometimes seems that just that day will never end. Those women were right, however, and now I'm one of those older, hopefully wiser women who passes on the same advice!

We are progressing well on our new room for Amy. The sheet rock is going up today. I have been to Home Depot more in the last 2 weeks than I have been in the last 2 years!! We are beginning to see the finish line!!

The weather is absolutely beautiful! I love this time of year...late fall. Takes me back to when I was a kid.

I have discovered though, that when you lose a large amount of weight, you also lose a large amount of insulation. I'm experiencing a problem I've never really had before. I'm chilly....alot. Its funny now because I have added several sweaters to my wardrobe!!

I posted to the other blog today too.

Fall Happenings

• First of all, I have to apologize for all the spelling errors in my previous post. It seems I have been in some denial about aging and because of denial and fear, I chose not to get bifocals at my last Eye appointment. So, I can see distances great with my new glasses but in order to read, I have to take them off...to see things at a distance of 1-2 feet, I have to wear my old glasses. The last post I was at the library and had forgotten my old glasses....the computer monitor was too far to see without my glasses and too close to see with them....hence the errors!

Cliff & I have been busy cleaning out our attic, garage, and gardening shed. He has been working overtime re-building our little gardening shed that was once a chicken coop. The walls had seen better days. He's replaced one side and put on a new roof.
We are also in the process of a project that we have talked about for years. We have split our garage in half and are making one half a room for Amy. Everything is framed and rewired and ready for insulation and sheetrock. It's turning out so nice! We could never have even got the job started without a good friend from church who is teaching Cliff how to do all these home-improvement jobs. We are hoping to have Amy all move in by Thanksgiving.

I'm still on my weight loss. Hit the 55 pound mark this week. I decided to start a new blog dedicated to my weight loss journey. I'm not sure how long I'll keep it going but for now I have all these thoughts and just wanted and outlet for them. You can find it here

The Rest of the Story

I have waited until now the post anything further about my weight-loss journey because I had to give a speech about it last weekend at our Women's retreat and I didn't want to give all the info our beforehand.

I have come to realize that the weight battle is 90% mental and 10% at the scale. Meaning, I have fought so much of it in my mind. Its totally the reason I have been overeating my entire adult life...and its a viscous cycle. You feel bad about yourself or your situations and to deal with it, you eat some fatty or sugary something to numb the pain and then you feel bad you ate it and back and forth and back and forth it goes. To go into specifics would be far too lengthy and complicated for any one blog post but lets just say that lies have been fed into my head by the author of lies and I have believed them...and society, friends and even well-meaning family members continually confirmed the lies. So much of it has been my perception because when you buy into lies, you view the world through the filter of lies so that it all looks like truth.

For me, the answer to exposing the dealing with the lies has come through God's Word, His healing grace and several books that have dealt with spiritual, emotional, and physical issues. I also found inspiration in a Television show called, Ruby, who once weighed over 700 pounds and has lost almost 400. I figured if she could do it without surgery or weird diets, I could do. I also connected with the struggles that she faces within her weight loss journey. I also have another friend who lost some weight and looked 10 years younger and I wanted to look younger too....and I wanted my life back!!!!!

I knew a diet was an important part. Once again, I had given up on all diets. I know myself and I know that I need an organized approach to eating...a good, healthy plan with some fairly quick results...I mean let's face it, at some point, you do need to see results on the scale.

While browsing through the "new book" section at the library, a title jumped out at me...."The 17 Day Diet." I wasn't looking for a diet book but the 17 day thing intrigued me. Once I read it, it made so much sense and I knew this was exactly what I was looking for. I felt it was something I could follow long-term because lets be honest here....once a dieter, always a dieter....I will ALWAYS have to pay attention to the food I am putting in my mouth. I decided the only way to know if this eating plan really worked the way it said it would was to follow it to the letter. I did and I'm thrilled to say it has worked out better than I could have imagined. I'm exercising (walking) almost every day and my life has gone from sedentary to active.

To date, I have lost 51 pounds and 22 inches without much of a struggle....and I have my life back and I feel better about myself than I have in years. I have received inspiration from people like Ruby and my friend, Robin and in turn I hope and think I'm inspiring others. At least 5 of my friends have started the 17-Day Diet and I wish them nothing but success!!

A Recovering Couch Potato

Yep, that's me, a recovering Couch Potato....making a lifestyle switch from sedentary to healthy....from eating a diet rich in fat & sugar to a diet rich in lean proteins & vegetables.
It's been a long road to this point. Without knowing what I was doing, I took a road that led to what author Bob Greene calls a Holistic Approach to weight loss. An approach that doesn't just focus on diet and exercise but healing within the emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Is it working? YES!! To date, I've lost 37 pounds. (a weight I haven't seen since 1999) Its work there's no other way to put it. I walk 5-6 days per week and do a core workout 2 days per week. BUT, I feel better than I have in YEARS both physically and mentally. No more back or knee pain. I feel as though I've turned back the hands of time a bit.

I've got a long way to go but I think I'm off to an incredible start.