Being thankful, Project 365...

As you age, you hit certain milestones.  It's part of life.  You first start noticing people growing up when those baby cousins of yours are no longer babies.  Seriously?  What happened?

In life, you notice that people do things at similar times.  You tend to go through seasons.  Seasons of weddings.  Then a season of children while the kids start being born.  Then, the marriages start falling apart.  You start to have divorces, or friends that are not happy in their relationships.

Soon it'll be my kids growing up, going to prom, going off to college.  Then, people our age will start retiring, and paying off mortgages, and moving to Arizona and Florida, and start to become grandparents.

This week, we hit an unexpected new time of life.  One of my husbands co-workers, his friend, passed away yesterday.  He was only 34. He had a massive heart attack while leaving work.  He is survived by his wife and two kids.  His kids came between my two in age.

He's been working at this place, pretty much as long as my husband.  My husband has been there for 10 years. He was always very nice, fun, sometimes even snarky like I am, when I would visit my husband.  My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, his kids, his family and friends now, as they have lost someone so unexpectedly.  

I can't even begin to imagine how hard this must be for his family.  He really still had his whole life in front of him.  He'd barely done a third or his life when this happened.  This was just so unexpected.

With a better understanding every day, of just exactly how short life is, I'm going to tell you what parts of life, and parts of my family that I've been grateful for this past week.

 1-25 (I failed to take pics on 1-24)

I'm grateful for this girl and the way she makes me smile by wearing the same pair of socks for 3 days because of how warm they are.

1-25 (2)

This guy.  I'm grateful that when I don't feel well, he will get silly to make me smile.  Captured here, rocking my hat.

1-26

I'm grateful for this girl and her awesome smile.  She's super caring, and wants to do nice things for you just so that you will be happy.  Love this kid.

1-27

This guy was so done with it, but managed to add a smile when he noticed the camera.  He puts up with me and my crazy gassy kids and he actually seems to enjoy us.  I'm grateful that he is here, and wants to be here with me and with the girls, no matter how gross we all are.

1-28

I'm grateful for this hot mess.  She's just starting to take an interest in how she looks, so she doesn't look like this all the time.  I'm grateful I get to see the young woman she is growing into.

1-28

This one came in to bother me while I was working.  She is spitting and making fart noises.  I'm grateful she's still comes in and tells me she wants me, just wanting to be with me.

1-29

I'm grateful for Nutella, and the way this kid eats it instead of butter, peanut butter, or jelly.  "I want eggs and toast with 'tella for breakfast."  The chocolate face is killer.

1-29

I'm grateful to this mutt for showing me how to accept a new member of the household, even when I wasn't always happy with him.

Life is short people.  We really don't know how much time we have.  Be grateful for what you have, and make sure that your loved ones really know how much they mean to you.

It's worth it to keep working at it...

It's been a long time since I've written about my weight loss.  As you may or may not remember, I've been on Weight Watchers since September of 2011.  I have lost a total of 77 pounds.

Right now, I'm up a couple of pounds.  I know this is a normal part of weight loss.  The ups, the downs.

It gets so hard sometimes.  You work so hard, you say no to those chips that you want.  You do not walk past the chip aisle at the grocery store.  You wish you had some queso dip.  Or ice cream.  Or fatty meats.  Whatever your vice is.

And sometimes, it does no good.  Sometimes it takes weeks to see that meager difference in the scale.  It doesn't matter that you work out.  It still will not show for a week or two.

But...

After that week or two, if you can stay on track, you can see a difference.  It'll be big in the beginning, because you need to see that difference, and quickly so that you keep that motivation.  Once you get closer to your goal, it gets harder.  You have to step up your game.  You work harder.  Not that you're hungrier, but that when you get hungry, you have less of a margin of error for making bad choices.

In the beginning, when you make that choice, and you eat chips, or ice cream, or pastry, or chocolate, you still lose.  And you can still lose big, dependent on how differently you are eating now, compared to how you were eating before.

And you are working out now.  Working out harder than ever before.  You know those workouts?  They can make the scale go up.  The muscles you build take up less space at the same weight as the fat you had.  And, you may retain water as your muscles heal themselves.  So, the harder you work out, the more hyped up you get, thinking that you'll see a bigger drop in the scale.  That hasn't been my experience.  Although, in this past year, I've dropped 4 sizes and only 10 lbs. If you didn't catch that, it was 4 sizes and 10 lbs.

So, now.  Now that you are closer to your goal. Now that you work out more than ever before.  Now that you have been eating healthier for years.  Now, the changes you make to your eating and routines are smaller, the losses are smaller.

It's ok.

No, really.  It's ok.

Why you ask?  Because it's still worth it.

You tell me which of these two ladies looks happier:

October 2010, Halloween (I was librarian - creative right?)

Taken 11-4-2013, the day the Bears beat the Packers.

Hang in there.  Keep working at it.  Try different things to get different results.  Seriously.  If I can do it, anyone can do it.  It takes a choice and a determination to follow through on the choice and a willingness to try different changes to get results.

Project 365 week 3....

So, it seems that every week I am a day late on my Project 365.  Hmmm.... I guess that means that at least I'm posting once a week, right? 

This past week, we've had snow, then ridiculously cold temperatures, then more snow, then more cold, then more snow... you get the idea.

On Thursday, 1-16, the girls and I went to the mall to return a scarf that I received for Christmas.  Unfortunately, the scarf was not as flattering on as it was it looked when it was on the hanger.  Mia used her Christmas money to buy herself a tiara.

I did not take any pictures on Friday, 1-17.  So, I'll give you two from Saturday, 1-18.  The first, I noticed that the snow had caked onto my driver's side window in the shape of a heart.  Awwww... (yes, I outlined it for you.  Your welcome.)

The second is from the show that my brother Derrick and I went to.  We had a brother/sister night, went out to dinner and went to see "Young Frankenstein."  It was a great play, funny, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

On Sunday, 1-19, I again did not take any pictures.  What can I say?  I'm still working on getting into this habit.  However, as a happy surprise, someone was taking pictures with my camera.  I believe this comes to you, courtesy of Tony.

Monday, 1-20 was a holiday, no school and no work.  We went to the Aquarium.  While getting myself to look somewhat presentable, I had an audience that decided to try to pretend to apply her own make-up.

Tuesday, 1-21, dawned bright and sunny.  And because there had been snow the night before, then extreme falling temperatures, people started sliding off of ramps during the morning commute.  Causing the news people to get everyone hyped to LEAVE EARLY, AT LEAST DOUBLE YOUR COMMUTE TIME.  Some of us, without the option to double our commute time, were stuck in traffic that looked like this.  It only took 3 hours to make the 36 mile trek to work.

Wednesday, 1-22, I was happy to have two days to work from home.  However, by the time I had to leave to pick up my kids, this is what I walked out to.  Again.  With fast blowing wind causing awesome white out conditions when driving through the farmland around my house.  I'm really done with snow at this point.

Thursday, 1-23, early morning.  Tony is not a morning person.  Neither am I.  But this just sums up my grumpy man in the morning.