Plumped Up Again

I just happened to look back at some of the posts with the most hits - my most popular post was "Pounds Are Gone" from just a little over a year ago. But here's the sad news that really hit me hard. This is no longer an accurate post. Yes, at the time I had reached my goal weight I set in January 2011. And it was a glorious thing. But now unfortunately, I've fallen off my healthy wagon, and I've Plumped Up Again.

I have stopped eating healthy most of the time, and very rarely consider calories, fat or carbs when choosing meals or snacks. I have gotten very busy the last month or so, and so I haven't made any time to work out. Sadly, I am back up over my goal weight again. The good news is that I'm not back to my starting point. I refuse to gain that much more weight.

I wasn't planning to share how much I had gained back, in fact I was terrified and embarrassed to do so, but I think it will be an important step to going on this journey again if I publicize my fears and insecurities. I need determination and help and motivation, and I think sharing the specifics will help me out. So total - I've gained back 20 pounds from when I was at my lowest weight back around August/September. My goal is to lose ALL of that again, hopefully by August/September. Plus a little more by the end of the year.

I'm not going to go crazy and starve myself or workout six days a week - because let's just be honest - that's just not me. I'm not that girl. But I am going to start eating healthy, exercising more, and just generally making better, more conscious decisions about the things I put into my body. This stuff has just got to go!

Tomorrow will be the official start of this journey again. (Today is Leap Day - and nothing counts on Leap Day...) Please feel free to send me random bits of encouragement or healthy tips you may find. I'm gonna need all the help I can get. Thanks for listening to me ramble. It definitely helps to get this all out there on the interwebs where my friends and family, and even strangers, can all see it. Helps keep me accountable.

Preparation Pays Off

This past weekend, we had Disciple Now Weekend for my youth at church. It was truly an incredible weekend. I completely planned the entire event by myself for the first time, (well at least 95% of it was by myself). I planned the same event last year, but Duncan was still around - and apparently he did way more work last year than I even realized. So many teeny-tiny details had to be thought through and planned - and God blessed me with a successful weekend for my kids.

We started on Thursday night with a kick-off banquet at the church - which was awesome. My parents have been in charge of the banquet for the past 7 years, and they always do a fantastic job. This year was no exception. They matched my Jungle theme perfectly, and cooked a great meal for close to 125 kids and adults. Also, we had The Ransomed play at the event, and the rocked!

The rest of the weekend started Friday night, and was jam packed to the rim. The kids participated in Bible study sessions, free time to make t-shirts and group cheers, service projects at the church and in Frenchtown, worship rally's, recreation and they may have slept for a couple of hours each night :) Some of the highlights of the weekend were:

• Seeing so many of my students invite their friends for the weekend
• Watching the high school kids serve and sing at Breakfast in the Park
• Praying over and laying hands on each other after our service project
• Canopy Red leading our kids in worship
• Bobbing for Tootsie Rolls at Rec
• Laughing so hard at the awesome group cheers for Rec
• Getting to spend time with 65 of my youth!!

I truly love my youth group, and thank God for the opportunity to lead them. They are so much fun, and amazing weekends like this really make my "job" incredible. I am so glad that I get to be a part of the lives of these amazing teenagers!

Pay Day Friday

Well, my internet restrictions at work were made much more strict this week. And instead of freeing up more time to do more work, it has actually left me more time to find new/different sites that aren’t blocked than what I was reading before. Which has been fun :) Except now I can’t access Pinterest at work anymore, and that is horribly sad… [Don’t judge me people – I don’t have enough work to keep me busy all day every day…]

But, I felt like doing just a quick post (sent from my email since Blogger has been blocked) to share some upcoming fun and excitement of the weekend…

• TobyMac concert tonight with friends, and with VIP tickets! We get special seating, and a meet-and-greet before it starts with Toby and his band! Gonna be awesome.
• Possibly a bike ride tomorrow morning?!
• FSU football game tomorrow night! (Finally! First, and only, one of the season I get to attend.) A special THANK YOU goes out to the nice people who gave them to me! ;)
•  Youth pizza party after church for lunch on Sunday – going to be fun, and I’m really looking forward to it!
• And I’m hoping to squeeze some crafts into this weekend as well…

My family is hosting Thanksgiving at our house again this year, and I want to create some cute craft ideas into our meal that I’ve found on the interwebs lately. I want to combine some of the elements from the following two pictures, to make my own deal. So we’ll see how that goes.

I think I will also try to make my own version of this cute banner as well.

 

So it should be busy, but I’m sure it’s also going to be lots of fun! Maybe on Sunday night I can do a post from home and give some updates on how all of this went… :) And have a wonderful weekend!

Penn St. Pervert

As I read more and more of the scandal surrounding Penn State right now, I only get angrier and angrier. I am so wound up right now I can hardly form sentences or structure this post in a way that will make sense. But I'm so upset and confused and angry about it, I feel like a need to "rant" about it a little...

In case you aren't aware, yesterday, Wednesday, Joe Paterno was fired as the head coach at Penn State surrounding a sexual abuse scandal by one of his former assistant coaches - Jerry Sandusky. To read all of the story (and I think you should), click here. There are a lot of articles on it, but I think that's one that you can glean a lot of the main info from.

Here is my beef with all of this -

1. Penn State fans and supporters are extremely angry over this as they feel an injustice to Paterno has taken place. Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?! The man knew that one of his former assistants, one of his FRIENDS, was sexually abusing children, and all he did was tell his boss. Sure he did what was "right" by college "rules," but what amazes me is that he knew about this for so dang long, and did nothing more to actually stop it. How could that not weigh over his head every day since then, knowing that it was most likely still happening?! The man DESERVES to have been fired. Give me a break.
2. I just read where Sick Sandusky (name I just made for him) was meeting these children - through his own freaking "charity" - Second Mile - Providing Children with Help and Care. Um hello?!?!?! What in the world is going on here? Does anyone else not see the absurdity of this?! Sick Sandusky FOUNDED this charity!! I can't even talk about this point anymore. It's literally making me sick to think about it...
3. Again, are we really trying to say Joe Pa was treated unfairly?! He not only knew of this sick behavior from Sandusky, but he was also aware of the foundation that he ran. Did Joe Pa see no issue with this? Did he think that it was OK for Sick Sandusky to be allowed free reign around children? Oh please. Paterno is obviously just as sick as Sandusky is.
4. There are other officials at the school who have resigned, taken leave, been fired, whatever, because of their involvement or lack-there-of with this issue. But is that really all that's going to be done? I know some are being charged with perjury, but shouldn't some legal action be taken against Joe Pa as well??

I am quite worked up about the whole thing, and I'm sure I could ramble even more. But I'll stop it after this. What is wrong with the world? Why are we more concerned with protecting the reputation of a school than with helping save innocent children? Why are we so caught up in the legacy of a football team that heinous crimes are swept under the rug instead of bringing them into the light? It sickens me. I seriously can't even stand it.

It makes my heart hurt for these crazy people at Penn State. But even more so, it literally breaks my heart for those eight boys who had their innocence ripped away by a sick freak. I know it's not our job to judge and punish - the Lord will handle that in his own way - but I hope this man gets what he deserves here on earth. I hope Sick Sandusky rots away in a nasty prison cell...

People I Love

**Also, I would like to add to this list - all my friends from Flagler/St. Augustine. Just because you're not on there, doesn't mean I don't love you! :) **

And in case you didn't notice, I will still be continuing to do some of these list's throughout November. I decided to put the photography challenge on Facebook instead of my blog, because I thought posting every day with only a picture would be kind of obnoxious...

Here's a life update as well -

In the past couple of weeks I have had some fun times at Wild Adventures, bowling, and hanging out with friends; as well as glorious weekends spent in St. Augustine, and in Charlotte, NC. They were both very busy weekends, but each was extremely fun. I have begun seriously planning D-Now (short for Disciple Now Weekend, which is a youth retreat), and I am so incredibly excited for it. It's not until February, but I already can't wait!

This weekend will be spent at home here in Tally, but it will be anything short of boring. Here are all of the wonderful things this weekend holds: Family Fish Fry tonight at the Little Powell's, birthday party tomorrow for Trevor Mullins who is turning 1, bike ride tomorrow afternoon with Jeff in his neighborhood, Greek Festival, North Florida Seafood festival, church, bike ride at the St. Marks Trail on Sunday with Jeff and Taylor, ultimate frisbee with Rooftop youth, and I need to use my Groupon for Textures Handmade Market which expires on Sunday!

It's going to be extremely busy, but it's also going to be extremely fun! I love you all, and miss those of you who I haven't seen lately. (Which is probably most of you...)