Thankful Thursday:
Five things I am thankful for about myself
1. I am thankful that I am trying to become a more organized person. I am at the point in my life where I want everything to have a place and for everything to be picked up and put away by the end of the day. It may not always happen and I may not always enforce it, but it's what I mentally want to have happen and I think I am attempting to take the steps necessary to make it happen (getting rid of things I do not want/need/use as well as making a chore chart so that Patrick and I feel equal and both participate).
2. I am thankful that I am physically active. I may not always do the workouts I have scheduled or even get in as many as I would like, but I am active and I always feel good and enjoy the endorphins after a good workout. Even simply getting through 5 days of the squats challenge has shown me that I'm stronger than I give myself credit for and I am really enjoying the sore thighs and rear end already.
3. I am thankful that I am willing to put my training on the back burner for others. Sometimes I am able to get in my alone training just for me and I am so grateful for those runs, but I am also so happy to run with other people and to spread the love I have of running to others. Sometimes it's important for me to focus on my run and the things I need to make it through, but most of the time I am so much more interested in seeing other people succeed and reach their goals.
4. I am thankful that I am still excited about our finances and that things are going fairly well. We have been able to make it each week with a little left over. Not much, but enough to feel like there is a bit of a safety net. This paycheck and last paycheck we were even able to transfer extra over to our house savings. We're making progress and that's the important part. I'm also really excited because we are making progress in paying off the rest of Patrick's debt and should be done paying it off by this time next year (if not sooner!)
5. I am thankful that I am feeling sore from the squat challenge. It seems silly because today is only day 5 and I will only be doing 40 squats today, but for some reason it feels different this time around. I think it's because I am taking my time each squat and getting down lower as well as focusing on the movement instead of just getting it done to say it's done. I like feeling sore when I feel like I've earned it.
Five things I am thankful for in life
1. I am thankful that I have had a job with the same company for 3 years. My official anniversary date is September 20th, but I should be receiving my bonus check anytime between now and that date. My goal about a year ago (when things weren't going so well at the office due to people who have bad attitudes and negative personalities) my goal was to make it to the three year mark in order to receive my bonus and because I think that's a good amount of time to be with a company before starting to look for a new job. Well, I've made it. I'll be receiving my bonus. I was recently promoted. And that negative person is no longer working here. Although it would be helpful to make more money, Patrick and I aren't that bad off and if needed I could try to find something so that I can work from home to make a few extra dollars a month to help. I think that it would be worth it right now to stay where I'm at because what I've seen in the want ad's are not offering close to what I make now.
2. I am still thankful for my wonderful parents. I do not know what we would do without them and we are so incredibly lucky. My mom picks up Isabel every day from school unless Patrick is off of work and it is so comforting to know that she's with someone we know, love and trust. She then has to go back to the same school to pick up my niece and her two friends, take her friends to the Boys and Girls Club. It's a lot of driving and a lot of stress, especially when the girls don't get along (which is more often than not). I feel as though my parents did a pretty good job raising my sister and I. We've never had trouble with the law, we've never done drugs, we made mistakes but learned and grew from them, we both have decent jobs and we are both married to pretty awesome men. My parents raised us into good people and I know that their influence on Isabel will help her become a good person as well.
3. I am thankful that I have my new GPS watch. It is amazing and I love uploading my workouts onto my computer. I didn't know that my other GPS watch could do the same and I was able to get it to work for a short amount of time to download those past workouts. I don't want to take this watch off because it doubles as a regular watch. I use it for every walk and/or run so that I can keep track of my progress. I love when something so simple can push you to workout longer and harder. I want to keep seeing the miles increase and the speed increase and every thing else that it offers to track is just icing on top of a pretty sweet cake.
4. I am thankful that we are going to be having a garage sale sometime soon (not quite sure when). We have already started going through our apartment to get rid of the things that we no longer want/need/use and I just downloaded a
declutter calander (password: iamorganized) to make sure we get through the entire apartment and really end up getting rid of the unnecessary items as well as clean/organize what we keep. I am excited for this project and even more excited for the money we may make to put towards debt and savings. Most likely (depending on how much we make) we will put a third towards our past (debt), a third towards our future (savings) and a third towards the present (a night out).
5. This week I am most thankful for my husband. On Sunday we had quite a scare and I would really like to never experience anything like it again. Patrick has had a neck problem for as long as I have known him and it has gone on before that. He recently started seeing a doctor for the problem because it finally became unmanageable. On Sunday the pain was more than he could bare, so he decided to take two muscle relaxers. Unfortunately he had also been out in the heat, he didn't have enough to eat and he had a beer. The mixture of everything caused him to almost pass out, become extremely jittery, slur his words and have a difficult time focusing and responding, and all around scare the living day lights out of me. I was not aware of all of the factors when the symptoms first came on and I would have sworn I thought he was having a stroke. An ambulance ride, 5 hours in the ER and an IV of fluids later and he became the man I know. They did do a scan of his head to make sure it was not a stroke (which scared me even more when they thought it could be a reason to the behavior), but thankfully that came back clear. I love this man so much, and the thought of losing him was almost more than I could bare. Thankfully he is alright though and we did have an appointment with his doctor to go over the MRI results. As of right now he needs to focus on taking his anti-inflammatory twice a day, icing his neck every day and using heat every night. He will be starting physical therapy soon. If that doesn't help then most likely he will see a surgeon. Fingers crossed that the physical therapy helps and that he follows through doing what he needs to do.
Throwback Thursday:
I think it's going to take me a little while to get used to posting pictures of myself from the past. I feel a little weird doing it, but there are not a lot of pictures of myself from the past five years and that's kind of something I regret. So I'm going to put them out there from all phases of the past few years. From my highest weight when I was nine months pregnant and the yo yo weights from then to now. I don't know how many pictures I actually have, but I think it will be good to come to terms with my past in order to accept who I am now.
It's been one hell of a journey and I am ready to see myself, maybe the way others saw me. Again, I don't know how many pictures there are of me since I'm usually the one behind the camera. I'm going to do my best to pick pictures that show my body since this is a weight loss/fitness blog (or at least it's supposed to be).
My photo CDs are in no particular order (an ongoing organizing task I have yet to find time or money to do). Since they are not in any order, the photo's I post weekly will also not be in any particular order. I will do my best to include a year, but most pictures will be from March 2008-present as that is when I started saving my pictures onto discs.
February 2009- Isabel's one year pictures
I had a friend of mine take pictures a few weeks before Isabel's first birthday so that I would have some new pictures of her to put up for the family to see. I know that at that time I was concerned that I hadn't lost all of the baby weight and that I would be doomed to carry it around with me forever.
I did eventually lose what I had gained and then some. And then it quickly came back on.
But looking at these pictures now, four and a half years later I don't see my weight. I'm not looking at my body. I'm looking at my smile and how in love I am with a little girl that makes any room she walks into brighter. She has been such a bundle of joy since the day she was born and I cannot believe how she has changed since the day she was born and how she has changed my life.
