The never ending journey

One journey that I am always on is the weight loss journey.  I've never been one to be able to either not have to work out or watch what I eat.  I know this, but for some reason I always get going 100 miles per hour and then crash and burn.  SO I am trying this time to ease into it and to not get burned out!  I just wanted to share a few of my favorite things that are helping me through this journey:

 



Made to Crave is an AMAZING book.  I am only in Chapter 3, but it is honestly the best book that makes so much sense and I can relate to!  I can't tell you how many "last meals" I've had before starting a "diet"...she addresses this!  She even talks about when she finally decided to visit a nutritionist that she sat in her car with her last meal, looked around to make sure no one was looking and licked the plate!  hahahaha!!  That is so me.  So far this book is about changing your focus from craving food to craving Him.  I am guilty that when I have a bad day, I turn to food.  When I have a good day, to celebrate I turn to food.  If I'm depressed, anxious, you name it...turn to food.  Where should I turn to?  Prayer and God.  So I can't wait to see where this book continues to go, but so far so good!!!

 

Weight Watchers makes an AWESOME ice cream bar!!!  It is incredible and I will save my calories every day for one of these right now.  Oh my goodness.  They are 140 calories and worth every one! 



 

I also love Pop Secret 100 calorie kettle pop corn.  I eat it every day.  It is a lot of food and only 100 calories.  It can't get much better than that!

 

 

One last thing that I am really enjoying is My Fitness Pal app for my phone!  It is so cool.  One of the important things to do when eating right is to write down what you are eating every day.  I used to do this by pen and paper.  This eliminates that and stores it on your phone.  The best thing is that when you eat something and you add it, you can scan the bar code and it uploads all the information straight into your diary!  LOVE THIS!  It is very cool and I highly recommend it!

 

I know that I will have tons of "tests" along the way, but so far so good.  Today I turned down two YUMMY meals and stuck to my meal that I packed.  We have a few get aways planned over the next 6 weeks and football season is here, so I know that the challenges are going to be very tempting!  I will take one day at a time!



Weekend wrap up

I'm sitting here watching Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition trying to find my motivation and thinking about my weekend and trying to get back on track.  I haven't been working out lately and my eating hasn't been what it should.  The result?  Weight gain, energy loss and bad attitude!  I know this is the result, yet every time I seem to fall back on this track and regret it EVERY TIME!!!  Well tomorrow starts with getting back on track...again!  Ugh.  Maybe I can find the happy medium soon and not be on one extreme side or the other.  I'm working on finding that spot...
Saturday Josh, Garrett and I took it easy because we had some friends from college come with their two kids for a play date.  We went to the pool and then went to Meet the Pirates.  This is an event every year where you get to go out and meet all the football players for ECU.  We go out there for the bouncy castles!  Ha!  It sure helps to get their energy out.  Here are a few pictures from our play date.  We look forward to the next one:

Jack, Mary Walter, Garrett

Silly faces

Jack sliding down the HUGE SLIDE!!

Garrett's turn

Love that they had such fun together!

Dear Lord, thank goodness this wasn't loaded :-)

towards the end of the night...check out the sweat and sleepy eyes.

I did want to share one haha story from the day.  I think I tell G twice a day (at least) to get his fingers out of his nose.  The first thing he told them when he got in the car was "Do you know what I like to do that my mommy doesn't like me to do?  Pick my nose".  Bless him.  Before hello or anything!  He thinks I can't see him if he turns his head when he does it and jumps out of his skin when I bust him.  It's gotten pretty funny now because he will tell me before I say anything "I'm not picking mommy".  ha
Today we went to my parents house and had dinner with my parents, brother and sister in law.  It was such a nice and relaxing evening.  Josh and I are so blessed to have both of our families here in town with us.  It is so nice to have them a phone call away! 
This weekend also had some sad news.  I had a classmate pass away on Saturday that had been battling Multiple Sclerosis since high school.  Her name was Haley and she put up such an amazing fight.  What stood out most to me about Haley was her amazing relationship she had with the Lord.  She was such an inspiration with everything that she had going on with her illness she had such a positive attitude.  They are having a celebration for life on Tuesday that I plan on attending. 
I also love finding new music and have a dear friend Jamie who introduces me to the best stuff.  Enjoy this by Kari Jobe:

I hope that you have a great week!

Fun Filled Saturday

Today has been busy.  We hung out around the house this morning and then went to East Coast Wings.  If you have never been to there you need to go...amazing!  Obviously they specialize in wings, but there burgers and sandwiches are awesome.  I had a chicken philly, Josh had a burger and Garrett had mini burgers.  Very Yummy!
Next we went to see Ice Age.  We've taken Garrett to a few movies and he surprisingly does really well during movies!  He needed some quiet time today because he was getting a bit on the wild side, so this was perfect!  It was a cute movie and I recommend it!
We came home and relaxed for about an hour before heading to church.  Our church has a Saturday night and then two Sunday services.  I can't tell you how much I love this church.  It has changed my life and my relationship with God has grown so much and I am forever thankful.  I get as much out of worship service as I do the music that they do.  The music gives me goose bumps and sometimes can even bring a tear to my eye with the words that are sung.  Tonight was great worship music and service and was a great end to the day.  We came home and had pizza.
I headed out after dinner and went to Harris Teeter because they were having Super Double coupons!  I'm a nerd for this and like to see how much I can save.  My bill (before VIC card and coupons) was 82 dollars and after coupons and card it was 30 dollars!!  Whoop Whoop!  I was excited.
I went to Peppermints for some yogurt after my shopping trip and just got done watching The Cosby Show.  The one where Rudy's fish dies and they have the funeral...CLASSIC!  Love that show and wish we could have more shows like that.
Tomorrow I get to do lunch with one of my best friends before she moves to Seattle for 2 years!  Great weekend so far!

Italian Sausage Cheese Muffins

Josh and I have both been sick and had no energy this past weekend.  I was tyring to find something to make for dinner and could not find ANYTHING!  After much debating, we decided to do breakfast for dinner.  I love breakfast!  I found a recipe for Italian Sausage Cheese Muffins on Pintrest.  Click here for the recipe!  We did not use broccoli because we don't do veges in our egg!  Here are some pictures:

Super Simple...cooking spray, sausage, egg and cheese

Finished product!

Josh's one responsibility was to spray the pan...he swears he did it?  Humm...questionable!

We had these for leftovers too and I think they may have been better round 2!!  So yummy and I would recommend!


I will leave you with a picture of my sweet Garrett.  He has really gotten into dressing himself lately.  He seriously gets so PROUD of himself and is just on cloud nine when he dresses himself.  Most of the time he does pretty good.  This morning though he got me so tickled!  Oh my word.  Check out this outfit and the socks.  That is how he wanted to wear them.  He couldn't wait to get to school to show all of his friends.  We figure that he will be in school uniforms soon enough and why not let him pick out what he wants to wear to school?  It makes him so happy and you know what, it makes me smile all day!  Here you go:

LOVE!!!!!

Catching Up

Well we've had a lot going on and I haven't posted in a long time!  My goal (as always) is to start blogging more.  I am envious of those that are able to blog a couple of times a week.  So fingers crossed I can at least get one post in a week! This could be a long post.
Josh and I got excited earlier in July because we found some land a house plan that we liked.  After much debating we decided that we were going to sell our house and move.  Oh my goodness I was so excited.  We submitted all the changes we wanted to the builder and they came back with a price that we felt comfortable with.  We spent my birthday weekend cleaning our house out and getting it ready for putting it on the market.  That next week the builder came back and said that he misquoted us by 10,000 dollars!  Well that was not going to work for us, so we decided against building.  We have started looking at more house plans and other houses for sale.  We have just put the breaks on because we spent so much time working on getting everything together for the last house that didn't work out.  We at least now know what we do and do not want in a house.  We just trust that God has a plan for us and that wasn't in His plans right now.
Garrett has been fun and finished his swim lessons.  Every year I don't think that he will learn anything from his lessons and then I am blown away with how much he learns.  Before taking lessons the boy could NOT swim at all!  He would always say "Mommy I can swim" and then he would sink to the bottom.  The boy has no fear which is great but gives this mommy a heart attack every time we are close to a pool.  So this was good for both of us.  This year parents had to stand on the outside of the fence of the pool while the children took their lessons.  I am proud to say that Garrett now knows how to swim.  He can hold his breath for a good amount of time and can get from point A to point B.  He can't tread water, but I am so excited that he can swim now!  I have video on my phone but I can't get it to my computer!  Just trust me...it's GREAT!!!
Last weekend Garrett, Susan (Josh's mom) and I went to a birthday party for one of my besties from college and then went to Garrett's first water park.  It was SO MUCH FUN...Garrett had a blast and told me "Mommy you are just the best"  So sweet!
Josh has had a summer cold this week and I think I am getting it...boo!!  We have just been exhausted!  It is really pitiful.  We've been trying to go to bed early.  I've still been trying to exercise, but it's been after work instead of the morning.  I miss my running group SO MUCH but am having such a hard/impossible time getting up.  I'm hoping that I can snap out of this exhaustion asap and get back to running with the girls!
Well that is enough of an update right now.  I'm currently trying to write down the things Garrett is doing/saying that tickle me so I can remember them :-)