Today was a day full of emotions for me. 11 months ago I started my journey for a new me. It hasn't come without sacrifices though and tonight I was reminded of that. Over the past 11 months I have lost a total of 50 lbs. Today at my weight watchers meeting I was (and still am) over the moon excitement but tonight I've also realized that this has come with a pretty large price.

I have this amazing little boy that I love more than I thought I could ever love anything and today he broke and melted at the same time my heart. When we got home for the evening it was Jakub's bedtime and I put him to bed and he promptly started screaming. I asked him my usual question what was his favorite part of today and he threw mousy across the room, I told him goodnight and if he didn't want to talk then we would just call it a night and walked out the door. He started screaming that he loves me, I came back and told him I love him too and he burst into tears. I said whats the matter little man and he says I want to sleep with you, I said sleeping with us is a once and a while treat not an every day treat and he responds with but I miss your face then continues on to tell me that he hates that I have to work and he misses me all the time and we don't get to spend enough time together and asked if I could please take tomorrow off work. I had to explain that I have responsibilities and I can't take the day off tomorrow and of course he got upset all over again. I told him I'll take off another Tuesday to just spend the day with him and he said no you won't, you never never never do and I reassured him that I will as soon as I can on a nice day and I'll put aside the chores and just spend the day listening to him and doing what he wants to do with no agenda of my own. It's days like this that makes me realize what a tough job it is to balance, work, family and chores.  It also makes me re-evaluate some of my actions from before like do I spend too much time away from him trying to squeeze in a work out. I know that I need to do this for me and ultimately it will benefit him too but it's so hard to find the right balance. That little boy means the world too me and it just kills me to see him so upset. It also makes me realize that being a mother is the toughest job that a woman can have but so worth it in the end.

On a brighter note, over the weekend we took Jakub on our first family hike. It was interesting to say the least, we stopped at the fist Y in the path t o figure out which way the trail we were following goes and Jakub says "look mommy a nake" I quickly looked down and jumped "oh yes, you're right, that is a snake, lets go!!!" I grabbed his hand and we hurried along. We ended up walking 4.2 miles, I only carried him about 2 miles of the hike but we got to the end of the hike little man burst into tear and said Mommy, I'm not a hiker, I'm no good at it. I told him he did great (which he did) and left him know how far we walked, I can't say he felt better but we took him for a special treat later for being such a trooper. I'm hoping more family hikes are in the future because I'm training to do the Dam Half in September. I am so excited for this upcoming challenge.

A lot more has been going on that I'll fill you in later on...

Long Time No Post

I have a lot of catching up to do! I guess I should start with November since I last posted in October! November came in with a huge surprise, I was sick, then Shanon was sick and then he needed surgery! I had bronchitis the week before and Shanon thought he had a touch of the bug so he didn’t think much of it. Saturday morning came and he said he was going to run to the hardware store to pick up a water filter for the fridge, he comes in minutes later shaking like a leaf. Now Shanon cries wolf a lot but this seemed different so I started taking his temperature, it was 99.7 then over the next half hour or so it was up to 103.5. I immediately called the doctor and the doctor said she could see us at 11:30 so I hurried and threw on clothes (big mistake) and we headed to the doctors office. The doctor felt Shanon had appendicitis and sent us to the hospital immediately. Once we got there they ran tests and the first doctor said I don’t think you have it but we’ll run tests anyway. Well his white blood cell count was high so they figured they better do a CT scan a little while later (okay hours later, it’s the hospital who am I kidding) Shanon was given the results that he needed to have surgery. He was taken up to the OR around 7:30 then in the hall we found out an emergency came in so they took Shanon back down to the ER and we had to wait until around 9 to have the surgery done. It was around 12:30 AM when they finally gave me word he was okay and I was allowed to go see him.

Of course nothing is easy, he ended up having complications. He was in a ton of pain so we went back to the family doctor on Monday, he was released Sunday and the family doc seemed to think he had an infection so she sent us back to the ER where they basically said it’s a normal part of healing. Thankfully Friday he had a follow up with the surgeon where we were informed he had blood collecting at the incision so he had to squeeze that out and then we went back several days later where they inserted a drainage tube. He is now is pretty good shape again.


Christmas and Birthdays

Christmas and the Birthdays were pretty low key which was nice. My birthday (for those who don’t know, is December 20th so I ended up working a partial morning then called it a day at noon to spend the rest of the day with Jakub. After Shanon was done working we headed to my favorite, Bennihana for dinner, it sure hit the spot!!

Christmas was quiet as well, we opened gifts at home then headed over to my mother in laws for more presents and a relaxing day.

Jakub’s birthday was a blast! He turned 4 this year and we headed to Philadelphia to see Jakub’s aunt and uncle. We took him ice skating then headed to PF Changs (his and my favorite) for lunch! Afterwards we went back to their house and he opened some presents then we had cake before heading home.



Project

I get Michaels e-mails weekely (although I think they come more often then that) so this time I actually paid attention to it. I noticed that they are now selling a product called Smashbooks. The idea behid the books are they can be messy, you see something in a magazine you like attach it type thing. Well that’s when I thought I have a Zutter Bind it all machine and I can make my own version so that’s what I’m going to do!! I wish I would have thought about doing this a few years sooner but this book is going to focus on Jakub’s 4th year so I can attach art work he brings home from school, pictures from soccer, theater stubs (we saw Clifford the Big Red Dog last weekend) etc, you get the point. I was terrible about keeping up with his baby book so I’m excited to work on this project then at the end of the year I will bind it. I’m going to make this as simple as possible meaning put pages together as the year progresses otherwise I’m afraid to say I’ll never work on this project. I’ll post pages once I get some done. It’s still January and so I have his birthday and soccer to cover.



Other Happenings

I went to my cousins baby shower two weeks ago and my grandma (Dad’s Mom) was in the in hospital, she had many different issues and things weren’t looking good for a while, they ended up sending her home last Friday with hospice so we’ll see how she ends up doing as time goes on.

Last night I got a text from my mom that my Grandpa (Mom’s Dad) fell and got the news at 1 this morning that he broke the ball of the top of his bone in his hip. I’m really worried because of his age, he will be 98 in March that this isn’t a good sign. I’ll keep you all posted.



I guess that is enough for one post, I apologize for the book!

Weight

Today I woke up with a little challenge, I'm not feeling so hot, it's not that I feel horrible but I lost my voice completely which has resulted in exhaustion here at work trying to answer questions. I didn't want to miss work though so I figured I would tough my way through it. Not only is is pay processing week following a major storm but it is also the first day of the my new weight watchers session.

I thought I was going to start this session with an even number but it didn't work out that way and I'm okay with that. I lost another 2 pounds this week bringing my total weight loss to 29 pounds. I'm only supposed to lose no more than 2 pounds a week so I was right on track but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was really hoping this week was going to be my 30. Oh well it gives me something to shoot for this week. Even more important to me than the 30 pound loss is I'm almost back to my lowest point in my pregnancy weight. With Jakub I lost weight, about 10 pounds to be exact and I had seen a number I hadn't seen in a long time, which we all know that was only for the short term, no I'll be seeing numbers that I don't believe I have seen since moving to Pennsylvania.

These past 3 and a half years I have given up most everything I have wanted to give to Jakub and I always had the Mom guilt of having to work and raise my child but recently I have decided that this is about me right now so I might be more selfish right now sneaking off to the gym but I also know this will make for a longer life for myself and easier to do a lot of stuff I may not have been able to do if I didn't get rid of the extra weight.

Snow

I must say it was so excited to actually get snow today!!

I woke up when my alarm (aka Jakub) went off and looked outside and only saw rain, I thought well typical Pennsylvania, say we'll get snow and it looks like we'll just be getting more rain so I got ready and headed to the gym. Half way through my work out I looked outside and there was the much anticipated snow! I was so excited. I actually had to use my bare hand to scrape off the snow from the back window before leaving the gym.

I had a few errands to run before heading home but one of my stops included Target to my surprise the bread wasn't completely taken off the shelves although I gave in and purchased a loaf myself. I truly didn't have any bread though.

When I got home it was pretty much time for Jakub's nap so I put him down and got some much needed catch up time with my bestie, an hour and a half later, little man was up and I wasn't completely done talking but my family told me otherwise.

The power was an issue all afternoon, it would go off frequently for a few seconds at a time so it literally took 3 hours to dry one load of laundry. It seems like everything is back on track though and hopefully I can get a few more loads done before bed. I also got caught up on cleaning out a cupboard. I must say that felt pretty good.

Shanon took Jakub outside while I was working on the kitchen and it got my thinking, what the heck am I doing, I'm going outside to play outside with the boys. We had a huge snowball fight and it was so much fun, I even got tackled in the snow which was equally fun, we all had a good laugh before heading in to warm up.

Shanon and I decided it seems like a perfect night for pizza so I said I would order online, I noticed Papa John's only charged $2 for delivery so we decided that was a deal, it meant we didn't have to clean off the car or worry about the roads. An hour later the pizza was here.

After dinner I said to Jakub do you want to go back outside to play, he said yes so we headed back out for another half hour.

It sure has been a great day.

Catching Up

This past Monday ended my first session of weight watchers and I'm over the moon happy with a total weight loss of 27 pounds. With the weight loss I am now down one more point for food so now I can eat a total of 34 points a day. The good news is this is easier then ever right now! I had a really hard time going from 36 to 35 points so I was dreading losing another point but so far so good it's not even a challenge I'm hoping it continues because it's only Thursday! The next session starts on Halloween which is probably going to work out well with the added temptations. I'm finding that the gym or walking has been a huge help because I don't want to eat junk to mess that up. I have about 6 more pounds to go before I hit a major milestone for myself.

Halloween this year has been over the top exciting for Jakub. He is so excited about it. Today is his preschools Halloween parade and my supervisor was nice enough to let me come into work late so I can see it. I can hardly wait to see his smiling face beam in his costume. It's raining right now so we'll see about actual trick or treating tonight, it's not looking so good. Jakub said on Tuesday his preschool went through a corn maze in the cafeteria and he had to search for his pumpkin then he is telling me how much he wants to carve a jack o lantern to not to mention I would like to roast some pumpkin seeds, yummy!! Jakub and I went for a walk Tuesday evening and the entire time he wanted to talk about different things associated with Halloween like pumpkins, bats, witches, etc. It was cute.

In other news my my anticipated iPhone 4S should be arriving at my house today, I'm going to leave a note with FedEx to drop it at my neighbors house she said she would be happy to get that for me. I'm so thankful we have a good neighbor. Well the little man is stirring so I've got to wrap this up and hit the shower. Off to Jakub's Halloween Parade :) Pics to follow later.

Applefest

Today was an over the top great day!! We had such a nice family day I'm excited to share with all!

Friday night Shanon and I decided we were going to go to Biglerville for the annual Apple festival. I told Shanon that I wanted to get up, hit water aerobics then we can head to Applefest. He said well we should probably go early so with some complaint I agreed. We decided to let Jakub have a sleep over with us Friday night so of course Shanon and I didn't sleep and the lil man was up at 6! Needless to say I was tuckered out early today!

So we left for Applefest at 7 am and got there a few minutes after 8 when it opened. There isn't a whole lot to do there it's mostly vendors selling any kind of apple whatever you want and then it's a huge craft fair as well. We had fun eating our way and browsing at all the crafts. We took about 2 hours to go through it.

Coming back out the line of people waiting to get it was probably a good 50 people deep so we got there at the perfect time. We didn't have any traffic on the drive in either but on the way out it was miles and miles of cars backed up trying to get to the parking lot! It sure was a beautiful day though. Below are some pictures from Applefest.

 On the way to Applefest we saw a sign advertising a corn maize, I had told Shanon for years now that I wanted to do one so he said maybe on the way home we could do it so after applefest that is where we headed.

 Before entering the maze, we were told that the back of it is a little muddy. We said we should be fine but we have been having tons of rain the last month of so, so we figured it would be muddy, I must say we weren't prepared for how muddy it was!! Take a look at my shoes and pants below, Shanon's shoes above aren't much better!!

 It took us about 40 minutes to make our way through the maze so we were pretty proud of ourselves considering it takes most people an hour to an hour and a half. After the maze they had a corn box (instead of a sandbox) for kids to play in. I've got to say I liked it better than sand and Jakub had a lot of fun in there as well. They also had a hay ride which took us to a pumpkin patch where we could pick out pumpkins. On the hayride Jakub says to me Mommy, I have corn in my shoe can you get it out. It made me laugh, just like a sand box corn got in his shoe guess that was better then sand. Below is what Jakub picked out!! He really broke the bank with it too. The pumpkins were $.50 a pound Jakub's pumpkin ended up costing us all of $1.22, Shanon and I had a pretty good laugh about that.

 Jakub wasn't ready to leave though and they still had several other activities he wanted to do but he had a hair cut to get to so we figured we better call it a day. Shanon and I needed to get a shower, before his hair cut, because of all the mud! So we rushed home, took off all the muddy clothes shoes and socks and we each grabbed a quick shower. As soon as we were dressed we rushed out the door for Jakub's hair cut, below is a picture of the new cut!

We finished out the day with some Halloween decorating outside, blowing bubbles then we headed to Wegmans for some pizza and grocery shopping. Needless to say I'm beat!!!!!

Weight

For me my weight has always been a struggle. I have a sweet tooth, like most people but I've also learned that I am a stress eater. As a result I have hit my all time highest weight ever! I was starting to have medical issues including problems with my hip so I finally have started to do something about it. I joined weight watchers.

A couple of weeks ago we had a meeting that hit home and really has been a good reflection back for me. The question was posed why did you join weight watchers and you didn't have to give an answer you could just think of it too and one person said health issues, I had to shake my head yes for this, another person said pictures and I had to shake my head for this too but there are many other reasons why I joined as well.

I keep thinking about pictures being such a motivating factor. Earlier in the spring Shanon took some pictures of Jakub and I and I thought this can't be me, I'm not this large because I didn't see myself that large looking in the mirror but truly I was!! So in May I joined weight watchers and to date I have lost 25 plus pounds. Family and friends are starting to notice and I'm getting some great feedback, however, pictures are still an issue!!

Jakub and I went home for a week a few weeks ago and we went to the beach, my Dad took a picture of Jakub and I and I thought for once I'll be happy with the picture, so when I got home and looked at it I still can't help but be disappointed because I'm still not looking like I thought that I looked. Sure clothes are bigger and I can even move down a size but it's so shocking to see pictures and still not be happy!!

Another thing we talked about was the mind. People would complain oh weight watchers doesn't help because I've joined and only lost 20 pounds and can't loose any more. Well, I'm thankful that my mind is in the right place because I have a definite goal in mind and I'm not stopping until I lose everything I want to lose. This does go to prove how powerful the mind is though!!

I've been so fortunate to have such supportive people in my life and am getting itchy for the end of this road. I'm really close to my first major goal and once that happens nothing will hold me back!