After a Hiatus...

I have decided to get back to blogging. I've been missing it, and facebook can only provide me so much outlet. Had to finish school and blah, blah, blah.. there are always reasons. But anyway, I felt like getting back in, so for those of you who don't know what has been going on with me - here's the basic rundown:

• Finished travel school.
• Starting to found the business.
• Looking for a new job (stop gap until I get the travel sales up and running).
• Decided to train for a walking half-marathon with Curly Girl.

So here we go. Hope you are still interested in my life, I have continued to be interested in yours.

Wondering.....

When I taught Sunday School to 4 & 5 year olds (oh so long ago, Elastigirl's Teen was in my class) we used a technique I call "wondering. " It is one of my favorite things to start discussions now. My mom and I often say, "I wonder what..." because she is a fan of the technique as well. You get some great answers from it.

For example, when I asked, "I wonder how the shepherds felt when they saw the angels?" I was thinking that they would say, "Happy" (about 90% of the 4 & 5 year olds gave that answer for all wondering questions, then they would come up with something else while I waited) or "Scared" (which is how I think I would feel if I saw an angel, after all, the first thing an angel usually says is, "Do not be afraid.") I remember The Teen's answer like it was yesterday. He said, "I think they said, 'Hallelujah!'" and threw his hands up in the air. Always thinking, that one.

So anyway, I have so many things that I have been wondering about lately, I thought it might be good to write them down.

• I wonder what God's plan is for me


• I wonder why it seems like that plan includes me being alone


• I wonder if I will be alone for the rest of my life


• I wonder what success means to me now


• I wonder if it was a good decision to not immediately go back into the workforce


• I wonder how my new career will shape up over the next 5 years


• I wonder if I will feel successful in 5 years


• I wonder what life will be like once I have reached my weight goal


• I wonder what it will be like to wear a size 8 (or if that is the size I will be, cause I'm just guessing here)

That's just the tip of the iceberg..... What are you wondering about right now?

Thanks to Elastigirl...

for nominating me for this award. She is truly one of my closest friends, and I miss her a little bit most days and a whole lot on others. Our time together IRL is precious, but the blog she writes allows me to be with her off and on throughout the week. Thank goodness for the internet.

Here's the explanation and the silly rules that go with it:"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

As for the bloggers that are important friends to me, many have already gotten the award, but I will still list them here:

• Curly Girl: More than just a friend, she is my wonderful sister and inspires me to be more like her every day.
• Jennie: More family, and one of the funniest writers I have ever known.
• Mrs. Swizzle: One of the best all time blog tag lines: Do you ever feel like someone has put a swizzle stick into the top of your head and just stirred things around a little? I do, and I am glad to know there are other people like that in the world.
• Mary Beth: My first blog friend that I met after I read her blog. It was quite exhilarating. Thank goodness she is the least anonymous blogger in the whole world :)
• Princess Mindy: So interesting, and so creative. I look forward to meeting her IRL someday.
• Perplexity Project: More family, and really smart and insightful. Makes me think, which is always good.

So, looking here, I realize I need to make more blog friends. But I love the ones I have. Thanks to you all for brightening my life.

Looking Back at 2008

Reflecting on the last year, I was trying to decide what I had learned from 2008. There are so many things, but here are just a few, in no particular order:

• I am happier today than I was 5 years ago. I am focused on a goal, and working toward doing something I love instead of just existing. It really does matter.
• "You set your own price in this world" - this is a quote from my friend J, an economist. He told me that it was something his mama always told him. I repeat that to myself a lot these days.
• Things don’t get easier when you put them off. Procrastinating is never the right answer.
• Once it gets above 110 degrees outside, it really doesn’t matter if it is a dry heat or not. Really. It doesn’t.
• facebook. Enough said.
• I can be a skinny person. I can lose the weight that I want to lose, and keep it off. I just don’t know exactly how I will accomplish it.
• You don’t have to see your friends everyday for them to be really good friends.
• I have a lot to learn, even now.
  

What did you learn?

Wonderful Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas this year. Surrounded by family, watching The Present open presents ALL DAY LONG (Christmas in the morning and birthday at night) and being delighted that he wanted to try and read every book that he got (he probably got about 15 books - the kid loves to read) and then sitting down on his own to try to read a book we got for Dimples when everyone else was busy.

Dimples was a force to be reckoned with, and no matter how many girly toys I got her (a baby doll and a pink boat) she just wanted to play with The Present's new cars. That one might be a tomboy, we'll see. She did give the baby a kiss, I think, but maybe she was just trying to put the baby's head in her mouth - she's been doing a lot of that since she started getting teeth.

For the first time in a long time, Curly Girl and I surprised our parents with their big gift. An electric smoker. Dad had been talking about it with her back in October, and she filed that info away and we did some research. Plus we got to benefit the next day when he smoked some ribs. Fantastic, his first try. YUM! In a world where we want to be sure that we get the right thing, our family has gotten in the habit of talking through what we want, and there aren't many surprises on Christmas morning. It was fun.

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday, filled with family and happiness. Hope that yours was amazing too.

Holiday Blogging

Well, I have to say I've missed a lot of my favorite bloggers over the last week or two. All of us seem to be busy, busy, busy. So I think I'll just make a post to give you all something to read, and maybe you'll take pity on me a post a blog about something for me.

I told a good friend about my blog the other day (he actually knew about it, but just never had signed on before) and he said it was interesting how all my blogging friends seemed to know each other. I thought how funny that was, because there are people that only know each other through the blog, like Elastigirl and Jennie, and while they are both important to me, they have never met IRL.

And so I explained to him that blogging is just like that, we find out about others thoughts and lives and learn from each of the blogs we read. I love clicking through the blogs that are interesting to my blogging friends and learn something new or laugh or look at things differently with each click.

So Merry Christmas to all who read this blog. And thanks to all of you who have enlightened me in one way or another during the last year.

Never Go to the Grocery Store Hungry!

One of my key rules to weight loss, but I broke it tonight. I am often weak once the food makes it into my apartment, so I just do not bring it home. Makes the decision what to eat much easier. Not sure why I broke the rule tonight, except I didn't really think I was hungry.

I went to one of my favorite new grocery stores here in the desert, called Fresh & Easy. They are a grocery store that operates on a smaller scale than most of their competitors, so it is eashy to run in and get out usually. The best part about them is that they have amazing store brands. Not only do they cost less most of the time, but they also use only natural ingredients. No artificial flavors or colors, no hormones in their meats, nothing with 16 syllables on the ingredient list. No high fructose corn syrup in their ketchup. Really good products. And they taste great too. The first part of tonight's breakdown. And when they want to get rid of stuff (if it going to expire soon, or if they are overstocked on it) the sell it at HALF price. AWESOME (and part two of tonight's breakdown).

So I went in to look for one thing - I wanted some blue cheese for salad - and came out with a ton of half price stuff that I did not intend to buy. Corn bread, frozen empenadas, green beans and much more. And almost none of it is on the Weight Watchers Core program. So at 35 points a week, it will take a while to consume. My only ray of sunshine is that this week Weight Watchers is unveiling a new program (called Momentum) so maybe I'll be able to have some of it sooner. Yum.