Tuesday, March 24

Camry was beautiful!!



Camry did very well at her first fashion show. It was a prom show for Dillards. She had a ton of fun getting her hair done, doing her make-up, trying on all the different dresses.... It was truly a dream come true for her. Her friend, Kayla, came along to join in the fun. Kayla, thanks for for being there for Camry. You're such a good friend!



I loved every minute of it. Camry was a confident, beautiful, classy, and gorgeous young lady. I am so very proud of her. :-}

Wednesday, March 18

Almost there!!

Tomorrow will be 21 days of consistency. 1st short term goal achieved! Yea for me. :-)

The road has been relatively easy. A few bumps, but not bad. There was only one day that I truly didn't want to go to the gym, but with just a small nudge from my husband I was off to workout.

My major issue to overcome is psychological. When I weighed in yesterday I had only lost one pound. That means that in almost 2 1/2 weeks of working out and monitoring calories I have only lost 2 pds. Because of this I can hear the voices taunting me...This isn't worth it. It doesn't matter how much you work out you're never going to lose weight. You're just wasting your money. Why bother working out for an hour, 30 mins will do, you're not losing weight anyway? There's no need to push, it doesn't make a difference anyway.

So I choose to fight with everything in me against those voices. I know those voices are NOT TRUTH. I know the choices I am making are for long term change, I did not end up overweight overnight, and I will not end up healthy in just 3 short weeks!! This doesn't make the road easy, it just gives me the opportunity to win every time I walk out of the gym. As long as I don't give in, I will win every time I work out.

Monday, March 16

My beautiful daughter



Our second oldest daughter has been going to modeling classes, she has really learned so much just in the few short weeks she has attended. With less than 1/2 her classes completed she was given an opportunity to attend an audition. So we did everything that we knew to do and anticipated learning a great experience in order to be prepared for future tryouts closer to the end of classes.

Much to our surprise, Camry not only auditioned, but she made the cut!! We were so surprised. You aren't supposed to make your first audition!! :-o On top of that, she not only made the cut for the show she auditioned for, but also got invited to do a different show this Saturday. We were thrilled!

I am so proud of Camry. I can't tell you how much she has changed over the last year. Her self-esteem is going up and up and up, and I am elated. Tonight when she walked on that runway during the tryout she exuded confidence. I couldn't have asked for more. You know this modeling class isn't free, but I can guarantee you that Camry is worth EVERY penny we are investing in her. She such a good girl.

CONGRATULATIONS CAM...YOU DID AWESOME! I love you...Mom

Thursday, March 12

The good news is...

...I'm not bitter! Still a little sore from getting wrote up, but we'll survive. I moved on. What's done is done. :-)

Today was Day 14 of my journey to better health. I am 7 days away from completing my short term goal of 21 days of consistency. SWEET! Admittedly I have struggled during this second week of working out. It seems like I'm more tired now than I was before I started, but according to what I've read in the past this is normal. So I have just pushed through, and stayed motivated. I am encouraged by my heart rate today. It stayed between 75-80% most of my workout. That is good news and a first for me. I'm looking forward to tomorrows workout, I should see some of the same. Also, I discovered that at a higher heart rate, I burn more calories. SWEET! (No, I said sweet not sweat :-o...) I can't wait for this stuff to start showing up on the scales and in my clothes.

It won't be long now....

Wednesday, March 11

Did I say I was angry???

I've calmed down...I decided a few hours ago I was just irritated and not angry now!! :-0


Seriously, I did come to discover why I was so upset. It's really important to me to be the best daycare we can be (preferably in our entire area, if not the entire state). And getting wrote up over so many things really ticked me off. If we were the best we wouldn't be getting wrote up. :-(

So, even though I didn't like it, we got a good swift kick in the pants. Although we provide very good care, after fixing all the issues they want corrected we will be even better, even stronger.

Striving for Excellence...

Good is my enemy!

ANGRY. I took it personally...

Yesterday was not a good day. I woke up this morning still fuming about it.

Our church has a daycare facility (3 star, I might add) :) and we had our first regular visit from DHS (governing state agency) since our director change in December. Now understand, our previous director had been with us 3 years when she left. Our new director, although she has been a teacher with us for three years under the previous director has never been in a leadership position. So it has been a huge change for our new director. And on top of all that, the leadership styles between the two are completely different.

So...for the past three months our new director has been trying to get stuff straight. She's pretty detail oriented and probably pushing the line on being a work-a-holic, therefore she's has spent LOTS and LOTS of extra hours trying to get everything lined out (oh, and did I mention that day care workers are seriously underpaid???). Well, according to what happened yesterday none of that was good enough. Yesterday was the first time in three years that we have had a visit that lasted for 3 1/2 hours and according to her she wasn't done, but was going to go ahead and leave because "we were sick of her being there". WOW! One other time we had a new DHS person come with her supervisor and they were there 2 1/2 hours, but they were done. The supervisor was training the new DHS person and I guess they chose our facility to do it. I would take that again any day over what we experienced yesterday.

Don't get me wrong. The DHS worker wasn't ugly, she was professional in her duties, she wasn't even cold or uncaring. My complaint does not revolve around her attitude. My complaint revolves around the extent to which she judged our facility. Now, I'm a very black and white person, and I have no problem with following the rules which is what this lady is requiring, but yesterday she judged whether or not we had met EVERY rule in the entire book without exception. And if our new director didn't know that it was a rule we got wrote up for it. That's my problem. It's not like my new director hasn't spent nights at home with the licensing manual trying to catch everything that needed to be done. Admittedly she missed some things, although she has corrected sooooo much. But again, it wasn't enough according to yesterday's visit.

It would have been much better for the DHS lady to go through things and help our new director get it straight by pointing out the things she had missed, rather than writing us up for every little detail. I could see if she had been to our facility before and asked for things to be corrected and then came yesterday and nothing had been done. You know, it's one thing if our children's care was being compromised, if our facility was unsafe, if our teachers were providing inappropriate care. That's not the case. We were being wrote up over loop holes and details. I'm just not okay with that. The system is warped. I'm angry.

Friday, March 6

New Levels--New Devils!!!

Week one of my journey to a lifestyle change has ended. Yesterday was day 7. I was so excited, I did it. I completed one week. Woo hoo!

But now week two has started and and today was not so good!!! I struggled the whole time, having to push, push, push to even keep my heart rate up in the 60 percentile range, I think I only hit the 70's once!! That's soooo bad compared to last week. :-( But even in my struggle, the good news is I didn't quit. I wanted to sooooooooo very bad. I gave myself all kinds of excuses. All kind of alternate plans. But I would not achieve my goal of 21 days of consistency if I didn't finish my work out today. Thank goodness for short term goals. It was my kick in the pants for today!!

My workout is over and I'm off for tomorrow for a day of "rest" (at least from the gym!). I'm looking forward to better days ahead. I didn't like having a bad day.

Wednesday, March 4

Biggest Loser Wannabe

My quest for being the Biggest Loser may have ended, but my desire to be healthier has not!

While preparing my video for the audition I had to do some soul searching and I discovered some things about myself. I have always said I was okay with being overweight, it wasn't a big deal to me. Well that was hogwash. The first time I had to put my weight and height down for someone to see, I was NOT okay with it. :-0 That was a very humbling experience. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I'm overweight, but actually telling my exact weight...well no one needs to know that!!!

So I have set a long term goal of losing 190 pds. That will put me at 125 pds and in a size 8. I have 2 short term goals---1) don't vary from the workout schedule for 21 days 2) get below 300 pds. Yes, if you do the math you'll know my starting weight!! ;-)

My main push for losing weight is simple math!! By monitoring my caloric intake and then monitoring how many calories I'm burning during my workout, I can make sure that I'm burning more than I'm eating, thus I will lose weight. This is an avenue I have never tried before, but it's been working so far, and seeing all those calories burned during workout has been a huge motivator!!

So, I may not be a television superstar, but I will be a Biggest Loser. I can't wait to achieve my first goal!!!!!