i always saw in you my light and my strength

well, another month has passed without an update. i think about updating a lot, if that counts, haha.

so much has happened since i last updated. lots of changes at work. we've done some restructuring and i think it's really paying off. i'm in a better place and building my confidence back up but theres still work to be done. we're in a good place now though and i'm happy to be a part of it.

on the home front theres been a lot going on too. but no wedding planning, haha. the credit card hasn't even been taken out of the envelope for the jewelry store. you'll all know when we're ready to move forward :)

even though i'm not getting married yet, one of my friends did. it gave us the opportunity to get away from town for a while and head back to hot springs. we missed that town. ate lots of good food, did some shopping, played in the mineral water. but most importantly got to be there for one of my friends on her big day. the venue and ceremony were absolutely beautiful! out on lake hamilton. craig and i had a great time. lea looked amazing!

i had something catch me by surprise that night though. after dinner we go outside to get the dancing started. she and kyle, her husband, share their first dance, aww, yay, happy. then they call her father to the dance floor for the father daughter dance. i go from being perfectly normal and happy to hysterical almost immediately. even i couldn't believe it. i mean, i knew it was coming (the dance that is). i saw her father walk her down the aisle and made it through that ok. all of the sudden it just hit me and i told craig i can't do this. luckily we were outside and i could slip back into a corner where craig let me cry into his shoulder. it just hit me so fast and so hard. i hadn't cried that hard in a long time. i didn't expect it to effect me like that.

honestly that's always been one of the hardest things for me to cope with. little girls dream of having their daddy walk them down the aisle. they dream of that father daughter dance. i imagined my father crying as we got ready for the wedding. in middle school when that song, butterfly kisses came out i imagined us dancing to it at my wedding one day. how could my daddy possibly NOT be a part of my wedding day.

so as craig and i have looked forward to our future that's been a big question mark to me. i told craig during our first year together that he had to ask my dad for my hand. that's just the way it is. i don't know if he ever did but daddy gave me his blessing one day on the way home from one of his dr appointments. he said he was so glad i had finally found a good man. he thought craig and i were good together. since dad's death my future wedding has been a big question mark to me. how will i handle it when i get married? will i have an episode like at lea's wedding? who will walk me down the aise? should i go alone? what do i do about the father daughter dance now? how can i honor his memory without being overly sappy or bringing the mood down? lots of questions i don't have to worry about answering now, but things i think about none the less.

i did some research online one time and found lots of bad ideas, haha. but as i got ahold of myself at the wedding i could actually take in that moment and the song she chose was actually pretty perfect. she played faith hill's "there you'll be". it was a song i'd never thought about but i don't think it could be more perfect for a girl who's father is no longer physically here (although i'm sure she means it much differently). i've thought of the song often since. and since the day after her wedding marked 6 month since he passed, it's weighed heavier on my mind in the quiet moments. his funeral was 6 months ago today.

and easter makes me think of him too. dying eggs at his house. when kyle and i were little, our parents hid our easter baskets in the house as our first thing to find. that's a special memory for me. something i want to pass down to my kids. once we were too big to dye eggs easter hasn't really been a big deal for us anymore, but it's still fond memories from childhood. the last easter i remember spending hunting eggs was with him out at the lake house. fun times for sure.

in totally unrelated news, to paid for the aforementioned future plans, craig and i have really been needing to tighten up our spending. hands down the biggest thing we spend money on is food. between my working late and us eating out (no fast food-more expensive) and our spontaneous grocery store trips that involve only buying low fat (more expensive), no fat (more expensive), healthy (more expensive), organic (more expensive), whole foods, our food bill was a little out of control. a few weeks ago brookshires had a sale on several items we use a lot, buy 1 get 1 for a penny. i went and stocked up on a few things and saved $50. i was pretty proud of myself. well then i saw that show "extreme couponing". it was like, a personal challenge. i HAD to do that. not all crazy like those people, but if it worked on a big scale, it would work on a small scale. i HAD to save lots of money on my groceries. i just had to. so that sunday i bought 3 newspapers. it looked like my work had already paid off because in each paper was a coupon for $5 off my dog's $28/bag dog food (have i mentioned it's also expensive for animals to not eat junk food). $5! i wanted craig to go get more papers but he said no. i picked up another 3 papers last sunday and this week craig and i made our first big, money conscious trip.

the key to making coupons work is saving them and a) only buying things on sale and b)only using your coupons on sale items. that way you get the most bang for your buck and never pay full price for an item. stores put items on about a 6 week sale cycle meaning that every 6 weeks or so, items are are their lowest, rock bottom prices. when they are, that's when you strike!

see i always looked at that $.25 off coupon and thought, big deal, a quarter. but, if an item is on sale then you take that $.25 coupon to a store that will triple it, you might end up with something for free. a lot of stores douple coupons up to say, $.30 and double from $.30-$.50. until that show, i never saw that coupons could really work. they really can save you money! we saw someone this week get like $1800 worth of stuff and walked out paying less than $15. its fascinating to me!

now don't get me wrong, theres a fine line between genius and insane and those people have crossed it. one lady buys cat treats and doesn't have a cat. another lady buys diapers but doesn't have any children. coo koo for coco puffs. and why someone would buy 65 bottles of mustard is beyond me. i don't think i'll use that in my entire lifetime. but, if you go and buy 6 weeks worth of something, just enough to get you through to the next sale, then voila! you're saving money!

so on our first big trip, craig and i went looking for sales. we only bought 3 items that werent on sale and only bought sale items if they were a good enough deal. some items advertised as a sale were only $.01 cheaper than their normal price. you have to pay attention! and we didnt buy anything we dont want, need, or use. we had an overflowing buggy. we went a little canned goods happy, but the del monte ones were on sale 5 for $3, even the no salt added ones. then the skinner pasta was on sale for $.89/bag and for some pastas that meant half price. all in all we save $91 (32%). we were really pleased with ourselves. and i only had 2 coupons that time! imagine if we had more coupons!

well then i had a few coupons that will expire soon for kroger (you can load coupons directly onto your kroger card) so we went to use them. while there we saw they were having a 3 day special on brisket ($1.49/lb) that made the briskets half off. well we love to grill so into the basket 2 went...on the kroger trip we saved a little over $50 and upped our savings to 37%.

then today, i'd been thinking about what to make for easter dessert tomorrow. i bought some refrigerated pie shells on sale at brookshires so i wanted to make a pie but all the pie recipes i saw were for graham cracker crust type pies. but i remembered brookshires had those on sale and we passed on them the last trip. i also knew they had cool whip on sale because we also passed on it and all these pie recipes called for that too. and since i needed some cheese for the bread i wanted to bake i decided to go pick up a few things. i bought only sale items again and saved over $25 finally bumping my savings to 40%!

i love it. we have plenty of food stocked up, something craig has been wanting to do. he's very interested in self reliance and being prepared for an emergency of the biggest kind. so into it i almost bought him a rotating can storage system for our anniversary. well, after this week's sale we bought one of the shelves. i've always loved it because i'm a sucker for organizational gadgets but buying lots of canned goods on sale really forced us to find an effective way to store them. it's a little one so i'm not going all food hoarder on you guys, but we definitely have enough corn, peas and green beans to keep us from buying anymore for like, the rest of the year, haha. also got some storage bins (using my bed bath & beyond coupons!) for our pasta and baking goods because 4 bags of whole wheat flour can be hard to store, haha. im looking forward to seeing this make a big difference in our bottom line too!

For as much as she stumbled she's runnin

another saturday at the office.

i like working when no ones here. i get more done. but i hate wasting a perfectly beautiful day. and i'm sure craig would appreciate if i spent a like more time cleaning house since its been neglected for months now. tis my life...

this week was MUCH better than last. except i gave up sweets for lent and thats kind of killing me since i ate SO many before i gave them up. its become more of a personal challenge now. can i really go 40 days without chocolate? i think so because im not counting drinks (chocolate milk!). just candy and desserts and pie and ice cream and such. its hard to not just grab a cookie if i want one though. especially during girl scout season...but thats what got me here.

i've started the dr thing back up. before dad got sick i went to my dr who recommended me to an endocrinologist to figure out why i have such a hard time loosing weight. sweet tooth aside, i eat better than most people i know. we eat a lot, which adds extra calories, but i try to be sensible about what i get. and don't usually clean my plate or anything. and the doctors agree it doesnt appear to be my eating habits holding my back. at home it's nothing but whole wheat this, sugar free that, low sodium this, fat free that. whole foods and organic meats and veggies when sensible. we dont buy snacks or sodas or chips or junk food unless we're having people over for a party so we don't even have that temptation.

its frustrating to me because i eat better than i've EVER eaten in my life. i know about portions and balancing my meals. i know how to eat healthy and most of my choices are healthy. but i weigh more now than i EVER have. ever. and frankly, it pisses me off. in high school, a typical lunch for me was a bag of chili cheese fritos, 2 grandmothers chocolate chip cookies and a dr. pepper from a vending machine. and when i moved to shreveport, we used to go straight from school to mc donalds where id eat a cesar salad shaker, a large fry, and a soda BEFORE DINNER. now, ive never been skinny by any stretch of the imagination, and i know i never will be. my mom and grandmother both had weight problems. my cousins are built similarly to me. we're just big boned, ok! but i think about all the health problems my mom has right now. knee surgeries and hurnias and i DO NOT want to go through that. plus with dad getting cancer, and both my grandmothers having cancer, i know i need to take good care of myself. but it shouldn't be this hard!i shouldn't gain weight and eat the way that i eat.

granted, i know i'm missing the exercise piece. i know that's part of it. but the 30 min, 3 times a week thing didn't really do anything for me. and i weigh so much that exercising makes me miserable. there is nothing fun about working out to me. nothing. i don't feel better after i do it, i feel worse. it doesn't seem to ever get easier for me. i took dance all last year and the last class was just as tolling on me as the first and i didn't help me lose a single pound. i don't eat like a vegan or a health nut, but i don't eat bad enough to be my size either.

so insert dr here.

they're running tests on me to check my hormones and thyroid and all kinds of other stuff i don't understand so hopefully we can get some answers. losing weight is hard. but it shouldn't be this hard. i shouldnt have to eat nothing but vegetables and fruit for the rest of my life. normal people eat bread. im hoping for answers because i dont have 6 hours a day to spend in the gym like the fat people on tv.

and that's another thing that pisses me off. craig and i were watching a show, i think it was called heavy, on A & E. there was this woman on there who i felt like i could connect to. she was one of those cute fat girls. pretty face, just chubby. i was like, alright, someone like me! then they start telling her story...this girl seriously hides food in her closet. at home she would go in her closet and eat while her husband was watching tv and he'd think she was cleaning but she'd really be eating. then she showed a typical meal for her and it was fast food (a big no no for dinner in our house)and she had arbys: fries and potato cakes and egg rolls and a big soda and a sandwich covered in cheese. i would never eat a meal like that! and they went grocery shopping and she picked up a big package of reeses cups that had like 6 or 8 of the double packs in it. she said she would typically eat like 4, then finish off the package later. and she would eat a whole bag of cheetos in one sitting (not a snack bag either). and the kicker...she weighs less than i do! its frustrating to me to watch people who CLEARLY have problems, eat everything in sight but i dont and im heavier than they are. very very frustrating.

and then theres the "s" word. my mom did it. and boy did i judge her for that. i thought she was taking the easy way out. she wasn't willing to do the work. she wasn't willing to learn how to eat right. she just wanted a quick fix. and that's as much my voice as i think it is her reasoning. she was overweight my whole life so now she really does have problems. her thyroid doesnt work at all anymore. she aches and hurts all the time. plus now that she's had the surgery she doesn't get all the vitamins and nutrients her body needs because she's not feeding it right. part of me hates the doctors for letting her go through that without making her learn how to cook for herself and eat healthy balanced meals before they did it. but part of it's just her choosing to turn a blind eye to anything hard. she wants to drink 2 liters of diet coke a day and nothing i say can change that. since then, ive become less judgmental of it for other people, but ive never ever considered it would be an option for me. thats fine for you, but i wouldn't do it.

but then theres a small voice in the back of my head saying, if you could just get it off, it would be easy to maintain. you KNOW how to eat well. and without the excess weight, maybe you'll really like working out. there could be a runner buried in there. i wouldn't know because when i was smaller, i didn't know any better. i thought you were supposed to put 2 cups of sugar in your kool aid. but i do now. but the majority of my brain thinks that voice is CRAZY.

but what if it comes to that? i dont want to do any more long term damage. i want to have children one day. can i even get pregnant at this weight? i dont want to need new knees or hips or ankles. but i can't quit my job and move into the gym. eating healthy, balanced meals isn't enough. what if the dr can't find out why my body is gathering fat like it will never eat again? what if my only options are starve myself and sleep next to the elliptical or have surgery? that terrifies me. i just want them to find out whats wrong.

well, that discussion went a lot further than i planned. i actually planned on writing about something totally different, haha. maybe next time!

however, i'll leave you with a few paintball pictures as promised. i only lasted 2 rounds. only shot the gun once. my boss wanted to go to some sniper range in the middle of the woods first. so after the hike and the tromping through the woods, i was pretty much done. i coudln't breathe. i would have rather started on an easier course (something flat, with less rocks and sticks perhaps). ill give it another try, but i need to start small.

my future's so bright, i've got to wear shades!

i know, i know, im neglecting this.

and i shouldn't because i have a lot on my mind and not many people to talk to.

i realized this week how calloused i've become. things that should bother me, don't. people who are being hurtful, don't hurt. i don't feel much of anything really. i have my defenses up to keep myself from being hurt, being mad, being upset. it is what it is and life goes on. i have developed a real trust issue. if you don't trust people, it doesn't bother you when they let you down. i know that totally not healthy but i don't care enough to deal with it right now. so for now, life keeps on going.

and my how crazy life has been lately. lots of highs. lots of good things going on to look forward to. all tainted by the crappy stuff i mentioned above, of course, but it's the good stuff i choose to focus on. life just feels really fast right now. each day is over quicker than i realize. i love the fast pace, but its starting to wear me down. im needing a bit of time to recharge. a little escape from reality. sand and sun and a drink with an umbrella in it sounds just about right...:)but there's so much going on right now! and it's all bringing me closer to where i want to be and that's all that matters. life is hard and i know if you want something you've never had, you have to work hard to get there!

everyone always wants to know how craig and i are. the answer is great. he loves me and supports me and i couldn't ask for anything better. we talk a lot about the future. we've been together officially 3 years now. nothing official happening, but i bought a wedding planning book and he didn't freak out about it, haha.

yesterday was a rough day for me. it's been a tough week and i was running out of energy and fight. and thursday i was offered tickets to a hockey game for friday. the more i thought about it, the more anxiety i felt about it. by the time i got off work friday just thinking about the game made me cry on the way home. so when i got home, i told craig i didn't know if i was up to going. while i decompressed (fell asleep) on the couch, craig got up and cooked dinner for us. he takes good care of me. he's the one part of my life i never worry about, never question. i love him more than i can express.

oh the hockey game. what a challenge that was. you see, it was dad who talked me into going to my first game. actually, i ran out of excuses and felt bad for always telling him no so i gave in. and i was so glad i did! it was so much fun! dad and i started going together to every game after that. just me and him most of the time. kyle would come sometimes, but it was always dad and i for sure. i never would have gone or cared about them if it wasn't for dad. right after he died they had a game for cancer awareness (the day before his funeral actually) that kyle and i talked about going to but we decided to go see our family instead. i havent made much of an effort to go since, but we've talked about it a few times. faced with the reality of it after such a hard week was a little too much for me though. dealing with dads death isn't really hard for me anymore, but i didn't have enough strength this week to. thursday and friday were both tough days for me. one of those times where i miss him so much i just ache. i've since slept better so i feel better but sometimes it's just hard.

i think it started brewing monday. i had to get new tires on my car and cars were always dad's thing. it killed me to not be able to call and ask him what he thought was wrong with my tires (i only had 23K on my car and one tire was bald but the others were all ok). i hated having to solely rely on the dealership and their opinion. i never thought i'd have to deal with anything car related without dad. so maybe that was eating at my subconscious still...

there's just no feeling like missing someone you'll never see again.

but next week is exciting! we're launching testing for an app we've developed at work that will hopefully make everyones life a little easier. gotta love new toys! and speaking of new toys, i'm getting a new phone tuesday. no more taking they battery out to end calls! yay! then saturday i'm going to paint this cool peacock picture at painting with a twist. can't wait to do that one!

this sunday will be...interesting. my company is sponsoring a paintball trip team building thing. i have less than zero desire to be shot at or to shoot other people. i asked craig how much fun he thinks it will be sunday night when i'm whining about being covered in welts and bruises. he thinks i'm psyching myself out but i think i'm being realistic. there is absolutely nothing that i think is fun that entails anyone getting hurt. not to mention, i dont have any clothes appropriate for rolling around in the woods AND getting shot at. girl clothes are thin. even my jeans are thin. but, because this is how i like to prepare for events, i bought a new outfit! haha. i've decided to play the part of country chic. i bought a camo hat and a camo long sleeve shirt. craig bought one too. i told him we'd take a picture and it will be our christmas card picture this year! my hat has a pink "r" on it for remington since they make my favorite ammo. the back says "shoot like a girl". craig says i do. haha. my outfit makes him laugh. he never thought id wear anything like this. i told him it's a costume. i love playing dress up! now i just have to figure out the pants thing...i suggested my snow pants (they're thick and waterproof!) and craig thinks i'm being ridiculous. easy for a man in carharts to say! guess we're going shopping tonight!

well, i think i've rambled enough. i'll let you know how paintball goes (and post some pics!).