{I am a Pack Rat}

I blame this on my grandpa. I think you have seen me mention going shopping at the big garage. Well, it was a Morton building full of stuff. Cars, a fire truck, furniture, you name it, he probably had it in there. I don't think anyone ever had to buy beds or furniture. In fact, other people would store their stuff up there too. It was insane trying to find anything up there. What's even crazier is they removed a bunch of the stuff and shifted it all around to have Christmas parties up there. Insane I tell you! Not to mention, some of this stuff being stored in there wasn't even his. Quite a bit was stuff someone needed a place to store and he had a huge building so in it went. I tell you what though, if he wouldn't have kept all that stuff, my boys would have been out of luck for beds when their bunk beds broke.

He also had a habit of picking through the goodwill bags my grandma would fill up and taking what he thought they should keep up there lol. It was out of the house so grandma couldn't really complain and it was there when we eventually needed it (which, lets be honest, someone always ended up needing whwhatever he had up there). It kind of drove my grandma nuts a little bit though lol. I can only imagine what their house would have looked like if he hadn't bought that building. I'm imagining an episode of TLC: Hoarders Buried Alive.

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{#weightwatchers Update}

I know that I've been MIA with the weight watchers stuff, but I'm still tracking and still holding myself accountable.

I did really good on my trip to Ark. I managed to not over eat or eat a ton of junk, even though that's what my grandma packed for snacks. I also over estimated the amount of points in an IHop salad so I didn't eat anything the rest of the day. Of course, I was eating that around noon so it wasn't hard for me to refuse food until almost the next morning lol. I haven't really lost a whole lot though. I'm trying, but I doubt I'll be in the 180's by our vacation like I'd hoped. I'd be happy with the lower 190's at this point.

I do still buy my Smart Ones meals though (orange chicken is my favorite!) and I make sure to watch the carbs in take. That tends to be my down fall. I also drank a bunch of soda I shouldn't have at my nephews birthday party that following Saturday, (regular soda) and that was no bueno. So I'm carrying quite a bit of water right now. I know it's water because my fingers are swollen. Ugh.

That being said I still feel like I'm doing pretty good. At least I'm staying on top of it right? *Sigh*

I just have to keep reminding myself that I didn't put the weight on over night, or at one meal, so I'm not going to lose it over night either. It's going to take time.

Blah. So that's my little update for right now..

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{To Arkansas & Back in 24hrs!}

Let me start off by saying that I will never do that again. This was quite possibly the dumbest thing I've done in a long time. Probably since I OK'd Cassie coming to live with us that last time (yeah...it was that stupid). But aside from being a stupid thing to do, and utterly exhausting, it was not a horrible trip.

Our planning began on Sunday last week. My aunt and uncle from Ark came up for her and my uncles (her twin brother) 50th birthday. They only stayed the weekend. My uncle (her husband) told my grandma that her kids were planning a little surprise dinner for her birthday the next weekend. We had planned on attending. We'd go down on Friday morning, stay the night at my cousins house, then come back early Saturday morning to be able to make it to my nephews birthday party by 1:30 Saturday. It was gonna be a short trip. It was gonna be a little stressful with 3 kids. But we could handle it. It's not the first time I'd been to Ark with kids. Granted I was also one of those kids, but whatever. The point I'm making is I could do it.

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{Kicking It Into Gear}

I am so far behind where I was this time last year. In fact, I'm about 8lb from where I started. I am so disappointed in myself. I can't blame anyone but me. I quit weight watchers thinking I could do it on my own. Which I'm sure had I stuck with it at least a year, I probably could have eventually. But I fell back into old habits. Then I got depressed..and depression does not lend a helpful hand to weight loss. Breaking my ankle was probably the best thing to happen to me though lol. I couldn't get up and just snack all the time like I could before or like I can now. I actually ended up losing what I'd gained and then some. And then I gained it all back. I don't know what my damn problem is. How is me sitting in a chair but not snacking better than me moving around and not snacking? Lol Beyond annoying.

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{Vacation Planning}

Sometimes being a mom in the summer time sucks. Other times it's really fun. But most of the time, it sucks lol. The best part of my past couple summers have been the trips we've taken. I went on vacations every single summer with my grandparents. It didn't usually matter where we were going, we just wanted to get out of town. Sometimes in the motorhome and sometimes in a van. Either way, it was always a good time. I have said before I want to give my kids that same experience. And we can finally afford to give them those experiences. The last couple years we've gone to St. Louis. Until March, we had planned on heading north instead of south and going to the Dells. But after I broke my ankle we pretty much just called the trip off.

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{Retail Therapy!}

Dawn and I decided today was a good day to have ourselves a little shopping spree. She had birthday money to spend and I needed more bulbs for my wallflowers. Not to mention its the 3rd of the month. Its been six months now. I couldn't let myself dip into the sadness. I do that enough as it is. I needed to be out of the house and away from thoughts of the person who isn't here anymore.  So off we went.

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