9/11.

I know I don't normally post on the weekends, but this weekend is special. The 10th anniversary of 9/11. I can't believe it's been 10 whole years since that happened. I wish I was a better writer and could write a beautiful post thanking the average people who stepped up and turned into heroes that day and the days after. I'm just not eloquent like that.

I will say this though, I may not be so patriotic all the time, but that's because I take advantage of the blessings that we as a county have. Growing up in America, I don't see what it's like other places where they don't have the freedoms we have. Yes, there may be some controversy about it, but America was founded on Christian concepts, and God has blessed us as a nation for these many years. I'm a believer in everything happens for a reason, and I think this devastation happened for a reason. To bring us closer as a nation, to realize what we have and how blessed we are. To realize that any day could be our last, love each other, and help each other out.

Thank your family for raising you. Thank your friends for standing by you. Kiss your husband, your wife, your mom and dad. Kiss your kids and your grandparents. Be kind and genuine. Take each day one at a time and make life a masterpiece. Live for others, not yourself.

If you want to know my experience on 9/11/01, I typed it out last year, it's not as nicely written as I might have written it this year, but it gets the general experience across.

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Tell me:


What was your experience on 9/11/01?

10 Week Challenge: Wants

Seven Wants: These can be fictional, right?

1. A baby. Pretty explanatory.

2. To be at my goal weight. I know I'm getting there, but it's taking so long. Yes, I know that means I probably won't be gaining my weight back, but it's still frustrating!

3. Our debts paid off. We'll get there. In about 45 years.

4. A house. Again, we'll get there, I'd just love to have the money to build our house now.

5. A personal shopping assistant who pays for the clothes they pick out. A girl can dream, right.

6. A better relationship with God - I'm working on it.

7. To appreciate each day and not spend each day looking forward to the next step in life. Seriously. Look at these wants. They're all eventually going to happen (hopefully), except for the personal shopping assistant. Life is going to fly by if I don't appreciate each day for what it is. Spending time with my family and loving where I'm at, even if it's not where I want to be.

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Tell me:


Do you appreciate each day, or spend too much time looking forward, or backwards for that matter?
What are some of your wants? Real or off the wall crazy.

Pause.

I owe you guys an explanation. You see, I kind of left you hanging after our unsuccessful month of TTC. Since we were unsuccessful, it made us think a little bit about our decision. I've gotten 2 "surprise" loans in the past few weeks, and it's making me nervous about our financial situation. And on Friday night we brought home our new (to us) truck. I know Mr. Skinny needs a truck for winter, and we talked about the money and we'll be okay. We have a plan to pay off our credit cards, and I hope my parents don't get sick of us because we'll probably be living here for a few years before we have our house.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, if we made my parent's house a mess when we moved in and people had to switch bedrooms to let us have space, I would feel really bad about moving in. But, my parents have a whole extra bedroom, with its own bathroom, and walk in closet that is private from the rest of the house and that's where we're living. My parents would like to move back down to that room eventually, and if they ever told us they wanted it, we would just take their room upstairs. It's no big deal at all.

So, back to the baby plans. I usually think people are crazy when they say they aren't trying to get pregnant, but they aren't preventing, but that's the situation that we're in now. We aren't going to be actively trying again until January, maybe, but we aren't using any form of birth control in the meantime. I'm not tracking when I'm supposedly ovulating, even though my cycle is so screwed up I don't think anyone could predict that anyway. If it happens we'll be thrilled, it if doesn't, we'll wait until January or so and see where we are then.

It's taken me a while, but I'm not worried about it anymore. After a month of sex every. other. day. I'm done with that, I can't do that. We'll do it when we want to, when we're in the mood. It won't feel like a chore and we would make a better baby that way anyway, if it's meant to happen.

I finally realize that there is a difference between trying and not preventing to get pregnant. I do get it and we just won't be trying. Everything will happen when it's supposed to. It might throw a loop in our 2012 summer plans since my brother is graduating from HS and he wants the whole family to go to VA Beach as his graduation present, but we'll figure that out if and when I get pregnant.

In the meantime, I'm just going to focus on working my way toward healthy. Eating right, hopefully trying to keep exercising, however I can, loosing weight and it will happen when it's supposed to happen.

BTW - go give Jana a congratulations - she's pregnant!

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Tell me:

Do you stress about your financial situation?

Are you more carefree about life? How about your significant other?

Back Pain & Running.

Remember when I mentioned in my Maybe, Baby post that I had back pain? Even after my lady friend came and told me I wasn't, I still had back pain. At first, it was lower back pain, but now it's crept up to my central, leftish back. So weird. It hurts when I sit, when I stand, and sometimes when I lay. I didn't mention it to Mr. Skinny for the longest time because I didn't want him to think I was getting out of something and I really try not to complain. It doesn't hurt really bad, but I have no idea where it came from. It's more of an inconvenience. It started, I think, when I started working again in mid-July. That doesn't give me a cause of it though. It's so weird.

When I mention it to my family, the first thing they think of is running. I don't know if I believe that, and I don't want to stop running. No, I don't love it, I'm not super fast, but it's the only type of cardio I really do. If I don't run then what will I do? It goes back to being scared of gaining all my weight back. I know you can eat right and loosing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise, but I don't want to stop running.

I've thought about it, and maybe I have bad form when I run. I've been known to have awful posture when I run, but I didn't think it would lead to near-constant back pain. The only time it doesn't hurt is when I'm sitting Indian-style (I know it's not the politically correct term, but I'm not saying "sitting like a pretzel - that's weird), and who can sit like that all day without their legs going numb?

What can I do? I've been thinking about laying off running a little bit, maybe 2 runs a week or so, and adding weights. I've wanted to add weights for months and months. I even have them in my living room, just collecting dust. I only have free weights, and I need someone, or a website, DVD, something to teach me how to do a whole body work-out with just free weights, any suggestions? I've also thought that maybe I have a weak core and that's making my back hurt, would that make sense? I want to stick with some yoga too, maybe add it something a little more hard core than relaxing hatha yoga. I dunno, I like going for my runs, and I'm not ready to totally change everything and changing my schedule. I feel like I've just gotten in a schedule and now I'm totally changing it.

We'll just take it one day at a time. That's all we can do.

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Tell me:


Do you go to the doctor's when you have pain? Or try to fix things yourself?
Any suggestions for free weight workouts?
Would a weak core cause back pain?

Labor Day Weekend.

I am horrible at taking pictures. For real, please forgive me. I don't like reading picture-less posts either, so I'm adding some pictures that are not mine. Just taken from google. Anyways, I hope everyone's weekend was really good and an enjoyable "last weekend of summer" like they've been saying. The wonderful they who no body knows who they are. Wow, I'm really good at randomness this morning. Sorry about that, I'm kinda tired.

Friday night we picked up our new truck. Yes, we got a new truck. We looked at our finances and Mr. Skinny does need a truck for winter, something with 4-wheel drive. It might take us a little longer to pay off our credit cards then, but we have the money for a truck payment each month and we found a perfect truck for Mr. Skinny. 2009 Toyota Tacoma. Same color as this picture.

The color is pyrite mica, but it's just gray, right?

Saturday morning, Mr. Skinny and my brother helped my dad put the door up on our shed. My dad hurt his back a few weeks ago, and he hasn't be able to finish the shed that is thisclose to being finished, so they helped him out. Then we headed to the farmer's market for some awesome fresh fruits and veggies. After that we went to a wood party. Get your mind out the gutters, we stacked firewood for Mr. Skinny's family. With the hurricane, there's been a ton of trees down, so that means tons of firewood for us folk who have fireplaces. Saturday night we just chilled at hung out with my family.

Sunday morning was church, followed by some hard core movie watching. We watched RED at Mr. Skinny's parent's house, which was pretty good. Then went over to Grandma's house for a cook-out, and visited with the family. Back over to Mr. Skinny's parent's house for another movie - The Other Guys. It was okay, but nothing special I thought. When we came home, I watched Definitely Maybe that I had on the DVR which was another okay movie, a good TV movie, but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in theaters. 

Yesterday, we slept in, Mr. Skinny and my brother finished the inside of the shed, and got all the boat stuff in there for my dad. Mr. Skinny went to do some stuff for his dad while I cooked dinner for last night and tonight. I made some london broil, and my plan was to grill it, but the grill ran out of gas, so I just had to broil it. I don't think I cooked it long enough, I'd say it was between rare and medium rare, which kind of grossed me out, so I learned my lesson with that. And I caught up on Keeping up with the Kardashians. I know, super lame show, but one day that I didn't have internet last week I started watching it and now I'm hooked. The bad part is, I've never watched or followed along with what was happening in their family, so I have no idea what happened to them ever. I need to catch up on all the episodes, haha! 

Ryan Seacrest looks so out of place here!

This morning I'm back to work. Awesome. Working for a financial advisor who thinks you shouldn't get a truck and telling him you got one isn't my idea of a good time. But looks like I'm gonna do it anyways. 

Tell me:

What was something you did this weekend?

Do you like reality TV?

How do you like your meat cooked?

10 Week Challenge: Fears

Eight Fears.

1. Snakes. Anything that can move on land without feet totally creeps me out, and that includes worms. And how they float in the water? Shudder.

2. Gaining all my weight back. And then some. Even when/if I get pregnant, I'm terrified of gaining all my weight back that I worked so hard to loose. I know it's a natural process, but I have a feeling I am going to dread stepping on the scale when I get pregnant.

3. Horror Movies. 'Nough said.

4. The end of the world. I don't know why, but I get super freaked out about this. I just like to believe the Bible that no one knows and therefore, I won't know. It will happen when it happens.

5. Controversy. Seriously. If I'm around you and you start arguing with someone, I make a run for the bathroom. I'd rather not say anything than have someone argue with me.

6. Loosing my family. I know people die, and that's just a part of life, but I get really scared about loosing all my family. I don't have any friends, really, my family is chock full of my best friends, and I'm scared about what's going to happen when they aren't here.

7. Getting to the point where I can't be independent. I see Mr. Skinny's grandma and how she has to depend on everyone to help her out. And while her family is more than willing, she still gets frustrated that she can't do things herself. My dad, too. He recently hurt his back and can't do much for himself. I don't ever want to get like that.

8. Being an awful parents. It's not the getting pregnant part that scares me, because I know that's in God's hands. It's the I could be an awful parents part that worries me. That's all in my hands.

Tell me:

What is one of your biggest fears?

I Survived.

First day of September, who else is missing the Hogwarts Express? I have to say, I love my college roommate, I texted her last night, "meet you and King's Cross at 10:45, right?" Her response? "of course, don't forget your dress robes!" Yes, I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd and I don't care who knows it.

Anyhow, back to the main event. Irene. I am very, very lucky in that department, I must say. Around here, we got hit hard. There were 2 deaths in the area, and numerous trees down. I know people that are still without power. We never lost power, surprisingly, but my in-laws did, including Mr. Skinny's 2 aunts, and his grandma, who is on oxygen. Luckily, Pop Pop bought a generator, and that made its rounds for 2 1/2 days to keep everyone's refrigerators and freezers going, so no food was spoiled. The only thing we lost at my house was internet, which is why I haven't been able to write a post all week. I know that there are worse things than loosing internet, but it's amazing how much you rely on the internet for entertainment. I'd rather have my laptop than my TV!

On Monday, we went over to help a woman from our church who's husband suddenly died back in May - he was only 46 - and she had a tree down in her yard. We loaded up the chainsaw in the truck and went to cut it up. I spent all day Monday hauling brush and loading firewood. It was exhausting. I should have worn my HRM, I bet I burned at least 1500 calories doing that all day.

We still have trees down around the lake I live on. In fact, I can still hear chainsaws going to cut down trees. When I went on my run (mostly walk) yesterday, there were still power lines across the road and still trees on houses. We actually had a tree fall on our old barn, totally cut through the roof. It's just for storage, but it's still damaged.

It's amazing to think that while there are wars in the world, that can be prevented. Mother Nature? Nothing can stop it. Water can be so calm and gentle, and other times it can be so violent and damaging. It's humbling to think about in my opinion.

It's September, a new month, and I actually have a few posts lined up for you guys next week. Everything I didn't get to talk about, baby planning, debt, lots of exciting stuff, not really.

Tell me:

Did you experience Irene? Or any other hurricane for that matter?

I was chased around Florida by Hurricane Charlie in 2004. It was a super fun experience, not really. At least I never had to leave my vacation, I got to see more of Florida thanks to Charlie!