Growing in God

I decided is probably time for me to update on where I am at in this whole crazy weight loss journey. In total, since beginning this whole process, I have lost 212 pounds. I started out weighing 401, and now weigh 189! So crazy and unbelievable for me. I am able to do so much more, I have so much energy, and I can where cute and in-style clothing that is normal people clothes. Seriously, I now wear a size medium shirt and size 12 pants! Crazy, especially since I used to wear 3X-4X shirts and 30-32 pants! I am so happy with myself and how far I have come. But with all that weight loss, comes the loose skin. I have so much extra skin hanging on me, and I hate it. My stomach skin causes me so many problems. The main thing being back pain. My back hurts all the time, and I try to do things to help it not hurt so much, but it still isn't perfect. The other issue is that I get rashes underneath my belly apron and in my belly button a lot, too.  And they are awful, painful, sometimes it...

At my church we just finished up a sermon series all about transformation. And this particular sermon series really hit home to me as it really made me think about my own life and this crazy journey I have been on in becoming more independent, getting healthy, and becoming closer to God. And it really hit me how much I have transformed and changed. And it made me realize even more how good God is and that he works in the most mysterious and crazy ways. So, let me just tell you all my transformation I have gone through. 2 years ago, I was in such a dark place. I had no job, I was extremely obese and unhealthy, and my Mom was going through cancer. I was doing as much as I could to be helpful to my Mom and I was trying hard to keep myself fairly busy, but it didn't matter. No matter how happy and ok I looked on the outside, on the inside, I was very depressed. I would look at myself in the mirror and see nothing but a fat, ugly, worthless, useless, good-for-nothing human being. I f...

Time to update you all on where I am at in life! It has been awhile don't ya think? So, let me just give ya a brief rundown. First off, I am absolutely loving our new home! The condo is so nice! It takes very little time to get it cleaned, and we live so close to much stuff. I use so much less gas living where we live now and it is wonderful! Plus it is just such a nice and cozy little place to live and I like it a lot. I love this fresh start and I definitely feel so good about our home. There are some things I miss about our old home, but, overall, I love our new home a lot, too! Second, I am getting super close to actually getting my CDA. I have officially completed all of my coursework and passed the class. So, now, I just gotta get all of my materials printed off and organized into a binder to send off to the council to be reviewed. And then from there take the next steps to getting my CDA. I am getting really excited about this because once I get my CDA, I will get a pay ...

So, I just turned 23 on February 6. Initially, I was trying desperately to avoid my Birthday and to just skip right over it. Mostly because I was having a lot of anxiety over my Birthday and there were a lot of painful memories from last year that kept resurfacing and haunting me. To the extent where I was having nightmares that were keeping me from sleeping good at night. Also, I probably was a little bitter over the fact that I never got to celebrate my Birthday one last time with my mom, because she was in the hospital last year on my Birthday and we never got to celebrate together before she got super sick and ended up passing away. So, I just did not want to celebrate my Birthday. To top it off, the Saturday before my Birthday, I was having car trouble and was just over all frustrated and sick of being an adult. I just was not having it and did not want to celebrate at all. But, those who love me wouldn't let me skip it. First off, my wonderful family made me feel very love...

Well, we are completely settled into our new condo! We got moved in on January 2, so we have now been living here for close to 3 weeks. I was so excited for this new fresh start, but I didn't fully realize how tough this would be, either. Let me first start off by saying that I do LOVE our new place! It is really nice, really close to a lot of stuff, and is so much easier to take care of and maintain. I am loving it. But at first it took some adjusting. When we first got moved in and I said good-bye to our house, I was very emotional over it. It had really hit hard that I was going to be leaving the place that I grew up in and lived in my entire life, and that I was going to be leaving the place that will always be "My Mom's House". I had a brief meltdown and I cried, I almost felt like I was leaving my Mom behind and part of me behind. And when I got back to the condo, I had a hard time calling it my "home". It did not feel like home at first. It felt...

2016 has come to an end. And all I have to say is that it is about time! 2016 was just a very rough year on me and my whole family. Starting out with watching my Mom be horribly sick and then going from that to watching her die, was the most awful, painful thing for us to go through. And since saying goodbye to her, it has been such a rough journey of learning a new normal and learning to do life without her. It has been incredibly difficult and was not something I had in mind for 2016. But there has been some good things that have happened this year as well. As far as my goals I had last year for myself. The first goal I had was to continue to work to make money so I could be even more independent. And that goal I for sure succeeded in. And in fact, I ended up saying goodbye to my old job as a before and after school child care worker and started a new job as a Preschool Teacher's Assistant at an actual daycare and it is full time instead of part time. I love my job and I am mak...

Before I begin this blog post officially, let me just say that I did, overall, have a nice Christmas this year. So don't thinking that I just had an awful Christmas just because of what I titled this blog post. I had fun with my family and we were able to enjoy time with each other and catch up and have fun and they made me feel loved, even though I was struggling. Ok, so now that I have that disclaimer out of the way, lets officially begin this post. My Mom loved Christmas time. It was her absolute favorite time of year. She loved decorating, baking goodies, cooking delicious foods, and most of all doing fun things together as a family. And this year, without my Mom around, my Christmas spirit and cheer just was not there. In fact, it made this Christmas season a really tough one, emotionally. First off, there was no one I knew that could decorate a house as beautifully as my Mom did for Christmas. It was our joke that she was never truly done decorating because she was always...