A day at the pumpkin patch

Every year we try to do a pumpkin patch or something "Halloweenie" with my cousin and her daughter Jaime. This year we decided on a pumpkin patch in Southern Maryland called Bowles Farm. I had taken Hailey there once before when she was maybe 1, so I was glad to be able to go again. It's a pretty popular place and there was a fair amount of people that weekend. Kenny was away at a truck show that weekend so it was just us girls! It turned out to be a super nice, both weather wise and overall for the day. They had a pick you own pumpkin area, a corn maze, a children's corn maze, a hay pit, petting zoo, hay ride, barrel rides, and different things to climb and play on.

 

Overall I think the girls had an amazing time!

  

 Emily had no clue what she was supposed to be looking at!

 

 Angora bunnies! Sooo so soft!

 How cute is this little guy?! I could squeeze him!

 Jaime is like Hailey's little shadow. So sweet!

 Hailey trying to lend a helping hand. Funny thing is they are pretty close in weight!

 

 Emily's first time seeing or touching corn, she wasn't a fan at first!

 This picture was funny because it was like 80 degrees out and that other kid was bundled up!

 Minion hay!

 The haypit was a hit for sure!

 This is HUGE because until gymnastics, Hailey was always so afraid of everything!

 Now she is jumping and being so much braver!

 Emily and her first little pumpkin! Hailey picked her out a small on since she was small.

 The hunt for the perfect pumpkin was tough! As you can see the struggle was real!

I don't know how many pictures I had to take.......

....to finally get a decent one! Oh well! The girls and their pumpkins!

 

Hailey's Rockobter Night!

On Tuesday, October 28th, the second graders at Hailey's school put on a musical for parents. They were all supposed to be dressed as rock stars for the Rocktober event! They worked the entire month learning songs and dances. The day before they performed for all the other grades in the school. Hailey was super excited to get dressed up and show me all the songs. Most were Halloween themed songs, like Spooky Bones, but of course they couldn't come out and say that. It was pretty cute and the music teacher did awesome getting all the classes to work together. They did a total of 6 different songs, some with the Principal and other teaches, some songs had black lights, strobes, and props. At the end confetti fell from above, Hailey was most looking forward to that. The kids did great job and it was a pretty awesome night!

 

Now for some pictures......

 

A Message for Up Above

It's with a heavy heart that I write this message to you. My heart broke yesterday learning about your passing and circumstances around it. I am still in disbelief that it is all true. I haven't seen or talked to you in a couple years, but I often thought about you and wondered how you were doing. I would peek in on your facebook and see what you had been up to or look at pictures with you and your girlfriend. You seemed to always be doing the things you loved and I often saw you tagged in pictures and statuses with your friends. You posted the other day about working a lot and I was glad you were still doing autobody because I knew it was something you went to school for and you loved.

You are part of 90% of my high school memories. We were close and hung out a lot in the same circles. I spent most of my 9th grade Government class getting fussed at to turn around and stop talking to you. You were goofy and always had something crazy to say. You were quick witted and a good friend. I crushed on you most of high school and often time was more crushed wondering why you didn't like me back, but I know we always had more of a brother/sister relationship. We had so many laughs on the Votech bus and lunch every day. We would hang out at Morgan's several times and I have memories of the different concerts we went to, including crowd surfing and mosh pits. I used to joke that we would end up married one day with two kids, one named Bobby Joe and a little girl named Betty Lou. You would just shake your head and laugh. You were a great person and behind your tough front you were very caring.

A few months ago I looked at your Facebook page and wondered what things would be like for me if we had of been together. I know it would be much different and we were on two very separate paths so it probably would not have ever amounted to anything. You also popped up in my "People You May Know" feed about a month ago and I had slightly hurt feelings thinking you may have deleted me. I later realized it was a whole new account and noticed that the pictures of your girl friend were gone and figured you guys had broken up. I thought about writing you and saying hello and asking you how you were doing and now I regret not doing it.

It's hard for me to imagine someone who has always been so loved and that had so many friends would be in such a dark place in their life. I have been looking at everything people are saying about you and you meant so much to so many people. I don't judge you for your decision, but I wish you could have seen all your potential. You could have been something great. You could have had a family with a beautiful wife and kids. You could have had such a long life in front of you, but instead at the age of 27 you felt you had seen enough and experienced enough pain and hurt. It breaks my heart knowing you were feeling like this and felt that was your only option. I heard that you had been taking the separation pretty hard and had been talked down off the ledge a few times before by the ones closest to you. No one saw this coming yesterday and it was business as usual for you the day before. You went to work, you had dinner at your best friends house, you talked to people. I couldn't imagine what was going through your mind yesterday morning when you decided that you had had enough. I wish someone could have helped you or that you had of reached out to someone. Things could have gotten better and you could of gotten help. It could have been okay.

I laid awake last night thinking about you. My chest was tight and my heart ached realizing what the world lost yesterday. I thought about so many laughs with friends and so many good times and each thought brought me right back to the disbelief that you are now gone. I truly hope you found the peace you were looking for. Until we meet again.......

October Weightloss Update and some goals!

 

So I have been really struggling with myself and my weight. I'm stuck in this terrible cycle and I am truly trying to break it. I have really stepped up my tracking and my exercise and though I keep falling off the wagon I have been getting right back up.

This past weekend a picture was taken with me in it and really made me break down. I literally had to pull over on the side of the road to hide it from my Facebook timeline. It made for a very lonnnnnnnng ride home with me thinking.

I'm not down any weight in October, but I am down a couple of inches around my waist and hips. I was pretty excited about that. I am hoping that when Nov. is over with, I will have more progress to report. I have a goal for Christmas eve and even though I seem to not be making that goal, I am going to continue to work on it.

I've been thinking about some different things I could do to keep me motivated and focused. There have been different things I have wanted lately that I have been adding to a list that one day I would like to get. It would be an awesome incentive if I could earn them. Then maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty about getting them.

So here are some things I have on my "want" list.

*The famous polar watch! I LOVE my Fitbit and wear it non stop. It's been great on my walks and to motivate me to keep moving during the day. Now that I have been working out more, it would be great to have a better reading on my calories burned and also where my heart rate is!*

 

*How cute are these shoes?! I have been eyeing them for months!*




 * I desperately want to try the T25, and have also head awesome things about Turbo Jam!*




*New work out clothes, especially a sports bra, since I don't really have any clothes to work out in*

And I would like to find a nice water bottle. I do drink a ton of water a day so it would be nice to have a refillable bottle that wouldn't leak on me!

So there you have it! In no particular order! These are all things I really would like to have and hope to own! Hopefully just putting my thoughts into words I can read will help me get off my butt and keep going so maybe I can buy some of these things!



10 Things on Tuesday!

This is one of my favorite posts and it's been a while since I've done one! So here it is for today!

1. I definitely just thought today was Thursday. Not exactly sure why, but it made this long week even longer for me!

2. It's hard to believe that Friday is Halloween and that Saturday begins a whole knew month! That's just crazy to me!

3. I have been walking most days on my lunch break. Each day I try to break my record. It pushes me that extra bit!

4. I have taken a ton of pictures, but just need to upload them so I can post about them! Let's see there is Emily's 2 month, 3 month, and 4 month pictures, there are pictures from Niagara Falls, pictures from the pumpkin patch 2 weeks ago, pictures from trick or treating in downtown Fredericksburg, there are pictures from pumpkin picking and carving this past weekend! And I am sure I will be adding a lot more this week! I am so glad that I started really bringing my camera along. I can't wait to see what I have captured!

5. Tonight is the 2nd grade musical for Rocktober! I am excited to go see Hailey all dressed up as a rockstar performing on stage. I am kind of confused by the whole thing, but she is excited so I am super excited right there with her! I am just sad Kenny can't be there to see it.

6. I haven't figured out what I am doing or where I am going as far as trick or treating goes! I like that it's on a Friday so we don't have work or school the next day, but Kenny might be missing out on another thing again. He is going to try to leave early, but with such little leave left until he gets new leave in March, he really has to pick and choose what he does. But it'll be Emily's first Halloween so I am looking forward to that!

7. I didn't really decorate this year for Halloween. I put a table cloth out inside and put little garden flags and my scarecrow family outside. I am kind of disappointed in myself though! Ugh! I have gone through most of the boxes so I actually had an idea where everything was this year!

8. This conversation with Kenny cracks me up! Thank you Target for these wonderful suggestions!

9. I have been working so hard to pay on the air conditioner. The only thing is that it leaves me with virtually no money for even gas or groceries. I am trying not to stress too much about it, but with Christmas and my personal property taxes right around, I am stressed to the max at the thought of money. So I reallllllly need to be on the hunt for this money tree or find a way to earn a lot of extra cash quickly! Good news is that I will hopefully have it paid off by the new year!

10. I have 4 pairs of glasses, yup you read that right! I now have only one until later this week because the other 3 pairs are at the eye doctors getting new lenses. The reason I have so many pairs is because I can not keep track of them! So I have been extra cautious with this last pair since all my back ups are gone! On the bright side I can not wait for new lenses! My prescription is 3 years old and my eyes took a hard hit during my pregnancy. The prescription changed quite a bit so I can't wait to be able to see again!

Welp that is all for me today! Hopefully you can look forward to some pictures in the near future! Maybe tomorrow, but I can't promise!

Because sometimes it's just too much to keep inside.

I think I finally have hit rock bottom with myself lately. I have been trying to hold my head up and tell myself that it is okay, but honestly it isn't. I am unhappy and the biggest thing I am unhappy with is with myself. I am disgusted by myself. I am disgusted by the way I look. I am disgusted by my body. I absolutely hate looking in the mirror because I hate how I look and how I feel. When I look in the mirror all I see is the double chin and how fat my cheeks are getting. I see how large my arms are and the roll over my elbow. I see my gut and the rolls on my back. It is not a pretty sight at all. The sad part is that I am not even at my heaviest. How did I let it get this far? And how have I not noticed?

I've been struggling with self worth lately and I believe the way I look and feel play a huge part in it. I am embarrassed to go anywhere and to be seen. I don't want my picture taken because each time reminds me that I don't feel good enough. I don't feel like I fit in anywhere in this world and it's been something that's been weighing super heavy lately. I think my self esteem plays a huge part in this and I've really have taken a step back away from people because I hate feeling that all eyes are on me and how I look. And believe me, everyone has their flaws and I know people don't always pay attention to appearance, but let's get real we are a vein society even if it is subconsciously. I don't want to be the fat friend or the fat wife. I don't want to embarrass my daughter when I go to school. I don't want people to look down on me and think I am fat and lazy. I don't want people to watch what I eat or wonder what someone is thinking when I order food or am in the grocery store. This morning the baby woke up early and I asked Kenny to feed her so I could get a little more sleep before getting ready for work and out of anger he yells "you are just so f*cking lazy!". I should have just ignored it, but at a time where I am feeling so venerable it destroyed me and made me feel even more worthless. The sad thing is that he probably won't even remember saying it because he was still half asleep, but I have been up since 3:30 and it's all I have thought about.

I try, believe me, I try so hard to lose weight and to be healthier person! But food is how I have always dealt with things. It's my addiction. It's something that my brain thinks about when I am mad, sad, stressed, happy, and bored. I am not even a snacker or a picker, I am a full on binge eater. My weight is something that I have always dealt with but handled differently when I was younger. All through high school I struggled really bad. I am big boned so no matter how much I starved myself sick, to the point I was skin and bones I could not get past a size 7 jeans. I wanted to be a size zero so badly. My hips just wouldn't let it happen. I went through periods of starvation where my every waking thoughts resolved around food. I stuck to 500 calories a day with a goal to work those calories off. I kept journals hidden and I took every diet pills known to man, a lot of times mixing different ones to get the maximum effects, to help give me the energy that my body was missing and to even function to get me through the school day. Every Saturday I was allowed to eat what I wanted and I would gorge myself with food until I was sick and I think this was where my problems began. My brother had almost died in a car accident (actually he did twice) and had a long road of recovery and my family wasn't handling the news and the reality of the situation very well. Clearly my issues raised some flags at home and with my friends so I had to change my ways. That's when I figured out how to be able to have my cake and eat it too without the gain. I would still binge daily, but this time I found out that purging was the way I could fix this terrible habit. This was something I did for years, I made myself sick multiple (sometime 6 or 7) times a day. I was able to eat and stay skinny. It was my secret and my way to deal with everything going on. Sounds awesome right? WRONG! It destroys your body. There was times where I truly thought I would die during the process because my heart felt like it would explode. I would black out on the bathroom floor. I look back now and see the damage that I have done and now am suffering with because of it. It became my new way of dealing with things, but I decided when I became pregnant with Hailey that this unhealthy habit had to stop. It was hard, but I stopped it. Believe me it's something that lives in the back of my head, but 5 years of doing something can do that to you!

The problem is that I stopped purging which means that I still binged to deal with my emotions and the weight quickly packed on, even though I was only doing it here and there. I worked so hard on resolving the pattern that I was using to correct the problem, but never dealt with the problem of binge eating. I know how to eat and what needs to be done to lose weight. I have done it and dropped the pounds over and over again, just to gain it back in the end. I end up feeling crazy and needing to eat everything in sight. It's a feeling of no control and it sucks so bad because it makes me feel so much worse with myself. I can work so hard through the week, but I hit a spot where I just need to eat something, then I feel as if I have just messed up and that everything had now gone to shits so I end up ruining all the progress I have done. I have started tracking my binges. In fact I am double tracking in both MFP and WW online data base. I feel this is a positive step because now I am acknowledging them instead of just sweeping it under the rug, but it's not solving the problem. This past week I have been stressing with a lot so I have been have been having a lot of out of control eating especially at night time. Tomorrow is my weigh in and I am pretty positive that I have gained weight and I am guessing probably about 5lbs for the week.

It's a terrible process and it's taking a huge toll on my life. I feel horrible about myself and the way I look. I feel like I am less of a person because I am fat and out of shape. I feel like I am a bad person because I feel so out of control. I have these moments of out of control feelings because I am depressed. It's like this vicious little cycle. I feel as though I am at my bottom and at my worse. That's got to mean something, right? That's got to mean that I am ready to face these problems and make changes that I need, right? I see everyone else's motivation and am so proud of their success, but why can't I do the same. I am hoping this is may be my game changer and maybe it will be my turn now because really there is no where else to go, right? This weekend Kenny and I had an awesome time at Niagara Falls. It is something I have never done. Before starting our adventure we stopped through the welcome center. There was this little prop you could stand next to and take pictures. I made Kenny do it and then he grabbed my camera and said it was my turn. After he took the pictures I looked back through them and saw the way I looked in it. For the rest of the time I kept thinking about how I looked and hoping no one else noticed me and thinking how embarrassed Kenny must be of me. I just want to be able not to worry about things like that and to enjoy my life and be for once be proud of the person I am instead of sitting in the background hoping not to be seen.