Well, I know everyone hasn't been able to sleep at night for being soooo excited to hear about how my diet is going...lol. But here's an update. I started on Wednesday morning and I weighed this morning and had lost

4 pounds!!!

Yay! It's so much easier to have stick-to-it-ive-ness when you see immediate results. And that's totally what you see with this diet. I've had a bunch of people ask me about what diet I'm doing and ....duh! I can't believe I didn't go into that earlier. But before I do, let me just give you a little diet funny. So, want to ask me how often I have gone to my mailbox at school after dismissal this school year? Answer: every day. Want to ask me how often this year there has been a piece of chocolate in my mailbox at the end of the day? Answer: NEVER. But what was in my box on the FIRST day of my diet?

Chocolate. See below...

Now if you are a teacher, particular my girls in the 300 hallway at the end, you know that after a day with eighteen 8-9 year old sweetie pies, you pretty much just want chocolate and a good nap. In that order. This little guy was not hard for me to say no to, but it just cracked me up as I was watching all the teachers walking out of the office eating chocolate and saying, "Yay! There's chocolate in our mailbox!" and I'm thinking...who would DO this to me! ha! Anyway, I gave it away and no harm done. I was super thankful that I prayed for willpower when I weighed and saw my big 4 pound drop!

The diet I am doing is the HCG diet. I am not doing the shots because I am totally terrified of needles and want my mommy when I see them they are really expensive and I don't want to go to an office and get them, etc. I am doing the drops. You can order them online herehttp://www.rebekahspureliving.com/. The drops come with instructions, but basically you do the drops three times a day and eat 500 calories. Eeeek! I know that sounds totally nuts, but really it's not bad at all. If I can do it ANYONE CAN DO IT. You do it for 30-40 days at a time, then do a 6 week maintenance. Then you can start again if you want. My good friend at church just did it for 40 days and lost 32 pounds. She is my inspiration! If you want more info on it let me know. It's super easy and like I said, you see IMMEDIATE results and it feels GREAT!!!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am loving these cooler temps and can't wait to start doing fun fall things! Think....pumpkin patch. And just for fun, here's a little clip of someone who is NOT on a diet :).

Peek-a-boo and pasta. Oh how I love him!!

Well, since the house thing didn't work out and I for sure won't be checking that off my "30 List" boo hiss I decided it's time to start on the other heinous super fun item on the list..."Be happy and healthy PHYSICALLY." My hope is that some of my friends out there who struggle with their weight the way that I do will find some humor in these posts and some inspiration. Before I got pregnant with Reid I had just found out that I had thyroid issues which contributed to a HUGE weight gain over the course of a year. It wasn't the only factor, mind you, but it did play a large roll. I had just gotten on thyroid meds and lost my first ten pounds (yay!) and then found out I was pregnant. So on top of the 50...yes, 50...pounds I was trying to lose before, I now had that PLUS the baby weight to lose. Can we all say heinous on the count of three? One, two, three H-E-I-N-O-U-S! After I had Reid I joined Metabloic and lost 50 pounds! I LOVED that program and would have stayed on it forever. However, the program is high in protein and apparently for me that = KIDNEY STONES. I won't count to three. You can just say heinous on your own time. So, one night of thinking I was dying and a trip in an ambulance to the ER later, I had to stop the program.

I had a baby almost completely au naturale and have had a kidney stone and I'll just tell you, I would pop out a kid ANY day over a stone. Whew!

So, I still have a long way to go to get to the goal I had originally set for myself. I just want to feel like the old me again and be able to wear all the cute, and probably now out of fashion, clothes that are hanging in my closet. I am so blessed with a husband who loves me and loved me when I looked like Shrek. But I need to love me and feel comfortable with me and that's what I'm after. Plus, I want to be healthy. I want to be active with my son and yada yada yada....it's time to buckle down. I planned to start my diet on fall break, but do you know how much weight I can gain before then? Oh my. There's never a good day to start a diet and there will always be things that make it hard and things you have to overcome. In the words of Garth Brooks, "What we put off til tomorrow must now become today..." Low point of this blog post was when I quoted Garth Brooks. Bless. So because I have done EVERY DIET there has ever been EVER, I know a thing or two about what to do and NOT to do. Here's my list:

DO NOT:

1. DO NOT wait to start a diet until the time is right. The time will never be right. Dieting sucks. Always.

2. DO NOT start a diet when you have your top 5 favorite foods in the whole world sitting in your pantry. That's like starting a painting project without any paint....IMPOSSIBLE. Get the stuff out of your house! For me that means making my husband eat everything that I think looks good and or dumping things in the trash. :)

3. DO NOT wait until you are making your son some yummy pasta and grating cheese over it to start cooking your own dinner. Have yours ready. DIRT is tempting when you are hungry and deprived. Have your dinner ready to eat or chew gum or something to keep from nibbling.

4. DO NOT think that one day of cheating or even one BITE of cheating won't matter. It will. One cheat leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, leads to 50 pounds of cheats!

5. DO NOT get too caught up on numbers. How you feel, look and fit in your clothes is what's important. Ever seen that girl in a size 2 jeans that make her look like a size 16 because they are too small??? Numbers aren't important. Feeling good is.

DO:

1. Make your food in advance. You are less likely to cheat if what you are supposed to have is ready instead of being super hungry and having to choose between taking the time to cook your healthy food or order a pizza. The. Pizza. Will. Win.

2. Keep a food journal and write in it daily. You are less likely to eat it if you have to write it down and have it in your face.

3. Weigh every day. I know a lot of people would disagree here, but I just think it's good to see your progress. AND - if you are having an issue or something is causing you to gain, you catch it immediately rather than 2 days later.

4. Get active. I hate to exercise, but I feel so so SO much better once it's over. Focus on the over part.

5. And last and most importantly...PRAY about it. God cares about what you care about. God wants to see you reach your goals. Pray and ask him for the determination, will power and whatever else you need to get through it. I'll be honest. Sometimes I feel silly asking God to help me lose weight. But then I think....this is my daddy. He LOVES me and wants to see me succeed and do well. Why wouldn't I pray about it?

SO, long post here and thanks for hanging with me if you've made it this far! If we were in my classroom I'd say, "Give yourself two snaps and a clap." LOL. But go ahead if you want to. :)

So tomorrow is DAY ONE of the diet. I will not be posting my weight on here. I won't take you down that dark road with me. But I will be posting my weight LOSS on here. Hopefully daily. We'll see. If you've been thinking about starting a diet....start with me TOMORROW! Accountability is the best motivation. I am holding myself accountable to anyone who reads this! Wish me luck...better yet, say a prayer for me! :)

Today was a great day! We had a great 9/11 service at church that reminded us that we have to be constantly in prayer for our leaders. We can't sit back as Christians and just hope for the best. We have to go after our leaders in prayer and lift our nation up! Seems basic and yet, how often do you really include President Obama and even our local leaders in your daily prayers? I know for me, it's not usually on the list. But it is now!!!

Today was a great day because the Hankses were ALL AT HOME! Wow! This never hardly ever happens anymore. For real. I actually wrote it on our fridge calendar. hehe!

I went to Michael's this afternoon to get some stuff for a little "Reid Project" I have been wanting to work on. And now that all the new Martha Stewart craft stuff is out, I just had to go. Had to. Is it weird that I LOVE the smell of craft stores??? I just walk in and smell that crafty smell and before I know it I am wandering in a crafty trance. Lol. Just kidding. But seriously. :) So anyway, all the fun, fall craft stuff was out and I just couldn't get over these wonderful, fake, carve-able, non-stinky, free of nasty seeds, foam pumpkins!!

Michael's had lots of examples of them all carved out and the one I loved had a typical jack-o-lantern face, but had a name carved into the mouth. Now, if you know me, you know I love all things monogrammed and personalized. You could get one of these pumpkins, put in an order with your name, and they would carve you one with your name in it....for $30 bucks. No way. Yes, theirs are perfect and done with some kind of mechanical carving tool. BUT, I am not paying that much for something I could probably do by myself and make it semi-presentable. So, I bought one of the fun, foam pumpkins. They were on sale. I think it was $8.99. I also bought a couple of those really thin blade pumpkin carving tools. Super exciting! Here's how it all went down:

Sketch it out first. Clearly label what WON'T be cut. This is always where I always mess up!Then, I took an orange highlighter and sketched my sketch :) on the pumpkin and went over it with the tip of my carving tool so it looked like this.

Start carving...

Looks all messy when you're done, but use a fingernail file to get in there and smooth out all that foamy stuff, dust it off and...

Voila! Stick one of those FAKE candles in your FAKE pumpkin cause that bad boy will catch fire before you can say "boo!"

For 10ish bucks, I have this fun, personalized pumpkin that I can get out year after year. It's not PERFECT and I didn't have any carving power tools blah, blah blah, but I LOVE it and may just make another one or two. Happy Carving!

Normal is Overrated

Nothing about this week has been normal. Everything from having Monday off, to a midweek trip to St. Louis, to saying goodbye to someone way to young to be gone, to a crazy week at school...everything has just been off! I am definitely ready start fresh next week. Having to go to St. Louis to say goodbye to Joey was sad and so difficult to process. But getting to see family was wonderful!

We got some bad news about the house situation. Looks like we are going to be staying right here in our little townhouse for a while. Without going into too much boring real esate mumbo jumbo...basically we got some information that was not accurate that turned out to be a deal breaker at this time. So yeah I might have cried about it off and on for two days, but our faith in the fact that God has our back and he's looking out for our best interests makes it all ok. We know there's a reason that God is closing this door and that when the time is right, he'll open an even better one. Note to self: Do NOT start decorating your theoretical new house in your head and imagine Thanksgiving dinners there BEFORE you have a signed contract. Lol. Live and learn. God is good. So now I am ready to start repainting and redecorating our townhouse AGAIN. Luckily I married a man with startling patience who (most of the time) indulges my harmless whims. Love that man.

I'm contemplating getting rid of our dining room furniture (storing it just for now) and turing the dining room into a playroom. I mean, is that nuts? Don't answer that....


Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man... :)























And that's all we can ask for...

"30 List"

Well, here I am again. This would be attempt number three at keeping up with a blog! I love the idea of this and sharing experiences and using it to keep track of my life, but for whatever reason I can't seem to actually REMEMBER that I have a blog. lol. Anyway, since being back to work full time and juggling those responsibilities on top of wife, mommy, church, etc., I NEED an outlet. I love that my hobbies are my boys these days and wouldn't have it any other way, but momma needs SOMETHING...enter the blog...again. :) Plus I like that I can write the way I talk and therefore don't have to worry about punctuation and can use "..." as much as I want. If you hate the "...", you might as well keep movin' on because it's my favorite... lol... haha. Ok, seriously. :)

I just need somewhere to share school stories, Reid stories, God stories and just what's going on in my head. Right now what's going on in my head is that I am on the road to the big 3-0. *gasp, gag, whatever* Can't stop thinking about it. I have had many things in my life that I've said, "I want to be ________ by the time I'm _________." Like my life plan was to be married by the time I was 25, have my first baby at 27, second baby at 30 and be done. Thank GOD (literally) that He had a better plan for me as I have THE most amazing husband ever and the most precious child anyone could ask for. HE makes all things work together for my good and my little family reminds me of that daily. Having said all that, I do have a "____ by the Time I'm 30 List" and I intend to start working on that list now. When J and I got married and started making plans for our future together I said, by the time I'm 30, I want:

1. To have a baby....CHECK!
2. To love my job....CHECK (despite the recent complaining)
3. To be happy and healthy PHYSICALLY...not so much.
4. To have a house....working on it.


Soooo, 1 and 2 are good! Praise the Lord for my job and my sweet baby boy. 3 and 4 are the ones that are occupying my mind and making me NUTS...so it's time to get serious. I have T-minus 7 months to get these things checked off my list. It's time to say goodbye to the baby weight...and let's face it...the prebaby weight, and work on getting some more space for our little family. We are busting OUT here at the townhouse and are desperate for some more space. The house thing is in the works. We even have an offer in on a house and are waiting patiently to find out what will happen next!! It's a short sale...they take forever...so when I say we are waiting patiently, I really mean that we are ready to camp out in front of the bank until they give us an answer. More on this later.

So now I just need to finish what I started and get this weight off and get back to my normal self. I have a plan...stay tuned :).

I titled my blog "All Things New" because #1. We are newly married...ish, new parents, trying to move into a new house. New, new, new. We are daily asking each other, "What do we do about ____?" and of course neither of us knows because it's all....you guessed it...NEW! The second (and main) reason I titled it "All Things New" is because I serve an incredible God whose mercies are new every morning. I am constantly in awe of how He loves me, blesses me and takes me deeper as I seek Him. I am so undeserving of His grace and yet he makes all things new every day and his love NEVER fails. I am so thankful. On my knees, face to the floor, shouting His name thankful.

Blessings!



Really, what more could a girl ask for?