The Race

Hi there! I wanted to take a quick second to wish some special ladies in my life good luck in their races tomorrow...

Neighbor Melissa just recently started running for the first time in her life and tomorrow she is participating in a local 5k! She's come so far so quickly.


My old friend (old only in years of friendship, not years on earth ;) ) Casey is running in the Music City Half-Marathon in Nashville.
(She's wearing blue in both pics.)



This is her first half-marathon and she's been training for a couple few months. I am sooo very proud of her! Every week when I call her after my Wednesday weigh-in, she updates me on her progress.
(Oh and Casey, you're welcome for this picture of you and your disgustingly flat stomach.)



Aunt Sally is also running walking hoping to complete and not be mistaken for a sanitation worker at the end of the Music City Half-Marathon. :)


She's really new to the whole half-marathon business. You have to start somewhere, though!
This is the closest I'll ever get to anything marathon-related:



Yes, that is a chocolatey-caramely Marathon bar that I'm not even sure they make anymore.

Anyway ladies (and to anyone else out there who has a goal they are trying to reach),
whether your race looks like this:

Or this:


Remember, it's the finish line that matters.

WW Wednesday

(Warning: This post is longer than normal on Wednesdays because it spans 2 weeks and actually includes pictures!)

In case you didn't notice, there was no "WW Wednesday" post last week. I was out of town and while I DID look for a meeting to attend, none of them were at convenient times. Truth be told, I could have made one of them work, but I had no fear of falling off the wagon from just one missed meeting so I opted to skip it.

I didn't make the healthiest food choices while we were gone. There may have been one or two at least a dozen chocolate oatmeal cookies involved, too. :)
Spread out over several days, though! Come on now! I NEVER get to eat these unless Alesia makes them for me while I'm in!
I was going to take a picture of them but that would have involved two hands and one hand almost always had a cookie in it.
Alright haters, judge all you want.

So, obviously I was NOT expecting a good weigh-in. In fact, I told Melissa before we walked in that was hoping to keep it to an under-3-pound gain for the 2 weeks, just for sanity's sake.
I didn't track any points while I was gone so I really had no clue but I KNEW it would be ugly.

Turns out I was wrong. :) I had a nice loss, in fact! Crazy, but true.
I even broke into the next "decade" of numbers. (See what I mean by that here.) Melissa, my weight-loss buddy, did too! It was a good weigh-in indeed!

So, lesson learned this past week (actually 2 weeks): I didn't miss the fries with my on-the-road burgers. Two weeks ago I told you my goal was to skip them while we were traveling. It really wasn't even that hard. Half the time they disappoint me, anyway.
I think the biggest thing I learned was to just be thankful for the good luck you get thrown every now and then. I didn't deserve a loss today but I got one anyway. I'm just going to take it and run!

Goal for this week: Start tracking again, dang it! I'm ready to roll through the next 10 pounds!

Now, because I promised my sister Sally I would, here are the photos of me that have been requested by several of you.
America's Next Top Model-style, baby!



You even get a peek at my flesh-colored lunch-lady bra. Saucy!



Haha. Right. That's SO me.
This is more like it. Mid-sentence, eyebrows like the lost sister of Bert & Ernie, and holding a wiggly child.



We're keepin it real here, folks.

Fluff 'n' Stuff

Ok, let's lighten this blaaaaahg up a bit with a little fluff.
Hair fluff of babies, to be exact.

During my recent TN visit, I saw a framed photo of me as a child when I was approximately 18 months old, a few months older than BabyCakes in this pic.



Now, I know she's blonde, blue-eyed, and well another person and all, but can I get a shout-out from someone that thinks I might have possibly found a segment of one of my children that maybe looks a tad like their mother?

Their Mother -- that not-so-easy bake oven that cooked those crusty/sticky creatures for a year and a half total, only to find out that that the cooking was indeed the easy part and she would never again drink an entire bottle of water away from home for fear that her now laughable bladder would not contain its contents during the rush to the Target restroom?
The woman who once sacrificed her own socks -- in the Winter no less-- to clean the Chernobyl of diaper disasters in the back of the car?
The woman whose mouth you (BabyCakes) vomited in when she was going in for a kiss?



Come on, give a mutha somethin!

Grayed Expectations

Through the green,
the new life
reborn every Spring.




Gnarled and broken,
gray and aged,




A relic.





As with all things that die,
no matter how soundly built or
closely held





Earth reclaims its own.

Over the river and through the woods...

In case you were wondering (and you probably weren't), the reason I only blogged once this last week was because we were out of town.
The children and I spent a week visiting family in TN/KY while J finished his last week of work at his old job before starting his new job today.
Knowing how difficult BabyCakes is in the car these days, he was a saint and drove in with us, flew home, worked all week, flew back, and then drove home with us.

I lugged the kids all over the place while we were visiting. (This is Aunt Sally, not me. BabyCakes isn't looking too happy, is she?!)


The week was a whirlwind of junk food, friends, and grandparents.



It was a good visit and it was nice to see our families, but in the end we were glad the road -- and Daddy -- took us home.

Easter Blessings

Whether you are in the city or the country,


Surrounded by Spring's finest,


Or blooms only a child can love...


May you embrace your abundant blessings,


And have a Happy Easter!


"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."
-- John 11:25-26

My butt really isn't this big.

To all my beautiful blaaaahg readers, I wanted to let you know that I will be mostly MIA until after Easter. Everything is okay but stuff comes up sometimes. I promise a future update.

While I'm gone from my blaaahg, here's something for you to remember me by:



HAHA, just kidding!

I just wanted to moon you on my way out this morning. :D