The purpose of the new blog was to make myself more accountable to myself (psychotic, I know).  Point is, I didn’t do it…AND let me tell you why it feels great.  It’s something I just didn’t feel like doing and, so, I didn’t.  Sweet surrender, lol.  Maybe I’ll work on it later or maybe I’ll just say whatever I want here.  Anyway, I’ll give the plateau one more week before I cry.  ;)

As corny as it may sound, I’ve been referring to this whole ordeal as my weight loss journey.  For those of you who know me, you know that I’ve been overweight practically my whole life.  So for some, the weight loss journey is short and quick but for me, the end is nowhere near.  I have 84 more pounds to lose and given my current rate, it will take me about one more year to reach the finish line.  It’s slow and it’s grueling but I truly believe this is the ONLY way to get this weight off and keep it off.  This is a lifestyle change for me…not a fad diet or a quick fix but a set of mini-goals that will take lots of hard work to accomplish.  I truly believe that by making an investment this big (no pun intended…hehe), I can’t fail.I’ve had a million hurdles to jump during this journey.  First it was my diagnosis of high cholesterol, which out of embarassment I kept as a secret up until, well hmm, pretty much right now.  Then something happened with my ankle that makes exercise painful and it has yet to be diagnosed.  After primary care doctor and physical therapy, I’m now on to a specialist.  Still no one knows what the deal is.  Then there’s all the emotional stuff.  I struggled around the 20 pound loss mark with whether or not I deserve to be thin.  Then I quickly realized that being healthy is not something that one “deserves”.  I wondered whether or not I was losing my identity as I had always described myself as a “big beautiful woman.”  With the help of my husband, I disassociated weight and identity pretty quickly.  But all these things have tormented me and they have, at times, impeded the progress.  And I say once again…the reason why this weight is here is my fault and it surely didn’t get here over night.

Most people are just now starting to notice my weight loss, which has been motivating but it’s taken a lot of poundage reduction to get to this point…lol.  I’m sure that phrase is not a word but whatever.  I told my friend Tatiana the other day (it’s important that I preface with the fact that she is very skinny), anyway I told her that if she lost 10 pounds people would notice immediately but when I lost 10 pounds, no one noticed at all.  It’s similar to a mound of sand.  If there are 15 grains of sand and you take off 5, you notice a difference but if there are 1500 grains of sand and you take off 5, no one is the wiser.  You see my point now, huh?

Now for an excerpt from my fatsecret.com journal.  A little advertisement for those of you looking for some help losing some of those holiday pounds. 

I am oh, so proud of myself this week. I am 30 minutes away from getting my 4th workout of the week on. I FEEL so much better. My ankle hurts like hell but my energy levels are up and I am feeling very motivated. I just wrap that bad boy in an ace bandage and go on about my business. I have noticed that my appetite has increased slightly with all the exercise but I’ve been pretty good about staying close to my RDI each day. This morning as I was driving in to work thinking about my clothes, old pictures, how I feel, etc. I made a decision that I am no longer thinking of myself as a “big girl” anymore. Now, yes, I am definitely still a “chunky girl” but I am feeling good about myself and the way I look right now. I even stared in the mirror and wondered if I should stop here. Of course I’m not though. Because I remembered that my goal for this was never to look good, it was always to FEEL good and LIVE a long life. But the LOOK sure does feel good.

Thus I continue down my path. Why didn’t I travel sooner?

 Thank you ALL for all your support, patience and understanding (especially you, Ali).  You all make it so much easier.  It feels good to share.  It’s my personal project but the progress is not something I can hide.  I love you guys.

Remember me here?

45 Pounds Down

My latest complaint – Quincy is getting too old too fast and I can’t keep up.  I was talking to my good friend Kathy Westberry today (she actually married Jose and I for those of you who don’t know), anyway, I was talking to her today and we were talking about our babies as we normally do.  She was telling me about all the cute things her kids used to say when they were younger and I was telling her about Quincy.  And we started talking about how we save all of these ridiculous things that are sentimental to us (e.g. the button that Quincy swallowed and subsequently pooped out, etc).  I started realizing that I have all these things but they aren’t very organized.  I started a scrapbook when he was a newborn and it only made it through his first bath but there are different things tucked all in the pages for me to SOMEDAY finish it.  Yeah, I need to do that like yesterday.  The pile is only getting bigger.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about last night when I put him to bed.  He was so tired and kind of cranky.  We did our usual bedtime routine, which happens every single night and is, without a doubt, the best quality time that we spend together on a regular basis.  Normally Jose comes along too but last night was kind of busy so it was just Quincy and I.  I read him the little golden book “The Story of Jesus” and then tucked him in and sang the 4 songs that we sing everynight:

• Alphabet song
• Twinkle, twinkle little star
• Papa’s song – “Los Cochinitos” or “The little piggies” in english (which is some weird song that I think Jose’s mom made up when he was a kid)
• Mama’s song – “You are my sunshine” (a song my grandma used to sing to me)

He asked for “sunshine” first and fell asleep before I could even get through it.  I sat for a few minutes on the floor next to his bed and stared at his facial features.  For a slight second, he looked almost as he did as a newborn.  He was curled up in the fetal position and in the darkness he even looked smaller.  I rubbed his back and wished that I could freeze this moment forever in time so that he would never grow older.  I wondered again how I could possibly love this little boy so much.  I wondered again if I could love my next child just as much.  Then amidst all my thinking something funny happened – he snored.  lol  And I giggled because I remembered that he can’t be a baby forever and I really don’t want him to.  That funny little moment would have never happened if he were still a tiny little baby.  And if that were true, I would never get to hear the sweet sound of “I wuv you, mama” or the fun we have with him trying to learn the art of the aim in potty training.  It is pretty fabulous, you know?

Now, about that scrapbook… 

4 weeks old

8 weeks old

As soon as we stepped off the plane, the first thing we saw was slot machines (big surprise, eh?).  Then on to Caesar’s Palace.  Jose, of course, didn’t want to sleep even though it was technically 6:30am our time.  So we roamed about the city for a while and found an awesome casino with a steak and eggs breakfast for $5.99.  Shortly after we walked like zombies back to our hotel room.

The first day in Vegas was pretty exciting.  I had two whole days to spend alone in the city.  I walked the entire length of the strip and back, getting lost in casinos all day long.  I did a few things for myself and did a little shopping.  Both days were about the same.  The slot machines were fun but at times I only stopped to play them because they were practically the only place to sit in the city, along with dinner tables and toilets.  The most exciting part of those two days were the following: 1) I could go where ever I wanted without compromising with anyone 2) no car seat in tow and 3) ME-TIME.

Together we did all the cool, touristy stuff like the Bellagio Fountains, the mini-Eiffel Tower, gondola rides, buffets, museums, shows, etc.  But by the time Thursday rolled around, we were running low on the savings we built up for the trip, which only made it worse because we kept convincing ourselves that if we spent just 5 more bucks, we could make more money to build up the vacation budget.  HA!  That, my friends, was dumb.  Don’t do this.  And so we were ready to get back to home sweet Jacksonville, where there are park benches, post offices, drug stores, and groceries and where there are NOT roulette tables, $40 a person buffets, dry skin, and guys on the street flicking business cards at you with naked women on them.

All in all, it was fun and I’m happy we did it.  But let me give you a word of advice – a week in Vegas is too long – 3 or 4 days would be just about right.  Unless, of course, you have plenty o’ cash to waste on gambling, hookers, shows, buffets and tipping.  In that case, ROCK ON!

Ah, Vegas, you were fun for a short time, my dear.  Fortunately we will never see each other again.  lol  ;)

Tonight while Jose was in class, I put my baby boy to bed.  As I was singing the usual to him (“You are my Sunshine”), he drifted in and out of sleep.  I rubbed his unruly hair and soft skin for a while and I promised him out loud that I would never let “bad, bad things” happen to him.  Of course, I can’t protect him from the typical kid stuff like being teased in school or losing a friend, or whatever but I can certainly protect him from many of the things that I witnessed and struggled through as a child.

I contemplated that for a while.  Doesn’t every parent want to do this?  Isn’t it the goal of every parent to prevent or fix the things that went wrong in their childhood and to stop those patterns from being applied to their own family.  Well, if that’s true, by now, shouldn’t we all be perfect parents?  I mean man has been in existence for more than enough generations to have perfected it.  My God, how does this keep getting messed up.  Of course, this is all relative to my life.  It could be that you live in a completely normal family, at which point you are staring at the screen saying “wth is she talking about?”  If this applies, I would advise you to please comment and tell me how your life has been normal so that I can be sure to replicate that (I mean it when I tell you that I am NOT being sarcastic here).

Anyway, I am striving for a boring, normal life.  Oblivion is fine with me and I don’t mind explaining the gist of the really bad things in life to my son but I don’t want him to live and breathe them.  I don’t want him to know them first-hand.  Call me crazy, naive, whatever you wish.  I experienced some things as a child that many people will never experience in their whole lives.  And in some cases, it seems that there are constant reminders everywhere of those experiences – everyday almost.  Not trying to give the sob story but it’s the reality of why I have to find a way to make sure I never hear my son make that statement as an adult.  Not to mention all of the rest of the scary stuff that happens in the world (just look at Jose’s last post).  I really hope I don’t screw this up and become the mom that never lets her kids do anything.  But this fear can be paralyzing…

Being a parent is definitely the hardest job I’ve ever had.  Can I get a “amen” or what?

Earlier on in the year, I had great confidence that this health care reform bill would pass quickly and with little problem (yes, naive).  At this point, I am not so sure.  I do not generally find myself saying prayers about politics but now I am – about this, at least.  I am afraid that we will not get what this country so badly needs.  The government does have a tendency to mess things up, but we are not  speaking here of a system that is not already messed up.  How much worse does this have to get before we finally let them intervene?

I am writing this as a person who is currently insured and insured very well.  My husband and child are also insured and we do not have many problems with our insurance company.  BUT this is because I happen to work for the state (another government entity by the way) and my employer contributions for my health insurance are amazing.  I am fairly certain that I was born on the Medicaid system, which was little burdensome to my mother.  And my father was in the military so I had great insurance up until I turned 22 and was out of college.

I went for 2 years without any type of insurance and thankfully did not have many illnesses during that time period but when I did, I could not see a doctor.  I got pink eye for the first and only time then.  And well, do you know what it’s like having pink eye and not getting treatment?  It sucked – it sucked REALLY bad.  Basically I had to wait it out while I tried a bout a million of my mom’s home remedies.  Thankfully the body can eventually recover itself from most things.  That was probably the worst that happened to me and it was minor in comparison.

Now I am watching many of my siblings with the same problem.  One of my sisters is a pre-school teacher trying to get through school.  She is uninsured because she can’t afford to buy health insurance from her employer.  She suffers from chronic tonsil problems (much like I did before I had my tonsils removed last winter), which leaves her sick and feeling pretty crappy most of the time.  This past time she caught strept throat and pink eye also and was forced to visit one of those stop n’ go clinics at Walgreens.  It cost her nearly $70 to be seen and receive medications that she needed.  Thank God the antibiotic was free at Publix.  But, for a single woman trying to get through school that $70 is crippling to her budget.  Whenever she has had emergencies, it’s a 12 hour trip to the emergency room because she is not required to pay.  However, those gracious hospitals will treat but ensure that she is billed for it later.  So the medical bills pile up.  I’m scared that she will be forced into bankruptcy like many other Americans have been.

I could go on and on for days about the uninsured, but what about those who are not insured very well?  Like me, Jose also faced a long time after college being uninsured.  When he got his new position at Zabatt, a small private company, he got insurance.  The first trip to the doctor proved that he was wasting a pretty big chunk of money on a bi-weekly basis.  The specialist saw him for a co-pay of $50 and scheduled a procedure.  Before that procedure was to be performed, on top of the co-pay, an additional cost would need to be paid for the procedure somewhere in the ballpark of $500.  For a couple just out of college with a child, again that $500 is not worth it for preventative care.  Now, of course, a $500 bill for what I guess you would call, reactive care, would leave us with no choice but to be “worth it”.  Again, personal story, but NOTHING in comparison to what others have had to go through with their insurance companies.

Back to my uncertainty.  Will we be able to do this?  Will people agree that this is what our country needs?  You know – all the ones who do have nice health insurance and think that anyone can get it if they want it (sorry for the undercut, I feel myself getting a little emotional as I type).

I have been reading MLK’s Strength to Love and I came across a very good excerpt about fear and the civil rights movement.  I’d like to cite that here because I think it really applies to this situation.  In this particular part, Dr. King is discussing a good Samaritan story that Jesus once told.  Basically a man was walking along a dangerous road and was robbed and a priest and a Levite both passed him by before the Samaritan.  He says this:

I imagine that the first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”  But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” The good Samaritan engaged in a dangerous altruism.

Dr. King further goes on to say:

Abraham Lincoln did not ask, “What will happen to me if I issue the Emancipation Proclamation and bring an end to chattel slavery?” but he asked, “What will happen to the Union and to millions of Negro people, if I fail to do it?”…The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.

Why can’t we do this?  Why is this so hard for people to agree on?  I wouldn’t think that this should require an act of dangerous altruism to get done but it seems that it will.  People are dying everyday because of resistance and hesitation.  Just because they don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happen.  But what if Lincoln never signed the Emancipation Proclamation because he was too overcome by his first question of what will happen to him?  Without change, we cannot achieve excellence.  I wish that more were concerned about what will happen if we don’t fix what’s broken for others.  I will end here so I can leave you with MLK’s great words:

“They know not what they do,” said Jesus.  Blindness was their besetting trouble.  And the crux of the matter lies here: we do need to be blind.  Unlike physical blindness that is usually inflicted upon individuals as a result of natural forces beyond their control, intellectual and moral blindness is a dilemma which man inflicts upon himself by his tragic misuse of freedom and his failure to use his mind to its fullest capacity.

Thank you for allowing me to share.   http://pol.moveon.org/healthcare_cantwait/?id=17196-9769754-CT3wf0x&t=2

I started working for UNF as a work study student in Spring of 2002.  It’s now Fall of 2009, and while I’m no longer a work study student, I’m still working there.  In 2006, I graduated and became a benefited employee.  Before I graduated, I had visions of using my Criminal Justice degree to work in corrections.  I strongly believed (and still do) in the power of the correctional system if it is done right and I wanted to be a part of that.  Shortly after graduation, I realized that unless I wanted to move out of Jacksonville, the chances were slim of getting the kind of work that I wanted.  I did an internship at the Hubbard House and was fairly certain that I could have gotten a job there but the pay was not enough given my student loan and credit card debt that I had accumulated in college.  So I stayed at UNF and got a wonderful job in Enrollment Services.  UNF owns a fairly large piece of real estate in my heart so the last 3 years I have really enjoyed.  But lately I have been wondering what happened to my dreams from college?

I wanted to help people and while my job now is to support staff and “help” them in a technical fashion, my job is not to help people with their lives.  I used to fill that void with volunteering but then after Quincy and now my grandmother, it’s gotten next to impossible to find the time.  So I find myself asking today “what happened, Annie?”  Did I sell out for money?  Did I just take the easy road?  While some of those answers may be yes, I am comforted by the fact that I do love UNF very much.  I always say I’m “UNF home-grown.”  But as I go on, I am beginning to feel that what I do doesn’t matter.  I don’t want to feel that way…

So I volunteered myself last week to translate a child assesment packet for Hubbard House.  It’s supposed to be translated to Spanish, needless to say my husband was upset about that…lol.  It will take me quite a while to finish this project BUT that’s what I can do for now until I can find more time to give of myself the way that I used to.  :)

P.S.  Let me reiterate that I love working at UNF.  I don’t intend to leave anytime soon.  lol

Well it turns out she has made excellent progress and she makes it look so easy that I decided to try it too. Afterall I need to loose several pounds, and what a better time than the present.

I started the diet a few days ago and I must say that I am very proud of Annie, this is not eas easy has she makes it look. I am constantly looking around for something to snack on. I am amazed at how many calories are in the simplest little things. I am sooo hungry, but I am sticking with it. If Annie can do it, so can I.

When I first met Ms. Agnes, my first thought of her was pleasant.  Although my younger sister had spoken of her many times, what I found was not completely what I was expecting.  She told me of how much she respected Ms. Agnes and how much this woman did to pull her weight around the job.  I thought my son was going to be in that daycare just temporarily so I didn’t give much thought to the situation.  I never thought I would meet such a remarkable person – a person who is a true inspiration to the people who know her.

When I was at the store getting her card, I ran into an old friend and we stopped and chatted for a bit.  He was someone that I met my first year in college.  We had an Honors class together (one of my most difficult courses in college).  I thought he was a funny guy in class and a girl who I got really close to befriended him.  Now this is the part where you have to pay close attention.  Years passed and that girlfriend of mine (Jen), we saw less and less of each other.  However, her roommate (Melissa) and I became closer as a result of it.  She also happened to be friends with the guy from class (Matt).  As I spoke to him in the greeting card aisle of Target, I thought back to when we all first met.  That moment seemed so insignificant and if someone were to have whispered over my shoulder “hey, this will be the guy who will play the piano at your wedding and make you shed tears from the first note through the last note and hey, this will also be the guy who helps you paint your red accent wall in the living room of the first house you buy”…I would have laughed and called that person crazy.  And if later when I met Melissa and was having the first impression thoughts of “wow, this girl is kind of boring and obviously doesn’t like me,” if someone said to me “this will be your best friend, this will be the first person you call in hysteria when you find out that your pregnant, this will be the girl whom you will make trip after trip to Orlando for while she’s there trying to make a relationship work”….well, I would have called them crazy again.

Then I got to thinking about the first impression I had of Jose.  The first time I ever saw him was on the job and he came walking out from behind a wall of computers.  Was a nice guy but the only thing I was interested in was him telling me where my boss was on my first day at work.  And later when we became good work buddies and were laughing across the room at each other, I never knew I would love him.  How could I?  It seemed like we came from 2 very different worlds.  Then good ole father time stepped in and showed me that we were almost the same person, almost as if someone had broken us apart from each other in another life and the seam where we were ripped apart would fit back together perfectly.

And now as I sit here in my bedroom (I kicked everyone out), I think about the first time I knew of my little Quincy’s existence.  A pregnancy test…ha!  And the notorious first thought “this can’t be happening now, I’m not ready, I’m too young, what will I do, how will I survive?”  And I did and I developed a relationship over the course of 9 months with someone I never even met (really that was 10 months but who’s counting, eh?).  The first time I ever saw his little heart beating on the ultrasound, he was 6 weeks old.  I was so connected to him, my heart flooded with feelings I never knew I could have and my eyes flooded with tears and I cried (the ugly cry almost…the shaking cry that you get when your mom leaves you on the first day of school).  And I loved him from that moment and from that moment my first impression of “NO!” went out the door and I knew that I had been lying to myself.

So, yeah, I guess the point is that first impressions aren’t everything.  I think we should treat the folks we meet a little better.  Just because, who knows – that might be the 80 year old woman who inspires you, or the friend of a lifetime who puts you back together again when you’ve fallen apart, or the baby who changes your life, or maybe even the man of your dreams?  None of them recognizable at first.  Thank you Jesus for giving us love.  I don’t want to know a life without it.