People...

Will always disappoint us. So why do we waste our time and energy stressing out about it or worry about it? Because we're human and we care. We might say we don't care, but we do. We're human...we care. What I have realized though it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the older you get the more disappointment from people you will have. Shocking...HA! Not really! It's just life and the sinful nature of who we are. We're selfish, we're self centered and we only think about the I....I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it in my life and I'm tired of putting up, or allowing it to impact my life.

Negative thoughts and actions are like snow balls rolling down the side of a mountain and when they don't break or get stopped by something they begin to roll faster and get bigger and bigger. Then before you realize it is out of control and has made a path of destruction. Words, actions, lack of actions or lack of words can bring destruction to people in ways that we'll never understand. Decided today to change it if it bothers you or stop letting it make paths in your life that will lead to more destruction....like eating and eating till you just don't care anymore. Been there, done that and NOT doing that again!

Weight loss: 0

Total Weight loss: -127 pounds

Google me!

Over the last 10 months I've had the chance to meet a lot of great people, individuals whose life stories and trials really impacted my life. I'm a firm believer that people are brought into your life for a very purpose, a reason that we might not understand at the time...but our lives in some way will be forever impacted by it...good or bad.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with someone that I just met randomly thought networking and we started to talk about life and the directions in which our lives where headed. She said something to me that took me back for a second, made me think you have to be kidding because that's just impossible right now....Celebrate everything and leave nothing un touched...Celebrate everything? Everything? Celebrate when my gps took me the wrong directions? Celebrate when my day at work didn't go so well? Celebrate when I feel sick? Celebrate when you lose your best friend? YES! I never really thought about it that way but EVERYTHING happens for a reason...and it's not anything new but we may never understand the reason at the time, but the cool part about it is that we celebrate those times. Unknown and all....so I choose to celebrate!

Social media is a common word now days. Everyone knows about it, everyone is doing it and the majority of the people I know use it! It keeps us connected in more ways then I think a lot of us would like to be. We know what someone did over lunch, how their feeling today, what their work schedule is for the week, what they plan on doing over the weekend, how bad their kids behaved, how unhappy they are, when to pray for them, when to rejoice with them, when someone is sick or when someone has received the great news all is well....or when someone has passed away. We know it all. And we've lost the ability to really communicate with one another, picking up the phone and speaking from your heart. We've lost it. It's not a good thing, it's not something that we should be happy about...we should be embracing the moments that we get to see someone face to face, touch their hands or give them a hug, pray with them. Personally this is something that I fail to do, I rely on text, social media to be OK with how I communicate with people and that's not me! IT'S NOT and that's got to change!

Stop googling me and call me :)

World Wide Message Tribe..

Not sure if this is the week of "let me tell you all the things you didn't know about me" but it feels that way. :) First the title to this blog should make you wonder where will Amanda take this one...I'll explain. There are only a few CD's in my life that when I listen to them take me back to a certain time in my life and a CD that I use to listen to a lot when I was in High School was the World Wide Message Tribe...Google them! But I use to listen to this CD prior to every track meet we had....now the reason for the picture. For 3 years I threw discus in High School and looking back should have loved every moment because it was fun! But I also learned a lot about who I was; who I'd be....I have a lot of great memories of that time. So now you learned a new fact about me...Amanda threw discus in high school....could I today, OH NO! ...but then again :)

But last night I was sitting down to check my email and take a breather from the kind of day it had been! I was sorting through my CD's and I came across the World Wide Message Tribe and I can honestly said that it's been 8-9 years since I've listened to it...tells you how old we're talking. So I put it in, sat down and in a moment was taken back to a very sunny afternoon on a Lake school bus heading down to Dover for the Hurricane invitationals. This is where the best in Stark Co. would be decided. I remember that bus ride because why....I have no idea. I don't know why out of all the track meets, camps and practices that I had over that time, that the one moment I go back to is the invitational. But there is a song on this CD that I'd play right before I'd go in the ring, it was a song that seem to get my blood flowing and this adrenaline kick going....what did the song say...LORD hear my prayer....not what you expected right! ME either. But how appropriate for what I've been dealing with in my life lately...it's my hearts song at the moment...hear my prayer, hear my thoughts and get me through this moment....please! And the best part about all that is that I know HE will!

So listening to this song again last night had the same effect on me as it did almost 16 years ago. Of course all of this only means something to me, but I find it interesting that after so many years a certain song can bring back the memories and feeling just like it did so long ago.

Maybe I'll be listening to some more World Wide Message Tribe to get my days started....but there will be no discus throwing. :)

Weight loss: -1 pound (lost that due to stress) :)

Total Weight Loss: -127 pounds

My heart is heavy...

My heart is heavy....for many reasons and I don't have the time or the energy to list each one. But this morning I pray that this feeling that I have and the uncertainty that I have will be taken and carried away from me and that whatever lesson I am meant to learn, that I will learn it well and never need to learn it again. Open my heart and my mind to be understanding and to listen in the midst of all this noise. I pray for patience and guidance that my steps will be persist and that I will be turned to the right direction no matter how much I might object.....

These moments, these times make us stronger right....I'm surprised I'm not wonder woman! HA

Weight loss: 0

Total Weight loss: -126 pounds

Oh the stories they would tell...

*It was so hard to find a picture of a gallon jug that didn't look like the ones you have at the water cooler...but this picture is PERFECT and you'll understand why in a moment.

It is 10 years this year since I was in college, hard to believe that it's been that long and that means 15 years since I was in high school. If that doesn't tell you how fast time goes then I don't know what does. But the other night I was laying in bed almost asleep and I started to laugh...it started out as just a small little laugh but turned into a laugh that had me in tears! I love those laughs. But what struck me funny was the memory of falling into a closet, breaking a shoe rack and busting a gallon of water in one fall my freshman year of college. Those that where their will remember that night! But what I love so much about my life....the fact that I love to laugh at myself! (Of course there are hundreds of things I love about my life, but for the sake of this blog...I'm going to just state two) And the other is that I have such great memories with unbelievable people who have graced my life. If I was to get all my friends and people that I've had the privilege to know in my life together in one room...BOY the stories that they would tell on me!

I'm so thankful that GOD has given us memory...yes sometimes the memories are painful but we're not talking about those memories...I'm talking about the memories that we have that make us smile, that bring joy to our hearts at just the right time! Not a day goes by that I don't find myself taking a moment to reflect on a great memory and laugh, smile or just be thankful that it came to my mind when it did. Even better when you receive an email or a text from someone that says "hey I wanted to just let you know that I was thinking about that one time when we walked home from your house on a very cold winter night and you got laughing so hard...." Yeah I won't finish that story but those are the times that I'm most thankful for because they make all the other things in life seem so trivial.

Over the last couple months I haven't laughed at myself enough, not sure if it's because I'm still trying to figure out this "new" me and how she might act...but what I've failed to realize is that it's still me, it's still the Amanda that laughs from my toes, that smiles from my heart and falls into the closet...or off the sidewalk...or just walking down the hallway....or makes others smile by saying something totally off the wall...but whatever it is...it's still me and that's awesome!!!!!!

Weight loss: 0

Total Weight loss: -126 pounds

Make it "forever"

Those that know me know that I have a tattoo...but then again, maybe some of you that do know me had no idea. :) It's not something that I talk about or show off. So why would I decided to talk about it now...well because of the meaning behind it and how the meaning behind it has helped me through a lot in the last 5 1/2 years. Almost 5 years ago now (Melissa would have to correct my dates) my dear friend Melissa and I drove to a tattoo shop and had our tattoos done. At the time we did it, I was I was going through one of the hardest moments I had ever faced in my life. Ever emotion that you can imagine....I was experiencing it and at a rapid pace for that matter. I had never really thought about getting a tattoo but from time to time wondered "IF" I did what I'd put on myself. I believe a lot of time a person’s decision to get one comes out of what they are experiencing in their life at that very moment. And not really thinking long term about what that might look like when we're 75!

But I did it; I put two symbols on my body. (Left ankle..can be covered when needed) HA. One is the picture you see at the top and the other is the symbol for faith. Strength sits on top of faith. *Not to worry we researched this big time to make sure we got the right symbols...though I know you where not worried. But I remember sitting in the chair as the guy began (and yes it was painful!) and thinking about those two words...Strength and Faith. If I didn't have these two word in my life and a strong foundation for them in my life, I wouldn't be able to get through the "moment" that I was dealing with at the time. I realized also that when we're faced with hard times or uncertainty in our lives we must have "things" we cling to, things that we hold onto. Some of us it's our faith and what we believe....for me personally that's always what I cling to. Others it's people in our lives, it's changing our life, it's drinking, it's eating, it's whatever floats your boat for that week...but you get the point! It's something! Sometimes that something is good to cling to and other times it's something that brings only more grief or disappointment to our lives. But whatever it is, we cling to it. There have been different times over the years that I'll catch myself reaching down to my left ankle and touching those two symbols and realizing that those two things helped me get to where I am today and that they will continue to be apart of what helps me walk through this journey we call life.......


Even though it's taken a few weeks to get back into the routine I worked hard to make apart of my life in losing this weight....I haven't given up! I will continue forward with strength and faith to see this through...because well I want to! :)

Weight loss: 0

Total weight loss: -126 pounds

Relationships...

What a word...relationships. It's used to describe so many things, you have a relationship with your children, your parents, your siblings, your friends, your boyfriend/girlfriend, your husband/wife, your co-workers, your food....yes I said food. Here's the thing, I've had a relationship with food for a long time. Honestly I have realized that over the last 12 years I had a love hate relationship actually. I found that food never let me down, it never led me on, it never lied to me, it never disappointed me....but wait, it really did do all those things, and I just never realized it. I use to love to eat, pasta, pizza, sweets, a 4 course meal, whatever it was I would enjoy every moment of it because it filled all the other pain that happen to be going on at the time. I was like plaster "literally" filling in the cracks in my life. What an odd way to put it, but FINALLY I realized it.

Has it changed? Yes and No. Yes because I don't eat anymore to take the pain, disappointment or whatever negative thing going on in my life away. But No because I have learned to enjoy food, to actually taste it and to experience it. There is a scene in the movie Eat, Pray, Love when the main character and her friend at the time go to Naples Italy to experience the best pizza in the world and Julia Roberts, the main character explains that she's having "a relationship" with her pizza, but it's because she's truly enjoying it! That's how it should be; eating food should be something we experience...not something that we just do. Of course we eat to survive but do we eat to live or live to eat....I now eat to live.

Relationships come and go, we know that. Some will last just a moment and others will last a life time. But what we should be doing is instead of just living through the motions of a relationship we need to experience it. Yes, there will be pain and yes there will be disappointment but given the right experience it will be amazing...just like pizza. :)

Weight loss: 0

Total Weight loss: -126 pounds