I love wings, and these just took my breath away!

So while we were at the festival, I found a booth that had these STUNNING wings.  I know, fairies are everywhere and so are their wings. But THESE wings are handmade, hand painted and one of a kind. They make wands, wings, and outfits as well. They also make hats, and as I was standing there watching, two little girls got wings and hats, and the booth owner let them take 2 wands for free.  I was very impressed with his kindness, so I came closer to examine the works of art that were hanging on the booth.  I got permission from the booth owner to take pics, and I have contact information in case someone is interested in ordering some.  :)  I just HAVE to share some of the beauty!!!

 These are the ones for the little ones. They would be adorable on a baby, up to 2 years old I think is what he said. They are SO CUTE!!!  

 These are the BEAUTIFUL wands. They look just like flowers. I love it! 

 I SERIOUSLY want these wings!  I was floored with how beautiful they were, and the paint job is just... they left me speechless. 

 These are the wings that can be worn by Teenagers or adults.  They are SO fun, and not as extravagant as the wings on the walls. 

 These wings had peacock feathers on them, which helped to enhance how lovely they were! 

 These are sets for the kiddos. They had a skirt, a bracelet, and wings. And they were $35 for them, which made me want them a little bit more.  A complete outfit!  And so stinking cute! 

 The mermaid wings... Sigh... 

 Pink and glitter... Need I say more?  :) 

 These are the wings for the toddlers to the 9 year old kiddos. They are SO cute, and the flowers are hats!!! 

 More beautiful wings... The peacock feathers made them a bit more but SO worth it! 

 The colors.... 

 This set was calling my name, but I had to walk away from it... 

 The wings that look like leaves... the imagination just blows my mind! 

And THESE are the ones that I ended up getting for myself, and for my sister to be able to use in her Studio. 

  The flower hat was too cute, and this one I think is just for me.  I don't think I will be letting anyone else wear it.

This is the other pair of wings I got that I loved!  They are so soft and pretty... I just couldn't resist.

The Dickens Festival was FUN!

One of the perks of living where we do is that we are close enough to a lot of amazing things.  We are close to Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Calico Ghost Town to name a few.  We have made amazing friends from all walks of life, and we are able to enjoy their company as often as possible.  One of the amazing things we have been able to do is to go down and see the "Charles Dickens Festival" where people are able to dress up in Victorian clothes and re-enact the time frame.  This is much like we do at the Renaissance Pleasure Fair in the spring.  I enjoyed walking around and seeing people in their outfits and how beautiful some of their clothes were.  I just had to share some of the joy, so I took pics to show. :)

 The Queen of the festival, Victoria. 

 The court with her Majesty. 

 I think that this was a princess.  The tiara kind of helps to support that thought.

 Our friend Susan.  Love her outfit, it's SO pretty! 

 Our friend Lewis.  Looking dashing! 

 Beautiful Brenda!  Such a talented lady! 

 Christina and her son... He is SO cute! 

 Her son was hiding behind her, but when he noticed me taking pictures he took drastic measures. 

 He was being shy, so he hid UNDER her skirt.  

 The cutie pie playing with a balloon. 

 High Tea with the nobility. 

 Another princess. :) 

 The queen.  

This is just a few of the pics, but I didn't want to share them all.  I had such a good time. It was incredible! And I got a few trinkets from it, since next year we are planning on joining in the fun and making costumes.

Reflections

So in 4 DAYS it will be 5 months since I started to change my life with this journey. I can't believe that it has almost 5 months.  I weighed in today, and it was a depressing 0.00 weight loss for the week. I stayed exactly where I was last week. But it's not a gain, so it's okay.  As I look back, I am surprised as to how much I have worked to keep myself on the path that I want to be on.  I have decided that I needed to change, and I am glad that I was strong enough to keep going. The biggest thing that I have had a challenge with has been the mindset.
When you start to loose the weight, you start to feel like "Wow, this is easy. Cut back on what I am eating, and it melts off!"  And yes, it does melt off when you start to cut back. But it is anything but easy. There is a constant battle going on inside your head.  There is the fight to stop yourself as you reach for that cookie during the day, and you have to ask yourself "Are you ready to stop eating them when you reach the serving size?"  If you aren't willing to stop, than the question becomes "Do you have enough points to be able to blow your entire day on those cookies?"  If you don't, than you have to ask yourself "do you have the extra points you are willing to spend on this indulgence?"  By this point, you have eaten 2 of the servings already, and decided it was worth it, right? :)
I was telling myself "This is so stupid, this is never going to work" for the first week.  I was angry, for about 3 weeks of starting this because I was telling myself I couldn't have what I wanted to have.  I was telling myself to stop indulging as much as I was, and I was trying to control myself.  This was the hardest thing, to tell myself to stop.  I can be very stubborn (I wonder where I get that from....) and it can be either good or bad. A lot of times it can be good, but with this situation it was almost a bad thing.  I was so stubborn about how I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, that I almost stopped myself before I started.  I almost quit in the 2nd week, when I lost another 3 pounds.  I had to fight back against myself as I thought "Why are you doing this?  This is so stupid... I am NOT going to count everything for the rest of my life.  I am just SO over this... This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of."  It was so negative, and I was so wrapped up in what I thought I was loosing that I didn't see what I was gaining.
Here I am going to digress...
Isn't that how we are with life?  We sit there complaining about what we don't have, and we don't see what we do have, or what we are gaining instead.  Instead of complaining about what we think we should have, maybe we should see what we do have.  Instead of worrying about tomorrow, maybe we should be more thankful for today.  So while I have a larger frame, I am not complaining anymore about being a bigger woman.  I am going to be thankful that I have my health. That I have my figure slimming down, even if it is happening slowly. Because honestly, that's the most healthy thing I could do.  And it's not like I would ever (or could even afford) to go get surgery to loose the weight. If I was getting surgery, it would be on my eyes to help me not have to depend on contacts or glasses anymore. But at the same time, I am glad that we live in a time where we have modern medicine to allow us to be able to have plastic pieces to put into our eyes to allow us to see without having the lenses in front of us...  Ok I am done.  :) I will go back to what I was saying before.
So now I am back. Laughs. I may go off on tangents a little, since that's just who I am.
It was hard to look at food as more of a necessity than a comfort.  Food was always there for me, as nothing else could be.  My family was there, but sometimes I needed more than they could give because I felt like they weren't filling that need. So I would turn to chocolate.  I would turn to sweets, and fats that I didn't need. I would turn to things that "wouldn't let me down" and I would indulge. And I didn't stop indulging.  It was a crutch, and it was killing me slowly.
It has been hard to be on this journey. Mom has her group that she can go to, and be told how amazing she is doing and get these little trinkets to show her loss. She has been able to be supported and uplifted, and I have mom.  I have my friends, but I don't tell too many people I am doing this because I didn't want to feel judged.  I haven't even told my Grandmother on my dad's side yet, because I don't want her to judge me.  I don't want to have her make her comments about if I should eat something should she see me.  We have had a rocky relationship, because she was constantly watching what I put into my mouth and judging me for it. This happened because she wasn't happy with herself, and I feel NOW that she was trying to be helpful in her own way. I didn't see it at the time, but looking back on what I had been through I can see how she was trying to help. I hope that now I am doing this FOR ME and NO ONE ELSE we can actually have a relationship where I can feel like she sees me, and not what she would like to change reflected back at her.
I will say, I can totally and COMPLETELY understand how hard this is to do on your own. I will find myself in my room, and I would suddenly think "If you have something now, who would know?" Or right now, when no one is home I can't help but think "You can eat what you want, and as much as you want.  Who would know about it? No one is home."  That's when I have to slap that stupid, annoying voice down and say "You can't talk to me like that."  If it gets too annoying, I will go and steam some more carrots.  Or maybe some squash... Butternut Squash has become my addiction.  I have a little bit of butter, some salt, and a TINY bit of brown sugar in it, and than a dash of cinnamon, and it is DIVINE!  So good... little salty, sweet, and just fabulous.
If it's the motion of chewing I want, I will have some gum and that helps. Or if I think I am hungry, I will get some water.  Sometimes the brain confuses the messages, the body needs water not food and we interpret it as hungry again.  So it's important to get to know your body and what it REALLY is asking for.
And I digressed again. I am good at that. But, having your family support you in your decision is very important.  And ignoring the media.  The media will brainwash you to think you NEED to eat something, and it is not something that you need.
If your body is craving it, than eat it.  There is a reason that your body needs it, and take small, slow bites.  It helps to realize that the craving is being acknowledged, and is taken care of.  It validates it, and it allows your body to stop craving it.
So I have decided to allow myself to grow and be free.  Once I gave myself the permission to be free, to loose the attitude, and to stop using food as a crutch, I found myself able to dedicate myself to what I am doing.  I had to give myself the permission to let go.  I had to tell myself it is okay.  I am doing what I need to so that I can be as healthy as I can be.
This journey has helped to shape me,and helped me to be strong.  I need to allow myself to continue to move forward and stop holding myself back.  The hardest thing about loosing weight is admitting to yourself that you did this to yourself.  You punished yourself, for whatever reason.  You felt that you did something, and you didn't deserve to be happy so you punished yourself with the one thing that you could control and make yourself "feel better."
My life has changed and will continue to change.  I need to allow myself the permission to keep going, and stop holding myself back.  And I have decided to stop. And will keep stopping myself from holding myself back.
And one last thing... I had a friend ask me yesterday what changed because I had a sparkle about me.  Something to think about.  :) You sparkle....

Silence is Golden...

Today I got on the scale to weigh myself, and it was a fun thing to do.  I got on last night because I forgot to do it in the morning.  After eating all day, I was weighing in at 5 pounds lighter than last week (Thank goodness) and was excited to get up this morning and see how it translated.  Well, I got up and the scale said I was 3 pounds lighter instead, which made me kinda sad.  I was excited to see me within 4 pounds of my 50 pound weight loss goal. So I went and made breakfast, and got ready to get into the shower.  I showered (to warm up, it's FREEZING!!!) and got on the scale again (glutton for punishment) and was DELIGHTED to see that I had dropped again to 5.3 pounds lighter than last week.  I think I am going to count THAT weigh in as the one for the week. Laughs.  I was just too excited, and came back a little later and got the same results again.  So I am happy that it finally was where I wanted it to be.
This morning, I woke up to a sore throat and when I got a call to go to work I tried to talk to find I had no voice.  Now if I was going to do campus monitor, I could do that because I would rely on the whistle and not talk to the kids.  BUT this job offer was for an instructional associate, working one on one with a child.  I couldn't do that, I didn't want the children around me to get what I had. SO I had to decline and stay home.
I have spent the day in my room, in my bed.  I was warm in my bed, I LOVED being warm. And I was able to work on an afghan that I am making for my sweet niece for her 8th birthday.  8 years old, and getting baptized!  I am SO proud of her.  She is such a sweetie pie.
So today I am sitting at having dropped 4 pant sizes.  I am down from a size 28 to a size 22 in my jeans.  I am wearing a size 22 to 24 in my slacks, depending on the cut.  It is a HUGE accomplishment for me.  I also am able to fit into a smaller size top than I had in the past, I can put on a cami 2 sizes smaller than I was able to wear before.  It's an accomplishment for me to be able to be SO much closer to the 50 pounds I wanted to loose.  It is an excitement, and it really helps me when I think back on where I started.  And we just started this in September.  It's only been about 4 months, and I am already seeing the results I wanted. It's a LOT of hard work, to stop yourself when your body is telling you that it wants you to keep going. It's hard when you are craving something, so you give in and eat it.  Than you worry about going up in your weight loss.  And you worry about telling your family.  I haven't told my grandmother yet, as I want to surprise her with my progress the next time I see her.  I want to be down 75 pounds the next time I see her, which is possible.  I may be able to be at that goal by Michael's graduation in April.  We will see what happens.  But I am just grateful that I was able to be down some more instead of going up again.
And silence is golden because I have lost my voice.  I woke up this morning with my throat burning and my voice missing.  I hate that it hurts to talk, and I hate that it hurts to swallow.  I know this shall pass quickly, but for now, silence is golden.  :)

Little things make me smile

Tonight was a good night. I was able to go down and see an elder that served in our area for 9 months at his farewell from our area.  He is such a nice guy, and like a little brother to me.  I was glad that we were able to be there for him, and show him our love and support and congratulate him on being able to go home.  There was a fun little thing that happened, there was a group of people that was outside the doors, all elders in their jackets and name tags.  I was looking for a couple who was coming down, and I was saving them a seat when I saw the elders.  SO I smiled at one of them. Tall, cute, blonde, and I was happy that he was "going home" as I assumed that all the Elders out there were going to be leaving Tuesday.
Imagine my surprise when I was sitting there with my family, and this Elder I smiled at comes over, shakes my hand, and asks me which elder we are there to say goodbye to.  That was how I found out that he is STILL on a mission, not going home.  Still cute but..... You know... Found out that he was from Provo, and that he had never heard of our area.  I told him he needed to talk to Elder Nielsen about how well we feed the missionaries, and how we are a wonderful area.  It was great to smile and talk to him (AKA: Flirt) and just feel very attractive.  I had never had it happen where I smiled at someone, and off that smile they came over to talk to me.  It really makes you feel better about yourself when this happens to you.
So, this is just capping off a really fun weekend.  On Friday, I went dancing.  I haven't done that for a while, I haven't been able to afford to and there weren't any dances out here. So we had a large group of girls come with me, and we all got dolled up.  I even went so far as to have fake eyelashes and smokey eyes. I was not shy, and had a sparkly top.  The only thing that bummed me out was that I couldn't fit my formal dress, it was just a little too tight in the tummy and I didn't want the material shredding on me or having to fidget with the dress and adjust it all night.  So, we get there and it's very nicely decorated.  The only issue I am having is that I am not feeling it all of a sudden.  I just didn't want to be there after about 5 minutes. It wasn't because of the people I was with, I think it was because of the people that I wasn't with. My best friends couldn't be there, and my girls are either married or moved that I usually hit these scenes with. So I had some other girls come with me, and I didn't know how much dancing they were going to do or if they even wanted to dance. For me, it's all about dancing with your friends.  Feeling confident and comfortable, enjoying the music and feeling the joy of what is around you.
So the music is going on during the dinner, we are enjoying the music and the conversation isn't that bad.... But we all get done and I am looking around and it is a very small turn out.  I would have thought since they were feeding everyone that more people would have come... Apparently not. But than again, this is the High Desert. You can't really count on anyone to do anything.
They planned on having the dinner portion for about an hour and a half, and I was getting bored so I took out the yarn and the hat I was crocheting since I knew that it may happen and I needed to keep my hands busy.  (It's a job hazard, from Massage Therapy I think..) So I was sitting there crocheting, and was content, and thinking about leaving before it even started.  As sad as it was, I didn't want to be there because I was feeling under-dressed as everyone else there was in their formal wear and I was in church clothes.  It also was hard because I am so much older than everyone else there, so I started to feel like I was babysitting everyone.  So instead, I grabbed my camera and started to take a few shots of everyone dancing and waited for the music to get good. There was one song that we danced to (We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together) and that was before the dance proper started.
So once the dance started, we were able to get our groove on, and it ended up being a blast. I had to let go, I had to stop holding myself back, and I had to allow myself to have fun.  It was an amazing feeling to allow myself to have the freedom to be confident and just enjoy the time.  There was one point where I was singing along to the song, looking at the girls around me, and I honestly felt that this was the happiest I had been in the longest time.  I was grateful that the girls came, and that we were able to come out with me.
I was able to see old friends, get some great pictures, and spend time with those who matter most to me.  We stayed until about 11:15, but by then my feet started to swell a little, and my hips and legs were burning form all the dancing (best workout EVER) and I was tired. So instead, we went to Wal-Mart at 11:30.  Yup, we decided we wanted Chocolate.  Dressed in Formal and Church Dress, at Wal-Mart at 11:30 in Hesperia California.  Yeah... the poor workers.  We were also incredibly hyper.  Four girls. Just imagine... 3 of them are in heels that are insane. I was in boots. :) I wasn't so silly.  So we are walking around, grabbing our Chocolate and singing and laughing.  And some dancing as well.  :)  We even were asked why we were so dressed up by a stock person. It was funny to see the looks they were giving us.
I got home and to bed by 1.  Than I had this tonight, and I was able to put on pants that are 5 sizes smaller than I used to have to buy.  That's right.  FIVE SIZES SMALLER!!  I used to wear a REALLY large size, but they had them in my style and this size I thought I would try for kicks and giggles.  They fit like a GLOVE. So of course I HAD to get them.  This has been the best weekend I have had in a long time.
And this is why the little things in life make me smile.  :)

Another day, another battle

Telling yourself you are going through a lifestyle change is hard, but I think saying you are on a diet would be a lot harder.  It's easier to say you are going off a diet, it is also easier to cheat yourself when you are on a diet.
I am having a lifestyle change, and while it is hard, it is something that I had to do. I feel more confident than I did before, and while I can't see immediate changes, I will say that I am seeing a change in my pants.  I was pushing a really large size, and recently was able to fit into pants that are 3 sizes smaller than the pants I was fitting in before.  Of course, this depends on the pant itself, and the cut of the pants.
Jeans are a little harder to squeeze into, there is not as much give as slacks.  That can be a little depressing, however when you see your pants going down and your tops are going slower. It's like "Can't you go down together?  Why is it just loosing on the bottom???"  I will say that I am fitting better in my clothes, and tops that used to be super tight are now fitting better.  However, it is annoying that while my clothes are fitting better, I am still not at the size that I would like to be.
However, when I look back I am glad for where I am.  I am a lot more healthy now than I was.  And while working yesterday and today at the High School and walking around for 3 1/2 hours each time isn't ideal, it did allow me to walk off most of what I ate during the day.  It was crazy to stand there, in the cold at 6:30 in the morning and watch the sun rise, but it was beautiful.
I don't regret my decision, it's just a lot more work than I am used to. And I hope to be able to keep this going.  I weigh myself tomorrow morning, and I have currently lost 43 lbs. I will hopefully go down, but sometimes I go up and that's OK. Sometimes you have to go up before you drop again.

I am grateful that my mom is doing this, because this is allowing me to take the control I need to have in my life. This was me before I started this whole thing...

This is me now.  I will add more as they come up.  I think my face looks a bit smaller, but that could just be me.  :) Here's to more weight coming off, and more joy in who I am.

A mostly hard day

Today was kind of hard to be honest. For some reason, I just wanted to keep eating today.  I wanted to eat more Oreo's than I should.  I wanted to eat more candy than I should.  I wanted to just keep eating. I wasn't satisfied, but I wasn't hungry.  I had the desire to just keep going, and I hate it. I hate that I have that fat person still inside me, whispering that the amount I am eating isn't enough.  I hate that it's still telling me to eat more, and to blow off all this hard work that I had done to this point.
I will continue to fight that desire, and that urge. But I don't want to keep fighting this urge, I need to figure out how to stop it. There is something that is triggering that desire, and I need to figure out what it is.  I know I crave Chocolate at certain times, and I know that I can sometimes crave the motion of eating. That's where gum really comes in handy.  However, I also know that I don't need to eat everything I can get my hands on.  I need to control my emotions, and to keep myself from destroying myself.
I did eat, and I did stop myself. I didn't eat more Oreo's than I should, but I did have 1 more than I should. I had 2 servings of Mini Chewy Sweettarts, and I had gum.  Lots of gum.  I stopped myself before I was too bad, but it was HARD.  Insanely hard. And I hope to keep my resolve strong.