Moment of truth and ants!

So I said last week I would face the music on the dreaded eeeevil scale today.  I did.  Not as bad as I guessed it could have been but not what I wanted either.  May I say first before I share that I've come a long way in accepting it's just a number to use a guiding point.  You do need some kind of measure to compare to in order to see that you've made some improvements.  That could be your measurements, it could be your shopping list, it could be that you've switched from regular sodas to diet, whatever it is it's just a starting point.  I also would like to say that on this journey I got down to 130lbs (from my highest being 200lbs) two years ago.  My dedicated weight loss journey started in the spring of 2009 and at that time I weighed 177lbs.  I have always had a hate relationship with my weight and body image.  Does it really take almost mid life to come to some acceptance?

  Sooooo here it is 142.4lbs Like I said not toooo bad.  I weighed 138 before Christmas though.  So that's a little over 4lbs gained.  I had weighed 134 a year ago. I had a particularly rough spring with a fainting spell that I had never experienced before and then put me into a tailspin through the summer.  I was in the middle of accepting that I had son who was about to graduate or possibly NOT!  SCARY!  But he did, thank you Lord.  And then I was faced with making the hard decision to put our youngest back into public school after homeschooling for two years.  I fell in love with that.  But it was our first experience with it and the reasons we had decided to do it were no longer an issue for him.  So mommy needed to put her big girl panties on and let him go.  It was the right decision and I feel like we have been blessed in both decisions. 

  Why I was telling you all this is because I started living my life.  Not just living for the diet and gym.  Putting some weight on is going to happen.  Now it's for me to figure out how not to keep putting on weight and to find a middle ground I'm happy with.  A nice middle would be 134-136.  I think I would be very accepting of that.  My new skinny clothes would always be comfortable and I wouldn't feel so restricted.  But right now I feel bloated and my new clothes don't feel good.

 So there it is.  My reality is that my goal is 8lbs, 10 would be fun for my birthday though.  But that's just not accepting the middle.

Ok on to a fun subject CAMPING!  We took out our new little love this weekend to a park we've been to before.  It has the Colorado River to fish and swim in, a park to climb on, trails, and lots of wildlife!  That's what I want to share about I saw one of the most amazing thing ever.  When Noah and I homeschooled we ordered an ant farm, ya know like we had as kids?  It was so cool but nothing like what we saw this weekend.  TRAILS of ants going through the fields, over the trails and making they're way through anything they wanted.  I wish my pictures showed the depth of the little interstates they had.  In the top picture that's our camper with trails leading to it through the field of clovers. 

These were way cooler than our little ant farm!

These trails were very distinct.  You could see how they had cut the grass and cleared the path.

You can see all the leaf cuttings that they carried to the hole and the hole is huge in comparison to them. 

Noah and Joe were very intrigued by these little workers.

I was amazed by them.   

   

Some other animals we have seen at the park are deer(they didn't a make an appearance this go round and neither did bandit), ducks, cows, alligator gar and this guy or gal.

I had to play with the exposure and color to get the details but I was very close to him.  So cool!

          

So that was our weekend: animals, smores, trails and football.  I love being outside and feel very blessed to have the opportunity to go exploring new campgrounds. This week I hope to follow a low-carb, low expense dinner menu, go to the gym everyday and try making this great phone charger to match my new kitchen decor-http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/12/holder-for-charging-cell-phone-made-from-lotion-bottle.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20MakeItAndLoveIt%20(Make%20It%20and%20Love%20It)

Wish I had thought of it.  She gives great directions and I will post how mine turns out at the end of the week.

Have a great day!

Hugs,

Deanna