It's been a long time!

Hello there!  

So it's been a long time, since I last posted here. (Shame on me)  To be honest there has been so much going on that I simply haven't stopped to write about it.  What I'm going to do though is try to post an over view of things here.... then some individual elaborations.  Cool? lol   I hope so.

So since December, God has shown himself MIGHTY in my life.  

• The "impossible" reconciliation has become a reality.  (Yay!)
• I've rejoined our music ministry at church.
• My family has moved into a super cute townhouse.
• We got our son all signed up for a great Kindergarten program starting in the fall.
• Kids are doing great, potty training runs my life and I found that loose teeth kind of gross's me out. (seriously)
• I'm currently a stay at home mom full time.

There is more, but these were some of the most pressing matters that had me thinking and praying and stressing when we last spoke.

So let's just chat about today.  Today, it is snowing non-stop in Colorado.  While the last several days it's been in the 70's, but hey thats why we love Colorado.  It's beautiful and unpredictable.  Here, you know what direction your driving by identifying where the mountains are. People wear flip flops with winter coats, and it's not that strange to see shorts in the winter time.  But it's where were live and I love it  :-)

While I'm still getting my head wrapped around the types of activities to do with my kiddo's while we are all here together, I did get the inspired idea to work on craft projects that coordinate with the bible stories we read during the week.  But instead of doing a different story each day, like I was doing, I'll focus on one topic for the full week and build crafts aroud that.  Unfortunately we are out of sink with the current Torah portion, but this being our first week we are focussing on Genesis 1:1-2... all of Gods creation.   So it's time to make our fish.   Pictures to come.  

Blessings...

Weight loss update

Sooooo I am way over due for an update to my weight loss journey. But first some confessions.

1. I'm whack, in that I never took my skinny fiber as consistently as I should have.

2. I'm still in my third bottle and I'm in my 4th month (go figure).

3. My diet never really improved that much and I still hardly EVER eat breakfast. (I know.... I know)

4. Remember when I said I was definitely going to do that 30-day ab challenge.... Yeah I think I did 2 days of that. (I said I was whack!!!)

5. Ummmm I also didn't get to the treadmill like I said I would. :-/

Ok. But despite ALL of these things. I still to date have lost 23 lbs. And am fitting into some jeans that haven't seen the light of day for like 3 years.

I'm not where I desire to be yet, but boy if it's not nice to no longer be where I was at. So round two of skinny finer will be starting in January and I'm excited to get another 20 lbs off. This time me and the Knowable Fitness guy are meeting twice a week to help keep me on a "work out" page as well as a fiber page. Wish me luck!!

Sometimes sleeping

So. I woke up after a very restless 2.5 hours of sleep, and after turning and rolling and trying for a bit more I've realized that sometimes sleeping doesn't cure our woes. Especially when you can't get any.

I have always been an emotion stuffer, I learned from an early age that it's not always appropriate to wear every emotion on your face. I remember it being take your daughter to work day and my mom was cross with me at lunch time for a reason I don't remember. As we walked in the parking garage from her car back to the building one of her co-workers was walking toward us, my mother shot me one of those "tighten up or else" looks and I promptly put on my most pleasant smile. Pleasant but fake. I don't know why, but that moment seemed to define how I viewed a lot of my life. Things like "never let them see you sweat" played in my mind even at times when it made sense to be vulnerable and hurt. Now I by no means mastered the technique for successful non-public perspiration living too the point that my emotions would at times over whelm me and take over. But I always regretted these displays after.

So anyway, I learned to stuff. I trained myself not to cry for very long, especially not if someone could see me. I would push my emotions down to a more manageable place until I was in a physical position to deal with them (at home). But ohhhhh the consequences of such "self control" tactics. My stuffing became so severe I could hardly allow myself an emotional display in my own solitude. Those tears meant something about me, that I was weak in a particular area or some other reprehensible idea in my mind. The only useful place for these expressions was in my relationships....yeah right. If you stuff enough, you can't express yourself in a useful way it's just bitter, unforgiving, unresolved anger and hurt. That's a recipe for disastrous communication and unfair fighting.

But I did it. Matter of fact up until this moment i don't think I ever really considered the consequence of it all. But I've had an extra couple of hours to think about it this morning....

So here you go. My heart hurts, I mean really hurts over this marriage. Divorce and separation is like a death in the family. It's seeing every dream I held onto be ripped out of my heart and mercilessly destroyed moment by moment. It's knowing that there is no possible way I can recreate the lost time and moments and feeling lost and defeated about it all. It's every question you don't want to ask, but your soul needs an answer to: did I try my best, did I give my all, was it because of ______, will I ever have what I dreamt of? Where do I go now?

I'm so angry and so sad and so hurt. I wanted to sleep off that last conversation we had, but my little 2.5 hours of sleep was no where near the week long coma that I needed.

Sometimes sleeping doesn't give you rest, not if you clutter your brain and heart up with every unprocessed emotion you've felt.

Hi- my name is Delijah and I need to get some real sleep. Period.

Weight Loss Update!!

Hey there!

I've been rolling with so many thoughts I've neglected to get an update on here.   I know!  I'm whack sometimes, but one thing I'm learning about being CEO of my own life and my house is that I have to schedule pretty much everything.  Or at least everything that matters. :-) 

I have to schedule when I'll get my cleaning done, (haven't been scheduling enough of that this past couple of weeks), schedule when I chat with friends, when I'm sitting down to study the word, exercise, budget, bills... BREATHE!  SO I definitely need to have a set time that I update my blog and do my weigh ins.  

Right now I can't weigh in completely but I can tell you that two days ago I was down another 2 LBS YAY!!  That makes 16 total since I started.   Now somehow I restarted my count down on our 90-day challenge website, it is giving me more time than I technically have remaining.  So I kind of have to guestimate.  I have been doing the challenge since the last week of August so thats about 11 weeks. 

My personal results have been great, but not as impressive as some people that I've seen.  And this is because of ME.  lol   I haven't done much to change my eating habits, it's been almost impossible to get work out time in but some how I've still managed to lose the better part of 20 pounds just by taking the fiber every day. (and even with that, I haven't been perfect)   THIS IS EMBARASSING!!

But if nothing else this should be clear evidence to you that Skinny Fiber really does work.   I'm not fluffing it up!   I would not have lost any of this weight if it weren't for taking skinny fiber.  I'll definitely continue taking it and once this 90-days ends, I'll start another one with better scheduling/planning/dedication on my part.

I may not have lost 40 lbs, but sure what I have lost has made a huge impact on me.  My skin is more clear, I have more energy and I'm down a full pant size, with this size giving me a littls space now too :-)  Don't be afraid to try it for yourself! 

Check out the pictures below for some of the great results that I've seen in other people taking Skinny Fiber!

Plant a Seed

I was having a conversation with someone that I love dearly about a week ago  (last Wednesday morning to be exact) and he planted a seed of thought in my head that I’ve had to look at from several different angles.  But let me back track…

Wednesday October 31 was a DAY… I don’t personally celebrate Halloween but as a new member of my team at work I felt that my participation in our team costume would be a good idea.  So I got up that morning, prepared the children for school and with the help of my father got the kids loaded into the truck.  As my dad and I parted ways, I began to walk around to the drivers side of the truck when I noticed a young man, maybe 15 years old, looking around (suspiciously) and walking to the driver’s side door.  You see from his view this truck looked like an easy target sitting outside running with no one inside.  What he couldn’t see were my children in the back seat, me walking around or my dad who had just gone into the garage.  Not until I got around the back of the truck, so he turned and tried to walk away nonchalantly, but it was too late I saw him, I read the situation and knew exactly what would have happened if I’d taken another 3 seconds to be visible. 

If… that’s such a powerful word here.  What if, I’d crouched down to pick something up from the ground.  What if, I’d stood talking to my dad a little longer…. What if that young man (boy) had gotten into the truck and taken off on his “Joy Ride” with my kids in the car… What IF that had happened? 

The situation swirled in my head and I was filled with so much anger and disappointment toward this young man, then immediately FOR him.  That one choice could have changed the course of his life permanently.  Grand theft auto, turned into 2 counts of kidnapping with that one foolish choice.  It burned me up that he lacked the hope for the future that is necessary to keep our young people from making bad choices.  That keeps them choosing to walk to school instead of away from school, ditching, looking for foolish ways to fill that time.  This young man turned and walked away… in the opposite direction of the local High School.  

I thought about it, and I decided to inform him of something… so I pulled up along side him (he was after all walking the same direction as me with my drive), I rolled down the window and I shouted out “Young Man!... I just wanted you to know.  If you were thinking about getting in this truck, both of my kids are in here so that would be 2 kidnapping counts IMMEDIATELY.”  He stammered.  “No!  Why would you say that… I wasn’t even… why you say something like that?”  so I said again.  “I just wanted you to know!!”  and I pulled off. 

I hope it scared him.  I hope that he went to his friends house, changed shirts and looked over his should for the rest of the day.  More than that, I hope that he will think twice before making another one of those “feels good in the moment” choices that could potentially devastate his young life for years to come.   

MY Day Continued on though…. And I spoke with this dear friend during my commute….

I shared with him what had happened with the young man, the truck, the possibilities and the frustration.  We discussed more though, we talked about the marriage, the failure, the why… a gambit of different things.  And from this conversation a seed was planted that has caused me to look more closely at me.  To want to clean out my spiritual and emotional closets and be FREE from whatever could be binding me. 

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

Shabbat Shalom

Just thought I would share my Facebook post from this morning:

Good Morning! Shabbat Shalom... It's funny I woke early this morning and so far have had great clarity and the opportunity the take care of some "business". LOL I was jamming to a little Jill Scott on my Pandora when it FROZE UP Completely! and on a nice little flow too (little spicy though... you know Jill). So I had to stop what I was looking at, and I'm trying to get Pandora rolling again...not happening. So I went to my Donnie McClurkin station. YES!!! (sing it with me: "Speak to my heart Lord, give me your holy WORD, if I can hear from YOU, then I'll know what to do...")

Love THAT!!! and I love that God gave us the Sabbath as a day to rest and join in with HIM. My to-do list can wait....my shopping list can wait....my budget can wait.... it's time to enjoy this beautiful time with the Lord.

Be Blessed today family! and safe this weekend. :-)
and if I can preach a little bit, can I just encourage you. Don't feel pressured to participate in and do things you don't agree with or believe in. Be confident and secure in what you believe. The RIGHT thing for you and your family is not always the "Popular" thing. AND WHO CARES!!!! How I run my house is between me and the Lord! Don't believe the hype, it's better to stand on your convictions, WHATEVER they are.

Donnie McClurkin - Speak to My Heart

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I won't stop there though!!!   Here's another song I LOVE that truly encourages me :

Maureen Black Clark - It Ain't Over

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One More?   SURE!!!!  

Mary Mary - What is This

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I could do this all day!  :-)   But I won't.

~Bye for now

A new Dream

As a child, I dreamed about many things, one of which was becoming an Olympic figure skater, my parents even bought me white ice skates one year (the ones with the Canadian leaf on the side).  I remember going to the ice rink and trying those skates out, it was much more difficult than I'd imagined but as I glided over the ice that dream became more and more real to me.  The fall that I took hurt (BIG TIME) but it didn't dissuade me.  I just recognized that becoming the world class figure skater that I saw in my mind was going to take a lot more work than I originally thought.

Time passed by, and my dreams grew and changed.  The same little girl that wanted to ice skate grew into a young lady that wanted to sing, write children’s books and do back handsprings in front of a gym full of my peers.  I grew up and my dreams grew too, the things that I desired I started to turn into tangible goals, but I reserved some of my dreams for the "one-day" category of life.  Others though, I knew I wanted to achieve immediately, down to that first kiss with my high school sweet heart. 

What I've come to understand as an adult is that having a dream is almost as important as knowing your purpose.  Dreams cause us to think outside of what we believe to be possible and give us a desire that is loftier than just day to day fulfillment.  Some dreams are a bit silly I suppose or completely ridiculous, but all of them serve a purpose.  The dreams that we have help us to identify what we want out of life, they provide a sliver of optimism when things seem dreary.

I remember dreaming about what my wedding would look like, the dress I'd wear, the location of the ceremony, celebrating after and going on this romantic honey moon, I even dreamt about life after the wedding... the entire event was planned in totality in my mind. 

And now I know it's time for a new dream.

I'm excited, and nervous, and happy, and overwhelmed and..... a ton of different emotions about my new chapter in life.  But so far I've developed a sense of direction because I re-opened my dream box, and somehow the things that I want for my family are looking more and more tangible.  (the traveling that I want to do goes hand in hand with the international school I want to send my kids to.  Go Figure...)

Dream Big!
~Bye for now...