Whoops!

It's been a year since my last post. I bet you never thought I would be back! So many things going on right now and I am not sure where to start. I guess the biggest new thing we have is our newest dog Stanley. He is currently our foster to adopt but hopefully we will be finalizing on him soon. He is the best dog and we are so lucky to have found him. He and Wiggles are best friends and they help each other with their separation anxiety.  Wiggles is still her punky self but she has calmed down so much since Stanley (aka Bug) came into our house. He has only been here since the end of February but cannot imagine our family without him. I will get some pictures up of him and Wiggles because they are so cute together.

I am sure you have noticed that there is a name change to the blog. The Murray Milestones will be about our little family and the activities that we do together and enjoy. I will keep everyone updated with what is going on as we navigate married and family life.

So kick back and enjoy our blog! :)

My summer goals

This winter I have been really neglecting myself. Luckily I have not really gained weight but between working 2 nights a week and being in class I have not had time to take care of myself. That is going to change once my new schedule starts on June 10th. No more nights and I will be getting off work a little earlier than I had been. I have still been going to the gym to work out with Jacquie but I am only getting in around 1 or 2 days a week. I honestly need to get there more but it just does not work with my schedule right now. So my goal is once my new schedule starts is to work out at least every weekday. I am going to ride my bike and also start the couch to 5K because one of my goals this year was to be able to run a 5K by the end of the year. I am hoping that I can accomplish this goal and really start to take care of myself.

I have been riding my bike a couple of days a week and I love it but I want to be able to do more. So I am going to invest in a new bike seat and start riding.  I am hoping to be able to get some distance on my bike. It is fun to ride and it was one of my favorite things to do growing up. I am going to blog my distances and how I feel as much as I remember to.

So hear comes my summer of biking/running!

Excitement

I told Adam of my plans for the diet and workouts and he is actually on board and may actually help with it! I am excited because he and I can work as a team on this. Hopefully both of us can get into shape together and get healthier! Tomorrow is the big day and I decided that I am going to weigh in and take before and after pictures to keep track of my progress. I will try to post the before pictures on here if they are not too horrible haha.

Cannot wait to start!

Spiraling

Out of control.

No other way to describe it. My weight has gone up as my exercise has gone down. My food intake is out of control. I am having crazy cravings all the time for things that I would normally never buy. This happens every time my weight starts to go up. The crazy thing for me is that the scale says about the same weight as it always does but I look in the mirror and know that something is not quite the way it is supposed to be. Honestly I am not having any type of depression symptoms and my anxiety has been as in control as it can get. Because of school my stress is up which is to be expected. Also in January I was put on steroids for the eczema that got pretty severe on my stomach and legs. Finally it is starting to clear up. But it makes me feel pretty self-concious. My beautiful legs have red marks all up and down them from the infection that I got with the eczema. It looks a lot better than it has but I know it is there. A round of anti-biotics has made it better but there is still a good 2-3 weeks before they are hardly noticeable. Its tough since we are having unseasonably warm temperatures here in Indy right now. I have to make sure that my pants or skirt cover the bottoms of my legs so that no one can see. Although the main reason I don’t want people to see is because I just don’t want them to ask questions.  It is just frustrating. Not to mention some of the other stuff that we have been going through which I am not really ready to talk about on here yet.

So since my weight is spiraling I have decided that I really need to get things under control. Starting Sunday I am doing a total overhaul of what I am doing now. No more eating junk. More fruits and veggies. Limiting the processed foods. No alcohol. Limiting soda. Drinking lots of water. One of the main things that I need to get under control is my PCOS. With the PCOS it is so hard to keep my weight down. I would love to be able to get my weight down enough to be able to go off the Metformin and regulate my body so that everything is more regular. I am going to start to do my work outs 5 days a week and restart the couch to 5k. I am also going to start blogging more because it keeps me more accountable.

Eczema

A long time ago (like 20 years ago) I had a problem with eczema.  I can remember my ankle would get really itchy and the skin would get all scaly and red. I can remember being told not to itch it. My mom had a cream in a little jar in their bedside table that they would put on my ankle at night.  But all of a sudden it went away and except for a little patchiness here and there during the summer I did not have any outbreaks.

Fast forward to now: Starting in December I started getting patchy eczema on my hands. I thought nothing of it since it was close to Christmas and I was in the kitchen cooking a lot more. But it kept going so I went to the doctor and they prescribed a cream to put on it. By the time I went to the doctor it was on my stomach too.  Which once I put the cream on it started to go away.  Now I have it in a different place on my stomach.  It looks different this time now too. It also started on my legs. If anyone knows me one thing I do pride myself on is that I do not have fat girl legs.  I am able to wear shorts and I think I look good in them.   But now my legs look horrible. I am trying not to itch them although it is painful and itchy. And red.  I am frustrated and really need to go back to the doctor because I am afraid it is going to scar my legs.  Honestly I am scared that they are going to tell me that it is going to scar and that is why I am so afraid to go. Tomorrow I am going to go back to the Medchek that first gave me the cream. I know I probably need to go to my own doctor but honestly I think that I need to find a good dermatologist. My mom thinks that the stress from school and work and everything else is causing it to flare up so bad. Hopefully stress is all that is causing it because I can find something to help control my stress.  Hopefully I am wrong and overly paranoid and it really is not going to scar.  I know this post is a bunch of rambling but I needed to get this frustration off my chest!!

End of January update!!

Wow—January has gone super fast! Here it is already the 27^th.   Honestly this month has kicked my butt. School is keeping me busier than I anticipated and I still have so many online classes that I need to finish. I kind of bit off way more than I can chew in the online class department, but I am slowly getting them under control. I was able to get one class grade posted and it really helped my GPA. Here is hoping that I get good grades in the rest of these classes and my GPA continues to get higher!  I also am working very different hours right now than I am used to. Which is hard because I am working the same kind of hours as Adam but we are both so busy that it is hard to get time together, but we are working it out like we always do.  Sometimes I feel like I am just ready to have a normal marriage and time together but then I look at my married friends and very few of them have 24/7 to spend with their husbands anyways. I also remember that what we are doing right now is for the greater good and will benefit our family and future children someday.

Working out is going well. I am pushing along. I feel like I have been doing well but the scale is not reporting that.  For now I am just doing the best I can and hoping that someday the pounds will start to come off.  I also have to remember that I am battling something more than most people that are trying to lose weight with the PCOS. It is hard but I know I can get this weight off. I have done it before and I can do it again. Keeping my diet on track is the important part but also the hardest part. 

Well just wanted to give everyone an update. I am going back to the books. Hopefully I can get this online class over with this weekend which will take alot of the stress off.

Goals for 2012

I know it has been awhile since I have updated and I know I have said that I will update more and never have but this blog is going to be one of my goals for the year.  But I also have some other goals that I would like to do this year. When talking to Jacquie my trainer this morning I started thinking about what I would like to accomplish. There are many things that I would like to accomplish in the year or next couple of months. Here is a list of some of those things.

1. I would love to look in the mirror and be completely satisfied with what I see.  I would say since my back surgery I have not really looked in the mirror and like what was looking back. That is not to say that I hate what I look  like. I am just unhappy with it. That is when I feel like I really started to spin out of control is around October 2009 when I really hurt my back. I just want to be comfortable in my own skin again.
2. Speaking of my back—I would like to stop using it as my crutch . I feel like sometimes I am afraid to try new things because I am afraid it will hurt my back. I need to get over that fear and get out of my comfort zone. I feel like if I do not get out of my comfort zone then I will never accomplish anything.
3. I would like to be at a healthy weight. Right now I am considered morbidly obese. I am not sure what a healthy weight for me would be but I would like to be at it.  It may  be just losing 50 lbs but it may be losing 100 lbs. I am not going to rely on what medical science says I need to be though because I still feel like everyone is different and my healthy weight is going to be different than another person around my size. I am going to rely on how I feel when I get there.
4. This is really 2 goals in one. I would like to buy a smaller size and also to fit in everything in my closet. This kind of goes along with most of my other goals pertaining to my weight loss and other struggles but honestly would it not feel great to get in your closet and not have to avoid a certain outfit because it either does not fit or you do not like the way it looks on you.
5. This is not a weight loss goal but I would like to figure out if I really want to go to school for respiratory therapy or if I want to do something else.  I told Adam that I am going to take classes this semester and continue with what I was planning but if I am still not sure after this semester I am going to take time out and decide what I want to do.
6. Another goal that has to do with something other than weight loss is a family goal for us. I am hoping that we can put the house on the market and sell it this year. It is going to take some renovations and TLC before it will be ready to go up but I am hoping we can get it done this year.
7. Going along with the weight loss I would like to be at a healthy weight to have a baby. This is something that we have been wanting for awhile now and I do not feel comfortable with getting pregnant at the weight I am at now. I am hoping once I lose some significant weight I will feel more comfortable and be able to get pregnant.  Having a baby or becoming  pregnant is  one thing I am hoping will happen this year but I am not going to freak out if it does not because it is something that is out of our control.
8. This may sound strange as most of you know how obsessed that I am with Wiggles anyway but my goal this year is so spend more time walking and playing with her. Sometimes I feel like she gets neglected while I am working on other things around the house. I know she knows we love her but they do say that people with dogs that walk them regularly weigh less. So maybe it will work J
9. Scrapbook and finish started projects. This is something that I neglect every year. Last year I started a project with organizing all my pictures and dating them and such and I have totally put it on the back burner in the last couple of months. So keeping up on printing pictures and marking them is important this year.
10. Spending time with Adam. Sometimes this is something we take for granted, having our alone time. This year my goal is for us to do some fun thing s that we would not normally do.  Go to restaurants we would not normally try.  Go to some Indians games. Just have alone time since when we have kids we will not have a lot of alone time together for around 18-20 years.
11. Spend more time with my friends.  I have been bad about this recently and would like to change.  Again when I have kids my relationships with my friends will change.
12. Be able to run a 5K. Not that I would necessarily enter a race but I would like to be able to know that I can run one.  
13. Work-out at least 5 times a week. This one will be a tough one but if I set my mind to it I can do it!

So here it is my goals for 2012. They are not in any particular order and don’t worry Adam will not be upset that Wiggles is before him in the goals.  That does not mean she is more important! In June I will try to update everyone on my goals and let everyone know how I am doing with them!  Hopefully I will be doing well. We will see J

Have a great 2012 everyone!