Weight Loss Challenge!

Today starts a weight loss challenge that my trainer Jacquie is putting on for the people in my gym. Of the girls I have the most to lose in this competition so hopefully I will do well. I already weighed in and worked out this morning so I feel like I am at an advantage over everyone else at this point. I am hoping that I can pull this off even with being at a disadvantage with going on 2 vacations in the 2 months of the contest. Jacquie is going to help by putting together a workout for me to do while on vacation so as long as I keep to that and workout every day and watch what I am eating I should be ok! That is a lot to think about though.

Starting weight is a little too high for me to put on the internet for everyone to see but once I get my final weight I will put it on here.

So as far as this challenge goes ready, set, go….

My favorite time of the year.

I love back to school time. Even though I am not going back to campus this semester it is still so exciting to me! I love school. I love learning new things. I love getting the sylabbus and looking ahead on the semester. I guess I am a dork for stating that, but it is exciting and new. My new classes showed up in Blackboard this weekend. Even though I still have my one summer class still hanging over my head I am excited to start working on other classes too. So good luck to everyone starting schiool this week and next and also continued good luck for the grade school kids that started in the last couple of weeks!

On my summer class....I did not get anything new done on it. But I do not feel too bad. I was able to finish a project that I have needed to do for a long time. I organized my pictures into photoboxes. It took about a month and I basically worked on it all weekend but it is done and from here on out I can workon it as I go. At this point I have all my pictures printed and on their way.

As far as weight loss goes...Jacquie is doing a weight loss challenge that starts next Monday. I am going to join it even though I am going to be on vacation two weeks of the challenge. It should help me keep accountable while I am gone. Last week I had Jacquie do my measurements and I really have not gone down too much at all. Very disheartening. My body fat percentage has gone down. But I did manage to lose the weight I had gained so that is good.

This week should be a good week. I am taking off Thursday and Friday to have a long weekend and then next week I am only working 4 days and then Adam and I will be on vacation! I am looking forward to having some time with my husband without his employees or boss texting or calling. Adam is not even turning his phone on while we are gone!

Remembering Grandma Gillen

I did not think this fit in any other post but I wanted to say that the world lost a great lady in July. Adam's grandma passed away at the age of 93. She was honestly quite a lady. Born in 1918 she was the valedictorian of her high school class! She went to business college and was a great business woman making the family farm and her children and grandchildren her life. Really an amazing woman all around. She was also an amazing china painter and we have so many of her pieces in our house. I cannot imagine what it would have been like for her living through the depression and WW2. Her and Adam's grandpa had one of those epic love stories that I can liken to the story of Noah and Allie in the Notebook. She raised an amazing family that I am very proud to be a part of. No matter what her children or grandchildren did she was proud of them. That is true love.

Thanks Grandma Gillen for taking me into your family. I am so glad I got to know you. You will forever be missed.

Summer update 2

Wow! July is done and we are almost to the middle of August! Summer is going super fast. Next week the kids in the neighborhood will be back in school. Crazy how fast it all goes.

First with our concert updates:

In July I had 3 concerts that I went to, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts and NKOTBSB (part 2).  First was Tim McGraw. My love affair with Tim started the first time I heard Indian Outlaw on the radio. When I graduated from 8th grade my mom bought be tickets to see him and Faith Hill at then Deer Creek To this date it is probably one of those concerts I will always remember. It was just before Tim and Faith announced that they were dating and I remember my almost Freshman self thinking that they seem awfully close to each other!

When I was in high school and college I worked at Deer Creek/VWMC for a couple of years. I saw alot of concerts in those years and Tim was always one I would definitely go to when I had the opportunity. That is why I was excited he was on the Megaticket this year. This year's concert did not disappoint. Megan and Lori brought their little daughters because they are fans of The Band Perry. The Band Perry was very good...they will definitely be superstars someday soon! Luke Bryan also opened for him..he is a cutie! It was a smaller group this concert than the others. Erin and Eric were the other ones there with us.  I even converted Sara into a Tim McGraw fan by the end of the night!

Next up was Rascal Flatts. Adam bought Sara's ticket and came with me. It was a hot one that day! It was just a few of us at this concert. My aunt Teresa came with Megan and my cousin Kaylie. It was a good concert too. My only complaint was the heat. We had alot of fun and I never realized how many Rascal Flatt's songs I know.

The next was NKOTBSB. Again the concert was amazing! It is funny how you can remember the lyrics to all those songs you sang as a child! This concert BSB was alot better than they were the first. I lost my voice screaming!

As you know from my last post we went to Virginia the last week in July. It was so much fun. It was just Adam and my dad and me. It was nice to go away and have my dad show us around Lee County. It is really beautiful down there and even though we barely know some of those family members they are always so welcoming. We had a great time while we were down there and unfortunately we came back to a sick dog. :( (more on that in my previous post)

My mom, aunts, cousins and I went to State Fair Band Day last week to watch my cousin Alyssa march for the first time. I cannot beleive my baby cousin is starting high school and her older brother is starting college! Natalie is even going to a new school!  Anyway, the Millers had a great routine this year. One of the most solid bands in the contest but of course they were underappreciated by the judges as always. But we had fun and I think Alyssa had a great time!

Adams sister and nephew were in town last week. It was alot of fun to see them and get to play with our nephew! He is so much fun and we are blessed to have him in our life. He seems to love his Uncle Adam and Aunt Katie. Hopefully we can start to set up some regular Skype dates so we can talk to him more often. We will see him when we go to SC in a couple of weeks. It will be fun to have a whole week of spoiling him!

So our summer has been pretty crazy and we are not even done yet. Tomorrow night we are headed to Symphony on the Prairie with our friend Amanda. Saturday we will probably head to the State Fair. We leave for vacation in 3 weeks and I think we are both so ready! It has been a year since we have been on vacation so we are getting anxious!

So far behind!

This is not a weight loss post. It is about how far behind I am on my second class from summer semester. Luckily it is a 9-month class so I technically have until February to finish it but I have set a goal this week to be done with my first assignment and have it submitted to my professor. Lets just say life gets in the way sometimes! The worst part is my new semester starts in 2 weeks. So my goal by the 22nd is to have at least half of my assignments submitted so that I can start my next round of classes in a timely manner!

So as I mentioned life gets in the way and things get busy while we had a little excitement last week in the way of the dog. The last weekend in July Adam and I went to Virginia with my dad for his family reunion. We kenneled Wiggles for the weekend. On Saturday we got a call from the kennel asking if Wiggles had been limping before we brought her. I said yes she had because she had jumped down and jarred her leg somehow and we were working on it with the vet. My mom went to pick her up on Sunday because we still were not home yet and she called and said the dog is not doing well she can barely walk. I thought it was just due to her anxiety from us being away and told my mom that she would be fine when we got home. Well she wasn't. We let her limp around like that until Wednesday when Adam could not stand it anymore and he took her in to get it looked at. Well the vet wanted to do emergency surgery and look at the leg right away. Really its a good thing I love that dog as much as I do because I was thinking crap...how much is this going to cost? Turns out she tore her ACL and they injected it with platelets and cortizone to help it heal. In case anyone was wondering that cost us almost $500. Not to mention we had just paid $72 for 3 days in the kennel and the 2 months before she went in and got an "adjustment" on her leg at $150 and $50 dollars. So that is over $700 this summer just on the dog! Now I know that is no excuse to why I have not finished my class yet but the last couple of weeks I have been preoccupied with Wiggles and her treatment and healing. We still don't know what the final outcome is going to be with her leg but at this point I am definitely not leaning towards surgery if it is needed! So prayers are needed for her to make a speedy recovery for her leg and that she won't cost us anymore money!

Also this brings up what we should do with her while we are at Litchfield with Adams family next month. Being a dog owner is not always easy but to me it is definitely worth it!

2 months!

So I am only a couple of days late with an updated blog. Ok I am over a week late but who is counting? Anyway things have been going well. Last week because of other things going on and it being my late week at work I was able to work out in the mornings 2 days. It was nice to know that my workout was done before I went to work and if I wanted to work out after then it was up to me. The best part about me working out in the mornings is that I was able to lose 4 lbs in a week. Yes, you read that correctly---4 lbs! The most I have lost since beginning this weight loss adventure and it is also the total amount of pounds l have lost to date. I am sure most of it is my working out in the morning because I was able to hold myself accountable but some of it may have been that I started remembering to take my Metformin like I am supposed to. Like I said before because of the PCOS and the insulin resistance the Metformin is to regulate my body and hormones. I think this is part of the reason that I have started to start losing weight. It also is helping a little with my appetite and helps me to feel full. That is one of the bad things about the PCOS/insulin resistance. So hopefully it is starting to reverse itself and the more weight I lose the better it will be!

Working out in the mornings is what I am going to start doing every other week and on my days off. It actually helps me to stay accountable throughout the day. Plus as I mentioned before I get more time with Adam!

Well that is my workout weight loss update. A July conclusion is coming up next J.

P.S. I have made myself a little challenge. If I lose 15 pounds in August I get to buy a pair of shoes from Shoedazzle.com for Vegas! J