Drowning....

I feel like Im drowning in a sea of everything and I can't swim to the surface...... How do my fellow Moms keep it all together?

What I've learned since I started dealing with my Fat Girl Problems.

It's been almost a month since I have started working out consistently!  

Can I get a WHOOO HOOO!!!

And I am proud to say that I am still going strong!  

One of my fav Bloggers Jen started a 30 day workout challenge last week and of course we all know they needed a token "Fat Girl" to join the group! lol 

(just kidding....kinda....)

Well, I jumped at the chance to join the group, Operation LGN even though I was a little nervous to totally "put myself out there".  I did it....I uploaded my "Before" picture that night. Introduced myself and told a bit of my "Fat Girl Problems" story and left it at that.  I never in a million years thought that I would feel so loved, accepted and encouraged by a group of ladies (and one Tom) that I had never met!  In the past week we have checked in with pictures, workout plans, healthy recipes and funny or encouraging quotes! 

I have worked out 10 days in a row for at least 30 minutes each time!  And I feel like I am on fire!  I look forward to the evening when everyone goes to bed so I can take my C25K run/walk or ride my bike or work out on the Wii and I can honestly say I have NEVER felt excited to work out!  It truly is an awesome feeling and I am so thankful for all of the support I have gotten thus far! 

I wanted to end this blog post with a short list of things that I have learned since starting to work out, this seems to be a trial and error journey and although some things have been failures I have also found some things to be pretty comical after I think about it! So, here goes:

*I have learned that no matter what people say, when you are super fat, running down hill is not easier than running up hill.....It's all hard when you are carrying an extra 100lbs! 

*I have learned that you should never wear silk underwear and yoga pants if you want to keep you pants around your waist instead of your ankles while jogging. 

*I have learned that just because I couldn't do it a year ago doesn't mean that I can't do it now!

*I have learned that I need to buy a couple of sports bras before I start to run faster. 

*I have learned that when your stomach tells you that you really have to go to the bathroom.....don't keep jogging farther away from home....

*I have learned that sweat bands look really dumb on my head.

*And last but certainly not least, I have learned I CAN and I WILL do it.  

It may take me a while but it will happen! 

Until Next Time.....

I will.

Fat Girl Problems: My Journey from Fat Girl to Runner Vol.2

SO, I've started a workout log on the right sidebar of my blog.  I think I need it to hold myself accountable and to push me to try harder because I know that I can do it!  I've made some huge accomplishments this past week.  Firstly, I was able to pull both of my kids (Aprox. 60lbs) in the bike cart on my bike to my moms and back!  It was a total of 2.2 miles!  This is a HUGE accomplishment because the last time I tried to pull the bike cart Cady was around 2 years old and I couldn't do it.  I didn't even last 5 minutes let alone 2 miles!   To say that I was tired would be an understatement, but I was also ECSTATIC!  I have also been able to ride my bike (without kids) twice for 3 miles or more without stopping!  Tonight I pushed myself harder than ever and went 3.6 miles!  I should probably include that I have what is called a "Beach Cruiser" this is not your run of the mill mountain bike!  It is a cruiser, pedal brakes, no gears so to be able to pedal my fat ass is huge! 


The accomplishment I am most excited to share is that I entered into my second week of the Couch 2 5 K challenge!  Last week I wasn't even able to job through 60 full seconds.  I would go until about 40 seconds and have to stop.  Well, last night I went on my evening workout and changed my route a bit and I am proud to say that I was able to jog for the full 90 seconds EVERY time!  For those of you that don't know me, I am extremely overweight.  The last time I weighed myself (months ago) I was probably close to 280 so to say that I was able to jog for 90 seconds straight is HUGE.  I mean HUGE!  I have never been so proud of myself!  


I will end on a high note: I am feeling pretty good.  I am still tired a lot, I am still fat (lol) and I still don't eat as well as I should, but I feel better! 


Until Next Time....

July Recap Via Instagram!

Can you BELIEVE in 30 minutes it will be AUGUST!?!?!  I can honestly say that I am ready for FALL!  Here is our month Via Instagram! (Follow me at Steph8084)

My month started out by seeing this little peanut for the second time! 

What I Love Today: My guys #WILT

What I Love Today: This girl! #WILT

What I Love Today: Red Vines! #WILT

Is there room for me between him, her and the 2 Build A Bears??

Then we headed to the Annual Farhni Family Reunion! 

You know you're in Amish Town Ohio when you see a stop sign like this....

What Im loving today: My sweet Abigail! #WILT

Ready for our weekend road trip to be over!

Finally home!

What I Love Today: one on one time with this boy! #WILT

What are the odds I would find this at The Salvation Army!

I got an early bday gift....and it was the Best Bday Gift EVER!!

Shopping with 2 children = too much work

Happy Bday to ME!!!!!

Nate thought it would be fun to try and be cute at 2:30am....

Happy Birthday to ME! (For real today!) (July 24th)

After months of little to no inspiration I've found a small spark tonight! #CadyMayDesigns

I spent an entire day making over 250 ribbons for the Community Prayer for Marco Drayton who was missing.

More Peacocks! #CadyMayDesigns

Dear Nate, we gotta stop meeting like this at odd hours of the night...Mommas tired....

I preformed another wedding at the end of this month. Rev. Steph Hightree reporting for duty! :-)

After the wedding Leif's family had a bday dinner for Uncle Mike and I.

The last Sunday of the month I had a Girls Day with my love! 

Olive Garden with my love! Then Mommy Cady Date! :-)

Yum! Stuffed Chicken Marsala! 

Gloria Jeans with my girl!

Then, I bought myself my first pair of TOMS! Rocking TOMS today! Happy Belated Bday to Me! 

And we closed our day with a nap! Our mommy/daughter day wore her out!

Until Next Time.....

Old Yard Sale Wreath into One of a Kind Treasure!

Here is how I transformed an old and ugly $2 wreath I found at a yard sale!  

When I picked this up to buy it my mom and sisters all gave me funny looks because they couldn't understand why I would buy something so ugly! Little did they know, I had great plans running through my head before I even paid for it! 

Hope you enjoy! 

There ya have it!  

Until Next Time.....

Fat Girl Problems: My Journey from Fat Girl to Runner

If you have followed me from the beginning you will know that I am of the 'chubby' body type....well....more like 'Fat' and obese, but chubby sounds better! I have always been the 'Fat girl' and up until now I can honestly say I was kind of ok with that.  I have learned to just accept myself as being overweight and being known as the fat girl.  I often made jokes about it and I basically just dealt with it.  I figured that I met the love of my life while I was fat and he loves me just the way I am so it didn't really matter to me.  And, some how I had managed to keep myself pretty healthy internally!  I even shocked my Dr when she did all kinds of blood tests and everything came back normal and fine and not life threatening at all so I didn't really think it mattered what weight I was at.  Well, the time has come where I need to make some changes, like 100lbs worth of changes....  I need to do this not only for myself but for my kids and for Leif.  I don't want to be that fat girl anymore.  I want to be able to do things that other moms can physically that I can't. And more importantly with Cady getting older and going into Kindergarten where I plan on volunteering and getting involved in her school, I don't want to be an embarrassment to her.  I don't want her to not want to introduce me to her friends or the other moms because she is embarrassed of how I look.  I want to be accepted and not have to make jokes about my weight just to make myself feel better and sugar coat the fact that I am fat.  


With that being said, I have officially started the Couch25K program!


I have pretty much led a sedentary life with little to no physical activity other than chasing my kids around or shopping for hours (which can be tiring!) so this has been a shock to my system!  I have slowly started walking at the high school track down the road from my house, I started with about a mile and quickly moved onto 2 miles a couple times a week but I needed more.  I knew in my heart I could do more so after some research and reading some inspirational stories from other runners (That's you Jen!) :-)  I decided to take the plunge! 


The first day my sister and I got to the track ready to start things off with a bang!  We thought, jogging for 60 seconds, Hell, that's nothing!  BOY were we wrong!  She did better than I did because she is much for active than I am but I was pretty sure I was going to die after the first 30 seconds into the first jog!  I don't know how I finished it, but I did.  I will admit that I walked some of the time I was supposed to be jogging but I am proud of myself for actually getting through it and not quitting.  I came home that night and took the coldest shower I have ever taken and laid on the couch the rest of the night until I drug myself upstairs to bed!  The next day I was pretty sure that I broke my knee!  This girl could barely walk after all that jogging! (Fat Girl Problems!)  Well, I took a few days off to get my knee back in shape and guess what?!  Tonight I finished day 2! Again, I barely made it and was pretty sure that I was going to die more than once, BUT I DID!  And I lived to write this blog about it!  


I am going to continue to share my journey if you guys will help hold me accountable!  I have not done much to change my eating habits yet, but I have started drinking WAY more water than my bladder can handle so that will come in time!  Right now I just need you guys to help me keep on going.  I need you to remind me that there is light at the end of this fat girl tunnel and that I hopefully will come out being a little bit lighter on the scale and hopefully running my first 5k by the time I'm 30!  


Thank you all in advance! 


Until Next Time....

Keep Calm.....

I need to trust him more than anything tonight....I have so many things going through my head and not enough ambition to write it all down.....

so tonight I will just

Until Next Time......

CadyMayDesigns Grab Bag Event!

CadyMayDesigns is doing a Grab Bag Event to clear out old inventory to make room for new! 

Receive 5 bows/flowers for just $15.00! That's just $3.00 a piece!! 

If you are not in Three Rivers comment with your Paypal email and I will send you an invoice and ship it out to you on Monday (or as soon as payment is recieved). 

Be sure to get them while they last!

I'm hurting because Their hurting

I'm hurting tonight....but not for myself....I'm hurting for my sisters.  Two of my sisters are going through some relationship issues and it hurts me to see them broken and know that there isn't much I can do to make them better.  I just want them to be the same little sisters that I envision when I think of all my siblings.  I want them to both know that they are beautiful and talented and worth so much more in the world.  I want them to know that I am always there to lend an ear, listen, scream with them or just sit in silence with them even if I don't know much about what they are going through.  I also want them to know that I Love them with all my heart and I will always be there for them and that I just want them back. But something just still doesn't seem right with me...I'm not going to go into detail about what they are going through but I just need to let some things out.  

I feel like a failure as an older/the oldest sibling.  I feel like I haven't given them a good enough role model to follow.  I haven't given the best advice, I haven't always been there when they need something, and I have made mistakes that they have seen and I feel like I could have done better throughout the years.  There are so many things that I have said that I wish I never said, so many opinions I have put out there that I wish would have stayed in my head....

For those of you that follow my blog know that I am the oldest of 6 children.  There are 5 girls and 1 boy.  And let me tell you, I am a PROUD big sister!  I tried to make it to all of their sporting/school events.  I helped plan open houses and parties, etc.  I have the most beautiful and talented sisters and brother.  They are all doing great things in their life and getting older (Bonnie, please stop getting older!)  But there is still a feeling that I have let them down and I can't shake it.  I just started to feel this way I don't really know....I feel like when they make a mistake in their lives that some of it is because of me.  Because I didn't do a good enough job showing them a good path to take.  I don't know....I have so many things going through my head right now.  

....I should probably stop thinking and rambling and try to go to sleep....

I'll just end by saying I'm sorry if I haven't always been the greatest sister but I do truly love you and I will be there for any of you whenever you need it.

Until Next Time....