God's Will

I can't think of too many situations to feel more alone than walking down a long, empty hospital hallway trying to remember when to turn right or left in order to find your way back to your child's hospital room. The signs are there pointing the way, but sometimes you see them without really seeing them and you're just moving by instincts alone.

But instincts can take you to places you never imagined you'd go ... instincts will allow you to have strengths you never knew existed. Sometimes instincts even take you to the strange but somehow familiar keyboard of the hospital's loaner laptop that Child Life Services gives you and tells you to keep as long as you're here. Sometimes instincts are just trying to keep your body awake long enough to hopefully allow your mind to be too exhausted to go to those terrible thoughts that you're trying to avoid with every fiber of your being during the hours that you're awake.

... and then you re-read that long, run-on sentence and realize that maybe I can really go to sleep now ...

I haven't touched this blog in a very long time and I don't even know if I will turn to it again after tonight. This was a release I needed at this moment. For some strange reason, it just felt right to type these words.

I can't imagine that anyone will even read this. I never had many readers, but there were some. If anyone somehow stumbles across this, please say a special prayer for my 7-year-old son Will. He's in pediatric ICU and was very badly injured Sunday evening. He needs more prayers lifted ... our family needs more prayers ... I need more prayers.

Taking a LEAP

I wrote this note last night on facebook. Thought I'd share it here also since I haven't written anything in a while. 

This is going to be a little longer than my typical status update, so bear with me as I share a little soul-searching and go back in time ...

I was thinking while driving home (doesn't everybody do their best thinking while driving the same route every day or is that just me) my decision to begin my own personal Body by Vi Challenge back in September 2010. I was in a funk at the time. Not depressed, mind you ... or at least I don't think I was depressed. Funk really is the best way to describe it. No self-confidence, very little self-esteem, didn't really feel that it was worth it to take care of myself. Of course, that self-destructive thinking just led me into a deeper cycle of not feeling worthy. How could I not feel like I was good enough to make better decisions where my health was concerned? After all, I am married to the most wonderful man in the world and we are blessed with two incredible children (yep, I'm a little biased on that subject). If that isn't reason enough to take care of my body, what does it take?

I still can't tell you exactly what happened to give me the nudge to give weight loss another try (God does work in our lives each day, I KNOW that's the case here). I had yo-yo dieted for years since my college years in the late '80s and early '90s. Lose 10, 15, 20+ pounds and then gain them back along with a few extra - lather, rinse, repeat again, again and again. But, I felt the nudge and started the Body by Vi Challenge on September 3, 2010 - yep, I remember the exact date.

Was it easy at first? I didn't expect it to be. But, in all honesty, I enjoyed the shakes and wasn't too hungry those first couple of days. I did have a wicked headache during the evening on those first two days and they were whoppers. But honestly, I'd been abusing my body for so long with incredibly bad food choices that I believe I had to go through a little bit of a detox. I stuck with it and started feeling GREAT. Even better the pounds started coming off ... not the gangbusters results some people have with 6-8 pounds in the first week. But it was a steady loss. Then my clothes started hanging a little so I tracked my measurements - even bigger results there! My energy increased and along with that, so did my feelings about myself. A little more self-esteem does wonders for your self-confidence. 

So I lost a total of 23 pounds and more total inches than that moving from a very tight size 16 to a size 10. I'm going to be honest here, because I'd expect everybody else to be. I put a little bit of that weight back on during the holidays, but you know what? I don't regret it one bit. I made a conscious decision to enjoy the full experience of the holidays. Our family celebrations for the most part center around food and socializing. We had an incredible holiday season and I wouldn't change that now even if I could.

Now my Body by Vi Challenge goals are to get back to that 23 pounds lost plus 7 more for 30 total pounds. My focus right now is to really up my exercise because I absolutely love a great, intense, sweaty, exhausting workout (that's what she said). By the time we go to Alabama in September for our first wedding for the next generation of the Hawkins family, I plan to be wearing a size 8. There, I said it!

If you've gotten to the bottom of this looooong note, well, I thank you. I'm sure most people will pass it by and that's really okay. This was really just a therapeutic writing for me anyway. I'm not even going to go back and proof it before I post it. I'm sure a lot of people get tired of seeing my facebook wall dominated with Body by Vi updates, but seriously people, these products have improved my life in a way I didn't even know was missing. I want to share that with others by paying it forward. Why would I want to keep that a secret?

Take care, everybody ... God is indeed good and offers us more blessings than we will ever realize! 

Renewing Ourselves

Our choir's special at church this morning was special indeed ... happy new year's everyone. May 2012 be the year to live your life abundantly and in His word.

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
love's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference
as faith and hope are born again.

Then let us, with the Spirit's daring,
step from the past, and leave behind
our disappointment, guilt and grieving,
seeking new paths, and sure to find.

Christ is alive, and goes before us
to show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;
our God is making all things new.

In faith we'll gather round the table
to show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;
our God is making all things new. 

(This is a Day of New Beginnings, words Brian Wren - copyright 1975, 1995 Hope Publishing Co.)

This makes a lot of sense

Nineteen total posts so far this year.

Only two in the last 3 months.

What to do, what to do?

Start an additional blog, of course!

Yep, that's logical ...

to a T

Tomorrow
Ten miles
Trails
Trained (somewhat)
Time?
To be determined ...

Brain dump

What to write, what to write?


Hmm, so I have a few quiet minutes here with the laptop. I've ignored my blog for too long but now that I have the time to sit down and write a post, I have absolutely no idea what I want to say. 


Solution? Random thoughts in a bullet points list, of course!

• My struggle to lead a more disciplined life continues. I've had a lot of success losing weight these last 10 months and that has certainly required a lot of discipline. Heck, it's the most success I've ever had as I've discussed several times on this blog. I've just got to find a way to be more disciplined in other areas as well.
• Since I started this blog as a place to capture my thoughts about running, I'll point out that's one area that I'm still lacking discipline. I'm in the midst of training for the Medoc Trail Races in October. It's so freakin' hot here in NC that I'm having a hard time getting in my mid-week runs. I really, really, REALLY need to get these runs out of the way and do them in the early morning. And again, we go back to the lack of discipline thing. I am not a morning person - never have been. I swear it's like my semi-awake, early-morning self is another person. I go to bed with the best intentions to get up early. But that other person takes over and my feet never even hit the floor.
• Speaking of waking up early, school starts in 5 weeks. Yikes! Kate will be in the 6th grade and Will starts kindergarten. I can't think about that too much yet. I just can't believe he's old enough for school ...
• It may be stifling hot outside (even now at 9:00 pm), but it's very cool in my house (my husband Taylor and I definitely have different ideas of what room temperature really is). I stopped writing for a few minutes so I could put on my pajamas and socks.
• Kate's softball team has a tournament this weekend in Angier. The temps are supposed to be around 100. Already dreading it even though we love watching her team play. 
• I'm thinking of giving Taylor a short list of running "things" that I'd like to have for my birthday in October. I really don't want to put anything big on that list (although a Garmin would obviously be nice). The first item I've thought of is a fuel belt. I enjoy having a bottle with me but my handheld has started leaking so I need something else. It would be nice to have my hands free. Christy has a Nathan fuel belt for women that she recommends. Anybody else have any suggestions for a fuel belt or other gift ideas?
• We have Vacation Bible School next week. The pictures taken of me last year during VBS were what finally gave me the motivation to take control of my eating and lose weight. So, in honor of the changes I've made during this past year, here's a "before and after" collage of pictures to close this post. Based on the noise my children are making, I think my quiet time with the computer is over for now ...

What a difference a year makes

Pacing, Schmacing

I haven't written much about running lately, but in a word, it's been GREAT lately. It really is amazing how much easier it is now that I've lost weight and have improved both my health and fitness in general. I'm currently in the early weeks of training for the Medoc Trail Races 10 miler in October. I created a moderate intensity plan using the online SmartCoach tool at Runners World. It's only included short runs of two and three miles so far. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to increasing the distance next week to 4 miles. 


But, even though, the effort associated with running has improved so much I've discovered that my pacing still completely sucks. I feel like I'm running at generally the same (although slow) pace most of the time, but my runkeeper app shows some strange peaks and valleys still.


Maybe it's just the GPS/app software? Yeah, that's what I'll blame it on.

But the most important part is that I'm using words like GREAT in the same sentence as running. There was definitely a time when that was not the case ...