I ask a lot of questions.

I am in an amazing season of life. It's weird most days and I do not understand the plans the Lord is making, but that is okay. The Lord has timing. This morning as I sat in church, Andy Heis spoke about enjoying THIS time that God is moving in and do not spend all your time and energy looking back or looking too far forward. And at this moment, I am great. Sure things will change and move and explode and calm again, that is life folks. Almost 2 years ago I was originally nominated for the Humanitarian Award, that I was blessed to win 18 months later. The National Obesity Foundation is ran by almost all volunteers and they had a large turn over and my paperwork was lost in the shuffle. Lucky for them, I am persistent and assertive. I called and emailed and called and emailed until I spoke with Mike Panas, who helped me tremendously. As you know, I won that award and had Gastric Sleeve surgery in June, 6 months ago. I cannot say that I wished it would had happened sooner and I cann

Wells, I was crying because God has been showing me amazing things over the past week. I mean, He always does, but flying part of this trip to Tucson has been amazing. On Wednesday morning I left Huntsville at 5:45am (Shout out to GB for dropping me off at the airport). I was able to watch the sunrise, from above the clouds. It was nothing short of spectacular. At that time, I was listening to Head to the Heart, by United Pursuit.   https://youtu.be/FSol3_QZaaI  The second verse sings, " My heart is open wide, I will receive Your light, You give me faith like a child, In You my heart runs wild." As I saw His light, it seemed so fresh and new. I smiled as tears ran down my face: people looked and I didn't care. And then I could not sleep, so I grabbed a book out of my bag, The Best Yes . It was given to me by a dear friend, it's good stuff. I am still reading it now, and underlining all sorts of stuff. When I land tonight at 6:30pm, I will have been able to watch

Surgery seems so long ago, but in reality yesterday was four months since I had gastric sleeve surgery. These photos are four months apart, I have lost 51 pounds. I feel amazing! I got the results from my three month postop bloodwork, the only issue is my thyroid is not working correctly, which we knew before surgery. I will have further testing on that in the next few weeks. I started this process wearing a size 28 in pants and a 4X in T-shirts, I am now in a comfortable size 22 pants and a 2X and T-shirts. If you see me on a regular basis, you will notice that I have the same clothes in heavy rotation, bear with me, I'm working on selling some clothes so I can buy new clothes that fit! As far as exercise goes, I continue to go to yoga class and I have started attending a spinning\cycling class, and is always the elliptical. The elliptical is my true love.  I am forever grateful for everyone's support during this journey so far, and I know that your support is ongoing. Love y

I was informed tonight of the death of a dear friend of mine, we had spoken last in July. We talked about Jesus, her daughters and how she loved them so,   and about coffee (because, I mean, come on.) She did not talk much about her cancer, she just said “Please keep praying for me as I fight my own battle. I believe that The Lord is going to completely heal me!!! HE is the great physician after all.” She received full healing tonight and is now cancer free, she is in Heaven. In the past 3 years of my life, cancer has taken friends and family; dear sweet life giving friends, grandfathers,   friend’s moms and dads, and uncles. It is a nasty little four-letter word. It makes me want to punch someone. It makes me cry. It makes my heart break for those effected. I hate when someone says, “It will get better” or “time will heal.” That is a lie. It does not get better and time does not heal, we learn to constantly make a new normal and Jesus is the only one who can heal. Some people do n

So this past week, narcolepsy has been winning. I have unintentionally taken a few 3-4 hour naps over the past week. Now before you say, "you're so lucky, I would love to nap." I do LOVE to nap, I love to intentionally nap. You know, to turn on the fan and turn off the lights, put pandora on and set a sleep timer :) yes. But when I sit down to work on a research paper and wake up FOUR hours later, it is no fun. My sleeve (Gilbert) does not always absorb my medication correctly, some days he wants me to be useless and sleep all day. On Tuesday, I again slept through my planned gym schedule. So to show Gilbert who is boss, I grabbed a jump rope and my yoga mat and walked out into a little piece of heaven, on Brunner Street.  If you know Sandy, she likes to get unclose and personal. In this photo, she was technically not on the yoga mat, but she had been! I jumped rope first. Here is Charlie, being all cool. It was a good quick workout, and it reminded me, that I ca

On occasion, I feel like my life could be television show. I have requested a camera crew. I encounter scenarios on a daily basis, that I wish I made up (not including work). The eye drops. I went for an eye exam, mainly because my left eye had been extremely blurry. I just thought that my vision had worsened and it was time for a new prescription. After attempting to read the eye chart, the doctor put these florescent yellow drops in my eyes. These drops detect any abnormalities. My left eye was covered in corneal abrasions. The right eye had some, but not enough to compare to the left. Doctor asks if I have dry eyes and I said no. Wells, apparently I did/do. He did not feel comfortable enough to proceed with the exam. So we stopped and I was advised to take OTC eye drops 5 times a day in each eye, with gel in both eyes at night, AND hot compress for 20 minutes each day. Who has the time? I did this for one week and went back to the doctor. It did not improve at all. So now in additio

If you know me well, you know that I enjoy a good nap. Heck, I love good nap and despite my narcolepsy medication, I can still sneak a nap from time to time.This past week has been weird and on Tuesday night I was getting ready for bed and I felt the need to lay down first (because who really has the energy to wash their face AND brush their teeth). My sweet Sandy decided that she wanted to lay on my side of the bed, so being a good dog mom, I let her. Charlie was in the floor on his bed, as he had nudged the bed from the living room to my bedroom. Laying on the wrong side of the bed is weird. It is this unknown territory, yet it is still comfortable. It amazes how the scenery is different, even though I am only about 12 inches to the left. The angle to watch TV is better, (but I have cancelled my satellite and currently only have an antenna and Netflix access in the living room). Sometimes just a small move out of our comfort zone can give us a new perspective. Surgery related: I

I am: daughter, love, beautiful, wrecked, learner, friend, counselor, and most recently I am a post-op gastric sleeve patient. My life is pretty amazing, do not get me wrong, I have bad days too. The good days out way the bad. June 5, 2015 was the day that my new life began. I had Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (vsg) in Tustin, California. My mom and a dear friend, Shelly, were able to be at the surgery center with me {so blessed that Shell took a vacation day to support me and mom}. That day was about 18 months in the making. My cousin, Lauren, nominated me for a Humanitarian Award, through The National Obesity Foundation. The NOF had some office turnover, they are almost completely ran by volunteers, and my initial paperwork was lost. I can be assertive, but almost always for good. I called the NOF and after a few phone calls, I resubmitted my paperwork...and 6 months later I won the award and was boarding a plane to California. Mom was able to take off work and be my sid