Victory is Mine!

I did it!  I can't believe I did it!  Holy CRAP I did it!  Three months ago I blogged about my weight loss goals.  I bragged about my  30 pounds loss.  That was about my halfway point.  I am so excited to be able to blogg once more of my success.  It has been a long 8 months but I have stuck too it like a booger to your finger!  I set many goals along the way and acheived everyone of them.  Now a little more detail (or shall I say bragging).  I started out at my heaviest at 241.5 pounds(and yes that .5 sure is counted!)  I am now 175 pounds.  That is 66.5 pounds lost in 8 months! I have lost a total of 38.25 inches!  I have lowered my BMI from 37 to 27! I went from a size 20 to a 14 and a shirt size of 3X to L!  I used to have chronic knee pain that kept me from being active.  I started out slow and now I can walk a 12 minute mile!  I love the new me!

Celebrate with me because it will be a short party.  After further thought, I have decided that I need to keep going.  I want to loose another 10ish pounds.  Thank you too all that have already acknowledged my hard work.  Thank you to those who walked with me over the summer and to my new partner in crime who has me up at 5:10 AM to take me to the gym!  I have awesome family and awesome friends!  Oh!  I almost forgot the best news ever.........I weigh less than Andy!! 

Christmas Hope

You might remember back in August a post about a special event that was coming up that our family was going to participate in called the Festival of Trees.  My sisters and I had decided to donate a tree in honor of Mom.  It was to be called Christmas Hope.  Since then we made plans on what kind of tree decorations, went shopping for them, and put them all on the tree to make sure it was exactly what we wanted. We had so much fun doing all this knowing it was in honor of a fantastic lady and for a great cause. 

November 29th was decorating day and the excitement grew even more.  We spent a good 4 hours making the tree structurally safe, wiring all the ornaments and other decorations on, and sometimes just goofing off.  So there it was......the last three months of planning, shopping, crafting, worrying all done.  And it was beautiful!

On opening night, the first thing we wanted to do was see Mom's tree.  It sold!  We were so excited. 

Later that week I took my cute little family back to Festival so they could also see the tree.  By then, they had posted who was the purchaser of the tree.  We wondered if it might have been a friend that knew about our donation.  It was a complete stranger which surprisingly made it even more special to our family.

I was told that donating a tree to the Festival would help bring our family together even more during this hard time.  It would bring the Christmas spirit deeper into our hearts.  If you have never donated a tree to the Festival, you might not understand the feelings that surround the whole idea.  I was not expecting what I learned and felt. 

Christmas Hope....what does that mean exactly.  When we decided on the tree, the meaning was dual.  The best present that Christmas could bring was a cancer free mother which brought our family hope.  Many people hope for a Christmas all to together.  We submitted a story about our tree.  It stated how Mom had hoped and survived many things in her life.  Even now with her battle with cancer she believes there are only two things that can get a person through.....Love of family and faith in God.  She says, "if you don't have faith in God, is it worth the fight?"

My final thoughts came to me yesterday while enjoying and listening to testimonies being said at my church.  Christmas hope started before our decision to donate this tree.  Christmas hope started before my mom was diagnosed.  Christmas hope started when Christ came to this earth as a baby with the plan to become our Savior.  My mothers hope to survive cancer came from this baby boy.  My hope that she will live a long happy life comes from this same baby boy.  Our life on this earth is given hope through the baby Jesus.