The End is Near...

but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

I read this verse today. I needed this verse. Today was quite possible one of the most painful days I have ever had. I am sick of pain. I am sick of puking. I am sick of being laid up. I am sick of feeling weak.

My life is not what I want it to be right now. My body hates me. I have battled with this problem for over 3 years now. It never gets easier. It hurts.

Weakness is something I despise. I feel so weak right now.

So today I prayed for strength and better health. I prayed that I can run with my husband again. That we can go for long walks on the beach like we used to. I prayed that the pain would go away and I could live a normal life again.

After praying I opened up the bible and found this verse. It is perfect in so many ways. It brightened my day!

Boy, I needed my day a little brighter! I went to the Dr today. I had a procedure done that was quite possibly the most painful thing I have ever gone through. It should relieve my issue in a few days. So I am praying the pain is worth it. My weekend will be full of pain but should be better and I should be running again by Wednesday. At least that is what they told me.

I had hope in the Lord, that he will give me strength. That He will take my pain away and give me my life back. That He will let me run and not grow weary.

So this weekend I will remain on limited bed rest and fight the pain. I will look up to Him for strength when I am weak.

Only a few days of pain before me than my life may be back to normal.

32 You Will Be Missed...

However many years a man may live, 

let him enjoy them all.

Ecclesiastes 11:8

Last day of being 32. I am a bit sad to leave this wonderful age. Not because I am getting older but, because I loved being 32. I can not begin to explain to you all how excited I was to turn 32. I knew 32 was going to be a good year. It far surpassed my expectation! 32 was oh so good to me, but I am ready for another age. I am ready to get older.

I do not fear getting older. I embrace it. Another year to write another chapter in my life. Another year to grow stronger in my faith, to run a faster race, to love a little deeper, to laugh a lot more, and to make more people smile!

A lot of great things happen with getting older. Some people dread their birthday. Not me. Maybe it is because I am a kid at heart and I still love my birthday! I love getting birthday wishes and birthday love. I love feeling special on my birthday. I require no gifts to make my day happy,  I just love that everyone is so kind to you for a whole day. I love my birthday and I love getting older.

I believe there is a saying out that states just that... Things get better with age. Like a fine wine the older the better. A little dust on the bottle!

My dust seems to be building up but I am learning to embrace it! A few wrinkles, a few aches, but a lot of great things are behind each one of them!

Wrinkles come with age. I noticed that I am getting a few around my eyes. I smiled in the mirror and noticed my wrinkles are formed where my face naturally creases when I smile. Can't get mad at that. I have wrinkles because I smile. I have a lot to smile about. So another year of smiling and deeper wrinkles to form!

My joints ache more and more every year. With every ache I can name a race I ran. A time goal I achieved. Another beautiful race course completed. Another year means more races with my love and more aches to come. Can't complain about the aches when I think of the memories I have from each race!

 Love gets stronger with time. Another year means more time with the love of my life. I treasure each day, each hour, each minute. I love Scott more and more every day. Another year means more love and more time with my best friend.

Another year means a year of my children reaching new milestones. I have seen my babies become toddlers. My toddlers become kids. I am now a mother of a teenager. Lots of milestones. From learning to walk to soon we will teach one of them to drive. Another year means new adventures in parenting!

Another year is a gift. To wake up tomorrow and be able to hear birthday wishes from my family is the greatest gift ever. To be blessed with another day. I am looking forward to getting older tomorrow. I hope to live every day like it is my birthday, one of the best days of the year!

33 please give me more wrinkles, more aches, more love, more adventures, stronger faith, and pure happiness! I won't dread you I will embrace you like you are 32!!!


Gracefully I look up to you, God... Thank you for another amazing year. Thank you for the path you placed before me this past year. It was full of sad times, happy times, and amazing times. You helped guide me through so much. Your hand was on my back through it all. I grew a bit, I smiled a lot, and I loved every day you gave me. I pray that you guide me and help me through another year filled with your Amazing Grace!!!

One Week Down!

One week.

7 full days.

168 hours.

Done.

Behind us.

7 full days of juicing is in the books!

Actually it is 8 days but I ran out of motivation to blog yesterday. Either way we did it. 7 days and 7 pounds lost for me. I believe 9 pounds lost for Scott. Which isn't really all that fair, because he is not around our pantry all day like me. His work schedule this week has been a wee bit crazy. Ya know the average 14 hour days with a few 18 hour days here and there and at least 8 hours on the weekend, so no snack food standing in his way. Man, he gets all the breaks! I sit here by the pantry drooling all over myself and he gets to sit at a table full of people talking about sattalite reentry! Lucky!

Just teasing! About the he has it better than me part, not the work part! We are both fantasying about food. Me, a big rack of BBQ ribs with a side of garlic mash, a thick greasy cheeseburger with steak fries and ranch, and Fish tacos. I was suppose to have my favorite fish tacos as my last meal but taco loco #6 was closed for New Year. Jerks! Scott has been talking about burritos, New York style pizza, and pad Thai. My fantasies are obviously just that fantasies, I hate burgers. So I am not exactly sure why I am dreaming about them. Weird! I do want my fish taco from Taco Loco #6 though. Man, those things are so flipping good! Best I have ever had. Oh my goodness I just drooled on my shirt...

I am also finding that people seem to feel the need to share with me all there dinner plans! Hey lady I am sitting next to at Jameson's basketball game, I don't care that you are going to Outback for dinner. 1) I didn't ask what you evening plans were and 2) It is 11 am and quite frankly I don't give a shit what you are having for dinner. Still not sure were that random comment came from while sitting next to this lady. Maybe God is telling me to chow down a rack of ribs... Hmmmm

Back to the point....

Juicing is going great. We have two full weeks left before our one week break. The weight loss is a great motivator to keep going. My hunger isn't that bad, really. I think about solid food but I am not really sure what I would eat at this point. I am also not sure how much I would eat before I felt stuffed. I kind of like that feeling. I am feeling pretty good over all. I am still peeing all the flipping time and still haven't had that good old colon cleanse but I am feeling good.

The juice is actually really good. I am not sick of it at all. I am also not dreading the thought of two more weeks before our break. I think we would go longer but Scott and I have to go to CO for a week. We are planning on hitting up the juice bars as much as possible while we are there. We will be there for a training conference for our upcoming assignment so some of our meals will be out of our control. We will hop back on the juice train when we return.

So 7 pounds in 7 days and still enjoying juice! Ready for another week of juicing.

If it is in the Daily Report.....

For 14 very close to 15 years Scott has dedicated his life to the military. He serves with honor and pride. He will deploy at a moments notice without hesitation. He will take whatever job the Air Force assigns him to even if not his #1 choice, and do the best he can to accomplish the mission. Scott has worked incredibly hard to make this life enjoyable for the kids and I. He understands that moving us to various locations around the country and only staying for a very short time can be very hard. So he does his best to make all of the transitions smooth. His positive attitude through everything that is thrown at him amazes me daily. His hard work paid off. His dedication was rewarded.

Here is the story...

Close to three years ago we received some very sad news. Scott's grandfather had fallen ill. He had a seizure in his front yard after he had played his daily round of golf. Guy was rushed via helicopter to Augusta, GA where he was placed into a medical induced coma. My mom just happened to be staying at our home in Vegas so Scott and I were able to fly to Georgia to see his Grandfather. When we arrived we were surprised to find him awake and telling his very funny stories. He was so excited to see Scott. Guy was very proud of all that Scott had done for the kids and I. He was also very proud of Scott's military career. He told us a story of when he was in the service.

This is the story retold by me...
Guy was a short man. His mother told him it was necessary that he learned to type because he was not going to be able to do manly work so he should learn office skills. This paid off for him while he served in the military during the war. He was in charge of typing the daily report. The report included many things that had occurred in the past 24 hours and it also included promotions. So one day Guy decided to promote himself early to a higher rank by typing it into the daily report. If it appears in the daily report it is official. What Guy typed was official so he was promoted a bit early.

He told us that story while laughing his signature laugh about 4 times in 30 minutes. The meds were getting to him a bit. The story got better ever time but the words never changed.

Shortly after we returned home to Vegas we received word of the finally diagnosis. Guy Dobson was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a cancer in the brain. The prognosis was not good.

We packed our home in Vegas and moved to Alabama shortly after receiving that news. After the movers left our AL home Scott and I headed to SC to spend some time with Guy. While sipping sweet tea on the front porch he told the story again. We all laughed like we had never heard that story before! Guy gave us a lot of love and laughter that day. It was a great visit.

Scott has been blessed with amazing Grandparents.
Here is a picture from that day.

Close to 6 months after our visit we received devastating news. Guy had lost his battle with cancer. With very heavy hearts we drove to South Carolina for the funeral. Scott decided to wear his service dress to the funeral. As we sat in the front of the church laughing at the stories of Guy Dobson and celebrating the man he was, the pastor looked at the family and said something to all of them. He then looked at Scott and said, "Guy was especially proud of you, Colonel"! I grabbed Scott's leg in that moment and said, "Guy just promoted you". Scott responded with, "wouldn't that be funny".

Another story told during the service was one of how Guy never swore. In place of four letter words he said, "Billy Mitchell".

Scott was eligible for promotion and his paperwork was being submitted at the time of the funeral. In standard Air Force fashion it took quite a few months to find out the results. So time past and Scott sat in SAASS reading Billy Mitchell's book. As he read it, he thought of his grandfather and the pastor calling him Colonel. We knew the results would come, but what a coincidence would it be if it came while reading that book. We also knew that Scott had a lottery ticket and the chances of a promotion a year early were very close to zero. So he read that book and smiled thinking of Guy. As he sat and read his phone rang. The Commandant wanted Scott to come to his office. He went and was notified that he was selected for Lt Colonel!!!!! Guy put it in the daily report the day we celebrated his life and made it official! 

Scott told this story during his pin on ceremony. We both believe that Guy promoted Scott on that February day. So this promotion meant a whole lot to all of us. It was an amazing day filled with smiles. We are so proud of Scott for all he has done for our family. Scott has given us an amazing life. I believe Guy was just as proud, which is why he promoted him. 

On 12/01/11 Scott pinned on Lt Colonel. 

You can see the pure happiness on his face this day. We were all very happy!

We are very proud of all Scott has done to make our lives amazing. He was worked very hard to accomplish a career goal. I think his biggest accomplishment is being able to be an amazing father and husband while being the top of his game at work. It has been an awesome ride so far and we can't wait to see what is in store for us as we continue on this journey. To see what else Guy will type in the official report!

Juice, Pray, Love

I am not hungry!

I do not feel malnourished!

I am only cheating on carrot sticks and steamed veg.

I am juicing all day for 2 straight days!

You read that right, I made it over the hunger hump!!! I can not began to tell you how great that feels! Both Scott and I are seeing the scale go down. It is working and it is not as much work anymore. I feel like I can do this.

I am doing a bit of a happy dance on the inside. Juicing is awesome so far. I truly enjoy the veggie/fruit juice that we are dining on. It also helps that Scott is our juice chef. He is awesome, waking up every AM to prep our juice for the day. I am not going to be able to juice 100% of the time. I have to injest some type of solid or I might kill somebody. The solid has been only veg or a piece of fruit and I don't feel guilty about it.

Day 4 was cheat free! First day of success. I was very proud of myself. We had our normal concauctions. The orange one in the morning and the green one in the afternoon. We had a fruit smoothie for dinner. I only dined on carrots with some peanut butter. My only complaint is I am having a hard time with water intake. I guess because I drink my food, I don't feel thirsty. So eating the carrots with peanut butter is helping with that. Peanut butter makes you thirsty. I know you knew that but I thought I would state the obvious to fill in some space!

Detox process
No headaches so far. I am peeing more than I ever have. That is starting to slow down back to normal. I feel like my kidneys are properly cleansed. I do not feel like my colon has been cleansed... Get ready for TMI. I am not pooping like I hoped we would! Gross, I know. That is the best part about detox is you cleanse your system and if I am not having gut bombs I am not feeling like the system is being cleansed. I am going to go with I have more liquid in less solid so nothing can come out solid. We discussed adding some soluble fiber to our juice to see if that would work. No worries my friends I will share if it works with you very soon!


Day 5 was not my favorite day. I headed to my favorite place in the whole wide world, the Doctor office! Yep, that place is like Disney, so much fun. Being poked and prodded is a flipping blast. Looking at what looks like an alien figure growing inside of me is like making a horror movie. Just like Universal Studios. Let me tall ya, it was a fun trip. Found out that protein is a bad, bad thing for me and that I have a giant cyst that has little friends, and it is infected. Fun times. I got a shot and some other stuff then the best part came.. The Dr called me Super Woman! OK, so those weren't his exact words but he did keep asking me how I am functioning with this level of cyst, most women would be in the hospital. Not me, nope I am not going there! I will suck it up because I know it will go away. It will hurt but just like always it will be gone soon. If it isn't going to kill me why go on a tricare paid vacation. Although, now that I typed that out I may go get my bag and head toward the nearest medical spa hospital. Nah, I will just stay home and make my family listen to me whine!

Juicing on day 5 was good. I didn't really have an appetite so it was kind of a gimme day. I did eat the broth and veg left over in Jillian's soup bowl and I may have added a few crackers. Guess what I didn't feel a bit guilty after all that prodding around I earned that quarter cup of soup. It tasted pretty good. I did injest all my juices and they were good like always. We are just two days away from a full week of juicing! We are doing this people!!!



On a spiritual note, I am finding that praying in place of hunger is very fulfulling. I have heard of people fasting and when they feel hugry they pray. So the last two days I have done just that. No, I haven't been praying that my hunger would be taken away. Although, that might be incorporated at some point soon. Funny how things work. I pray when I am hungry instead of eating and the last two days have been great! Man, God is a rock star!

Don’t worry about anything;

instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 

Philippians 4:6

Veggie Vampire.. Sucking the juice out one veg at a time!

So Day #2 and #3 have to be combined due to the fact that I was unable to write. I was laid up on the couch catching up on Real Housewives on Hulu and sipping on some juice. My ability to focus was lacking. I just couldn't seem to peel my eyes away from the most educating program out there, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You can really learn a lot from those housewives!


OK, that is not really why I couldn't blog. My sweet little friend decided to cause me some pain so I needed to resort to my medication that takes the pain away but also makes me sleepy and make crazy choices like choosing to watch Real Housewives instead of Tebow!

Juice Day #2 was easier than Day #1. I decided that not being able to chew food screws with your mind. If you simply eat a carrot instead of drinking said carrot you feel full. So I cheat now. Sometimes I take a bite of those veggies before I suck the juice out of them. I am started to feel like a vegetable vampire! Doing this is helping me get over my hunger issue. OK, I might add a little natural peanut butter on the carrot sticks but life is short and Tara is getting crabby. My dad always said, " a hungry man is a dangerous man". I couldn't agree more, in fact my kiddos would also find that true. I am a bit of what one might refer to as a Bitch. Bad word, I know. Pain and hunger are not my favorite feelings to have so I might not be the nicest person on earth. Especially when my girls are happily eating the homemade Mac and cheese I perfected on the day I stopped ingesting food. Yep, the Vita-mix helps make the perfect Mac and cheese. Watching them grin while ingesting that creamy yummy carb wonderful pasta made me want to lock than into the garage for the night. They will be a bit surprised when they find the dinner table placed in the backyard when they get home. How good is that food when you eat it outside? Not so fun is it? OK, I didn't really do that, but I will tell you fixing dinner is very challenging when you want food. On a positive note our menu has doubled since juicing. I am finding all kinds of great good for you recipes while starving. I totally recommend juicing if you are having a hard time meal planning! It is amazing. Man, this whole juicing thing has so many benefits!

Our Juice for day #2
Orange, Carrot, and Ginger
Cranberry Apple

We, or should I say Scott has perfected making these items into juice with zero texture. The item he uses to make this happen is the Nut Milk Bag. You all know you giggled when you read that! If you didn't go back and read it again and if you still aren't laughing you are a boring boring individual and need to lighten up. See there is that bitchyness coming out. Sorry! Any way the nut milk bag (hehe) works just like cheese cloth and separates the fiber from the juice. So making apple juice and cran apple juice is wonderful. Kale also tastes so much better when the pulp of it is gone.

I also drank a smoothie textured pure fruit juice. I can't remember the exact fruits I used but it was filling.

Non juice... Cheating cause I suck
5 wheat thins
A Luna protein bar
Carrot sticks with some peanut butter
Steamed Brussel Sprouts and Brocoli


That's it.... Oh wait this will be the part where Scott will call me out. So in order to prove to him that I will remain 100% honest with my cheating moments I will share with you my other very weak moment. I may or may not have had a bowl or maybe two depending on your definition of a serving size and if you count a refill of the bowl to count as bowl two then i guess i had two bowls. I hate for my poor milk to feel unused. So in order to make the cow feel like there hard work was worth it I added some more cereal to the unused milk. It was so good and guess what the scale still showed a 4lb weight loss on the morning of Day #3.

Day #3 was the best I have done thus far. I guess watching those skinny women on Real Housewives combined with Tracy Gold's show on lifetime about people with eating disorders made it easy to stay away from food. Who am I kidding? I felt like crap so food wasn't really calling me. I drank my standard juice and threw in a few bites of shredded wheat, and crackers to help with my nausea. I also ate an English muffin so I could take my medicine. Scott came home and whipped me up some yummy cran apple juice and then decided to juice a butternut squash. OK, so we knew what would happen if we did that... Butternut Squash soup! Substance in the juice form! It was good and filling!

I have survived 3 days of juicing and as of Day #3 I am down 4lbs. My health is not 100% yet. I did know that this isn't the fix for it. I was really hoping my cyst would be gone by now. Not so much. I guess this is what I get for giving in to my weaknesses and slowing down my workouts. Even a short break reeks havoc on my body. A little break gives my body time to grow a cyst. So as soon as that bad boy goes away I will be on my way. Other than my cyst I am actually feeling OK. It is hard to tell what is detox and what is cyst related at this point. I am going to blame it all on the cyst that way I won't hate this process even more!

I don't really hate it. Juicing is easy to complain about. I actually enjoy going to the extreme to get healthy again. I know, big shocker! It feels good to be making good choices again and to maybe motivate others to make better choices. I love being back to our old ways after a 4 month break.

Day #1 I Miss Carbs!

What is on my mind?

FOOD! Yummy solid, carb loaded substance!

Juicing Day #2 is under way.

How do I feel? Fricken hungry!

This whole thing was much easier to talk about than actually doing. The Vita-mix came in on Thursday night. Scott took his excited self to the commissary between meetings and bought us day #1 supplies. Kale, green apple, carrots, oranges, and ginger. We made a juice that night to try it out. Let me tell ya, this Vitamix is awesome!!!! The juice is good too. Just not substance.

So let me take you to Day #1

I have not done 100% juice. I have "cheated" a little bit. I was starving for substance of any kind. Morning Juice was a combo of kale, green apple, and celery. It was very good, filling, and got me to lunch. My lunch juice was my favorite so far. It was a combo of carrot, orange, and ginger. I was getting very hungry and craby around 3pm so I made a smoothie textured juice. It was made with orange, strawberry, carrot, and celery. Jillian, Jess, and I all agreed that this one was very good. It held me over for another hour and then I couldn't take it. So I tried a smoothie with banana, orange, and raspberry. I was hoping a thick consistency would fill me up to my dinner juice. Yeah, well you try cooking dinner for your three wonderful children and not eat. Doesn't work so well. I snuck 4 plain, cold tortellini. Those little pieces of carb wonderful tasted so good. I was still starving so I snuck a handful of potato chips. Dirty, dirty, dirty, bad, bad, bad... But oh so good. OK, they actually didn't taste good at all. I guess cause I felt so guilty eating them. So on to my dinner juice. Trying to get creative since all my creations yesterday turned out so fabulous why not reach for some kale and get creative. I love grapefruit juice, so why not add some kale to it. Not good, not good at all. I should have judged the taste by the color that was produced from combining the two. Think small child's diaper after eating green beans. Gross! But, I decided to chug away. OMG OMG.. Bitter yuckness!!! Down the sink with you nasty beverage. Now I am hungry and my juice straight up sucked. Support, I need support. Why does my husband have to work late tonight? Then when I am about to call Domino's and order a big order of fat pills and call this whole juice thing off, my phone lights up with what could be easily mistaken for God at that point, my husband and juice partner Scott. I whined, came very close to tears until he told me he was hungry too and thought this thing was easier when we just talked about it. We being the most stubborn human beings I know will not quit. He came home and told me to make an English muffin with vegan butter if I really wanted it. So I did and it was the best thing ever. My hunger subsided and I enjoyed the fresh apple juice made by my love. He also made me another juice veg concauction that tasted yummy. Those two items helped me love my Vita-mix again.

So juicing so far is hard very very hard. I am weak and have eaten substance here and there. Chips have been the worst cave. I am not going to beat myself up for cheating by eating what I have eaten. According to the scale this AM I am down 2 lbs.

"skinny people are hungry people" So skinny I shall be, cause I am beyond hungry. I am fricken put a small child in front of me, I might gnaw off there little arm hungry! So on to juice day #2....