When Faced With A Crisis, Cover Your Eyes and Slowly Back Away.

This is horrible advice. Please don't follow it. Please don't be like me.

I feel like I stay pretty calm in crazy situations. I don't flail around and freak out. In fact, I usually get quieter and calmer as the situation escalates. Usually.

The other day, though, I got a different view of myself. Now I know for sure, as if I even had a desire to do so, that I wasn't meant to be a nurse, a rescue worker of any kind, someone who deals with life and death situations, or that I should ever meet a mugger in a dark alley.

I learned that when faced with a fearful situation I just cover my eyes and slowly back away. Yup. I'm  a big time whimp. I think my husband already knew that, actually.

The hubs and I went for a day date. We do those a lot since he works the swing shift. We decided to go for a hike at a beautiful park in our town.

It was such a nice hike, good weather, great conversation. We saw a plethora of wildlife, two woodpeckers, deer, some wild turkeys, birds, even a little harmless garter snake. We stopped by the small lake in the park and had a very nice picnic lunch.

We headed back and was making our way down the trail, through the shady forest. The light was filtering in through the trees and we had just spotted another woodpecker looking for his lunch in a tree trunk.

We were talking and laughing and in a second's time I looked down and froze. Not a foot away from me was a snake. Not a little harmless garter snake. An honest to goodness "you're supposed to be behind glass" snake. I didn't know, until a few minutes later, that it was rattle snake.

Did I say, "Hon, look out!"? No.

Or, "Holy cow, that's a snake!" Nope.

Or maybe just, "Ahhhh!!!" Not a bit.

I made a bit of a muffled screech, covered my eyes and slowly back up the trail.

Thankfully, Andy saw the snake right away and, of course, stayed to have a looksy and take a picture. I high-tailed it about twenty feet back up the trail and peeked from behind a tree. Honestly, I did.

The rattler didn't move. It just stayed there. Andy threw some sticks at it to get it to move along. It coiled up and rattled it's menacing rattles. (I only heard this part because I was too far away to actually see anything.)

It finally moved and  we gingerly made our way down the path.

Is this how I react in a crisis?

I hope if a loved one was in real danger I would be quicker on my feet and little braver.

At the end of the day, the experience made for a great story and just confirmed what I always knew to be true. I'm a big scaredy cat!

Weight Loss Update

So, it's been awhile since I've done a weight loss update.

In a nutshell: I'm still trying to lose weight and I have.

It's been 3  1/2 months since I started my quest. Here are some hard facts. I know that's what I want to hear about first when I read weight loss stories. I want the deets!

As of this morning I've lost 14 pounds.
I'm down a size. (Almost. I think a few more pounds will clinch it.)
I've lost inches all around. Though I don't have those facts handy.

But more than the numbers, there's two things that mean more to me than what I see on the scale. And the fact that I just wrote that last sentence and meant it is a story in itself. The numbers were getting me down; but that's another story for another time.

#1 I now fit back into my BH clothes. That's Before Henry. My goal is to fit into my BL clothes. You got it, Before Lily. You're smart!

#2 I don't feel crappy anymore. I feel so much better. My stomach isn't in knots anymore. I don't feel bloated and just all around yucky.

Here's a few things I've learned about myself that I kinda knew but have become very clear in this little journey of mine.

#1  I love bread. Love. Bread.
#2  I eat when I'm stressed. Not so much the "I'm busy, in a hurry stressed" rather the "We had an argument or I feel like a bad mom so I'm just going to eat half a bag of tator tots stressed".
#3  If I  blow it early in the day with my eating, I tend to let it go all down hill the rest of the day. I'm working on that one.
#4  I snack tooooo much. I'm a grazer for sure.
#5  I'm way too hard on myself and do way too much negative self talk. If I heard someone talk to another person the way I talk to myself in the mirror at times, I'd be horrified. I'd probably walk up to that person and just poke 'em in the eye. Well, maybe not. But I would want to. I'm really working on this last one.

Now here's the list of new things I've learned about myself, things that surprised me.

#1  I like to exercise. Who knew?
#2  It was much easier losing weight 7 years ago before I had kids than it is now. It's just plain harder for me.
#3  My reasons for losing the weight this time around, as opposed to seven years ago, are so different. Except for that one little reason of wanting to look good in a pair of skinny jeans!!
#4  Without God and the proper perspective on weight loss, it just won't happen for me this time around. And I plan on this time around being the last.
#5  I can't eat whatever I want anymore!! Boo! Hiss! Ah....getting older.

So, to wrap this up. I'm a little over half way to my goal. When I get to my goal, I may want to keep going. I'm not sure. I want to keep my goal realistic, though. I don't want to set myself up for failure; but I want to push myself at the same time. We shall see.

Andy and I keep a chart tracking our weight loss on our bathroom wall. He's doing it with me which makes this whole journey possible. It would have been really hard to do it without him. Tomorrow is my "weigh-in" day which means this is the end of my week.

I like to give myself little things to work on each week. It helps to motivate me. I've been a little slack on the exercise department for many reasons. The heat and being out several nights this week have been partly to blame. Next week my goal is to get back to my normal exercise routine. Hopefully it will cool down a bit.

So here's to continuing on the journey and not blowing it tomorrow. It is Cinco de Mayo afterall.