An Eye Poppin' Breakfast

Today is Halloween and we had an Eye Poppin' experience at breakfast. Thanks to some white doughnut holes and some raisin's we had some real fun. Here is Tricia yanking her eyes out.
We decided that Daddy looked the best like they really were his eyes. Eeeewwwww Gross!! Put your eyes back in their sockets.
Our next little eye popper is Parker. He's got his eye on you!!
My eyeballs were itching, so I decided to take them out and massage them and then put them back in. They are all better now!! I'm sure you were concerned.

We are having a fun day. I just got back from my preschool party and am off to two more parties this afternoon. I'll post some more Halloween pictures later.

Have a great day with your little ghouls and bats.
Happy Halloween.
Melissa

A 5K Kind of Day

This is my friend Jean, who finished 1st in her age category. She finished the race and then went out to the people at the end and was their cheerleader. She walked with me the last part of my race. She really gave me the boost I needed to finish and was so encouraging in my journey. Thanks Jean for being there for me today and helping me reach the goal of getting my best personal time. :-)
Here is me waiting for the race to start. I was cold to begin with, but by the end of the race I had no ear muffs on and no gloves on. I could start to understand why some of the runners were in shorts and tiny shirts. They knew they would get warm during the race. I was very excited at this point to start the race, but also nervous. My goal was not to be last place and to get my best time ever.

Here is me crossing the finish line. The clock says 50:53, but my official time was 50:54. It must have been changing right as the picture was taken. I actually ran the last short distance and everyone was cheering for me. It felt great. Some people passed me on the course, so I gave them my camera and asked them to take a picture of me at the finish line. I'm so glad I asked because I would not have a picture of me at this point. I would have rather had a picture from the front, but I like that you can see the clock in this one. Someone else took a picture of me from the front that I will hopefully get a copy of. I came in 53rd out of 60 woman. I was 13th out of the 13 woman in my age category and my official time was 50:54.

I will write more tomorrow and share more pictures when I am not soooooo tired. I had a busy day after getting home and need to get to bed.

Blog more later,
Happy Halloween.
Melissa

I forgot to mention that my pumpkin won first place. I won a nice wine basket. :-)

Ready to go

Well, it's the day of my 5K and I'm getting ready to go. They encouraged people to run in costumes, so I've got a shirt that says, THIS IS MY COSTUME. That's about as creative as I'm going to get. It's hard enough for me to run in regular clothes let alone a costume. My contribution to the Halloween aspect of the race is my pumpkin.

I'm really nervous about this for some reason. I even had a nightmare that I missed the 5K because I was playing with the kids and in my dream I became a hysterical mess. Geeez, you would think I was running the Boston Marathon or something. Anyway, I need to finish getting ready. I'm sure I'll be fine.

I'll let you know how it goes.
Later Gators,
Melissa

My 5K Pumpkin

Hi Everyone, tomorrow is my 5K. I'm excited yet nervous at the same time. It has been awhile since I have done one, but I am in the best shape of my life, so I know it will go well.

The charity that is sponsoring the event is called CASA. It stands for Court Apointed Special Advocates for Children. They are having halloween costume contests and pumpkin decorating contests. This is the pumpkin that I painted for the contest. I just finished it. I am very proud of my work. Even if I don't win the contest it was fun coming up with the design and painting it.

I will let you know how my 5K goes and how my Pumpkin does in its own competition. Keep me in your prayers as I have not been feeling the greatest the last couple of days. Thanks for all your prayers and support through my journey to becoming a fitter me. :-) I appreciate it.

Blog more later,
Melissa

Just signed up for . . . .

a 5k run on October 30, 2005 in Bolingbrook, IL. A 5k for those of you who do not know is a 3.1 mile run/walk. I will be doing a slog (a combination of the words slow and jog). Please be praying for me. I haven't been able to get to the gym for a few days, so we will see how it goes. I also want to see if I can do a 5k around Thanksgiving. If I do that I can try and beat whatever time I get this Sunday.

Please be praying for me.
Blog more later,
Melissa

Before and After

A lot of you have asked to see my before and after pictures of THE HAIR, so here it is.

Wow, now that was a head full of hair. For those of you who don't know, I'm donating the hair to locks of love. Some kid is going to have a lot of hair. :-)

This is the after shot. I LOOOOOOVE it and felt so much better. It felt weird for a couple of days not having hair on the back of my neck.

I'm keeping my hair this way from now on, so I hope you all like it.

Take care,
Melissa

I Fit!!!

I just went to Six Flags Great America last night. My best buddy Dar took me there for my birthday present. They are having their Halloween Celebration, so there was a bunch of scary decorations and guys walking around. I don't usually do well with scary, but no one was jumping out at us and no one was chasing us.

The exciting news is that I am 40 pounds lighter then the last time I went. Last time I couldn't fit on most of the rollar coasters and it was very discouraging for me. This time there was only one that I couldn't fit on. It was so exciting and made me realize how far I have come. That's what I kept saying to Dar all night, "Dar, we've come a loooong way." We used to be eating buddies now we are excerising, getting healthy buddies. Sometimes we just crack up when we are all excited and talking about the gym. I'm so proud of both of us and how far we've come on our journey. It will be exciting to see where we go from here.

Anyway, just wanted to tell you how exciting it was to finally fit on rides again. I cannot wait to get back to DisneyWorld. I could fit on everything, but not comfortably last time. It will be great!!

Gotta get the kids to soccer.
As excited as ever and ready to lose some more weight,
Melissa

Look at Me!!

Hello, I forgot to write in my last blog about going to my Grammy's 90th birthday bash. My Grandma Maggie turned 90 today. We had a party for her this past Sunday. A lot of my relatives had not seem me for years, so they were so proud of me and very complimentary. Here are some picutres that my Step Mom Patty took of me. I have lost 40 pounds to date on the way to my goal of 100 pounds lost. Thanks for all the encouragement and support that you have all given during my journey. I could not have done it without you.

Much love,
Melissa

Biker Babe

Here I am on my new bike. I got my bike on October 14, 2005. It was the day after my birthday. I was like a little kid all day waiting for Christmas. I went riding about 10 miles the day I got it. I rode 10 miles this past Monday and Tuesday. I had to take a break on Wednesday because I was not feeling well and went to spinning today because I knew I would be too cold out on the road.

Riding has been great. They just finished a bunch of trails around here that all kind of connect. I have just begun figuring them all out. I have really taken this time to focus on God's glory in nature. This actually takes the focus off of the ride a lot of times. There are times on my rides that I pray a lot more than I used to. For instance, going up a good size hill for me. I start praying, "Lord, please help me, Lord please help me." It's amazing how he helps me up the hill. So far, I've only had to get off my bike twice in 30 miles of riding and that's only because I'm still learning when I should change gears. :-) I can definetly tell that spinning has paid off. I would have been history on the little hills had I not been building leg muscle in spinning.

I need to get back in the gym to keep up with my swimming lessons and weight training. I have only had one swimming lesson. My teacher, Buzz, is being a wonderful man and fitting me in when he can since I can't afford private lessons right now. I need to make sure that I get in and get my laps in. I'm setting up a new schedule this week to start next week. Getting my bike really through everything else in a loop. I kind of threw everything else to the wind, but it has been worth it.

Tomorrow is my birthday outing with my best girlfriend, Darlene. This fall marked our 20th anniversary of being friends. Pretty awesome. She won't tell me what we are doing, but I'm so excited regardless. I need to get to bed, so I'm not dead tired.

I'm really excited about how things are going that I have adopted a new quote.

"I now only have good days and great days." -Lance Armstrong

Blog more later,
Melissa