Resolution Road

First, I feel I need to address the fact that all of my articles seem to deal with the same issues each year.  I don't know if that means I'm just like everyone else who struggles with the same things through out their life, or if it just means that I'm a mess.  Which leads me to my current topic.  My mess, and for that matter, the fact that I'm feeling pretty massive at the moment.  Cue the flashback to the moment I realized the core of my issue.  It was the mid 2000's (I think), and I was watching Oprah. Man did I love her show.  That particular day her guest was an author.  An author of a book called "Does this Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?".  At the time I was disappointed because given a day off to watch my favorite talk show host, I was hoping for any major Hollywood guest.  I was even hoping for a Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz appearance to brighten my day.  BUT, it's Oprah and I stuck it out.  Basically to make a long episode short, the Author explained

I recently read this most humorous and somewhat depressing quote.  "When you're 20, you care what everyone thinks.  When you're 40, you stop caring what everyone thinks.  When you're 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place."  I turned 40 in 2016 and when I read this, I thought wow, the part about the 20's and 40's was spot on. I cared so much what other people thought of me when I was younger and now it seems, I'm content to be me and let those that aren't, go by the wayside. Over the years I've had my share of personal growth, acceptance and quite frankly a fair amount of counseling. All leading me to the conclusion that 'I am who I am".  That's all great, so where does the depressing part kick in? Um..."nobody is thinking about me in the first place"?!  Am I going to realize someday that the things I say, do, or worse yet, post, don't mean anything to anyone.  As I pondered this idea,

It's 2016 and I've really had to contemplate, what my resolutions would be this year.  As I think about what a crazy end of year 2015 was, and how 2016 is starting out, I've decided that I'm going to choose the subject that seems to resonate with me the most. To make it my goal, to become the best version of me, I can. This one, will be hard to measure, but it means the most to me, so I'm willing to do my best. My first goal of the year, is to give to others, to the best of my ability, with all my heart.  This means to stop making rash judgments of other people/situations, and to look inward and see how I can change. You know, judge less. Love more. This is a voting year, and I think we all agree, that we have already seen some crazy politics and opinions. Just scroll down your news feed on Facebook, and it won't take you long to see what people's opinions and judgements are. Everyone has their opinions and thoughts about who the best candidate is. I do! Wh

I had quite a shock the other day when I met with Tracy Medd, the Christian Ed Pastor at my church. We were just visiting and I was explaining to her how the past year had gone for me. 2014 was an overall good year. I was able to meet many of my goals, including financial, physical and spiritual. But it was the spiritual goals that we were discussing most. In the last year I had completed the Beth Moore study, "Breaking Free".  That study single handedly changed the direction of my life.  In past articles I've discussed how my hope needs to be found in God, how I get upset when my relationships with people don't translate etc. etc.  The Breaking Free devotional helped me to realize that I can't please everyone, that not everyone will like me and that's ok. That I can't fix everyone and that my need to, to make myself feel better was really selfish.  That truly my hope does need to be found in Christ. BUT I was never able to give a word to that definition.

The alarm goes off at 6:00am and my first thought is "What did I get myself into?!" I know I've trained for months, drank tons of water, ate a massive plate of pasta the night before and got plenty of sleep, yet, a quick moment of fear passes over me. 7:00am Jill comes over and I feel a bit more calm. We eat some candy and then get dropped off at the race. 8:00am the race starts, music playing, ear buds in and we're off. Don't worry, I won't give the moment to moment recap but I will say we finished the race at 10:22am. A time of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 35 seconds.  Our goal had been to finish the race, running or walking and we made it running the whole way. We were very happy with this. It was so cool to run the last lap in Lambeau Field. When we crossed the finish line, I actually shed a fear tears.  It's been months of training and hard work and it was something I was never sure I'd be able to do. As cheesy as this may sound, crossing the finish li

I thought it was about time for a little update on the goals.  I never really did share any of my other goals for 2014 and I haven't given any details about the progress on my previous goal.  So, for the previous goal of running and training for the half marathon, here's where I'm at:  I have signed up for the Cellcom, in Green Bay, at the end of May. I have been training since my last article. I was completely unaware of how fast the race booked up and found out they were sold out way back in February. Thankfully there are friends, and Craig's List and I was able to secure a spot in the race. One of the many benefits of training for the marathon is that I've been able to lose 25lbs. Mostly through a beginners half marathon training schedule and also a low carb diet. My sister introduced me to this amazing workout in Howard called Bod-e Bootcamp. Wow!!! It's all about muscle confusion and some pretty intense workouts. I absolutely loved it! I went for a week an