The George Family

Recently a serious subject has been on my mind. The deployment of more US troops and how it effects our families at home.

I have no friends or family oversees or even in the military at this time but I have a wonderful blog buddy named Jolene whose son is in the military. She is the reason I have been giving this so much thought. I love her to bits and she is truly a remarkable woman. Just like you and me but every thing is larger in Jolenes world. She seems to have a larger family, more mouths to feed, tons more laundry, gives everything she had to friends family and her community, gets a ton accomplished EVERY day and has a love of family that is admirable in the highest sense. Every day she makes me proud to know her. The other day she opened up to us about being a military mama whose son was leaving. Seeing some of the pictures and reading her words were devastating to me as a mama myself and as a human. The heartbreak she feels could not be any worse. I actually sat here and sobbed. I cried so hard for her and her family that I gave myself a headache. We always think about how hard it is for the men and women to go off and serve their country. We must also think about their families left behind with gaping holes in their hearts. The constant fear of the unknown they must feel is terrible. Not just worrying about if they might be killed or inured but also if they will come home "broken mentally". It makes me truly sad that this war is tearing families apart and causing so much residual pain. It takes men and women from their children and partners. It takes children from their moms and dad. In Chads case he leaves behind a huge family of 4 brothers, a beautiful fiancee Sandy and a great extended family. All of these people hurt and we sometime forget that. I pray t is not all in vain and that it is for more than just control of oil.

Jolene, I love you to bits and I want you to know I am thinking of you! I know that you and Sandy have needed hugs lately, I hope you get them!

If anyone would like to send a care package or letter to motivate Chad while he is away. He would love it. Many of us will be doing it to show our support and to keep his morale high. Kind of like an adopt a troop type thing! More details can be found on Jolenes site or by going to Suzies Q's site to sign up. But I will post the address as well:

PVT George, Chad
2125 GSU-Delta Co.
1-158 Inf. Azarng
3238 Butner Road
Fort Bragg, NC 28310

Andi, this was a wonderful idea, I am so thankful you put it out there for us all to take part in!

Thanks for listening!

Oh and for those of you interested I have had some success with my New Year's Resolution! You can read about it at Coleen Slims Down.

Love, Coleen
XOXOXO

Who knew I had cheerleaders?

OK I haven't scrapped in ages. It is taking all my effort to not eat junk food. For more on that pop over to my Coleen Slims Down blog. The post there is very sincere and kind of lets you know how hard I am finding it. Anyway. The reason I set up the other blog is to keep all the diet stuff over there. I think there might be people who aren't interested in that so they can still come here with out seeing "diet stuff" in their face all the time. and for those of you who do want to follow along you know where to go. This week has been especially rough and I haven't had good Internet this week. It has been up and down more times than Ron Jeremy's "youknowwhat" A little crude but really drives home the point. No pun intended. Really high winds have caused major problems here. I get about 2-5 minutes each time then boom, the net is down for hours again.

I wanted to post something important to me. I have been blogging for several months now and have been lucky to know la creme de la creme of bloggers. The circle of bloggers is kinda cool they way it branches out. You have a bunch of people in one close knit circle of bloggers and 1 or 2 of them are also in another circle of bloggers and 1 or 2 of them are also in another circle. And so on... I am quite amazed by our dynamics. But there are so many people who time and time again are reading and commenting on my posts. Sometimes your answers make me laugh, sometimes they are so sweet they make me cry, sometimes they inspire me or motivate me to do better and amazingly enough sometime they may me think. Well the comments on my last post Snipits Of Me: Revelation and resolution made me take notice of how much we all grow to care about each other even though many of us have never met. The comments I received were like those of close friends who truly care. Not strangers. Each and every one of you have given me hope. Some of you were pleased to know you are not alone in the challenge and wanted me to know the same. Some of you were amazed that I was able to post it at all. But one thing that resonated in all the comments was that so many are proud I have the courage. I am not courageous I am just a "fluffy gal" (thanks for that Missy!) who needed to wake up and take action. I feel more motivation from you all than I have ever had on my own. I feel I need to thank you all individually for your kind words.

Here I go:
Sue, Teresa,Traci, Leah, Jen, Telah, Missy, Andi, Cheryl, Jolene, Heather, Beth Amy, Anita and Diana: from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

You are the best cheerleaders ever!

Love,

Coleen
XOXOXOX
4 days in and 1 pound down

Revelation and resolution

I used to weigh 130lbs but childbirth, marriage, take out, comfort food and laziness have brought me to this:

I saw that I am precariously close to 250lbs. In fact I currently weigh 248lbs. I used to tell my husband to shoot me if I ever weighed 250lbs. What was I thinking. I don't want him to shoot me. I hope he really won't but to be on the safe side I have to drop way down to avoid it. I am tired all the time and just aren't the same person I was when I was skinny. I am admitting for the first time EVER that I am self conscious and despite the facade of a strong confident person, my weight hampers how I feel about myself and I am sick of it. I refuse to gain 2 more pounds. I will not hit 250, now or ever. I love junk food and I hate exercise. Tough combo eh? Well, I can honestly say that in all my 29 years I have never made a New Years resolution. Easier to avoid failure that way. Until the other day I stepped on a scale for the first time in years and what I saw killed me. I realized that I have to act now before it's to late for me. It was scary and horrifying. As a way to hold myself accountable I decided to share this painful bit of personal info with all of you too. I figure that once my resolution is "out there". You all can share your weight stories positive and negative. You can motivate me or YELL at me or something. Whatever you do at least it is a place for me to document what I need to share. I have goals for myself but I need to be realistic so for now I am shooting for 25lbs. Once I hit that I will reward myself with a pedicure and hair cut. After that I will set a new goal.
Most women keep their weight a secret, especially when you begin to have a few extra pounds. I am no different. Believe me when I say I truly am shaking and scared to death to post this but I really have hit "rock bottom" and I know that this is what I need to. No one is going to pull me outta my house with a crane to take me to the Maury Povich Show damn it! I have created another blog and you can find the link to it at the top and bottom of this blog. For those of you who wish to follow my progress you can go there, for those of you who are not interested you can still keep coming here for all the regular stuff. Now for the hard part......

clicking the publish button....

Any second now....

Deep breath.....

and....

click.

Shocking resolution- my dirty little secret.

This picture in no way represents how I felt the morning of January 2007. I swear I was good. Everyone makes and breaks their New Years resolutions so many people done even bother to make one. Well my friends (and family) I have one. It will be shocking and horrific. I will be baring all for my blogging "family" to see. It will be awful, scary and probably a nightmare. For those of you brave enough. Please stop by tomorrow for the excruciating truth to be revealed.

In the mean time here are some that I have been contemplating:

*Spend more time outdoors.

*Get in the picture

*Eat better

*Dedicate more time to scrap booking

*Go home more often to visit

*Be silly

*Stop over-analyzing EVERYTHING so much

*Breathe

*Catch up on my list of tasks that is so far behind.

*Create a "to do before I die list" and cross off at least 1 thing each year.

*Stop making so many lists. (lol, like that'll EVER happen.)

*Get away at least once every quarter.

*Tell myself that sunglasses, a pina colada, flip flops and having the heat cranked does not count towards "getting away".

*Credit the people who impact my life and make sure they know it.

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for the painful revelation of my 2007 New Year's Resolution. It will be revealing in the highest sense possible. I am shaking now about the fact that I will bare my secret to you all. I hope I don't change my mind.

Happy New Year!!!

Well, I went home over New Years and it was wonderful. We actually managed to visit everyone we had planned on, and some even a couple of times. I even had a chance to cash in on my gift from my little sister, Shannon. She got me a pedicure! How sweet is that? Here's the proof. Sorry not the cutest feet but painted nails none the less.

I got an amazing new digital camera from my dad which came as a huge surprise. A great gift card from mom and dad. Actually I was pretty spoiled this year because the list of gifts goes on. But more importantly I got to spend some long over due time with family. It was wonderful. My Grandad even wound up coming at the last minute from N. Ireland. I couldn't have asked for more. Well, more time would be the only exception. Austin had a blast playing with his cousins.

We spent New Year's at my Aunt and Uncles. As always they were fantastic hosts, we had a fun, safe time. I hope you all celebrated the new year in style. I am thankful that I am here to see the new year as we all should be.