Reasons to be Thankful

Things I am thankful for today...

~The power of positive self talk
~Caffeine
~Children with energy to burn
~Dogs who want you to pet them
~Free access to media at the Library
~People having birthdays so we can all celebrate
~and of course, ridiculous pictures from my childhood...

My cousin Jill and I

Jealous, but happy too

So I have been wanting to see this documentary called "Helvetica" for awhile now. (It's in my friend Richard's netflix list and should be here soon -yay!). In telling him (a fellow graphics nerd) about it, he got online to research (of course) and we discovered that the director is now touring with his lastest documentary, "Objectified". Wouldn't you know it, the next showing was set for Wednesday May 13th in Atlanta, GA... the very place Richard was heading that morning for a Boys & Girls Club conference! So he got to see it, and sit through a Q&A with the director afterward. I cannot tell you how jealous I am. But I am very happy that he was able to experience it and share the story of it with me. The director announced at the showing that the DVD will be released in July, so I will be seeing it then!
They were selling the movie poster at the showing, and Richard was going to buy me one until he noticed that they were $20. It would have been cool to have a poster, but I would have felt bad if he spent that much on a poster, so I'm glad that he decided against it. He did decide to take a picture with the poster though and e-mail it me. I think I like the picture better :)

I want more.

I want so much out of life. I want to participate in outdoor activities and have the confidence to do anything that sounds like fun. When someone invites me somewhere, I don't want my first reaction to be wondering what I'm going to wear, and then ultimately talking myself out of it because I'm worried about "fitting in" with everyone else. I also want to stop the negative self-talk. I'm so tired of seeing a cute guy and automatically thinking that we could only be friends because someone so good looking would never be interested in someone who looks like me. It's so stupid and probably not true, but I can't get past these thoughts most times.
I feel like more needs to change than just my weight, but I'm not sure where to start.
Thoughts and suggestions??

Down 2.6lbs!

So I just realized that I haven't checked in lately about the weight loss. My goodness, that's not good.
Last week I lost exactly 1 pound (not bad!) and this week I am down 1.6lbs... for a total of -2.6 since I made the decision to start back on my path to healthiness :) That's right, I've lost a mini laptop! (hence the random laptop picture)
From everything that I've read about the best way to loose weight and keep it off, 1-2 lbs loss per week is good. The quicker you loose it, the quicker it (and more) comes back on. So loosing slowly and steady is a good thing. I'm interested in joining Weight Watchers (I've heard so many good things about it!) but the meetings in my area don't coincide with my schedule, so that's going to have to wait for right now. But I'm continuing on the path to a healthy lifestyle!

Trip to the Zoo

Danielle and Joie came to visit this weekend and we all went to the zoo. It was a lovely day with walking in the perfect weather (not too cold, but brisk enough that a walk felt good) and I got to hold and kiss on my niece. Here are some of my favorite pics from the day...Jed called while we were at the penguin exhibit and Danielle put the phone up to Joie's ear. She got the biggest smile on her face when she heard his voice. It was so cute! It's killing Jed to have her away for so long.
She loved watching the penguins swim by. She would follow them until they were out of view, and then frantically look for another.
This picture is one of my favs from the day. She was hanging out on my mom's shoulder and laughing at me while I would point my camera at her. She's such a little hamm.
I love this little girl more than she'll ever know.
Tell me that's not the sweetest face ever ")
The giraffe was behind us, but I accidentally moved in front of it. lol.