101 list update

I just crossed 4 things off my list!

Number 79. Drink only water or milk for a week. Easily have done that while on my diet.
Number 94. Potty Train Henry. This was one that I really wanted to accomplish more than all the others! He does have an accident every once in a while but I would say he is potty trained.

Number 49. Find Willow and write her a letter. Found her on Facebook! I'm so glad that we have reconnected!

Number 2. Read 5 books. I'm glad that I made this goal for myself. I really enjoy reading now and will read many more books even though this is crossed off the list.

Featured blog of the week

I have decided to share some of my favorite blogs. I don't know if it will be a weekly thing or not, heck, it may only happen today! I'm a woman of mystery.

One of my friends (I like to think of her that way, even though we've never actually met) is Jennie. This is how Jennie describes herself : Just an easily distracted, excessively random 20-something Christian wife and working mom of 3 perfectly imperfect children.

She has a great blog about her life and family and it always makes me smile and often makes me laugh. We met online on babycenter.com simply because her daughter and Henry both happened to be born in the same month. I didn't really get to know her until babycenter made their controversial change in the spring of 2008 and several of the moms declared that they hated the change and were taking their ball and going home, leading all of us to add eachother as friends on Facebook so we wouldn't lose touch. (This also led to my downward spiral into Facebook addiction, but let's not go there right now :))

It was after I started my 101 list that Jennie joined me and I started reading her blog. By the way, she is doing much better on her list than I am!

She has something fun she does every Wednesday called How to know you're a mom. I don't know how she comes up with a list every week. I think I could maybe come up with one list in my whole life. Some examples from her lists are:

You know you're a mom when...

You had no idea how rewarding it could be to perform any of the following tasks on another person: cleaning out ear wax, clipping toenails/fingernails, and clearing out booger noses.

You've tried all kinds of thermometers; temporal, oral, under-arm. The fact remains that the best test for a fever is a mommy's lips on a baby's forehead.

If you ever need help finding a mud puddle, just put on your child's brand new pair of white shoes. It's like a moth to light.

You realize that your three year old has far more friends than you when, on a routine trip to Target, she greets three other children by name.

After your six year old sings "You look like a monkey...and you smell like one too!" to your almost one-year old, your three year old chimes in with "Three!" Apparently, she thinks it's a song about counting.

Since that song was over, your three year old began singing an original song about the intricacies of Southern word choice. Some of the lyrics include, "Grandaddy says 'supper' and Daddy says 'dinnnnneeeerrrr'! But dinner is the same as suupppppppeerrrr!"

Your six year old tell you he knows what "curls" are because he learned about them in school. He proceeds to explain that it's when you have more than one of something. You explain that you think he means "plurals". And then you realize that sometimes life is just one big game of telephone.

The tidal wave whooshing noise you heard coming from the kitchen was the sound of an entire gallon of tea spilling on your freshly mopped kitchen floor courtesy of your one year old, as you stepped out of the room for 20 seconds for that potty break you so infrequently afford yourself.

As a result, you quietly chastise yourself for taking that oh-so-needed restroom break. You knew you put them off for good reason.

You admit that you need to tone down the road rage when your three year old yells from the back seat, "Get out of the way, people!"

I'll let you read more on your own! Besides the mom list she writes about life in such a way that you can't help but read. I've always wished that I could be a good writer. I always struggled with typing a 2 or 3 page report in high school, I am very short and straight to the point. Somehow I doubt Jennie ever had that problem.

I asked Jennie to humor me with answering some interview questions and she didn't disappoint.

Q. What's your favorite thing to blog about?

Jennie: While *I* think my kids are the most adorable, exciting, hilarious subjects in the world, I know that not everyone agrees. So, from time to time, I love to write about anything that inspires me, whether it be something serious or funny or downright outrageous. I know it sounds totally cliche, but I have only understood what it means to be inspired since I have had my kids. They make me see the world in a whole different light.

Q. are you as funny in person as you are in writing?

Jennie: I highly doubt it. In fact, I question whether I'm funny in writing, but I very much appreciate you thinking so! (And I'm not really sure how to answer this without sounding like I'm calling you a liar...I promise I'm not! *wink*)

Q. does your husband read your blog?

Jennie: Yes, he does. He doesn't really comment on it, and I don't really ask him what he thinks about it for fear he'll tell me to stop putting our business out for the world to read. I'm always a little nervous to over-share things with a general internet population. (Really though, he's a good sport. And I think if he hated it, he'd have told me a long time ago.)

Q. what do you want to be when you grow up?

Jennie: Don't I wish I knew! I can almost assure you that the answer is not "Be a civil engineer" [like I am now]. If you asked me my passions they would be my family, helping others, and making/eating desserts.

Q. What is your favorite blog to read?

In the typical blog-surfing fashion (which goes something like, 'click this random link, click next random link, etc, etc'), I stumbled on www.kellehampton.com a few months ago. It's called Enjoying the Small Things. The first post I read was Nella's Birth Story and, honestly, it changed my life. I have never read such a raw, unfiltered, emotional account of such a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying event in her life, the birth of her Nella Bunny - whom she did not know had Downs Syndrome until delivery. It made me crave reading more of her blogs from the past, and I've followed her every day since then. Kelle sees that life is truly beautiful. And it's the little things that make it so. (And her unbelievably amazing photography make the blog that much easier to follow!) I feel the same way about life, though my ability to convey this pales in comparison to Kelle's.

by the way the birth story she mentioned is here and it is long. I recommend reading it when you have a few minutes and a couple tissues. You will cry, I guarantee it.

Check out Jennie's blog sometime! Why not now?

I'm a 12!!! Update on my weight loss.

Remember back in January where I vowed to lose weight? Well, I didn't do really good at first. I don't remember what happened but I slowly stopped working out and started back to eating what I wanted to. This was me January 20th.

April 12th I decided to try again but didn't tell you because I was too embarrassed about being such a failure back in January. I started the Insanity workout. This is what I looked like on April 12th a couple pounds lighter that January (literally) I was 176.

My knee has been bothering me this past week but I did Insanity for about 35 days and then my knee couldn't take it anymore. It was so swollen, my right knee was visually bigger than my left and I couldn't kneel on the floor without having a sharp pain in my right knee. The swelling has gone down considerably and I can tolerate kneeling although it still hurts. I did a low impact workout today and will continue to until my knee is 100% again. I really don't want to do damage to it. I am still doing the diet even though the Insanity workout is out of the question right now. I weigh 167 today! I'm sooooo close to that 10 pound mark and I'm hoping I'll reach it this week (well surpass it really). I also have other exciting news. I went and bought a pair of size 12's this week at the Gap Outlet (love that employee discount that Matt gets!) My size 14's were falling off of me. I didn't even have to unbutton them to pull them down! Here I am today.

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My Size 12's!

Lost final episode - "The End"

So, if you haven't seen the finale of Lost yet, just know that if you keep reading beyond this point there will be spoilers!

OK, so I cannot be held responsible for giving anything away at this point!

Last night I went to watch Lost with my mother in law, Danielle. We don't get ABC at my house and I really didn't want to wait til Monday to watch it. I got teary eyed when each person remembered, the one that got me the most was Sawyer and Juliet! The whole show was great and kept me on the edge of my seat, then the last 5 minutes happened. Huh? I turned to Danielle and said, "what? they're dead???" I kept saying "I'm so confused!" all the way home I talked to myself...(everyone does that right? riiiight?) by the time I got home I had figured it out some and by morning I had it really figured out. (I hope) So, here goes.

Everything that happened on Lost happened, from them surviving the plane crash, to smokey, to getting off the island and coming back to the island. The flash sideways world that they have been having this season was kinda like, for lack of a better word, purgatory. A waiting place. Each of the characters were dead but didn't realize it until they had the moment of remembering. After they realized that they were dead they remembered their life and somehow they knew that they were supposed to make everyone else remember too and meet at this church. There were some people missing like Michael, I think he wasn't there because his soul was stuck on the island, if you remember a few episodes ago he was one of the whispering dead. One thing that bothered me is that baby Aaron was at the church. I don't think he should have been there....but oh well! Questions? ask away in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

Hey Y'all!

I know I haven't written a blog in forever but I wanted to write one just to let all my readers know that I'm still alive! I have been busy trying to get my photography business off the ground and trying to stick to my exercise / eating right. Eating healthy is very time consuming (not to mention expensive!) There is a lot of planning that goes into eating healthy. Sure once in a while I have a protein bar and a glass of milk for a meal but most of the time there is the cutting of the veggies or fruit, measuring portion sizes and putting it all together. I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off if I had a job.

Which leads me to another topic. I still have not been able to find a job and I'm getting a little antsy about it. I thought that I would have a job by now for sure! The job market is so saturated right now with the high unemployment rate that I have a lot of competition for any job I apply for. I hope that I'll be able to find something soon!

I have kind of abandoned my 365 project. It wasn't fun anymore and it felt more like something I had to do. I also felt pressured to do something wonderful for my picture everyday and I just wasn't getting any creative ideas that I could pull off. I also was taking it too serious. If I posted my picture of the day and I didn't get many comments on it (or any comments) I took it personally and got upset that it wasn't good enough for people to comment on! Crazy, huh? So, maybe I'll get back into it sometime for just 4 months (that's how long I had left to finish).

Right now my camera is broken so that is putting a damper on the 365 project and my photography. I hope to get it fixed soon. It should still be under warranty.

I'll post some before / after pics soon so you can see my first 30 days transformation on Insanity.

Exciting News!!!

Yesterday I launched my website. I love how it came out and I hope that it will bring me some photography business. Number 64 on my list is to create a website! If you haven't seen it yet, the link is www.sarahhawkinsphotography.com . I also set up a Facebook Fanpage and as of right now I already have 165 fans! Yay! Please be my fan on Facebook if you haven't already. I can't wait to start taking pictures!!

Yay Henry!

Last May, as some of you may remember I tried the 3 day potty training method and after 9 days I gave up because it was either that or lose my sanity. I was so tired of praising Henry for "trying" when he would sit on the toilet for 2 seconds and demand to get down. (if you want to read my blog posts about it you can look here, remember to start from the bottom and work your way up to go in order)


Well, I decided last week to try potty training again. I thought maybe he was finally ready. It was his half birthday (3 1/2) and I really didn't want him to be 4 and still wearing diapers. This time it was so much easier! I used a lot of the methods from the 3 day potty training system but I kind of adapted them to fit Henry a little better. He is what I like to call a strong willed child and he is not easily tricked into doing something that he doesn't want to do.

I could tell by the first day that it was going much easier than it did the first time I tried. He was at least willing to sit on the toilet this time! Each day seemed to be easier than the last, I am happy to report that yesterday, 2 weeks after we started he is going into the bathroom by himself and going to the bathroom, this includes pee and poo, he is also waking up dry in the mornings. He did have one accident yesterday but I'm not too worried about it. I am so glad that I listened to my mommy intuition last year and decided to wait til he was ready. I didn't get frustrated with him one time this time around. I am so proud of him and I know he is proud of himself too!