My Home Town

My Uncle Rick sent me this e-mail the other day:

"Detroit could care less about it's historical structures or it's history. Thanks to our past three mayors our city now looks like the old train station. A once proud city now languishes in utter decay. The beautiful Grand City Hall torn down 50 years ago, Tiger Stadium is a half-demolished hulk, Olympia Stadium wiped out and the grand lady of our Train Station now is nothing more than an abandoned and pillaged hulk of architecture that stands as testimony to our once proud past and now dismal future."


The older pictures were taken in 1973 and the recent pictures are from last year 2008.



This was once my city too.

onlyndetroit.com

Rewards

Some of you know that I have been working semi-hard to lose some weight and get into the greatest shape I've ever been in (which wouldn't be hard considering I've never been in good shape). Part of the problem in getting this way in the past is because I've realized that I reward my myself for healthy habits with food! For example: "Oh! I've been so good this week; worked out 3 times and ate mostly healthy at lunch and dinner! I think I'll go order a Frisco-melt, cheese fries, an enormous Coke and a chocolate/orange side-by-side shake from Steak 'N Shake!" Needless to say, any strides I had made during said week are viciously erased by a saboteur - myself!

Well, now that I have had this "revelation" I've been trying to come up with various healthy ways of rewarding myself for good behavior. Unfortunately, most of what I have come up with involve cold hard cash; of which, I have very little.

One of the things I've been contemplating is waiting to cut my hair (that I've been growing out to donate) until I've lost the complete 10 pounds I set out to lose. Can I tell you that this has been extremely difficult?! I love changing my hair and can hardly stand for it to be this long and bo-o-oring and I'm ready to whack it all off and tattoo beautiful pictures onto my bald head instead of it looking like it does. I thought this waiting would be motivation to do better and get rid of these last 2 and a half pounds but I completely set myself back this weekend and tonight with chicken mushroom lasagna from Maggiano's and Arby's curly fries! Aaurghhhh!!! (No, I did not eat them together! Saturday night and Wednesday night respectively - just thought I would clear that up or there would be rumors spreading that I'm pregnant again - which I am DEFINITELY NOT!)

Anyhoo, I'm telling you all this to hold me accountable for what goes in my mouth!

... At least until I get my hair cut! *wink wink*

Beautiful

I admit that I'm a little,... okay, alot, afraid of posting this. But here goes! Just being straight-up real! I've been struggling lately with a particular question and FINALLY bought the book Do You Think I'm Beautiful? by Angela Thomas to help me answer this question. Really, my question has been, "Is it okay to even ask this question or to want to be beautiful?"

She quotes from John Eldredge's book Wild at Heart:

Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for...
She wants to be more than noticed - she wants to be wanted. She wants to be pursued.

Every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. Not to conjure, but to unveil. Most
women feel the pressure to be beautiful from very young, but that is not what I speak
of. There is also a deep desire to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in.


Thomas ends the first chapter with this:

Maybe the purpose of the question is to take me by the hand and walk me into the
presence of the Creator. My soul cries out and asks the questions meant to lead me to
God. Maybe all that really matters is what He thinks of me.

Have you ever heard your heart cry, "Do you think I'm beautiful?" Then let these words
embrace you with their truth:

The king is enthralled by your beauty.
(Psalm 45:11)

The God who slung the stars across the heavens ... the same One who shaped the mountains and valleys with the palm of His hand... the God whose very breath gives life... that God , the King, has always been taken with you.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Usual

I feel like I should be posting something this week but, honestly, there isn't much to report. We have been doing the usual things: boys at school, Brian at work, I'm on the treadmill and on Facebook, breakfast, watching Nick Jr., lunch, boys home from school, 1 to 4 extra kids in the house to play several afternoons this week, dinner, American Idol/Biggest Loser/Hell's Kitchen, bed... repeat 7 times.

*YAWN*

I guess I'm bored a bit. But ... this really is how I like my life... really. I don't have anything to complain about though I hope I won't grumble if I do. I want to enjoy the "quiet." I know one of these days there are going to be hectic schedules or struggles or pain to deal with and I don't want to rush through this wonderful time into those things. This is time to prepare for that, right?

To rest, to enjoy. To learn, to grow. To serve, to give (even if there isn't much to give).

Now... on to the treadmill!

No More, No Less

Coleen Verner had this song in her playlist on her blog and I loved it! I think this is my new "anthem."

Family Portraits

We finally had a portrait taken of our entire family last month! I wanted to wait to take a formal picture of all of us until our family was "complete." I didn't want anyone to be missing from that picture so we needed to wait until after everyone was born. Does that make sense? We didn't do it last year mostly because I didn't want to take a picture of me while I was still hanging onto so much of my "baby fat." How conceited!! Oh well, what can I say? Mom and I kept forgetting to pick up the cd from Olan Mills so I haven't been able to post them until now. Thanks, Mom, for remembering today! You're the best! So here they are! I'll post them in black and white for now.

Painting with Anna

I took Anna to Just Fired, a pottery painting place, today and we had a great time! We have been needing to get out, just she and I, for awhile. Every now and then I take just her with me to the store but we rarely do anything just for fun together. She loves drawing, painting, cutting and gluing... Anything "artsy" so I knew she would like something different like this. It was a little difficult for me to just let her do her own thing and paint it however she wanted but I'm glad I didn't interfere in her project. I let her pick out the pottery pieces that we were both going to paint and I let her pick out the colors for her project and the colors for mine also. Naturally, she ended up using all the colors, hers and mine, and the lady helping brought her one extra color, too. I can hardly wait to see the end result. She used every drop of paint available to her and I'm sure her piece probably ended up twice the original size because of the amount of paint on it! We're going to have to make this a regular activity and choose lots of different kinds of things to paint over the next few years. Lots of fun!