once upon a yard sale...

Once upon a time in Mathews Virginia a BEAUTIFUL woman was having a yard sale. She got up early, 7a.m., and started hauling everything outside. She had furniture, clothes, baby stuff, exercise equipment (that she had to have because it was the one and only thing that would make her skinny.... then she used it for a month and never thought about it again) She have home decor, Christmas decor, sponge bob decor....

Now its all displayed nicely in her front yard and the "YARD SALE" signs are posted at the end of the drive way and she is ready for that first big sale!

A truck pulls up. "Yes!" she thinks to herself, here they come. The man gets out and starts digging through her husband's scrap pile. "Crap" I say to myself. Thats not for sale, its junk. He asks "how much for this broken trailer" .. uh, Derek? she question's to her husband. "$15 bucks" Derek tells the man. She think to herself "what about all my beautiful treasures? He wants junk?" The man and Derek dig the trailer out of the scrap pile and the man hands him a $20.00 bill. "Keep the change" he says. The man leaves.

"Give me that money" She snaps at Derek. "Its my scrap" he says. "Its my sale" she replies.

They split it fifty fifty. Speaking of fifty.. she has made fifty cents since then:(

The scrap king wins again... damn him!

(p.s. I find yard sales boring so I write stories!... if this sale doesn't pick up I may publish a novel by the end of the day!

two sides to every story...

Ever have an argument with someone and find out later what they said about you? And you realized that it was the exact things you were saying/thinking about them.. only in their version you were the bad guy?

Now I am not saying it is right to talk about people behind their back, but it happens.. and when you hear stories about how evil you are it really bites! Especially when you have done nothing wrong (there are few perfect people, I guess I am lucky to be one of them!)

It amazes me, baffles really.. that two people, who were present at the exact same argument, can have completely different versions of the events that occurred.

Obviously we need to be careful with what we say in anger, because those words can come back and bite us in the butt.. and they have jaws of steel! But what about the words that you never said, but someone says you said? .... I feel like a tween, he said that she said that he, she, it said.....

I feel like a hypocrite trying to live a Christian life, when people are judging me on things I NEVER said or did?

I am not saying that I am innocent on all accounts, but seriously.... I feel like I have to defend my every move!! And some moves I never made!! I also love how if I try to mend the situation nobody talks about that!

In case you haven't noticed it's a ranting day... but I do have a bit of advice, seeing as how I am an expert on the subject.

Keep your mouth shut! Always. Don't speak. Ever. People may think your crazy, but at least they can't accuse you of saying things you didn't!! Lol... I guess if I did that I would still probably be accused of giving someone the evil eye or something!

Anyway, I guess I need to let it go in one ear and out the other and not care what others think of me, but just what I know to be true about my self... but seriously, I am human and those darn "wise" old sayings stink!

From now on I am keeping my lips zipped! Anyone who knows me knows that is a COMPLETE LIE! I can't keep my mouth closed on any subject, even duct tape wouldn't work on me!

I guess I will just continue to blog any thought that enters my mind.. which is keeping my mouth closed, my fingers are doing the talking now!!!

Only I would get brain-strain from a yard sale!

So I am having a yard sale this weekend so I am sorting through my piles of stuff that I deemed worthy of saving for the past two years I just so I could try to sell it. I have a lot of stuff that builds up until I feel like my house is going to explode under the pressure! That got me thinking that my mind often feels the same way.

Sometimes my brain gets so cluttered with "life" that I forget to live! I dwell on the past and try to keep score of the going-on's of everyone and all of a sudden so much crap has built up that I don't know what to do with it? Then I want to explode under the pressure!

I am assuming I am not the only one who feels this way, so what do you do to clear the clutter?

This is seriously serious, seriously!

Soooo...... yesterday's post created a whirlwind of facebook comments that somehow ending with meth addicts and nice Christian ladies smoking and drinking.... not so sure how that happened, but in typical Amber style my nice calm plan quickly got out of hand and I had to post legal notices on my comments! :)

One comment got me thinking about whether or not I should just be happy with the body God gave me....

I am thankful for the body God gave me. Realizing this makes this "skinny girl" journey even tougher. See, God gave me this body, and I have used it to glorify him through acts of service... occasionally. Occasionally should not be my goal in how often I give God the glory. I took this perfect, in HIS image body, and I filled it with ice cream, pizza, cookies and cakes, cheese covered lasagnas and creamy coffee drinks. I took His perfect gift and turned it into a mess! I have been a glutton for food and the body that He created turned into my revised addition.... it was perfect the way He planned, it didn't need my revisions! My negative body image stands in the way of me witnessing for the Kingdom, because I simply don't want people seeing me! Now we are talking sin.. I mean, come on!

I don't much like being serious, sarcasm runs in my blood. But sin is serious stuff! Sin, sin, sin.. and weight loss? Yes, because I sin everyday... when the thoughts of what I am eating, working out, spending time on the scale, reading articles on weight loss, trying new diets, beating myself up for eating that cookie... when all of those things consume my mind MORE than God does, what is really coming first in my life? God? Or diets? Whew, thats are hard pill to swallow to acknowledge that maybe, just MAYBE I am spending more time consumed with this skinny-wanna-be thing than I spend with God!

So now I am a food glutton and "dieting', although I hate it, is my idol. So we are no longer just on a weight loss journey... we are now venturing into the sin loss+weight loss territory! WHOA! Which means I have to accomplish my goal of being healthy on the outside, but I have to add being healthy on the inside too (spiritually speaking, though I am sure my organs will be doing the happy dance also!)

1 Corinthians 6: 19 says: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Honor God with my body? If my body (or the way I have let it become) is causing me to sin (the gluttony & idol stuff) then I am obviously not using it for the purpose it was created for, am I? Ouch, truth hurts!

Think for a second what you would build if someone told you to to prepare a temple for the Holy Spirit.... I can't even phantom how amazing I would want that temple to be!! My temple, however, is not so impressive & the Holy Spirit resides there anyway! Thank God for grace, because my temple is unworthy of Him and He lives in me anyway!

Now its time for me to take a long look in the mirror, and try to see past the stuff I dislike on the outside and glimpse that person that God created me to be!

Enough serious talk... I am going to go let Jillian Michaels kick my butt. She scares me into submission through a DVD, I never want to meet her in person!! But my love/hate relationship with Jillian can wait for another day!

Hugs, kisses and skinny dreams (inside & out)

Skinny wanna-be.. that's me!

There was a time (about 10 years ago) when I was a skinny girl. Really stinkin' skinny. I wore a size 0 jeans, my fat jeans were a size 2 and there was no 1 in front of that 2! I was also 17, had no kids, worked two jobs (because I was too cool for school) and was on the go constantly. The mountain dew/nicotine combination that was coursing through my veins gave me that extra umph that I needed to get through my 12-14 hour work days and my 5 hours of running around with friends. (Note: I was being SARCASTIC about the school thing, it was a stupid choice!)

Anyway, That is no longer the case... no more mountain dew, no more cigarettes, and no more 12-14 hour work days (I am on the 24/7 MOM schedule now) but I weigh almost 50 lbs more than I did back then. What the heck?

I am what you would call an "average" American woman. I am 5'6"... average... a size 10... average... and one hundred and ***cough, cough pounds... average! (that's 159.8 lbs, NO IT IS NOT 160!) But let me fill you in on a little secret. AVERAGE SUCKS! I don't feel good about myself. I don't like the way I look. I do not want to wear a swimsuit, not even in my own backyard. It just plain stinks.

Now, I will say that in the past 5 months I have finished loosing my baby weight (remember, I have a 13 month old) so I have lost about 30lbs! Which sounds amazing, except that I am right back where I was BEFORE I got pregnant and I wasn't happy then!

So whats the plan? I did a couple weeks of low carb dieting, and it worked.. but then I stood still again, tried some low calorie diets.. no real change with those. I tried a protein smoothie diet which would have worked if I continued because the protein powder made me vomit, but I decided anorexia wasn't the way to go. So what's next?

I almost cringe at the thought of this.. that stupid "e" word. Why must it be the only thing that really works? Crap, I hate exercise. I hate, hate, hate it. I hate running, jumping, dancing, videos, classes... I hate it all. I don't like to sweat. I don't like to contort my body into unnatural and painful positions. Apparently there are some people who enjoy it, I am not one of those people. I also KNOW that I HAVE to do it if I want to get healthy..

So, here are my goals.. maybe someone in this cyber space world will help hold me accountable for accomplishing them? Maybe for once I will account for myself?

I do NOT want to pick a number.

I always say I want to weight x amount of pounds, or loose x amount of weight... not this time.

My goal is this. I want to feel good. I want to go shopping and enjoy trying clothes on (I used too, now I dread it.) I want to be comfortable in my own skin (with the appropriate amount of clothes on, of course!) I would like to be free from the constant "downer" of being fat.

So, I have started the couch to 5K running plan (on day 2, woohoo) and I am making wise eating choices, not perfect choices.. I will not restrict things, only use moderation or I wont stick to it.

Here's too another leg in my (adult) life-long attempt to be skinny girl!

I could spend forever wishin' I was one of those naturally thin women, but it just aint gonna happen.. (that last sentence was to prove that you should stay in school!)

Hugs, kisses, and skinny dreams...