I had the best Valentine's Day! Kelvin had a dozen roses delivered to me along with the dozen he had brought home out of the blue two days before. They are sooooo beautiful! He also put some valentine clings to the mirror in our room for me to wake up to. And then...lots of Ethel M chocolate. He knows I'm picky when it comes to chocolate so he made sure to hand pick the ones with nuts and caramel! And then he picked out a beautiful card that sang to me. It was a song by Tim McGraw and I can't remember the name of it but it was awesome.
My kids got me a valentine also and I made some wonderful chocolate lollipops for each of them! I'll add a pic later cuz I can't do it from this computer. I also made chocolate lollipops for two classes and some preschool friends. I made over 80 of them and they turned out sooooo cute. I can't wait to post the pics of them!
Since this month is also our 17 year anniversary, Kelvin gave me some money to use how I wanted to, and I ordered all sorts of great goodies from Papertrey Ink! I love their stuff! I love that I can use it to package goodies and makes some cards that rock! I can't wait to get started!
I already know what I'm gonna do for my Pay It Forward challenge! I'm really excited. Even if no one signs up for it I'm going to make all three things and just send it on to someone anyway. It'll make someone really feel special and happy. And that's what we're going for right?! I can't wait to show what I'm going to do.
So! Wanna hear what I'm starting this week that means a whole lot to me? Well....I am going to be going on a weight loss journey. More like a trek really. I was never overweight as a child or a young adult. In fact, I was in great shape. I played sports in high school and and never thought I would EVER be overweight. It started after I married. I got married too young, to escape from home where I thought I was really unhappy. (Hello!...dumb teenager!) I was 19 and didn't think I had any other choice. That was my only way out! I had no idea that I could go to school. My parents couldn't afford it and my grades weren't good enough. I literally had NO IDEA that you could get student loans. Anyway, I made a mistake and married the wrong man. In the temple mind you, but still, the wrong man. Although I did think that I was in love with him at the time. Now I know that I had talked myself into thinking that I was in love. Man, can I say stupid! I was sooo naive!
Anyway, I married and moved to Idaho, where I found out that I really missed my family. And my husband, well, let's just say I was very lonely and sad. The pain just kept building and building. I had two children with him when we decided (I insisted) we move back down to CA. On our way, we stopped at my husbands sisters house in Las Vegas, where he was offered a job working for his BIL to be able to get some money to pay for an apartment, and I would take the kids and go the rest of the way and stay with my parents. I didn't like the idea but he wanted to do it. The rest is history. He liked not having a family and got himself a girlfriend, drank and did some other things that weren't part of our convenants. I came back to try and work it out, but it didn't and I was left with 2 children in Las Vegas (the last place that I would EVER want to live in) with no job and a trailer that was disgusting. Ewwww...just thinking about it makes me shudder. We could only stay in the living room. The trailer was a double wide that wasn't even sealed in the middle. There was a two inch gap that I could see all the way to the ground to. There was no air conditioning. Living in a metal box in the middle of summer here in Las Vegas is not fun at all. I was beside myself, I had never lived anywhere but home and with a husband. I had NO IDEA how to provide for myself or my kids. If it wasn't for the church, I don't know how we would've made it. I was able to move into a small apartment, get a job at a bank and a lady in my ward babysat for almost nothing. I used to pray so fervently for someone (a man) to come into my life and be a dad for my kids. (their own paid 500.00 out of the $14,000.00 he owed me before my husband adopted them) I didn't want them to feel like I did growing up (my natural father and my mom divorced when I was 3 and we saw him very little. Once every 5 years or so) As an aside: I have the best Dad in the world and I love him very much. But growing up, I didn't feel loved and I really felt that I was on the outside looking in.(My dad is my step-dad if you're confused)
I prayed and cried and prayed and cried. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Heavenly Father sent me Kelvin. He was EXACTLY what I prayed for. He loved my kids as much as he loves all the other one's. He treats them just the same. I am so lucky that Heavenly Father heard my prayers. That He sent me Kelvin. That He knew Me, and loved me. And poor Kelvin, he paid for all of my ex-husbands sins for about 5 years. I was horrible to him. And when I say horrible, I mean horrible! I was so unkind. It was like I was trying to see if he would be like every other man in my life and leave. So I pushed and pushed and pushed. And many times our marriage almost fell apart.
And during all these tumultuous times, I ate. I destroyed the body I had with my own unhappiness.
Well...to make a long story short, we've survived the pain and unhappiness and we are finally making it good. And since I've let go of all that baggage, I need to get rid of all the extra baggage that I'm carrying on my body. (I really think that I ruined this body to see if my husband would leave if I looked bad. Cuz I was hot when I married him. I lost 50 lbs. when I divorced. Was so sick inside that I couldn't eat. Didn't have the money to either.) Anyway, I love him so much. He didn't leave, he saw the good in me. He knew the pain I was feeling and still...he stayed. So you know a brief little bit about me, I hope that I'm not judged to harshly (I do feel ashamed for my past sometimes. I was raised in the church and divorce is taboo. I'm not going to lie...I was one of those people who thought to themselves,"I wonder what they did...to get divorced" ) Now I know better. Nobody knows who we are or what we've been through and NO ONE has the right to judge. Heavenly Father has that right. And He knows me and everything I've been through. I'll be o.k. with Him doing so. And I'll just love a person for who they are now. I don't have to worry about their past.
Man, where did all of this come from?! I was just gonna tell you that I was going to lose weight! Sorry ya'll!
I'll keep you posted on how much I lose each week. Wish me luck!!
And the one and only ornament that Kelvin put up because I asked him too. Wasn't that nice of him? I wanted a picture of him pretending to like Christmas!
In which I improvise trees . . .
6 years ago
