Simply Sara

I took a long nap this morning, from 10:30 till noon. I was convinced that this necessary nap wouldn't keep me awake tonight, but here I am, after midnight and I have found myself wanting to blog again. We are days away from Christmas, tomorrow being Christmas Eve in our house. (We're celebrating early.) I want to share a story, not to bring recognition or pride, but to share what God's been teaching me and how He's using my children to do that. A week or so ago, Christmas cards arrived for my children, containing money for each of them. It was quite a lot of money for a seven, four and two year old to possess. As they sat at the table in awe and wonder of the $25 dollars in their hands, I casually mentioned the Christmas offering. My heart's desire was to gently remind them that with every blessing God gives us, we give back a tenth to Him as a way of saying thanks and expressing trust in His provision. But before I could get the kid-friendly words out, my Lucas ...

Guess what? I'm taking steps today to get just a little closer to my dream. We're off to the gym in a little bit to keep working towards losing those 38 pounds. I'm also working on a plan to sell specialty homemade cheesecakes during the holidays. Doing something I love and making some extra money for the people I love. Pretty great stuff!

Looking through Pinterest tonight a funny thing happened. Instead of feeling like the most untalented and least creative person on the planet, I actually felt inspired. I let myself dream a little. In my dream world, I'm 40 pounds thinner, wearing an adorable, feminine dress, and ballet flats and I'm baking a scrumptious treat for someone special. I love trying new recipes, especially when it comes to desserts.  I would bake every day if I could and had an endless grocery budget. And I'd wear dresses every day too!

Part of moving to a new town, a new neighborhood, is putting yourself out of your comfort zone to meet people. I feel kind of like I'm dating again. Dating for friends. Searching for friends for the kids and friends for myself. We still live in the Charleston area, just moved to a new part of it. Thankfully, I can look back to 2009 and 2010 and see how God was really pushing me to get out of my comfort zone because He was preparing me for this new phase in life! (Love it when I can look back and see a purpose for my discomfort and pain!) I can't help but ironically chuckle when I think about how God radically took me out of my comfort zone by relocating our family to the low county a year ago, and how He has done it all over again with this new move to Mt. Pleasant. Now, we're only 40 minutes away from friends and familiarity, but when you're coordinating around nap schedules and bus drop offs, traveling that far can make a big difference.  I've only meet a few ...

5 pounds into my new weight loss journey and I must admit, I'm pretty excited. Oh the road before me is very long, but I am so hopeful. After 2 years of firmly cementing my bad eating habits into place, I'm ready for change. Ready to eat smaller portions, pig out on fruits and veggies and stop compulsively eating! I have even allowed myself to believe that I will achieve my goal weight by my 30th birthday! Yes, I will enter my 30s at my lowest weight since getting married and I have 5 months to do it! Ready for change. Ready to see things happen. 

I think going to the library should be fun. Reading is fun.  Libraries have books. Libraries should be fun, right? Well, we found a "fun" library today! Great atmosphere and friendly librarians totally made me forgive the rather outdated interior and size. I loaded up on beginning reader books for Lucas, "girlie" books for Ava, and a couple for me and Wyatt and a couple movies! We even arrived just before story time was beginning! We haven't done story time in over a year! Wyatt did pretty well, although an unpleasant diaper did interrupt the magical moment! My favorite part was the self-checkout! Ahhh-mazing!

So I'm waiting in the drop-off line at school with Lucas this morning when he spies his (assistant) teacher, "Mom, Ms. K is always cold when I hug her in the morning!" This admission of hugging made my heart so happy! Hooray for teachers who give hugs! As much as I miss Lucas and pray for him during the day, I'm so happy to hear he's getting a little affection at school! Well, I'm not happy about the girls who chase boys around the playground trying to kiss them! That's a whole different kind of affection!

I am NOT adjusting well to the back to school routine of waking up before 6! I hate it! grrrrrr..... Seriously, how am I supposed to loving take care of my children when I'm so stinking tired? Must.go.to.bed.early.tonight.

Some days, I feel like I have to chose between playing with my children and cooking a healthy dinner. I hate that. I want to give them both. Tonight we're eating last night's dinner and squash. And we wrestled for an hour.

In the spirit of change, I cooked and ate a sunny-side egg for the first time this morning! And I liked it! Over the past year as God has gently pushed and sometimes shoved me through opportunities of change, I've realized that I miss out on a lot of good things when I'm not open to something new. Like sunny-side eggs.  Lucas and Matt are out riding bikes this morning before Matt goes into work. Lucas has asked us to take his training wheels off! Looks like someone else is doing a little growing up this year!

We have been living in our new place for just over a month now. I marvel at how quickly it has become home to us. There are still boxes to unpack, closets to organize, and pictures to hang (and a loooong list of other to-dos), but that all just makes it feel even more like home. We are in a long term rental since our home in the Upstate is also being rented. I hope you had a Merry Christmas. We spent several days with my family, relaxing, eating way too much, and enjoying time catching up. It felt like a mini-vacation. Actually since I didn't have to cook or clean for 4 days, it was a vacation! It was such a special time. I caught myself many times during the (short) fall season here in Charleston complaining about the warm weather and the lack of chill in the air; however, experiencing that chilly weather back in Georgia last week, I am happy that we live on the coast!  We have been riding bikes and playing outside without scarves and gloves and hats and I am so happy about th...