Photography

Well, I finally did it. Anyone who has been reading for a while knows my many rants about starting a photography business. Well, I finally started seriously getting into it. I posted a status on my facebook about starting (that's what makes it official, right?) and posted to give away 2 freebies to whomever posted first. Danielle and Nancy won! They both are choosing to do their photo shoots this weekend!!!!!!! Ahhh. So, I have been diving into my camera manual, photoshop manual, photography websites, getting advice, business licensing, permits. It's really a lot to cram into your brain in a short amount of time, but it's working. At least a lot of the actual photography part is fun to look through. It's the countless pages of FAQs on business that are cramming my brain.

 Here's one of my favorite pictures I have taken. It was mid stroke. The water detail is so awesome when it's huge. I had it printed in a digital album as a full page.

I will be starting a new blog just for my photography business. I will link that here, of course, when that's ready. And as time goes on, I'll probably change the website to something more sophisticated with better galleries and enhancements.

I will also be starting a facebook group page for the business so that I can post galleries and get interest going.

I'm trying to learn all I can about my Photoshop Elements 5.0 program. I have already learned a lot by reading the manual. What a concept, huh?! I also have learned several things from the camera manual too so I can't wait to try out a few things. Have any of you shot in RAW before? I know one of my friends has, but so curious how it all works. (Update: I tried it out but it seems my program doesn't support raw. Bummer!)

One thing I have noticed just in these last couple days since making it sorta official. Not everyone is happy for you. Some people, even photographer friends, are so secretive about how it all works. It's like, um, I'm not trying to steal anyone from you. I'm just trying to figure it all out.

I need to give a huge shout out to my friend Lori of Lori Anderson Photographers who has been such a wonderful resource of information and wisdom on all things photography. I love her openness and willingness to spend time responding to me. She is an amazing photographer so check out her website.

The business license application is all filled out. So, now I need to find out how much it is and figure out how to pull all of that together. Next step is to get the sellers permit.

In the meantime, I am still a PartyLite Consultant. However, that has seriously taken a back burner lately. I am revving up to have 2 parties in October. One my mother-in-law is doing for me. The other will be a big open house inventory blow out sale at my house. And yes, this is in the midst of Scott finding a job, starting a new business, coordinating MOPS, running a weight loss challenge at my home, and being a stay-at-home mom. I guess it's time to pull out my Supermom cape. :)

Biggest Loser Challenge Week 2

I'm so excited to report that I am FINALLY at 65 pounds lost!!! I had been meandering at 60-64 pounds for months!! I finally broke through that barrier. I lost 3 pounds this week!! I'm so excited!! There were several temptations this week that I did not indulge in. It felt great to overcome them each time. It feels great to have 2 big losses 2 weeks in a row.

I was so excited to get my new badge (see above) from scalejunkie. I added my new weight in the Weight Loss Progress area in my blog too and decided to add my current loss to that section. So, it won't just be for milestones, but for the current loss I am at.

Since I was achy from being sick most of the week I only exercised twice. I worked out on Friday since that was the first day I felt a tiny bit better. Bad idea. I still did it. I did the 30 Day Shred Level 1 and I have never been so exhausted doing that one before. Even the first time I did that level I didn't think it was bad. This time I was exhausted by the end of the warm up. But I persevered and finished it. Then 2 days later I did the Biggest Loser DVD I have. It was the "Low Intensity Cardio". It's a great workout and harder than the bootcamp on there. (Well, parts of it anyway.)

I am in a 2 way tie for 8th place this week. I was in a 3 way tie for 9th last week. I like moving up!!

I feel so much better. Today marks 4 weeks with this cough. I am just left with the cough, congestion, and my voice sounds funny still.However, the cough and congestion are way better than they have been. Hopefully this means things are looking up.

5 on Friday

I thought I would try 5 on Friday.  I think I have done it like once before on a week where I missed the 10 on Tuesday. lol

1. MOPS yesterday was sooooo awesome. It was more than we could have expected. So many people showed up. We had almost 50 people. That is a HUGE jump from last semester. We had an amazing speaker, Kim Songer. She just has so much experience in so many areas that she was so perfect for our group. She was so joyful and real. It was just the start we needed. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We played a silly dress up game with the mentor moms. So much fun!

2. The food was amazing at MOPS and I even lost from yesterday. MIRACLE! I'm almost down to my lowest weight ever (since losing). Just a few tenths of a pound to go.My stomach feels smaller. Love that feeling.

3. I'm still sick. I wish it would just go away already. I am feeling a little better though. The congestion isn't quite as bad. The aches aren't as bad either. But everything is there still enough to be annoying. Especially the cough when it starts. It sometimes makes me feel like I'm going to throw up. ewww

4. It hasn't happened much yet, but I'm waiting for it. One thing I have learned doing these challenges is that everyone has an excuse. The problem with that is that eventually you could come up with an excuse every week and never show any progress. There will always be a birthday party, a celebration, a holiday, or something else in our lives to challenge us in our weigh loss goals. It's up to us what we are going to do with those challenges. Are we going to succumb to the pressure of the temptation or are we going to rise above it and choose to change. Because after all, it is our choice. We have the power to pick the veggie platter over the chips and cookies. I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm only saying that you do have the power. And once you reclaim your power and start making those little changes, they can add up to big losses.

5. I'm so proud of Courtney's reading. She is doing so well. Learning new words every day. My mom gave her a book to read that she wanted to try to read. It's a chapter book from a High School Musical series. She needs help on lots of words, but she's trying it and not getting frustrated. My mother-in-law told me how I could figure out what grade level the book is at and it's a 5.1 (which means 5th grade reading level). I'm so proud of her for even trying it. With hard words like bureaucratic in it, there is no wonder she needs help on some words. Skyler is doing great too. She is starting to sound out some words and knows some too. I need to start the flash card words with her again.

Biggest Loser Challenge Week 1

The challenge first week with weigh in results started and I lost 5.2 pounds!!!!!!!!

I really am proud of that. However, other people started pulling in 9.2 and 11 pound weigh losses. arg!! Thankfully it's only the first week and anything can happen. As of right now I'm in a 3 way tie for 9th place. Everyone's really close, besides the top 3. Come on people, have a donut. lol I really do want them to do well, but I really want to win this time.

It has been hard to get workouts in because I'm sick. I can't stand excuses so I tried to do a couple workouts anyway. I walked to school a few times last week which was fine. Then I went for a run with my hubby for only 1.55 miles and it was hard. I was so tired. Then I tried to run at the gym one night. I ended up still doing a 5K, but it was rough. I ended up having to walk for the last half mile. That's when the aches started settling in. I was feeling so tired and exhausted and my cough had been there for almost 3 weeks. Monday it hit 3 weeks with this darn cough. I finally went to the doctor. I ended up having a fever when I was there. I have an infection, cough, sore throat occasionally (with a real hard cough), drainage...etc. Eww! Hopefully with all of the drugs he gave me I will get better.

I will try to workout a little this week when the aches are gone. Hopefully that will happen soon. In the meantime, I will keep track of what I eat and attempt to only drink water. (Minus the Sprite Zero that I just had.)

10 on Tuesday

1. Alright, alright. I know. It's Wednesday. Oh well. It's been so crazy here with all of the weigh ins that I didn't have time.

2. The Biggest Loser Challenge started. It has been a little insane with all of the weigh ins. I have 2 more coming right now and that will bring the total participants to 34. More keep calling or emailing me to join. There is still time to join. Just email or call me for rules/info/weigh in time. Feel free to join if you don't live near me. You can be in the no pay/no win group. You don't win anything, but maybe it's extra motivation knowing that someone will know how you did that week.

3. I have been doing really well so far with my eating. I have been walking to pick up Courtney from school so that's an extra mile every day. Other than that I haven't exercised though so I need to pick up that.

4. I have had a cough for over 2 weeks now. It's driving me nuts. I started taking Sudafed yesterday and I'm hoping that will help get rid of it.

5. A great quote from yesterday, "If you have 15 hours to spend on facebook, you can spend 15 minutes with God." One of our pastors, Sherry Mortenson said that yesterday at our bible study. How true. We waste time away like it's nothing on facebook or blogs or whatever else it is you do. So, I did it yesterday. I read the bible yesterday for 15 minutes while Courtney was doing her reading for school. I even kept reading after to finish the rest for the study. We were talking in our group about even 5 minutes. I then said "God will use whatever we have to give."

6. Someone on my facebook put that she thought I was going to say you can find 15 minutes to exercise. I believe that is true too. Most people think they don't have time to fit a workout in. But they usually are wasting time doing things that could be done another time or not at all. Even if you were to fit 10 minutes in here or there, you would still get the benefit of it.

7. We are deciding to not order soccer pictures for Skyler. That seems sad to me, but really, the picture is horrible. We get the team picture and one of the pictures of her already. So we will have a copy of it. But we are refusing to buy more. I got a much better picture of her outside anyway. So, if anyone wants a soccer picture of her I can email it to you and you can print it in whatever size you want. She had her first game last Saturday. She plays at 8am every Saturday if you want to come and watch.

Ok, really bad picture, but I am up there somewhere. This was in 2008.

8. Oh Candlelight. (I could only find the link for the one in Disney World.) For anyone who doesn't know I will explain. Disney does this huge musical presentation one weekend a year. It's pretty much the one time you will hear any kind of religious music or anything like it in Disneyland. It's always the first weekend of December. So, you have to try out to sing in the choir. I got the chance to do this one year with our choir from church. It was an amazing experience. I have the chance to do it again this year but now I can't. I am so bummed. I didn't realize how much I wanted to do it again until I realized I can't. I already have made a commitment on the same day as the performance. Many many choirs audition for it and about half of them don't make it in. You have to record your choir singing their songs and then they pick who gets in without knowing which groups they are when they are picking. There is a massive processional all the way down from Small World down Mainstreet. Until we get to the performance area on the backside of the train station. Oh the memories. I'm going to have to try to do it next year. I also have a blog about it from when I went if you want to read more.

9. The more and more broke we get, the more I think I'm just going to go for the photography business. I think I might ask a couple families to do a setting just for practice first. Then just go for it.

10. I'm so excited for MOPS to start next week. We have our "Meet Your Table" day tomorrow. Let the fun begin!

1st Guest Interview

Hey everyone! I have an interview posted over at 500 in 2010 Challenge. Go check it out!

1/2 Marathon

I did it!! I finished the 1/2 marathon. I ran in my neighborhood to get all of the 13.1 miles in. I decided to do this because I wanted to do the Disney 1/2 Marathon that was on the same weekend. I couldn't afford it. It was crazy expensive. So, I decided to train with my cousins anyway and still do a half on the same weekend that they would do their race.

It almost feels anticlimactic because I have finished a marathon. However, during the marathon I was walking most of it. I was planning to walk the whole thing until I realized it was going to take forever so I decided to run the last 10.6 miles. That 10.6 miles was the longest I had run before. And I had so many breaks in those 10.6 miles for stretching and resting for water that it doesn't feel the same as running the whole thing would feel. Still an accomplishment to finish one though. I won't take anything away from actually finishing it.

So back to the 1/2 marathon. This was an effort to run pretty much the whole way. I know myself and know that occasionally I will have to walk. Even if it's only like 30 seconds of walking, I know occasionally I will need to do that. I ran the first half only stopping 3 times. The first half was so nice. Easy running because it was overcast and cool out. The last half was so much sunnier and I felt like I was getting heat exhaustion. I am prone to that so it wasn't surprising to me.

My house was the half way point so that I could stop for water and something to eat (graham cracker). I knew my grandparent's house was on the way too so I could stop for water if I needed to also. I didn't feel like I needed it when I passed their house the second time, but by the time I got to the trail again I was dying. My legs and feet were actually fine. It was the heat that was the problem. I kept finding shade to walk in when I could. I was about 2-3 miles from finishing but felt so lethargic. At some point I decided that I might have to walk the rest to finish it. I kept doing little bursts of running trying to get started again but would just be so exhausted that I would have to walk again.

At one point I was praying, "God, please let someone be outside." Right around the corner some lady was outside watering her garden. I went up to her and asked her if I could drink some water from her hose. She said yes, but then insisted she get me a water bottle instead. (Since this was a stranger, I did notice that it was sealed before I opened it.) haha She talked to me about seeing me running before and that she was going to do her first 5K soon. It was so refreshing to get some water and I couldn't wait to finish. At that point I only had about 3/4 of a mile or less to finish. I did get a couple more running bursts in, but was just too wiped out.

I finished it!!! And as soon as I sat on my porch i could feel my heels start to hurt. Thankfully they didn't hurt at all during the run. But as soon as I got up I already couldn't walk very well.  Lots of resting and a couple days later and I could finally walk without pain. lol

At the end of it I felt this sense that I wouldn't ever do long runs again. I just was over it. But now I'm not quite so sure. The thought of running longer again is tempting, but I guess I will just see how it goes. I haven't run since. I did get orthodics today so I'm hoping that will start the healing process for my heels. At the very least I will continue running my 5Ks. Those are my favorites. But I have a feeling I'll do some longer ones too.

Mental note, pick a day that will be overcast to do a long run. Or run earlier or later with lights or reflectors or something. Especially an almost 3 hour run. I started at 6:15 in the morning hoping to have it all be fairly cool. The beginning was awesome and my run was good, but as it got hotter it was harder for sure.

So, no race medal or running through Disneyland, but I still did it anyway. And now I can say I have done it. It does make me want to do it all running though. ahh, maybe. I don't know yet. We'll see.

My time was 2 hours 55 minutes. Even with all of that walking. I was hoping for under 2 hours 30 minutes running most of it. So, that's pretty good considering I had to walk pretty much all of the last 2-3 miles.

Enough

Ever feel like you have just had enough? Feel like you have been doing what you have been doing long enough that it's time for a change? Tired of no progress? Had enough of trying and trying your hardest but not getting any results? That's where I am. In more than one way.

Guess what? It's not working. So, that means you need to change something. And I plan on making some big changes

I am starting the new Biggest Loser Challenge on Monday and will be going back into weight loss mode. I seriously have not been trying very hard. I have hardly been exercising at all. Well, I have been running, but not really doing any other working out. I need more variety of workouts while still getting some running in too. I need to start doing my 30 Day Shred again. I WILL be exercising more to help the weigh loss along.

I hate it when people give excuses, so I won't be making any. I have been meandering way too much. I need to regain focus and WIN this challenge. For once, I am going into it with the attitude that I will win. No more of this second or third (or 5th) place crap. I will not be all entitlistic about it thinking there is no way I wouldn't win though. That's just prideful and self centered. (And to tell you the truth, being 5th out of 40 is pretty dang good.) I WANT to win and I am giving myself permission to kick some serious booty. I WILL post new progress pictures when I hit that 70 pounds lost mark. I look forward to that. Just the act of trying to win will produce the results I'm looking for. I'm excited for it to start.

Cherry on Top

Wow! You guys really are amazing. I feel so encouraged all of the time. Thank you wholeheartedly for this blog award. Diane from "It's time" aka ladyofthehouse gave me this award. I haven't ever even seen this one in the blogger world. :) I really do not feel worthy of these awards, but keep having wonderful people give them to me. It's a very humbling experience for sure. I am honored.


Ok, so the deal with this award is that I need to:

1. Answer the question: If you had one chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

I wouldn't change anything. I believe that everything happens for a reason. We all go through hard things in life. Some worse than others. But I feel like we grow and change through every experience. I wouldn't want to change that. And I don't think I would be the person I am today without the challenges and struggles I have had to face along the way. They have made me stronger.

2. Pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have been selected for the award.

(This really is the hardest part of this.)

Holly at "Perserverance Within Me"
Joy at "Nuggets of Truth-My Weight Loss Journey"
Anne at "Smaller Fun Pants"
Emily at "Fat Girl to Thin"
Stephanie at "She's In There Somewhere"
Michelle at "What This Mom Knows!"

3. You have to thank the person (people) who gave you the award. (See above)

Biggest Loser Challenge

The Biggest Loser Challenge is starting up again!!! The challenge begins September 13th and goes until December 6th. The last winner took home OVER $1700!!!! This challenge is only for local participants (because we are weighing in on the same scale). Let me know if you want in on the challenge and I will send you the rules and info for it. So far we already have 19 people participating. 

We also have about 6 people who are not in it to win it (no pay/no win). You can come to weigh ins or just email in your weigh in. The challenge is based on percentage weight lost.

Please pass this on to your friends! Whether you have those last several pounds to lose or have over 100 to lose, this is for you. 

You will be hearing me talk a lot about the challenge from here on out. :) It is such good motivation to lose weight. Especially since we have to pay if we gain. I can't wait for it to start. I really need a swift kick in the butt. 

Thank you Sharlie, Joy and Girly Blitz!!

A huge thank you to Sharlie from Mom on a Mission, Joy from Nuggets of Truth and Girly Blitz!! They gave me this award! I really am completely humbled by this experience. Such a wonderful thing to do for someone. Let alone 3 people giving it to me. Thank you so much!

Rules:

1. Post who gave you this award

2. State 10 things you like

3. Give this award to 10 other bloggers and notify them with a comment


10 Things I Like:

1. Dancing
2. Singing
3. Running
4. Organizing
5. Game Nights with friends and family
6. Scrapbooking
7. Stamping/Card Making/Papercrafting
8. Girls Night Out
9. Dates with my Honey
10. Chocolate

This Award Goes To: (Not that they will accept them, but this is who I wanted to give it to.)

Lesia from "Here we go...hold on tight!"
Karen from "Muffin Fixation"
Allan from "Almost Gastric Bypass"
Keelie from "Real Fat"
"Treadmill Mama"
"266"
Jack from Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit
Tony from "The Anti-Jared"
"500 Miles in 2010"
Christine from "Phoenix Revolution"