The Biggest Loser: Cheering On (and Crying Along With) A Friend

Posted on 7 September 2010 | 2 responses

A week before I got engaged, I started a new job. That next year held more changes for me than I could have ever anticipated, but in that first week I was confident that I was where I needed to be.

I was taking over a front desk position for a woman who was moving on and up into the company. Her name is Lisa and she was approximately 1/3 of the reason I maintained my sanity over the next year. She, along with a few other women in the building, made me feel at home right away and I knew that I would always have someone to talk with, to vent to in the break room during a few volatile months, and to have some deeper, heart-to-heart conversations with about what we believed, where we were in life, and where we wanted to go.

One thing I learned about Lisa in my time there was that she is passionately devoted to being the best mother she can be. Her commitment to her children is something I hope I can be half as good at as she is. She is strong and bold and a fighter. I should have known, but never would have guessed, where it would take her. I left the company before she did, however, and haven’t had much contact since.

I knew back then that Lisa wanted change. She was working at it. A lot of us in the office were trying to get fit at the time. We talked about it a lot. You can imagine my surprise when I found out about a month ago that Lisa was in L.A., competing on NBC’s The Biggest Loser. You could have knocked me over with a feather. There is literally no other person on this earth that I think deserves this chance more than her. This is a woman who gets what she goes after. I will be shocked if she doesn’t win the whole thing.

(She’s the first contestant featured in this video.)

Lisa, if anyone can do this, it’s you. I am so, so happy that you have this opportunity. There are going to be some tears, I know, but I can’t wait to see you and give you a hug. Because whatever the results are in the end…it doesn’t matter. You’ve made it this far. You’ve taken the step. You’ve already won.

Watch Lisa Mosley as she competes for $250,000 and a changed life when The Biggest Loser starts on September 21 on NBC.

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on 7 September 2010 | 7 responses

A preview of what’s to come. AKA, What I Did On My Summer Vacation or How We Put 1400 Miles On My In-Laws’ Car

Tuesday Morning Coffee

Posted on 7 September 2010 | 4 responses

Eight O’Clock Coffee today. Their “Mocha” flavor. Pretty decent for a flavored coffee from a brand whose only offering I can usually stomach is the Colombian.

• All that work (occasionally studying, going to class 80% of the time, etc.) when I could have done this instead of going to college?!
• Hot Chocolate Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies – Is fall here yet? Because these babies are calling my name. Great idea for holiday gatherings. Or on late winter nights, waiting on snow. Yes, that sounds perfect.
• Yes, I know it’s still summer. Gah. Stop reminding me.
• My friend Cindy has her beautiful baby boy. All my love, prayers, and joy to their family!
• 18 Places to Feel Dwarfed by Nature – I’ve found that this feeling is one of the best you can encounter as a human. For me, at least. I like to be reminded of my smallness.
• BooMama takes us back to the 90s with some really awesome Christian music. And a mullet.
• Beautiful blackberry desktop calendar at Chocolate & Zucchini.

Happy Feets

Posted on 2 September 2010 | 10 responses

I like shoes. Not in an obsessive, hoarding way (that’s purses, so keep ‘em straight). I just appreciate a good, pretty, comfortable pair of shoes. So much that I usually wear them until they are falling apart and I end up wishing I had bought two.

FACT: My favorite pair of tennis shoes (that I still own and wear regularly) was purchased when I was in 10th grade. Yes, that means they are 10 years old.

Even though I love shoes, I often make bad shoe choices. Like my bad food choices. I pick out things that look good and I end up paying for it a few hours later.

About a month ago, I spent a day shopping with my mom. I don’t even remember the shoes I wore that day, but I do know one thing — they hurt. My feet were screaming by the time we made it to our 4th stop, which just happened to be TJ Maxx. After I had wandered through every aisle of their housewares section, answered phone calls from my mom (who was in the dressing room), and become bored beyond all reason (I hate shopping in stores unless I am looking for something specific — but YES, I am a woman), I found myself in the shoes. And before I knew what happened, I had a shoebox in my hand a new sandal on my foot.

And it was glorious.

It felt like a massage and walking on air all at once.

And the best part? FIFTEEN DOLLARS.

Sold!

The only thing is, I don’t know what my shoe is. I mean, I don’t know its name. It’s a Columbia sandal, but I’m pretty sure they don’t make it anymore and there’s not one in their current line that’s exactly like it.

It looks like a cross between the Gretta™ II and the Kambi™. The body of Gretta II (without the icky flowers) with the little between the toe strap of the Kambi.

Flowers? Yuck.

Toe strap. Keeps my foot from sliding all the way through and the inevitable tripping scene that would follow (trust me).

So I don’t know what I’m wearing, but I love it. It’s all that I wear now. With shorts, with jeans, with skirts, and you can just almost get away with dressing it up…but it’s tricky. And I will wear it until all the support is gone for my one foot that still has an arch. (Long story. I’ll share sometime. Suffice to say I have got a whacked out right foot with a fallen arch, that is also 1 inch longer than my left.)

Columbia doesn’t know me. I mean nothing to them. And that kinda hurts, but I’m okay. Alls I know is that they make warm jackets that have kept me safe and cozy whenever I left mine at home over a spring break trip to New Mexico and ended up snowed in under 3 feet of snow. So, yes, Columbia, I kinda owe you my life.

Just your average evening

Posted on 31 August 2010 | 4 responses

I’m cleaning the bathroom. It’s a deep clean because the bathroom needs it and my in-laws are visiting. Not that they’re going to be using our shower or anything, it’s just a way for me to waste time cleaning something that doesn’t necessarily need to be cleaned when there are piles of laundry to be folded on the couch. Kinda like when I was 8 and I had toys piled in the floor and Mom would walk in to check on my progress only to find me dusting my perfume bottles and arranging them tallest to shortest on my vanity.

Yeah.

Well, I’ve been fighting something for a long time in the shower. No, not the desire to shave my legs because that is nonexistent.

Black mold.

Now, I don’t know if it’s the cancer causing kind, but with this old house leakiness I’m worried that it’s In The Walls. Sitting. Waiting. Silently attacking our brain cells and causing exacerbating neuroses.

So what does a person who is prone to WebMD-ing (verb, like Googling) every cramp or temperature change do when she thinks she has black mold lurking in the walls? She Googles pictures of black mold. And when she can’t be confident that what she’s got isn’t the bad kind, she looks up “symptoms of toxic black mold poisoning” and gets scared because everything it lists is something she has experienced in the 5 years she’s been living in this house, except for “spleen pain” and that’s only because she’s not sure where her spleen is.

There could totally BE spleen pain. Where is my SPLEEN?

And then the she who is me decides to counteract the cancer-causing mold spores by stopping at Jamba Juice and getting one of those açai berry smoothies because it’s filled with antioxidants and that’s really my only chance now. But on the way there I’m on the phone with my mom who sounds like she picked up smoking overnight and made up for the 40-some-odd years she didn’t smoke. She’s got some sort of contagious infection and I was just with her last night for an extended period of time…

Sheesh.

As luck would have it I did have a buy-one-get-one-free coupon, so I got the açai and the Coldbuster®, which I am saving for the morning. Tonight I’m fighting off the mold spores and tomorrow I’ll battle the common cold.

Now back to the shower.

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