This is hard!

Losing weight is so hard to do! I've been going to the gym as much as I can the past month...and 2 lbs. That's all I've lost so far!! I even signed up for personal trainers.  I'll meet with them 3x a month to keep me motivated and on track.
I know what's holding me back from losing more weight...and it's one of those things that my brain is saying, "You can't POSSIBLY live without that!"  And what is it? Sweets. Oh my gosh. I told Brian we're not allowed to have any sweets in the house anymore. No cookies, no pies, no brownies, no ice cream, no chocolate, no nothing. I have kettle corn -- that's my one thing I am not able to give up (and it's so much better than a huge bowl of ice cream!!).
I think once I give up sweets more (the last of it was eaten this weekend) I'll be able to lose more weight.
I've also been taking care of my poor husband who has been sick for the past week and a half!! He's had a fever every night...and when he went to the MD on Wednesday last week, they told him his WBC count was normal.  I made him go back to the MD today and he said they took like 6 vials of blood to run more tests. I'm worried about him...I have nightmares that I wake up and he doesn't =(
Well...I have my "before" pictures for my weight loss journey...but I'm not ready to post them up yet. It's embarrassing, really. Once I get down about 20 lbs, then I'll take some "mid-journey" weight loss pictures and post them up. My goal is to lose 35 lbs or so. I started out at 168 and my goal is 130-135.  A normal, healthy weight for a girl in her 20's that is my height.

So tired...

I have had chronic lumbar back pain for ten plus years now. It's been nearly impossible for me to sit for more than 20 minutes doing most of the things I enjoy most, which includes sewing, crafting, and reading. I went and saw a medical doctor in early august, and he recommended physical therapy. My consultation was this past week and it went well. My first appointment is next Friday.
Other things that I have been doing to try to help is going to work out. I joined a gym and have been going at least 4x a week.
The most fervent thing I have been doing is praying. And now I'm asking others to pray also. I know it's a lot to ask for...but please pray for me every day. This is what I posted on my church's prayer website:

"My brothers and sisters in Christ, please pray for me. I am having another severe bout of lumbar back/spine pain. I am praying every day and I am getting angry that nothing I do physically or spiritually is helping. I know that the Lord is giving me this trial to further His glory, but I am tired of not being able to move to the best of my ability. I am tired of the pain. I am desperate for some healing. Please, please pray that God will heal my back. "

The bible says in Matthew 18:19-20, "Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

Yuck

So I've been pretty good about going and working out since I joined 3 weeks ago.  I've gone like 10 times in the last 3 weeks! I'm so proud of myself! And then I get sick this weekend. Yuck!!  It's not like, --I'm going to throw up --sick, more like my body doesn't handle extreme temperature/season changes well.  According to "On This Day in 2010..." on Facebook, I was sick too. Yay. Lucky me.  I'm feeling better, but I lost my voice this morning temporarily, so that was interesting working with patients with barely any voice and coughing all over the place.

In other news -- my sewing machine is on the fritz.  Of course, when I bring it in to the repair shop where they "tuned it up", it works perfectly fine, and what happens when I get home? It freaks out and doesn't work properly. Serves me right. I'm getting to the point where I'm going to just trade it in for a Janome.  I had a mini-sewing machine that was a Janome before buying the POS  that I have now, and it NEVER gave me any problems. We're talking about hemming stuff without any fuss whatsoever.

I'm also putting up some pretty cool decals in my "sewing/craft/computer" room.  They're supposed to look like this after it's done:

This is how it looks right now. It's a lot more work putting it up perfectly than it would seem!  And since it's close to 11 PM, I can't finish it tonight. I have to go to work tomorrow, lol.

Yup, one trunk. Oh well, the rest will be up soon.

Confessions

So, I realized during the sermon on Sunday that I've been hiding things from those most dear to us. Well, Brian and I as a couple have been.  Pastor Peter talked about how we need friends, family to hold us accountable.  Also that we need to be honest not only to ourselves but to others also, and that sometimes the hardest way to be honest with ourselves is to be open and honest and communicate that honesty with others.  So here goes.

Brian and I are struggling financially.  It's not to say that we're not blessed -- we certainly are in every aspect of our life.  But are we perfect? No.  Are we comfortable? No, we're not, actually.  It is humiliating and disgracing and incredibly embarrasing to say that we're living paycheck to paycheck right now with bills, car payments, and credit card bills lining up.  I'd love to blame the credit card debt (which is not an extravagant amount, but it's still there) on the move...but I can't.  It's 100% my fault.  Brian's so much better at getting his paid off than I am...and I'm the one always griping about it.

It's hard for me to even click "publish post" for this.  Part of me is screaming, "Don't! Don't let anyone know! Just keep on pretending everything is great!" And the other, holy-spirit filled part of me is saying, "Part of being one of God's children is understanding and experiencing humility on a regular basis." So here I am, Lord, humbling myself before you and all of my friends and family, all those that I hold close and dear to my heart.  We need prayer, we need advice, we need counseling, anything that will help us out and bring us closer to God.

Edens Edge Concert and Japanese Memorial

So I meant to post this last week, but I've been crazy busy this week.  So here's a summary:
Because Brian's grandmother (obachan) in Japan died, we decided to go to the Japanese Garden at Normandale Community College as a kind of way to pay our respects. Considering we all don't have two grand each to go to fly to Japan.  Here are a few pictures from that trip:

It really is quite a beautiful place!  We got some silly other pictures, but we decided to keep them on FB for friends :)
After that, we went to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill to see....EDENS EDGE!! Okay, well, Roxie and I went to see Edens Edge. Brian went for the ribs. Of course. :) I was SO excited to go see this band, because their songs are so catchy and fun, and I love it! I bought their EP on iTunes a while back and of course knew *almost* all the words to their songs, so it was a blast being able to sing along with them!! The best part? Being able to meet the band afterwards!! Hannah Blaylock, Cherrill Green, and Dean Berner are all so nice and I'm fortunate to have had the chance to meet them! Hannah saw me and said, "You're my front row girl! I had so much fun singing along with you!" and gave me a big hug.  One of my top ten moments of 2011, for sure. Here are some pictures!

All in all, it was a great day!!! :) I'm so glad to have such great memories! God sure has blessed me :)

A very full day

So today was pretty eventful for different reasons. The first, is quite obvious; I updated my blog and customized it so it screams "AMBER"! I even MADE the blog title at the top. I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself and my mad photoshop skills. I'm going to have to learn more soon, but I'm happy for now :)

Secondly, my husband and I found out that his obachan, or grandmother in Japan passed away today.  My mother-in-law is super upset, of course.  I lost my dad when I was 15, so I know exactly how she feels right now.  The only bad part is that she just became a US citizen, which means that she doesn't have her US passport yet.  She's going to petition to the passport office to see if she can get an emergency passport so she can go to Japan for her mother's funeral.  My thoughts are with Chiaki, Shingo, and Toshiki. I hope that Ojichan is okay.  He's in a nursing home over in Japan and hasn't been doing very good the last couple of years.

Let's all say a prayer for the Owada family tonight.

My poor sewing machine

So here I am Monday night, feeling quite ambitious and wanting to finish machine quilting my baby quilt, right?  Well, the needle tension has always been off on my sewing machine that I purchased in January, so I decided to try to fix the bobbin tension.  Logical thing to do, right? WRONG. Not only did I screw things up, I totally delayed my quilting ambitions. =( Fail for Amber.

I went ahead and took it to a sewing sales and repair shop that has been around for 40+ years and has this amazing reputation.  Well, I go there and of course two things happen. 1) It's pouring rain out. and 2) My stupid locks on my car doors are totally screwed up, so I have to unlock it from the inside while getting drenched. Yay.  Went in and filled out the paperwork, and the older gentleman that owns the shop started talking with me because I was checking out the machines.  I totally loved this one machine that was made for both sewing and quilting, but had quilting more in mind because it had a longer arm on it.  Totally cool right? He said he'd offer me a great trade-in value for mine...and the price would be $3000 for the other machine. Holy man! I mean, I understand a shop owner has to sell his stuff, but talk about an expensive sewing machine!  Maybe if I win the lottery someday I'll go back and say, "SOLD! I'll take it!" but since I don't play the lottery...I don't think it'll happen. 

But the guy totally made me smile after we were chatting for a while.  He said, "Be careful out there, you're a sweet girl, and you know what happens to sugar in water, right? It dissolves." Ha. Totally  made my day.