Looking at Life

This past weekend my family went on our first family vacation in about two years.  For me it was the first time I've really been out of Albuquerque and the general surrounding area in that same amount of time.  I know I've mentioned it before, but I am so not a city girl.  We went up to northern New Mexico, kind of north and west of Taos up into Carson National Forest.  Let me tell you, it is gorgeous up there!  So much cooler and greener.  I did not want to leave at all.  We were gone Thursday through Sunday and it was nice to have two full days to just relax.  Friday was my parents' 26th wedding anniversary so we enjoyed celebrating that with a steak linner (you know, too late for lunch but too early for dinner: linner).  Busted out the wine and everything.  It rained most of that day so we pretty just lounged around, napped a bit and played some games.  Saturday was clearer so we went for a 2 mile hike which was fun and then my dad and I went for a drive while mom stayed back and read.  Dad and I saw some really pretty country and just enjoyed getting to explore.  Sunday I got up early to make the 4 and a 1/2 hour drive back to Albuquerque so I could continue filming with a friend who's making a pretty epic movie.  So that made a fun, but exhausting day.   One of the things I really enjoyed on our camping trip was getting back into some photography.  I really haven't used my camera much since my family moved back into Albuquerque so it was a fun opportunity.  There were some really pretty flowers we saw on our hike and with the rain we were getting most of the plants were covered in drops of water, something I've always wanted to photograph so I took advantage of that.

Try

So, I'm back!!  I realize I've been AWOL for a good while so my apologies for that.  Life's been a bit crazy lately working to get some stuff figured out but hopefully I'll start posting on a more regular basis now.  Yay!

Earlier this month Colbie Caillat released a song called Try that created quite a buzz.  Instead of a song telling girls that the key to being pretty is to be thin, or wear a lot of makeup, or be rich, or have a ton of clothes, the song says that you're pretty just the way you are.  And instead of being one of those songs that says all the right things like that and then shows only girls who are pencil thin and photoshopped gorgeous without any makeup on, there are real girls in the video and not just teens, but you have middle aged and older women as well.  I also loved the fact that, being a big girl myself, there was one big girl included in the video as well.

Starting A New Blog!

Do you ever have those moments where you're struggling with a decision?  Should I do this or shouldn't I?  I've been struggling with that for a while now.  For several weeks I've slowly been starting to realize how much I need to lose weight and how I really just need to do it.  One of the factors that led me to the realization was reading the blog of a young woman I know who has also struggled with her weight for most of her life.  Reading her blog as she documents her struggles and successes in losing weight has been a huge encouragement for me and definitely played a large part in my decision to start working to lose weight.  My dilemma came in the form of whether I should start my own blog chronicling my weight loss.  Seeing what her blog had done for me made me want to do it as well as feeling it would be therapeutic for me and help me face some issues I've avoided talking about or dealing with, not to mention it would help me keep track of my weight loss.  There was another part of me that was very reluctant to share something quite so personal.  I know I've shared bits and pieces of my struggle with weight and other issues, but I've avoided getting too in depth about anything.  In the end, I decided to go for it and so I created a second blog, My Life Out Of The Fat Lane.

Life is Precious

It always strikes me, when I hear of some kind of disaster or accident, how much I assume that nothing like that will ever happen to me.  Not in a "I'm so great and powerful" kind of way, but I guess just kind of a more naive way.  If I'm careful how I'm driving, who I hang out with, where I go, etc., I should be fine, nothing will happen to me.  And then it always strikes me that those people affected by that disaster or accident were probably thinking the same thing.

I guess that just really struck me with reading about the ferry sinking in South Korea.  Most of the people on that boat were teens on a school trip.  I'm sure they were thinking it was going to be a good time, they were getting to hang out with their friends, what could wrong?  And then suddenly everything changed and they were fighting for their lives trying to get off a sinking boat.  It reminded me that life is fleeting and that life is precious.  We don't know how our life is going to end, whether we're going to live to be 100 and die of old age or live to our 20s, 30s, 40s and die of sickness or from some accident.

Thank You, God

Everyone has those days, those days when nothing seems to go right, where all those carefully laid plans go up in dust, when it seems like everything is actively working against you.  On days like that my reaction is generally just to get annoyed or, on occasion, downright angry.  I don't tend to think about why those things happened, I just know that they happened and it ruined my day or a portion of my day and I am not happy about it one bit.