Isn't Life Funny???

I pour my heart out about Brittany last night.....and then just a few minutes ago, I talked to her on Facebook!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How weird is this???

I've never tried to even look her up on Facebook before because after her mom ended our emails a couple of years ago I figured that she'd block my attempt. Just on a whim today, I thought, "What the hell?", and I sent her a friend request and a short message wishing her a happy birthday this week.

Just a few minutes ago, I got an email telling me she confirmed my friend request and wrote a message back. I was half expecting it to be her mom, but it was her. She thanked me for the birthday wishes, added me as a friend, and we exchanged 4 or 5 short messages. I assured her that sending her a message for her birthday was my reason for contacting her, and that it was not my intent to upset her mom. She told me that since she's older now, she doesn't think her mom will have a problem with it. (Yeah, RIGHT....we'll see how that ends up).

I scrolled down her page and looked at her photos. Her mom had sent me 4 pics of her a couple of years ago, but I saved them to my work computer like a dumba$$....and then got laid off and forgot to move them to my laptop or desktop at home! Then I saw where she told another friend on her home page what her cell phone # was.....and then I saw where she was in Kennesaw Saturday night visiting a friend (20 minutes down the road from me, where I used to live before I moved here in September).

At that point, I was like, "Ok....this is information overload...I don't want to know her phone # unless she offers it....I don't need to know she was an arm's length away from me a couple of days ago....time to get off of Facebook Tammy". So I did....I told her goodnight and that she could shoot me a note whenever she felt like it.....she said she would and that was that. All kind of surreal really. Yesterday night was all full of tears and memories (that was a HARD post to write, even as short as it was).....and then the very next night I'm chatting with her. ??? My brain is totally fried now, lol, but at the same time, it almost feels like I've been holding my breath and now I can let it out. I feel relief.....and I welcome it. Funny how a little 5 minute exchange can make me feel worlds better. And thanks to each of you who left a comment on my last post or shared a private email with me....I love you all for reaching out...means more to me than I could ever express.

On to weight loss stuff!! Let's back up to Friday. I took a "free day" with the eating, which means I ate stuff that I wouldn't normally eat, and more calories. However, I made the decision not to eat out at any restaurants, or even a Subway. I cooked everything at home. I had tuna salad, made with WHOLE eggs, which you know I rarely eat. And I added more lite mayo than I normally do, along with onions and dill pickles....just the way I like it. :) I also made one of my favorite comfort foods for dinner...old-fashioned chicken and rice.....white rice!! Which, again, I very rarely eat these days. And I had TWO bowls, instead of just one. I think I guesstimated the calories pretty well and ended up around 2000....perfectly happy.

Sat, Sun and today I ate 1700 calories and that's kept me satisfied so far. I plan to keep to this number for the next 3 days before weigh-in. I also plan to continue the 6 days in the gym before the next weigh-in, just like I've been doing. My workouts last about 1.5 hours, and they're feeling better and better. Billie and I changed the way we're doing them this past weekend. Instead of running through the whole circuit of weight machines, and then doing round 2....we decided to stay on each machine until we did 3 reps on each, and then moving to the next....so that we're only moving through the circuit once. It makes your muscles burn more this way and that pain makes me happy. I know, I'm sick. :)

Also, I downloaded the podcast for Robert Ullrey's C25K about a month and a half ago and have been too chicken to even try it....fearing I wouldn't even be able to do Day 1 without doing a face plant on the treadmill. Billie had already started it last week I think it was, so I knew my turn was coming. I finally bit the bullet and tried it yesterday. It has 8 separate 1 minute jogs, with 1.5 mins of walking inbetween. I got to the beginning of 7 and thought I would surely die, but I pressed on, and I made it through all 8!!! The problem is, who knows how many times I'll have to do Day One over and over? lol

I'm going to attempt to do Day Two tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes....but you can't believe how unbelievably proud I am that I even made it through the first day. I cranked up the volume on the podcast and let the fat fly!!! Fat Tammy was jogging baby!!

I'm super tired so I'm headed to bed now. I've got a feeling this is going to be a GREAT week!! I hope I've found the right calorie amount now, and will see another loss this Friday. If not, prepare yourselves for an cuss-filled post this Friday morning. :)

Quote For the Day:

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." -Ella Fitzgerald

The Dagger In My Heart

I mentioned a couple of months ago when I received the Honest Scrap award that I gave up a baby for adoption when I was a teenager. Her birthday is coming up this week, and I said I was going to do a post and tell the whole story from way back when. It turns out I don't have the courage to do that right now. I have to go to a very dark place to recall all those details and I don't feel like I have the emotional and mental fortitude to do so just yet. Maybe one day.

I was watching a reality TV show a few months back, and the woman on the show mentioned that she, too, had given up a child for adoption. She knew where he was, but he'd never been a part of her life. Although this woman had a full and happy life, with more children that came later, she said it felt like there was always something missing....a wound that had never healed and probably never would. When her son turned 18, her husband got in contact with her son and brought him home to her. She said that was the day her husband pulled the dagger out of her heart. Naturally, I crumpled into a crying heap.

I had never heard it put that way before, but it was an accurate description. I knew her pain....really knew it. I still do. Brittany turns 18 this week. I heard a couple of years ago that she wanted to talk to me. We live in the same state, but not in the same city. I finally found her mom and we emailed. She allowed Brittany and I to exchange a few emails that lasted about a week, and then her mom ended the contact. Brittany told me that her mom was afraid she'd love me more than her.

I can't proclaim to fully understand all the fears that come along with being an adoptive parent, but I can only imagine that they're horrific. With no blood ties, there has to be a fear that never goes away for her mom.....just like there's a pain that never goes away for me. So I don't judge her mom. I'm thankful for the few emails that we did get to exchange....it's more than a lot of biological parents get.

The last I heard, Brittany was praying for a softball scholarship to go to the college she likes the most, in another state. I really don't know if I'll ever talk to her again. I know the possibility is always there, and if it happens, I'll welcome it. If not, I'll learn to live with it, and be thankful that we had just enough exchanges in that one special week for her to know that I never hated her...I was just too young, naive, and I thought at the time, incapable of taking care of her the way her adoptive parents have.

She's got a great life that's been filled with lots of opportunities and extra-curricular activities that I doubt I would have ever been able to provide her with. She has two loving parents who think she's the most precious jewel on this earth....so really, what more can I ask for? I thank God that she's alive, and well, and thriving....and I have hope that she will make much wiser choices at the tender age of 18 than I did. Happy Birthday Brittany....I love you.

Honest Scrap Award

I walked 4 miles today....2 this morning, and 2 this evening. The soreness in my legs and hips from doing 6 miles yesterday after doing NOTHING for 4 days in a row is rough. Couldn't crank out 6 miles today, but 4 is still respectable. I came in under 1400 calories again today, so happy about that. Weigh-in tomorrow morning. I'm not even going to try and guess at what it will be. I'll report it and then get started on the new week.

I've been given the Honest Scrap award by 4 different people....Sarah at Ethereal Endeavor, Brittany at Me vs. The Buffet, VRaz60 and 266. Thank you ladies for thinking that I deserve this award...that really touches my heart. :) I've got the award displayed on my side bar, so for those of you that I'm fixing to give it to, you can pick it up there.

There are rules to receiving this, and I don't mind telling you I hate the rules attached to these awards, lol. As with everyone, I hate having to pick a certain # of people. Although the odds got better when it went from 10 I had to pick for the first award, to now 40, now I don't want to have to choose that many, lol. I want to say that if you're on my bloglist, I think you rock, but that doesn't even cover it, because I have blogs on my favorites list that I read and just haven't taken the time to move them over to my bloglist yet.

TOO MUCH STRESS!!! The other thing that was jumbling my nerves was having to list 10 things about myself that you don't already know. O-M-G. Now that list has grown to 40 things. Yeah, right! lol I started a list a couple of days ago, but it was during my bingeing funk, and all 10 things were negative. So I balled up the piece of paper and threw it in the trash. I started over. Then I came up with 10 positive, fluffy things.....and then I thought it sounded fake and sugar-coated, so I balled it up and threw that one in the trash, too. lol Then I had a nice mix of half and half, working on it while I was reading blogs and commenting, only to find out I won 3 more awards and had to come up with 30 more things. Ah hell!! So I balled that one up and threw it in the trash with the other 2 lists. I'm just going to shoot from the hip here. Whatever comes out, comes out. I'm not numbering the blogs I choose to give this to, and I'm not numbering the things I tell you about myself. I'm just going to start typing...here it goes.....

Award Winners:

Pam @ Journey to the Healthier Side of Life
Brittany @ Me vs. The Buffet
Sheilagh @ Sixty by Sixty
266
Dawne @ 365 days to a new me!
Josh @ A Personal Journey of Fitness and Fat Loss
Andrea @ Echo of Me
Lyn @ Escape from Obesity
"K" @ Fat [Free] Me
Tina @ Fat Girl Dives In
Rebecca @ Change Is A Process
jumping off the binge wagon!
VRaz60 @ Just for the Hell-th of it!!
Michelle @ My Journey to Onderland!
Amy H. @ No To the Deuce
Christa @ Our New Weigh of Life!
Kathleen @ Rural Maine Life
Amy @ The Not So Secret Life of a Not So Super Together Mom
Auburn @ The Quest for a Mile
Friend of the Bear

Here are some honest things about me that most of you don't know yet:

I snore, I hate it, and I hope it stops when the weight is gone.

I've got a giving heart and had a habit for many years of giving people the shirt off my back, my last dollar, etc. no matter how bad my own situation was, because I wanted to help. My Mom spent years upon years telling me that I needed to learn how to say "no", stand up for myself when the giving takes too much from myself, etc. I finally started doing that 3-4 years ago. About a month ago someone asked me for something and I told them I just couldn't do it. They told me I've become selfish over the last couple of years. That horrified me, and a month later, it still stings.

I've never colored/dyed my hair in my entire life. Now that I've got so much gray, I really want to, but thanks to my PCOS, my hair has gotten really thin, and I'm scared the chemicals will make the rest of it fall out.

Dancing and acting/drama have always been my 2 greatest passions.

I look forward to getting another job so I can start going to the salon again and getting my nails done. I have very thin, brittle nails so I like wearing the acrylic tips to have nicely manicured and even nails. I miss french manicures.

I still get a pedicure done once every couple of months. It's a $20 splurge in my budget every couple of months, but in my opinion, cute little painted toes are a must.

After God, family is the most important thing to me.

My phobias are snakes and tornadoes. These are also my stress dreams. I dream about either being covered in snakes, or being caught in a tornado. With the tornadoes, I'm always grasping onto a stationary object, holding on for dear life. I wake up just as my feet are lifting up off the ground. I feel like the night that I have this dream and finally lose my grasp on what I'm holding onto, will be the night I die in my sleep, lol.

I have a deep connection to water in any form....ponds, creeks, streams, lakes, rivers, oceans.

I'm not into astrology, but my sign is Leo. I do think that there is some weight to some of this, because I've read in several places that Leo's are leaders. I have to believe this because I have a hard time being a follower.

I'm a girly girl who loves painted nails and toes, anything pink, babies, puppies....but can't stand "girly" movies or channels, such as Lifetime. lol My favorite channels are the History Channel, Scifi, Fox News, etc. I love action movies, "guy" movies, and movies that have been made from comic books.

(I debated on whether or not to share this last one....but in the spirit of brutal honesty, I'm going to go ahead and do it...mainly because thoughts about this are what triggered my binge this week that consumed me on Monday and Tuesday)

When I was 18 yrs old and fresh out of high school I got pregnant. I was young, naive, stupid, and scared out of my mind. I considered abortion, but thanks to some people who really cared about me (Pam is one of them), I was talked out of it, and so thankful for that. I decided on adoption because I was so young, making $4/hr at a yogurt shop working part-time. I was raised in an upper middle class family and honestly didn't know anything about welfare. Her name is Brittany, she lives in the same state as me, but not in the same city. I can honestly say that this is the hardest thing I've ever done, and dare to say the hardest thing I ever WILL do. They say time heals all wounds. While I believe time heals most, I do not believe it heals all. It's been many years and I still think about her every single week. I've been thinking about her moreso this week for no particular reason. It might be because she turns 18 this coming November. Officially an "adult". What a foolish adult I was at 18. I hope she's smarter than I was. I hope she makes better choices. I am going to write an entire post about this story on her birthday. But for now, I am going to politely ask that nobody ask me any questions about her just yet. I will gladly share with all of you when November gets here...I'm just not quite ready yet. I have a dagger in my heart....one that I fear will always be there. If you've never adopted a child out, there's just no way to understand the pain, and I don't believe there's any way to accurately describe it.

I hope everyone enjoys their awards....you truly deserve them. I need to get a few more chores done before I hit the hay tonight. Will be back in the morning to post my weigh-in results. 'Nite nite friends. :)