Still Kickin'

Wow it has almost been a year since I last posted.  I would say that I felt guilty about it, but I kinda sorta don't. 
Life has it's way of moving along whether you want to move or not.  And my life this last year has been a whole lot of crazy. 

Let's see in the health department I've made so huge strides in some parts and little steps in others.  I took most of the summer off from actively trying to lose weight.  I more or less just maintained my weight, which I know was a huge accomplishment in itself, so that made me happy.  I picked back up where I had left off in August with another weight-lifting class at school.  And I added a little running to my program.  A friend told me about a running program called C25K, couch to 5k.  And I decided to try it.  I have never been a runner, in fact before I started the program I had never even run a full mile without a whole lot of walking in between the little bit of running.  So I was a little hesitant that I could finish the program, but I decided to try and see where it went.  I finished the program and for the first time in my life I ran not only 1 mile but 2 full miles.  I was thrilled, and so proud of myself for doing it.  I wish that I could say I love to run now, but I can't and I'm good with that.  I am still trying to keep up with the running and would like to slowly push my running time, currently 30 mins, to 45 or 50 minutes.  And then I would like to increase my speed.  I really do want to be able to run a 5k, just to say that I've done it.   In November I hit my 50 lb weight loss mark.  I actually hit it while in Utah for Thanksgiving, surprising even me! 

School wise, well that's had it's ups and downs too.  I finished Spring '11 with decent grades, not as great a GPA as I had hoped for, but I passed all my classes and was ready to move on.  I was a hard semester in that I really overloaded myself with classes.  Summer I took 3 classes and was again glad when it ended.  Fall'11 semester just about did me in.  I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, but I made it through.  I failed my first class ever (calculus) and that was really hard for me mentally and emotionally.  But I'm moving on and will retake calculus this summer all by itself so I can really focus on it.  At the very beginning of this semester (spring '12) I met with my academic counselor and we decided that if I pushed my graduation date from Dec'12 to May'13 it would be a better path for me.  That means that not only will I graduate with the 150 hours I need to sit for the CPA, I will also graduate with a minor in internal audit.

The kids are alive and well.  They too have kept me busy.  Miss Magoo turned 8 in January and was baptised.  It was a wonderful day and a post all it's own.  PJ turned 11 last week and has moved from being a cub scout to an 11-yr old scout.  He decided somewhat last minute that he wanted to earn his arrow of light award.  And after much scrambling. hard work, and tears on both our parts he finished the day before his 11th birthday.

So while that short clip doesn't even come close to describing out last year, there it is the shortened and very much condensed version of 2011.  My hope is to be more consistent with posting, more for myself to keep track of all the ups and downs of our life.