A Fish Out of Water

Right now I feel like a fish out of water. I feel like I've been scooped up out of my familiarities and placed on a table, not knowing if I can find a way back to my tank.

In New York, I had my home, my husband, my routines. Now, I have none of that. I'm going between my parent's house and my friend's house. They are always completely hospitable and I greatly appreciate their generosity. And while I absolutely love being with my family and friends, I feel alone and out of place.

Since I've been here, I've been looking for a home, however, I've not had much luck. Either it's too expensive, it reeks of mildew, or no one returns my phone calls. It has been such a frustrating experience. With all of this going on, I'm asking myself if I made the right decision to move down here. Maybe I jumped when I wasn't suppose to jump? I feel so uneasy.

I'm longing for comfort and familiarity. I want to feel at peace with the decision we made to move down here. I miss my husband so much and I miss our life together. I miss having a place of our own. I really don't like having to rely on others to give me a roof over my head. I don't like not having a plan or having some smidgen of an idea of what's going to happen today or tomorrow.

I'm sorry for complaining.. Being alone has given me too much time to think and worry. I pray that very soon God gives me some direction, a place to live, and His peace that passes all understanding.

Things I've Learned Lately

During Christmas vacation, my mom gave me a book that she had purchased called, "Never Say Diet" by Chantel Hobbs. Several days after I had started my blog, I started to read this book. Let me tell you, it's amazing!

The author, Chantel Hobbs, was a 300+ lb woman and a mother of 4 who got absolutely tired of being obese and living the life she was leading. At that point, she cried out to God. After that night she turned her life around with God's help. Now, years later, she has lost 200+ lbs and she's a spinner instructor at her gym.

In this book, she tells about her personal struggle with weight and all the feelings that come with it. She also gives practical advice on how to change. While she does stress eating right and exercising, she goes beyond that and talks about how to change the way you think. If you don't change the way you think about things, you're never going to change for good. In order to tackle our problem we must first deal with the source of the problem, which in this case is your brain.

Anyways, there were several things that she said in the book that really stuck out and made me think. I decided that I would share them:

When pouring her heart out to God the night she decided to change, God told her this:
You are not being the best you can be.

Wow. How true is that? When you're overweight, or not even healthy, you're not living as God intended you to live. Being overweight has affected me in every area of my life, and mostly not for the better. Living this way is a mediocre existance or even a miserable one. God intended us to live a wonderful, joyful existance.

When you're overweight, people never see you for yourself, because they've already marked you as different.

Most of the moments in my day are thoughts of worrying what people think of me. This is extremely overwhelming for me, and it drives me crazy. Knowing the above statement is true in most cases actually put my mind at ease. If I already know what people are thinking, then I don't have to worry about it. God knows who I am underneath the fat, and that alone is what matters.

Start thinking like the person I want to be and not the person I have allowed myself to become.

In order for me to change myself, I can't keep thinking like the fat version of myself. I have to think like the healthy, fit person that I want to be. This means no excuses or feeling self-conscious. This means I now have to learn to love working out and even love how I feel when I go and work out. I have so much to work on in this area, but I'm not going to let that hold me back.

Once you've chosen this path, you're on it for good. There is no good excuse to get off course.

If you're ready to change, get ready to tell yourself the truth.

I had to laugh at this. Not but a couple days before I started reading this book I wrote a whole blog on making excuses. Only days before this, God was dealing with me about this very topic. Making excuses is lying to yourself. Also, not telling yourself the painful truth will hold you back.

If you cheat, you're going to stay fat another day.

This has come to my mind when I'm tempted. I don't want to be fat, and I don't want to feel the feelings that come with being fat one more day than I already have to.

The pain of regret is far worse than the pain of discipline.

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Amen to that! We can apply this in every area we struggle with. My regret is that I have lost so much time. I could have been living a life of joy, a life with more wonderful memories than I have. Living a healthy life is not easy, but I know it's worthwhile.


We always make time for things we love.

This one hit me the hardest. Do I make time for God? Not as much as I should. Can I really say that I love Him when I don't make time for Him? As I continue on this journey, I'm learning to replace my love of food and laziness for a love of God.

This book has so much to offer, and I'm still reading it. It's a good read, and I would highly recommend it. I'll post more on it at a later time, but for now I have a date with my husband at the gym.

Surprised? Not Me..

Today we found out that Travis won't be discharged until mid-March/April. His paperwork, that was suppose to be on its way back from Walter Reed is not on its way back. Nope. In fact, they have found that they don't have all the paperwork they need, so it's probably going to take a month to get it all in order. At that time they'll send it back here. From what his case manager said, from that point it should take a month. Honestly, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

We have been in this discharge process for almost 2 years now and the military still doesn't have it all together. This is unbelievable! Supposively, we were suppose to be out in July or August of last year, but that didn't happen. Then it was suppose to be November or December, and that didn't happen either.

Although I was stressed about moving, I would rather get it over and done with than stay here for an indefinite amount of time. Up here, I barely get to see my friends and I don't get to see my family. When it snows, I rarely leave the house because I'm not terribly great driving in this kind of snow. Needless to say, it can get pretty lonely and depressing here.

Right now, I can only hope and pray that we'll be gone soon. Until the day arrives that we leave, I will make the best of the time I have here. I have to be productive and I have to do things I love. I can't let this get me down.

Decisions and Stresses

Well, it's 5:10 am, I haven't had a moment of sleep tonight. Not because I'm excited about anything, but because I have a lot on my mind. I'm worried, stressed, and so uncertain about the future. In a month or so, my husband should be medically discharged from the Army. We have known this was going to happen for the past 2 years, but now it's right here in front of us. We have so many decisions to make, and we barely know where to begin.

We finally decided that we're going to move closer to my family, but we're unsure where exactly to live. I have been searching every ad on Craigslist between Fort Smith, Arkansas to Osage Beach, Missouri looking for a place we can call our home. Unfortunately, I'm not finding a place that matches what we need. And until I can find that place, I can't even begin to look for a job.

Speaking of jobs, I have not a clue what I want to do. Who knows, I may not really have a choice because of how things are going in our country. I do pray that I find a job that I love, or even like going to each day. Also, if it pays well, that would be a bonus.

On top of that, I'm so stressed about moving out of our current apartment. We live in military housing, and from what I've heard, they will try to dock you on anything they can. I've heard several reports from them charging people to re-carpet the whole place, for them to only turn around and shampoo the current carpet. We don't have the money for that.

Furthermore, we can't agree on whether or not we're going to a DITY (Do it Yourself) move or have movers come. The Army will pay to move you, but if you DITY, you can get paid extra money. We have done the DITY move twice before, and even though the money is nice, I just don't want to deal with it. I would rather have someone else pack my belongings and drive them down south. I'm way to stressed to add more things to do to my plate.

Finally, I'm afraid I'm going to fail. For the first time in our marriage, we're going to be living outside of the Army boundaries. They have told us where to live, they've been a major source of income, and they have provided us with amazing insurance over the past few years. All of our securities and boundaries will be gone, and we're going to be the ones calling the shots, and I don't know how we're going to do this successfully.

I want this move to be a wonderful venture for us. I want it to be a successful journey. I want to look back at this blog and say, "As usual, you worried over nothing. God worked it all out, and we're doing fabulous."