Through life we run across

things we just don't understand. I know that no one will read this blog so I am basically going to use it as a diary of my feelings. I went home to Benton, KY this past weekend to surprise my parents especially my Dad for Father's Day. When I left there house I broke down and cried. It took me back to 1981 when I left their house as a newlywed. Part of me then had mixed emotions someone told my Mom at my wedding that she was losing her best friend. That I was moving so far away and things would never be the same. Well that was 27 years ago and things have never changed. When I left this past time I had the same feelings that I was leaving them and going so far away and things would never be the same. Times have changed in 27 years. I look at my parents health and it breaks my heart. My mom use to love to go shopping with me and this time she was not able to. Dad is losing weight he now weighs 150 lbs and stays so tired. His bout with lung cancer surgery and leukemia is taking his toll on him. It breaks my heart to see them go downhill and know I am so far away from them. My brother has not spoke to me in a year, sure wish I could make him grow up and realize now is the time to pull together versus drift further apart. Life does not seem fair! How does one cope with a situation like this? It hurts and does not seem fair! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

My very first 5K..............

Kara and I walked this past Saturday in our first 5K together. She had walked in one before but it was the first for me. This weekend 5K run was created to increase awareness of ovarian cancer. We preregistered and qualified for a free shirt Yeah. I heard my cousin speak of these perks and thought cool I have my first 5k shirt. Kara and I walked the event their were 3 different times that we did run a few steps, then I had to stop and catch my breath LOL. Our time was a little over 45 minutes. I bet it could have been faster if I would not ahve stopped twice to pick up the pennies I found OR to stop and pick up my water bottle which dropped. Kara did allow me to cross the line first I guess age before beauty LOL. I told her we needed to do this about every 6 weeks travel places and try to increase our time. We finished - not in the top ranks, there were no medals or recognition only the thrill of saying we finished! Oh by the way today was weigh in at the school and I have lost 33 pounds YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 Big accomplishments since Saturday what does the rest of the week hold for me??????

Guess What..............

I have dropped a dress size? I know it's no big deal for you to read this and go whipdedoo Karens dropped a dress size BUT this is such an accomplishment for me! Back in February I tried on a dress to buy for my cousin Janet's wedding and really liked it! I found another outfit I liked better and bought it instead, I felt I would get more wear out of it at the school and all. Well the Saturday before Easter my husband, daughter and I went shopping for her an Easter dress. We found a coupon that entitled us to $30.00 off if we bought x amount of clothes. So we started looking around and I found the exact same dress on sale this time more then 1/2 off. So I took it the larger size which I tried on for the wedding and then I took in the size smaller. I immediately tried on the size smaller and it fit perfectly and thought this cant be right so I tried on the larger size and it hung real low under the arms so that one could see my bra if I raised my hand. So the smaller size it was and boy do I feel good about it. OK I will share with you my weight loss up to this point, please do not share with my parents! I will see them at my sons graduation from college on May 11th and I want them to be totally surprised! Mom has always come down hard on me about my weight and its nothing for her to make some sarcastic remark. So my goal is to lose a few more pounds before graduation and blow their socks off. OK heres another drum roll. As of April 2nd I have lost 23 pounds! I am at the point I can tell it and it is so exciting!

Can you believe ................

that I walked 6 miles yesterday? Yesterday I woke up early and did the Leslie Sansone 1 mile walk. Then during planning period at school we walked around the building 3 times making it another mile. After school my ww friend called and said lets go walking again. So we preceded to walk 2 more miles for a total of 4. After supper another friend called and said I just ate pizza and I need to exercise wanna walk? Of course I agreed and we walked 2 more miles. I take great pride in this big accomplishment. I use to power walked when I was thinner but had not been doing it recently. When I started walking once I joined ww it was the hardest thing for me to do. I was so short winded and hills killed me, I can remember asking my friend if we could stop for a breather. Thank goodness she said no, which only made me stronger. I was so sore last night from walking 6 miles! I believe every part of my body ached LOL. Thank goodness for Motrin, I had a painless night. Today I will pass up my morning visit with Leslie and she and I will have to visit later tonight. I am very proud of my accomplishments so far so if I tend to brag, that's OK, I work hard for those bragging rights! Well guess I need to run (oops not yet literally let me get this walking downpacked) have a great day!

One Month and Counting ......

Well it has been almost one month and I am still going strong with this weight watchers program. Today was a weigh in day and I dreaded it being we were on Spring Break! Well anyways I was quite pleased I had dropped another 5 pounds. I have lost a total of 17 pounds to date! I think if I exercised more I would lose more, but I am content at this pace. I will gradually add more excercise. I walk every am before I go to work thank goodness for a dvd player and Leslie Sansone (hope I spelled that right). I have also started walking outside when I get off work. This is such a big step for me, and I have to admit I am sooooooo proud of myself. PS a couple of people made this comment to me when I had lost 12 pounds and I thought it was worth passing on. If you think you cant tell you have lost 12 pounds try carrying around 2 five pound bags of sugar. Good point!

Totally Amazing And Inspiring - Way To Go Janet

My cousin Janet and I are related due to the fact My Mom and Her Dad are siblings. We did not see a whole lot of each other growing up nor were we really close due to the 15 year difference in our age. About 12 years ago we started attending family reunions together and became closer at that point.
I found out during many of those visits that Janet and I were alot alike. We loved to laugh, tell jokes, enjoyed a few good drinks or jello shots together, we were of the same religious faith and more then anything we had the same figure we were both overweight. Let me remind you of something that was not an issue to me as some overweight genes run in our family.
I remember in 2005 Mom called me and said Karen I have heard through the grapevine (obviously someone in our family) that Janet has joined weight watchers and has lost alot of weight . I kept thinking Oh I have done weight watchers in the past and lets see how long this lasts I truly wish her well. When I saw her in July you could definitely tell she had lost the pounds and the thing about it she was not through.
Our next visit was in October for her Dad's surprise 60th birthday party and one could definitely tell that she had lost more weight and was still attending weight watchers. You would have thought dud Karen look at your cousin this does work, why not join BUT instead I gathered up her old clothes and took them home to celebrate my new wardrobe!
Our next visit was in June for our Stacy Family and Friends Cruise. Janet looked awesome by this point she was within pounds of meeting her life long goal and she had lost over 100 pounds. At this point I was also introduced to her new boyfriend and thought oh how cute they look together. They would wake up early work out and run around on the ship while I always slept in. As the old saying goes they complement each other what a cute couple.
In September Janet met her goal and had lost over 120 pounds. On top of that her BF proposed and wedding plans were in high gear. I would occassionally get emails and a couple of phone calls from Janet and I could bearly wait until February would get here so I could attend their wedding. In the meantime Janet hits the big news literally in the town she was living in and then on foxnews Atlanta. I have the link of the fox news Atlanta which I will post a the bottom.
Well February 15th finally arrived and I could not wait to leave school to head to Atlanta. Afterall, Janets wedding would be in just 2 days and I wanted to get to Atlanta early to visit with a few members of our family and friends. When I went to ask if I could sneak out a hour earlier from work I was talking about this wedding and this being my cousin who had lost all the weight and had made foxnews and was showing the secretary the news segment at the computer when the principal walks out.
She was totally blown away and before the segment could finish she said we are doing this. Karen would you be interested in atttending a weight watchers meeting even if we start our own? That day 3 of us the principal, myself and a teacher across the hall from me discussed having our own confession (ww) meetings. She said "Karen when will you be back?" and I told her I "on Monday". She said "she would be back on Tuesday and we would meet then". I thought yeah right she will forget and I am still OK eating the way I am use to eating and living like I want to live. Let me remind you something I had a desire to one day lose weight but like anything else you have to want to do it to do it! Well Tuesday rolls around and the principal calls us in UH OH. We decide which days will be weigh in days, which days will we meet and we make a commitment at that point we are in this together and we will lose weight. That night I went home and thought Karen you cant play around this is your boss you have made a commitment now take this serious! So I thought if Janet can do this and with all this support I can do it. So on Ash Wednesday (not that I am Catholic) Wednesday, February 21st I knew I had to take this seriously and at that point I decided to join this little group. On our first weigh in just 5 days later (decided to have meetings on Wednesday and weigh in on Monday) I had lost 7 pounds.
I am sooooooooooo into this new way of life. I eat what I what smaller portions and eat basically when I want. Last night I enjoyed my first coke it had been 11 days. I have started exercising and love it! So I will keep you posted and let you know how this works for me. Here is the link to my cousins television show LOL. Who knows maybe someday I will be able to send you a link to my television show.So cheer me on and wish me luck!!!!!!!!!! Oh and Janet thank you for being such an amazing person and for being such an inspiriation to myself and others here in Mississippi. http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=2320407&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

I have Curves.................

Well acutally I hope to have curves again someday. In the meantime I have been attending a weeks free membership at Curves and it is awesome. I am currently out of shape and it is amazing that scales can lie and say numbers one would never thought they would see. My measurements sounded like a great lottery win. I am in the first steps and they are slow one's. I have felt pains that I have not felt in years! I love working out and switching stations and moving parts of my body other then my fingers typing on this computer. My cousin Janet and Diana are my inspirations. They both work out (of course they watch the things they eat) but they look good. Hopefully someday I too will look as good as I know they feel!

Karen's Kozy Korner: My Hero.................................

Karen's Kozy Korner: My Hero.................................

My Hero.................................

It truly is amazing to go through life and discover you finally know who your hero is. Now I am not talking of a Super Hero comic figure such as spiderman. My hero is none other then my Dad. Of course we have read stories and as kids declared that our Dad is our hero, well mine is. Right before Christmas my Dad was diagnosed with Leukemia, it is a slow moving type. Then the first of January he was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. This crushed all of us as we quickly learned to rely on each other and to turn to the Lord. I quickly learned that the things we pray for are not the things that God always has in store for us. I would never have wished two cancers on one person much less my Dad. I quickly learned I had tons of friends, the phone calls, people stopping by my classroom meant more to me then words can say. The power of prayer is what pulled us through to be honest with you. Dad hesitated on having the surgery to hopefully remove the lung cancer. They were to remove 1/3 of his right lung and if it was not in the lymph nodes he had a 95% chance, if it was he had a 50-50%. If he did not have the surgery he would die a very slow and painful death. With much prayer and convincing Doctors he decided to have the surgery. We were called home this past Wednesday to be ready as the surgery was the next day. He was the first surgery done that day the Dr. told us to expect him to go into ICU and for surgery to last 3 hours or longer. Surgery lasted a little over 2 and 1/2 hours and he was allowed to go right into a private room. We felt everything was going our way. Dad came out joking and making us laugh, which sure helped our spirits. I was convinced since everything was going so well something would go wrong. I was right on Friday morning Mom called and said the Dr. told us he thought that there was a 99% chance it was in the lymph nodes, it was crushing!! Later that afternoon the preacher came in and he prayed wit us and his prayer focused on we need a miracle. Saturday morning I had one of those good to heart talks with God, not focusing on what I wanted but strength and courage to accept what he placed before us. Within 2 hours Mom called and said the reports were in that it was not in the Lymph Nodes. He will not need radiation or chemo and just needs to be rechecked in 3 months. My new phrase is "Aint God Good". Dad is still in the hospital but making progress, sure he will be strong but he is a strong man, indeed!!!!!!!!!!!! Dad came up to me the night before his surgery and said Karen I am doing this for you kids and my grandkids. Anyone who would do that for me and my kids only deserves to be my Hero!! I know my Dad will never read this, but I want the world to know I love him and that I thank him. Love ya lots DAD!

MSU VS. UGA FOOTBALL GAME

Many of you know that my birthday is over the Labor Day Weekend (usually). To me that is a sure sign, other then the absence of my husband that it's time to play football Mississippi State Style. My best friends Kara starts counting December 31st as to how many days until our first game. She is one of the biggest fans that I have run across rooting for our "Bulldawgs". It's amazing that I have been involved with football for 20+ years and there are things she is still teaching me as I sit in the stands. The best one yet is the play that I have taught her called The Statue Of Liberty. She has no idea what I am talking about as I have no idea what I was explaining. Well anyways, we have traveled to many away games, dealt with many rude restaurants yet we support our "dawgs". Our family has some good friends that we meet every year at the beach in Sarasota. I know Ron was coming in for the MSU vs. UGA game this weekend so I invited him to ride with us as we have special parking. He informed me he was bring 5 of his friends. So we are planning a big tailgate party with food catered in from Little Dooey's BBQ place here in Starkville, which ESPN frequents often. The first thing I want to mention is that Ron and his friends do support the Bulldogs but unfortuantely it is not our Bulldawgs! I am sure the fellowship will be fun and sweet up until game time. Thank goodness Paul did their tickets away from "our dawgs". It will be a good game and trust me on this one that one set of Daw/og's will win. I have already told him that the winner cannot rub it in the losers face on the way home. All I have to say about this, as my friend Kara sits by my side is go "BULLDAWGGGGGGGGGGGGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!"
PS This is my first blog topic please give me feedback!!!!!!!!!!!