Sunday, April 10, 2011

Who Knew There Is a Collector in the Family?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel home to see my family who lives in Michigan. After moving to Texas a little over 4 years ago, I am sometimes limited to seeing them only once or twice a year. Most times it is during the holiday season and there never seems to be enough time to spend with everyone. My most recent trip was great and I seemed to learn something about family members that I did not know before. For instance…

I didn’t know that my father is an avid coin collector. I knew that he had an interest in the state quarter collection (he gave me and my siblings each a collection to begin back in 1999) but I had no idea the amount of coins (and dollars) that he has collected over the years! Although I have learned that my state quarter collection is “tainted” (more to follow later), it was interesting to learn about the other coins and dollars that he has in his collection. At least now I have an idea of what to get him for future gifts.

My father also shared with me his medal collection from being in the Army. He was honorably discharged due to an injury and when he submitted a request to the military for something he needed, he received several other medals that he had never received before. I was very proud to learn about his time spent in the Army and what each of the medals meant. In addition to those medals, he was also able to secure medals that were given to law enforcement officers during President Obama’s inauguration. These medals are a wonderful keepsake and remembrance of a very special day in history.

Now back to my “tainted” state quarter collection…

When my father gave each of us a starter collection for the quarters, I thought the idea was to collect each of the state quarters which were released each year. So whenever I received change from a business, I would look to see if I needed the quarter of not. Well, 11 years later I have learned that was not how I was supposed to complete my collection! The goal was to get new quarters that have never been in circulation to place in the collection. My collection has a combination of quarters since some I received from my father (which were never in circulation) and the other ones came from who knows where. I told my father that he left out a very important piece of information when he gave those starter collections to us. Now he has offered to “sell” me the uncirculated quarters that I need. I have a feeling that it is going to cost me more than $12.50!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Weight Watchers

On February 19th I decided to join Weight Watchers. And no, this isn’t my first time at attempting to change my eating habits and lose weight in the process. I decided to join (again) after seeing Jennifer Hudson on Oprah. I am amazed at how remarkable she looks!

Jennifer spoke about feeling empowered since she had lost her extra weight which really struck a chord with me. Every since I completed my first 3 Day for the Cure event in 2009, I have felt empowered to better my health. The only problem is that I have used walking as an excuse for me to eat whatever I want and not as a way for me to lose weight. This year I have decided that things will be different. I have decided that I want to lose my extra weight once and for all. My goal is find a way to balance endurance walking while still providing my body with the nutrients that it requires and losing weight in the process.

So far I am down 9.4 pounds…I had a little stumbling block a few weeks ago when I went to visit family. I’ll be honest, the 2 pounds that I gained back those few days were worth all of the home cooked meals that I had!

Right now I am trying to remain focused since I am back to work and every other day seems to be a Food Day in the office. Last week I tried to get a yummy looking Lemon Square when somehow it jumped off my napkin and to the floor! I took that as a sign from someone bigger than me that I needed to stay strong! So far I am doing pretty good with packing my lunch every day and being in control of what I eat.

Stay tuned for more updates regarding my weight loss journey. I will try to ‘weigh in’ with everyone once a week to let you know how I am doing. If you have any suggestions that you would like to pass along, please feel free too!