I Have a Friend.....

I have a friend. Her name is Mary She is one of the Final 7 in the Shrinkvivor challenge. I would love it if you voted for her. Let me give you a few reasons why.Mary is a 64 year old wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She handles all those jobs with much love and giving. I know Mary as an awesome friend. But, Mary is also a person who has finally learned to give to herself. I think that is a flaw that many of us have. We give to everyone but oursleves. We were on the same team for the Lowdown and Dirty in 30 challenge. We kept each other motivated and we won that challenge. I have faltered a bit since that challenge, but not Mary. She went into this Shrinkvivor challenge with everything she had and look what she got. A spot in the final 7. She has really pushed herself this challenge. If you go to her blog and read her weigh in posts, I promise you'll be impressed. She has done amazingly awesome things with the fitness and non fitness challenges. You won't believe the miles she has logged. She does the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred every day and is into level 2 now.


Mary and I didn't meet through blogging. We met through her daughter Beth. I had Beth's kids in preschool and Mary would be there from time to time. Mary and I became friends through blogging. When we both decided to start blogs, that was when our friendship blossomed. I don't see her in person nearly enough, but our blogs and email keep us close. This is a picture of us in April at the March of Dimes Walk for Babies, a cause close to both of our hearts.
If you are trying to decide who deserves your votes this week, I hope you will consider Mary. Go here and watch her vlog. She totally impressed me. She told me she was nervous, but you'd never know it. She was honest and sincere and explains why she wants to be the Shrinkvivor winner. I so want her to win. She totally deserves it. She worked so hard and has come such a long way.


Please go here and cast your votes for my friend Mary.
Thank you so much

CSN Stores Review Coming

CSN Stores have offered me a review of any product in their website for $50. or less. To say I am excited would be putting it mildly. Have you been to there site before? You really should check it oout. They have everything from exercise items to bar furniture to baby items and thousands of other things in between. They have over 200 stores to shop in.

CSN has become one of my favorite places to shop. They have everything. I have no idea what I'm going to pick to review, but I'm going to have fun deciding. Check back to see what I chose!

And We Walked

It was a perfect fall day. The sun was shining and the temperature was a perfect 70 degrees.
Here we are....Vickies Chickies getting ready for the Making Strides Against Breast cancer walk.







































Here is Vickie herself with my sweet little niece Emma
She is in Vickie's first grade class and was very excited to be walking with her teacher.

















Here are two of my beautiful daughters.
It made me feel very proud to walk with them. They are very caring and love Vickie with all their heart. She is like their second mother.

















Some of us got tired along the way and stopped for a little rest.
























A very few, like one of us, was lucky enough to be carried when she got tired.

















This is Vickie and her wonderful husband Paul after the race. If you look up love in the dictionary, there is probably a picture of them.

This is just a small sampling of the pictures I took. You know me. I think I took close to 100. The really good news is that last time I checked, Vickie's Chickies had raised $1764.30 for breast cancer research. Everything hasn't been tallied yet, so I'm pretty sure the total will be higher.

I am truly blessed to have Vickie as my friend. I love her. She is an inspiration to me on a daily basis. As long as they have a Making Strides walk, I'll be there. I'll be raising money for research because I want my friend to be with me for a very long time.

You Capture / Animals

We don't have any pets at our house anymore.

I thought I was going to have to go to the grandpets for my captures.

Then the wildlife in my own backyard came through for me.

This guy here was making so much noise.

I still don't know what he was crowing about.

This guy should be smoking a cigarette.
He was having some fun with his girl when I ran in to get the camera.

These are the pigeons that live next door.

This guy totally creeped me out.
We've never had a frog like this before that I know of.
Nice of him to show up this week.

This guy and the rest of his family come to visit often.
You would never guess that I live two blocks off the main street of my town, would you?



I hear there are many animals gathering at Beth's

300

By chance, I noticed that this will be my 300th post. I really find that hard to believe. Thank you so much Beth for getting me started in blogging. It has become one of my favorite things in my life. I never knew that I could become so close with so many people that I have never met in real life. My hope is that some day, I'll be able to at least meet some of you. That would be a real treat. I've certainly enjoyed meeting some of the local bloggers. Thank you so much for being my friends. You are all awesome and mean so much to me.

Now for post #300. I have nothing special planned. Just some pictures from a walk I took with my daughter after work yesterday. We have this lovely park just a mile or two from our house. I love to go there. The colors are starting to change. It will be gorgeous in a week or two.

You Capture / Faces

Some of my very favorite faces.

Lizzy
Jack
Poppa and Natalie

Sarah

Katie

Cindy

Abby

To see some other favorite faces, go here.

I Love Myself Project

First, I took the pledge....

The Pledge to Love Myself.
\

I pledge allegiance,

TO MYSELF.

Today I will proclaim it out loud,

TALL AND PROUD

I LOVE MYSELF.

From this day forward,

I promise to be nice.

TO myself and ABOUT myself.

I will accept my quirks

and I will love my faults.

I will love my shape, whatever it is

My bones, my muscles, my hair and my face.

My body, all of it, inside and out.

Because that is what makes me, ME.

And there is only one of me.

I will finally allow myself to see what others see.

My kindness, my spirit, my love.

And starting today,

I will share some of it,with ME.

Because I deserve it.

I will fight for myself, because I’m important.

And I deserve to be everything I am capable of in my life.

I deserve to find my greatness

and live my life fully and completely.

With no regrets.

There is so much I want to do in my life,

but first, it begins with “me.”

I LOVE MYSELF.

Today, tomorrow, and every day after that.

I LOVE MYSELF, DAMMIT!

And no one can stop me.

The Sisterhood is declaring October “I LOVE MYSELF” Month! A month dedicated entirely to finding acceptance and love in our hearts for ourselves. Because no one can love us completely and fully unless we love ourselves completely and fully first. There is plenty of love to go around, but we never quite have enough for ourselves and this October we’re changing that.

It may not be easy to say. It may take the entire month for me to actually believe myself. But by saying it today and by saying it at least once every day, I might actually start to believe it. And treat myself like it. I'm going to be 56 in a few months. Don't you think it's about time I started to believe this?

One of the things I am going to try to do is be passionate about the things I truly believe are important. One of those things is breast cancer research. I took the pledge to where something pink every day this month to remind myself and everyone else how important this is. I've told you before about my wonderful friend Vickie who is battling cancer that started in her breast. She is doing really well and I'd like to try to do everything I can to keep it that way. One of those ways is to walk with her in the Making Strides Against Breast cancer walk on the 17th of this month. If you would like to donate to our team "Vickie's Chickies" just click on the Making Strides icon in the sidebar. Right now, our team is in first place for fundrasing. I just think that is so awesome. Please consider helping us stay there. Thanks so much!