I know I've been on a blogging rampage as of late, but it seems like since John got home, things of interesting nature just keep happening and are worth talking/venting about.

My most recent victory is a continuation of my work out regime.

The past couple weeks have been really busy for Jeanette, my work out/lifting partner, and I.
Her husband is headed out this month on a deployment, and although it's not his first deployment, it's hers, so they've been taking time together to get prepared. Even more so cause she's preggers (along with everyone else in the world it seems!) with their first baby which limits what kind of lifting she can do with me anymore anyways.
I've been distracted as well getting used to my new routine with John home and also with the Jax escapades, so we have been on a slight hiatus from our usual workout routine until things kinda calm down again.
If there ever is such a time.....

So in order to not let myself slide and get comfortable, I decided I was going to pick up my walking routine again which is this 1.7 mile trek through a couple neighborhoods by my house. The weather, minus a tornado here or there, has been awesome and I needed to take advantage of it.
So I started off, plugged in to the iPod, and started walking down my street ready to get my walk on...as I rounded the corner off my street and onto a long stretch or road I had an epiphany.
"Why don't you try running and see how far you can get...?"

For a couple seconds I had mental battle with myself, thinking, "Heck yeah, I'll just run as far as I can and no biggie if I don't get far, something is better than nothing."
But then, "What if I don't make it far? That would really suck, I've been busting my butt this last year and if I fail, that would really be a buzz kill right now."
Then there was, "Man, remember those shin splints you got last time you tried to run? Those were killer, there's no way I can 'run through it' again."

So here I am, having quite a conundrum, and decide to just throw caution to the wind and give it a shot.
So here I go.
I start to run and, hmmm...this feels pretty good.
I flip through a couple songs until I find one that has a good beat for me to run in pace too.
Man, where did all these hills come from!? I don't remember this when walking....
I get to our turn around spot and realize, I ran the whole way.....
Whoa.

Well shoot, if I can run here, I can run back, right?
So off I go.
I stop once at this hill of doom, that of course I didn't really pay attention to going down, but now I'm looking up, um....not so much.
It's not steep, it's just lloonngg, and for this being my first time in a long time...baby steps...
I get past the hill and break out into a run again and turn the corner onto my street, running up to the driveway where John is there tinkering with his motorcycle, about to go for a ride...
I stop on the driveway with my hands above my head, my lungs on fire, and probably as red as my hair.
He looks at me, kinda puzzled, and goes, "Did you just run?"
LOL.
I got the hugest smile on my face ever, and was like, "Yeah. Yeah I did, and it was awesome. I finally freakin' did it."

"A" to "B" is one way, then back to "A" for my 1.7 mi.

I felt like I just won the gold medal at the Olympics.
Also felt like I had just ran a marathon...not that I would know, but that's what I imagine it feels like!
I was so pumped I wanted to go again, but I didn't.
Baby steps.

I ran one more time that week before having a long Easter weekend off with the hubs.
Last week I ran it three times and walked it once with Steph and little Lucas.

I have been so excited, it's such an accomplishment.
I did my Saturday morning weigh in on the 30th of April, and am down to about 124 give or take.

That's almost exactly a 40 lbs. weight loss since November of 2009....I'm pretty stoked about that.

John warned me that if I was going to continue to do this for my cardio, that it could potentially become harder which will make me have to be more persistent and push myself harder. Especially on that hill of doom I still have yet to conquer.

So far he's right.
I ran it last night and thought it would never end. I didn't quit, but my songs weren't working for me and I had a hard time pushing myself. My legs were tired, my brain wasn't there, it seemed more humid than normal......it was rough, but I didn't quit....probably just took longer. :)
Really the only positive thing I kept telling myself, is that, well, since it's hot, not matter whether I'm running or walking, I'm burning something, so just keep trucking...

I haven't timed myself yet. Not sure I am going to just yet either.
I'm focusing on the running itself, not the time right now.
Again, baby steps.

I have technically reached my weight loss goal, and as long as I don't really gain any significant weight, I'm probably not going to check the scale as much anymore. As long as I keep my healthy diet and my workout routine, I think I'll finally be ok.

My new goal is to be healthy. A lot of people have their own definitions of that, and I think I'm still learning what mine is, but all I know is that this journey has been tough as nails, but so worth it, so I can't wait to see what other challenges will arise...
This journey, in my eyes, isn't over, it'll continue, and I'll continue to try to find something to push myself harder, regardless of what the scale says and what challenges come my way. I'm never going to go back to "that place" ever again.

Who needs kids anyways!?

Man, have we been put through a major trial...
Any hopes of baby fever have been put to rest for now, thanks to my little lion of a cat, Jax.

We started noticing issues with him when John got home, that we attributed to "change."
Issues, like, just being bad. And change, like, John being home and change of routine.
Kids do this too right?.....hmmm.....

And being bad entails chewing on things, knocking things over, jumping Bella AND Hurley for no apparent reason, hissing at John....well it went one step further a couple weeks ago when he started peeing on things.
Yes, I know it's gross, but he totally unloaded a full bladder on one of our couch cushions that sent me over the edge.
What's the deal cat?!
This wasn't like him at all.
The ONLY other time I could ever thing of him peeing or acting out like this was when John had just left for this last deployment and he just felt the need to pee on Hurley's bed for some non apparent reason.

So, what do we do, well we go to great lengths to save our couch cushions, just for him to pee on the other two...so we spent an entire weekend elbow deep in bleach and any and every remedy we could find so get rid of the odor and stain to try to save our couches....
After the third incident, I call my friend Jeanette in despair...what do I do!?
I ran into my boss at Walmart right after getting off the phone with Jeanette, and luckily for me he had some previous experience with cats and this problem, so I called the vet for little man to get checked out.

John dropped him off first thing on the 11th, and I got a call mid-morning from the vet telling me they did a urinalysis, and he has a pretty bad UTI.
Cats can get that??
But how?
So I got to the vet after work to get the 411.

Apparently there is no real answer to why.
They gave him antibiotics, told me it was now a waiting game and to keep him separated from the other animals for about two weeks until he's kicked it. They told me that as long as he pee's something, that's good, it's when he goes and nothing comes out that it's bad....They also told me maybe I should clean his litter more often....more often than once a day?
Wow, ok.
So we started the week with this new method of Jax quarantined in the office (which we now refer to as Jax's apartment) with his own food, water, litter, everything separate from Bella and anything else that he shared with Hurley.
All was well and good for the next couple days minus a few minor accidents here and there. You could tell he was trying so hard to "be good."
He would go to the litter box and cry while he tried to pee.
He was losing weight....
It was awful.
I cried and cried, not knowing what to do, and not knowing what I could do different to help him....
Is this what being a mom is like??...uugghh....no bueno.

I would go into work looking like a train wreck just from being so upset that I didn't know how to help my poor animal. Luckily for me I work around some cat lovers, so they were helpful in consoling and offering up any ideas they had to help us or him.

Later in the week, I woke up to find some blood in his litter box.
Hit the "Instant Panic" button in the Christian household.
I called the vet and took him in for for tests, etc...
John picked him up this time and came home with paperwork on FLUTD (AKA: Feline Lower Urniary Tract Disease or also called Feline Idiopathic Cystitis), a weeks worth of oral pain med injections, and also some "special" cat food for cats with this disease.

Now the confusing part is all this paperwork about FLUTD expressed how FLUTD is a theory not a known diagnosis. They don't know what causes it, they don't really now how to fix it, and all you can do is change diet, and "wait it out."
So reassuring, especially after $400 in vet bills....for a theory....ugh.
This paperwork also went through all the possible things that could cause a cat to get sick to this level...pretty much it's an imbalance of their hormones in the brain and different things can cause this outcome to become prevalent.
From change in routine (my thought from the beginning) to OCD type things like cats having too MANY toys which is stumping his "nature."
One thing that stuck out to me in this literature, is that believe it or not, cats weren't meant to poop in clay filled boxes, eat processed foods, and be sheltered indoors with stuffed toys all day. It's against their nature. Some cats just can't mentally handle that and amongst many other things, this can cause the hormonal imbalance that no one really understands....

Man I need therapy just typing that out....

This weekend John was gone to Lumberton for a motorcycle safety course he enrolled in, allowing Jax and I, along with my other babies to have a real quiet "normal" weekend (normal in the sense of how things were when J was deployed). I hated that John being home from deployment could be potentially the problem, so while he's been on the mend I've made sure whenever John is home, I put the hyper pup outside and have John given him treats and love on him and it seems to really be working...We got through the whole weekend without any accidents and if anything saw some life come back into my little lion.
Despite some hard core sleeping throughout the weekend, he got his voice back, being the whiney little man that he always once was. I peeked in at him and Bella bathing each other, which hadn't happened in a while. The past couple weeks he'd hiss at her any time she came near him, and to her defense, she actually looked worried for him. I think animals can tell when the others are sick...she would kinda watch over him in a way.
He even got some spunk back and totally goosed Bella when she wasn't paying attention and I had never been so happy to see it happen.

He is still on quarantine and is going to stay that way through this next weekend while we are gone on the 108th Marriage Retreat. We've finished all the pain med injections they gave us, he seems to like the new "special" food he gets to eat...we're just trying to find a routine now that we can swing the three of them in that will work with John and I too.

If this experience and my emotions is ANYTHING like having a child, then I'm officially in for some hard times.
John and I would talk often about how, "is this how we'll be when we have kids?"
We were so serious about finding away to help this poor sick animal.
I was in pain for this cat. I just cried and cried because he was just so helpless and had no voice to let me know what was wrong.
Dang, it's making me tear up to talk about it....
I love my furry babies to death, and if there is one thing I've learned in all this it is, if we was willing to go through all this work for the love of my cat-- then our children are going to have too much love in their lives, if there is such a thing....I'm ok with that. It's reassuring.

Amelia Island Professional Pictures

First off, it is SO HARD to pick favorites...I think I heart them all.
Pam Bell, of Pam Bell Photography did a fabulous job and appreciate her support and patriotism in doing this for FREE for us as a military couple.

Thanks Pam!