Deciding to change our lives!

A picture of us after we lost 50 pounds each and are working on the next 50!!!!

Remember to LAUGH every day!

Amy and I have always had fun together.  There isn't a day that goes by that we don't laugh, and there is nothing better than having a glass of wine with your best friend.  It's also awesome when your best friend is your daughter (over 21-year-old daughter!!!).  Life doesn't get much better.  Amy has this infectious giggle that makes people around her laugh.  It's so much fun to go shopping with her.   I remember one day we were at the mall, and Amy was so excited to see all the new purses.  Especially since the mall started to carry Marc Jacobs' bags.  I'm not kidding, she actually said, "Hey Maw, look, it's a real Marc Jacobs bag".  I don't know what made me laugh the most, "Hey Maw" or "It's a real Marc Jacobs bag".   Holding the bag in front of the display with that cable attached is the closest she has gotten to owning that real Marc Jacobs bag!

Amy always finds something that makes me laugh, or people around us laugh.  We are always stopped by someone who wants to be part of our conversations.  When you get a group of people around you to start laughing while you are buying groceries, you have something special.

So Much Stress in our lives

Amy had a horrible job working for the cable company.  In my world, people can be really mean, especially if they are talking to a poor person at the cable company.  Amy was in sales and was crying every day because someone was mad about their service or bill.  We have to remember the employees at the cable company are only doing their jobs, and they really don't want us to have a problem with our service.   Anyway, this was not a healthy situation for her.

My job was eliminated, and I was just stressed out from being in high-pressure jobs for the past 20+ years.  Plus, I actually hated the job and,  because of traffic, I had to drive over an hour each way, every day.   The office was only 20 minutes from our house.  But once I left the job, we decided to move closer to family.   Starting the process of selling our house at a bad time of year and a bad market wasn't fun.  I don't know about you, but selling a house is not a fun exercise at any time.  We made the best of it, and after 6 months on the market, we finally sold our house.

In August 2016, we decided to lose weight!

We decided in August of 2016 that we really didn't feel that good and were going to lose weight.  We didn't set any goals.  But we did join a gym!  (Unfortunately, you don't automatically lose weight by joining a gym!) We went to the gym 3 WHOLE days in a row, it was great fun.  Then we were getting showings on the house and couldn't go to the gym.  Yes, anything for an excuse not to go to the gym.  It only took one week to start the excuses!!!   But we had to take the dogs with us every time there was a house show.  Three weeks after joining the gym, our house sold.  Oh, did I mention, at this time, we really didn't even know where we were going to live.  And, of course, the new owners wanted to move in 21 days.  Yeah, not a great plan on our part.

New home

We highly recommend you figure out where you are going to live before selling your house.  We did know we wanted to live closer to Joshua and my mom.  There are a lot of states within a 5-hour drive of them.   We also wanted to live somewhere that would have jobs that would make us happy.  So we started looking online for houses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Kentucky.  Well, we found that the housing rental market in Columbus, Ohio, was not going to have a place for anyone with more than two dogs!  There weren't any houses that would rent to us because we had four dogs.  I mean, why wouldn't anyone want to rent to us with these sweet boys?

Oliver, Roscoe, Elvis, and Frank always help us laugh.

We searched online and found a house that we liked a lot.  But there was no time to travel all the way to Cincinnati and get all the moving stuff taken care of.  We had to line up movers, say goodbye to friends, and just get ready for our move.  And we had to Laugh!  So we trusted that the pictures of the house and yard were real and started our move.  Fingers, toes, and Paws crossed that this wasn't a complete hole or fraud.

The house is ok- half the size of the one in Connecticut, but the yard is great for the boys.  Of course, the dogs only use about 10 feet of the ¾ acre lot!  But at least we are settled now.

We will have a ton of stories in the future about the fun we have had cutting the grass with a push lawn mower. . . yes, we have 1 ½ acres!!!!  We still remember laughing while cutting the grass!

STRESS does affect everything

Neither of us felt good.  We were drinking a little (lot) more than we should and, OH MY, were we enjoying the food!  So, from the time we joined the gym in August 2016 to January 2017, we both gained at least 15 pounds each.  I know that having stressful jobs, selling our house, and moving to a new location didn't help.  I also know now that you really need to set goals and focus on what really makes you happy.  And remember to laugh!

And I still don't understand why we didn't lose weight. . . we did join a gym!