Update on my Uncle

My uncle passed away today around 3:00 or so, maybe 2:45 I'm not for sure. Please pray for my family.

My Uncle, plus a few updates

My uncle Tony is in the hospital again but this time he won't be making it out :( On June 11th my cousin David asked me to check on his dad for him sometime during the day and I did, he seemed confused, couldn't think of words and couldn't finish sentences, his face was sunken in like a very elderly mans would look like (my uncle was only 60 but he looked 80 or 90) well he finally got out that he would like me to go buy him some sherbert, for some reason I felt like he was going to fall when he reached for his cane on the floor, my uncle has post polio and just recently found out that he has hepatitis c and has sirosis of his liver, and I'm thankful that he did because when I got back over to his house he had fallen down and apparently hit his head on the concrete of his garage :( he wouldn't give me the key to his garage gate so I couldn't go in and help him so I stood there helplessly and thinking what can I do to help him, so I decided to go get my cell phone and walk across the street to get signal and call my mom who came as fast as she could, she tried to get him to give her the keys and he wouldn't, he didn't understand, he didn't know where the keys were.  She borrowed my phone after I googled my cousin's work number and she asked him to come home that it was an emergency. and then she came back and she finally got my uncle to say ok to call 911 so I went and called 911. There they found his ammonia levels were high and he has pneumonia. He was in the hospital for a couple days then he came home and he reunited with his daughter after about 10 or 15 years of being mad at her, he met his grandchildren. He kept telling Toni that I saved his life that day. Claire saw that he didn't feel well so she went up to him and gave him a hug and he hugged her back, such a sweet memory of the two of them that is burned into my memory. My uncle had made up with his mom a few weeks before he went into the hospital.  My cousin called on the 21st of June telling us that his dad didn't know who he was and was walking without his cane and such and what should he do, we told him to take him to the ER and his dad was pushing him into the firewood pile next to his car so mom went over and helped him, but ended up calling an ambulance once again, his ammonia levels were once again high. They put him in ICU after the first day because he was being combative and they sedated him. they put him on hospice care and gave him 2-5 days to live on Sunday (June 24th) he's still alive but he's not here, he's asleep and breathing heavy. Mom took off a week at work, his son is staying up there with him, so is his daughter, had my aunt and my cousin down for 2 days to visit him. This is hard for all of us.

My uncle was like a dad to me when my dad wasn't there for me, he'd take me places, have me help him around his house and with his garden, go to the store with him, he'd buy me Jimmy Dean Lunches back when they still had those, he didn't think Lunchables were too healthy. He stopped smoking because hannah and me and I believe emily as well gave him things to quit smoking one time for Christmas, that was a blessing. He loved the Beatles, and other music too, loved cats the most but loved all animals.  I'm going to miss him, even with his many faults (like we all have).


I've got to work on feeling my emotions because I'm the type that hides them, I tend to eat my feelings and I can't do that. Even though feeling and processing through these emotions are hard and wear me out physically I need to just feel them because it's what I need to do. I don't like it but I gotta do it.


Update on my weight: I'm still juggling the same couple of pounds but I can  understand why I'm just a ball of emotions this month, it's been a hard month. I don't think I'll hit my goal of 60 pounds lost by August 1st, but I'm hoping to be close to it, I'm around 41-44 pounds lost right now.

I'm really hoping and praying that we go to youth conference this year, I need it so much, I need the preaching and the fellowship that you get there. It's just such a blessing to my soul. I'm hoping that if we go that mom will let me go, because it's really the one thing that I look forward to each year that I can still go to, it's college and career age not just for high school/middle school kids. I need a break from my every day life and just recoup from all this drama that's going on in my life.

I don't know how much longer my uncle will be with us, he hasn't had food or water in at least 5 days. Please just be in prayer for my family during this hard time.

Thanks and God bless!
Mandy Marie

Even in the Valley God is Good.

Update :)

I'm happy to say that the scale is moving again :) Lowest this week was 191.4, but I'm back up to 192.8 but so glad to be going in the right direction (for the most part lol) again :D

I finish Insanity: the Asylum on the 16th of this month :) then going to do another round of Insanity. I was going to do a hybrid of the two but decided to do the 2nd round instead and do a hybrid another time lol.

Started at the gym this week, been fun, and I believe that has helped me to lose weight again :D

Well I guess I better get, got a gym workout to do once mom gets home from work, just finished Asylum: Strength

Update on my Weight Loss

I've hit a plateau :(

I had gotten down to 191 but am now back up to 195, which yesterday I was 198 so I lost some water weight overnight which is good, but I took a vacation and my diet was crazy as was my workout schedule so I gained a few pounds, but I'm back to my normal routine and will start losing again hopefully. but I've been stuck around 195 since I wrote my last blog.

My mom and grama got me a gym membership to the local gym here and that starts in June so I'm hoping to see good progress with that.

I'm on Day 7 of 30 of my Asylum and getting stronger, and really liking this workout program :)

My Weight Loss Journey thus Far: October 12th through April 5th

Last Day of Youth Conference before

Traveling home.

 This first picture is from Youth Conference, we were on our way home, just finished the last service, had a great time, I didn't know how bad I looked until I got home and looked, really looked, at the picture. This was either my highest weight, or very close to it. I surprisingly did not change my ways of eating and working out then, this picture was taken on August 4th, 2011, my Journey starts October 12th during Ladies Retreat. My highest weight: 235 or 237, I go by 235 because I know for sure I was 235, before this my highest weight was 227 years before and I had told myself that I'd never get back to that weight again, but I had been at a point in my life where I had just stopped caring and I just gained back the weight plus more.

On the way to Clovis NM for Ladies Retreat

This next picture is what started my weight loss journey, that and I was embarrassed by my weight, I had just went to walmart days before to just look around and found some shirts that were on sale for a dollar and I tried on some shirts, the smallest was a 2X because I thought that that would fit me, sad thing was that it did not, I had to get a 3X, that is what woke me up to what I had allowed myself to do to my body. I was embarrassed when eating out with the ladies from church, so much so that I ordered healthy food just to say that I was trying to lose weight, which in doing that it helped me to start that change in myself. I had a great time at ladies retreat and started working out when I got home, I bought a workout DVD from walmart and did that one for 2 weeks, within the first week I had lost 10 pounds or so, then started Tae Bo for another 4 weeks with 2 different dvds. After Taebo I did some Jillian Michaels workout DVDs, in her Ripped in 30 I lost 13 pounds.  I got tired of those DVDs and then I asked for a workout program for my birthday called Insanity! I have loved that program, I've finished Month 1 and I'm currently in the Recovery Week, I start Month 2 on April 9th, then when I'm done with Insanity I'm doing Insanity Asylum.

So far I've lost 40 pounds. I went from 235 to 195. I'm not anywhere near my goal, My ultimate goal is 120, but for now I will be happy to get to 150. When I reach 175 I will have reached a goal I have set time and time again that I never made it to. When I was in 7th grade I weighed 175. That is why that is such a huge goal for me.

 If I can do this I know that others who are struggling with their weight can do this. I'm not someone who is perfect, I haven't arrived, and I never will, no one will ever arrive. Every day I ask God to enable me to lose weight and He is, but I also realize that I have to put in the effort and the work into it as well otherwise I won't change. Yes, God enables, but we have to do something about it too.

Here's to the next 45-75 pounds :)

God bless you, and thank you for reading!!!
Mandy Marie

November 2011 to March 2012

August 2011

October 2011

April 2012

December 2011

22 in 36 days

I'm going to be 22 in 36 days, where did the time fly? What have I done in these 22 years that God has given me that amounts to anything? I graduated high school. I've spent the last almost 4 years now taking care of my grandmother and cousin and cleaning house, and cooking. But still it seems like my life is a failure, like i have nothing to show for the past 4 years, my family doesn't like me, or my convictions I have. I'm sure to some degree they like me, but they don't show it like I think they should.  I've never had a real job outside of the home, I worked i a firework stand years ago for maybe 3 days but that's it. I've never been to college, I've just been at home. Waiting for God to send me the one, or send me a way to go to bible college. I've made some mistakes in my years at home, many I regret, though they are forgiven they are still mistakes and regrets.

I've been trying to improve my health since October, weight-wise, and I'm doing good there, but I don't see any successes outside of that.

I'm praying to God that He shows me where He wants me to go, or what He wants me to do, or what He wants for me, but He seems ever so quiet at times.  I don't want to live in this house forever, I don't want to have a failed life. God has called me to be a missionary's wife, and what am I doing to get towards that?

I'm just saddened by some things and wondering what will happen in my future. People at church tell me I need to go to college and I think I would drop everything and go to Bible College if I had the money, I'm tired of how things are going on here, there's no real love here, just strife.

I want to make this next year be a year that I'm not a failure, I can't keep doing the same things over and over and over again.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  It's insanity if I think doing the same thing day in and day out will change anything in my life.

Well I guess this is all my musings for today.

God bless and thanks for reading.
Mandy Marie