Best Car Dealership in Town

I received a call from a friend this morning. I had promised her a long time ago to go car shopping with her and she was cashing in on that promise. Her car completely died this morning never to move again. She wanted a Honda and I told her that I would help her but she had to promise me that she wouldn't tell anyone I helped her with a HONDA. We are a General Motors family...Chevy all the way baby!!!! and if you can't do GM you better dang well buy American but I digress. So anyway..we went to Jay Wolfe Honda to look at a Honda Fit. I took the opportunity on the drive there to explain my stereotypical theory on how to deal with car salesmen. They invariably hide information from you, won't tell you your interest rate - just payment information, and they push hard to sell you a bunch of stuff that you don't need.

Jay Wolfe Honda did NOT do these things. Kris (I'm not sure of his last name but it starts with a P) was the best car salesman I have ever met. He just shot it straight to you, he was very friendly, he wasn't pushy at all and he was just super nice. The credit app was filled out and within 5 minutes they were back saying the credit was excellent, here's your APR, our finance guy will be right with you. Of course the finance guy had to do his job so he went through all of the extended warranty information, life insurance, gap insurance..blah blah blah. He just went through them and did not pressure at all when we said we didn't want it. We were in the door, out for a 15 minute test drive, loan approved, papers signed, and out the door in about 2 hours. That is UNHEARD OF!! I asked the finance guy if they had a GM dealership and he told me no. I told him that was too bad because I would buy all of my cars from them.

So if you ever find yourself in need of a Honda (which I am not condoning---Chevy..woohooo) I recommend Jay Wolfe Honda at 103rd and State Line!!

On a different note, I got 3 afternoon walks in this week and a plan for a little more this weekend and I am looking forward to monday's weigh in. As always, my prayers are with all of you who are struggling right along with me!!!! God Bless

Enjoying Exercise?? Who knew

I really think that God has a sense of humor. I have been praying for God to light a fire in my heart or better yet..in my feet to get motivated for exercise. I went to Panera for dinner and had a Turkey Artichoke sandwich that was scrumdillyicious. The boys were at church so I took my time to enjoy my sandwich and some soup. I took my "The Shack" comparative study booklet and took "The Shack" and read through the 3 chapters we are covering tomorrow to refresh my memory. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD BOOK. Panera closes at 8 (which does not make ANY sense to me) so I went ahead and drove back to the church. I knew I was going to get there early so I figured I would put the seat back and take a little siesta. God had OTHER plans. I could almost hear him saying "you could walk laps"- "you could walk laps"- "you could walk laps" over and over again. I finally just chuckled and got out of the truck, tied up my shoes, put my Ipod in and started walking. At first..I was just singing along to the music (Bob from the Biggest Loser says that singing while you exercise increases the aerobic benefit). The next thing you know..I am praying away and God is speaking straight into my heart. This is very rare for me (the hearing-not the praying) and I can count on one hand the number of times that I knew that I knew it was God. Don't get me wrong, there are times that I know He has acted in my life, times that I know He has had other people speak into my life, times where the same thought keeps coming to my mind...but this was almost audible and God and I had a real conversation tonight. I caught myself laughing out loud and asking him things that I've always wanted to know about certain situations in my life. He didn't always answer the questions, but it sure felt good to ask them.

God can do so much good if we will just follow his leadings. I almost shutter to think about the awesome experience I would have missed tonight if I would have simply laid back my seat and took a nap.

New Frustration Management tool

For those who read the blog faithfully (or those of you who really know me) know that I have a tad bit of an anger management problem. I was raised in a house with yelling and it seems that I have inherited that trait. I do way better now (with God's help) then I have ever done before but I'm a work in progress. It usually happens when I have tried and tried to express myself in a "non-yelling" way and eventually feel like I am not being heard. I am sure that there are some roots inside that God is still working on removing in regards to this! =)

Anyway...it seems that lately my frustration level at work has been through the roof. I took a position in IT last February and have received minimal training. I get frustrated when I am having issues with the system that I can't resolve and I feel like I am being "told" what to do and not "taught" how to do it. I hope that makes sense. For the record, I don't have that issue with everyone on my team but it happens enough to push me over the edge sometimes.

I have been brainstorming ways to reduce my frustration level at work. I had a conversation with Jody (my level 2 analyst) and spoke a little truth. I let him know that I am not the best at asking for help and if he could just check in with me a couple of times a week to help with problem tickets I would be very appreciative. I also told him that I would work on specifically asking for what I need.

I also had a conversation with my team and got the OK to combine both of my 15 minute breaks into a 30 minute window in the afternoon where I can leave the building and go for a walk. I found a park a few blocks down from my job that has a trail around a pond. It is very beautiful and it allows me to get "quiet" with God and cast my prayers and my cares upon Him as I get some much needed exercise. I will have to keep you updated on how well that is working. I would humbly ask that anyone reading this blog send up an extra prayer for God to help me dig the anger roots out.

God Bless

**** PS..Skinny Cow Vanilla Caramel Ice Cream Cones are the bomb!!!

What a Beautiful Day

I have decided that God makes days like this in the middle of the winter just for me. As I've said a million times, I hate exercising for the sake of exercising. I don't mind walking but I like to get out into nature to do it. I took some time today to put my Ipod on and go out to Stocksdale park and take a walk. I prefer to walk on the "natural" trail but I was afraid it would be a little too muddy so I stuck to the paved trail. There is something about being out in God's wondrous beauty and feeling the wind blowing that makes walking tolerable. Of course anyone who saw me walking would have thought I was a little nuts. I tend to draw very near to God when I'm listening to songs of worship while I'm out with the wildlife (okay ..I didn't even see a squirrel but you know what I mean.) I spent a lot of time with my hands up in worship which I have to imagine enhances the workout. =)

I haven't done the best at working out this week but short of the papa murphy's "incident" I have been great on the food side. Tomorrow is weigh in day so I am hopeful that I've lost weight. I am not losing as fast as I would like but I keep reminding myself that it is all about small changes that will last a lifetime. I am so very thankful for all of the encouragement that we are receiving. It sure does help us get through the week.

New Club I'm Starting

I am starting a new club. It's called "People for Realistic Serving Sizes". So I didn't blog last night because I was irritated at myself and at Papa Murphy's. We had a coupon for a Chicken Artichoke Bacon D'lite pizza from Papa Murphy's so I did my due diligence and looked up the nutrition information before we decided to get it. It wasn't too bad. It was 180 calories per slice and 9 grams of fat. I knew that the 9 grams of fat was a little high but not too bad for a piece of pizza and I had been saving up some calories for some pizza.

So anyway..the pizza comes out of the oven smelling better than I ever could have expected. The crust was nice and crispy and the cheese was bubbly. I ate that first piece and thought..mmm..this is good. I had another piece using the rationalization that it would still only put me at 360 and I usually allow myself about 700 calories for dinner. Needless to say, by the time we were done we had finished off the whole pizza. Now..while I know that this is an issue in and of itself, I had made a choice. I knew that it was 720 calories and 36 grams of fat. I would usually never eat anything close to that many fat grams but I also know that if I don't allow myself some pizza every once in a while that I would do great for a few weeks and then binge. So...anyway..I had made a choice. I then went on the computer later in the evening to log my calories and went back to Papa Murphy's website to make sure I had my #'s correctly. It was then and only then that I saw the little bitty print that said that a serving size was based on a piece being 1/10th of the pizza. This would have equated to a sliver. CAN WE GET REALISTIC?? So anyway...I got frustrated and had to give myself a pep talk to do better at looking at serving sizes (which I almost always do) and that maybe next time, I should eat a big salad before the pizza comes out so that I won't want so much.

I just sometimes wonder who comes up with these serving sizes....they drive me nuts.