All things are possible...

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I am creating this blog as a personal record of personal growth. I'm going to chronicle my paths as I try to grow as a person, and overcome my obstacles, which I will talk about more later. My hobby passion in life is knitting and crocheting. I say "hobby passion" because my real passion is my love of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. But for now, I'm going to talk about myself for a while. I've been crocheting for almost 6 years, and knitting for a little over one year. I own a consignment craft gallery where I sell my items, and create new items for customers' special needs. I'm 30 years old, and have just found out I have elevated cholesterol. Elevated, because the doc said it was satisfactory, but 2 points above the "high" normal is not satisfactory to me. It's genetic, as my mom has high cholesterol for no known reason too.

If you asked me two months ago, I would have told you I am happy with my body -- I don't think I'm fat, and I'm not worried about my health. I blamed my fatigue and general yuckiness to being the mom of two small girls. That certainly doesn't help. But after finding out about my cholesterol, it's just started in my mind a snowball of realizations that I'm not living the way I should. I'm becoming that fat, lazy mom who doesn't want to go out and play with the kids. My body is slowly breaking down and pretty soon I won't be able to get up and go, even if I want to.

SO. Here I am.

I have been fit before -- I used to do martial arts 5 - 6 times a week and was in pretty great shape (strength, if not aerobic). But that's been many (10) years ago.

I have asthma -- I have since I was a tiny tiny girl. I have herrington rods in my back, and my backbone was fused when I was 12 years old. This was the treatment for the very severe S-shaped curve of my spine due to scoliosis. I'm lucky my parents got this fixed, because I might not even be able to walk these days if I didn't have the surgery. My back doesn't give me much trouble. My asthma gives me much more trouble. But I have recently gotten on Advair, and I have seen such a remarkable improvement in my asthma, I feel I might be able to overcome this obstacle in exercise now.

My Goal: Run the Oak Island Lighthouse 5K in April 2009
(I found a race at http://www.roguerunners.org/ that fit my timeline)
My Plan: The "Couch to 5K" plan I found at http://www.coolrunning.com/

Of course, being a crafty non-runner, I've created notecards -- one for each day of my plan -- 27 in all. I plan on using the cards to check off each day as I go. I think this will work nicely for motivation. I've also employed the use of accountability. I'm getting my dh and my brother to hold me accountable and make me feel horribly guilty if I don't stay on track.

So, to sum up, I am using the following things to help me reach my goal:

1) Goal setting, long term and short term
2) Accountability
3) Progress-tracking tools, such as note cards and this blog
4) Most importantly, prayer

I am also going to use my blog to track my progress with my knitting. I am doing some designing of my own, and am going to try to get some of my work published online. And I might even do some blogging on my spiritual journey along the way.

I don't expect even one person to read this except myself, but if anyone out there wants to write a word of encouragement, please do, and be kind.

I am going to incorporate pictures as well.