Life Is Short

Life is so short-and is often times taken for granted. Why is it that it takes a tragic event sometimes to remind people of this? Today I went to a funeral for someone that I really didn't even know. He was a friend of Cody's family and Cody wanted to go show his respect so we went. I remember hearing about when he was diagnosed. I remember hearing about when he died. I remember during both of those times how I thought about his family and how much pain they must be in. My heart went out to them. I prayed for them and kept them in my thoughts and called and text my family back in TriCities to tell them I loved them. Today, going to the funeral, I was nervous. I didn't know why I was nervous. I mean, I had only met this man a few times. I was more nervous for those awkward moments. You never really know what to say to someone who has gone through something like this; especially when you really don't know them all that well and haven’t gone through it yourself. I wasn't sure what to expect and funerals are never fun. However, what I observed was so beautiful to me and gave me a sense of peace.

One of the speakers at the service quoted Winston Churchill saying "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give" It was apparent to me that this man gave A LOT. Looking around the room, it was a packed house. People were standing outside trying to listen. I looked around the room, standing right outside, and couldn’t help but think about how many lives this man has touched and changed. It made me think about my life. Whose life have I changed for the better? If I were to leave this earth, what would people remember me for? This thought stayed with me for the rest of the day, and has made me do a lot of soul searching. All day today I have been constantly thinking about this thought and my life. I have thought about how selfish I can be and how some of the things I stress over are really nothing worth stressing over. I thought about what makes me happy in life. I thought about the amazing  family and friends I have. How helping people and just making people smile LITERALLY makes my day and how I need to do that more. I thought about how I need to focus on the positive things I have in life and take time to enjoy the small blessings life has to give. I thought about how I need to improve my relationship with God. How I have gotten out of the habit of going to church these past few months because of “being busy” and how I need to make that a priority again. I have been pretty blessed in life…and sometimes I think about how I don’t deserve it. I still have both my parents, most my grandparents, and my siblings. I may not see my family as often as I would like, but when I do see them, it is like things haven’t changed. I have great relationships with my family. We truly treasure every chance we get to see each other. I am surrounded by love. Today, as I watched the family, I wondered how they did it. How are they so graceful and together right now? They handled themselves with SUCH grace and through their sad eyes, asked how everyone else was doing as they were greeted. I don’t know what I would do if I were to lose a member of my family. I am scared for the day it happens because I know it will eventually happen.That day when you can't just call and talk for a few, can't go visit..I pray that doesn't happen for A LONG time.

Waking up today, I didn’t expect it to be hard. I expected it to be a little uncomfortable at the funeral, but I didn’t expect it to be hard. However, I can’t stop thinking about that family and how I would be if that happened to me. I take so much for granted. Some of the things I stress most about are really silly. I am healthy, I have a great family, I have great friends, and I have the most amazing husband. I have Love. I am surrounded by Love. That is all you need. Some of the things I stress most about seem so selfish to me now. I want to be unselfish. I want to put others first. Even though I don’t think I deserve it, I am so thankful that God has blessed me and given me so much love in my life.
Today, I was reminded of all my blessings and I thank God for allowing me to be humbled by them. As I left the funeral today, I text my mom, dad, brother, and sister to tell them I love them. Don’t wait until tomorrow to tell someone you love them. Tell them today. Life is too short not too.

Advocare=AdvoFUN

WOW! It has been soooo long since I have updated this thing! Here I was thinking that I would be keeping up with this blog and then life just sort of happened and we got really busy. Cody and I are constantly going; we are always off doing some sort of outdoor activity or visiting family or working. We hardly ever have days where we just sit around and do nothing. I am not sure how often I will update this as I feel we are even busier than before, but I wanted to share a little about Advocare.

Advocare is a nutritional program that fell into my lap from a gal at my gym. I have heard about it before and have always been skeptical. I have been mostly paleo for quite some time and thought that was good enough for me. However, the fall brought a sort of hiatus with my diet and exercise routine because I was so busy and then the holidays came. By the time January 1 rolled around, I was ready to get back at it. Cody and I decided to kick the new year off with a Paleo Challenge. Last year when we did this challenge we saw some pretty good results and were able to maintain it (until fall when we just got crazy busy with work). Well, we went 30 days strict paleo following the Whole 30 guidelines. We saw some change, but not as much as we did before. I was sort of sad about not seeing the results I wanted so I decided to take on Advocare. Advocare, in my eyes, is pretty paleo. There are a few things I eat on this plan that aren't such as Spark, and the protein powder, but other than that, I only eat paleo foods on this plan. You can learn a little more about Advocare here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLHK1In_ebY&feature=player_embedded

February 7th I kicked off my 24 Day Challenge. I decided to take the plunge not knowing what I was getting into, but was ready for something different. The challenge was hard, as there is lots of prep worked involved in ensuring success, but I stayed 100% and in 24 days I had lost 5lbs and 15 inches! 5lbs isn't a lot but 15 inches!! That was INSANE! I was so happy with my results. On top of that, I had more energy in my crossfit workouts, more energy throughout the day, was sleeping better, had clearer skin, and just felt better overall. With these results, I decided I wanted to continue using Advocare's products and start selling it on the side. The goal for this was to sell enough to where I could get my products paid for....so if you are interested, let me know :P

Also with my results, Cody decided he was interested. Now, a little side note-he ate close to the eating plan without all the supplements when I was doing the challenge and had lost a little weight when I was doing it. He started his ACTUAL 24 Day Challenge on March 12th. His last day was yesterday and he got AMAZING results! He ended up losing 10lbs and 11 inches!! He looks and feels incredible! I am not going to lie, I was jealous taking his final measurements this morning because it just isn't fair to me the results guys get, but I am so stinkin proud of him! We are both going to continue eating this way with a few days built in for "cheat meals". We have both learned a lot about what our bodies truly need during this challenge and we can definitely say that Advocare was a "lifestyle change" for us (as cliche as that sounds).

You can find pictures of Cody's results at the link below!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17xKs_2WthpagzT1pF5J-rthPviU8uo3dQMB-LKQndlM/edit