Showing Love and Concern for all of Gods Children

Last week I was asked to teach the lesson for Relief Society on Sunday. As I opened up the lesson I felt as though I had so much work to do in order to hopefully help/teach myself along with the women in our ward.

Lesson #20 – Showing love and concern for all of Gods children.

I started the lesson off about briefly tell my story about the T-home (the group home I lived in). This was such a beautiful place for learning and love.  I made friends there whom I was so quick to judge in first meeting. My heart was completely melted by the love they each showed for me and not even worried about “my story”. These were kids who were once addicted to drugs, kids who once had an alcohol problem, kids who once were in Foster care and had grown out of the system. It would have been so easy for me to just put head phones in and live there while going to school and working and not worrying about anyone else. I learned I needed them, I needed them to listen, and I needed them to love and needed them for the friendship they offered. We spent countless nights outside just shooting the breeze while we waited for curfew wishing it would never come. I loved them as though they were my sibling and guess what? In Gods eyes they are my siblings! The kids I lived with got me through some of the darkest times in my life. I learned there how to help and care for Gods children but, I can certainly do more of this in my daily life.

The lesson talked about loving thy neighbors as thyself. We talked about how easy it is to get angry with a neighbor but, what does that teach our children? If our children don’t learn to love their neighbors growing up how will they ever know how to love their future neighbor(s)? What a thought, not even thinking about the hurt and contention it causes in our own heart we must think of the example we must be for our children! The example was given to “kill them with kindness” if someone offends or hurts our feelings.

The lesson talked about service- Oh, boy. I need to serve others more often. I have so much work to be doing that sometimes I forgot that there is something else I can be doing for someone- serving meals to our missionaries is one way Ryan and I try to serve weekly- a home cooked meal and a family to share it with. I talked about the choice Ryan and I made to go towards to Foster Care adoption instead of adoptions that would cost us a lot of money out of pocket. Adoption is truly a beautiful thing and Ryan and I were most certainly blessed by getting three babies but, I tell you what my heart would have been content helping a Foster child over the age of 5 that no one else wanted to adopt. Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us.

I learned so much having the opportunity to teach this lesson. This was only a few key points to the lesson. We all have the opportunity to love or show concerns for someone today, take it! We will have the opportunity to serve someone this month; I challenge each of my friends to serve someone this month!

Remember that everyone has a story and most people just want to tell it, maybe that act of service is simply sitting down and listening to your neighbor tell their story.

Go forth and serve! 

The Golf cart....

While at a work Golf event on the 20^th of June, I was rolled out of a golf cart. Yes, you read that correct go ahead and laugh... The back story, I was bending down to get a ball and as I stood up from getting it the driver turned the cart quickly and accelerator causing me to roll on the green. My face hit first I thought for sure my sunglasses were broken, I think rolled onto my shoulder and at some point I hit my leg (we assume on the golf cart rolling out), I rolled about 3 times before coming to a stop. I pretended really hard that everything was fine and that it was no big deal when really I was in a lot of pain.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am the last one to go to the Doctor for anything. The redness started immediately on my leg, the soreness in my shoulder was there shortly after and my nose hurt terribly. I really didn’t want to go to the Doctor or make a scene about it so I just ate lunch with everyone and then went off and had my weekend.

Monday morning some people from work called me into their office to assess what had happened, as they looked my now bruised leg they told me to immediately leave and go to the Doctor and that it would be covered under Workers Comp. I was utterly embarrassed leaving their office and going to tell my team Leader that I had to leave to go and visit the Doctor. I visit with the Doctor, he had some x-rays done that showed nothing was broken; he then gave me lots of pain pills and sent me on my way. The next day the bruising was deep, dark and moving into my ankle. This was something the Doctor told me to watch for and said that if it got worse I needed to visit my Primary care to be checked for blood clots. My Primary Care referred to a place called WorkMed. I started visiting her regularly and on the 3^rd of July there was a bright red, hot spot on my leg. She took one look at it and told me the leg was infected, she started antibiotic injections right then. She told me to stop trying to walk on my break at work and to stop thinking about getting back to the gym. Through this entire thing so far I was frustrated, I love where I am at; going to the gym daily and walking on breaks at work. I followed up with her 3 days later and the infection was going down and not growing so that was good. She referred me to the Physical therapist there to work on getting some range of motion in my shoulder back and to help the swelling in my leg/foot to go down.

This experience has certainly been on for the record books. My ankle is still swollen today July 28^th from all of the blood that moved there from my leg trying to get rid of the bruise. My leg is still so painful and I have a big knot on it. I am hoping to be discharged from Physical therapy this week for my shoulder but, who knows what will happen with this crazy leg.

I have now not exercised for 4 weeks. Recently, I have been getting in easy walking because I miss the endorphins that exercise gives me. I got on the scale this morning to see that I lost a pound over the long weekend. That makes 2 pounds in 4 weeks. I know it seems minimal but, I am grateful that by keeping a clean eating diet and watching what I put in my mouth I have been able to lose weight with no exercise.

I want to give others hope, that you too can get your life on track while making small and simple choices. Eating is easy for me with the shake Ryan has created that really is just fantastic- we eat that for Breakfast and lunch with a sensible dinner. I find I snack less when I am at work when I have eaten veggies/fruit all day. I also feel better and much happier when I work out! I am praying that this week I can get cleared to head back to the gym or at least do my work out video at home! 

Progress...

I have been trying to figure out how to start this post and I think I am just going to start with the basics, sorry if you have heard this more than once from me.

My entire life I have always been bigger, I have never looked at myself and thought OH MY HECK you are out of control though. I think this was a bad thing, because I never took any action.

In High School I was swimmer and I never fought to lose weight that I definitely need to. I always did pretty well. I was able to maintain my 195 lbs. with how active I was throughout.

After graduating from High School I began working full time at a Bakery and part time at a retail store. I was lifting 50lb bags of flour, sugar etc. and at the retail store I did all of the logistics in the back room so I was lifting and running my entire shift. I probably got down to 180lb or so. I never paid much attention to weight, I tried really hard to always have the mentality to be happy with what you have and the rest will come easy “Love the body you are in”. I found myself with lots of health issues that year after graduating I had two surgeries within a month of each other. I lost a few pounds with each surgery due to the lack of eating but, again I was never paying too much attention.  Once most of the issues were resolved life just went on as normal.

When I was married in 2007, I was probably about 185 or so. I remember I felt good about myself and didn’t have too many complaints. I knew it wouldn’t hurt to lose some weight but, never did much about it. Along with marriage came a career, custody of my husband’s little sister, buying a house- LIFE! You all know what I am talking about! I started noticing weight slowly creeping up on me. We would go on crash diets where we would get rid of everything in the house that was “bad” and then just go buy it again 2 weeks later because we couldn’t live on 1,000 calories or 600 calories as that HCG one was.

In August of 2012, I was at Costco picking up our normal stuff when I went to reach down and get Ryan’s three 48 (or however many are in there) cases of Mountain Dew, when he said “no”. I looked at him as though he was crazy. Three of these would last him about 2 weeks and it’s something he had to have. I won’t lie, because Ryan drank so much soda it caused me to drink soda. It’s just what we did. We went on vacation about 2 weeks after Ryan had “quit” drinking soda and I knew that he would have them while we were there so I had little hope it would stick. This man stuck to it and from there is caused us to start thinking about what we were eating, why we were eating and how it would affect our children in the long run. We started adding healthy things into the mix but, not really sticking too much with anything. As Ryan started to see the weight melt off we realized it was time for big changes.

In January of 2013 my work held a “biggest loser competition” I put my money into the pot and knew I was going to win. By this point my weight was up to 260lbs. seeing that number on the scale really put things into reality for me. I was SIXTY pounds heavier than I was when I walked with my diploma in hand just eight years prior. I found a protein shake that was easy to make and easy to follow a meal plan. Ryan joined in and we started losing I got to about 240 when the competition was over. I had done great and I felt great. Over the course of the year life happened again, money was tight so I didn’t order my protein shake or we had to go out and eat because *insert excuse*. I realized in November of 2013 that I started gaining back the weight I lost.

In January of 2014, I told Ryan I didn’t want to make it goal of losing weight, I just wanted to get back on the horse to do better. I went to the mindset of “If I love myself it doesn’t matter how much I weigh” even though, really folks, it does! It matters that I am 27 years old carrying a whole extra person! It matters that I have a huge family history of heart issues, diabetes and cancer! It was January 13^th that we lost a baby; we were told we would never have. It was January 14^th, that I looked at Ryan and said I think this is our bump that we need to be healthy. Regardless of if we are supposed to get pregnant, we both have lots of weight to lose, it was that day we drove to the gym and signed up.

On January 15^th, I weighed myself at 5am before heading off to the gym when I learned I had gained all the weight I had previously lost and then some. I weighed 269lbs! It was at 5:30am that I walked into the gym and make a decision to make better decisions for myself. Now I realize that food is 80% of what will help us lose weight but, I need the gym. The gym helps me not only physically but, mentally and emotionally. It was in that time we realized that eating a prepackaged shake was not for us. In drinking those calories and we were getting too much fruit and not enough vegetables. Ryan (my husband) pulled out our juicer and went crazy with different concoctions until we finally found something that we both could deal with, and now love! Every night Ryan pulls out the juicer and juices carrot, celery, oranges, and an apple. He then mixes it with pineapple, berries and flax seed for protein.

I found the weight slipped off, the first 20 and then I got stuck. I went back and forth from 18-20 lost and I just finally hit a huge milestone and I am absolutely thrilled. I have officially lost 26 teetering on 27 lbs.!! I thought this would make me feel better every time I looked in the mirror but, I keep just looking and wondering why I didn’t notice it as much as I wished I could.

It was June 18, 2014 that I decided to finally take a progress picture. You see I had taken a previous progress picture but, hadn’t continued as I should have. I looked at it in the wee hours at 5am and thought “really, there is no progress here” but, what I found when I got the gym and thought about putting them side by side was something amazing, something great and someone who deserves the credit for the work I have put in.

I showed a coworker this progress picture and she asked how I did it, I told her that it was eating my shakes, sensible dinner and gym time that got me there. I told her that you know me, I eat, I cheat and I live life. I realize that making a lifestyle change and not eating based off a processed meal replacement that I can truly live. When I woke up previously and my shake mix was gone I realized I didn't know the best way to eat. I can now say that I know how to eat and what to eat and it’s cheap! I say it’s cheap, because it’s much cheaper than eating out, going to the doctor for issues and eating so often because crap food doesn't fill you up. My coworker then stopped me and said “you sound like a commercial”, I laughed and said I get preachy about this because it’s so easy! My entire life I have thought changing my lifestyle of what I ate would be hard and really with how wonderful I feel I just want to scream it from a rooftop! I will admit I have missed the last three weeks at the gym because I have had a couple health issues but, I still lost! I lost weight not going the gym, and eating sensible meals.

I share this progress picture with you to help motivate you to make one change today or tomorrow because once you make that one change, two is easier and three. Until you get to a point where its everyday you can eat healthy and sensibly. Again, I am in no way a health nut/freak whatever you want to call it. There are days I want a candy bar so I eat a candy bar, but most days I crave fruit and always miss my veggies when I have not had my shake. 

All my love,

Katy 

Protecting our homes and families...

Being told I am brave is weird to me. Do I know that it’s pretty out there to just up and tell everyone my story? Yeah, but my reason for telling my story is to inspire and help others. I hope that by sharing my story that the girl who just read it and realized that her story is also abuse might seek help or that the girl who has been hiding from deal with her abuse might seek help. You see for me I honestly didn’t realize that what was taking place was actually abuse. It had happened for so long that it was just part of who I was. I remember the moment I realized it was abuse and not a normal relationship. I remember sitting in a health class and my jaw just dropped to the ground I am so sure.

The topic of sex, good touch-bad touch, and strangers should be talked about in a home, often. It is way too taboo of a subject! We must take a stand in our homes to teach and educate our children so they will then know right from wrong and stop the abuse cycle. The cycle of abuse is disturbing, if you are abused you are the one who is a perpetrator to someone later one and so forth. I have a sense of gratitude that the abuse happened to me so that I could stop that cycle and in our family that would be the end of our cycle. Now that seems like a lot to take on for someone who has had their entire childhood taken away from them but, dangit I think it is worth it to have those future children protected. We must find it in our hearts, thoughts and words to protect our homes and extended family members.

In my last post I had a lot of messages and comments about wishing they would have known, wishing they could have stopped it etc. This is the key friends, you cannot feel bad and you cannot wish away what happened to me but, what you can do is talk to your children, grand-children, students and friends. This is what will protect the future, talking about the hush hush topic of sexual abuse and really any abuse!

Everyone knows somebody whether they know it or not who has been affected by abuse, who has had their entire life patterned around this. I sometimes joke “what lines did I stand in, up in Heaven accepting all of these different trials and challenges” but, they are mine. They have made me become who I am today and I am grateful. With all of those trials and challenges that I accepted I have been blessed in infinite amounts!

I hope that I don’t lose friends for talking about this subject. If it makes you uncomfortable, that’s okay- you don’t have to read my blog. I challenge you to at least talk about it more in your homes, to be open when your child has an anger issue or any sort of ongoing behavioral issue. I hope that if you have issues of any sort of abuse that you will seek help. People care and love for you. You have not been put in the World alone and you cannot deal with it alone.

I have found such an amazing network of friends that I can run to in those times of need. Not everyone ‘gets it’ and that’s okay. Find those who do and surround ourselves with them. We can stop the abuse cycle for our families and families to come! 

Lots of love~

Katy 

Abuse.. there. I. Said. it.

The topic of abuse has always been a hush hush subject. I for one don’t think it should be. Let’s get real people one in three women is sexually abused (that’s on the reported numbers!!) and a child is abused every ten seconds. As a society we must do something, we must fight to give our children a happy and healthy home. That home needs to be open to healing, love and listening.

I have had the unfortunate experience of being part of some of this abuse. When I was 3 years old until the age of 13 I was sexually abused. When I was 15 it all came out I was in therapy for my “anger issues” when the therapist kept asking me the same question over and over when I kept refusing to answer. Once I finally answered I ran out of her room, my mom was there with me and I remember her getting up to chase after me when the therapist grabbed her. If I remember correctly my dad was there within minutes to discuss what had just happened. I sat out by a pond at the office and just stared blankly, I was ashamed. Me, I was ashamed that this had happened for so long and taken away so much of my life, I was worried about how this would affect my family and family relationships, I was scared to death that my parents would be angry.

I wrote a letter to my perpetrator as soon as we got home. I apologized to him for not being strong enough to keep it inside and ruining his life. I think it was good that for a time I was just worried about him and the ramifications that he would have to deal with it. If I wasn’t so worried with him who knows what I might have done. I was in such an ugly terrible place in life. The State immediately got involved I had to continue to see my regular therapist as well as a “State therapist” as I called her. Therapy weekly for anger issues is one thing, therapy twice a week for abuse is a whole other ball game. It was emotionally taxing; there were days I would completely shut down in those offices after telling parts of my story.

It then came to the point where I was asked to testify, testify to get this person off the streets for a long time.  This was a hard to thing to do, very hard thing to do. How do you tell everyone in that room those things that went on? I remember talking with someone at the Child Justice Center and they told me I had to remember the specifics in order for him to be sentenced. The specifics being; time of day, season, what I was wearing etc. This was so disturbing to me, I knew this happened at minimum weekly I even knew the day of the week but, this was not enough information. I couldn’t remember every time it happened, obviously. After much therapy I have learned most my abuse was an out of body experience. In my way of dealing things I like to think of this as the Lords way of helping me deal and cope with what was happening to me. I remember three very specific enough events that lead to the conviction of my perpetrator, I remember those very very vividly and they are so painful to look back on.

When I sent this person to prison because of their actions I still felt so guilty. Guilty that I took some part of their life away, I guess. I continued seeing lots of therapist trying to figure out how I could ever deal with this. I started seeing a therapist whom I really connected with, she understood all of the crazy thoughts that came out of my head because of the abuse. She let me know that the person I was, was actually very strong. She ended up retiring and told me that because I was almost 18 I could go to a group therapy with other woman who had also been abused. This group was called AMAC (Adults Molested as Children) it was in this group that so much healing was finally able to take place. This group met weekly for twelve weeks, there was 6 women in the group. It was in week 3 or 4 that we got to tell our stories if we so desired. Everyone was so brave going back to those moments and in some ways reliving them to tell them. It was in that week that I knew I had to be stronger than this abuse. A lady in her 60’s was there and she told her story, she had let her children live in a bubble because she never dealt with the abuse until that moment. I knew that I needed to find some way to forgive the wrong doings of my perpetrator to be able to move on with my life. He was in prison and I was fighting to get my life back, my life that was taken away from me.

Now, I am not trying to say that because I forgave this person and because this person was paroled because I finally said they had changed that each day is easy. I remember as he was released he continued on with a therapist with an active no contact order in effect. I heard from my family members how he was doing and what I needed to fully forgive him in person. His therapist had him write me a letter and it was in that letter that I knew forgiveness must be given. I have days where I want to just punch this person to remind them of the hell I lived through and currently live in; yes I have a relationship with this person. Yes, it can be hard but, the blessings of having that relationship outweigh the negatives. I don’t know that I believe in forgive and forgot because abuse has made me who I am today.

I am hoping to keep writing about this. I think that talking about it is the only thing we should be doing as humans to help others cope with it. Not everyone can or should have a relationship with their abuser. I firmly believe that my abuser changed, he made sacrifices to change and become the man he is today. I read something yesterday about addicts and it reminded us in that article that all people are our brothers and sisters whom we should love. If we love someone it can change their entire life.

Thanks for reading my babbling,

Katy 

Grieving through fitness

Tuesday January 14^th was an interesting day. I had taken the day off due to the current circumstances. Ryan and I dropped the boys off at school so we had about three hours of just us time to talk about everything. After talking I decided that maybe this was my indication it was really truly time to put more effort into being healthy. Ryan and I have had the eating healthy thing down for about a year now I just need a push to get myself to the gym.

We walked into a gym knowing it was the wrong one for us but, knowing we had to do something. We ended up picking up the kids and heading to another local gym that would be closer to my work. We walked out with two shiny black gym passes. I was thrilled and ready to go.

As with any loss we all grieve in our own way. I have chosen to grieve by waking up at the butt crack of dawn and train for a 5K. As my friends were all talking about the Dirty Dash I said no, I had better not because I knew I would be a big ol’ pregnant lady at that point. I am now motivated, motivated to be stronger, be able to run, and hopefully chase my kids for hours at the park. I have not signed up for the Dirty Dash, yet. I need to feel ready. I have felt somewhat uneasy about pushing myself too hard at the gym leaving never to return.  I have however been pushing myself, I have being going further and further than I ever thought possible. In fact, this morning I continued for an extra 20 minutes after my 5K portion was over. I think I am almost ready.

I found that grieving the loss of this little tiny human has made me grateful. I am so grateful that for those two little weeks I was able to think about life would be like. I am grateful that in my lifetime I have been able to see miracles.

I wish that I had realized all of the miracles I have experienced throughout my life the most amazing one being my boys. Who would have thought that three little boys would need a home so badly, that Ryan and I would preparing for them without even knowing they were coming. I feel like I have a lot to talk about when it comes to my three boys. My oldest, Jackson went through a lot in his 6 months of life, he experienced things that no one should have to. You see when you adopt a child from foster care you have to read their file, his file was big and it was so emotionally draining reading what we read. Dylan and Parker were born at 30 weeks, throughout their time in utero they dealt with a lot. When they were born I still remember the NICU nurses and Doctors amazed that they weighed as much as they did. They had to fight through a lot those first 12 weeks but, they did and they are such a miracle. It seems clique but, I think finding my husband was a miracle. I am grateful that through my plan I was given such a strong man. His strength in raising in our kids, taking care of me, his knowledge of the gospel and running successful businesses. I think that miracles can be big or small, and throughout our life we witness a lot of small ones that really are bigger than we let them on to be. 

Two weeks….

Two weeks is all it seemed to take for my life to forever change.  On January 13^th, 2014 I lost a baby. I never realized how two weeks of knowing you were pregnant could affect so much.  With a miracle growing I was so scared, scared that what has happened before would happen again. I tried so hard to think positive, I found myself talking with a friend about the situation at hand. She was so thoughtful and caring that helped me become excited.

It was early so I didn’t want to tell the entire world but, I found myself so excited that I started sharing with family members. One night Ryan and I talked all about how this will work, how much life will change but, mostly how much our boys would love this little sibling. In private with him I was able to discuss my fears about having a baby, my worries of having a newborn and birthing a baby!

It was on January 13^th that I went to the restroom and found myself having issues. It was my birthday, work was chaotic but, I knew I needed to get home for what was about to happen. Ryan offered to take me to lunch but, food was the last thing on my mind. I came home and found my sweet 3 year old twins ecstatic that I was home early. I was sad. I was heartbroken. I held them and just loved them for a few moments. I then snuck away to my bedroom where I showered and changed into comfortable clothes and just laid on my bed pondering what was happening. Ryan came in and said I should surprise Jackson by picking him up from school so we did just that. After we picked him up from school we went for ice cream as a pre-dinner snack. It was my birthday after all.

We lost the baby officially at about 2:30am on January 14^th. I know that this is truly just the beginning of a miracle. I am aware of how fabulous it is, that even when we were told we weren’t able to get pregnant on our own that we did it! This was the second time that we had experienced this the first time being in October 2013 – that one was quick it left as quickly as it came. I am not sure if that’s why I am hanging onto this loss or not. This loss has been hard; I have truly felt so many emotions throughout the last few weeks.  I found hope in knowing that at least it can happen and now it has happened. I have a sure faith that with the right mixture maybe, just maybe one day I will be able to experience pregnancy in this lifetime.