Ouch!

So yesterday I was on my way to the YMCA when my trainer calls and tells me that he cant make it to my fitness assessment. Trainer 0 Me 1. He proceeded to ask me if I wanted to reschedule or still come in and have a female co worker of his do it. I told him I was already on my way so I wouldn't wait to reschedule with him. Trainer 0 Me 2. (This is a 3 strikes program). It had already taken all the courage and strength I had to make myself get into the van with 4 kids in tow and go face these horrible numbers and tests. So, I arrive and drop my minions off at the child watch center. Skylar was beyond mad that I was leaving him in a room of toddlers. He wanted to go to the "teen" area but I'm the overprotective mom and refused to even consider it without a friend with him. By the way, I'm expecting to be the recipient of the worst mother of the year award this year. Also I generally attend the downtown Y so I was def not used to the setup of the parkview Y. I tried to find my way to the locker rooms and almost went into the mens. Then I had to find the fitness center. I walked up and down every hallway looking for it. Turns out, fitness center = the room with all the excercise contraptions (aka treadmill, weight machines ect) . That in itself tells you how long its been since I was "active". So anyways, this tiny little, tan woman comes and says "oh you must be Brooke". Uh...why, bc im the fattest one in the room sweating from trying to find the fitness center? Ok seriously, I knew what she meant but jeeezzz. She walks me through the fitness center to this little closet looking room in the back. We will refer to it as the dungeon of death. She takes my blood pressure and other random things and tells me that suprisingly (yeah she used that word) Im pretty healthy as far as my stats go. Then she did a body fat test thing...while she was doing it I was sure to tell her that my senior year I had gotten down to 17% body fat and was doing free weights with my dad 2-3x a week. She looked at me like I was trying to tell her that I was a queen or something. She was shocked that I havent always been this way I guess.  So then with a smile she says that we are going to do some fitness tests. HA....thats not what she should have called them. She sat up a stair step thingy it was about 1 ft tall. I had to step up then down. Simple, right? For three minutes. No problem, right? WRONG! By His strength and not mine, I made it through. I almost fell a few times and I couldnt feel my legs BUT I made it. Next was the push up test. Girl push ups for 1 min. If they werent correct form, she didnt count them. This was, suprisingly enough, not a problem. Then came the crunch test. One minute of correct form crunches. This one hurt. My stomach kind of fell forward and tried to strangle me but I made it out alive. Overall she said we have a lot of work to do (really?!?!) but that she was very impressed with my upper body strength. I reminded her that I was pregnant for 4 years and have been carrying children for 10 yrs. Its kind of strange. The chiropractor that I used to go to said the same thing. He couldnt believe how solid my back is. Ok so I have that one thing going for me. On my way home, I got a headache and my eyeballs ached. They actually hurt from straining to do the tests. Im looking forward (in a sick twisted way) to the days and weeks ahead. She asked me my goals and I told her, I just want to be healthy. I have hit a weight that puts me at very high risk for heart problems and other horrible things that run rampid on both sides of my family. I want to watch my kids play sports, graduate. I want to help Amy plan her wedding. I want to watch them grow up (and move out!) and start their own families. I want to spend forever with this crazy man that I love. Im always 100% ready to go be with the Lord but I dont want it to be bc of my health or something traumatic that I could have prevented. Although, when he calls its not going to matter what I try to do...Im going. With a HUGE smile on my face. Ok, so Im getting ahead of myself. Im just saying that I want to see my children grow up but Im not one to say "Im not ready bc I havent...or I want to....". Im ready to be with Jesus. To stand before the Lord and point to Jesus when he asks me what Ive done. I want to fall to my knees and tell him that I have done nothing to deserve to be there but that it is by the grace of His beautiful son that my soul has been saved from eternal seperation. I have no idea how I went from talking about deadly exercise to Jesus. But, thats my life. Im all over the charts. Im unpredictable and chaotic. Im random. Im a work in progress.....

Brooke Lynn

Pudding Pops.....

Wow! What a weekend!!! Friday night, in preparation for my death on Monday, Daniel brought Chipotle home and we relaxed. I know, we are old and boring. Saturday was the day I had been waiting on for 4 months. It was Bill Cosby day!!!! First I had to go to work and put in a longggggg 2.5 hrs. I'm pretty sure that everyone that worked that day and all customers were aware of the fact that I was on a Cosby countdown. Why, bc I was telling everyone! You may be wondering why I am Cosby crazy. Growing up I can remember sitting with my mom and watching it. That's saying a lot because I really don't remember most of my childhood. (Maybe Ill touch on this in another post) I felt like it was something we bonded over. Then recently I discovered that EVERY season is on Netflix. Now the kids and I watch it almost everyday. Its good clean, family centered television. They love it. Anyways, it was a great night. This was a business meeting. Daniel and his partner were using this event to take some potential customers out. We met at Granite City and had some awesome appetizers and some disgusting ravioli. Oh and I forgot to mention that one of the customers couldn't make it so my awesome friend Debb got to come along. So at this point we all head to the Embassy and wait, not so patiently for Dr. Huxtable to make his appearance. He walked out after about 15 mins of waiting and....I almost cried. We all stood and clapped. I love this man!!!! His show is entitled "Hello Friend." Its a very appropriate title as the whole time he was either sitting in a chair, on the edge of the stage or laying on the floor trying to get up. He called a man up after his cell phone started beeping....this young man got busted watching that Butler game on his phone. It was great. You truly felt like you were sitting watching an old friend (literally, he is 73) share his stories and jokes. I laughed so hard that I cried at times. Ill say it one more time, ahhhhhmazing show!! OK moving on. After the Cosby experience was over Daniel and I decided that while we had a sitter we might as well make the most of the night. We went to Rave to try out the new IMAX theatre. We saw Sucker Punch. It was a strange, hard to follow, but good movie. I would give it 3.5 almost 4 out of 5 stars. The IMAX however did NOT impress me at all. Its just a bigger screen that hurts my eyes and neck to try to look at. Its also louder, as if those movies need to be any louder. Oh well, the popcorn was good. Even better was the moment when Daniel reached over to hold my hand. We had gotten into a bit of a tiff on the way there and neither one of us wanted to admit we were wrong. He even speed walked to the theatre from the parking lot, leaving me in the dust. Yeah we are both stubborn. We have, however, hit that point in our marriage where we fight fairly instead of screaming and sometimes physically fighting. We just walk away or shut our mouths. I shut my mouth and eventually find my way to prayer. I should probably work on being the first to apologize. I'm a work in progress though, eventually i will get there.

Sunday included prayer before church, worship and then a wonderful sermon delivered by God through the lips of Eric Wood. It was a very moving sermon and call to be a "Samaritan".  It started with these verses:

Hebrews 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore , let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of the lips that confess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

WOW

To me this goes well with Hebrews 13:2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Also Hosea 14:2 was a verse given to look at. "Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

What did I take from this? That I am called to spread Gods word. That when people look at me they will not see my works but Gods works through me. I want to be a sweet aroma to those around me and not an awful stench. Gods love should shine through me and, especially in my marriage, sometimes that means keeping my mouth shut, taming my tongue and/or humbling myself and being the first to apologize. Very convicting after the situation on Saturday night.

So moving forward this week, my eyes are focused on Him. He is my anchor, He is my strength, the source of my joy and the one who paid the price for my sins..past, present and future. As Jesus hung on that cross, all of my sins were in the future. THANK YOU LORD!!!! We are so undeserving of His love but he graciously pours it out upon us. I am blessed and hope that moving forward you are as well.

OK so this wasn't a funny haha post BUT tonight is my first meeting with the personal trainer so I'm sure I will have plenty to say about my near death experience!! I hope everyone enjoyed it and maybe took something from it. Be blessed this week and please let me know how I can be praying for you!!

Brooke

This should be interesting....

Ok, here goes nothing. I have decided to join my friends who blog. I have no idea what it will be about. I have 4 kids that say and do crazy things. Im sure that will play a huge part. I have a husband that I have been with for 11 years. We have beat the odds by staying together. We had a lot of people betting against us. With that have come many adventures and such. Also, as I have hit my all time highest weight I have decided to stop fad diets and do it the old fashion way...exercise. Dan hired me a personal trainer and I start Monday. I havent met this man. We have talked over the phone and I have already decided that this is NOT going to be fun. BUT, the strength of God will get me through....and lots of prayer. So as you can see, my life is crazy, chaotic and not always "normal". Im sure this will be a very humbling experience for me and hopefully blogging about it will help me find the humor, and lesson behind it all. On that note, thanks for following me and I hope you enjoy all the future posts.