Day One

Today is day one of my 10 day juice fast. I have a friend who is currently on day 21 of her juicing adventure and she has inspired me to start one of my own. I would like to look better for the pictures at my daughter graduation from basic training and well as actually being able to enjoy our time with her.

My eating habits are horrible!! I am about 50 pounds over weight and have no energy. I know most of those reason boil down to my eating habits. I really don't like food. I even forget sometimes to even eat. When I do eat though its always the wrong stuff. My biggest meals consist of potato chips. You ask what else? Nothing, unless its some type of dip or ketchup sometimes or even a mixture of ketchup and mayo sometimes. I'm not too picky when it comes to the chips. I pretty much love them all, Doritos, corn chips etc what ever is in that chip aisle is usually my dinner. Of course there are a few of the usual stuff - french fries, pizza, burgers and hot dogs. That about sums up my usual foods.

Sometimes times on hubbys day off I will cook a real meal with chicken but always potatoes of some sort makes their way in. With both daughters out of the house and hubby working second shift, I just don't think about it. I hate cooking and why bother if its only me too cook for anyways. Right? So when my friend said what she was doing and told me to watch the movie Fat Sick and Nearly Dead I figured hell I might be able to do that!!! I really don't have too break too many bad habits other than to actually eat or really drink more. Then I thought about coffee! OMG NO COFFEE either!! Now I drink way way too much coffee. I wake up and im still drinking it in the evening time. But I figured give it a shot! You can do this!

Yesterday I went shopping without much of a real plan of what I was going to buy because well that's the way I roll. I've read a lot about the juice fast, watched the movie and formed a plan in my head. I bought a bunch of different things to try out. Made sure I had all the stuff to make Joes Mean Green, some fruits and figured lets give it a go!

First drink I make is the Mean Green. Probably not the smartest choice to make for breakfast, well closer to lunch but that is in my goal of actually doing this but anyways it sucked! I hated it!! Ugg but I did get it all down. several hours later I made the second one which consisted of carrots, oranges, a lemon and ginger. Hated that one too!!! This is going to be hard. its now 6pm and I know I need to drink another one soon but I am not sure how to make it. So I am putting it off for right now lol

I am on my fourth bottle of water. I still feel very thirsty. My stomach is making weird noises and I feel hungry. I'm never hungry, that's why I forget to eat. I have a headache and all I can think of is what a pain in the ass it is juicing! My second go at it was better than the first. I learned a few tricks, like keeping a plastic bag near me. Its a lot of work though for a little bit of juice. I also wish I would of bought a pineapple, I want one now. 

 

Today I have been blown away by all the generosity of my fellow facebook friends. Not one single one of these wonderful ladies have I met in person. Yet they came together and organized, donated and bid on items all to help me and my family make it to South Carolina. All together just over $200.00 was raised!!

I am at such of a loss of words to express my thankfulness, my love and the pure joy I have in my heart. This was almost enough to pay for the gas for the trip so what ever else happens we will be there!!! I love you guys!!!

I will leave the donations open if anyone missed the auction to help cover the rest of the expenses that we will have.

Today I thought I would tell the short version of who I am.

My name is Jodie and I was born in 1971 in a small town in New York, far from the city! I am a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, friend, ordained minister, hooker (not the type your thinking!), certified healer, volunteer worker and an animal lover.

I am not one to ask for help but am the one who usually gives it to others. I like it that way. Being on the other end of it is humbling to say the least. Even talking about myself is not something I enjoy doing, I would rather hear about you and what your up too. But I figured seeing how I have asked for help in reaching my goal to see my youngest daughter graduate from basic training I owed those who have helped me something.

I've been with my husband for 25 years now. I met him when I was 17 and ended up pregnant very quickly. Our second daughter, the one in the army, was born 4 years later. In between the two I had several miscarriages and had given up on having a second child. So to say the least she is my baby. They both are of course but knowing this child will be the last child I bring into this world was special. I also raised my step daughter fully from the age of 9, she was 3 when I started dating her dad.

I worked hard to make sure my girls had what they needed and while they were young both their father and I attend and graduated college. I didn't want to have to depend on a system any more than I needed too. We were young and even though our area doesn't have much to offer, we wanted more for our family.

After graduation we moved to North Carolina, where to much of our surprise there were tons of jobs and they paid well! So I became a stay at home mom. I loved each and every minute of it....ok maybe not each and every minute but being able to stay home with them was truly a blessing. My house was where all the kids came to hang out, eat and have a good time. I loved it because I knew where my kids where and who they were with. Still till this day I have daughters who I call my daughters of another mother! LOL It was truly a blessing.

The kids grew up, moved out and on to better things. My health was getting worse and at one point my own mother was afraid that I was going to die. No doctors could really help. I've been sickly my whole life and my body has built such an immunity to antibiotics that nothing ever seems to help. I am allergic to all pain meds so when I was in such pain all I could do is lay there and cry myself to sleep. It was a horrible time in my life, as well as our families life. My husband was at a loss and even hated going to work because I would have such dizziness and fainting spells he thought for sure he would come home to find me dead.

Then an opportunity came up to move back home, something I swore no matter what, would I ever do. We spoke with the girls, youngest still at home and my oldest and step daughter who were on their own by now. We decided we should do it. My youngest said she didn't care where we lived and just wanted me to be well. She was the one I was the most concerned about because she was still in school. Of course the older ones being on their own presented a upsetting scenario because what if they didn't want to move back to our home town. What would we do. Would we, should we still move if they didn't want to? Luckily my oldest wanted to move back with us!! I was in heaven!! Of course my step daughter decided she didn't and I could understand that but was still heartbroken.

Since moving home I have not only become healthier but I have found so much to do!!! After years of doing nothing but gain weight, I could now go outside!! It was like being released from prison after so many years. It was a whole new life. Shortly after moving home we found out my oldest daughter was pregnant!! What a huge surprise that was for us and her too im sure!!! I was also able to pursue something that I have always wanted to do, study at Lily Dale. For those who are not familiar with Lily Dale its one of the largest spiritual communities in the world. It was there that I was able to become an ordained minister in the Sanctuary of the Beloved and a certified healer. I connected with an old friend who purchased an abandoned church and we have turned it into a non profit art studio for the area. The artist is 19 years old and does amazing work and we are able to help the area children keep art in their lives. We hold events for local charities and even raised over two thousand dollars at one fund raiser! Super job for our little area!!

So that's me in a nutshell! I hope that helps a bit to get to know me better and as to why its so hard for me to ask for help but this means the world to me and my family. So please help me reach my goal to get to see our youngest daughter graduate from basic training. Click on the donate button and even a dollar gets me a dollar close to South Carolina!!!

Journey to Basic Training Graduation

My youngest daughter, Libby, left for basic training in the army on April 11th.

Now this was not something I really wanted her to do but she has had it in her mind since she was a freshman in high school. She signed up for 4 years and the little brat also signed up for airborne!!! Definitely not what this momma wanted to hear!!! But I know this is something she has wanted for a long time and we are being as supportive as we can.

She will be graduating on June 27th and we really want to be able to go to her graduation. Unfortunately we may not be able to make the trip. Ever since my van broke down just before Christmas its been one thing or another popping up in life that you just cant predict. We drained our savings to purchase a used van that would be able to make the trip from Buffalo, NY to Fort Jackson, Sc and was depending on hubbys profit sharing check to make the trip on. Of course after almost 2 years of receiving these checks we figured the low end of what we usually get to be our biggest help and hopefully able to sock away a few bucks from each paycheck - which of course as many know that living paycheck to paycheck its hard to put even a few bucks away. But we figured it would be fine and all would be good!

HA! Welcome to your life Jodie!!! Hubby gets his paystub for his profit sharing and guess what? Yep life hit us and said now you know to never count those chickens before they hatch!!! His check is just over half of the lowest that we have ever received in the 2 years!!! Yep, not even enough to pay for gas, let alone anything else. Thats when you guessed it, this momma goes into a huge funk of depression and is out of my mind crazy. This is my baby were talking about!!!

So I vent in a closed group I am in, a crochet group that is very close to my heart. These women take it upon themselves to hold an online auction, with goods that they donated to help me raise funds!!! I have never met any one of the ladies in person but have been with them for just over a year now and let me tell you, never in my life have I ever felt so loved before! I crochet and do other crafty hand made items and im trying to get them all listed so maybe that will bring in a few bucks also.

Ive shared this auction with some of the groups I belong in and most were pretty receptive to me posting in the groups. One group did surprise me though, a closed group that I belong to that is for military moms deleted my post :( I felt a bit hurt for several reasons. First just a week or so before I posted another mother had posted asking for donations to fund her trip and all the mothers were very helpful and said they were donating. Now mind you, she was asking for money straight out and that was ok for them to allow the post, where I was just asking for help in an auction. Not outright begging for money, which I guess is better? Secondly, I felt a bit betrayed from these mothers who should know how it feels to have you child away from you for so long and how important it is to the child to have family show up for graduation. What would it hurt to allow my post to be left in there? So I let that stew in my head for a few - only a few - because well they didnt deserve any more than that and moved on. I pray they never have to want for a few bucks to see their child and noone would be there to help support them.

In this world, I have learned that their are 2 types of people only - users and helpers. I am a helper and always expect the best of people no matter what. I know we will make it there one way or another!!! Hopefully sharing my journey to basic training will help keep me sane while I work my butt off to get us there.

My online auction is here if you would like to check it out: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.132497343608705.1073741828.132355683622871&type=3 or share it or what ever help you can give would be helpful!

Or if you would rather just donate through paypal, you can do so here: