Forget Me Not

I've been watching What Not to Wear a lot lately. It's on twice a day on TLC, so I try to catch both episodes. I absolutely adore watching Stacey and Clinton tear apart someone's wardrobe, see the frustration and rebellion, then the final shot when the person is smiling, dressed in beautiful clothes and feels like they've been given a new lease on life.

Two years ago, I had packed on a lot of weight with the prednisone and was headed back up to a place I hadn't been in ten years ago. I started losing that weight, but it kind of stalled. I always seem to plateau with my weight at the same place. I remember years ago when I started dropping some major weight, from my all time high of 320+, I got stuck in that place and it took a lot of exercise and devotion to get past it. This time it took two weeks of a liquid diet to push me over the hump.

I'm proud to say that I've dropped 25 pounds since the first of the year, and almost 50 pounds from the scary place of two years ago. I always shop at thrift stores, so for awhile I used to buy whatever fit, and while it may have fit, it really wasn't pretty. Now that I'm watching What Not to Wear, I'm taking Stacey & Clinton's rules along with me, and I've been picking up some pieces that really make me feel good where I wear them.

I only have two pair of jeans. One is my everyday all the time pair that is incredibly comfortable. The other was a bit snugger and for going places where I wouldn't have to sit for long periods of time. This week Jesse told me that my everyday pair of jeans is too big. They are hanging on my body. So today I put on the "tight" pair, only to discover that they fit like the other pair used to. It was an amazing feeling. Just going to the grocery store and running my errands today, I didn't feel like I was just blending into the woodwork, and it felt good!

I'm still weeding stuff out of my wardrobe, but I'm having a lot more fun shopping now that I have a better idea of what looks good on my body AND because I feel better about my body. I actually weigh less now than I did at my wedding! I'm actually watching more closely what I put in my body now, because I don't want to go back to feeling fat and ugh all the time. Less soda, less junk food, more healthy choices, and because of my surgery, smaller portions. It's all working together to help me feel better about myself than I have in a very long time.

Forget Me Not by Vickie Hinze is the first book in the Crossroads Crisis Center series. Benjamin Brandt still hasn't recovered from the murders of his wife Susan and son Christopher three years ago. He's abandoned the crisis center they had built together as well as his faith in God in order to pursue every lead to find the murderer. He's stunned when a woman calling herself Susan and wearing his dead wife's necklace shows up at the crisis center claiming that she was carjacked, beaten, and now has amnesia. They're going to have to work together to save her life and just maybe solve the murder of Ben's wife. Hinze has taken a predictable plot and turned it on its ear. Throwing in bioterrorism and the crisis center elevates the story above your average romantic thriller. The plot is thickly layered with the bad guys double crossing each other which keeps the tension high. It's a quick read with likable characters and a compelling plot. I can't see what crisis pops up at the center next.

Thank you to WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of this book for review.

The winner of this week's book contest is Belinda Lane. Congrats to Belinda and be sure to stop back on Monday for a new contest!