You Just Never Know...

Today my oldest girl had a playdate after VBS at our beloved Chick-fil-a with some sweet church friends. While the girls were playing on the playground, we got to have some time to just talk.

The Back Story
Sarah (the friend I was eating with) was my first real friend in Melbourne. We met at a church function and then kept running into each other. She was so sweet and kept inviting me to things and checking up on me. She had her first child during the summer and when I went into early labor with Ansleigh, she was the first one to come to the hospital. She offered to bring me an iccee and stayed with Anthony and me while I worried that my parents wouldn't make it on time (they didn't but they sure tried their best!).

Ansleigh was a terrible baby. She was beautiful, but a terrible baby. She had colic and acid reflux and cried all the time. My dear, sweet husband was working second shift building a satellite that went into space so he was hardly ever here. Sarah would come over with her baby to visit with me and would do my laundry for me and offer to do any and all other chores.

Sarah was my friend when I didn't have many, or at least any that could drop by for a visit.

Today
As Sarah and I were sitting there talking, all I could think was that I wished we spent more time together and that I love how easy she is to talk to. We were just chatting away about living away from our families, our girls, church, VPK and homeschooling, and really just jumping all over. I started noticing that Sarah kept mentioning things about how crafty I am, or how honest I am, and then she blew me away. She said that she was talking to another friend of ours the other day and asked her if she had seen me lately. When our friend said no, Sarah said she told her that I'd lost a ton of weight and how great I looked.

It's true. Not the amazing part or the great-looking part, but the weight loss part. When I got pregnant with Addisyn, I weighed 164 pounds--more than I've ever weighed in my life. That is more than I weighed when I walked into the hospital to have Ansleigh. I only gained 22 pounds with Addisyn but that 22 made me a robust 186 the day I delivered.

Since I came home from the hospital, I've been carefully portioning my food, started counting calories again, and have started training for a 5K that I'm running at Animal Kingdom in November. Monday, Addisyn was 12 weeks old and in that 12 weeks, I've lost down to 148. My Easter dress that I wore 4 weeks after she was born was a size 12 and last week, I got into a pair of adorable size 6 capri pants.

I still have about 12 pounds to go, but that's not the point. The point is, nobody has noticed. Or at least, I thought no one had noticed. I would casually mention it in conversation, secretly (or not-so-secretly) bragging and people would look at me with a "You are such a liar" look and say something like, "Oh, that's great."

Even I can't really notice a difference. I can with my clothes, but not when I see picture of myself. I still feel fat. And jiggly. And pretty much just all around gross. But someone noticed.

My sweet friend Sarah, who lifted me up in other ways today, noticed. And not only did she noticed, but she bragged on me to someone else.

I may not look like my 125 pound, not a stretch mark, always perfect hair, sister-in-law (whom I love dearly!!!!), but today I realized that even though I'm not as tiny as I once was, that does not diminish the fact that I have lost 38 pounds in 12 weeks. I'm proud of myself, but more importantly, I'm glad I have a friend that pays attention and cares enough to make sure I know she has paid attention.

You just never know who is noticing you or the effort you are putting in.

LOVE YOU SARAH!!!! Thanks for making my day!