A surprising and angering realization

Hey ladies:

Well...I went to the mall yesterday to return a pair of jeans to Lane Bryant. THEY CLOSED THE AMES LOCATION! I'm so mad that I'll have to drive to Des Moines to enjoy that store. Grrr.

I had good results at the midway point in my weight loss study. I've lost 5 pounds. I wanted to lose more than that of course but in theory I followed their rule of 1 pound per week. My BMI, body fat %, and waist circumference have decreased too.

My retreat through church was pretty decent. I was happy that I contributed to the organization. I made food for the "meet and greet" portion of the evening on Friday. I wantd to provide something warm to eat since the other women were bring desserts, meat & crackers, and cheese. I made cocktail meatballs in a sweet glaze. I cheated though because I knew I couldn't make uniform, tiny meatballs. Plus making them from scratch would add up in $$$. I bought frozen meatballs at Walmart and worked with those instead. It worked out nice because one specific brand had 130 meatballs in a bag and that was the perfect quantity. I used my Mom's sauce for Little Smokies and it worked well (thank God). I took a jar of grape jelly, a few large squirts of BBQ sauce, a tad bit of mustard, and about 4-5 tablespoons of brown sugar. A couple of the ladies want the recipe so I'm sure they'll like my quantities for the sauce portion of the recipe.

The theme of the retreat was "Treasures of Hope". The speaker spent a lot of time on Friday talking about Eve and how she typically has a bad wrap when it comes to the whole banishment from the Garden of Eden deal. She focused on the good of Eve and related it to the qualities we need to possess as women, wives, mothers, etc. I had never thought about the fact that she was the first woman to lose a child to death, lose a child due to poor decisions (Cain was banished after he killed Abel), etc. At first she was quite heavy on the marriage side of things so I was worried that it would turn into a "how to be a good wife" retreat. I wasn't the only unmarried attendee but the majority of women were hitched. She did a good job reminding us that God is our first husband because he's the ultimate protector and should come first in our lives.

Saturday focused heavily on the 7 Christian Virtues: Virtue (moral excellence), Knowledge, Self Control, Steadfastness (patience), Godliness, Brotherly Kindness, and Christian Love. I admit I'm often in a moral conflict now a days when I do things with my church. I have the strong gut feeling that Jon and I will most likely live together prior to marriage and church keeps reiterating that it's a big no-no.

I need to set up some pretty big appointments for Gavin in April. In my opinion, he needs to get his eyes checked out by an optomitrist. He also needs to do a follow-up with the orthodontist. He saw the orthodontist in 2008 or 2009 and now that I have the proper dental insurance, we better start the retainer process. He was receptive to the idea of taking an art class in May since it's his off-season for sports. He's taking an intermediate cartooning class.

Well that's enough randomness for now.