The one where I joined the weight loss competition and update on Jon

I was losing my motivation, yet again in my workout/diet. I was eating really good, running 5 or more times a week yet I wasn't losing any lbs or inches. I don't mind if the number on the scale doesn't go down, as long as I'm still losing inches. But I wasn't. :( I hadn't given up completely, but I was getting rather upset and depressed about it.

I have a goal weight that I want to reach before we go back to Utah, which we just found out could be in December instead of January (I'll elaborate in a minute). So now my time table is even shorter. So when a friend of mine announced that she was doing a 6 week weight loss competition, with a $10 buy in and winner takes all, I just new I had to join. That'll be my motivation to eat good, with no cheating. I could exercise all day long and still not lose any weight. I HAVE to diet if I want results. In fact, I've been sick this past week and haven't been able to exercise at all and I've still lost weight. Exercise of course helps me tone my muscles, but to be honest I still feel like I have a lot of weight to lose before the toning process even starts. I still plan on starting up exercising once I'm better (my cough and stuffy/runny nose are still making my life miserable. But at least my sinus pressure and headaches have stopped)

I don't want to announce how much I've lost since I've started the competition, but I will say that I've lost 12lbs since I started dieting on my own in the beginning of Oct! I haven't measured myself yet but hopefully I'm losing inches too.

A few months back I tried the slow carb diet and it was so hard to do while nursing that I only lasted a couple days. I think I'm going to give it another try. This time I don't have to eat to sustain a milk supply, so I'm hoping it'll be easier. I know it's going to be hard, but this time I have different expectations going in, and kind of know what to expect. Plus I have recipes to follow, which will hopefully make things so much easier for me. I hate eating the same thing day in and day out. So getting some variety I'm hoping will make a difference. I have a friend who lost 20lbs and 2 dress sizes in 1 month doing this. So I know it's possible. I start start tomorrow...wish me luck.

As for when we go home. There is rumor going around that they are going to let them graduate before Christmas break. Of course this is just a rumor and nothing has been confirmed yet. But everyone knows that making them come back from Christmas break for literally 4 days of "school" is just ridiculous! And I say "school" because it's not actually school work. It's mainly just waiting and out processing/paperwork. We're hoping they decide to move up graduation, but I personally don't have my hopes up. Jon does though. He's really ready to be done with school. In fact, he starts course 11 Tuesday. Which means he's no longer even in the school house. Both course 11 and 12 are down at the "field site". I'm not quite sure where that is and what they actually do, but he will no longer be sitting in a classroom. Which he of course is so excited about.
I'm just planning on us not leaving until January. And to be honest, it would be way less stressful. That way we have all of Christmas break to get this packed up and Jon can actually help me. If we leave in Dec I'll have to do most of the packing by myself, with 2 kids running around. Not ideal. But if they do ok the bump up in graduation, that means we'll be giving our 30 days notice to out apartment managers in 2 weeks! Thats just so crazy to me! So we'll know probably in the next couple weeks when we'll actually be leaving. I'm 6's on it and don't really know what one I want.
We're actively looking for a job for Jon now. We're applying for everything we can find. We've only found 3 in UT so far. Two of those told Jon to call back closer to his graduation and hopefully they'll have something (they both want/like to hire people from this school, so they're interested in him, they just don't know if they'll be anything available in 2 months from now). The other jobs we've applied for are literally all over the country: Florida, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Colorado, Alabama. Just about everything we find that he qualifies for, we apply for it. So hopefully he'll find something before we leave. I just don't want to be job-less when we're done. At least not for too long. I realize it may be a little unrealistic to PLAN on him having a job 100% landed before we leave. but it is possible. A lot of people do it. In fact, if they haven't landed a job by graduation, most people have multiple prospects by the time they graduate and get hired on somewhere shortly after. I'm hoping he'll find something before he graduates :)