Year 1 Day 84 (Day 449)

I had a rude awakening this morning that really kicked my butt into gear. After waking up, I decided to step on the scale. The scale said a number that I did not like, and more importantly it meant that I was closer to a number that I never want to see again. Don't get me wrong, I know that I did not gain 3 pounds this week because I did not eat 10,500 extra calories since my last weigh-in. I am sure that it is because I have been drinking more water and other random reasons. But I haven't been doing very well with my diet lately, I've been making bad food choices. Seeing that number was the motivation that I needed to really step it up. I have come so far over the past year, I've lost 30 pounds and officially down to a smaller clothing size all around. There is no way that I am ever going back to where I started, so I just need to step everything up.
The past few days I have been trying to get in more exercise. Today I walked 1.7 miles and yesterday I walked 1.4 miles. It always feels wonderful after I workout, and I never understand why I stopped.

It is such a sad day today, there was yet another mass shooting. This time was in Connecticut at an elementary school, there are over 25 children and adults dead. I cannot even begin to comprehend how someone could do this. Just watching the newscast, I almost burst into tears. I am not a parent, but I am an aunt of 5 wonderful kids (yes I still say kids even though one of them is only 2 years younger than me) and I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to any of them. But I have to give the teachers and other staff major credit because they tried to get all of the students out of the school calmly. These teacher's showed much bravery and this is how all teacher's should react. This tragedy brought tears to my eyes though, I am a teacher's daughter so I know so many teachers. I could not even imagine what those teacher's must have felt during this time, and I pray that my mother and any of her colleagues never have to experience a situation like this. As soon as my mom came home from work today, I hugged her a little bit tighter. And I know that my brother was taking this very hard because of our mother and because he has kids, both in and not in school.

When events like this happen, it makes me want to be with Abid even more. Be with him and just stay in his arms forever. I already worry about him every single day but these types of events just cause me to worry about him even more. Especially since he lives in a country where violence is very common, I mostly worry about religious violence. Abid is a Christian in a Muslim country, and I that makes his faith even stronger because he does need to trust even more in what we believe but it also makes me worry more. Every day I fear that something may happen to him and I won't be able to do anything about it. This is just another reason why I want him here so badly, and this will make me work even harder to get him here. All I know is that I cannot wait until he wakes up, because I really need to see him and to see that he is okay. I am such an emotional person when it comes to things like this. Don't get me wrong, I have been emotional for a long time, but after my best friend's death, I have become even more emotional when it comes to things like this. Honestly, at this moment I feel like I could cry about this.

I hate to end this on such a sad note, but sometimes it has to be done. So until next time.

~Sara~