To my children

This morning on our car ride to day care my thoughts were wandering to the tragedy in Boston. The radio news guy announced that an eight year old child was among the 3 dead from this horrible event. My daughter , who I didn't even realize was listening says "momma if he was only eight, why did he die". Choking back tears, I said to her "I don't know baby, I don't have an answer for that". After I dropped her off inside, I cried. I cried for the mother who will never get to kiss her son goodnight again. I cried for the family, who will probably never have an answer to the "why". I cried for the people who lost legs, and arms, and hearing, and sight. I cried for the whole city, the whole country. I realize that no matter what they discover in the next few weeks, there will never be an answer to the "why" something so ugly like this could happen.

To my children,

I'm sorry. I am sorry that there are ugly people, who do hateful ugly things in this world. I am sorry that it seems like we aren't safe to walk down the street without looking over our shoulders. I am sorry that at this moment there mothers and fathers laying awake at night, worried about their babies, who are soldiers fighting for our freedom. I am sorry that the world of rainbows and butterflies that you bring home in your artwork is not the world that we live in. But, I want you to know, that the world is not all ugly. Yes, there are bad people, who will do bad things to good people without reason, but there are also lots and lots of good people left. There are firemen that run into burning houses to rescue kittens, there are police men who pick up stray dogs, and give homeless people shoes to wear. there are people who do simple things, like pay for the coffee of the person behind them, or help old ladies get things off shelves. There is beauty everywhere in this world, and I do not want you to lose your innocence by focusing on the bad things. So while you sleep at night, dreaming of transformers, and hello kitty, and slip and slides, and bubbles and rainbows, I will do the worrying. I will cry for the mothers who do not get to watch their children sleep. I will cry for the ugly things, that you do not need to know about. Until you are mommies, and daddies, and then you will do the same for your babies.
Love, your mommy

My heart aches for everyone involved in this terrible event. My heart aches for everyone going through any kind of horrible moment in their lives. I can only hope, and pray that in the light of all of the ugly, horrible stories that are being strewn across all forms of media, that the good prevails. Let us not give whoever did this the satisfaction of sitting back and watching the carnage  Let us show that despite all the ugly, there is MUCH MUCH more beauty than they could ever scar with the ugliness.

"it is only in the darkness, that we can see all the stars"

In my next 30 years

If you google "what is the life expectancy of a woman in the US you get an answer between 75-90. Recently (like, last week) I turned 35. Like most of us do I started to think about my life, what I've done, things I've accomplished, places I've been, my kids, etc. I realized that although my life hasn't been what most would consider "rewarding" that I've actually done quite a bit. For better, or worse, its been my life.

A good friend of mine has been posting her "bucket list" adventures on Facebook for a few years now, and I thought maybe "bucket list" isn't the right term to use, but I did want to start a To Do list of sorts...

So the semi-obvious ones usually are things such as sky diving, seeing the Eiffel Tower in person, scuba diving, and so on. I needed my list to be things that I wouldn't be able to find reasons not to do. I needed a "real life" list if you will. And so it started, the last week since my big day I've been jotting down (OK, texting to myself) all the things that I've come up with to add to my TO DO list. Some are fairly simplistic things like writing a letter to my daughter to give her on her wedding day, others are lifelong dreams. Thus began my journey to be what I wanted to be when I grew up. You see, many years ago my mother gave me this very simple tiny poster board that said "its never too late to be what you might have been" and every time I have gotten derailed, unwound, turned left when I needed to turn right, and ended up upside down in my life, that tiny cardboard saying has played over in my mind. Lord knows that I've taken A LOT of side paths to get to this life I have now, but always I've ended up facing the same road I wanted to travel oh so many years ago.

So, here goes, well, just about everything. On July 1, 2013, I, Kristal Dawn Slayton will be starting nursing school. It has been a long hard road, and the two years in front of me seem pretty daunting. I'm probably going to be a raging, tired, crazy bitch several times, but in the end I will be proud of myself, and I will be someone that my kids can be proud of. You see, the biggest To Do of them all, is to make my kids proud of me, and happy to say that I am their mommy. 

"The journey of a thousand miles, begins with one, single, step"

Legacy

These women are all in their 60’s and 70’s:

          

And so are these:

 Ernestine Shepherd 76 year old body builder

Which legacy would you like to leave?

Ode to skinny jeans

Usually the term "skinny" anything would send a fat girl like me running the other way, but alas, when you go shopping for new jeans now days your options are limited to boot cut, skinny, super skinny, or don't try to sit down or breathe skinny. Being that my ten year old son had been begging me for skinny jeans because "all of his friends had them" (side note, THIS is starting already? god help me) I figured I better jump on the wagon. Old Navy (bless them) was having a jean sale, so I figured why not. Once again the fat girl in me refused to go into the dressing room, so I just grabbed a size off the rack, and proceeded to checkout.

Upon getting home, everyone tried on their new jeans, sadly my skinny boy was too skinny for skinny jeans, they sorta just look like regular jeans on his twig legs. Miss Lily Monroe looked SUPER adorable in hers, admittedly I was kinda jealous. So it was finally my turn... turns out, the size I grabbed was too big! WHAAAAATTT? That kinda crap doesn't happen to fat girls! Needless to say I went to return them and made sure to tell the employee that they were too BIG. Then, I proceeded to buy several pairs in the smaller size, in 3 different colors.

Not bad for a "fat girl" huh? - I realize its blurry, and I should wash my mirror.. but you get the point. GOOD BYE 'PLUS SIZE'!!

Commencing Phase 2

In the Herbalife circle you hear a lot about "Level Ten" results, what they look like to you, how you plan to achieve them, etc. Phase one for me was just taking the leap to trust myself enough to follow the Herbalife program, which has gotten me tons. Energy, 30 lbs gone, no headaches, etc etc etc. There comes a point when you have to move on, to the next phase.

Today I did two things that the Me from 8 months ago never would have thought of doing. First, I joined a gym. Yup. Sure did. This step wasn't quite as big because I have belonged to a gym before, but I made a commitment to myself that I would make it there daily, or at least 5 days a week, starting today, NO EXCUSES.

The second one though, was huge to me. I signed up for the Color Run. Now, this is not a long marathon, and its not a super serious one, but I've never done any kind of running. Never. I was too fat, knees hurt, and many more excuses that came up. So this, was huge for me. Not to mention that I joined as part of a team, so now I have more than just myself that will be let down if I quit.

Dear 2013, You will be the best year of my life. I have lots of plans for us, so get in, sit down, hold on and shut up, cause its going to get crazy!

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CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU JUST JOINED THE COLOR RUN MANIA:)

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Event: THE COLOR RUN ORANGE COUNTY - 12:30 PM

Participant: kris slayton

Team: Karma chameleons

Ok, so are there side effects??

One of my residents came in to my office today and said to me "ok Kris, I have to know what you're doing, you look amazing" So I talked to her a little while about Herbalife and how amazing it is, etc etc. She says "ok, but are there side effects?" I said oh god yes, there are tons, sit down let me tell you about them.

1. Your hair, it will grow out of control. You will either have to embrace your natural hair color or be prepared to be at the salon twice as often.

2. Your nails, again will grow so fast that getting acrylics is silly, you will be going in for fills once a week. Plus your nails will be so strong you wont need them, you will have to learn to give yourself manicures at home!

3. You will find that you have nothing to wear, because things stop fitting. Even your "skinny" day pants will soon be your "not even on my fattest day" pants. You will be begging friends for their good will clothes.

4. Your energy... You will have more energy than you will know what to do with, your house will get cleaned in ways only reserved previously for tweakers. You will constantly want to go for walks, hikes, outside in general.

5. Your kids will freak out. "why do you seem so much happier mommy" is a common question I got at first. They will wonder why all the sudden you want to play on the playground at the park with them, why you dont mind running around the backyard, and not complaining that you are too tired to play.

6. Your dog will hate you. My dog sees me putting on my shoes and looks at me like "god AGAIN woman?" But eventually they will get used to the daily morning and afternoon walks.

7. People will start calling you names. Like "skinny" "crazy fitness lady" "obsessed with being fit" etc.

8. Your face will hurt... From smiling, constantly.

9. Your spouse may get friskier, you may end up sleeping less....... just sayin.

10. People will constantly be bugging you with "oh my god you look amazing, what are you doing!"

This is just the start of the side effects from Herbalife.. but personally I LOVE EVERY ONE OF THEM!

blast from the past

So here's a little background on me for those who may not know. When I was 15 I was in a car accident that would forever change my life. I was a passenger in a car that was hit broad side at about 45-50 mph. I almost lost my life that night, but you wouldn't have known by looking at me, because all of my injuries were internal. I was rushed into emergency surgery to remove 2 1/2 feet of necrotic bowel that had been damaged from the seat belt and was threatening my life. I woke up 2 days later in ICU with a colostomy bag. If you don't know what that is, google it, its not a cute or fun thing for a VERY active 15 year old cheerleader. However, fate be damned because I had worked all summer on my cheers and I would NOT be put down. I told my surgeon on my check up visit that I was cheering with my bag turned sideways, he said to me "girl, you must be superwoman!" Thankfully the colostomy was not a permanent thing, only 8 weeks. So 8 weeks later I went back and had it taken down, leaving me with a big ugly scar that no 15 year old girl who desperately wants to wear a bikini should have to deal with. However, always the trooper I sucked it up and dealt with it, thinking that this ugly mess would forever be behind me. Little did I know that this one car accident would cause several subsequent surgeries! (By the way they took my appendix out on the second surgery because it looked like it was "going bad"

Now living without 2 1/2 feet of colon and an appendix is not really a very big deal, you hardly realize it most days. Fast forward several years (and 2 pregnancies) later I started feeling bloated. It felt like every time I would eat something that my stomach was trying to come out through my throat. Finally after several months I knew something was wrong. I went to the Dr and said I don't think this lump *pointing to just below the left side of my ribs* is supposed to be here. They sent me immediately for an ultra sound. Side note here kids, when your ultra sound tech puts her hand over her mouth and says "oh my" or "what the" under her breath, its not usually a good sign. After I left I got a call from the Dr, pack my bags and go to the hospital. Why, in his sweet words "we aren't totally sure, but it looks weird".... you never want to hear your doctor say WEIRD in a sentence either by the way.

Ok so long story short I had an 8" "Traumatic cyst" attached to my spleen. Now once they figured it was a cyst I knew I could deal with it. Cysts usually have a very low percentage of being cancerous. They tried for 2 days to drain the cyst to avoid removing my spleen but in the end decided it would be best to remove the whole big ugly tangled mess. Another side note for the kids following along, any time they open your stomach for surgery it not only cuts through EVERY abdominal muscle you have, but they literally take out ALL your intestines to move them out of the way, makes for really fun recovery. So living without a spleen wouldn't be much different than before right? Wrong. Bring on the weight gain....

We are fast forwarding again here, several years, another baby, a bad marriage and depression ensued. I started feeling "ick" again. Damnit, I had learned by now when my body started to act weird that I better go to the doc. Well one night after dinner I threw up... bloody and had terrible pain under my sternum. A trip to the ER revealed that once again I would need something removed, this time my gall bladder. Joy of joys. Now the doc had said it would be laproscopic.. meaning I wouldnt have yet another recovery from yet another cutting open of my stomach.. not so lucky, you see when you mess with insides and then try to pack them all back in, its like trying to put play dough back in the canister, it never looks as pretty as when you opened it the first time. My small intestine had wrapped itself around my gall bladder so they had to cut me open, again. This time my recovery took much longer than before because I was at my highest weight to that point, 200lbs. After that my weight started to steadily incline.

I knew that I needed to eat healthier, not only because of all the bull I'd been through, not only because I weighed WAY more than was healthy for my size, but because that was NOT the legacy I wanted to leave for my kids. My mom had weighed 300lbs most of my life, and we were very limited on the things we could or would go do. I was not about to drag my kids through all of that.

Luckily for me the winds of change were a blowin.. my friend Kattie who I've known since we were like 6 years old was an Herbalife Wellness Coach, and she would post on facebook almost daily about her clients and their weight loss results and I would think oh wow good for them, la dee da.. as I was shoveling terrible, fat riddled foods into my compromised digestive system. It wasnt until the day she posted that her client had reported a month without a headache... HOLD THE PHONE... this stuff COULD help with my migraines? My insane life altering, want to kill people migraines?? I called Kattie that day and said ok, I'm in, lets do this. You can read more about that in my other blogs but its been 3 months and its been an incredible ride!

*Workin on my "after" picture!! (CANNOT BELIEVE I AM POSTING THESE PICTURES, but if it helps ONE PERSON feel this amazing I dont care!!!)

 Before (July 24, 2012)

 During (9/26/12) THATS 2 Months!