Hello, my butt battling brothers & sisters out there…today is a big day. 🙂 I have updates and I’m celebrating something big! It’s a good day at Hot Mess Central.

First, the updates: My friend Matt, who is by all accounts a web mastering evil genius, has made several updates to my site over the last several days. He made the site more user friendly and less spammer friendly.  Quite possibly, the most notable change is the row of social media buttons underneath each post. Do you see them down there? They look like this:

Thanks to Matt, whenever you’re reading my blog and you want to share a particular post or recipe, you can now share it on Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Reddit, Digg, Google Buzz, StumbleUpon, and plain ol’ email. And, of course, you can follow me and share my posts on Pinterest and subscribe via email, RSS feed, and on Amazon Kindle.  Phew!  That was a lot of sharing to share!

I appreciate all the sharing you can do, too.  Since I was old enough to put #2 pencil to paper, I’ve wanted to be a writer.  I’ve always loved it.  It’s really who I am.  So the more you share my posts, the more help I have building an online platform that I can show editors and publishers and say “Hey, see this?  I actually have readers!”  Your support and comments are helping me reach the dream of hitting my goal weight, and your sharing of my posts will help me reach my goal of actually doing what I love someday.  🙂

Speaking of sharing, there are many times when I’ll babble slightly about something or post a link to a cool site, quote, or product – but it’s not really worthy of a whole blog post unto itself. I flick those up on my Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter…so come connect with me on Facebook and Twitter! You can do that in the nifty column on the right…just scroll down a bit.

That’s enough updates & housekeeping for awhile, I promise.

Now…for the celebration…

Do you know what today is, my friends? Today is January 15th, 2012. Today is 30 days of sugar free glory, peeps. That’s right! I gave up sugar 30 days ago today. Let’s all do the happy dance!!!

Like I’ve said before, other than the week of my “ladies days” I’ve had a pretty decent adjustment period.  Thank God I’m just slightly more stubborn than I am stupid, right?  Perseverance has been my friend.  Wisdom, not so much…at times.  For example, yesterday I went grocery shopping while I was hungry –  which isn’t a good idea no matter who you are…but it was an even bigger challenge for me.  I walked into the grocery store with my stomach growling, that’s how hungry I was.  Really not a smart thing to do.  I stayed strong through the bakery section, past the onion dip in the diary case, and completely avoided the frozen foods section.  I was standing in the checkout line, mentally patting myself on the back, when I noticed the chick in front of me tossing a box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch on the counter next to a box of my favorite partially hydrogenated crackers, a pint of ice cream, and a couple boxes of goodies from that bitch Little Debbie.  Brutal!

Still, I stayed strong.  I nearly sprinted out of the store.  I just wanted to get home and grill up a turkey burger, but guess who was in my way?  The Girl Scouts were setting up their table.  Seriously?  The freak’in Girl Scouts?  Clearly, I was being tested.

I had to stop, of course.  I had to.  I was a Girl Scout.  I still have my pin and my needlework badge.  🙂  Don’t panic.  I didn’t knock any 8 year old cuties over in a mad dash for the do-si-do’s.  I donated a box of cookies to our soldiers overseas and backed away from the table.  With a quickness.

I’ve certainly had my share of temptations, don’t get me wrong.  The past 30 days have been a challenge.  Every once in a while my husband will hug me and tell me how proud of me he is…and he’ll ask me how I’m feeling and I’ll say I’m scared.  This is scary.  I’ve failed a million times before this.  30 days of good behavior is nothing to me.  I’ve been down this same road a million times and I’ve been in this same spot a million times.  I’m excited about my success, but I’m scared.

The thing that’s different this time is that, whenever I’m feeling scared, I feel myself tighten up and get tough…and I say to myself, “Every other time you’ve done this and got scared, you’ve given up and failed.  If you don’t want to fail, you have to push through it.  You can’t give up…because you already know what will happen if you do:  failure.  Never, never, never give up.”

I’m reminded of the pendant I bought myself when I lost 50 lbs in 2010.  “Never, never, never give up” is a quote from Winston Churchill during World War II.  I’d found a pendant with that inscription on it and bought it for myself back then.  It’s been in my jewelry box for a few months, but it’s back on my neck now.

I’m now 366 pounds.  The 350’s are near.  My next goal: 359 by Valentine’s Day.  I can see that number on the scale when I close my eyes.  I can picture it…I can feel it…I want it.  I will not give up.

Now, I may be feeling a little fear once in a while, but I’m also feeling very bad ass.  In fact, one of the things I asked Matt to do while he was upgrading this site was to create a stamp for me.  I wanted something that looks like a big rubber stamp that I can smack down on this blog in any situation that warrants it – and I think 30 days of freedom from sweets, fast food, and all other crap is definitely worthy of the first stamp.  So here I go, smack’in it down…I am a:

I know I’m not the only Hot Mess/Bad Ass hybrid out there, peeps, so don’t be surprised if you comment here and find yourself being “awarded” one of these as well.  The nice thing about a stamp like this is that I’ll never run out of ink.  🙂

If I’m going to kick the 360’s to the curb and see 359 on the scale by Valentine’s Day, I’m going to need all the help and support I can get…so I’m counting on y’all to post your asses off and help keep me focused.  I know several of you are fighting your own Battle of the Butt…with all my heart, I wish you the biggest and best success of your lives this year.

We can do it…and we will.  Let’s go!