Greetings all! Thanks for stopping by! My name is Kara, and I’m a 27 year old School Librarian. I was adopted in 1980 in Natchez, Mississippi and was brought up there. My parents divorced when I was 8 and both got remarried to wonderful people. My stepdad had three children already, Katy, Bo and Anna. My stepmom had two children also-Glen and Steve. I grew up with my mom, and we moved to Shreveport, Louisiana when I was in 6th grade and spent the rest of my school days there. That’s where I made the most friends and have the most memories. I love and miss Shreveport so much! Katy only lived with us for one year because she was a good deal older than the rest of us, but I grew up with Bo and Anna. I didn’t get to see my dad as much as I wanted, but now that I live in Baton Rouge I see much more of him, and that makes me happy. I played a lot of sports growing up, so I never really was “overweight”, per say, but I was never comfortable with my weight, and a lot of that had to do with my mom. She was constantly trying to get me to lose weight even though I wasn’t overweight. Being that I was not genetically hers, she did not understand that I would never been the small size that she was, and a 10 was ok with me!!!
I graduated high school in 1998 and started going to Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. That’s where my weight really started to come on. I was no longer playing sports, and I was out from under my mom’s constant watchful eye. I ate whatever I wanted, however much I wanted, whenever I wanted. And from doing that I gained a lot of weight. I pledged Delta Gamma there and stayed for a short time before falling off the path and quitting school for a few months. Luckily, I got back on track and started back shortly. In 2000, I decided that I didn’t want to be in Louisiana anymore, I wanted to live somewhere else, and be out of the Louisiana setting. So I decided to move to Tennessee! Such a beautiful area, so I looked at colleges there and found a place that was a perfect size for me, close to a big city but not IN a big city-Clarksville, Tennessee! I moved there and started working at first to get some money saved to start school. I worked at JC Penney and cleaned houses to support myself, then I started school about 6 months later. I had absolutely always wanted to major in Education, so I decided to pursue a degree in Education. For a while I wanted to add on a Double Major in Spanish, and to this day I wish I had done that-I absolutely love Spanish! Anyway, I digress! I met one of my great, great friends living in Clarksville, her name is Jennifer, and she is in my wedding. We lived together for two years! I have to say that this time of my life, I didn’t really think about dieting that much. I was overweight but I was really happy with myself as I was. I can look back and remember how wonderful it was to not constantly be concerned with the calories I was eating, etc. I met Ryan while living in Clarksville and we hit it off immediately. We dated for a short time, and when I say short I mean SHORT. We first started being “steady” on April 13, 2002. So anyway, I graduated from college in December 2003. I was teaching 3rd grade at the school where I did my field experience before I even finished my degree. I stayed there until the end of the school year, and it was 6 of the most miserable months of my life. The administration I had there was not supportive at all and used me as a scapegoat for whenever they needed someone to nitpick. Needless to say, at the end of that school year I decided to move back to Louisiana.
Once I got back here, I was lonely and things between Ryan and I were not at our best. We temporarily ended our relationship, and I moved to Baton Rouge to pursue my master’s in Library Science. My mom encouraged me to take the summer to “work on losing weight.” So I lost a little bit. Ryan and I were not separated for long. We continued our communication talking online and were the best of friends, and could not forget how much we loved one another. Soon we were talking again, and before I knew it Ryan came to visit me here. We had a fantastic weekend together, though the air conditioning at my apartment was out when he came to visit-LOL. When he went home we finally realized how much we loved one another, and shortly after that he moved to Baton Rouge. He lived in his own place for a while. I started my degree in Library Science in Fall 2004 and during that time I was the Webmaster for the LSU chapter of the American Library Association and was the President of our student organization, GLISSA. I really gained a lot of confidence from putting together events with professionals in my field during those two years. I graduated with my master’s in December 2006. While I was at LSU I also wrote a grant for Highland Elementary to get $5,000 for their library, and got the grant! While I was at LSU I lost 86 lbs doing a combination of Opti-fast and NutriSystem, but when I got off the program I had no idea how to eat healthy. I went back to my old habits, and ended up gaining back all 86 lbs and then some. Of course, that has happened over the course of a couple of years. Upon graduation in 2006, I was a mid-year graduate, and could not find a job in a school as a librarian, but I was able to find a job as a Kindergarten teacher. I did multiple interviews and did not feel that I clicked at any of the schools where I interviewed. When I interviewed at my school I just knew that this is where I should be. I took the job and started it when the children came back from Christmas holidays, in January 2007. I LOVED teaching Kindergarten. Those children were the most sweet human beings I had ever been around, and it taught me how much I loved being in the school system. I loved every single day of that job, and thankfully it taught me that I could be in the school system again, after going through the hell I went through at the other school teaching 3rd grade. I had so much fun teaching Kindergarten-doing crafts, teaching Reading, and I did very well at it. At the end of the school year I was told that I would be moved to the Librarian’s position the next year. It was an uncertain thing for quite some time, and 2 weeks before school started back I found out that I would be in the library- I had no time to plan at all, but was excited about doing it. I went to all my trainings and when the school year started back, I was the librarian! Over the summer I had moved into a new apartment and Ryan had moved with me, and we also went to Disneyworld. We had a great summer together and our relationship had become stronger than ever. During the fall semester we overcame some very personal issues with my family. In December we got engaged to be married. And that brings us to now! We’ve got a wedding date booked for April 25, 2009, and I’m counting the days down to the summer.
I am so happy to have found this online diet community-I am very satisfied with the Fat Smash diet by Dr. Ian, and I love having people that I can feel like I have support from. I have support from my fiance’, but he is not doing the diet as strictly as I am, so it’s nice to be on here where others are, and can give advice, etc. So, that’s about all there is to say ‘About Me’.
Anything that changes after now will be added in my various blog posts. Hope you all enjoy and I hope to hear comments from you! Have a great day!!!
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