Hello hello kind bloggers. Thank you for still reading my post this morning considering its lameness. I do appreciate you.

I continued on in happy spirits today, despite the fact that my green monster spit cold greenness all over me and my car upon arrival at work. Ehh, it happens a few times a month – I’ve more or less grown accustomed to it

Lunch was my leftover veg tortilla soup with some 2% cheddar cheese and greek yog.

This soup is a battlefield. I love it, but it’s so spicy that I feel like it is challenging me to the death while I’m eating it. It’s also quite the sodium-filled soup, so I think the next time I make it I will use more fresh ingreds so that it doesn’t make me feel so Bloaty McGee.

After slurping down my spicy soup, I sped to Starbucks for some speed substitute. (I had to go to speech class in 1st grade to learn how to say my ’esses’ appropriately, and the previous sentence would have killed me back then!)

I hardly ever consume more than one cup of coffee per day, but the cool weather lately has caused me to crave it like crazy. I just got a tall regular coffee, to which I added a splash of milk.

Then I had to head to the car place to get my tires checked, as I had a light on the dash warning me of impending low tire peril. Those lights freak me out!

After that was taken care of, I headed back to work. The music on the radio made me happy. It started with some new song by Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews titled “I’m Alive”. I’m not a huge fan of either of these performers but I loved this song. It made me want to do yoga, or something like join hands with a bunch of strangers and dance around in circles. Happy song. You should check it out.

Then I heard some Jason Mraz “I’m Yours” and Sister Hazel “All for You”. Good music, for radio music, indeed. One can only take so much Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, in my opinion.

I came back to work in a perky mood and got back to business. I broke a short while later for my last honey crisp

A couple hours after that I had some yogurt + copious amounts of granola to get me through an afternoon cardio sesh.

Upon leaving work I headed home and picked up a package from the leasing office. I received some of the new iced coffee from Pom! I’m so excited to try this out!

Okay guys, if this post was a musical this would be the point where I would break out in song.

As I mentioned a while back, the changing of the seasons usually makes me feel a little down. I’m not sure why exactly, but I usually have a really hard time emotionally throughout the fall. Today, as I was walking to the gym the weather was quite brisk and I prepared myself, waiting for the usual melancholy to settle in.

However, strangely enough, the feeling wasn’t there. And then I thought about it, and realized that I wasn’t feeling even the slightest bit depressed. Actually, I was feeling happy. It may strike you as a bit odd, but this feeling is a bit foreign to me.

The title of this blog Low… and Behold! was spelled incorrectly to illustrate that I started writing at a pretty dark point in my life (I hope this has been apparent, and that people don’t think I don’t know how to spell). At the time of my first post, I was walking around in a haze – I felt lost and like I’d let myself down for a whole host of reasons. I made the pact that I would write through this blog and try to find a sense of happiness in 2009. I was hoping that having an outlet to write about my life and maybe to motivate me to lose weight would be the key.

Well, without my even knowing it, I think I’ve come a really long way in achieving that goal!

Is it because my blog is profound and insanely popular? No. My blog is pretty average and I would continue writing it even if no one read it. (Although I truly love all my wonderful readers and appreciate you more than you will ever know.)

Is it because I’ve lost a ton of weight and now I’m insanely hot? No. I have lost a bit of weight and toned up, but I doubt to the untrained eye I look any different than I did the day I started blogging.

So what has caused this newfound happiness? Well, I’m not entirely sure. But I think the main thing is that this blog has taught me that there are things about myself that I actually enjoy. Instead of constantly ruminating on the things that I’ve done that I’m not particularly proud of, I think about the things I’ve done that I feel good about each day and write about them. Yes, sometimes I write about bad days or moods but on the whole I try to project positivity. That in turns makes me feel more positive.

Also, instead of focusing on the bad things I eat or how much weight I want to lose, this blog and the blogging community as a whole has taught me that a healthy lifestyle is so much more important than the perfection I have always sought in the past. Now, I know that I’ll eventually reach my happy weight because I’m making healthy choices every single day. And even when I have unhealthy foods, or take breaks from working out I know that it’s only temporary and that I’ll be back to my usual ways the next day.

I also know that I’m taking steps to prevent the heart disease that runs on both sides of my family.

I know that I’ll actually be in better shape at 30 than I was at 18.

I know that I’ll challenge myself to create new recipes that are healthy and that my loved ones will enjoy.

I know that my options are unlimited and I will continue to develop my writing skills and meet new amazing people through this community.

Basically, life is good. And I just wanted to declare that! If could have sang it, I would have

As for my workout today, it was really good. I’ll leave it at that seeing as how this post is now a novella.