Meet Lori Woolard

I'm not the type of person to tell a lot of information about myself without someone asking. It's not that I don't want people to know things, usually, but I don't like to feel like I'm intruding and making everything all about me. But, seeing as this is my blog I think I'll go ahead and share one of the most personal things I've ever put out there for a class.

My mom has MS. She's had it since I can remember, but wasn't diagnosed with it until I was 15. In the 7 years that we've known she has not had it easy. She went from walking, to occasionally falling, to needing a walker, and then a wheelchair. 

So when I had to do a photo story for my final photography project this story was not at the top of my list.   Originally I had wanted to do the process of professional letter pressing. It's interesting, unique to the people in my class, and my professor had never seen it before. Triple Threat. However, when the scheduling went awry and I only had 2 weeks left till the project was due I decided to use this story. 

My mom having MS is nothing new to me, but sometimes when I tell people I see that look in their eye, of feeling sorry for me. Let me tell you now. I hate that look. It's rough and it sucks, but it's not me in that position of having my freedom taken away. So seeing that look in about half of my classmates today was interesting. Luckily I was half dead from staying up for another project and I didn't even care at that point. 

I've written a lot. I don't even know if who ever is reading this is getting anything out of it, but I hope you guys at least have a little more insight to me and my life. On to the photos. 

I have a ton of photos I took, but these are the 6 I chose for my story. If you guys know anyone with MS or any other illness where that person needs a friend or support please let me know! I'd love to help my mom start a local support group so she can interact with more people! She doesn't get to talk to outsiders much, aside from facebook and texting.

*on an adorable note, Tyler heard me typing and when he found I was blogging he said to be sure to tell everyone that I have an amazing boyfriend {true} who loves me veryyyyy much. Needless to say he woke me up this morning so I wouldn't be late to class after I pulled an all nighter and only got 2 hours of sleep. Did I mention he did it with hugs and kisses on the nose? He's pretty perfect. 

'Juice Drank'

So me and Tyler decided to get on netflix and watch "Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead". We both have weight to lose. Really, him = not so much, but whatever, he wants to.

So hello juice diet. Tonight's drink was not like a jamba juice or v8, I can only aspire to the tasty goodness of these guys. It's not the tastiest thing ever, but it may just be that we have to get more used to all natural, unsalted, unprocessed foods. I also felt super sick tonight, but it may have just been the 4 cloves of *burn your throat* garlic that was put into the juice didn't help. But I'm kind of excited to see how it turns out!

We usually try to eat pretty healthy, but our fridge has never looked so good!

I know these photos are going to look SO INCREDIBLY delish, so please try to refrain yourself.... Really, it's better than it looks. Promise.

I wanna say with this we put a ton of veggies... Maybe something around: 2 tomatoes, 4 stalks of celery, 4 cups of spinach leaves, 3 carrots, a cucumber, anddddd some lime juice. It gives us about 3 cups to split, and is surprisingly super filling! Now, there's no way this is all my diet will be (like the guy on the documentary), but I figure I can have eggs/yogurt/mini wheats for breakfast or juice, then an awesome lunch, and juice and an apple or so for dinner. Day One: it's working well so far.

So after everything is said and done, hopefully I'll not only be healthier, but even a few sizes smaller! And, fingers crossed, by the end of the semester I'll have time to run again! Because I REALLY miss it. Like a lot. And one day, when this 'juice drink diet' is over I won't walk in to my apartment and smell a garden of fresh cut grass, but instead some sugar cookies and cupcakes!