Time

We all have 24 hours in the day. We all have the same amount of time as everyone else does. Yet none of us have "enough time" to do everything we HAVE to get done and have "free" time left over to do fun things. I know when I was single I hated being home alone and would spend just about every night hanging out with friends, I had a very large spider web of friends. Now when Chris is gone for work I'm forced to have time home, ALONE and it really makes you think and makes you prioritize. I am in the middle of a sermon series called Simplify and it talks about removing overwhelmed, exhausted, and over scheduled from our vocabulary, and the power of actually scheduling time to do things, time to spend with your family, time in The Word, time at church on Sunday, etc. While I'm still a fan of randomness, many times leaving something up to random means leaving it up to never happening. I know that in our life group we all talk about wanting to spend time together outside of our every other Tuesday night meeting but lately it rarely happens. We have stuffed our weeks so full of stuff, cleaning the house, shopping for a new necessity, going to school, doing homework, working, taking care of other people that we forget to schedule time that is truly for ourselves. That ends up being detrimental to our mental health, to our marriage, and to our friendships, yet we just don't see that, or see it as selfish instead of refreshing or re-building.

We NEED to schedule time with our friends, we NEED to schedule date nights with our spouse's, we NEED to schedule time for worshiping and fellowshipping. We NEED to stop saying, I just don't have free time, we have chosen to not have free time and it's hurting us. When we are over-scheduled we feel overwhelmed and it makes it really easy for the devil to take a foot-hold in our lives and marriages and relationships, and start breaking them down.

Let's all re-check our priorities in life, let's make sure that they're not sucking the life out of us. Let's stop making excuses and spend time with the people who are very important to us before they're gone. Let's stop saying, "We really need to hang out," or "We really should get together sometime." and actually do it! Let's schedule peaceful time that is meaningful and loving and fun and refreshing all at the same time!

I love you all and my time in Lubbock is fairly short and I'd love to make the most of it with each and everyone of you! When I'm in South Dakota or Colorado I know that my time is short and I try really hard to make the most of every moment I get when I'm there and see the people that mean the most to me.

We all have the time that we have scheduled so let's look at our schedules and see where our priorities are.

Spring time in Texas

We've had a great spring. We've spent a lot of time together and have enjoyed all the time we got together. We've had some bad news and have had to re-evaluate things. Chris has been looking for a possibility of a second job in case we can't make it through the summer on his paycheck from his current job. Mandy's been making new friends and is always grateful for the friends that we've both already made.

It's been beautiful around here, it's already started to get hot, we have broke 90 degrees F, but then a cold front will move through and Mandy will sleep amazing. Unfortunately this last cold front had a freeze snap with it so many people lost their hard-worked gardens!

I've had a lot of time to think, and have been progressing on my research slowly but surely. I find it interesting the puzzle pieces that you brain puts together when you're trying to fall asleep. They may be simple things but they seem like way more complex matters until you figure it out. FYI 1 X 10^6 is equal to 10 X 10^5 NOT 100 X 10^5, that's what I figured out last night. I've had some very clear thoughts, I have been really focused on finishing school since I am feeling ready to be done. I realized today that I just need to focus on what I'm doing and enjoying it instead of focusing on finishing. I need to not be envious of other people, their lives are different than mine and we won't be sad to stick around Lubbock for a little bit longer. When it's time for me to get a job I believe that the right job will come along, so there's no reason for me to be worried about getting there!

I've had people that I didn't expect express to me this week that they're grateful for me, appreciate me, are sad that I won't be spending time with them this summer, etc. and it's done wonders for lifting my mood. When Chris is busy working I try to keep busy with work, but things like that always help to feel loved and needed when I can't necessarily get that from my husband (by no fault of his own).

I'm still dealing with the loneliness of a Friday night at home alone. During the week it doesn't bother me much because I've kept busy at night cooking, keeping the kitchen clean, and meal planning, but the weekends always hit me in a different manner.

I'm always grateful for my girlfriends that help me get through the tough times, who celebrate with me in the exciting times and share with me in all. Now I just need to figure out how is the best way to express that I love spending time with all of them even something as silly as sitting on the couch in sweats and that getting out of the house when I'm alone is pretty much the only thing that keeps me from going crazy. I don't have money to spend but I love going on walks, painting (houses or toes), cooking, watching movies, and doing crafty things and I'm not sure that people know that about me.

I think this all comes from spending so much time with my family growing up and being so far from them now makes our friends our family now so I desire to spend as much time with each of them as possible.

In the end I love all my friends and I love to spend as much time as possible with them and I'm still learning how to handle alone time as a married woman.

XOXO

Days 5, 6, & 7 of 90!

Day 5 was Saturday. I made sure to sneak in my workout before church but then we ended up running errands and packing all night so I didn't get to blog.

Day 6 was Sunday. We were driving all day and then proceeded to do family crafts, as such I was unable to blog again!

So here's what those days entailed. Day 5 was hard, I was tired, my triceps REALLY, REALLY hurt and on top of that my back pain set in late Friday night into Saturday. The workout really tired out my arms and I was shaking during it. I barely made it through the workout and the stretching at the end.

Sunday was my rest day (day 6) which consisted of doing stairs with heavy suitcases so that we could load the car and then driving with 40-50 mph side-winds. Needless to say even on my rest day I got a fairly good workout in :-D

Today was day 7! That's 1 whole week completed now!!!!!! Woot Woot!!!! Today there were no weights which was nice but at the end we were doing active stretching which required triceps and mine still hurt so that was a bit tough but otherwise the workout felt great. I did it barefoot and at altitude and still felt pretty good.

I also had my weigh in today :-) I'm down to 144.4 lbs which puts me at 16.4 lbs lost total! woot! And as a side note I have not been tracking my calories. I've been trying to be conscious of what I'm eating and when but I have not been logging a single calorie this week. I'm feeling good. My back pain isn't too bad considering I was stuck in the car for 9 hours yesterday. I got to see the Chiropractor today and tomorrow a massage, so I'll have to sneak in my workout before that!

I hope you're feeling sore and strong, and doing well!

Day 4 of 90

Yes I do mean Day 4. I decided that since I rested on day 2 I should continue through the workout and with our travelling I can rest again on Day 6.

Today consisted of a new weights workout but the cardio was the same as Day 1. I couldn't do it fully on Day 1 because I didn't want to jump all around and make our neighbors below us angry. I can tell you that it is challenging! I did my best to keep up with it but even the ability to do it fully didn't allow me to do it. It was REALLY hard! I have a hard time keeping up with crazy fast cardio workouts that include lots of burpee's and mountain climbers, etc.

I was really tired during the workout and after. I'm still very sore all over and feeling the effects of working out. Here are my stats:
Weight: 147 lbs (up 1 lb from my last weigh-in on Monday)
% Body Fat: 26.9%
% Total Body Water: 51.3%
Waist: 27.5 in
Hips: 39.5 in
Thighs: 23.5 in
So even though I went up in weight my actual measurements went down :-)

My plan for tomorrow is to do day 5 and rest on Sunday, day 6, when we're stuck in the car!

I hope you're enjoying this workout with me!

Day 2 of 90

Yes I realize that technically I should be on day 3. However, I didn't get home until after 6 yesterday because my final was so late and I was REALLY, REALLY sore. After doing day 2 today I kind of wish I had done it yesterday b/c there was a lot of moving and stretching and I think my hamstrings will feel a lot better tomorrow. FYI, if you do chose to do this, Day 3 is a rest day, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do since I rested yesterday. I think I'm going to try to do Day 4 and after that it will depend on when we're driving home for Christmas!

Today i'm feeling less sore than yesterday but a lot more stiff. I have a tendency to get really hungry when I work out this hard so I feel like I'm eating a lot (no I'm not being good about tracking my calories), but I know that when I'm the one making the food I don't consume as many calories as if I eat easy-prepared food. I'm really missing my dairy right now since I ran out of yogurt and they didn't have any more of the cheese that was on sale at Sprouts so I'm doing my best to get milk in my diet without negative side-effects.

I'm feeling mentally good, tired from trying to catch up with so many things and the stress of everything that has to be done over Christmas break, prior to spring classes starting. I know that my work-out time is important to me and for me so I will do my best to continue.

If you're doing this with me, today felt great and keep it up!

Day 1 of 90

I have decided to do the Be Fit in 90 challenge put on by the Lionsgate Befit people:
http://www.youtube.com/befitin90#

From what I can gather it's like P90X but FREE!!! I sure do love free things and different ways of working out so that I'm not just running on the elliptical/treadmill all the time. Saying that chances are I won't be doing this EVERY day for 90 days straight (especially with the travelling for Christmas, etc.) but I will do it as often as I can and try to post regularly about how I feel and my success.

Last January I started using My Fitness Pal to track calories consumed and started working out as well. At first it really helped with my back pain I have been experiencing from my car accident. I started at 160.8 lbs and worked very hard until May when I got down to 144.

I just re-weighed myself today and I am at 146 lbs, 26.5% body fat, and 51.6% total body water. I forgot to measure myself but I'll update that tomorrow. I chose to weigh myself 2 times a week (usually Mon. and Thurs.) just to keep an eye on how I'm doing. I have noticed that on days when I'm really sore, and the day following I tend to gain weight, but in the end I end up losing quite a bit.

At this point losing weight isn't as important, I've been 145 lbs of pure muscle before and I felt great so now it's time to tone up! So join me on this adventure to tone up!

Creamy Chicken Pasta

It's the Christmas season and Chris has not been traveling, so of course we've been cooking again. Yay for cooking together and eating yummy food :-) It turned out to be incredibly delicious so I've decided to share it with the world! I think the best meal's just come out of your head and not always from a recipe. I thought we should use up some of our frozen chicken and pasta (we have a lot in our stockpile) and a cream sauce sounded like the best way to combine the two! Chris thought we should add some veggies and onion which lead to me think that of course we needed to add garlic because what recipe doesn't need garlic?!

Here's what it looked like:

Here's the recipe:
1/4 c chopped onion (not finely chopped)
1.5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1-2 T Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
8 oz Chicken (we had some thighs but you can use any boneless chicken)
2 T butter (REAL butter no fake stuff, TRUST me on this)
3 T Flour (all purpose bleached makes for the whitest sauce but this didn't end up white so whatever could work)
1.5 c Milk
1 t white sugar
1 t Parsley
1 t Oregano
1 t Thyme
1 T Basil (I did use 1 Tablespoon b/c I really like basil)
1 t Rosemary
1 t Tarragon
2 t salt
Pepper (to taste)
1 t (ish) seasoned salt
1 green pepper (chopped into big chunks)
1 red pepper (chopped into big chunks)
5.75 oz Pasta (we had some whole wheat spaghetti lying around)

Put the EVOO into a skillet and warm up the oil (medium-high). Saute the garlic and onion until carmelized. Sear the chicken on both sides, sprinkling seasoned salt and black pepper on one side. Cover up and turn down to medium, let cook most of the way. Put the chicken, onions and garlic on a plate and in the microwave to rest and stay warm. In a pan melt the butter (medium-low), add the flour, add more or less as needed until it balls up. Add milk 1/2 c at a time and let thicken between additions, keep stirring to keep it from burning on the bottom of the pan. Add sugar and make sure it's mixed in well, then add parsley, oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon, stir well. Throw in the red and green peppers to cook a little on medium-low heat, if it's a little thick it's ok, the chicken will thin it out. Cook your pasta according to the directions on the package. Throw the chicken into the cream sauce with the peppers to finish cooking. Drain your pasta once finished cooking and split up into bowls. Cover with the chicken and pepper cream sauce. Eat and Enjoy!

I hope you love this as much as we did!

Serves: 4
Nutritional Information (Per Serving):
** Side note: we used 2% milk, unsalted butter, and whole wheat spaghetti
Calories: 420
Total Fat (g): 18.1
Cholesterol (mg): 159.5
Sodium (mg): 828.2
Potassium (mg): 598.8
Total Carbs (g): 44
   Dietary Fiber (g): 3.6
   Sugars (g): 8.2
Protein (g): 19
Vitamin A: 31.8%
Vitamin C: 163.1%
Calcium: 14.2%
Iron: 13.1%