The end of college

As I finished my last college class ever and took my last steps in the building that has sheltered me through it all I felt sad that it is all over. I also feel grateful for this amazing college experience. I reflect back upon my first semester being here and remembering how ungrateful and unaware I was of the amazing experience ahead. Now I am grateful, so grateful that I was here and could be taught through the Spirit and had professors that listened to the Spirit as they taught.  Bishops who understood and loved me. Friends and fellow students who were always there for me.  I can't imagine not being here and am grateful that I stuck it out at the beginning.

I am grateful that I chose the profession of teaching. Having my own classroom seems like the scariest yet most exciting thing I have ever done in my life! I know that I can make a difference in the lives of those children and this is where I'm meant to be and what I am supposed to be doing. I have loved these children that I taught twice a week this semester and shed tears over leaving them.  One day as I was home sick the movie Freedom Writers came on.  I cried as I watched it and pictured my students in this class as these teenagers someday.  Hoping that I made enough of a difference to teach them values and that they are important people.  I struggled listening to their stories of home and seeing them unshowered with holes in their clothes.  Coming to school in 14 degree weather with no coats and shorts. Many days I wanted to bring them home and show them the love that they deserved.  I am grateful for this experience.  I am grateful that I will have the chance to be a teacher and show each and every student that they are loved by someone in this world.  I will forever think of those students and the impact they made on my life.

Experiences like this remind me why I am going to be a teacher. The hardships are worth it for the smiles on their faces when they realize that they are important. I know that these experiences are because of the college I have attended and the professors that have put me in classrooms led by the Spirit.

College is just one part of life, and I am excited to move on to the next.  The unknown can be scary but I am hopeful.  I am trusting in my Heavenly Father to lead me where I can make the most difference in the childrens lives.

I am graduating from college, the first one in my family.  I hope to set the example of the importance of college and the amazing life changing experiences that can be had for my siblings, for my future children, and for my students.

Revamp

So I know I've become that awful blogger!! It's because I got so behind from our summer adventures and never caught up.. maybe someday I will catch up but for now I am moving on with blogging life! ha.

So in short news, nothing much has happened recently just GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE! it's cray cray if you ask me.  I remember being that little girl thinking someday I'll be married and graduate from college and have kids. It's weird 2 out of 3 and I still feel young. We are so excited to move to the part of our lives and become "real" adults.

Arizona should be A-MAZING we are so excited to live close to family and be in a sunshine state! It will finally be warm, seeing as it was 14 degrees Sunday as we drove to church.  Jake will be student teaching in a sophomore class 3 honors and 2 regular. Jake is teaching 0 period so he starts teaching at 6:45 AM. yikes! I will probably take the bus to avoid leaving at the crack of dawn with him. I will be teaching thirty-three 4th graders (AH!) but they are at a cute age. (I miss my kidos from this semester already!)

We found the cutest apartment, so excited to decorate. It has a den, so like a bedroom and a half (ha)! It also has a separate tub and shower which is pretty cool. My favorite part is the kitchen, we have more counter space and it has an arched hole in the wall to be able to see into the living room! Hopefully it will be hardwood flooring (crossing our fingers).  The only weird thing is that we have a fireplace... in Arizona, come on!!

I have finished finals and it's only Monday night! (SUCESS!!!) Jake still has a little bit to do, almost done though. So that's our crazy wild but oh so wonderful life right now.

And So It Begins..

We joined lifetime fitness gym here! The campus gym is so overcrowded and just not a very good environment for working out. So we did some research this weekend and found that lifetime fitness is the best for us, it's clean, small, and never busy. We also got 3 months free tanning (i know tanning has it's problems but there is no such thing as sun here sometimes). So now I can motivate myself by tanning and then working out because I am already there.  The equipment is great and has tv's hooked to each treadmill/elliptical/bike, and this cool track stationary bike where the screen is a setting you are riding it.  So far it has been enjoyable and I actually want to work out there.  We also went grocery shopping, like for real. We bought all of the things needed for the first week meal plan of 100 days of Real Food (http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Meal-Plan-1.pdf) but organic is hard to find and some stuff we already had not low fat or organic and stuff.  I don't think that it super matters but the healthy lifestyle matters more.  We are also really going to go to the temple each week. We live so close to it and we are so bad at making time for it.  So here is to our new beginnings of a healthy lifestyle both spiritual and physical!!

egg salad on triscuts, cheddar cheese, and green apples

and yes we do eat in bed, alllll the time. 

Refresh.

Sometimes I just want to push the refresh button on my day and restart what I am doing.  My last blog was a bad day (but I am not going to delete it so I can go back and read it someday and see how I have improves) and I was having self-issues, which is odd for me, but I think it had to do with my insane anxiety of meeting the principal in Arizona where we will be student teaching.  So I'm back, not so downer but ready to do something about these self-issues.  I think we all have them, and somedays they just surface more than other days. So today, I decided to not be so sad, anxious, and stressed about all these problems and come up with a solution.

Solution #1 Go to bed at 9PM and wake up at 7AM.. I need to get into the habit as a future teacher, so why not start now :) (Weekends are semi-different though)
Solution #2 Find time each day to go on a walk with my hubby, even if it's just around the block.  To just get out, relax, and enjoy all of Heavenly Fathers creations.
Solution #3 If I cook, Jake will clean right after we are done eating.  I've found the reason I haven't been cooking isn't a lack of time, but a lack of clean dishes/pots/pans etc.  I'll cook this great meal and say let's do this again but we never got around to the dishes.  So while I do the cooking, Jake does homework and while Jake cleans, I do homework. Let's see how it goes. But I did tell him we can cook/clean together when one of us isn't too busy.
Solution-ish #4 I found this website a while ago when I went on my health-kick (which totally worked until finals last semester!! and it did instill some of the smaller things in our life, like less junk food, red meat, meat in general, and way more veggies) But this semester I've gotten lazy and here is how I am getting out of it. http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/ She has a 5 week meal plan set up with recipes, grocery lists, and day to day normal ish foods.  So we are going to try and eat the meals that are planned and try new things, except fish, however, we are NOT going to go off sugar completely or eat only organic, local grown, because it's near impossible here and makes me stressed out.  We are just going to find time to balance our eating with our life.

So lets see what happens from here. Starting with Solution 1 as most doable to Solution 4 to hopefully doable. Oh and this weekend on our road trip back from AZ we both got a little bit of soda and it was gross, too sugary, too high-fructose sugar, I couldn't even drink it. YAY! exciting.

p.s. sorry for my previous downer post, but sometimes I just have to vent to the world.
And I also read http://behindtherefrigeratordoor.blogspot.com/ and she's such a great motivator of a healthy lifestyle.

p.s.s. Jake got a haircut, can you tell?!

Oh Hello Again Bloggy World

So I haven't posted in a while, obviously.. We just aren't that exciting currently.  Jake and I are both in school, I am still a math tutor and life goes on everyday always with homework. So we don't have a lot of time to be exciting people.  Thus the dilemma that brings me back here. Seeing as we are busy, busy, and my wrist is beginning to act up again, and my mono is beginning to resurface itself as well I am SO LAZY. It's hard not to be. We get out of class at 5:30 on MW and 6:45 TT which are lame times to begin cooking dinner and so I usually go for the lazy man meal and we eat frozen junk and go out or have sandwiches etc. Which isn't alll bad because there are some healthy choices but they get old after weeks of eating them. I have thought about the frozen dinner thing, but all of the recipes have SO MUCH MEAT. and we really don't eat that much meat anymore, we've definitely cut that down a lot. So I have gotten chubby. :( you may say whatever your not that chubby but this is the biggest I have EVER been in my whole life, for real, i'm getting new stretch marks, gag! So we thought oh ya, lets do zumba. zumba classes here are lame. lets do yoga? my wrist won't take it, waterpolo? same, pilates? same.... booooo. So we decided to run for 30 minutes 2 times a week, not great but better than nothing. however running is boring. and  I am SO far from motivated that it's ridiculous. I feel like I am motivated to get this chub off but running is painful for me and just blah, I want to do something fun and enjoy working out and look forward to it. I used to love my sports so much but now with all my stupid injuries and sicknesses it's hard for me to participate in them and to enjoy them because I'm not as good as I once was and I still try to be.

So my question is; How do you work out and enjoy/look forward to working out?  What are your healthy secrets of a busy life?

help me please!! oh p.s. jake is chubby too ;) but not as bad because he's taller.

February Recap

My wrist is getting better! On Valentines day we went to the doctor again and I got an ultra sound on my wrist.  He noticed all of the swelling and the pain points that I have been saying.  My blood work came back normal with no arthritis so he couldn't diagnose me with inflammatory arthritis but that's what he thinks it is.  So I got a cortisone shot into my wrist joint and it was ridiculously painful. But then it felt better for a few days ish.  I could wear my ring because the swelling had gone down and I was listening to the doctor and taking warm baths while moving my wrist in the water and bending it and all that fun stuff. I worked really hard the first few days but then I started not feeling good and now they think I have strep throat. gag.  So I am on antibiotics and life is good but i am sluggish.  I have to keep up in school and work though so i just chug along and sleep on the weekends or afternoons. Also, I got a new computer! We have been thinking about getting new computers because both of ours are totally dying (mine especially). so we stopped in a store to get an idea of what it would cost and we found a refurbished macbook pro 2009 and i love it. it was on super discount so it saved us tons of money.  I feel so much more secure in my future knowing that i won't be without technology. Yes, I love my technology I am a techie. Also.. we went to Jackson Hole for a weekend (6 month anniversary and valentines day). It was so much fun. We just relaxed and got massages and shopped and ate semi good food.  It is nice to be in my own bed though.  It's still weird to call Rexburg home but only for 10 more months! yay!! and that's the update of our crazy busy life. :) and we are anti-social currently for no reason other than we are lazy.

Yummy Smoothie #1

I am sure I will post a plethora of delicious smoothies throughout time so here is the first one.
1 handful of fresh pitted cherries
1 freshly squeezed tangerine (use the juice)
1 fresh kiwi 1 handful of frozen raspberries
3 handfuls of granola (we use almond honey granola from Winco)
2 LARGE handfuls of spinach
12 ice cubes
1 1/2 Cups-ish of (organic) vanilla yogurt

AND BLEND! It turns out a brown color but it is so yummy. you can't even taste the spinach! And it has a grainy texture because of the kiwi and raspberry seeds and because of the granola. Your body will thank you for the nutrients it gives. and it's filling. Jake and I drank them for lunch. It makes enough to almost fill both our smoothie cups.