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.

College is DUMB

Today I feel like dropping out. gahhhhhh!!!! All of my teachers have decided to be nit picky about every little grammar/punctuation/word usage error possible. Seriously. I am sorry if you don't understand the point I am trying to make because I didn't use a possessive apostrophe. Please come talk to my Language Arts methods teacher and she will testify to you that students were NOT TAUGHT these types of things correctly in elementary school and as a result many college students have a lack of these skills. THANK YOU. totally not my fault. Also that the way we talk is reflected within our writing and that means the words, totally and so WILL be used incorrectly to Websters dictionary definition which is really detonated writing. I like to write with to connotative meanings of words. cool? Also, this semester I have the most demeaning teach I have ever had in my life... Every day she talks to us like we are a bunch of 4th graders because that's what she used to teach. And then today I had a question and had to ask it 3 times because her back was turned to us after she taught a new concept. She then proceeded with the same definition she had previously given which I knew was wrong. So we moved on to centers (because we are elementary students) and then in her own notes of one of the centers I proved her wrong. Very nicely I might add. I just pointed out the two things I was confused on earlier and said this doesn't match what you just taught, did it change or am I just totally confused. She said oh! I'll have to reteach it and correct myself on Monday. too bad she had to correct herself today also from the lesson on Wednesday. And then as we were cleaning up our centers I asked another question and I said it out loud twice because we were cleaning up she was walking around. and she didn't answer. she proceeded to end class and then came up to me got like 6 inches from my face and with a stern demeaning voice said I don't mind answering your questions but do not interrupt me during instruction time. GASP! I was shocked, embarrassed, and totally upset. She explained the concept and then I left, I am sure the whole class heard her discipline my question asking skills. I got in the car and cried! gahhhhhhhh. so irritated. It doesn't help that I had just received a presentation in my educational psychology class that talked about how you shouldn't do that to a girl student because they are emotional but boy students need that which she would know if she was any sort of a good teacher. so for now I will SUFFER through this semester because I want to be a part of these future students lives and I want to make the sort of difference that my teachers are not making on me this semester. They should learn to love to learn and not be afraid to ask questions or question what I am teaching. now this rant is over. go see this super intense movie called Chronicle because Jake loved it and I closed my eyes for the last 20 minutes. *and yes, I am sure this post is full of grammatical errors. but sometimes even my English major husband can't always edit everything I write or doesn't always know the correct grammar. so SUCK IT.

Time-Consuming Kitchen

So this healthy thing has been pretty great. I think it has mostly affected our breakfasts, snacks, and less of our lunch and dinner. We constantly eat fruit, nuts, cheese, etc for snacks because we had this idea to take the top shelf of our smallest cabinet and put the shelf at the closest peg to the top we could and that is our junk spot. We can only have that much junk and it's hard to get to so we eat it less often. We also make our own breakfast sandwiches and smoothies or grab some mixture of nuts/fruits/cheese and a protein bar for breakfast. Luna bars are our favorite. and they may not be the healthiest in the world but they are way better than the pop tarts we used to eat on late days. So in this sense we are being so much better. Lunches have been hard because we are on campus alllllllll the time. seriously. or we are running from place to place and don't have time to sit down and have a "proper" lunch. We often eat sandwiches, wraps, salads, etc from the campus diner or a sandwich place of some sort. Not way healthy because we of course have condiments but better than pizza. And dinners have become stressful. We plan it out and go shopping at winco every week but by the time we get home it's so late and we are so tired that cooking doesn't sound fun. quick easy dinners are usually unhealthy and we have yet come across a good way of doing quick meals. So usually we eat around like 8-9 pm. (Italians do that and they are healthy but idk about us, we go to bed so early that our bodies can't process it? idk.) And we bought this way yummy natural eating cook book. But we can never find all the ingredients it calls for. silly Idaho. So we have been looking for a way to still be healthy and organic and la la la see the previous posts for "details"... And today!!! I came across a pin on pintrest that had freezer meals. so genius right? the only problem is what can and can't you freeze. I would take 6 hours on a Saturday to prepare meals for a month! and then only have to truly cook in an oven or on a stove and have so much less mess to clean up every night. (Jake would like it because he would have less dishes to do!!) So now we are thinking of being this super organized healthy easy couple. ahhhhhhhhh! I read this blog about this lady who does it and she cooks with a lot of meat (like the rest of the world) but that's not the way the WOW (Word of Wisdom) says to eat and it's not soo healthy. So maybe some recipes could be halved in meat portions and doubled in veggies. There's this book called, Don't Panic Dinners in the Freezer that we are thinking about getting. Any experiences of any sort with freezer meals. I think it sounds great for the busy lifestyle we have if we can remember to thaw it before we leave in the morning... oh and jake is getting a perm. for real. someday.

So far So good

Our healthy life style officially began this last week. We've decided the best way to make this change is by weening ourselves off of the old life style. We cleaned out our junk cabinet and then made a really small shelf and decided that is the only junk food we can have. Because we can't not have junk in our house, but the less there is and the higher up it is so I can't reach it, the less likely we are to eat it. hopefully. Also we are changing a few of the rules. Because as much as we don't want to eat preservatives, we are still in college and it's impossible to have the time to cook lunch and dinner every day. So we might eat some of those things that no normal person would have in their cabinet because of time concerns. But it's still healthier than before. Same goes with the food that will eventually rot.. I think almost anything will go bad after some amount of time so we've decided that it is a silly rule. And I think that's all. It's been good so far, when we are snacky we eat nuts or fruits or veggies. The hardest part is breakfast. We have yogurt with granola a lot but we need some other quick breakfast ideas... anyone?

We're Crazy About Health!!

As our new years resolution we have decided it is time to be healthy!! Jake first proposed that we should be vegetarians but I vetoed that quickly because I don't eat beans or drink milk, or eat yogurt or cheese often so I would lack in protein immensely. It provoked the thought in my mind to be raw. If you aren't sure what eating raw is it's this (click on the "this"). We thought about it a lot and started to lean very much toward it. And then after much research I got into the nitty gritty of it. Many people go on and on about how healthy it is and how it changed their life blah blah blah, then I began reading review after review of how their energy was just diminished. I quickly researched the pro's and con's of being raw and learned that many of the nutrients of plants come from them being heated to 180 degrees at which point they release many helpful nutrients. My jaw dropped and I decided against being totally Raw. Jessi (Jake's sister) texted me at the perfect time the title of a book she had read? her friend read? something.. Anyways I did some research and found out it was a shorter less scientifically detailed version of a previous book the author had written before. So I bought it on my new kindle fire! and read it from cover to end. I loved it and Jake loved it. We are converted. It is a great way to be healthy without freaking out about health. It has about 64 "rules" that it suggests but I think even if you picked 2 a month to focus on you would be healthier. The book is called Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Micheal Pollan. It's like 10 bucks on amazon and if your news years resolution is to be healthly like majority of America's I recommend this. Now, I am not saying it works, because I just finished reading the book but the rules all seem to be reasonable and like something that is common sense so I think it will work great for Jake and I this semester with a few changes here and there. I did not adopt all of the rules he stated and switched some wording that I liked better but here is what Jake and I are hoping to do in order to be healthier this year and forever. Food Rules 1. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants 2. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food 3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry 4. Avoid food products that contain high fructose corn syrup 5. Sugar is sugar 6. Avoid foods that have some form of sugar or sweetener in the top 3 ingredients. (barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetner, dextrin, dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice, concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, tubinado sugar..) 7. Avoid food products that make health claims 8. Avoid food products with the wordoid lite, low fat, non fat. 9. Avoid foods you see advertised on tv 10. Shop the outsides of the grocery store 11. Eat only foods that will eventually rot (Real food is alive and should eventually die) 12. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature 13. Buy your snacks at the farmers market 14. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans 15. If it came from a plant eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. 16. It’s not food if it is called by the same name in every language 17. Eat mostly plants especially leaves 18. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food 19. Eating what stands on one leg is better than two legs which is better than four legs. 20. Eat your colors!! 21. Drink the spinach water (use the left over water from cooking veggies for sauces or soups) 22. If you have the space buy a freezer 23. Eat organic and local 24. Eat some foods that have been predigested (yogurt, soy sauce, and sourdough bread) 25. Sweeten and salt your food, yourself 26. Don’t drink your sweets 27. Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk 28. The whiter your bread the sooner you’ll be dead (white flour is not much different than sugar) 29. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone ground (olive, sesame, palm fruit, peanut oils) 30. Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook it yourself 31. Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism (processed; chips, packaged foods, etc.) 32. Have a glass of grape juice with dinner 33. Pay more, eat less (better to pay the grocer than the doctor) 34. … eat less 35. Stop eating before you are full (between 67-80 percent full)(ask your elf, is my hunger gone? Not am I full) 36. Eat when your hungry, not when your bored 37. Consult your gut (slow down and pay attention to your body, your eyes are bigger than your stotmach) 38. Eat slowly 39. Put down your fork between bites 40. Buy smaller plates and glasses (you can over eat by 30% with larger dishes, the smaller the dish, the smaller the portion) 41. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds (animals portion shouldn’t be bigger than your fist, don’t eat more in a meal than can fit into both cupped hands, if going back for seconds wait a few minutes first) 42. After lunch sleep a while, after dinner walk a mile 43. Eat meals, not snacks 44. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods 45. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does 46. Do all your eating at a table 47. When eating somewhere other than a table stick to fruits and veggies 48. Try not to eat alone 49. Treat treats as treats 50. “s-rules” no snacks, seconds, or sweets, except on days that begin with the letter s 51. Leave something on your plate 52. Plant a vegetable garden or window box 53. Cook 54. Break the rules once in a while