Only 24 hours

Time. We all have the same amount and yet we never feel like we have enough. I started a new job three weeks ago. I am working full time for the first time in 4 years. I was able to work part time previously as I was going to school. I had been hoping that with my AAS in Early Education I could get a good paying full time job, not so much. Even though my pay dropped with the additional hours I am making more then I was at my part time job. It is not my favorite job but it is in the field I love so that is enough for now.

Working full time is exhausting and definitely fills my day. However now I want to get my BA in Early Education. The problem? Can I handle this much to do in a day/week. I have always struggled in the past with working full time and going to school. I don't want to go and then drop out. I want to succeed and with that I need to be aware of my history with school.

Right now I am looking into Ottawa University. They offer online classes and they are 8 week courses which is exactly what I want. There is a discount because I graduated from a Maricopa Community College. If I go full time it will take 2 years but full time is a lot of work. Plus I will have the student teaching I will need to do. Which reminds me I need to find out how long those are.

At work I don't get a break. I work 8 hours straight through, which yes is legal here in AZ. This means I don't really have a lunch break. Sometimes I eat with the kids but not always as I float from room to room right now. This means that I am not always in a room when they are eating lunch. Breakfast is usually on the go. Sometimes I do the Ideal Shakes and other times I grab a granola bar or two to eat. My Fitbit (pedometer) shows I am walking over 10K steps a day now. I have doubled to tripled my steps from before. This is all good but I am not really loosing weight. I end up snacking during the day and then binging at night. So I make up my calories and then some everyday. I am hoping that for the fall I will be placed in a classroom making a regular schedule for me. I should find out next week and then figure out a better eating schedule from there.

So that is what is up with me lately. Busy, busy, and may get busier soon.

Something New

So here I go again. Another attempt to shed the unwanted pounds. I have tried a million things before and none have really worked. I have been working on myself through Celebrate Recovery and other small groups I attend. With school, work, and a mission trip to Belize I have been so overwhelmed that my weight was not at the forefront of my mind. Now school is done, I am back from Belize, a week with my sister's family visiting is past and now I feel like it is time. Time to take a new step toward having a healthier body.

I know what you are thinking, what interesting (gimmicky) thing is she going to try this time? Glad you asked. For at least a year maybe longer I have been using protein powders and meal replacement powders off and on. It is easy and provides the nutrients that I need. Plus I am always on the go and these are fast and portable. Nature's Bounty has a new line called Optimal Solutions. This includes a shake mix in either chocolate or vanilla. I went through two containers of this. It tastes good but I can't get the powder to fully mix in. I normally use a blender bottle but also tried a mixer. I would say 98% of the powder mixes in but the other two percent stays in small chunks. I did buy a second bottle so it's not to annoying but something I noticed. I did run into a problem that it made me gassy. I am slightly lactose intolerant so I suspect it was the lactose but I don't know for sure. Concerned about lactose I bought a Naturade Total Soy meal replacement. I bought a large bag from Sam's Club in chocolate. This is good but it is very thick. I often add extra milk to thin it out. With both I use my soy vanilla milk.

As you know I am always looking for the next "fix" to this weight problem. Though some internet research I came across two shake based programs; ViSalus and Ideal Shape. Each use their shake as the base of their program and then provide additional products to supplement it. ViSalus provides only a vanilla powder and then with their kits include flavors that you can add to your shake. They have many supplements but the one I was thinking about is a hunger blocker pill. Many reviewers I saw recommended having these in addition. Ideal Shape has shakes in both vanilla and chocolate and their shake has hunger blocker included in the powder. They also focus on not just the food but on the mental aspect and their kits include hypnosis cd's. I have tried hypnosis in the past with no success so when comparing the two I did not include this aspect.

The cost of ViSalus is more expensive per month and from my research they have a  larger following then Ideal Shape. However through much online research it appears that Ideal Shape tastes better. In addition Ideal Shape leaves you fuller without having to take an added pill. Still the cost seemed high so I was hesitant and continued to look around. The internet, trying to be helpful, kept advertising GNC Total Lean products to me. So I went to see what they had to offer and how they compared. They have the shakes in over ten flavors. They also have hunger blocker pills to take as well. Checking reviews people seemed to find success using these products. The most interesting thing about the Total Lean is on their web site. It encourages you to take a Total Lean Challenge and then to find your plan. You put in your basic body type information and then it gives you a meal plan. No where on the meal plan does it tell you to use their product! Who does that? I figured the point was to get me to use your products but instead you are laying out a plan of healthy foods for me to eat. I love that!

So which did I select? I went with Ideal Shape. I bought a 60 day supply and included I have two hypnosis cd's that I will use as they lay out in their plan. I was shocked by how fast the products came but why wait right? I decided to also supplement it with a couple of GNC Total Lean products. First is a CLA pill that helps cut fat faster, specifically targeting the stomach area. The other product is their Pre-Diet Cleanse. It is a liquid that I drink four times a day between meals for two days.

I started the Pre-Diet Cleanse yesterday and am continuing it through today. I am supposed to only eat fruits and vegetables during the 48 hours so I am trying my best. Yesterday I started out with a strawberry smoothy for breakfast, had hummus and pita chips for lunch, and then dinner was a modge podge including a salad, cherries, and a cucumber. The drink isn't too bad. I mix 4 oz of the product with 4 oz of water. It has a citrus flavor but because it separates and I because I am supposed to drink it slowly the last gulp is usually the worst. At this point I haven't really noticed it do anything but will continue throughout today as well.

Tomorrow I will start my Ideal Shape plan. I decided that I want to try and replace two please with shakes and have a sensible dinner. The shakes are not many calories so I will include healthy snacks in between meals as well. I will try to keep you updated on how this all goes.

To Daydream

          I love to daydream. To let my mind wander to alternate paths for my life. To envision a life that I will not lead, like a fairy tale. This is how I come up with my NaNoWriMo stories in November. An idea that started as a daydream becomes words on the page. This week I have been daydreaming.

            This week reality has been hard. My church family lost two members this week. One to a freak accident while changing his breaks, something I have done many times before myself. The other to a battle with cancer. I knew both in passing but I was not close to them. However all week I have seen the pain that my circle of friends have been going through. The stories and pictures the post or talk about. It is a reminder of how fragile we are and how we never know when our time is up.

            For me I pull away from reality. I make up stories about the life I wish I was living. Dreams of marriage and children; now they even include ways of helping or living in Belize. As I sat in church tonight worshiping and praying I found myself kneeling at the feet of Christ and He didn’t want to hear a story. No, He wanted to hear my heart. To know how I felt and what I was going through. He didn’t want to hear about some fake version of myself but from the Angela He had created.

            As I drove home I tried to think again back to the story in my head but I couldn’t. See the reality is I hurt because my friends are mourning the loss of their friends. I am confused about what is next with work and fear that I will not join the right company. I hate that I am not getting the hours I thought I would over the summer and that now I feel rushed to find something else to help me pay my bills.

            It is okay to daydream, I am sure I will do it again in the not too off future. Doing it instead of feeling how I am feeling or instead of taking my emotions to Christ is not what I should be doing. 

Update

A couple days ago, on the 12th, I turned 31. I actually feel like I belong in a new category now. I am definitely don't feel in my twenties anymore. Of course it wasn't an overnight thing but more of a gradual change. I didn't really do anything for my birthday, free breakfast at Denny's on the 12th and dinner at Red Lobster with myself on the 13th. In a couple weeks I will go up to Prescott for a day and then the next day go up to Flagstaff to see a friend that just moved up there. 

Life is so hectic right now. I am in the final seven weeks of my associates degree. I am doing an internship, work, and three classes on top of that. In addition I am working on crafts for a craft fair for Belize and my roommates are changing. It is a lot!

Belize: Right now I have 40% funding! Praise the Lord!! But I still need 60%, close to $1000 more. So if you can help I would really appreciate your support. www.gofundme.com/20zyrg I am also posting updates here as I go along if you would like to check them out. We are doing a craft fair at my church after the Saturday service and both Sunday services the weekend of April 13th and 14th. We also got a spot at the Central Farmers Market for Saturday March 30th. I have been working on crafts including elastic hair bands, three flower head wreaths, and 10 paintings. Two of them are big but most of them are small so they didn't take forever but they are time consuming. I made all of these with the church craft fair in mind but with the addition of the Farmers Market I want to do a few more paintings. I do worry that I am going to take all this time and then they won't sell. I will end up with a wall of art after this. The only really bad part of this is the money that I am spending on the crafts, I need to make enough to at least cover the cost of making everything. So if you make any crafts and would be willing to donate them for me to sell that would be awesome as well. If you want to see the art I have made so far it is on my facebook page. 

Roommates: I currently live with my older brother and his wife. They will close on a house tomorrow and over the next week they will move out and my younger brother and his fiancé will move in. I get along with both of my brothers and sister-in-law's just as well. So it in itself is not a problem. But it is still a little weird having half the house in boxes. I have to replace, or try to find in my boxes a few random things like a toaster, spatula's, a router, etc. Oh, and apparently I only own one spice and now the spice cabinet is empty. All of the flour, sugar, and other baking items are also my brother's. It is a little weird that I am not moving but I need to buy a few things as if I was just moving somewhere. I keep feeling the need to make changes myself to my area. I have wanted to make changes for awhile but of course I need to wait till I get a full time job and can pay for the stuff I want with cash not credit. This should not change just because my brothers are moving but it definitely makes the desire to buy new stuff greater. At this point I have rationalized myself down to just wanting to get a new mattress while my dad has a trailer in town. I can't figure out how old my mattress is, I know it is not new by any means. I have a lot of sleeping issues. I have mentioned before that I take melatonin to help me fall asleep. I wonder if part of my problem is my mattress. So I don't know. I still can't decide. 

Internship: 80 hours in 12 days over three weeks = Exhausted. Teacher is going to observe me on day 10 and I am supposed to be the lead teacher. This seems crazy to me and yes I am totally nervous that I will have no control over the class when she comes. Five days left.

School: There is not much to say about this. I am done. I don't want to do any more school work. I feel so done with it. Sometimes I consider going straight to my BA but really I know there is now way I could do more school work after this semester. I will of course push through and get it done but I do not want to anymore. 

Stuffed

I, for as long as I can remember, have overeaten. Eaten continuously until I am stuffed and then past that. I don't know when it changed but I don't really do that anymore. Don't get me wrong I definitely overeat. I go over my calories and eat to much but I do not eat to the extent that my stomach is in pain. For my birthday I went with my dad to a Chinese buffet. I was good about eating only a little bit of different things. If I didn't like something I didn't continue eating it. I was pretty good about stopping when I was getting full and just grabbed a couple small desert items when I saw crab legs.

I have recently watched the first eight seasons of Deadliest Catch. Since I started watching I wanted to try actual crab legs. I had not had the chance until this moment. So I put down my dessert plate and grabbed two crab legs. I needed help from dad on how to get to the meat of the legs. Honestly it was a little weird at first to eat it. Knowing that I had just seen many live crabs and it is different since it the actual leg. This of course was just a momentary lapse and I enjoyed my crab. I don't think this will become a regular thing as I prefer someone else to do the hard work of getting the crab out of the legs for me.

All this to say that I ate way to much. My stomach felt really full and it was very uncomfortable. We had to stop at Home Depot quickly and felt so uncomfortable walking around so full. Tonight I went out to Red Lobster. A meal by myself for my birthday, a time of reflection and thought. The last time I went I way overate. It has been many months, I don't remember when, and I regretted it the moment I did it. Today I didn't do that. I ate till I was full and I stopped. There were still shrimp and lobster on my plate but I did not finish it just finish it. It wasn't until after the waiter took my plate that I had connected this. That I had no interest in overeating to the point of pain. I think this is a huge accomplishment.

Correction: Mission Trip Support Letter

CORRECTION: The link had 2 letters switched I have corrected the link. www.gofundme.com/20zyrg

The following is a support letter I sent out to family and friends. I wanted to also share this with you to let you know more about what I am doing this year. 

            I have the exciting opportunity to go to Gales Point, Belize this year with my church. From April 27^th to May 5^th my team will travel with two goals in mind. The first is to complete a revitalization project. This will include improvements to the local school as well as cleaning yards and homes. Second we will take 30 women, who regularly attend the local church group, on a three day women’s retreat. Throughout the week we will focus on spending time with the community, sharing our faith and praying with villagers.

            I am writing to ask you to prayerfully consider joining our team through your support.  First, please partner with me in praying for the people we will be serving, for my health and effectiveness as a team member, and for the many details of this trip.

Second, before I go I have to raise my own support. The cost is $1800 and I need your help. For airfare and lodging it will cost $1000. The additional $800 will go toward the project as well as food and lodging for 30 women on a nearby island Caye Caulker. Will you be one of my financial sponsors by giving towards my trip?

If you would like to join the team as a sponsor you can make an online donation at www.gofundme.com/20zyrg . Any amount is appreciated and will help, no matter how small. Any contributions I collect beyond $1800 will go to additional group-wide mission trip expenses.

Over the next few months please pray that God would keep us safe on our journey, the group would work well together and God would prepare the hearts of those who we will share with in Gales Point.

I look forward to doing God's work and letting you know all about how He has worked in me and through this team when we return. Thank you for your prayers and support.

God Bless

Belize

I feel like I never stop moving. This is my fourth week as an intern in a 2 year old room. It is going great. Everyone thinks that I am a natural and this is the age I should stick with. I love the kids but I feel like I am a little more structured then this age group. Everything is just so free flowing and the schedule is so loose. I understand exactly why they do it, it is necessary. So it is not my favorite but if offered a job in this age group I would totally take it.

In addition to this I have been working and doing other classes. I can't say I have no free time but I feel like I am constantly busy. I keep meaning to blog but I feel like I never have time. So I have totally exciting news I am going to go on a mission trip to Gales Point, Belize April 27th to May 5th with my church. Many years ago a couple from my church went down there and lived for a year helping start a church. The church has grown and flourished, the pastor is from the village. Last year and then again this year we are doing a women's retreat and men's retreat for the village. My group will be going down for a week and spending the first half doing a project, probably helping the school they have. Then for the second half we will take 30 women to a nearby island on a retreat. We will plan break out sessions where each of us will have a verse to talk on. I am pretty excited!

Now the tricky part. First, the cost $1800 per person. That is a lot of money. Most of the money is actually to cover the cost of taking the women on the retreat. I am living very carefully with my budgeting so I am not really going to put much toward the trip. We are having fundraisers and I will send out sponsor letters to ask others to help me with the cost. I trust that God knows where every penny will come from. I am being pretty good so far about when I want to go out to eat reminding myself that I am trying to save money for the trip and not eating out. I have eaten lots of ramen noodles and protein bars for the cause.

The second concern I had was about school. My online classes end on April 27th. If you remember from above that is the same day that we fly to Belize. I had been mostly concerned with this but the Lord has given me peace about it. I had two classes ending that day but I was able to move things around and now it is only one. Then I found out more details about the class ending that day and it appears that the big project for the class is due the week before and the last week I just review how the process went or something to that effect. So now I am pretty calm about all that. If I wanted to walk in an actual ceremony it would cost $25 and be on May 8th. I don't really want to. People keep asking me why and so after some thought I think it is because it is like the production of wedding but not as cool. I have wait in lines and crowds and my friends and family would have to wait around too for the ceremony to start and park far away and then all of us would have to listen to boring speeches that nobody cares about and all that all for my name to be called and to walk across a stage for something that I am going to get if I walk across the stage or not. My high school graduation was boring and I don't see that my college graduation is any better (especially after it took 13 years!) So I figure instead of cards or time I will ask people to support my trip to Belize because it's kind of what I am doing for graduation instead.

Last weekend we had a fundraiser at the church. We sold items for the "Big Game." I baked a million cookies, ok like 9 dozen.  I also made honey almonds, spicy almonds, and a snack mix. It took a day and a half. We also had home made salsa, football shaped cookies, bean deep, brownies, home made fudge, rice krispe treats, and home made fluff dip.  In total we made about $800 due to some very generous people at the church. Right now we have nine people going, the number may still change, so that is like $80 a person. So I kind of only have to raise $1720 more, kind of.

Well I should be working on my sponsor letter or homework instead of blogging right now so I should probably get to it.