Today was my first attempt ever to count calories. I’m using www.healthylivingonline.com. It has most foods in it’s system so you choose what you ate or what you will eat and it’ll calculate pretty much everything for you. Today I entered things as I ate to see how many calories I had left. While at school I was estimating what I thought I ate and ended up eating my alotted 1200 calories of the day in only breakfast and lunch. Then when I got home I noticed I messed up on my cereal this morning, and ended up being 500 calories off, giving me calories to use for dinner and a snack of popcorn after small group!

I already went through and entered in what I’ll eat tomorrow, and I have it worked out to eat a snack after each meal, so I’ll get to eat 6 times a day, which is ideal. I’m kinda excited to see how I follow this, and really not looking forward to it at the same time. I’m wanting to quickly finish this so I can go to sleep and put off eating for the night ’cause I’m still hungry.

My Dad has been a huge encouragement with me wanting to be healthy. He is able to limit himself and have amazing self control. Right now, I am really struggling with that. Tim can tell you, I was so whiny about being hungry!

This website also sets up a workout schedule for you of what different activities and days you choose. That looks like it should work really well. I’m mainly just nervous about the food part because I really like to eat!

Tim and I just got back from a quick 2 mile jog, and I just scarfed down some cauliflower. I’ve never eaten a vegetable so hastily, and I’m glad I had it around to eat instead of something else.

Once the snow melted up here (and even when it came back) I started jogging and wanting to kick off my winter pounds I’ve been storing. I was doing pretty good for about a month, even worked my way up to be able to jog 4 miles, which I was very proud of! But then before we went to Belize I got sick, and during the mission trip I didn’t get much exercise, so I had about a month off from working out.

When we got back I was kinda bummed ’cause that was 3 weeks that I had lost with trying to get into shape. So I wanted to give me a kick start this time around and read something to give me more information on nutrition, so I got the book, The Biggest Loser. The show is amazing, so I looked at their website and was reading information, and instead of printing everything off I figured I might as well buy the book. I’m still reading through it, but the thing I’ve tried to implement already is eating a lot more fruits and veggies, and more veggies than fruits.

I figured fruits would be easy to eat, and veggies not too bad, but eating more veggies than fruits is something I mentally have to work on. While Tim and I were jogging our second mile and my stomach started to feel empty I started thinking of all the veggies we bought yesterday, and then was wanting some type of dip to go with it…luckily we didn’t have any. So we got home and I went straight to the fridge and the phone, for the cauliflower and to ask my Mom how to cut up a head of the stuff. I was really impressed with how good the cauliflower tasted (especially since we don’t have dip in the house). I hope it still tastes as good tomorrow when I eat it for a snack and not only after jogging 2 miles.

Wow it has been a while since I have written. Pretty much all of this time has been spent getting ready for Belize. There are a lot of details that go into making this mission trip work that I didn’t realize. Tim has been working on details for a few months now, and I just started a couple weeks ago. All but a handful of our supplies are in. We are having balloon pumps ordered tomorrow that should get in by Wednesday. I just finished the VBS curriculum that we will be using. I took it from the children’s ministry curriculum the church has used and tweaked it to fit our trip.

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat that didn’t go away all day long and turned into something that felt like the flu almost. I was achy all over and felt really weak. Tim preached this morning for Graduation Sunday! I am so proud of him. God did an amazing job through him. I was bummed that I wasn’t feeling well because I was wanting to go in early with him and stay through all the services, but I had to get home to rest. I did go in early to get copies of the VBS curriculum ready to be handed out at the Belize meeting, but then skipped out on the meeting so I could support Tim’s preaching and be there for him.

My day has been pretty uneventful. Tim came home for lunch, we watched some TV, then I took a nap, which I just woke up from at 5:30. I could probably keep on sleeping, but I want to be able to sleep through the night. All I want is to be healthy. Wednesday I am babysitting a friend’s 2 month old which I am really excited about. Hopefully I will be all better in the morning, otherwise I’ll have to cancel on her so I don’t take any chances getting her baby sick. It’d also be helpful to be healthy before we leave for Belize!

Every week for the last 2 months my prayer request at confirmation was that I would get better. Last week my co-teacher suggested that I go see a chiropractor, that they usually have the best way to get over sinuses. One of our boy’s small group leaders is a chiropractor so I found him before leaving last week and asked him about what to do for sinuses, so he suggested a natural herb that will boost my immune system. Tim has been going to the chiropractor the last couple of weeks for his back, so I had him buy what I needed when he went in for his appointment.

I have been taking this stuff for a week now and feel so much better. It feels like I’ve been better for 2 weeks now, I was trying to figure out how long I need to continue taking acidophilus. I was surprised the remember it’s only been one week. I think the last time I felt this healthy was before Thanksgiving. I’ve also been working out regularly for 2 months now which is helping a lot.

My chiropractor’s orders are to take acidophilus for 3 weeks, and to stop taking any other kind of medication. So that’s what I’m doing. Last night before going to sleep I started getting a headache and would normally go for the Tylenol right away, but made my self just sleep, ’cause that is really what my body needed instead.

I have not had a good week. Tuesday I taught a 4th and 5th grade combined class. I felt a little bit under the weather in the morning, and by the time I got home, I went straight to bed. Wednesday I had to cancel my subbing position, and stayed in bed all day. I also had to stay home from confirmation small groups which was a bummer ’cause it was our first time back together after Christmas break. Then Thursday I rested around the house, but was dumb not to take a nap. Today I para subbed in a Kindergarten class, which I survived, but this morning my congestion decided to affect my ear too. I’ve only been stuffed up on the left side of my head, and haven’t been able to hear well in my left ear. The right side of my head feels perfectly fine. Oh I’m ready for it to be gone!

I was sick last weekend and got over that. Then I got really bad congestion to where I couldn’t even sleep at night I was coughing so much. The first night is when I used the Mucinex. Then the second night I tried it again and it didn’t do anything so ended up having to suck on a cough drop while I sleep. That worked, but it also makes me cautious while I sleep ’cause I didn’t want to choke on it. I also am using our huge decorative pillow for our bed to prop myself up, so I’ve slept almost sitting up for the past 3 nights.

I guess I’ve been coughing too much or too hard ’cause yesterday while teaching pre-k my voice started cracking. And we were practicing our Christmas songs for our Christmas program tomorrow, and I sung about every other word ’cause my voice was cracking so much. Luckily we have one of the kid’s grandmas in there doing the music part.

As the day went along my voice cracked more and more and I thought I sounded pretty funny so I didn’t bother resting my voice or anything. We had our Christmas party for my 8th grade girl’s small group, so of course there was a lot of talking then too!

When Tim and I got home we played with his Christmas gift from all of the youth workers. Guitar Hero III, what fun!!! And stayed up way too late (almost 2) playing it. My voice was almost to a whisper by that time.

And now waking up this morning I am totally at a whisper, there is nothing there. I am suppose to work at Hallmark tonight, and I’m a little confused as to how I can do that. I guess I wont be working the register. There are 3 people there ’til almost closing, so that should work. As long as not too many people ask me to help them find something.

I still need to do a little more Christmas shopping, and I need to get something from Hallmark, so I’ll probably go in this morning while the manager is there and see what she says about me working. I hope they let me still work ’cause that would be a real bummer if I can’t ’cause of my voice. We’ll see.

I made it through a whole day of work and I’m okay!
I was pretty tired after teaching pre-k, but I rested (meant to take a nap) by trying to get our Christmas cards out…hopefully they’ll be in the mail tomorrow, otherwise I’ll be sad if they don’t get to people before Christmas. I also did pretty good at Hallmark. I got into a coughing spell so I took a Mucinex, it seems to work and says it’s 12 hours, so hopefully tonight I’ll get a good night’s sleep unlike last night with a lot of coughing until 3:43 when I remembered about Mucinex.

So Pre-K was good. Friday I called in sick, but they did have class, the teacher’s assistant took over for the day. Bless her heart, on top of cooking for the day care she works so hard with the pre-k class too! She is an amazing woman, I should probably get her a thank you card from Hallmark. Going to school today I didn’t know what we would do ’cause I didn’t have the lesson plans for this week ’cause I get those ready on Fridays, and I wasn’t sure if the Assistant did the art project that I had planned for Friday or not. I was good either way ’cause I would’ve done it today and had something for the kids to do, but I’m glad she did it Friday so she wasn’t high and dry. I had talked to her about it Wednesday and she knows where I put the stuff for my class. She really is such a sweet lady! So today I winged it. We cut circles that we will need for our art project on Wednesday, that we were suppose to do today, but no problem. And the kids had Christmas coloring sheets and practiced writing their name on dry erase boards. It’s a life saver having the main part I have to prepare for be centers and they’re mainly self discovery. I’ll have actual things for them to do on Wednesday.

Hallmark went well too. Pretty much all night I just organized and stocked Webkinz. I haven’t even heard of these things until I started work here, but apparently they’re a pretty hot item. Just as hot as Ty Beanies were when I worked at Hallmark in high school. The mall is open until 10 this week before Christmas, so that is late and I was done and ready for bed at 9, but then now here I am at 10:45 blogging. So much for coming home and going straight for bed. I was hungry since I ate dinner at 4:30, so I got a bowl of Ohs and decided to check mail and then I wanted to blog!

Alright, I am super tired now, goodnight!

Well, my business caught up to me. I was afraid it would happen, and it did. I had to call in sick to work yesterday and today. I really hope I’m all better tomorrow.

At first it just started with a sharp pain from my right should blade on my back all the way to my chest in the front, a really weird pain that made it hard for me to breathe. Tim researched online of what it could be, and it just said stress related…which makes since. The youth are having a ski trip and there was an adult in the church asking Tim if someone paid his way to go on the trip if he would…and of course he would, that would just mean 4 days of us being apart from each other, and that totally stresses me out thinking about that. I would hate for him to pass up the opportunity to go on the youth ski trip if someone makes it possible for him to go. So Wednesday night I didn’t sleep well ’cause every time I would wake up all I could think of is what I would do without Tim for 4 days, just doesn’t sound like fun unless I could fly to Texas, but we don’t have the money. I only have about $60 saved up from my blow money.

Then in the morning Tim told me that his brother Dan invited us to go to Duluth on vacation with them, but we’re in debt and getting out of it, so we don’t have money to do that either, so that stressed me out that we’re missing out on all the fun they will have together. Our reason for moving up here was to be a part of things like that and get to hang out with his brothers more, but right now that’s not possible. Big let down! So then the stress really set in. I told Tim it’d be so much easier if I wasn’t so eager for us to get to spend time with his brothers. They see each other all the time going to the same church and only being about 20 minutes from each other. We see them more than if we were in a different state, it just feels like we don’t do a lot with them since they’re always together.

Thursday I didn’t get a subbing job, which was probably good ’cause that’s when my sharp pain started. I worked at Hallmark in the evening, but then I started feeling light headed and my throat started hurting. I finished up the evening, but by morning I was feeling completely weak and sore all over. So I called in sick for work at the Preschool and Hallmark. And that makes me feel worst ’cause I hate letting people down. I called into Hallmark sick again today, which I hate even more – 2 days in a row! But I know if I went in I would probably get even more sick ’cause I don’t have the strength. So tomorrow I am really praying that I am better ’cause I hate being sick, I want to be healthy again!

I had the opportunity to sub every day this week. They were all para-sub positions instead of substitute teaching. I made the mistake of taking the first position that showed up online (which is usually a para-position) and later found out that when I do that I cannot see when another position (such as teaching) becomes available at the same time to trade out. So I learned that lesson! Plus para-subbing pays a lot less than substitute teaching. But God did some good things through my misunderstanding. I was able to talk with a couple teachers at different schools that are struggling or confused in their faith, so that made the week completely worth it. I was also able to see how teachers run their classrooms instead of going into a classroom blindly for substitute teaching, now I have a better idea how the classrooms in the district go, especially since I was in 3 different schools this week.

I have been fighting a sore throat all day today. Yesterday while working in a Kindergarten classroom I was talking to a student when they coughed in my face while my mouth was open! Yuck! So now today I haven’t been feeling that great. Tim claims it’s because we turned the heater on for the first time last night. So I’m drinking my Throat Comfort by Yogi Tea. And tonight I will also turn our humidifier on. Tim and I also put flannel sheets on our bed! I am so excited to sleep in those! I did get my assignment for today until this morning. I got one call at 5:30 to start at 7:30, but I really wasn’t feeling well then. So at 8:10 I got another call to go to a different school at 9:00. I was feeling a little better, so I went in for that one. By the end of the day I was feeling a lot worst though.

Oh! And good news. Thursday while subbing a teacher mentioned that the district had more Learning Resource Teacher positions open than people to apply for them and recommended me looking into it, so I called the district office yesterday and left a message about it, and received a call today from one of the elementary principals and set up an interview for Monday! How exciting! That would be nice to have a set group of kids that I see each day and get to watch their progress. I have a lot to do this weekend to prepare for that interview. Before that though I need to get some rest and feel better!