Menu Planning

Alright. So now that I'm all moved in to my own apartment and I have pots and pans I have no excuse. It's time to get a handle on the way I eat at home. I have created a menu plan and a grocery list and am planning to hit the grocery store after work this afternoon. This is my plan. I'm going to try to take pictures and maybe post some of my masterpieces. We'll see. No promises. But here's what we're having this week:

• Tuesday: Salmon Patties, baked asparagus with balsamic butter and angel hair pasta with herb sauce
• Wednesday: Crockpot beef stroganoff over egg noodles with salad
• Thursday: Crockpot Swiss Chicken Casserole
• Friday: Crockpot Pot Roast with potatoes, carrots and green salad
• Saturday: Tuna Noodle Casserole
• Sunday: Roast on Toast (leftovers)

I think that looks pretty good for my first attempt at menu planning. Now I've just gotta follow through and execute the plan. I'll let you know how I do. Wish me luck!

What a Weekend

Dontcha just love it when Monday rolls around and you feel like the weekend was more like a weekextension? And the sad thing is, it really wasn't a bad weeked. It was just busy and full.

Friday
-Work
-Pre-marital counselling
-Dinner at Red Lobster, thanks to a raffle Matt won. (I was good, I had grilled fish and more broccoli than I ever want to see again in my life.)

Saturday
-Bridesmaid dress shopping with Amanda Jo
-Lunch at Chickfila
-Quick stop at Aldi, where I discovered I didn't have any quarters, so I couldn't rent a buggy
-Read 6 chapters of the book we were assigned for pre-marital counselling
-Dinner with Matt's family
-Hanging out at the Mauk's

Sunday
-Church in the morning
-Lunch with friends
-Walmart run, to return duplicate Christmas gifts
-Home, to clean up living room and kitchen
-Grocery store
-Made dinner for a friend while she let me use her laundry room
-Played MarioKart and Pit while waiting for clothes to dry (at 11:00pm)

And then up again at 6:40 this morning to get to school on time. I believe Darryl Worley put it best in his song, "I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life."

It's so good to know that in the midst of the craziness, God is in control. Happy Monday, everyone!

Verdict? Guilty

An interesting thing has happened to me in the last few weeks. I've begun reading my Bible almost every day, following a reading plan that my Bible study group is doing. It's been longer than I'd care to admit since I've read my Bible on a daily basis, so I am really excited with the consistency I've so far achieved. I know it's gotta be God making this important to me. And I love knowing that He is enabling me to do what He's called me to do.

But that's not the thing that gets me the most. To tell you what that is, I've got to tell you what happened last Wednesday night at praise team practice.

Basically, I got into an arguement with one of the other ladies on the team. We argued about who was right about a certain part of a song and when I didn't agree with her she said, "Well, Allison, I guess you just know everything," and turned away from me. I knew I should've let it go, but I let my temper take over and I sarcastically replied, "Yeah, I do. Thanks for noticing." This led to more unpleasantness on the part of both parties and I left church that night feeling angry and insulted.

Trying to sleep that night, I kept replaying the argument over in my head, trying to convince myself that I was right. During the next few days, I managed to keep the incident out of my head while I was out in public with other people, but at home, or when I was trying to read my Bible, I kept going back to this spat I'd had with a sister in Christ. I couldn't concentrate on what I was reading, and I kept thinking about how I could've avoided the whole mess if I'd just squashed my pride and quietly thanked her for her advice and then even more quietly, ignored it. Instead, I chose to lash out and be rude and disrespectful. And I was feeling convicted about it!!!

It may seem strange to be excited about conviction, but that conviction is a sign of life! It's a sign that God is working in my heart to mold me into the woman that He has called me to be! And even though I had to swallow my pride and go to my fellow team member and tell her that I was sorry I'd disrespected her, I rejoiced! I realized that, in doing so, I was overcoming my own selfish nature and following Christ.

How cool to see conviction in such a positive light. Yay, God! :-D

Four Letter Word

Welp, it's time to jump on the wagon. The dreaded DIET wagon, that is.

I bought my wedding dress a few weeks ago. It's absolutely gorgeous, and it fits almost perfectly. "Almost" is the key word. It's just a smidge too tight around my tummy and I have now realized that I simply cannot afford to gain any weight at all between now and June. And since I've been steadily, albeit slowly, gaining weight almost constantly over the last two years, I need to put a stop to the madness.

My plan is to cut back my daily calorie intake (nixing my carb intake the most) by trying the SPecial K thing; eat regular, planned meals and snacks so I don't go diving into the ice cream container when I get home or running by the golden arches on my way to church; begin exercising at the gym 3 days a week and doing Pilates at home on the days that I don't go to the gym, minus Sunday.

I think it's a good plan. I've got a work out buddy for my days at the gym, and my computer is cued up to some pictures I took two years ago when I weighed 50lbs less than I do now. I' m just praying I can stay strong.

I've never done this before, and I think that the key to success is going to be changing my mindset, reshaping the way I view eating. I need to stop eating because I'm bored, or eating just because it tastes good. I think that realizing those things just might be the first step in making better nutritional choices.

Wish me luck!

Metamorphosis

Hello all! I hope you're having a happy Wednesday. Mine's been kinda crazy, but when you work at an elementary school, pretty much every day is kinda crazy. :-)

I wanted to take a moment or two to address the new look and blog name.

When I started this blog, I was getting ready to embark upon an adventure in my life. This blog was a way to stay connected with my friends and family as I spent the summer travelling and working at several youth camps and doing mission work in Honduras. "living loudly in the light of the Truth" was exactly what I was doing at that time in my life.

That was 2 years ago. Today, I am settled in a job that I love, I'm engaged to be married to a wonderful man in June, I'm about to be 24 years old and my life has quieted down a bit. This season of my life is one of growth and change. As a believer, I know that God will forever be changing and molding me into a woman after His heart, and this season is just the beginning of the changes that He will bring. Hence my new title: "Metamorphosis". Rather than running from and being scared of the changes that are coming, I want to embrace the things to which Christ is calling me.

This is only the beginning.

Mawage

The Princess Bride... I so love this movie. But that's not why I posted the clip.
For those of you who don't know yet, I'm getting MARRIED!!! My fiance is a wonderful man who loves God and loves me and I cannot express how blessed I feel when I am with him.

We've set the date for June of this year, but haven't signed a contract with the church or anything like that, so I guess I have to say that the date isn't set in stone yet. So far, I've purchased my dress and chosen my color scheme, picked out bridemaids dresses, and decided what I'm going to give as bridemaids' gifts. Which means I've got a long way to go of this thing is going to come together before June. Eek!

I have never been the kind of girl who dreamt endlessly about her wedding. (I was more concerned with the groom!) Since meeting Matt and getting more involved with him, I've started thinking more about the big event and how I'd like it to come together and look, but my ideas changed and I never wrote anything down, so I never really got a complete picture in my head. So now I've got to put this thing together and to be honest, I feel like I' have no idea what I'm doing! My budget is tiny, and I'm thankful for that, because I wouldn't know what to do with anything bigger.

Point in case, I've got a little less than 6 months to plan a simple, beautiful, meaningful and frugal wedding, without losing my mind. HELP!!! :-)