I'M HOME!

There is something entirely joyful about being home after having to stay away for so long. The road opened at noon today, and Josh & I lost no time in getting here this evening. I felt like I had conquered something as I drove home beside the beautiful river.

Or, as Josh's Uncle Tommy said earlier as he drove along, "I feel like I won a prize."

It's great. We're so excited, and I want to give a shout out to the great TDOT crews that have pieced our road back together, and made it safe for us once more.

WooHoo!

I'm accustomed to eating more.

I've read the books, perused the magazines, listened to the talk shows, even gone to a few Weight Watchers classes. I know that most Americans consume food portion sizes that are too large for their dietary needs.

I know this. But did I truly KNOW? Josh is working on losing weight to help obtain a healthier blood pressure, and since he is being food conscious, I am jumping on the bandwagon with him. I've gained my pre-wedding weight back, and I want to remove it again, and keep it off. Weight loss is a lifestyle choice, and over the past year my lifestyle has been lazy and indulgent.

Now, I'm not going overboard. You won't see me counting points or removing all carbs from my diet, or anything like that. Honestly, I never survive those types of things. But, you might hear me talk about more exercise, not eating late in the day, and reaching for an apple instead of a Fudge Round.

Today, I participated in reading labels at the grocery store. Josh is watching out for sodium. Not because he necessarily has to, but he knows it does affect blood pressure. It's startling how much sodium is in the food we eat. Many fast food meals contain half to over a daily amount of the recommended sodium intake.

I enjoy food too much. The main attraction for me & Josh when we go to Disney -- our breakfast, lunch, & dinner reservations. The topic in the car on the way home from work -- What's for dinner? I think about food a lot, and for good reason. Prepared the right way, it's delicious!

And, anything in moderation can be okay. But, my shocker for the afternoon is what I consider to be moderation, and what the nutrition label is telling me is moderation. Salsa is not too bad in the realm of things to eat; it's low in calories, fat, & carbs. It's only trouble is the sodium included in a lot of the store bought brands. And, of course, I like to eat it on tortilla chips, which obviously aren't as healthy. So, I go to make myself a snack, I decide to eat the recommended serving, and I decide to use our electronic food scale to figure out how much 33 g of salsa really is (about 2 TBSP). That 2 TBSP has 250 mg of sodium. Recommended for me would be about a maxium 2300 mg of sodium daily, and for someone with high blood pressure it's more like 1500 mg. After measuring out 33 mg, I looked at the nearly empty bowl, and I thought to myself, "Really? That's it?" And I thought about the restaurants where I eat much, much more of that when I'm waiting for my quesadilla, taco, or other Mexican treat to come out from the kitchen.

So, my lesson learned for this weekend is that I need to not just glance at the nutrition label, but actually ponder what it is telling me, because I might just be accustomed to eating more. I am going to have to program myself to actually eat in moderation, and not just think I am.

A break between tasks

T-minus 13 days until the road home reopens, and I am hoping that a combination of a lighter course load at school this summer, and also the ability to do chores at home every night, might actually allow me more time for the blog. Right now my down time is taken up by homework, jewelry making, cleaning/organizing/packing, and sometimes just resting.

So, I'll take a moment in between weekend-at-home tasks to update you one what's been happening with us over the past few weeks.

We took the cats to the vet yesterday to get their annual vaccinations. About $90 later, we left with them "safe" for another year, and we also had an answer to the strangeness below.

Isis' ears have not always has a natural curve to them. About 2-3 months ago we noticed that they were starting to turn back. She is about 7 years old, and we attributed it to age, and possibly the cartilage breaking down. Unfortunately, we were wrong. It's skin cancer, but the EXTREMELY GOOD NEWS is that it is completely manageable. It's not bothering her, it's just on the tips, and it shouldn't spread....as long as we put strong sunscreen on her ears every day.

So, one of our new daily routines in the morning will be to hold her down and lather her ears with sunscreen. Annoying, but fortunately she is our most docile cat, and so far she hasn't put up too much of a struggle. According to the vet, cats who spend a lot of time outdoors or who like to sleep in windows (such as Isis does) can risk an overexposure to the sun. You can't notice so much in the picture, but the outside tips of her ears are a pale pink with not much hair on them, so she has practically bare skin exposed. It's the earliest stage of skin cancer, and we can prevent it from doing anything else. Cats with advanced forms of this cancer will actually have the ears slowly eaten away. We won't let that happen to her.

In other news, the change in weather has me switching out my winter clothes for spring/summer clothes.
And, just so they wouldn't feel left out, here's the precious Athena, and the needy Homer (who wanted me to pet him instead of taking his picture for the blog).

A couple of weekends back we took down the Christmas decorations. Yes, I said Christmas. But, we've been home so few days since Christmas that I had to wait until my homework load was light over Spring Break so that we could get it done.

On the same weekend we got a new coffee table. It is a refinished old factory push cart from Cleveland Chair. We think it goes great with our decor.

Back to this weekend, Josh has done a great job of feeding us. (I made the fries.)

Anybody watched Food Wars? Or Man vs Food? If you have, you might recognize the hamburger concoction.

We had a Juicy Lucy this weekend, made by my wonderful husband. It's two thin hamburger patties encompassing American cheese. So, when it's cooked, you bite into the hamburger and a molten cheese core erupts from inside. Absolutely delicious.

No pictures, but other news from this week have been mine & Josh's injuries. He hurt his back last weekend helping his Uncle Tommy move some furniture. And, I managed to fall not once, but twice this week. No, I'm not having dizzy or weak spells, I'm really just that clumsy. My right ankle has turned twice this week, and I now am wearing a brace until the muscles have recovered. Josh's back is doing better, but it is still bothering him some. I'm mostly recovered, but just watching my step. :)

Well, I've taken enough of a break from my weekend chores. Josh & I walked 5 laps down the driveway and back and around the house (to equal a little over a mile), and now I need to get back to that stack of clothes waiting to go into my dresser. We have some bread baking in the bread maker, and Josh is going to make a chicken alfredo rotini veggie dish in a little bit.

I hope you all enjoy your Easter weekend!

I'm still here.

How I miss them when we're not here!

A picture from home...one of our snowy weekends. Isn't God amazing? I'm so glad when I can capture a little bit of nature in pictures.

It's a busy semester. Just wanted you to know I'm still out around! Just chipping away at work, school, & 1 hour 45 minute drives home on the weekends. March 31st will be here before we know it, and then HOPEFULLY the road will be finished, and we can be home every night.

I miss my kitties!

This weekend seems so far away, and I am so ready to get back to the cabin after being away from it for fifteen days. The weather was so bad this past weekend that we couldn't go home, which is why we spent Saturday in Chattanooga. I'm pining away for our three little felines who have not been loved on in such a long time. Josh's Papaw is so kind to check on them on occasion, and this past weekend he changed their water, filled their food dishes, and changed their litter. They will be VERY NEEDY when we do make it home.

Unfortunately, that will be Saturday afternoon instead of Friday evening. My standardized test got moved to this upcoming Saturday morning (because of last weekend's weather). I'll be glad to have it out of the way and move on to other things.

I start school tomorrow at Lee, and I'm looking forward to beginning my master's, but I'm not exactly looking forward to classes. I have School Law, Assessment of Student Learning, Middle Grade Foundations, & Technology in the Classroom. All in all, that amounts to 9 hours of graduate level classes. SO....if you don't see me on here often, then you know I'm balancing work, school, and family. I think I will enjoy other semesters much more after this one. It will be an informative semester.

I've had requests for more Disney pictures, so here they are!

We went to Beaches & Cream at the Beach Club Resort with Chris, Tricia, & Miley, and we shared....bum, bum, ba dum...

A Kitchen Sink!

It was delicious, and a fun experience. Look at this video on YouTube for a video of one being made if you are curious what all is in there.

The Kitchen Sink.

Stuffing my face.
All gone! It took 4 adults & a 2 year old.
Here's a size comparison. (That's a serving spoon.)
Beaches & Cream
That's about it for now. It's almost time for my nightly Bible reading. I've been visiting with Job for the past few nights, and I'm about ready for him to be healed! lol. At least he comes near the beginning of the chronological Bible so I get finished early. Reading Job has helped me not to pity party too much over the Hwy 64 finish date extension. I've been focusing on the positive and thanking God that I don't have do drive an extra hour each day every night.

Think warm...

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy! Read through to the bottom of the post to find out where this yummy goodness comes from!

Although I'm not wishing for spring yet, I am wishing for temperatures above freezing. I had time at "home" today since I'm off on Fridays, plus the center I would normally substitute at was closed today, and in addition I needed to get some studying done.

So part of my day today I decided to look through some Disney pictures to share with you.

This was from the very beginning of our trip to Disney back in November. This is the view from the Grand Floridian beach.

The entrance.

Me in front of their HUGE gingerbread house.

What's included in their gingerbread house.

Their Christmas tree in the lobby.

Pretty landscaping with poinsettas & white light deer.

A full view of the gingerbread house.

When we arrived in Disney the day after Thanksgiving, we headed straight to the Grand Floridian for our reservations at The Grand Floridian Cafe. We looked around for a while, and then we had a great lunch. Josh had the Cobb Salad - Diced Turkey, Bacon, Avocado, Bleu Cheese, Eggs, Chives and Tomatoes on Shredded Lettuce. I had the Grand Sandwich - Open-faced hot Turkey, Ham, Bacon and Tomato, with a rich Boursin Cheese Sauce and Fried Onion Straws. Our food was delicious, and our sodas were quite yummy too. They had added some kind of fruit syrup, like cherry, to them, and I loved it. Here's a link to the lunch menu.

Afterwards we checked into the resort, which I'll post more pictures of another day. I posted a few a while back. That night we ate dinner at Tony's in Magic Kingdom.

Now that I've taken a trip through warm Florida memories, I focus again on the present. They announced today that Josh & I will have until the end of March before we get to be home every night. Although that makes me exceptionally sad because we will be away from our bed much longer, and our cats are going to be even lonelier, the very good news is that during my night classes this semester I will be living in Cleveland, and won't have far to drive home.

Classes start next Wednesday, and I'll have 9 hours of master's classes. I'll be taking School Law, Middle Grade Foundations, Assessment of Student Learning, & Technology in the Classroom. Honestly, I'm not overly excited about taking any of these classes, but I know they are very necessary, and I will definitely be soaking up lots of information.

I'm going to spend time with Josh now. We were supposed to get up early tomorrow to go to UTC for me to take a standardized test tomorrow, but it has been postponed for the weather. We're still planning on a trip to Chattanooga. We're going to PF Chang's for lunch, Sam's, Hollister (Josh needs cologne), Victoria's Secret, & possibly a Goodwill or Samaritan's Purse secondhand store. I think I'm most excited right now about The Great Wall of Chocolate. Thus, the picture at the beginning of the post. It's not my picture, but it does a great job of capturing the deliciousness that will be touching our lips & tastebuds tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

Amidst pictures I need to post and words that have yet to be written, I figured it best not to put off blogging because I haven't found the time to catch up, but I should at least try to focus on the present and touch on the past when I get the chance.

As it is a new year, and I am looking ahead at the many adventures and challenges that 2010 holds, I'm reminded of a quote from Walt Disney (If it looks familiar, you've seen it at the end of Meet the Robinsons).

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”–Walt Disney

I like the idea of always moving forward. The past is a great place to reminisce, to learn from, and to think of often, but it is also something not to always dwell on. I like to think of a great future ahead, and what God has in store. After all, there's another well known promise out there regarding our futures.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

I hope you have all had a Happy New Year. Josh & I have had a great night at home enjoying each other's company, resting, and doing laundry. I had cat nap earlier in the evening, a fantastic shower with some exfoliating scrub, and then I followed it with more pampering of lotion and cremes. My skin has been extremely dry lately, and it is a much happier epidermis now.

It's now time for bed because despite the nap, I'm still quite exhausted. I look forward to a day at home tomorrow of making jewelry, playing Wii, petting the cats, eating good food, doing more laundry, and doing a little bit of studying.