Challenge Your Beliefs

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to work on my relationship with Christ. I want Him to be my first thought in every situation. I want Him to consume every detail of my life. I want to spend more …

Green Smoothie Day 1 – Healing Journey Day 47

Journal:
I woke up feeling terrible today. Cooked foods last night were not a bright idea. However, today was an exciting day at the same time as I was going to a professional development that I was over-the-moon about and I was prepared with the bananas I got. I probably should also mention that I barely slept last night (3 hours?) because it took me so long to get lesson plans created and printed as I essentially was making two. I have one student who is a wildcard, and as this was his first time with a substitute teacher in my room, I was nervous. So I made two sets of plans, prepared for any class that he may have to be sent out for. Sleep was not the priority, so my body didn’t even get the complete rest it needed to help deal with the cooked food it possessed.

Before I left work from setting everything out for the sub, I blended up some smoothies to take with me. I made a very large batch of a banana, peach, and organic kelp powder smoothie. I had my regular, large smoothie container and a small container to put it in.

I sipped on the large smoothie container throughout the amazing morning keynote presentations. Teachers, if you read these daily journals, you NEED to jump on any opportunity to see Dr. Ross Greene. You will NOT regret it. I could listen to him all day.

At lunch, I ran to Booster Juice and got a Spinach Is In It smoothie with a Wilderness booster. Tons of greens!

Throughout the afternoon, I drank the smaller container of the morning’s smoothie that I had.

And that summed up what I ate today. I came out of my meetings so refreshed and excited for what I was planning to do at school, but tired and really hungry at the end of the day. I cannot wait for this smoothie phase to be over.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is bad.
-Did not feel good at all!
-Hair is good.
-Digestion is still figuring it out what to do with the cooked food…

Weight at the end of the day = 170.1 lbs (down 1.1 lbs from yesterday)

Total Calories = 1490 (92% carbs, 4% fat, 4% protein)

Fruit w/Salad Supper Day 1 – Healing Journey Day 38

Journal:
I woke up this morning with some pretty pink/red eyes. I have to start getting more sleep and I need to stay off the computer more. I’m finding that I’m spending way too much time on the computer and it’s affecting my eyes. But despite the beautiful colour of my eyes (sarcasm), I was so excited for today! I woke up thinking, “I get to eat fruit all day and have a salad for supper! Ah… so excited!”

So, for work, I took a box of Chinese Mandarin oranges. Throughout the day, I managed to eat 6 of them. I was deeply saddened to find out this was only about 273 calories, but I honestly had no other time. Normally I would have a rotation of two educational assistants  coming through my classroom throughout the day to help with a few students; one in particular. Today I found out that one of the EAs is gone for two weeks due to a death in the family, and the other EA was being used as a substitute teacher for a teacher that was on the band trip. I was back to having nobody again with a student who previously had a full-time aide. The word “challenging” does not even begin to describe this day.

Needless to say, I was looking forward to coming home all day; not just because of the ability to leave work, but also because I got to make and eat a big salad. I officially get to have veggies in my diet in the form of a salad every supper! I was so excited!

So for my salad tonight, I chopped up about half of a head of butter leaf lettuce, a head of broccoli, two radishes, and a quarter of an English cucumber.

For the dressing, I decided to use Rawvana’s Mexican-inspired dressing. I had never worked with tomatillos before, so this was exciting. To see how to make the dressing, click on the video below:

 

And here is how mine turned out:

I did end up straying from the recipe a little bit. First of all, the avocado that I was sure was perfect had already started to go bad. Ugh. I hate the short lifespan of an avocado. Secondly, since I used hardly any avocado, it turned out a little watery. So, I put in my last 2 tomatillos, and another cup of spinach along with a second stalk of green onion. It honestly was pretty good, but it took me 3 hours to eat it. I kid you not, 3 hours of eating this salad. The problem is, it wasn’t even that big. Sure, it’s more than I used to eat for a salad, but it just wasn’t my favourite altogether. I think I would have liked it better if I had dipped the veggies into it instead of mixing it with lettuce into a salad. But, I finished it. However, because it took me so long to eat it, I didn’t end up going to the gym. I have a lot of pressing deadlines at the moment and so tonight, those deadlines had to take priority. Someday, I’m hoping, I will be caught up with work. It just seems like it is so far away at the moment, but I know it will come.

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne still bad.
-Digestion still slow, but I also introduced a lot of veggies today which is different from having just fruit all the time.
-Still need to eat more, but did better today than yesterday.
-Energy still good.
-Really craved fruit while eating my salad. Need to eat more fruit during the day!

Weight at the end of the day = 168.6 lbs (down 0.8 lbs from yesterday and down 20.2 lbs since I started this 36 days ago)

Total Calories = 620 (73% carbs, 12% fat, 15% protein… um… I thought I ate more than this and I’m honestly surprised at the macro ratios… I guess vegetables really do have protein!)

You Just Never, Ever Know…

I had already written this blog post once, believe it or not. As I sat crying, I poured out my heart on this computer. But just as I was finishing, my computer decided to glitch and it was all lost. I didn’t have the heart to write it again. Except this time, I’m not crying my heart out and writing in a different manner.

You see, normally I don’t work on Fridays. Well, I do, but from home. Last Friday was different as my grade 6s and I had a PAT scheduled for Friday morning. So therefore, we had to be there.

The PAT went alright, and most of the students had rides to leave right after, the others had soccer practice. I had a few of my students from last year come to visit me and study for their upcoming exams. I was able to make practice questions for them so that I could help them if necessary.

While they were studying, I received the most unexpected message from my mother. It was news that one of my friends had just died. By “just”, I mean within the half hour. It hit me like a deer in headlights. I didn’t believe it for a second.

This girl and I were on the same basketball game in high school, were in the same classes, and even though it had been awhile since I had seen her, we had been very good friends.

I maintained control as my mother began to tell me more details of the car accident, the head on collision, the fact that her baby and her were in the one vehicle, and a woman in the other. Both the baby and the other woman had been sent to the hospital as code 1 which means the ambulance is travelling fast with flashing lights as the passengers have serious injuries. However, my friend went code 2, which meant deceased and nothing they could do, so no rush, no flashing lights.

I just couldn’t believe it. Even now, the emotions are starting to rise again, but for the first hour, I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t think of anything else, but I managed to have a small conversation with a cousin of mine who also know my deceased friend. We discussed how the tiny town (population around 100-200) we came from never has anything like this happen. We discussed how we take it for granted that everyone we know will just be there when we go back to visit. We discussed how we really need to realize that anything can happen anywhere. And that’s when it really started to sink in.

Now, being at work was not the place I should have been. But I managed to hold it all back while the students were still there. It was when they decided to leave that the tears started to fall. I didn’t full out cry just yet, but managed to keep it still mostly contained. My husband showed up early from work to pick me up. I kept it in until I let him in the door and we got back to my classroom. I couldn’t even answer him what was wrong without starting to bawl. It sunk in so deep.

I cried and cried and cried, my husband not really knowing what to do. He helped me to pack, and took me home. I continued to cry and cry and be upset and wonder why these things had to happen. I knew I’d deal with this whole situation, but I didn’t want to have to deal with it. I went through the deep of emotions of how life is unfair and how her 8-month old baby is left without a mom. I was in a deep, dark, painful place. And that’s where I was originally writing this blog.

You see, just like I knew in my head the whole time, I would learn to deal with it. Loss is a thing that unfortunately occurs in life, sometimes way too frequently. You can’t avoid it. But you can learn to deal with it. And that’s what I had to do.

I cried myself to sleep. I slept for quite awhile. When I awoke, I had a huge headache, and had the eyes of an alien. But my husband asked if he could take me to a funny movie, just to help any he could. I agreed, and in order to not rush me, we planned on going to the late movie, and he went out to the gym for a quick workout so I had time to get ready at my own pace.

Fortunately with an extra application of some good Mary Kay make-up, and a good hair tease, I was able to mostly hide those alien eyes and the fact I had cried for hours. My husband and I went out, he was very caring, and made sure I had the best time possible at the movie.

We came home, I went straight to bed, and was able to wake up this morning (still with a headache), but ready to begin again. The tears may be gone, but the pain I feel for my friend and her family is not. A life is not something that can be replaced. This sweet smile will not be seen again. But the memories we hold of her, the pictures that capture the moments of her life, and the baby that will forever be a reminder of her are left behind. I don’t know the update on her baby. He’s still alive and I’m assuming he’s stable. The extent of his injuries are something I don’t know. But what I do know is that he has an extensive, caring family that will be there to raise him and to remind him of the wonderful mom he had.

You just never know what will happen. A life that could be here one minute may not be here the next. Really, there is no time to fight, there is no time to hate, there is only time to focus on making sure the people you love know that you love them. Make sure you’ve made them a priority in your life. Love them, spend time with them, and go to bed each night knowing you’ve done your best. You honestly just never, ever know.