Highway 78

Aaron and I are packing our bags again today to make the long drive south on Highway 78 towards home. The drive is long, and very DARK at night. We are always so thankful when we finally make it to our destination. This weekend that is to my mom and dad's house to celebrate my birthday! Last weekend, Aaron and I were with his family. They are so sweet. They celebrated my birthday there, too! MIL made me delicious Southern Beef Stew, YUM! A personalized "L" shaped birthday cake and that's all I didn't have anymore sweets that night and S'mores by a fire later in the evening. I have been dying to have S'mores ALL winter. I had two then thought I was going to be sick. Don't you love that feeling?

 I've gotten 22 out of 28 things for my 28th year. The closer I get to 28 the harder it becomes. This is not to say there aren't a million things I should and need to do to better myself spiritually. It's sort of challenging to sit down and list them all out. I will keep thinking.

Tomorrow morning my mom and I are headed to the local cupcakery to pick out my birthday cup cakes! I expect them to be very delicious! Think "GiGi's Cupcakes"! Thanks, mom! Tomorrow is going to be sort of my last hoorah in the sweets/dessert department. I have really been thinking about how I gave up Dr. Peppers and all other soft drinks. I can most certainly give up sweets and desserts. I won't completely eliminate refined sugar out of my diet completely, at least not right now. However, I know doing so would really put me over the edge in my weight-loss journey. When I work out consistently during the week and eat well and eat enough, I feel really good and the number on the scale even goes down. BUT my middle area just isn't changing much. Hello, sugar! Doesn't sugar cause you to gain/keep weight in your abdomen?

Daddy is grilling pork chops for me tomorrow! I LOVE when he grills pork chops. He said he special ordered some thick cut chops from the butcher. He's such a sweetie pie.

Well anyway, tomorrow I am going to enjoy that those cupcakes, and probably a waffle at Waffle House in the morning. After that, game over. If you see me at the next bridal/baby shower/birthday party and my eye is twitching or I run and hide while I hyper-ventilate, it will be because I'm trying to say NO to all those goodies luring me to them. Ha, as if they have some sort of super powers...

Sunday, Aaron and I have our second job try-out. We are excited and thankful to God for the opportunity. In our minds we think we know how we would like our future to look. Ultimately, God knows what is best for us and where we will be the most effective. I am so thankful for THAT!

Have a blessed weekend "all" you readers! Seriously, the fact that anyone reads what I have to say makes me all giddy inside!

Leading Up to the List

I just want to cry when I think about the past 27 years of my life. Happy tears, of course! When I try to think back and figure out how I got where I am today, I can only think about my God and His wonderful, merciful grace and love. My life has been relatively easy and carefree. God blessed me with a mother and a father who provided my every need and beyond while under their roof.

Sure my little 9-year-old world was rocked when my family moved from Illinois to Alabama. We moved from an awesome house to an even better one. For many years I enjoyed great friendships in two places. I was able to be near my maternal grandparents.

My teeth are straight. I had a car to drive the day I turned 16. I never remember being behind on the clothing trends at the time, although I am now. Ha ha! I had a cell phone like everyone else. Besides all this my parents loved me daily and supported and encouraged me. (They still do!) They taught me right from wrong. They have shown me what real love and dedication is in marriage. So have my grandparents. Even today I know my parents would do anything for me and my husband. It's a shame that when we are younger we don't really want to be friends with our parents and we think they are so "obnoxious". The older I get the more and more I want to be around them and ENJOY it.

Now, in my adult years, in marriage, God's blessed me with a second family to call my own. I have the greatest family-in-law anyone could have. I pray all married people could have in-laws like me. The greatest blessing of all is to share in the fellowship of Christ with your physical family. My husband's family is amazing. They support us and love us. They care for our spiritual well-being. They are simply fun to be around, too! Oh, and they gave me my sweet Aaron. :)

How did I get the husband I have? It's a wonder. It's hard to wrap my mind around God's providence, but I know it's real. If I never moved to AL, if I never dated that one guy, if I never obeyed the gospel, if I never dumped (or got dumped by, I can't remember) that one guy... well you get the picture. Now thanks to my awesome husband and his desire to serve God we are at MSOP and I've experienced some of the deepest, most genuine friendships I've ever had.

All these things are just the tip of the ice-berg in the "ways God has blessed me" department. It would take me days and days and a reallllly long blog post to list every way God has blessed me. On the other hand, how long would it take me to list the ways I have returned the favor? Not that God is counting every good thing I do, He certainly knows and it is important to Him for my salvation. This brings me to my "28 things for my 28th year". I want this list to be spiritually focused. I want to make my 28th year my best one yet in my Christian life. I want to bring as much glory to God as possible. Now that I am to this point in this post I realize it is getting a little long. Stay-tuned for the complete list: 28 things for my 28th year. Hopefully I'll have it up by my actual birthday on Saturday. I have 10 so far. 18 to go. There is a lot I can do for God and others so I'll have no problem completely this list.

Thanks for reading.

Lemon Protein Bars

recipe

In an attempt to have healthier snacks around the house I made these Lemon Protein Bars from heandsheeatclean.com. Normally I would have gone straight to the chocolate recipe or even the pumpkin one, but I was trying to accommodate my sweet husband who lacks a sweet tooth! He loves lemons so I thought this would be perfect for the both of us to snack on.

These protein bars are pretty good! They ARE very lemony. I followed the recipe exactly except I used whole wheat flour instead of the recommended oat flour. I don't have oat flour. Also, the protein powder I used probably isn't considered "clean", but again it's what I had on hand. I just went with what I had since this was the first time trying a recipe like this and I wasn't sure if we would even like them. When I use up the protein powder we have I WILL be purchasing a clean version. The stuff is just too expensive to just throw it away. 

These are WAY better than any store-bought protein bar I've ever tried. Granted, I've only tried two or three different kinds. Check out HASEC for the recipe and details about these Lemon Protein Bars. There is a lot of good information and recipes for eating clean and just plain being healthier in general. 

I'll be making the pumpkin version next. OH and check out their recipe for chocolate chip cookie dough! One reader said in the comments section that they blended the quick oats to a powder consistency before mixing with the other ingredients. That sounds like it would make it closer to the actual consistency of real cookie dough. I will be trying this one out, too! 

Besides the protein bars I bought fresh veggies for snacking. I washed and chopped and bagged them. TBH, I just don't like raw broccoli!! I LOVE it when it is steamed, and I don't steam it to mush either. I just don't like it raw. AJ likes it however. So I guess I'll be eating the carrots and he can have the broccoli, blech. We also have fruits and greek yogurt and almonds. 

What healthy (even clean) snacks to you keep around the house? 

My Birth Month!

Happy month of March, y'all! This is the 27th month of March since the year I was born. On the 16th I'll be 27. Wow! Lord willing, I have a lot of life left to live! A birthday is sort of like celebrating New Year's again. Well, it's more like.. it's already three and half months (It will be on my bday.) into the new year and I haven't   really done a single thing differently than last year so now I'm going to make it a "by the time I'm 28" kind of thing... That works for me!

I can't say I haven't done a SINGLE thing differently. I have been working out at the gym four to five sometimes more days a week. I have to be honest. It has made a difference! I'm officially down a pant size which is really two sizes because I stretched my larger jeans to the next size up since I was in denial and would NOT buy the right size. Oh and I almost forgot! Since it's March 1st I have officially made it two months without any soft drinks... no Dr. Pepper! I still would like one. Some health professionals recommend limiting yourself to two 12 oz cans of soda week. Does that mean I can start having two a week? That is probably only for people who think they just "have to have" it. I could be one of those people... but for the sake of my pant size going DOWN, I'll try to keep away from the stuff. Now I need to quit eating ice cream! If I can quit drinking DP then surely I can quit eating ice cream...at least so much.

Also, I DID make that skirt I talked about two posts back. It mostly turned out really great... except I didn't like the way it looked on me. I learned a lesson while making it though. When I got to attaching the elastic to the skirt I didn't have any white thread, DOH! So I used red with a zig zag stitch. Well my zig zag was all over the place. I guess I was pulling the elastic too tight and it wasn't going through the machine at a consistent speed and well it looked yucky. I ran it through again, this time with a really tight zig zag. It looked great but it caused the elastic to do something funky so the skirt stuck out away from me too far at the waist. I don't need ANY help looking wider around my hips! Not only that, the fullness of the skirt made me feel old. I have plans to take it apart and use the material to make something else. :)

AJ and I are getting closer and closer to graduation at MSOP. It's less than three months away. I am so excited to start working with a congregation of God's people! We had a "try-out" last weekend. AJ and I both really enjoyed our visit. The members their are really awesome and we both really like the area! They are a good sound congregation that seem willing to work. In fact, they are already working away! We should hear from them this month some time. Please pray for us as we are going through the process of finding a work. Thank you in advance!

Okay so now for my 28th year of life. Should I make a list of 28 things I want to do before I'm 28? We all know how well my list of fun Fall things turned out... Womp, womp, womp... Oh well, I think I will just because I love to make lists! I'll work on that.

Tonight AJ and I are going to a minor league hockey game! I have a feeling we are going to have a blast! (Is it cold in a hockey arena?) Mississippi River Kings vs Fayetteville Fire Antz! lol Fire antz.

When I think "ants" I think that's not much of a mascot, but so much can be learned from the ant. God tells us we can gain wisdom from the ant's ways. (Proverbs 6:6) Ants are "exceeding wise", Proverbs 30:24, 25, in the way they prepare for winter... harvesting food while it is plenty. Not to mention, ants can lift about 20 times their own body weight. Weird, huh?

Where was I going with this? Oops! Sorry. Thanks for reading anyway!