"What A Frickin' Life I Have"

--Michael Buble

I got called out a couple of days ago for not blogging recently. It's a show of just how busy I've been that it's taken me this long to get around to fixing that problem. Yes, it's been almost a month since I last blogged, and frankly ... there's not too much to be said that I haven't texted or Skyped or Facebooked to you all, and the majority of that isn't something that I think belongs on the internet anyways (wink, wink) so am I off the hook? Or at least forgiven? :)

Let me tell you what my weeks look like these days.

• Sunday: Leave for church at 9:10, church 10-1, hang out until 1:30-2ish, home by 3, ... w/e.
• Monday: Wake up at 7, get to work between 8 and 8:30, lunch 12-1 either by the statue of Lewis, Clark, & Co. or in the park by the governor's mansion, leave work by 5:15, bed by 11:30 (attempted, usually)
• Tuesday: Same as Monday, but leave for institute at 6:10, institute 7-8:30, hang out sometimes until 9:30, home by about 10:15.
• Wednesday: Same as Monday.
• Thursday: Same as Monday.
• Friday: Same as Monday.
• Saturday: Sleep in as late as possible, do stuff, bed by midnight.

Now, I suppose it's fair to point out that (1) I'm only in my third week that looks like this, and (2) there's usually some kind of date/hanging out activity that happens on Friday or Saturday, so it's not quite so dry and stale as it may seem.

But it's still pretty dry and stale. I'm making $13 an hour instead of $25 an hour like I was originally told, but I guess the fact that I'm only a junior in college with no kind of similar experience makes me less valuable to the team anyhow. I pre-populate, edit, and track documents, among other things, which today included being the scribe for a 3-hour long meeting. Now, I don't want you to think I'm complaining, because I'm really not. Let me explain.

This summer is teaching me a lot about the phrase "I will ... open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I'm not going to be explicit in the nature of said blessings, because, like I said earlier, not everything in my life right now is something I want to post on the internet. But here's what's up: I'm being blessing beyond my capacity to receive. Or, rather, I'm being blessed with things that are far above my maturity, skill, and personal merit, and my capacity is so small at times that there is simply not room for me to juggle one blessing, let alone two or three or twelve. They become difficult to handle; they are (for lack of better words) cumbersome and unwieldy in my small and graceless hands. I simply don't know what to do, and I feel lost and like a failure, and it's a challenge. I should be dropping these things left and right; I should be curled up in my bed, amazed that I was able to even touch these kinds of blessings.

But somehow, I'm hanging on to them. Or maybe they're hanging on to me ... I really don't know. Maybe there's some kind of divine glue or tape or thread that is keeping me attached to these things, even when everything about me and them is like magnets being pushed together with the same poles facing each other. The forces of nature should be pushing these things away from me, but they aren't.

It gets a little more interesting too ... I think that, rather than me clinging for dear life and watching my fingers slip and feeling a strain, I'm feeling better equipped to handle these blessings. It's almost like I'm being blessed by my blessings at the same time that I'm being tried by my blessings ... because trials are blessings ... and it's like this outrageous cycle of blessing and trying and trying and blessing and on and on, over and over again.

The craziest part to me is that I wasn't going to come to Missouri this summer. I was going to go to France, and after I decided I wasn't going to France, I was going to stay in Provo ... because really, what could there ever be for me to do in Missouri? Work at Old Navy and have no friends? I also was about 95% sure that my scholarship was in the tank because of my French 321 class, and I figured I could make better money by working a couple of jobs here in Missouri (one of them being Old Navy) and I'd be able to make up at least a little bit for losing it. Furthermore, I had only been casually considering coming home for a couple of weeks when one afternoon I found myself sitting on the couch doing homework and then suddenly I had the most bizarre, all-consuming bout of homesickness. We're talking instantaneous crying jag, and after that I knew I couldn't stay in Provo for the spring. I couldn't do it, not for anything. I felt like I was running into my parents' bedroom in the middle of the night like I did when I was little and I had a bad dream.

So tell me how, after all of that, I ended up not only keeping my scholarship, but getting a job that pays almost twice what I was making at Old Navy, with more hours than I ever could have gotten at Old Navy, which happens to be in my line of work/study, and is a way more legit job that is really intended for college graduates which will carry much more significant weight on a resume than just about anything I could ever even have dreamed of?

Oh, and let's just throw in the fact that I've been spending a lot of time with one of the most awesome, impressive, fantastic people ever. (I won't say any more on that subject.) And just chuck into the whole mix the thousand other things that just seem so far beyond the scope of what anyone should even be allowed to hope for in their life.

I mean, I don't even know what to think, let alone what to say. There is simply not room enough to receive the things I have been given, and not enough room in heart to contain the gratitude that I feel. <3

Random Musings on Being Home and Whatever Else Comes to Mind While I'm Sitting Here

Don't mind the Fall Out Boy-esque title to this post. It just happened. Normally, I prefer a concise title. But the current one seems to reflect my general mood right now.

So! I'm home! I know I technically already posted something after being home, but it wasn't really about being home, so it doesn't count as much. You know, I cannot believe it's Thursday. The days are flying by me without me having a chance to say anything about it. They just disappear! I swear!

Well, as far as news goes, I am (as you might have heard) on a diet. A really rockin' and effective diet, but as a first time dieter, I'm absolutely dying. Now first let me explain how this diet works. It's called Ideal Protein, and it's a phased dieting system where you start off cutting out not just sugar, and not just carbs, and not just fat ... but all three. That's right, folks. I'm on SERIOUS restrictions here. A typical day looks like this:

Breakfast: Protein shake, or Ideal Protein pancakes

Lunch: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

Snack: Some Ideal Protein snack, such as apple cinnamon soy puffs, peanut balls, barbecue chips, or lemon bars. ***

Dinner: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

In case you hadn't noticed, yes, this diet (in the phase I'm in right now) is fruit free. And I drink so much water that I'm in the bathroom like 4 times an hour. It's kind of heinous. As far as other rules go, I don't have to eat everything exactly when it says to eat it. Often, I only have a cup of veggies during meals and use the other cup to stave off the hunger monster during other times of the day (since I am basically a 100% all-the-time-hungry kind of girl. Really. Little known fact: I am rarely not hungry). I'm also allowed to eat as much lettuce as I want! (Yes, my diet now matches my rabbit-teeth, thank you for noticing :D) Often, we (since my mom, dad, sister, aunt, and grandma are also on the diet) boil some rhubarb chunks and serve them up with Splenda, cinnamon, and a dash of vanilla. It kinda tastes like pie at first, and then eventually it's so sour and you've eaten it so many times that it starts to lose a little bit of its glory. We also have cabbage with rice vinegar, Splenda, and soy sauce. This is pretty tasty as well--for diet food.

That's becoming quite the caveat in my eating experiences recently. Such as, "It's good ... for diet food." Because who are we kidding, THIS CRAP ISN'T GOOD. It's just good enough that we're willing to choke it down for a few weeks to get rockin' beach bods (and yes, that's what I plan on having).

So how does this diet work? Well, basically because you're eating, like, nothing, your body goes into ketosis. Ketosis is when your body stops running on the food you're taking in and starts running on the fat that's stored on your body. You stay on this until you've achieved 90% of your weight loss goal, and then move onto the next phase. I haven't watched the video for it to explain all the scientific mumbo jumbo, but I know it also gives your pancreas a rest, and is enormously effective. I've never felt so in control of my weight before. Just to give you an idea of how effective this is, my grandma has lost 60 lbs. since January, and she is skinnier now than she's been in my whole memory. She's tried so many diets, but this one actually worked. And basically as soon as you start getting chunky again, you just go back into ketosis (and the Ideal Protein products aren't actually necessary for this) for a little while, and bam--the weight's gone. I've only been doing it for a couple of days, and I haven't been religious about my scale-checking, but I'll let you know how it goes after a week. I'm so excited!

Oh! I almost forgot! You might have noticed a few stars/asterisks (***) after my snack section in the daily menu. Let me explain: these are some of those "for diet food" snacks. For example, with those barbecue chips, there's a weird, meaty aftertaste (apparently that's what protein tastes like. Yum). Now, I've managed to put up the things that are actually really good for diet food. I haven't had the apple cinnamon soy puffs yet, but I hear they're pretty bomb. The peanut balls ... well, they're kind of like peanut butter around a malt ball (ex. a Whopper), but it's slightly more granular than a malt ball. And those little puppies are delicious. I would eat them by the bucket if they were eat-as-much-as-you-want. The lemon bars are actually like granola bars, but they're lemon poppyseed, so the inside's all grainy and poppyseedy, and then there's a lemon frosting-like thing that it's been dipped in. Oh, baby, it's really good ... for diet food. What I didn't mention were the puddings (even my mom, with an experienced dieter's stomach of steel can barely choke those down without serious doctoring). And in case I didn't clarify, those barbecue chips could curl your big-toe hair (assuming it isn't already curled ... ).

Other downsides to this diet include:

• Price: each snack or other meal replacement item is $3 a pop. Which I suppose is okay because it's supposed to replace a meal, but at the same time ... yikes!
• Halitosis: one of the signs of ketosis is stinky breath. And it's not just your everyday stale morning breath. It's like someone parked a Port-O-Let in your mouth. Just sayin'.
• Fatigue: because your body is running on its own fat stores, you get pretty tired pretty easily. I haven't noticed this as much because I haven't really tried to do much since I got here, but my sister will vouch for this. I might also be having headaches, but there are other possible explanations for that too, so I'm not sure.
• Bathroom: I hate being in the bathroom. I will avoid it for as long as I possibly can, basically subduing the gotta-go feeling until the pipes are ready to burst. Unfortunately, because of the huge amount of water I need to be drinking in order to process all the protein I'm consuming, I'm in the bathroom all the time. (Think Zac Efron in 17 Again talking about being hungry, which, oddly enough, is also how I feel.)
• Being Hungry: my parents aren't having as hard of a time with this, but my sister and I are just on the verge of death with hunger. And since I have little to do, I have little to distract me. Also, I keep ending up at the grocery store where everything looks delicious. I have been craving homestyle mac'n'cheese for days now, and there's been a bag of rolls making googly eyes at me since Monday night.
• Cheating: on this diet, you can't cheat. You can't have a lovely cheat day and say, "Okay, well, I'm going to treat myself to a little bit of cake today because I've been doing so good these past few days!" No. You can't do that at all because it kicks you out of ketosis, and then you lose all your fat-burning momentum. It's not worth any of the things you're suffering (see list above) to suffer the effects of cheating. So that bowl of jelly beans that I've been hiding in the cabinet ... yeah. I can't even pop a couple of those because the sugar might throw my body out of ketosis and ruin everything. And my goal is to lose my 90% of my weight loss goal as fast as freaking possible so I can get back to eating real food.

So yeah. That's the stat on the diet. I hope it works, and quickly. I actually really think it's awesome, and ... yeah! Hoorah for diets! :)

I also went on a couple shopping trips over the past couple of days. My mom had a meeting up in Columbia, so my grandma and I hit the mall. I looked gross, and therefore had no intention of buying anything (plus I kind of expect to go down a size or so, and I don't want to buy clothes that are going to be too big in a couple of weeks) ... But I confess I did. Remember this Seventeen cover from like 2 years ago?

Me too. It's awesome, and the best part of the whole thing is that necklace that she is wearing. I have been coveting a necklace of such style--huge, flowers, multi-colored, kind of flat in the way that it lays on you--since I saw that cover. And I am proud to say that I finally have one. Now, it's not exactly what TSwizzle's got going on, and it's quite a bit more gold than that one. It's got a chain-mail-y base with these big gold flower charms that have fake diamonds in the middle of them, and then multicolored beads all over. Sounds ghastly, I'm sure. I'll take a pic on Sunday (when I will wear it for the first time) and post it so you can see what I really mean. It's quite the necklace, let me tell you.

I also managed to acquire a grand pair of shoes. I can't find a picture of them online (or the necklace), but I will probably also wear those on Sunday in which case there will also be a picture of them. They're darling. Floral, bright colors, a really nice brown leather for the straps, kind of a wedge-type heel, and a big yellowish green flower right on the front. Peep toes, of course. So cute. Can't wait for you to see them. They're more flattering than almost any shoe I've ever worn, not just because they make my feet look tiny, but because they just plain make my feet look good. And when do my feet ever look good?? Passable, sure, but good? Rare enough that I can't think of a time that they actually looked legitimately good. I'm stoked to wear them; I think they'll go together smashingly!

Hmmm .... other things, other things. Well, I've got a job, or should I say jobs, and some quite resume-pumping work at that. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Also, I can't believe it's Thursday/almost Friday. I feel like it was just this morning that I was thinking, "Wow, it's Tuesday! Josh flies out today! We were just sitting in his kitchen a week ago, being shocked that he was going to fly out in a week ... and now it's here!" Only now it's been two days since then, and I can't figure out how time is moving so quickly! I feel like I must be sleeping through my days or something. I guess they're all just so lack-luster (and I've been kind of not exactly changing my clothes too much every day) that they're all just melting together.

Well, I suppose now's the time to post. This has been really long-winded and silly and pointless, but that's what happening in my neck of the woods (thank you, Al Roker, and too many hours of the Today Show this morning for that little phrase) ... Toodlepip! :)