Giveaway Winner and CCU (Day 578)

Hi all!

Happy Monday! How are you all today? It's another beautiful day here but it is my last Monday morning being here! I finally have a flight home for Sunday morning, I'm quite excited for it. I have enjoyed my vacation but I'm also ready to go home. Sunday will be a very early morning, we have to leave by 5:45am at the latest. Oh well, I'm just happy to be going home in a few days.

I checked my email this  morning and I found out that I won another giveaway! This time it is from Helen at Eat.Enjoy.Live., she's pretty wonderful, I love reading her blog. Go check her out! The giveaway consists of an Amazon gift card from Malo at The Daily Frenchie, ad space from Hayley's World and The Framed Lady, and a shirt from Christ Centered Home Magazine. So for the next month I will be on The Framed Lady and Gypsybeee. And for the next two month's I will be on Hayley's World and Being Erica. I'm very excited for these ads to start and I'm quite thankful that these wonderful ladies were a part of the giveaways I won.

It's officially the last week of my first class at CCU. I cannot believe it's already been 10 weeks, it's flown by. But today I have been able to view my first block of summer classes, Biology and Acts & Pauline Literature. Let's just say, the first 5 weeks are going to be pretty intense and busy, actually the second 5 weeks will be that way as well. Except the second five week I will be finishing Biology, plus adding Business Communication Skills and Psalms. 3 classes, am I insane? Oh well... I'm getting five classes out of the way this summer alone. I'll be five steps closer to graduation. :) But I do know that I'll definitely be keeping a calendar of what is due when this summer, at least for the first two blocks of classes (only 1 class in the final session).

And one last things... I follow a ton of blogs on bloglovin/GFC and half the time I only read the ones that I always read or if there is an interesting title. I do not want to do that anymore... so starting today I am trying to read every single one of the blogs that I follow. Hopefully I'll comment on some even, if they trip my trigger. Well this post is long enough and I have 2 papers due this week... gotta keep up my A in the class. So until next time.

~Sara~

I won another giveaway! (Day 559)

Hi all!

Happy Wednesday! How is everyone doing today? Sorry I have been MIA lately, being at my friend's place is making me slack on writing blogs. I'll try to do better now. What have you all been up to? I feel like such a slacker lately, I haven't hardly done anything lately. Being here is awesome but it's making my eating/exercise habits get a little off key. Oh well. I'm having fun and I'm trying my best. It feels weird that I haven't weighed myself in about a week and a half, it's not necessarily bad but weird. I'm pretty excited to weigh myself once I get home though, seeing how well I did while on this trip.

We're going to be heading to Colorado on Friday morning and I'm really excited about it! I've scheduled a tour of my school and a meeting with an enrollment counselor. So I'll be able to see the campus where I'll be going for my Master's degree. My academic advisor contacted me today and told me that I'll be able to graduate in Spring of next year! Ahh!! :) That's about a year earlier than expected, so needless to say I'm pretty excited about it.

Oh and this afternoon I got an email saying that I won another giveaway! That's two that I've won in the past two weeks. :) But this one I won $100, how sweet is that?!?  Plus I don't know if I shared this or not, but the other giveaway I won was a shirt. Not bad for this week, huh? I've talked to people who say after you win your first giveaway, you seem to start winning more, and that's 100% true. I've won 4 giveaways this year already. :) When I started blogging, I was just doing this for myself, to help keep me accountable. I didn't think I'd make all these awesome friends and be entering (and winning giveaways). All I know is that this community is amazing and I love you all!

Time to go and make dinner for my friends and I. I hope you all have a wonderful afternoon/evening! So until next time.

~Sara~

Proud of Myself! (Day 538)

Hi all!

Happy Wednesday! We've made it half way through the week, isn't that exciting? How is everyone doing today? It's a sunny day here, it's nice to see the sun today. It's been very dreary here lately, snowy and cloudy. I'm sick of it. Snow, snow, go away, don't come again another day. :) Since I'm just staying at home today, I'm wearing capris and a short sleeve shirt (wishful thinking for Spring :) ).

Last night was horrible, to be completely honest. I cried a lot and thought some horrible things about the people I love most (about how they deserve more than me or would be happier without me in their lives). I was hungry and I was under my food goals yesterday, so I went downstairs and I made a healthier food choice, an Atkins brownie and some grilled chicken. I made those choices even when I was incredibly stressed out and just wanted some ice cream or chips or something like that. I didn't give in to those unhealthy foods. Honestly, I don't remember a time when I chose to eat something healthy over unhealthy in a stressful situation. This morning, I woke up with great pride knowing that I made a good choice for myself in a hard situation. When I woke up, I was feeling okay, better than last night. I got up and did my normal morning routine, and as I was enjoying my morning coffee I got a call from Abid. I saw his name on my caller ID and was so excited but what he told me is good and bad for us. He's heading back to work right now, he was just about to get on the bus and head back. So that means we probably won't be able to see each other on Skype again for at least a month or more.

I just need share something. As I was writing the paragraph above I received a phone call, it was for my parents. It was from Acts 1:8 Ministry, you probably have no idea what they are all about. Well they are a local Christian ministry that is, "equipping Christians to care, share and connect people to Christ worldwide through Christian kindness" (That was taken directly from their website). Well the man that I talked to, Travis, asked if I had anything that I needed prayer for, and after last night and this morning, I definitely did. So we just talked and he prayed for me for about 10 minutes and I experienced God in a way that I never have before. It was the most amazing thing. I have been a Christian for a long time (since I was quite young, I've been on mission trips and gone to countless conferences) and I've never had an experience like this before. I can't even begin to explain my feelings to all of you. It was amazing.

Yesterday I was a little over my initial calorie goal but still under with my exercise calories included in. My numbers were okay yesterday, a little low on my protein but carbs and fats were great. Here's the numbers:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	171	342	142
Used	161	184	87
Left	10	158	55

Not the prettiest picture of me because it's right after my workout. But it felt amazing to really get a sweat on and I felt amazing after my workout (besides my back/hip hurting a bit). Oh and I found out that I won another giveaway! I wasn't winning any and now I've won two within a month.  I won a beautiful journal, I can't wait to receive it and start writing in it. :)

But it's time to go relax a little and read/comment on some blogs. :) Have a wonderful afternoon/evening everyone! So until next time!

~Sara~

Recap and low carb day (Day 529)

Hi all!

Happy Monday! How is everyone doing today? It's a quite chilly day here in southeastern Wisconsin, but we're suppose to get more of the accursed white stuff tonight and tomorrow. :( But thankfully, it's suppose to start warming up on Friday, to upper 30's! And yes, that is warm to me. :) I had PT this morning and it was crazy, I'm hurting a ton from it right now. She tried something new today and it definitely moved things around, we'll see how I'm feeling over the next few days.

I want to do a little recap of my first high carb day. But before I get into that, I do want to mention that I am trying to reach my levels through healthy foods. Anyway, it was quite difficult to reach my levels throughout the day. In the evening I did reach my levels, but it was because of unhealthy foods. :( This was a major defeat for me. My mother, gotta love her, decided to make brownies for when my SIL, nieces, and nephew came over. Thankfully, they are gone now, but I ate way too many of them last night.

Now today is my first low carb day, it's going well so far. I can't wait to give you all a recap of how it went, tomorrow! But here's a little preview of my day, my delicious lunch. Baby leaf greens with grilled fajita chicken (6 oz), cucumbers, mozzarella cheese, and some Caesar vinaigrette dressing. :) About 400 calories, 18 g carbs, 15 g fat, and 51 g protein. You'll get the full recap tomorrow.

Today I received my giveaway prize, it's downloading as I write this. And I am super excited about it, I can't wait to start using it. I'll be able to use this for so many things, invitations for all my wedding activities, calendars, and all sorts of cool things. It takes a long time to download, but that's alright. Thankfully I'm just sitting here writing this blog and working on homework while I'm waiting for it. But then I'll probably go on there play around with it just to see what I can all do.

Time to go work on more homework, I've got quite a bit of reading to catch up on along with this weeks. So until next time.

~Sara~

I won a giveaway! (527)

Hi all!

How was every one's day? Sorry this post is coming so late, I've been crazy busy all day. Honestly, I haven't done the best with my nutrition today, but tomorrow is a new day. Plus I have a weigh-in tomorrow, we'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow I am starting carb cycling, it will be an adventure for sure. But today when I went shopping, I stocked up on lots of veggies and protein. We bought tons of leafy greens, cabbage, cucumbers, green beans, etc... And then ham, turkey, chicken, and other proteins. I'm planning on eating salads for my lunches mostly with a much of protein (except for my high carb days of course). Still need to plan out my breakfasts, maybe eggs (since those are lower carb) and other things like that. My mom was pretty smart too, she mentioned Atkins meals because they are low in carbs. I'm so thankful that my mom is being supportive in this venture that I'm taking, even planning our menu out in a way that our meals will be lower carb on my low carb days and higher on high carb days.

But speaking of my mother, sometimes I wish that she would think a little more before she speaks or acts. This morning was pretty tough for me, I cried a few times. There are just moments when I feel that I'm not what my mom expects me to be. Or that I'm not that important to her anymore (especially since she's gotten grandchildren, it seems as if she has forgotten about me). We use to spend a lot more time together just the two of us, but now it's all about spending time with my SIL and her kids. Believe me, I love those kids to death, but sometimes I just want to spend time with my mom. I'm hoping to tell her how I feel sometime soon but she's just so busy all the time. I'll get around to talking to her sometime though.

Oh but awesome news, I won a giveaway from one of the blogs I follow! Back on February 22nd I entered a giveaway on Good Girl Gone Wife's blog (check her out, she's awesome!) for a free copy of MyMemories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software. I'm not really much of a scrapbooker but you can use this software to make photo books  invitations, labels, personalized stationary, plus a bunch of other things. (http://www.mymemories.com/digital_scrapbooking_software) This is what I won, check it out, it seems pretty awesome. I can't wait to get my free copy of it. I've entered plenty of giveaways before but I never thought I would win one, so I'm pretty psyched about it! It'll be awesome to use since I'm planning on making my own wedding invitations (it'll be a lot more cost effective).

It's getting late, and I've had a very long day. My back/hip is hurting a ton, so I think it's time to go lay down, and watch Despicable Me on TV (I know, I'm such an adult :) but I love this movie). Then head to bed. So until next time.

~Sara~