Fitness and busyness

Hi all!

How are you all today? It is an absolutely beautiful day here in southeastern Wisconsin, too bad I am stuck inside working on schoolwork. Maybe a little later I'll bring my laptop outside with me and get some work done, while enjoying the beautiful weather.

I have been working out daily for 13 days now and my legs are starting to feel a little fatigued. It's no wonder why, I've had 859 fitness minutes, not including the 60+ from today. 442 of them happening this week alone, so I'm pretty exhausted. Today I've already walked 60+ minutes and burned 300+ calories, so I'm thinking about not walking while dinner cooks.

This morning while I was in the bathroom, I was curious to see what my weight was, so I stepped on the scale (my weigh-in isn't for another 2 days). I'm happy to say that my fitness and nutrition is definitely paying off because I saw about a pound loss so far, I'm not logging it and will weigh-in officially on Sunday.

Things are still incredibly busy in my world, my outline is still in process, but hopefully I'll get it done today. Then it's time to start my final and everything else that I need to get done. Time to get back to work. Wish me luck. Have a wonderful day! Until next time!

~Sara~

I Jogged!!! (Day 599)

Hi all!

Happy Monday (and yes, it is very happy)! How are you all doing today? Are you all ready to start the new week? What are you doing to make this week great?

So, I have crazy exciting news I want to share with you and I cannot contain myself. This morning I wanted to try out a new workout, so I went to my collection of fitness videos. I found a low impact one, so I decided I wanted to try it out but it was only 10 minutes. So I did the video and decided that I was going to do some jogging. When I jog, I turn on my playlist and I usually can only jog to 1 or 1.5 songs but not today.

I jogged for 18.35 freaking minutes!!!!!

I still cannot believe it, but I just pushed myself and jogged through 5 songs. My legs were killing by the end of it but I actually did it. I was so freaking excited that I decided to take a picture and share it with all of you (and yes, it's not the most attractive picture, but I was psyched!) In the past, I always made up excuses on why I couldn't run/jog. 

- I'm too fat to jog

- It's bad for my joints

- I just won't like it

Blah, blah blah... Those were all horrible excuses. I've seen people who weigh more than me jogging, so that excuse is out. Yeah, it's not the best for my joints but that doesn't stop other people. Yeah, it will be boring and I probably won't like it if I was only doing it on a treadmill or at home. But if I were to ever go jogging outside, I just may like it. All-in-all, I could be a jogger/runner some day... And that's saying something coming from me. :)

This whole jogging thing was even more exciting because I ate way too much at dinner last night. We ordered this really delicious pizza from my favorite pizza place in town, for mother's day. I don't know why, but I can do so well with my eating and eat in moderation  but when it comes to pizza I cannot control myself. Someday pizza will not have this control over me, I am bound and determined to make sure that happens. Anyways... we ordered the pizza and my goal was to only have one plate (like 3 slices, they are cut into squares). Well, that definitely did not happen. I had more like 10 or 12 squares. Yeah... I'm not proud of that but it is what it is. Today is a new day. 

While doing some thinking this morning, my attitude is different. I woke up and was determined to have a good day. So I decided to workout and have it be a great workout. Now I'm feeling so energized, positive, and happy. I love the endorphins that exercise gives me and I really do need to get back into a exercise routine. When I have one, my mood is happier and I want that back. Yeah... life isn't ideal right now, but there's not much I can do about it. Everything with Abid will workout somehow and me stressing over it, won't help matters any. It's hard for me to accept that I've done everything that I can so far and now it's just a waiting game. This very thing is what I have told Abid more times than I can count... what I need to do is take my own advice. Everything will workout somehow, I know it.

This morning I registered for my fall classes and it's really sinking in. After my fall classes, I only have 7 classes left before graduation! Only 7, that's freaking crazy to me! As long as I take 2 classes every five week, I will be graduating with my Bachelor's in the spring. And in December of January I will be applying for my Master's and God-willing that I get accepted, I should be starting that next fall. It's really crazy to think about but I cannot wait to see where I am by next fall. Who knows where I will be in my weight loss journey, I could be really close to my goal if I keep working hard (and I just realized that as of my last weigh-in, I am now only 110 pounds away from my goal. Much better than the 155 pounds away I was at before :) ). 

But I suppose... this has been long post. And I have a new week of homework to get started on. I hope you all have a wonderful day! So until next time!

~Sara~

Happy Saturday! (Day 583)

Hi all!

Happy Saturday! How are you all? It's finally the weekend, any big plans? My only plan is to fly home tomorrow and I cannot wait! :) It will be nice to be at home again, sleeping in my own bed and getting back into a routine. I've enjoyed my time here in Texas but it's definitely time to go home. Oh and since I didn't post yesterday, I want to give a little happy birthday shout out to my niece Karley. It was her 11th birthday yesterday, I cannot believe she is 11 already. My family met her when she was 5, it's crazy how fast the years have flown by. But either way... happy belated birthday, Karley, aunt Sara loves you!

Well all, it is official. I am done with my first class at CCU! This morning I finished my reflection paper and submitted it and another paper that is due. These past 10 weeks have flown by, but I cannot wait to start my next two classes. The one will be a challenge, but I live for challenges. :) And of course I have already started my homework for my new classes... mostly just the "Getting to Know You" discussion post and responding to my classmates because the other things I need to have my books. They should be waiting for me when I get home tomorrow, so I will probably work more tomorrow since I have a reading assignment due on Monday already. This is what I yearn for... I could totally be a forever student and be okay with it (as long as I didn't have to spend how much money on everything) :).

This afternoon is really dragging on, Ashley is listening to music, John is playing a video game and here I am. So I writing this post, slowly working on my discussions and listening to music. I hope that this afternoon starts going faster... I should have known this would happen though. I'm going home tomorrow and I'm really excited for it, so of course the day before is going by slowly. But I don't want to have the post dragging on... I'll hopefully post after I get home tomorrow. Have a wonderful afternoon! So until next time.

~Sara~

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~

Changes Ahead (Day 574)

Hi all!

Happy Thursday! How are you all doing today? Yet again, it's been a week since I've last blogged, I hate being "that" blogger". I'm trying to do better but it's difficult while I'm still in Texas. Hopefully today will be the start of blogging on a more consistent basis.

I have been making some changes to my blog and there are a few more to come. The name of my blog has changed from "A Year of Transformation" to "Yearning for More: My journey to becoming the healthy, happy, and successful me". Plus I won a new layout design from a giveaway done by Summer (she blogs at Oh Summer Candy) but the actual blog design was done by Kotryna (she blogs at Girl With a Movie Camera). I cannot wait for my new design, you'll all see it in a few days. :) Let me tell you about the other things I won in the giveaway. First is a large ad space from Erica at Being Erica for 60 days and a Queen Bee ad space from Autumn at Gypsybeee for 30 days. I am super excited for all these changes that are in the process of happening.

As I stated before, I've changed the name of my blog and I want to explain why and what my new name means to me. Mostly, I decided to change my name because this journey is not "a year of transformation", heck, in September it will mark 2 years on my weight loss journey. My new name means so many things to me, I struggled trying to figure out what name I should pick. So many things flooded my mind but each one just didn't describe what I was trying to say. That is until "Yearning for More" came to my mind. I am yearning for more out of my life and I'm on a journey to become healthy, happy and successful in all aspects of my life. I cannot wait to see this change in action.

After a few days of not really being able to talk to Abid, he and I were actually able to have a decent conversation today. It was really nice, to say the least, I've missed him a ton. Plus I was able to see him, that always makes my day better. I was able to talk to his pastor today as well, it was nice hearing things from him as well. They are all excited for me to come and visit there someday, hopefully in the near future. He was telling me how often Abid talks about me and how much he loves me. Even though I already know these things, it's nice to hear from people around him as well.

Well my first class at CCU is almost completed! I cannot believe that it has almost been 10 weeks already. We're currently on week 9 and all I've really got between me and an A are 3 papers (I should be fine with all of them) and 2 discussion posts. As long as I don't bomb those 3 papers, which I won't, papers are my speciality, I will get an A. Currently I have a 97.6%, so I'm not worried. :) I'm really excited about starting my new classes though. My current classmates (well one more like it) have really gotten on my nerves, not to mention that my class has 4 students, including me. That makes our discussion's quite difficult, but oh well. I've learned a lot during this session.

This post is long enough already, plus we'll probably be heading out sometime soon after John gets home from work in a few. So be looking for my new design over the next few days and I'll try to be blogging more.   Have a wonderful day everyone! So until next time!

~Sara~