2016, New Year, New Me

Hi, all!

Happy Thursday! How are you all? I haven’t written in so long, so I’m not sure if anyone is still listening. My last post was in August, which means it’s been five months. Honestly, though, I haven’t been posting regularly since the end of May/beginning of June. There are a variety of reasons that I haven’t posted in so long, including that grad school has kept me insanely busy and that sometimes things simply were not going well, so I didn’t post. I have definitely had my ups and downs over the past five months, no doubt about it. My winter break just ended and so many times I thought about posting. I had all of these thoughts in my head about what to say, but I never wrote them down. My problem is that I have so much to say and sometimes I don’t know how to articulate those thoughts.

On Monday, I returned to Seattle after spending 3 weeks in Wisconsin with my family for my winter break. It was a wonderful trip, I didn’t realize how much I missed my family until I saw them again, it was definitely bittersweet coming back and having to leave again. After being back with my family for a few weeks, I realize that after I graduate, I may want to return to Wisconsin to work. The time that I have to make this decision is far from now, so I definitely have some time, however, it is something that I will be thinking about a great deal.

Yesterday, I began my second quarter of grad school. It is hard to believe that I’m a quarter closer to being done, only 10 quarters left. I know that my time at SPU will go by quickly and I need to learn as much as I can from my professors and colleagues. It seems like I just started college and here I am with an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree and working toward my master’s degree, time flies. Honestly, it feels like I just graduated from high school and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At the same time, it feels like high school was so long ago, which, depending on your definition of long, it has been. By the end of this school year, I will have been out of high school for 8 years, which is a scary thought. Nevertheless, here I am almost 8 years later, in grad school, with two degrees under my belt already. Life is definitely a journey.    

Now it’s time in this ridiculously long post, to share some of the not so positive things that have happened over the past five months. I wish that I could say that everything in my life is perfect and that I stayed on track with my fitness and nutrition over the past months. Sadly, I need to report the exact opposite. I have not made healthy food choices and I have done a very little exercise. This has caused me to gain back all of the weight that I lost and then some. It is really hard for me to admit this but my weight is up to 321, a new high. I promised myself that I would never see a ‘3’ as the first number of my weight again, but here I am. For a while, I simply stopped caring and let my food cravings take over. I didn’t step on the scale and I avoided looking at my body, besides seeing if my clothing looked okay. Then when I was in Wisconsin, I went to the doctor and I had to step on the scale. I knew that I hadn’t been doing well but I never thought that I would have gained so much weight. When I saw that number on the scale I almost cried because never in my life did I imagine that I would weigh 321 pounds. At the rate I was going, I was just killing myself slowly.

To be honest, I have been really struggling with my food choices. Food has taken over my life again and it is so hard to try and stop. There have been days where I would try to make healthier food choices and I did for part of the day but then toward the end, I was just so hungry. It goes to show how many calories I had been eating, though, it was a very high number. So, I am now trying to plan out meals that are lower in calories and have healthy ingredients. I am hoping that if I eat lower calories foods I’ll be able to eat more of them and that will trick my body into not being so hungry. For Christmas, my mom gave me her old crock pot, so I’m searching for a lot of healthy recipes. I know that doing some meal planning will help me each day and also will help me when I am grocery shopping. I’m hoping that it will help me stop buying all these foods that I don’t need for my meals.

I have written out some weekly, monthly and yearly goals, so that is a step in the right direction. At this point, I’m not going to share my specific goals because some of them are quite personal, but I will share my major goals. I need to simply make healthier food choices, reduce my calories and start working out more again. My most important goal is to break the unhealthy habits that I have created. If I don’t break these habits, my health will deteriorate. My health and life are more important and precious than the foods I desire.

Well, there you have it, I have shared everything that I need to. Life is about to get busy again because my classes have started up again, but I promise that I will start posting on a regular basis. I don’t know how many people read my posts but I hope that my honesty can help at least one person continue on with their journey. If nothing else, sharing what I am going through helps to keep me accountable and that is definitely something that I need. This is a long and hard journey and I need to keep myself going strong along the way. I hope that you all are having an absolutely wonderful beginning to your new year! This New Year is a clean slate for each of us and we can start over. Honestly, I believe that each day is a new beginning and we can become whoever we wish to be, all it takes is a little hard work and perseverance. We can do this! I promise that I’ll post again soon. Until next time!

~Sara~ 

Weigh-In, Recapping Goals and Weekly Goals

Hi, all!

Happy Sunday! How are you all doing on this gorgeous day? The sun is currently shining, however, it did rain this morning. I'm sorry that I haven't been updating much lately, it's been a struggle. This coming week I'm definitely going to try harder all around.

It's Sunday, which means it's time to share my results for this past week. I'll be honest, I had an absolutely horrendous week, both nutritionally and with my fitness. I was lacking the motivation to work out and I made far too many unhealthy food choices. Also, I ate more calories than I wanted or needed. Honestly, I only tracked my food three days and those were the only three days that I made healthier food choices.

Starting Weight: 315 lbs

Last Weight: 306.5 lbs

Current Weight: 306.2 lbs

Weight Lost: 8.8 lbs

Amazingly enough, I lost .3 pounds last week. I truly do not know how that happened, but it did, and I won't turn it down. I've been feeling a bit down on myself because of my lack of progress this month. So today I decided to look back at my numbers from April 27th and I'm actually sort of amazed by how much progress I've made since then. In 48 days, I've lost 7.2 pounds. So, in just about 7 weeks, I've lost 7.2 pounds, which equates to .97 pounds each week. Losing almost a pound each week is nothing to be sad about, that's continuous progress. Yes, I have a long way to go still, but I'm making progress either way.

Now on to recapping my goals from last week, let's just say, I did horribly with them. Plain and simple. I didn't lose at least .5 pound, but I did lose .3, and after my week, I'll count that as a win. I did work out four times but only had 138 minutes instead of my goal of 180. I most definitely did not eat within my calorie goal 6 days, I was under or right around my goal 3 days for sure. As I said earlier, I didn't even track my calories from Wednesday on, so I'm not sure what the actual totals were, but they weren't good. I did weigh-in each day, so I accomplished that goal. I most definitely did not stay positive each day and did not blog at least 3 days. My last post was Sunday, which I'm disappointed about, I should have blogged more. One thing that I did stay up on was my water intake, I made sure to drink at least 64 ounces each day and usually surpassed it. I did continue to work through my food addiction, but sadly, I let my food addiction take over. I ate when I was stressed, frustrated, upset, and happy. Overall, I did not only eat for nourishment, but for comfort.

Now onto this weeks goals:

1. Lose .5 - 1 pound

2. Cardio - 4 sessions, 45 minutes/session (180 minutes)

3. Eat within my calorie goal (2290) at least 6 days 

4. Weigh-in daily for weight loss study

5. Stay Positive

6. Blog at least 3 days

7. Drink at least 64 oz of water/day

8. Continue to work through food addiction

This week I'm really hoping to do better and I'm going to work hard to achieve my goals. I have to work Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, so I'll be a little busier, plus I'm planning on meeting up with a friend right after work on Wednesday. This week I'm going to focus more on nutrition and make sure to stick with my calorie goal and making healthier food choices. I'm also going to try and do some cardio each day I'm not working and do at least some strength training on the days that I do work.

Well, I'm off to go and spend some time with my family. I hope that you all have an amazing evening. Until next time! 

Frustration and Struggles

Hi, all!

Happy Friday! How are you all doing on this lovely day? It's already Friday, which is crazy, this week has absolutely flown by for me. This week has had it's ups and downs, right now it is more of a down. I'm trying to continue moving forward though. I keep beginning posts and not finishing them, so I'm finally going to finish a post again this week. Today I started my new job and I'm tired out! It has been a long time since I've had to be on my feet this long, but it is what it is, I'll get used to it. Now I'm just sitting with my feet up and relaxing for a little while before dinner.

Before I talk about anything else, I just need to get a frustration off my chest. I'm so tired of people judging other people, especially when they know nothing about what that person is going through. Everywhere I am turning I see people judging others and it drives me so crazy. Each of us has a story and it's not like anyone else's, so why are we judging others when we don't really know their story? Can we please just judging each other and just love and support? Please?

Now onto what I really want to talk about today, I'm struggling, plain and simple. The past few days I have allowed my food addiction to take control again and I feel like I'm spiraling out of control again. This needs to stop today. I have done well during the day and in the late evening, I make an extremely unhealthy food choice. I'm mad at myself for letting the food addiction take control again, but I'm going to fight it tooth and nail. Thankfully, last night I was able to keep my eating under control and I was under my calorie goal, hopefully, tonight I will be that successful as well.

The past few days I have been making excuses because I'm sick,  I "need" to eat that, I shouldn't exercise because I can't do much. Even yesterday morning I was making excuses as to why I wasn't going to workout, well, I nipped that in the bud and took a light 30-minute walk. Sometimes I just want to shake myself and say, 'what in the world are you thinking'? Yes, being sick does make working out more difficult, but I can still walk. When I'm walking, I can't give 100% because I can't breathe all that well, but I can still walk slowly without much difficulty. I'm done making excuses because I won't change myself when I'm making excuses.

Well, I'm off to continue relaxing and make some dinner. I hope that you all have an amazing evening and weekend. Until next time!

~Sara~

Quick Update

Hi all!

Happy Sunday! How are you all doing today? It's a beautiful, yet extremely cold day here.

It's been 14 days since my last post, sorry about that. Honestly, it has been ridiculously busy here lately. I began my two other classes this past week, so now I'm doing three classes in the next 5 weeks. I also am planning a trip to Seattle because I have an interview for grad school on March 6th!!! :)

I'll be honest, I have been doing horrendously nutritionally and with fitness. I really am trying to do better nutritionally, making better food choices and having smaller portions. I haven't weighed in, in awhile either. Honestly, I don't want to see the number because it won't be something I want to see.

I'm sorry that I probably won't be able to update a whole lot within the next month and a half. I'll update whenever I can, hopefully when I'm in Seattle. I need to cut this short though and get back to my school work, Lord knows there's a bunch of it. I hope that you all have a wonderful day. So, until next time!

~Sara~

Update

Hi all!

How are you all on this beautiful November morning?  Can you believe it is November already? This year is flying by and it is a very good thing. Plus, I am incredibly happy that all the elections are done now and no matter which candidates you wanted to win, I am glad it's over. Every other commercial on TV was about one candidate or another, not to mention all of the knocks on the door or the mail we would receive. I may not be all that happy with the elections results, but I pray that good things will be done. Sorry for not updating in almost a week but I have been keeping really busy with school stuff. I have been trying to work ahead as much as possible and begin working on my the research for my final papers.

I have been struggling a great deal with my nutrition and fitness lately. This month is not only incredibly busy with all my school work but November is just the hardest month for me, in general. For those of you who don't know, my best friend was killed on November 17, 2008 in a car accident that I was involved in. So, needless to say, November is very emotionally trying for me. All the stress has been getting to me and I am eating away my worries. I have seen the scale slowly rising again and I absolutely hate it! I really need to get back on track, especially with my nutrition. So here's to day 1.

Okay, so I just read this article this morning that made me laugh and really think about some things. I don't know if any of you watch the TLC show, 19 Kids and Counting but I adore this show, I watch it every week. Well, one of the daughter just got married over the weekend and she did things a little differently than her parents would have liked at her wedding. They did not share their first kiss in front of every one and apparently the parents did not know about this until it was happening. And I just want to applaud them for doing what they wanted and not what they thought their parents/families wanted. This was their first ever kiss, not only with one another, but in general. They wanted to share this special moment, just the two of them and I applaud them for that. If I had never had a kiss in my entire life and I was saving that for my wedding day, I would want it to only be my husband and I as well. So Jessa and Ben, I applaud you for standing up for what the two of you wanted and not caring what every one else thought!

I should head out and finish the outline for my paper and do some discussion responses. I hope that you all have a wonderful day. So until next time!

~Sara~

Happy New Year and Life Update

Hi all!

*Looks around shyly* Wow, it has been way too long since I have last posted... Honestly, I am somewhat ashamed of myself for not posting in so long but life has been crazy. But God, I have missed blogging and it's a new year, so I want to start things up again. Do you know a big reason why I decided to start blogging again? It's somewhat silly but it's the truth, I was reading this Glee fan-fiction today (I'm still in the process of reading it) and one of the main characters is a blogger. Reading about it just made me miss blogging even more and gave me the push to start it up again. 

First things first, how are you all? Oh, and Happy New Year! Can you believe it's 2014 already?!? How many of you make New Year's resolutions? Care to share any of them? I make them to an extent, but I don't like calling them New Year's resolutions. To me, those are broken too often and people make the exact same ones every year. So I call them my yearly goals and some of them are lifetime goals, to be honest. Here they are:

Get my eating back on track

      Get into an exercise routine

      Pay off all of what’s past due and begin classes again

      Save more money this year

      Don’t sweat the small stuff

      Be open minded and try new things

      Put others first

      Meet new people

      Start cooking again

      Communication

      Focus on the important things

      Find a better paying job and keep it

      Be the light

      Make Amanda proud

      Become the person I hope to be

      Just be happy

      Keep moving forward and never give up

      Decide where to get my Master’s

Okay, so here's the part where I talk about everything that has been happening since the end of July. Get ready for a short novel:

First, I moved back home to Wisconsin. As you may or may not know, my job out in Colorado didn't work out and I wasn't able to find another one. :( At the end of August, my parents came out to get home and we went home. Did I tell you all that I wasn't doing well physically starting toward the end of July? I honestly don't remember, but I'll tell you now either way. It was bad, one day I just got this bad headache (it was pretty much a migraine) and was feeling extreme dizziness. Things just continually got worse over the next few months and the dizziness didn't go away until November, I believe it was. The headaches are still here but I'm trying to handle them and it's much easier without the dizziness. But it was to the point where I could barely do anything, I honestly just laid in bed all day in the dark and the only sound was my fan. 

God, those last few weeks in Colorado were bad. My debit card number had been stolen and so they had to shut it down and I didn't have access to any money. This was horrible because I barely had any food in my house. The last few days before my parents came to get me, I was only able to eat a few tablespoons of peanut butter each day. I lost a lot of weight in August (sadly I've gained it all back and then some now), I was down about 15 pounds or so that month. Once my mom got there, she bought a little food so we could eat and I ended up getting sick because I was finally eating properly again. It was not a fun drive back to Wisconsin with how I was feeling. The second day, we had to postpone leaving by over an hour because of how horrible I felt. 

Second, I broke up with my ex-fiancé back in the beginning of October. It was a difficult decision but then again, it wasn't. I loved him, no doubt about it but there was something deep down inside where I knew that it wasn't right. The main problem was that we would have to get married within 90 days of him being here and I just wasn't comfortable with that idea. You know, what if we wouldn't have hit it off in person? I wanted to be able to actually date someone in person and get to know them, spend time with them and ultimately get engaged and married but not on the government's time frame for us. Also there was something that hurt me, I guess you could say, and it played a big role in why I broke things off. There were many times where I would ask him, "why do you love me?" and he couldn't give me a concrete reason. Nothing, not a single physical or emotional trait. I could list off so many things for him but he couldn't even give me one. It hurt me and caused me to doubt his "love" for me. I honestly thought he and I were done communicating, but them on Christmas he messaged me on Facebook and said some horrible things. Not the best way to start my holiday, but it is what it is, I suppose. 

Third, I started babysitting my youngest two nieces (the twins) for my brother and sister-in-law during the day because my SIL got a job with the school where my mom teaches. The pay isn't wonderful but at least I have a little extra cash and I get to spend time with two of my favorite little girls every week. :) Don't get me wrong, those little girls can be handful sometimes but I wouldn't trade this for the world. I never got to bond with my nephew like this and you can tell. It saddens me honestly, he loves me but he'd much rather spend time with other family members. Not my girl’s though, they love their aunt Sara. I will never regret being able to spend so much time with them and building the relationship that we have. 

Fourth, I haven't been able to take classes for months and it's killing me! Why you ask? Well, I have to pay off this past due amount from this past semester and the summer semester, but I can't take classes again until it's completely payed off. Honestly, it makes me mad. I have a butt-load of financial aid available to me for this spring semester and I probably won't even be able to use it because of the payments that I have to make. Why on earth can my financial aid not just go into paying that off what I owe and then I can take classes again? I'm already a semester behind in my plan because of the stupid headaches/dizziness that I had last year and this is only pushing me back even further. I was supposed to be graduating in May of this year and now I have no idea when graduation will come. All I want is to be taking classes again, ugh!!

Finally, we get to December; it was a freaking crazy month, in both positive and negative ways. I might as well start with the negative. On December 12, my grandmother (dad's mom) had a massive heart attack and was in the ICU, it didn't look good right away. We were told to go and say our goodbyes, I was never close to her, but it brought back memories from Amanda's death. But things started to look up, she had a really good night and we were hopeful. Sadly, things took a turn for the worst and she died the next day (Friday the 13th). It turned out that she never really took good care of herself, she always put others first, especially my grandfather. His health hasn't been the greatest for a while, it stressed her out a lot, and I have no doubts that it played a role in her death. Her funeral was on December 18th and it was hard. Honestly, I feel bad. Her death wasn't hard for me because it was her that died, but it was because the last death and funeral I experienced was Amanda's. Does that make me a bad granddaughter? 

Anyways, the next day (the 19th) was my father's birthday. Amazingly, my dad's taking his mom's death really well. But when we were at the hospital the day of her heart attack it was tough. It was the first time I ever remember seeing my father and grandfather cry. That was also the day that I saw my grandparents be affectionate around us, which never happened. They had been married for 60 years and 1 month so they just knew how they felt and didn't show it around other people. Anyways, back to the crying thing. When my mom and I got to the hospital I saw tears in my dad's eyes, I had literally never seen him cry before, my mom told me about 2 other times that he's cried (that she knows of) and they both involved me. The first was at my birth and the second was after my car accident. It was really tough, that in itself made me start to cry. You know, my mom and I may not see eye to eye with everything but I love her so much and I can't even imagine losing her. My grandmother's death did have good things become of it though. My brother and I rode of the burial site together and we just talked, that doesn't happen often. It made me realize even more just how much my brother means to me and how much I miss him. 

Okay, enough sadness, now onto the happiness that December has brought me. A few days before my dad's birthday I got a text from this person who I hadn't really talked to in a few years. He's a complete sweetheart. You know, I never gave him a chance a few years ago because we're different. He is a country boy, through and through and I'm definitely not country. Jeremy's a farmer, he lives out in the country, listens to country music, very much into agriculture and pretty much anything country. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the exact opposite of that. I'm a city girl (maybe not a big city but city nevertheless) and I try to be more sophisticated and I love musicals, Broadway, and that sort of thing. Long story short, I never gave him a chance because I judged him based on petty things. Well, I'm giving him a chance this time around. We started dating on my dad's birthday and I really like him. :) He makes me happy and it's nice to be able to spend time with him in person and also through texting. We're still learning about each other but it's going good so far. I'm excited to see where this is heading and who knows, maybe I have a future with him. 

This topic is one that needs to be address but I really don't want to. My weight loss (or gain in my case, currently). Even since my headaches/dizziness, I haven't been doing well. At first, I wasn't eating enough and I almost down to 250 pounds, which was my goal for this year. However, once I started eating properly again, I gained it all back and then some. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty depressing. I looked at a chart of my yearly weight loss and I am down about 11 pounds this year and it's better than gaining but it's not what I hoped. In August, I was down to 250.2 and I ended up at 278 to end the year, it's disappointing. Don't get me wrong, a loss is better than a gain, any day of the week and I'm in size 20 pants all around. That's exciting to me, because I'm still 4 pant sizes down from my heaviest and I've still lost weight. I'm not giving up, I'm going to fight to win this battle. 

Starting Weight: 315

Last Weigh-In: 266.8

Current Weight: 278

Total Lost: 37

So, my game plan?

1) Starting counting calories again

2) Begin an exercise routine of some sort (at least 4 days a week)

3) Carb cycling, it helped a ton before and I felt so much better

4) Continue to blog on a consistent basis

5) Come up with a list of goals for this year

6) Just keep fighting no matter what. Never give up

Wow, okay. This turned into a short novel, sorry about that. In my defense, I had a lot to cover. I promise that you all will hear from me again soon! I love you all! So until next time!

~Sara~

Year 1 Day 145 (Day 510)

Hi all. How's everyone doing today? Honestly, I'm doing pretty crappy. I'm very emotional and lonely, I have been the past week or so. At first when I thought about blogging today, I was just going to say screw it, but obviously I've decided against it. I didn't want to annoy everyone with what I'm going through but I know that I need to let my emotions out or I will just bottle them up inside and sooner or later I'll explode (figuratively, of course). It's happened in the past and I don't want it to happen again. I'm the type of person who is very emotional but I don't like to let my emotions show to most people. Usually, I try to be the strong, happy person that I always am. I don't like to show weakness because I grew up with a very anti-emotion father. Don't get me wrong, I love my father and he can be awesome but he doesn't know how to show his emotion except by getting angry and storming off. So when I was growing up, I didn't show my emotion that often and I'm still like that to this day. Half the time I don't even like to have my fiancé see me when I'm emotional (it's something that I'm working on because he wants us to be open with each other on every front). 

It's no surprise why I'm so emotional and lonely. I miss Abid and that's that. We talk on the phone every day but it's not for long, maybe 10 minutes if we're lucky. It's hard going from talking to at least 2 hours every day down to 10 minutes at a time. And not being able to see him is killing me inside. I'm really trying to be supportive of him and his decision to take this job but it sucks for me. I hate feeling like this because I'm being so selfish and I know that Abid is doing what he feels is best for us. I do trust his judgement but it's very hard. There are so many things that I don't understand and I don't think I ever will. I am still thankful that we are able to talk on the phone most days and that I know he is doing fine. This morning Abid's phone call woke me up, and as much as I wanted more sleep, I couldn't think of a better way to start my day, than talking to the man I love. But I also talked to his friend for a minute and it was nice because he told me that he's taking care of Abid and making sure he's okay. Plus, he told me who much Abid talks about me and how much he loves me. :) Don't get me wrong, I know how much Abid loves me, but it's nice to hear someone else saying it who is around him. 

I've been eating emotionally because of all of this and after the fact, I feel horrible. But of course, later in the day or night I eat because I'm emotional again. Every morning I wake up telling myself that I will do better today and that I won't eat because I'm emotional or bored. And then every day, I go and eat emotionally again. It's a vicious cycle and I'm starting to hate myself again, this is a step backwards. I was finally happy with myself and the choices I was making and now I feel the exact opposite. So, I need to make a change before it gets worse and I go spiraling backwards. I haven't weighed myself since Sunday but I'm sure I have gained weight this week. But as of this moment, I am going to give it my all to make a change. I need to start wanting this again. Doing this for me and my health. My life is at stake here. And heck, I'm going to be in a wedding in 7.5 months, I wanna look good. :)

I am determined to never go back to how I was before. A girl who weighed in at 315 pounds, with zero self-esteem and hated herself. The girl who thought she was worth nothing. Who thought people would be happier if she just died. Who went from guy to guy because she didn't want to be alone. Who always put on a happy face because she didn't want people to see just how much she hurt inside. 

I'm sorry that I've been so emotional and very whiny/complaining all the time lately. I just don't really have anyone else to turn to in my life because my 2 closest friends live in different states. Plus they each have their own stresses that they are dealing with, and I'm the one that they turn to when they need to talk (just another reason why I feel like I need to appear strong). 

So I've turned the page, it's a brand new chapter and I'm ready to start writing. I do have worth. I love myself. I bring joy to people's lives. I can make a difference in this world. I am worthy of love and respect. (It's time to start really believing this again). Since it's lent, I'm going to give up a few things (I usually don't give up things for lent, but what they heck). I plan to give up most sweets (cookies, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, etc...). 

I'm having a little emotional dilemma currently. For the longest time, I have had a large yearning to travel and live in another country for a short time. When I first started having this yearning, there was no place in particular that I wanted to visit/live but now I really want to travel by my fiancé and experience life there. And I realize that life would be quite difficult, especially being a woman, but I truly want to do it. Abid has lived in this country his entire life and I really want to have a grasp on what it's like there. I can research and study the country as much as possible but you never really know what it's like until you visit it and experience everything. Now my dilemma is that my family doesn't want me to travel there because it's not the safest country. Believe me, I understand their concerns because I've done research and it can be a scary place. But at the same time, it doesn't scare me and I really do want to experience it. So I don't know what to do. Do I follow my heart or do I make my family happy? I just don't know. I am praying for wisdom and guidance because I have no idea what to do. So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I make this decision. 

Until next time.

~Sara~

P.S. I'm sorry that I've been such a bad blogger friend lately, I've barely read/commented on any blogs lately. That will be changing soon, promise! 

Year 1 Day 144 (Day 509)

Hi all! How are you all doing today? I went back into the doctor today and he's fairly certain that my pain isn't caused by a ruptured ovarian cyst, but he does this that it may have to do with my sciatic nerve. He is thinking that there is inflammation around the nerve which is causing the pain, so he is starting me on an anti-inflammatory and some pain medication. The only bad thing about the medication is that it will make me very drowsy, so the doctor doesn't want me to be driving while on these medications. That means I'll have to rely on other people to take me to the doctor for the next week or so.

I've got to be honest, the past few weeks I have just done horribly with my nutrition. I know that it probably has to do with the stress, sickness, and pain that I have been experiencing. The sickness and pain, you all know about. But the stress tends to vary from day to day. I've been able to come to terms, to an extent, with Abid not being able to come online. And that being said, it's still a major struggle each day. We do get to talk on the phone a little but it's not really enough. Believe me, I realize that this is probably just as hard on Abid as it is on me, but I'm trying to remain strong. But anyways, this is playing a role in why my nutrition is going off course. It is something that I need to work on, starting now.

Today I was finally able to get all of my books ordered, I wish I would have realized it yesterday when I ordered my other book but it's better late than never. My enrollment counselor told me that I would only need to order a specific book, so yesterday that is the book that I ordered. And today as I was going through my assignment that's due in a few weeks, I realized that I need another book. So I decided to go through all of the assignments and see what books I will all need. There were 3 total books that I needed and now all of them have been ordered. Until I receive my books, I cannot continue to work on my assignments. So I am hoping that my books will arrive here in a few days.

I'm feel very tired from my medication, so I think I'm going to go lay down for a little while. Until next time.

~Sara~