An update

Thought I would update you on this journey...

My last shift at Starbucks was two Sunday's ago and let me just say that was one of craziest day I've ever worked.  It was Mother's day and everyone wanted to take drinks to their mom/wife and no one knew what they wanted!  Nothing like going out with a bang!

The day before I left Kyle & I found out we had been approved for our new insurance.  This was something I had been worried about and was another way God showed me I just had to let go and trust him.

The day after I left work I found out my application to BH Carroll had been accepted!  I wasn't expecting to hear back until July but found out I was approved in time to start this summer!  So starting June 7th I'll be taking an online orientation class and learning all about this new amazing school.

I have been able to get some much needed rest and refocus on God and His plan.  I'm so excited for this journey and wanted to let you guys know all the amazing things happening already

Maker of it all
You provide it all
In You we live
In You we move
In You we have our being
You're glorious
You're holding us together all together 
Gungor "Brother Moon"

Sunday nights

Growing up I would always have a hard time falling asleep on Sunday nights, I guess I would get anxious about the week ahead.  I would usually end up coming back downstairs and hanging out with my dad for awhile on Sunday nights, even throughout high school.  I am a planner which is the nice way of saying I know how to worry, and I'm good at it.  I would lay in bed on Sunday nights and think of all the things I have to do that week or the tests or the homework I didn't finish. 

Working, and especially opening shifts, brought back my sleepless Sunday nights.  Especially once I became a shift manager.  I would lay in bed and think about where I would position everyone in the morning, all the things I had to get done, then I would think if I fall asleep now I'll get 4 hours of sleep, etc.  There were many Sunday nights in the past few months where I only got an hour or so of sleep and felt it for the rest of the week.  I have countless pictures on my phone of scratches of paper like this where I have written down how I will run the shift that day. 

 

Today was my last shift at Starbucks and so for the first time in a long time Sunday night doesn't mean an early bed time filled with planning and anxiety.  Like I said I know how to worry and I'm good at it, I'm working on learning to fully and completely rely on God especially during this new journey.  It's incredible to see how He's working out the little details for us--like finding out yesterday that our health insurance is approved!  I'm thankful for this new journey and new season in life--one with more sleep and learning to fully trust God.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

No Sugar. No Flour.

I know this sounds crazy but I'm going on two weeks with no (or very little) sugar and white flour.  I decided I needed to make a healthy change and had been reading about side effects from sugar consumption and decided this would be a good way to go.  I had been having trouble sleeping, probably averaging only 4 hours a night, had lots of headaches, and very sluggish. 

The first few days were really rough, I was grumpy and exhausted.  I was really surprised that I had any symptoms cause I didn't think I ate that much sugar but I soon found out that I did!  The third day was the hardest, I was having a hard time comprehending things at work and moving very slow.  Once I got through that day it's been much easier.  I have slept so good the past week and a half and have zero headaches.

I'm not saying no sugar is the way to go for everyone, it is an interesting subject to research though.  The amount of sugar our body needs to function is very little and the excess sugar slows our body down. 

Kyle has been such a good sport these past few weeks, he put up with my crabbiness and has been flexible about what we eat.  I have found delicious recipes including a Greek dip that I could live off of--I've made it twice in the past two weeks.  I eat it with some multi-grain chips, but you really could eat it with a fork. 

I will say work is the hardest place to avoid sugar, we have so many pastries & drinks that are delicious (and full of sugar) but I've been doing good.  I have my iced double espresso in the morning & bring two breakfast cookies.

Anyone else ever tried the no sugar way? 

Baked Chicken Nuggets

I'm not much of a fast food girl, but I love Chick-fil-a especially the chicken nuggets with Chick-fil-a sauce. It's my weakness.

Since we are trying to eat at home more, I decided to attempt to make baked chicken nuggets. And while they were in the oven, I whipped up my own version of Chick-fil-a sauce. They both turned out really good so I thought I would share the recipes:

Baked Chicken Nuggets
2 large chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces
Salt & pepper
2 tsp olive oil
6 Tbsp Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp Panko
2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese (the stuff in the green shaker worked great)

450 degree oven
Spray baking sheet

Put olive oil in one bowl and breadcrumbs, panko and parmesan in another bowl

Season chicken with salt & pepper, put in olive oil, then doing a few pieces at a time put in breadcrumb mixture. Make sure each piece gets fully coated.

Place on baking sheet, lightly spray the top with some non-stick spray

Bake 8-10 minutes then turn over and bake for 4 more minutes

Maddie & Kyle sauce
1/2 c honey mustard
1 tsp barbeque sauce
a squirt of regular mustard
Hope you enjoy!

A new journey

Over the past few months I've felt a tug at my heart to take a leap of faith and trust God with my future. I wasn't really sure what this meant and just kept going through my regular routine. I felt run down, exhausted and unhappy when I got home from work which I had never felt before. I realized it was time for me to move on to what God had planned for me. Kyle and I sat down and talked about what this meant for our lives, and I decided to go back to school.

So here's the big news--I'm going to go back to school and get my Master's degree in Counseling! I have a lot of work to get there, applications, GRE test, essays, etc. but I am so excited to be on this journey. I have given my notice at work and I will be leaving in the middle of May. I want to be able to focus on this new journey and have energy to spend on the talents and passions God has given me.

God continues to show me that this is the right path for me and I am so blessed to have people in my life to encourage me and lift me up in prayer. I would love to know all the details ahead of time--I'm a huge planner--but that's not how trusting God works. I only know a tiny bit of this journey, I know the first step was giving my notice and starting applications and I have taken that step. I am learning to trust God and take it one step at a time, relying on Him and not my own strength.

⁶ You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials ⁷ so that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:6-9

Austin

This past weekend we packed up and headed down to Austin for Kyle's brother's wedding. Kyle is the middle of three boys and this was his youngest brother's wedding, all three boys have gotten married in the past year and a half! We haven't been on a trip since the cruise so we were excited to get away for the weekend and decided to make the most of it!

On our way down we stopped at Common Grounds in Waco and got to meet up with Aarika and Kendra. I'm sad that I forgot to take any pictures while we were there, but we got to catch up on life, wedding planning, school, work, and everything. I love those girls and I was so glad they got to meet us there!

We got back on the road and our next stop was lunch, which Kyle had planned since he learned that Blake & Erika were getting married in Austin. Lunch was burgers at Mighty Fine. For those of you who know my hubby, you know his love for burgers. The burgers were delicious and the fries are awesome!

Back on the road--hit some traffic coming into Austin, but isn't that the 'Welcome to Austin' sign? haha, oh the traffic was awful all weekend! I guess that's what you get in Austin.
Made it to the hotel in just enough time to get changed and head out to the rehearsal dinner. Blake & Erika asked Kyle to officiate so this was his first wedding, and I think I was more nervous than he was. I wasn't nervous that he wouldn't do a good job, cause I knew he would. I was just imagining having to stand up in front of all these people with this incredibly important job of marrying two people and that was making me nervous. But that's why Kyle is the pastor and not me! haha.

After the rehearsal we headed to Salt Lick BBQ for the dinner, only some of the most delicious BBQ in the state of Texas. It took a little bit to get there since it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere but everyone seems to find it! Their parking lot is huge and we were there early and it was already getting crowded, but rightfully so. It was delicious, they brought out huge plates of meat, potatoes, coleslaw and bread. We ate way too much of that delicious food! And then had some blackberry cobbler with blue bell ice cream :) Again no pictures, probably cause we were too busy eating and having fun with family.

Friday night we decided to go see The Hunger Games since neither one of us could wait any longer to see the movie! So we went to Walmart and loaded up my purse with snacks (hey we are cheap okay! ha) and went to a movie theater right up the street from our hotel. I loved the movie, I thought they did a good job taking it from a book into a movie, there were some things that I missed but overall it was great!


We had most of the day Saturday to just hang out so we decided to go walk around downtown. We got some Starbucks, cause I can't go a day without my caffeine haha. Then we went over to the farmer's market that is set up on Saturday mornings. We had so much fun! They had all kinds of booths set up and we ended up eating lunch there. Kyle had a meatloaf sandwich and I had chicken flautas. Delicious!

Then we headed to the wedding which was beautiful! And Kyle did a great job :) People came up to him all through the night telling him how good he did and how awesome it was that he got to do the ceremony for his brother, so excited for him!

We had planned on going to Austin Stone on Sunday morning, but it didn't happen. We got back to the hotel late after the wedding so we slept in, which Kyle never gets to do on a Sunday! Plus my allergies went crazy at the wedding and I could barely breathe by the time we left so I was still all blah on Sunday morning. We ended up just grabbing breakfast at the hotel and heading out.

Stopped at one of my favorite lunch places in Waco on the way home--Food for thought. It's just this little hole in the wall place that has simple but delicious sandwiches, pizzas and other things. I had a baked avocado which was just an avocado with cheese, chicken, black olives & sour cream that the put in the pizza oven for a few minutes--amazing! I'm gonna have to try it at home some time.

It was such a fun trip, and I'm so thankful for a weekend spent with my hubby enjoying good times, good food and lots of time with family :)

Craft Project

I mentioned a few posts ago that I wanted to make a new menu board for us to plan out our weekly menu. Well thanks to pinterest I found this one that I really liked and she laid out all the directions to make it. I changed a few things and it turned out awesome! I'm still in the process of writing down all of the meals on the cards and then I'm going to laminate them. Here are pictures:

I ended up just handwriting most of it and it turned out good. There are two pockets made from crayon boxes that we painted. The idea is you keep all the meal cards in the bottom pocket and then as you make them you put them in the top pocket to keep from making the same meal every week. I added some fun ones in there like "Kyle's burgers" to let Kyle pick what kind of burger creation he wants to make for us. I also made a few "Leftovers" tags since it's just the two of us we have those nights quite often. In fact, Wednesdays are permanent no cooking nights, it's too hard with youth group to try and cook or figure out when we would eat so we are both on our own that night.