Friendship

I have not been able to express this like others, but I think I might have figured it out.

I think I figured out friendship. Sometimes I hate giving sooo much!

I'm not the kind of person that calls myself "too nice." There's no such thing. I do give "too much" though, and Jimmy says I need to stop, because it's hurting me deep inside! He is the only one that I know of that completely understands because he has been there himself. I've not known another like this. But he understands it better, and doesn't "put himself out there" like I do. I've got to figure this out!!!

Even though these people are all really nice in their own ways, if each one had the opportunity to take advantage or freeload off of someone, they would do it.

_______________________________________
***I call you too much to see how you're doing. I don't give you a chance to persue it.
***I'm okay with changing my plans for you, at any time of the day.
***I'm okay with going out of my way, that the very very few times I see you, I'm giving you a free service.
***I text you "Happy Birthday" and "Merry Christmas" and the next time I hear from you, it's only to stay at my house in town because you're picking up your boyfriend from the airport the following day.
***I'm okay to drop EVERYTHING, because you finally have time for me.
_______________________________________

I don't like being taken advantage of. I give, and I give and I will continue to give, but a friendship is valuable, it has to be earned, and not just given away the way I have been. I am valuable. I give 100% in friendships, I'll always be there BUT YOU HAVE TO EARN IT!

I can't make myself convenient all the time for everyone, for any God given second anymore.

I can't just put myself out there. And wait.

Friendships will all come to and end at some point, some sooner, some later.

I hope I don't disappoint them, but I know at some point they might disappoint me.

This time, I'll put one foot in front of the other.

51 GRAMS PROTEIN PER SERVING!!!! WOW!

Okay, as you know I am a "somewhat" Vegan. I pretty much obey all the rules but ONE!

I eat fish! Not farm-raised fish! That stuff is nasty! BUT FREE ROAM FISH! Jesus ate it! I can eat it too! It's clean and I'm sticking with that meat only. I don't have it on a regular basis, but when I do eat a form of meat, it's either that, or the high protein foux chicken made of mushroom. Other than that, no red meats, no chicken, yadda yadda. You know the drill.

So I found the AMAZING HIGH PROTEIN recipe on my favorite magazine website.

Let's try it together! Check it out!

Ingredients
Serves 1
2 oz. soba noodles*
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. rice vinegar
¼ tsp. wasabi paste*
1 pouch (6 oz.) pink salmon
1 Tbsp. roasted sesame seeds*
* found in the Asian aisle of your supermarket

Directions1. Prepare soba according to package directions. Meanwhile, whisk together olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl. 2. Add vinegar and wasabi, whisking until smooth. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

NUTRITION FACTS: 551 calories, 51 g protein, 44 g carbs, 21.5 g fat

What's "WOW" upside down? "MOM" Yup, that's me, and this is a HEALTHY recipe! That rhimed! lol

Wrapping up 2008

For those who know me, know what kind of life I lived. It's been a rough ride... BUT...

I can honestly say that 2008 has been the best year of my entire life! I wish I could re-live it over and over and over again!

2008 didn't start off with a New Years Resolution, I think I was wrapped up in other things!

Here's an overview on my many events that happened!!!

JANUARY:
* New Years- Simply Fondue in Alrington w/Fiance' Jimmy.
* Picked a date for the wedding! February 2nd!
* Wedding Party, thrown by Kelly, Laura and Andi!!! Luv'yall!
* Cinti made all of our Wedding invitations.
* Mom & Dad (Hayward) helped TREMENDOUSLY on all wedding plans!!!
* Went under the knife the second week of January.
* I started my 1st Laser Hair removal Session.

February:
* I went on my very first ever Plane ride with my soon to be Husband!!! I loved it!!!
* I had the most beautiful, amazing wedding in Valencia, California on 2-2-08
* Our first road trip together, from Valencia to San Diego! Our Honeymoon Destination!
* Back to LA, and comforted by the presence of my new family, and a nice dinner.
* Back to Texas, home sweet home. We're Married!

March:
* 7th, My Birthday! 26 is the best age ever!!!
* Jeremy Camp / Toby Mac Concert
* Flyleaf Concert

April:
* Texas Rangers - Third Day
* MercyMe, Skillet & Jeremy Camp Concert

May:
* Dillon competes in his 1st Triathlon!
* Cleansing Stream Retreat
* Jimmy's 32nd Birthday!

June:
* Celebrate Freedom!
* Dillon goes to Triathlon Camp in Austin, Tx and has his 2nd Triathlon!!!
* Jimmy and I Vacation in San Antonio!!!

July:
* 4th, Botanic Garden w/the F.W.Syphony Orchestra!
* I got my Certification as an Intradermal Technician!
* Dillon competes in his 3rd Triathlon!

August:
* Dillon started school!
* Became Besties with Emily!
* Stacey & Travis Marry!!!

September:
* Jimmy had his first Triathlon in Dennison, Tx!
* We have an addition to our family! Sammy!!! I heart him sooo much! (he's laying under my comp. chair right now)
* Dillon starts Baseball AND Gymnastics!!!
* Jimmy's BF Josh & Angela Marry!!! (Josh is the uncle of the Jonas Bro's)
* I open doors to my business, Glamorous Ink.com

October:
* Our 1 year dating anniversary!
* Canton Womens Retreat!!! Fun! Fun! Fun!

November:
* Dillon's 8th Birthday!!! He's getting big, and soooo smart!
* I started Personal Training with Shar!
* Back to California for Thanksgiving!

December:
* Dillon got his report card in, and has not made a "B" yet!!! ALL "A's"!!!!!!!!!
* Working out with new friend Stephanie EVERY single day! Sometimes 2x's a day!
* It was nice to have my sister over for Christmas. A short couple of minutes, but it was nice, and having mom (Highland) there, priceless.
*** Our First Christmas together as Husband and Wife =)

Personal Training *ouch*

So I started doing personal training Sessions with Shar 3 times a week at her gym in Aledo. She is amazing... and it's kind of hard not to gawk at her body. Wow!

But that makes you want to work out even harder. When your brain is telling you "I can't do another rep!" I just look at her (while she is telling me "YOU GOT 3 MORE!") and I do it!

I'm very excited about my end results! I'm 8 training sessions into it, and I'm going to be training till my birthday in March!

Just to give you a sneak peak of my trainer, here she is...

Shar Courtney

Although I haven't seen a big difference in weight. I have in muscle, so I know it's going good!

Today, after my workout.... allllll the way home my arms were trembling! I had such a good workout my body was telling me to pull over to the side of the road.... FAST!!!

And just as I listened to my body, I opened the door and threw up! Yuck! Part of it got on my car door! Gross!

That's when you know you had a good workout.

So I challenge YOU... "(ah) Push it, Push it Real Good"!!! lol

5:30am the phone rings

I slap my phone because I think it's my alarm to wake up, but mentally I know it's Saturday, so of course I don't look at it.
Seconds later I hear a voice. I went to grab my phone and Jimmy said he heard something too.
I was sooooo tired!
So I retrieve the last phone calls and it's my friend Emily. Missed call. CRAP!
It hits me that being this early one SATURDAY morning we have TRAINING!!!
I called her back and she said "Good Morning"

First thought "I can't let her down"

I jump out of bad (Oh, how comfy I was!) raced to put on my running clothes, tennis and ran out the door. Drove faster than I should have been going, but I got there right before my group left!!!
It was so cold! But I knew that if I was going to wear a jacket, I'd be shredding it off of me by the 2nd mile! I sucked it up.
I immediately saw Emily and some of our Fav. groupies. We took off.
We ran for about 3/4 of a mile when we started going down this BIG (when I say BIG, I mean BBIIGG!) HILL!... The thoughts of running back up it on our last mile, I tried to block from my thoughts! Eieiei!
We hit mile 1.
Then we made a pit stop for water at mile 2.
At mile 2.75 (Thanks to Em for having a watch) I turned to go back.
So total I did aprox 5 miles, subtracted from walking back up the HILL!

But as for Emily.... SEVEN, I repeat SEVEN miles! You go girl!!! I am so proud of you!

Cheers to the best BFF in the world! Emily.

My first 5k

So last night. GREAT night! Jimmy, Dillon and I met up with my BFF Emily and her hubby Freddy for Ft Worth's "Friends of the River" 5k. at Trinity Park.

As you know, Emily and I have been training for close to 2 months now getting ready for February's 13.1 mile half Marathon! I haven't gotten to the 13 miles yet. That's like me running from my house all the way to Lake Worth... or Hulen Mall. Seriously.

So the "Friends of the River" was so awesome... we have all decided to do it again next year! There was nearly 800 people who ran last night. I was (unfortunately) in 437th place. But hubby (Jimmy) was an unbelievable 98th place! Top 100! He ran about a 7 minute mile. Me? 11.5 minute mile.

There was FREE food after the race! Sooo many restaurants came out to root for us! There was Chili's, Mellow Mushroom, Pei Wei, Smoothie King, Chadra, Pasties, free beer (but I don't drink) and many many MANY more!!! Too bad only TWO of the places had vegan stuff! Oh well, I filled up on Smoothie King! lol

Everyone had a blast!!! This deserves a few extra exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our Family First 5k


Cheers to the Girls of the Year! lol

Our Daily Smoothie

Jimmy and Julie's Sun is Shinin' Smoothie! : Serves 1
(We make EVERY single morning)

Pre-frozen in our little zip-lock bags we have:
3 Strawberries
1/2 Banana
1/2 Circular cut of Pineapple (which we had cut fresh before frozen)

We add with this in our blender (before blended):
1/4 cup plain yogurt (We use soy)
1 tablespoon of raw honey
2 drops of unsulfered black strap molasses (source of iron)
2 cap fulls applecider vinager (numorous benefits including balancing PH)
Water as needed (depends on how runny or thick you like it)

Pulse Blend 5x's

Add:
1 scoop "Garden of Life" Superseed
1 scoop Protein Powder (Spirutine, Rice-Pea-Soy Protein)

Blend until Smooth
ENJOY!

Tears of Joy

This is my life.

A book that changed my life (other than the bible)

Skinny Bit*h

Yeah, that's the title.

I picked up this book in Target and showed it to Jimmy and told him, "Can you believe they have that kind of title on a book?!." I skimmed through it and found that EVERY SINGLE thing I read was interesting! Although there is a lady figure on the front and the title is not so masculin, it is sure something both guy & girl should read. Jimmy has found it so interesting that I can't read it without him! This is from a guy who is a health nut himself and has incredible knowledge about health. Our eating all organics is clearly not enough.

It talks about SO many health obstacles like drinking cokes & coffee, smoking, the types of sugars and meat (ALL meat). So extremely interesting and in detail that you don't want to stop reading!!!

Let's start off with a short video clip that will change your life forever!

www.meat.org

Watch before you read on...

That was just an overview! I wish I could just type out the first chapter to you about the minor stuff (which can also kill you). It doesn't mention much about the meat in the first chapter, but it will definately immediately change filthy eating habits!

Filthy= coke, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, popping pills for pain, and being a couch potato...

...is all included in the first chapter alone! It's to the point and not dragged out, so it makes it very interesting and doesn't take long to read at all! And, it's a pretty small book!

The next chapter goes onto meats and dairy. I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE my chocolate milk!

...until I found out that milk actually isn't pumped by hand like the golden days anymore (obvious) what I didn't know is that their continually put on pumps which causes the nipple to crack, infect and puss. Guess where the puss is draining?

Mmm, mmm, mmm... does a body good.

Now I found a milk substitute. I never knew there was a chocolate milk that could taste SO indescribeably good! I love my "Blue Diamond" Almond Breeze chocolate milk. It has a slight hint of almond flavor and just OH SO GOOD! You buy it off the shelf, it is not refrigerated, but when opened, it's best to be used within 5 days. No problem there!!!

Here are a list of other things I have tried that has turned out to taste GREAT!!!

*Silk - Soy. I use the Vanilla flavor in my cereal. But still open to other brands and flavors.

*Earth Balance - Original butter Spread (soybean, palm fruit, canola oil & olive oil!) Tastes better than the REAL thing!!!

*All Natural So Delicious - Plain Yogurt w/ coconut milk

*All Amy's products - Canned soups, etc. They all msg free!

* Ezekial bread - The best bread you can get! Sprouted grain. It's what they used in biblical days.

*RW Knudsen - Organic Apple Butter

* Bionaturae - Organic fruit spread (I like the raspberry flavor) It is all natural, no additives and the lowest in sugar you can get in preserves.

* Fuji Apples - The best of the best of apples! Just don't cook with them, I made that mistake. They're for eating raw only. Doesn't taste that great cooked.

* Tofutti - Cream Cheese! Sooooooooooo good!

* Synergy - Kombucha, Grape flavor is my fav! You can only take a couple of sips because it is strong, but it is GREAT for the immune system!

* Bolthouse Farms - Perfectly protein Vanilla Chai Tea, with soy protein. YUMMY! It's 64 fl. oz per bottle. It's a creamy drink but mm mm good when you think of all the delicious things going in your body!

That's all for now! Enjoy all these, and let me know if you find something that tastes terrific that I haven't tried!

With love!

First Blog

So this is my first blog!

Sooo much has happened this year, I don't know where to start. In 15 more days, Jimmy and I will have our 1st "dating" anniversary. Super excited! Let me tell you when my life began...

I went through this horrific breakup. Completely unexpected. I didn't want to take the chance to have my heart ripped out once again. I stayed away from guys and hung out with friends for a while to keep me occupied from the lonliness within me. I decided to go on a couple of dates months later. Nothing big, no real attraction.

My relationship with God kept growing and growing. I listened to praise and worship countless hours. Over and over again, I hear this add on KLTY. It was a dating service called "Christian Single Adults". About a month later, I decided to check them out online. There was no profile involved, "great first impression" I thought. All it asked for was my name, phone number, address and where I heard about them. I filled it out.

That night I got a call from a girl named Alexis from CSA, asking if she could interview me. She let me understand that there are multiple interviews and IF I wanted to be a memeber, I would have to have a background check, credit check, and put down quite a bit of money. Ouch.

First of all, I didn't think all that effort was important enough because I didn't want anything "serious" EVER EVER EVER again!

That Saturday I had my next interview with Alexis. She asked me sooooooo many questions! From my favorite color to what I did and didn't like about a guy. What my weaknesses were, and what my strengths were. What I did for a living, and what my goals were. What was my favorite food, and least favorite food. She had also previously asked me to do my homework and come up with an entire list of things I am looking for out of someone. I did that.

Background Chech- CHECK

Credit Check- CHECK

Soooo.... I signed up anyways.

Deposit- CHECK

I had the best communication with the girls at CSA. They were extemely caring. Extremely sincere. There are no such words for the type of "customer service" they provided. Just love.

So 2 days later, while I'm at work, I get a phone call from Alexis. She said that she has a match for me, and that she already talked to the guy and sent him my picture and some detailed information of me. The only thing she needed was my approval to give him my phone number. But before anything, she told me about this guy.

She said "This guy is a hunk (in those exact words). He is a firefighter for Fort Worth. He volunteers as a Big Brother and at Cooks Childrens. He is divorced, was married for 7 years. He loves children. He used to play football in college. He went to Baylor University. And I noticed you said you had a weakness for blue eyes. Well, he has amazing blue eyes. Do I have your permission to give him your phone number?"

I was thinking in my head, "What the heck, there's nothing to lose." I politely said "Sure!"

I had completely forgotten about that call! I had alot going on that day. It was the day before Halloween, and I still hadn't gotten Dillon's costume and I still have to finish the day of work!

I got home, walked down the hallway... cell rang. I NEVER EVER answer numbers I don't recognize! What did I do?... I answered it.

It was him! How could I have forgotten?

At that time I had a ring tone on my phone for incoming callers to hear by Mercyme, called "I'll Praise You in this Storm".

I wasn't interested in having a relationship, so I played it safe. We had a great TWO hour conversation. Before we hung up, he asked if I wanted to meet that night. I said "sure".

So I ran some errands, went to Target for Dillon's costume, and met at our meeting place. Barnes and Noble, downtown Fort Worth.

There was a slight mess up at CSA (but I didn't mind), that when they sent me his profile to see what he looked like, they actually sent mine.... to me! lol. So he seen me. I seen me. Wonderful.

I walked in blind-folded.

This tall blonde headed guy immediately caught my attention. He was going up the escalator. I KNEW it was him! He didn't see me. But I saw the BACK of him! ;)

I called him to tell him I was there, asked him if he just went upstairs... sure enough... it was him!

We talked till we closed the place down!

We talked all the way to the parking garage, until we got kicked out for loitering!

We went to the Water gardens and talked still 4AM! This was when I realized how comfortable I was. Our first hug was in the water garden.

He drove me back to my car and talked till 5:30AM!

This was on a week day.

I had a great night, we drove off.

We were already on the phone with one another as we drove different directions. I had forgotten that my car was on E. He told me where to exit to get gas at that time. Montgomery St.

Little did I know, he had turned around.

I just popped the gas-tank as he pulled up.

Because it was still dark, he wanted to make sure I was okay, so he didn't want to leave me alone, until I was safe going home.

That's when I realized there was some sort of unexplainable spark.

In my heart... thereafter... the spark turned into fireworks.

It was love.

Little did I know that the song I had on my phone (I'll Praise You In The Storm) was his song he listened to over and over again during all the pain he encountered with his ex.

He told me one day that when he first had called me, and the song started to play, he actually said aloud.

"God, are you trying to tell me something?"

Guess what? He was.