101 in 1,001 Revisited

I can't believe it's been almost 1,001 days since I wrote my 101 in 1,001 list!  When I wrote it, I thought 1,001 days would seem like forever.  Of course, time never ceases to amaze me with how fast it seems to move.  So although I have 4 days left, I'm going to assume I've met all the goals I'm going to meet.  You can check out my list here.

I completed 60 out of 101 things.  I'm pretty happy with that.  I realized as time went on, that a lot of the items on my list were no longer things that applied to me, or that I cared to complete.  It's funny how much can change in a couple of years.  

Today I thought I'd just highlight a few things from my list as I close out this challenge.  

The goals I'm most excited about that I met are:

7. Volunteer in the church library.  I loved working in the library so much, that I'm now one of the leaders of the library committee at church, and I work there almost every Sunday.  

19. Go on a vacation.  The one and only big vacation we took during the 1,001 days was our week in Arizona.  And it was one of the best weeks of my life!

31. Learn to play the violin.  My parents got me a semester of lessons for Christmas, and I loved it!  I still need to purchase a violin of my own, though, because the one I was using was a loan.  It was an extremely difficult instrument to learn, and I'm still very much a beginner. 

63.  See a play or musical.  I was blessed to be able to see The Phantom of the Opera when it was on tour in Cleveland, and was so excited not only to cross that off of this list, but my bucket list as well.

87. Go on a hike.  We went on an amazing hike up a mountain in Sedona, and it was a highlight of my life.  I have never seen such beauty before, or felt so renewed and completely separated from the rest of the world.

And there were a few items that I came really close to meeting, but didn't quite make it:

6. Read the entire Bible.  I read the entire New Testament, and Genesis - Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.  I'm still working on this one. 

90. Read all of the Harry Potter books.  I went on a HP reading spree last summer, and read books 3, 4, and 5 in a matter of weeks.  I still need to read 6 and 7, though.  Maybe this summer I will find time. 

101. Do project 365.  I tried this twice and got about halfway through the year both times.  It's just not meant to happen, I guess.

 And just a few that I'm really sad I was not able to meet:

30. Buy a DSLR camera.  Maybe someday when I'm an SLP and can afford one, this will happen.

34. Become pregnant.  obviously, no explanation is necessary.  I have made myself promise not to make this a goal on anymore lists, ever. 

35. Visit at least one of these parks: Disney World, Universal Studios or Sea World.  What can I say?  I'm a kid at heart.

59. Visit Lindsey in Chicago.  I still really want to do this!

And that's that!  I loved having lots of goals to work toward in this list, but 101 things...that's kind of an overwhelming amount.  

So now that I'm done with this list, I thought I'd make a 30 before 30 list.  I've seen a lot of bloggers do this, and have been wanting to make one for about a year.  I am 27-and-a-half, after all.  I only have 2-and-a-half years left!  

I'm still finishing making this list, because I'm trying to put a little more thought into it than my 101 in 1001 list.  I'm thinking of things that I know will still be relevant and important to me in the next 2.5 years.  Be on the lookout for that sometime later this week.  I'm really excited about it! 

Why I've Been MIA

Hello friends!  I guess it has been awhile since I've blogged.  To be honest, I was having a rough week last week and kind of distanced myself from literally everything and everyone.  Getting into graduate school is a dream come true, and the fact that I know that I'm for sure going to become an SLP is the biggest relief of my life.

However, whenever you choose something for your life, you are simultaneously giving up something else.  

Opportunity Cost.  

If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, I know you know what the opportunity cost of choosing school right now is.  And I'll leave it at that, because I just don't feel like typing it out today.

Last week, after I had had a whole week to celebrate my acceptance into Kent State University, the thing I was giving up (for now) really hit me.  And I think I had to mourn that a little bit.  I kept telling myself I was fine.  But by the time Friday rolled around and I realized I had pretty much not gone anywhere all week besides work and the grocery store, I realized I was very much not fine.  

So that is the reason for my absence.  And my distance from my friends as well (please don't be offended if you haven't heard from me lately!)  

However, I am writing today to say that at least for now, I'm past those feelings.  Will they come back periodically in the next 2 years of grad school?  Obviously.  It is a daily choice to surrender my will, and some days that choice won't come as easily or naturally as others. But what I've learned in the past week is that the feeling will pass, and I can choose not to focus on it.  

I have to mention that there seemed to be an additional dark cloud looming overhead last week, and that was Mother's Day.  I was so excited to celebrate the holiday with my own mom (and mom-in-law) but a huge part of Mother's Day is a big reminder that, well, I'm not one.  Last year on Mother's Day I sat in my seat at church and literally shook with sobs while they did the many, many baby dedications.  I hope no one noticed. You may think I was being overly dramatic, but please don't judge unless you've been there.  Anyway, it's a sort of a bittersweet holiday for me, and others who want to be moms, or who have lost theirs. 

This year I kind of knew what was coming and tried to prepare myself a little more so I didn't have an emotional breakdown during church, because last year I was totally caught off guard by those emotions.  I prayed that I wouldn't be dramatic about it, and that I could focus on celebrating the wonderful mother and mother-figures in my life.

I am so thankful for God's love in my life.  I feel like he really orchestrated everything perfectly yesterday.  First of all, we had an early Mother's Day brunch with Luke's side of the family.  Since we ate so early, we decided to go to the early service at church beforehand.  In the early service, there was only 1 baby dedication which was much easier than sitting through 10 or 15 of them, like in the later services (I hope that doesn't make me sound like a terrible person, but it is what it is).  Church was easy and the sermon was great and I promise not one tear fell down my cheek.  The depressed feelings were just gone.  

After church we had a delicious brunch and played Mexican train all morning.  It was so much fun, and again, I didn't even feel sorry for myself for a second.  I'm sure that was God's doing and not my own. 

Later we went to my parents' house and my sister and her husband were there, and we had lunch and talked and laughed for about 3 hours.  It was so wonderful after my not-so-great week.  

After our fun day of visiting with family, Luke and I had a bit of a date night.  We went out to see The Avengers and had popcorn for dinner (if you're doing Prism with me [hi mom!], pretend you didn't just read that.  I only had a little bit, and since I'm doing the program for my health problems, and not really to lose weight, I'm not following all the rules 100%.  Oops)

And while we were sitting there watching the movie, I realized something.  As much as I have prayed for and wanted a baby in the past 2 (or let's face it, 4) years, there are people out there who long for what I have: a hand to hold at the movie theater on a random Sunday night.  One of my pet peeves is pregnant women or moms who complain about being pregnant or moms.  For example, I overheard someone complaining at church yesterday that their daughter woke them up at 6 on their only day to sleep in to give them an overripe banana as breakfast in bed on Mother's Day.  Do you not know what some of us would give to be in your shoes?  Anyway, the same way I hate it when people take motherhood for granted, I'm sure there are people who think I take marriage for granted.  

And with that realization, I decided to really enjoy the rest of the evening knowing that God has already blessed me so much with Luke in my life for the past 8 years (what?! 8!?  When did we get so old?)

So that's the story of how I mourned the opportunity cost of going to grad school, and how I made it through Mother's Day much better than last year.  That alone tells me that God must have had (and still has) some work to do on my heart.  When I do finally become a mother, after waiting 2 + years, I know it will be the perfect time. 

And in the meantime, he must have some more work to do, so I better pay attention!    

Summer

{First of all, I noticed this morning that my blog would not open because I had a background from shabbyblogs.com and I got a message saying that anything from that site could contain malware!  Yikes.  Sorry if you have visited my blog while that's been going on. I have been using their backgrounds forever, so I don't know what is going on.  Anyway, I just deleted the background, and the blog will probably just remain plain and a little boring for the next few days.  Honestly, I'm not hating it.  However, I've been wanting to try my hand at making my own background for quite some time, so I guess this is that last push I needed!}

***

I took my last final yesterday, so my summer has basically begun!  And it even feels like summer here already.  Lately things have been great: I found out I was accepted at Kent, my allergies and other health issues are finally under control, and the weather has been beyond beautiful the past few days.  Life is all about ups and downs, and I'm so excited to be experiencing some "ups" this week!

So let's recap, 1000 gifts style:

140. Being accepted to Kent State's SLP graduate program! 

141. Spending a weekend working outside

142. Beginning the Prism program which is another step in my journey to healthy living

143. Brown paper packages tied up with string...for my favorite person

144.  Looking forward to a little birthday party for Luke tonight

145. Shopping in preparation of summer

146. Flowers on my porch

147. Having a mantel to decorate

148. Being done with finals!

149. Knowing I will not have to deal with Akron traffic next year.

150. Having a porch where I can sit out, listen to the birds, and read a good book.

151. Weekends

152. Friends and cute babies whom I've gotten to spend a lot of time with lately

What I'm Eating

Before I get into some of the yummy things I've been eating lately, let's recap the things I'm not eating:

• No wheat.  Most wheat is not allowed during the Prism diet (which started Monday) and avoiding it will also help my thyroid to work better.
• No sugar, basically.  This is per Prism's requirement.  I am  only allowed to have products that contain sugar if it is listed 5th or further in the ingredients list.
• No milk.  I have a milk sensitivity, and it is probably making my allergies much worse.  This is is surprisingly proving to be the most one difficult for me.  

Okay, so if those are the things I can't eat, then what the heck is left?!

I've actually been very shocked these first few days of Prism at how much I am finding that I can still eat.  And I'm really enjoying it!

Basically, I've been eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, rice, and meats.  I've been loving rice cakes with Smucker's all natural peanut butter, and sometimes with Smucker's strawberry Simply Fruit spread too.  Yum.  I like that for breakfast when I don't have eggs, because it fills the void where toast would normally be. I also like to have two for lunch sometimes in place of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I just have to be a little careful, because peanut butter is pretty high in calories. 

As far as snacks go, I've been on a huge strawberry kick these past few days.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge fruit person.  But I do love strawberries!  I'm going to have a field day when they're in season here!  I see many trips to White House in my future.

Also, I've been really enjoying those cocoa roast almonds I talked about a couple weeks ago.  I have to make sure I eat just one serving, because I think I could seriously eat the entire container in one sitting if I let myself!

And I discovered these almond nut thins in the organic section of Giant Eagle: they were on sale for $2 a box!  And they are made with almonds and rice flower, totally sugar and wheat-free.  I am technically not allowed to eat them during this stage of prism since they are crackers/chips, but I'm going to remember them for later.

Dinner is definitely the most challenging, yet most fun meal to plan.  Here are some things I've made lately:

One night I was really hungry for tacos, but obviously couldn't use a taco shell.  So I just put down a bunch of lettuce, and piled all the toppings on that.  It was delicious, and totally hit the craving.  (This was before I found out I couldn't have milk).  Admittedly, this was before I started Prism and calorie counting, so I would probably really watch my portion size next time, because I'm sure it's full of calories.

It's warming up here a lot this week, and I thought burgers would be perfect.  So Luke ate his the normal way, and I ate mine without the bun (and sadly, without cheese).  I piled it with lettuce, tomato, and sauteed onions.  I couldn't use ketchup because it contains sugar, but did you know mustard not only is sugar free, but it has 0 calories?  I was excited to see that!  I told Luke I thought my burger actually tasted better without the bun because I could taste it more.  And I didn't feel bloated afterwards from all that bread.  I served it with rice and sauteed yellow squash and onions.  It was a delicious and felt totally summer-y.

I found this chicken and rice soup on Pinterest a long time ago, and have been wanting to make it.  

Source: picky-palate.com via Jessica on Pinterest

When I realized it was Prism-friendly, I made it last weekend.  It was really good, and really low in calories! Totally filling, too.  Here's my picture, which again, looks nowhere near as good as the original one.  I can't figure out if I'm a bad cook, or if my iPhone camera just isn't doing these soups justice.  Hopefully it's the latter, because I thought it tasted pretty good! (I promise the chicken was cooked completely...I don't know why it looks kinda pink in this picture!)

Finally, last night I tried a recipe our Prism leaders shared.  I didn't take a picture, but it was basically just chicken with sauteed peppers and onions with salsa served over brown rice.  It was really good!  I have some leftovers for lunch, and I kind of can't wait to eat them later :-).  

Well that's about it for this week.  I've been going pretty strong with Prism since Monday, and have been staying under my calorie limit pretty well.  Unfortunately it's going to be really hard to do that with Luke's birthday (we're celebrating tomorrow evening).  It's kind of sad that I'll have to avoid the cake, but I guess it will be worth it in the long run.

Special Birthday!

A special happy birthday to my husband!

I am so blessed to share life with him.  He is such a hard worker, he puts up with my craziness, and he is just goofy enough to keep me from taking life too seriously. 

Hopefully 28 will be a great year for him!  

I'm in!!

Here I was, a week ago, going on and on about this "option C" for school that I was very vague about.

I had basically resigned myself to the fact that I probably wasn't going to get in to grad school this year, and was banking on "option C," which is actually a distance learning graduate SLP program that would begin in January and would last 2.5 years.  Which would have been great!

But then Friday morning happened.  It started out like any other day off: I slept in a little, had my breakfast of scrambled eggs and an orange, and was doing my devotions and  journaling in my private blog.  In the middle of typing, I suddenly had the urge to check my school email.  I had sent my preliminary application in to the head of the distance learning program, and wanted to see if she had sent me any more information yet.

I logged in to my email account, and there in bold letters was the biggest surprise I've had in awhile.  The sender was Kent State University, and the subject line read, "Graduate Admission."

My heart stopped, and I clicked on the email.  And there they were: the six words I'd been dying to read for months!

"I am pleased to inform you..."  as soon as I saw those words, I think I screamed and maybe even jumped up and down, all alone in my house.  I ran to grab my phone from the kitchen, getting ready to call Luke, my parents, and my sister.  

Then I decided I better read the whole thing and make sure it was really legit, and what I was seeing was real.  I read the letter three times through.  

They want me!  In their program! 

I called and texted all my favorite people whom I knew had been praying for me.  I was so excited to share the news!  

So it looks like next fall I will begin the masters program in speech-language pathology at Kent State University!

  

The program will last 1 year and 9 months, and then I'll be a real speech pathologist!  It's not a "maybe" thing anymore!

I couldn't be more excited.  Praise God!  It was hard being patient, but I am so excited that He has blessed me with this opportunity!

My Thoughts on This Touchy Subject

I just found out the other day that this week is infertility awareness week, and of course I couldn't let that go by without saying something about it.

First of all, my blog-friend Callie Nicole wrote a great post titled, "When You Have an Infertile Friend" and as I commented to her, I think she hit the nail on the head.  I think it is definitely worth reading if you're interested.

Once I found out this week was infertility awareness week, I did a little research.  I found out that 1 in 8 couples struggles with infertility.

What?!  1 in 8?  That is a huge amount!  And that means that I probably have a lot more friends or acquaintances who are struggling through it in silence.  And my heart goes out to them.

There is a sort of stigma attached to infertility, and for a lot of people, it is a very private thing.  My advice to anyone who is struggling through it in silence is to tell at least one friend or family member.  I've found that the more people I've told, the easier it has been to deal with.  A lot of people I know IRL read my blog, and when I posted on the blog about our struggles, a lot of them have read it.  The good thing about that is, I don't get those annoying questions nearly as often now ("So when is it going to be your turn?"  and things like that).  People are generally more sensitive, and I know I have a ton of people praying for me.

In my own life, I've taken the stigma away by being open about our situation.  And life has been just a little bit easier since I did that.

However, I'm not saying that everyone who struggles with this should be open about it.  Everyone and every situation is different.  But for me, this has helped immensely.

And I have felt like I've needed to write this for a long time, to all of my friends in real life and in the blogosphere:  we have come a long way on this journey, and have grown a lot.  My jealous feelings are abating.  And while there may have been a time a few months ago where even being around babies sent me into a bout of depression for a few days, I have moved past that.  That being said, my biggest fear is that people are going to walk on eggshells around me.  I'm terrified that one of my cousins or my sister-in-law, or a close friend is going to become pregnant sometime soon, and be afraid to tell me.  And I don't want that at all!  Maybe that's not the case, but it's something I've grown incredibly paranoid about.  So I just want you all to know that I will be happy for you, and excited to welcome another baby!  So please don't walk on eggshells for my sake.


I know this post was all over the place, but I couldn't let the week go by without saying something.  If you have a friend struggling with infertility, I'd encourage you to read Callie's post listed above.  And if you are going through infertility (even if you're not medically diagnosed yet), feel free to join our prayer chain.  Just email me at mysomethingbeautifulblog@gmail.com