Obesity is on the climb and our daily living is feeding the machine. Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Medicine and Public Health found, “participants spent 54.9% of their monitored time, or 7.7 hours/day, in sedentary behaviors. [sic]” (American Journal of Epidemiology, 2007) and a majority of states having an increased obesity “prevalence equal to or greater than 25%” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008).

As I see teenagers flow in and out of my store, purchasing candy bars, bags of chips that are technically considered four servings in just one bag, I miss the good ‘ole days when I too could eat practically everything and anything I wanted and not worry about the consequences. With age, comes the knowledge that my metabolism is slowing and yes that 300 calories of chips will affect my weight.

Tonight, after reading an article founded on Vanderbilt’s study, I began thinking about my life and weight in my life. My freshman year in college I did gain the traditional five pounds, but at the end of that first year I began my very Vegas job of stripping. During my time as a “dancer” I dropped from a size eight to the smallest size I have ever been in my life – a size four. Each night after work, my then boyfriend (Steve) and I would drive to Wendy’s and then I would eat a massive amount of food – a burger, chili, fries, and a chocolate Frostie; yet, I remained slim and lean. I tried very hard to remember how I had accomplished this, and then it hit me – I worked out for almost six hours every day that I “danced” at the clubs.

If the trends are that obesity is on the rise and that people are spending (around) seven hours in sedentary behaviors, then obviously our lifestyles are really hurting us. In the docucomedy, Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock explains that he walks five miles a day, but for his study into McDonald’s he begins to use taxis instead of walking. The effect of fast food and no exercise became potentially lethal within 23 days into his study.

For a working mom/student – how does one really impact their daily living so that they are not sitting on their rear for seven hours? It adds up really quickly. For example, I have a date with a friend tomorrow to watch Emily Rose together – there’s two hours of sitting right there. Not to mention school work, coloring with the kids, reading with the kids, reading for just me, knitting, and on and on it goes.

Near the end of each shift, I attempt to run for twenty minutes around the store parking lot. Tonight, I introduced kettle bells as I waited for customers to finish pumping their gas. As time progresses, I’ll be posting ideas from my store about how to get moving and stay moving. Of course, 85% of weight loss is the diet, but we still need to exercise. I want my children to see a mobile, active mother. I want to pass down to them a love of being fit, being healthy – and honoring the temple that is their body. As a Christian, I realize that my body belongs to God and houses the Holy Spirit and as such, I need to take care of it. The Doctrine and Covenants gives excellent directions on how to take care of this precious gift from God – moderation.

I have a hard time with moderation – I swing from one extreme to the other at times; furiously working out to not at all. Obviously I know that I cannot work out for 6-8 hours a day anymore, but I can get myself moving and keep myself moving. At the end of my shift, I had over thirty minutes to wait for the next cashier. So I started walking around the store, checking on inventory, wiping down counters, but even when finished I kept walking.

This relates a lot with our personal walks with God. We may stand still for lengthy amounts of time, but we can always dive back in and start actively walking with Him again.

Currently I am enrolled in Distance Education to complete my Bachelor’s degree and have just finished the first round of classes, of course being that the courses are all back to back, I have also just started my next round of courses as well.

I stressed for weeks over my final projects in each class and submitted them this past weekend. Like an obsessed nut job, I have been checking my grades for these projects several times a day. Tonight, I recieved my first project grade back and screamed when I saw it. I earned 100% on the project, which in itself was very rewarding, but was furthered rewarded by the compliments the professor left for me. She stated that my project was the best one she had recieved and wanted to use it for future courses as an example.

During these classes, professors have the students turn in checkpoints to show their progression on the project; this is my first week in a new class and had to choose the topic for my next (final) project. This class is an essay writing class and I will be writing an expository essay on a topic of my choosing. To be honest, I am not entirely sure how excited I am to be writing a paper on religion; I write enough blogs on religion that one would think I would be sick of writing about it. However, the specific topic I have chosen to write about will actually help me in my journey to understand Christianity.

I’m including my “essay” explaining my topic for the final below.

The Controversy of Historical Christianity
By: Amanda Hommel

            In 2005 National Public Radio (NPR) did a piece on scholar and New Testament historian, Bart Ehrman and his new bestselling book, Misquoting Jesus: the Story behind Who Changed the Bible (Terry Gross, 2005). I have long held interest in early Christianity, the New Testament, and the impacts that this movement has created in culture and society. Promptly I ordered Ehrman’s book from my local library and dove right in. The book was everything NPR had stated it would and I became a fan this New Testament historian.

            For my expository essay I would like to address the controversy of historical Christianity. Darrick T. Evenson states in his book, The Gainsayers, that early Christians were considered a cult. From the very birth of the movement, it has been controversial. The questions are – what impact has this had on surrounding culture, politics, and society? How has the history of this “in the world, but of it” movement danced with the world? Ehrman states that many of the New Testament manuscripts were intentionally altered to support political theology of the times, for example, three passages are called into question regarding the Trinity – a staple of many Christian denominations. How did Christians move from persecuted cultists, blamed by Nero in 64 AD for setting fire to Rome to the time of open embrace of the Emperor Constantine in 312 AD? How has their history of persecution framed the Christian movement?

            Finally, what – if any, evidence stands that this movement is any more than an overgrown weed of a rumor by a few devastated disciples who could not accept the death of their prophet?

In the last month, two people that I respect have talked about how they don’t allow their children to watch Spongebob. One said he was gay and says some inappropriate things during the show, another stated that characters in the show are vulgar, picking their noses, farting, burping, etc. This had me mildly worried that Steve and I were becoming one of those parents – you know the ones who allow their children to watch obviously inappropriate things.

The other day while we were all watching Spongebob, Steve commented, “We should all be more like Spongebob. He always has such a positive outlook.”

I began to think this over. Sure, characters in Spongebob display some behavior that I don’t like – from greed (Mr. Crabs), to being nasty and self centered (Squidworth) – not to mention the regular farting, burping, nose picking, etc. They do show drunkenness as a bad thing – the characters who occasionally get drunk, usually on ice cream or bubbles, are in extremely bad shape afterwards.

However, Steve had a point – Spongebob is always cheerful. I noticed in the Stranglerepisode that while he was picking up a large amount of litter, instead of saying, “Those stupid kids! Don’t they know where the damn trash can is?!”, he took a more cheerful approach, “Hahahaha, those silly kids. Must have fallen out of their pockets.”

When Squidworth is mean to him, Spongebob is always kind in return. When others need help, Spongebob is always ready to help them, cheerfully of course. Even in the Best Day Everepisode, Spongebob’s best day revolves around his friends, not around himself. In an episode with Plankton, Spongebob tries to look past the “villain” mask that Plankton wears to see a lonely person in need of a friend and then acts on this, befriending Plankton and teaching him what “F.U.N.” means. If we sift through the everyday living that the show has, there are some really great values being taught. (Not to imply at all that the show itself is educational.)

This sent me back to the scriptures where there are several references to being cheerful:

Proverbs 15:13
A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.
Proverbs 15:15
All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast.

Proverbs 15:30
A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.
Proverbs 17:22
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Romans 12:8
if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

I felt some nudges from God about controlling my tongue more, yet have been ignoring Him. There is this co-worker at my work who drives me crazy. Every time I work with him, even for the 15 minutes our shifts overlap, I just want to bang my head against something blunt. Even now, I just want to list everything he does that drives me absolutely CRAZY! However, trying to think about this young man from God’s eyes, I realize he is just lonely and seeking attention.

I have not shyed away from making my distaste for him known, both to him, my manager and Papau, and my co-workers, the whole while knowing this isn’t a godly approach to what is driving me insane. As I think about what God has shown me through what some believe is a vulgar child’s program, I am ashamed to say I lost my humility a long time ago. Spongebob may not try to teach my kids their “ABCs” or numbers, or shapes, or colors, or music (gotta love those Little Einsteins!) but he does teach me humility and being of a cheerful spirit.

 

6Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

(Titus 2:6-8)

Today marks the end of my winter break. I still have the rest of this week and the weekend before school starts – which is a great blessing since I’ve evaded working on my final project. Currently I have A’s in both classes, but I don’t want to loose that by turning in a poor excuse for a final paper.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing my best to not think about God or religion. I am ashamed to admit I didn’t even think about the life, sacrifice, and atonement of Jesus during the Christmas holiday. I feel burned out on God, which I know I know, is when I obviously need Him most. But I cannot seem to motivate myself to pick up and try to talk with Him about all the many things swimming around in my head. This is of course, what I’ve earned or reaped by being so luke warm (to say the least) about my walk with Him.

However, God does always find a way to communicate and speak with us. And of course, He hasn’t let me down, even though I have obviously thrown my hands up in the air and let Him down. He has spoken to me through my husband’s behavior during this winter break, through my best friend who is always encouraging me to seek God and His will for my life. During a time in my life when I’d be more than satisfied to simply walk away from all things religion, including God and this forever relationship I am always supposed to be working on, He has shown grace and patience for me yet again.

This break, I’ve been learning how to give things to God. For example, I had a very difficult time during the holiday in regards to one area of my life, and at the suggestion of my friend, I gave this God as a gift. This is for You and not for me. I give up my total heartbreak in this area and give it You to make into something good, or to use it for how You see fit.

So it’s been hard doing this, because I really want to complain about this area of my life. Yet, even today when I had the time and privacy to complain, I found that I couldn’t really complain about anything. (Except maybe lights.) I was in utter awe that God had taken these things from me, my burdens that I very much wanted to scream about, and I no longer even had them with me.

I head back to work tonight, and am looking forward to time spent in more consideration of God and His workings in my life.

I had the chance to attend two of my block meetings today. It’s the first Sunday I’ve had off in months, so I was really excited. My best friend recently informed me that she wanted to read more of what God was doing in my life as opposed to what I am always thinking about. So today was a chance for me to attend GP’s first service and then go to my LDS services and sort of compare how I feel and if God was speaking to me (and what He was saying) at both places on the same day.

Grace Point’s series right now is about how the Christmas story is for everyone, especially people with a past (or secrets). I didn’t feel very interested in the sermon itself, but felt very grateful for the message and the reminder. Now, this isn’t a negative point about Grace Point, rather a personal observation, but because Pastor Hudson is always reminding us about God’s mercy, grace, and love; it’s almost a message that is taken for granted (by me). (Does that make sense? I really appreciate the drastic contrast to “fire and brimstone” preaching that many think of within conservative Christianity.)

A few months ago, I was upset with Grace Point and even considered leaving because one particular sermon briefly mentioned the teachings of other religions. This is a super, perhaps even hyper sensitive area for me. I hate it with a passion when other churches discuss those who believe differently than themselves. You might even say I loose all common sense in my outrage.

So today during Relief Society when the teacher began discussing other churches (she doesn’t say in so many words Protestant Christian churches, but it was implied) and another member criticised the Catholic church over their voting directions I was beyond outraged. It makes me wonder if I am blinded by a romantic view of the LDS church and perhaps today’s lesson in RS was simply the real application and perhaps even teachings of the LDS church. I have noticed General Conferences become more defensive, more apologetic in nature. Yet, I don’t truly believe that the LDS church would encourage it’s members to teach or even behave as they did today within the walls of the RS room.

I’ll try to explain a little more. Today’s lesson was about seeking and gaining knowledge in eternal truths (you can read the lesson here). It was a great lesson and had so much potential to remind us to be in the world but not of it, to be immovable in our beliefs, and to constantly be seeking Heavenly Father, His will, and a more intimate relationship with Him through prayer and study. It could have been an amazing, Spirit filled discussion.

But it was not.

It was about how other churches teach anti-Mormon classes (not sure how exactly she phrased this), how other churches limit their beliefs by creeds, etc (this part is in the lesson but the delivery was far from loving or kind), and how other churches seem to forget the loving kindness and tender mercies of Heavenly Father and are always teaching on the wrath of God. This greatly disturbed me because my Gospel Doctrine class had mentioned this as well – the same line of thought within the space of 2 hours. And just today I had been marveling without any gratitude at how yet again Pastor Hudson was preaching another sermon on God’s mercy, grace, and love. So he doesn’t use the term, “tender mercies” but the teaching is the same. One member shared her thoughts on the rigid teachings of the Catholic church and how it impaired their members because their members were told how to vote and this could sometimes conflict with their social lives, etc. WHAT?! I remember wanting to scream at this lady, “Yeah and what about Prop. 8 in CA?”

Members discussed how because churches limited themselves to certain ideas, etc. that they were not open minded and that this was a bad thing. WHAT?! I can remember Young Women themes (it’s a yearly thing) and even Relief Society themes on being IMMOVABLE. How is this ANY different? If the room had been larger, like Grace Point’s main worship area, I would have stood up and left. I was livid. This was the church I was so aching to return to?! What was I thinking?

Even as angry as I was, I tried to think in terms of God speaking to me. What was He saying to me? Since I’ve written my last blog, I’ve been asked to do two different things at Grace Point, out of seemingly nowhere. Of course I’ve been asked to volunteer again there. Of course. Is this a God thing? Not sure. And of course the first time in over a month or two of my last exciting and great visit to the Church, it goes horribly, seethingly, wrong. I couldn’t get out of the building, much less the parking lot fast enough.

I’m angry. I really really want to return to the Church. However, I absolutly do not want to return to a ward of people who don’t even think non-Mormons would be in spirit PARADISE but rather spirit prision (aka hell). This boggles the mind. More thinking to do. And of course, this was the very center, the very heart, of why I left the LDS church in the first place. I guess I’ll be at Grace Point longer than I had planned.

On Saturday a lady from GP said to me (something along these lines), that when we thinking indpenedntly, we are thinking indenpendt from God. Great thoughts, hard application.

This blog is just going to be a mess. Sorry ahead of time to any of you reading. I’ve been behind in everything – including blogging. First the biggest news….

Our original small group leader, Donny had the brilliant idea that if we all chipped in, we could fly Steve’s twin brother, Dan and his family (Jessica – wife, and sons Andrew and Noah) out to Vegas for the holidays. We discussed it with Dan and Jess and we have officially purchased the plane tickets. It’s official – they are coming home in December for a week.

The tile on the left is in original condition, the tile on the right is how the WHOLE floor looked.

 

 

After the first coat! We missed a few spots, but looking 100% better.

 

 Our friend Donny has agreed to come out and help us paint. We were given freepaint to paint our home with and are going to our local Sherwin Williams to have it tinted a pale green (Withered Moss) and a java bean brown (Mocha Syrup). The kids will be with the granparentsso it’ll be a perfect time to get this done and then hit a movie while the paint dries. I’ll have to take pictures after we paint and post them.

 

We might even get lucky enough to redo our backyard (again). Third times a charm right? While looking for pictures of Dan and Jess, I came across what our yard used to look like. Sigh – I miss it.

So that’s all the big huge news that I am ultra excited about.  In other news, just as exciting for me (and humbling) I’ve been really awakened by God to a lot of things around me. I was literally woken up from sleep by Him. It was quite the rude and yet much needed awakening. With all the wonderful blessings in our life right now, I’ve really lost track of the intimate relationship I need to have with Him. For example, I have been greatly blessed to have lost 40 lbsand so far, have kept it off. Instead of looking to God and thanking Him for his abundance in this area, I have simply remained discontented and dependent upon myself. Thinking that I need to eat more protien, less carbs, do more work and stressing about everything that goes into my mouth. My goal of loosing 35 more lbs is secular and worldly, not a goal that will glorify God or respect Him by taking care of the body He has gifted me with. Weight loss, exercise, and diet have become glorified idols in my life that I think about day and night. He brought me back to the fact that my biking time and exercise time need to be focused and centered on Him. I used to listen to worship music and The Bible Experience when I biked and did my yoga. Now I listen to whatever I want. I don’t look for that communion with Him. I need to return to my time with Him. I’ve been so focused on the house, the way I look, and school that I’ve been largely self centered and now God focused or focused on others. God made this point strongest by bringing my best friend to mind. She’s always such a wonderful example of a woman living everyday for Jesus.

Our friendship is an extremely unlikely one that I can only attribute to God. The Mormon and the die hard fundie Evangelical who just knew all Mormons were unsaved. Two strongly opinionated women who came together as friends back in 2006 (wow going on 3 years in March!) and have shared an amazing faith walk together. She always listens to my ramble on and on about the things in my life, unimportant really things. But she listens. I realized I was doing more and more talking with this very vivid dream that God gave me and less and less listening. In the dream Barbie stated, “I’ve been praying to God for a while about our friendship. And through you, He has answered me really clearly.” And while she was saying this I was acting like Michael from The Office – whooping and hollering and not hearing a word she said. It was devastating to me to realize what a lousy friend I had been.

Especially since this is not God’s only call to grace in my life recently. He has been ever so patiently reminding me that I lack grace with others. Yes, my neighbors are being abusive to us, but so what? It doesn’t matter in the long run. In eternity, we all want to be in heaven with God. So James Dobson is being a cruel bully and an idiot by encouraging unChristian behavior with retailers due to his hissy fit – so what? God will judge him, and as much as he annoys me (I’d love to put duct tape on that man’s mouth) – I am not his judge. I can simply turn the radio off when he comes on and try to be more action oriented in my protests of him (ie – show kindness where he leaves cruelty). So I feel overwhelmed with school, work, motherhood, being a wife and keeper of the home, and trying to get some alone time with God on my bike? I need to give it to God, not cut His time out of my life. And I need to be more proactive and creative about getting time with Him. I need to stop being legalistic of the things I do and don’t do and return to being heart driven by the things I do. That means serving – even people I don’t like or don’t want to serve.

As I shared portions of this with Barbie, she shared with me that God was doing a similar wakening with her. Different stuff, but the message was the same – more grace, more intimacy with God. It always amazes both of us how God moves us in similar directions, gives us similar messages at the same time in our lives. This gives us the chance to serve one another, help one another, and to stay on the path together.

As a Catholic, she feels so intimate with God during the Eucharist and yet feels that the worship time of the Catholic church pales compared to the Protestant way of worship. I thought on this with her and realized how strongly the Spirit is within Protestant churches during worship. The swell of the music to the quiet of acoustics, the lyrics, the united front to worship God – it’s all very well amazing. Compared to the quiet reverence of hymns, I can certainly see how this would pale. Yet, she made the point that Worship is to Protestants what the Eucharist (should be) is for Catholics. I thought back to the LDS church and felt that within the LDS church, that the temple is the ultimate place for such intimacy and moving. For me, the most powerful moment I’ve ever had with God was during my endowment ceremony. I could literally FEEL Him there with me and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.

So, where is God then? Is He within the Protestant worship or the Catholic Eucharist or the LDS temples? Where is He? Since God is God, why is He not within them all? Within usall? If The Holy Spirit indwells us, which all three groups would agree, then why can we not be connected and intimate with God in any of these settings? As usual, God reminds me of unity and grace. Some are called within the Catholic church – a beautiful, reverent place dating back to the earliest Christians and their traditions. Others are called to the Protestant churches – passionate people who focus everyday living on God. And then there are some, like me, who are called to the LDS church. A quiet church that focuses on missional living (a Protestant term yes, but it perfectly describes the LDS church) and living Christ centered lives. All people in these groups love the Lord, love the Redeemer and their Creator. It seems to me, that Jesus stated that we are to believe who He is – the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and that we are to give all we have in following Him. At the end of the day, I’ll be worshipping side by side with my husband at Grace Point, but my heart is turned towards the Mormon church. I strive for unity within my family, rather than division over beliefs. I have to believe that God will honor that. More importantly, instead of longing for my home within the LDS church, I have to make the best of where I am now. I cannot deny that God moved us to Grace Point. I don’t think the return to the LDS church will come until my life has reached the end of it’s transformation within the ministry that GP offers (this is not to imply that my transformation will be complete, just complete within GP’s ministry). Instead of looking back to what was and forward to what I want to be, I need to look to now and make the best of where I am.

There are amazing people on the journey at GP, people I could learn from and grow with. In the end, our heart is to be towards God and grow on this journey we call faith.

So much to blog about! I’ve been super busy with school. I had four papers due last week – and it was the first week! I’m taking a slight break from school tomorrow – to hopefully pack and shop for our camping trip, try to surprise Steve with a date night (crossing fingers that the sitter is available), and maybe get some biking and knitting in. Then I’ll drudge back to cleaning and school work. Don’t let me fool you though, I love being back in school.

We lowered our gas again! Don’t let the sign fool you, this picture was taken while we were changing the prices. Our regular unleaded (87) is now only $2.29 a gallon and our E-85 is $2.18 a gallon. Keep checking in with my blog, because there is going to be an AMAZING community outreach at the end of November. Unlike anything we’ve ever had at our store that I am just super super excited about. Also, Papau’s prediction is – that by the end of the month, we just might be at or maybe even under $2 a gallon.  Just a few short months ago, we were in the low to mid four dollars a gallon. It’s amazing how quickly it’s dropping.

I voted! i tried a couple of times to go to Early Voting here in Vegas, but each time the line was INSANELY long.  Of course, 50% of the votes came from Early Voting – so that explains the lines. Which left me to vote on Election Day. There was something corny and exciting about doing so. I was terrified of long lines, but was able to walk right in and vote. It was excellent. However, I was surprised by my sudden moral issues that came with voting. I’ve never been a “pro-life” advocate in the sense that I wish to make abortion illegal. Obviously, I am for all life and disagree with both abortion and the death penalty due to my reading of the Bible, but never wish to impose my religious beliefs on other who do not share them. However, upon understanding the Mr. Obama did not only support a woman’s choice to choose but also advocated partial birth/late term abortions and actually voted to legislate that babies who survive abortions to be killed made me physically ill.

But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

I am a registered Democrat who believes in the values of the party, I really like President Elect Obama – but as I stood in that poll, I realized I could not vote for someone who murdered babies. Not just babies that I believe are babies because of my religion, but full blown BORN – late term babies. However, I could not vote for McCain or Alaska Barbie either. McCain was an amazing candidate, but I just didn’t want to risk another four years of the last 8 years. So I voted for someone we discussed at our Potluck and Politics gathering at a former ward member’s house. A Libertarian of all things. I am a little nervous about Democrats (regardless that I AM one of course) having so much power in the House, Senate, and now White House. There are supposed to be a thing called checks and balances. As much as I like Obama, I also worry about the “catch”. Nothing is this good, you know? Something is wrong here, and I’m not quite sure what. I am extremly happy Republicans no longer have control of this country. Thank you God.

On Rav, we did a swap and I got my package today. I was so super excited. It felt like Christmas and I cannot wait for the next one. I am already planning it out.

School has been flying by this past week. I have got to work on getting a schedule and doing some time management. I’ve been literally exhausted since school began – writing papers, posting to threaded discussions and doing my reading assignments. I cannot wait for a break tomorrow. I’m hoping to go see Fireproof. Not a movie I originally wanted to see as it has Kirk Cameron in it and faith based movies tend to be more corny than good. However, after viewing the trailer for it, I am hooked.

Steve hasn’t exactly understood why I have totally and completly overwhelmed this week. School started this week – I have two classes right now. Contemporary Business Communication (COM 140) and Skills for learning in info age (GEN 105). In these classes, I have to post my participation three times a week and have three writing assignments (two small and one big one) due every week. Yikes! I’ve been doing my best to keep caught up with the reading assignments, the posts, and writing my papers. I thought I was doing really well since in my COM 140 class I had completed both reading assignments and posted in the DQ (Discussion Question) threads. I’ve already started my “big” assignment that’s not due until Sunday and was feeling pretty capable. In my GEN 105 class – I have a small paper due tonight, another small one due Friday, and a large one due Sunday (I think…) and have written both the small ones and am working on the big one.

Then I logged on and checked my inbox, etc to find that I had posted my first GEN 105 paper to my COM 140 class. Talk about embarrassed! At least the professor was really nice and low key about my mistake.

Steve had a good laugh at my expense.

It made me really understand how important it is to get and stay organized with my classes. I have felt so exhausted this week – mentally and physically. Staying up late to get my work done, working at the store (this week I’ve had two physically challenging major projects to work on), being a Mom and a wife – my head is spinning.

In other news – my weight loss has once again come to a stand still. In fact, I’ve gained a few pounds. But, my size 12 jeans continue to get baggy. During my craziness this week, I’ve misplaced my one and only belt that actually fits me so my pants seem to slipping again. I hope the weight gain is muscle and not fat. I’ve been working really hard to maintain and gain muscle.

Now I’m going to drag myself to bed. Any prayers for our van would be much appreciated. I’ve got to take it to a few shops in town and have our rear shoes looked at. I’m officially jaded.