Leavin' on "Jet' Plane

Well tomorrow I will be heading to The District to do some apartment hunting. My Dad is flying us up to D.C. so that I can finally see GWU and tour the school. We will also be trying to find a potential apartment for me, probably in Virginia. I can not wait for this trip, and I'm sure that there will be much more to share once I get back!

Adventures in the Kitchen

What is this three blog posts in the past two weeks. I feel like I'm setting a record for my blogging.
I've got the cooking bug again and I've been experimenting with pizza. My goal has been to create "semi-gourmet" pizzas that are low in weight watchers points.
This time I made a sausage and peppers with mushrooms pizza. I used low fat Italian cheese, tomato paste sauce, and Jennie O Italian Turkey Sausage. It was so good! I have found the trick is to use half a pound of dough per pizza. It is the only way to truly get a thin crust!

I also had an abundence of zucchini that I bought from the framers market. While looking through recipies on the interent. I found a recipie for stuffed zucchini. I hollowed out 2 zucchini's, chopped up the zucchini, tomatoes, onion, asiago cheese, and bread crumbs. I put the rest of the low-fat Italian cheese from the pizza I made on top and baked for 15 minutes. They ended up being around 3 Weight Watchers PointsPlus each!

I'm excited to be cooking again. I feel like since it is now summer, I have wanted to really create good food again, rather than mediocre food. I'm also trying to create really good low points food. I've been working out everyday. I have lost 37 pounds on Weight Watchers, and want to keep a good trend going, and not be held up by my diet. As my good friend and I have discussed, Food is an addiction and it is hard work to break that addiction

Food

So with increased time again now that is summer, I have begun to experiement with recipies a bit more. Last Saturday I went to the farmers market and picked up zucchini. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. Later that day my friend was telling me about this delicious recipe from Vegetarian Times Magazine. Zucchini, Red Pepper, Goat Cheese Pizza. It was really easy to make and was so good!

In case anyone is interested the recipe is at Vegetarian Times Magazine

Grad School

It's been a long time since I wrote on my blog so I thought a little update was in order and I'm going to try and blog at least once a week.

A few posts ago I wrote about the grad schools I was applying to. Well the results are in and I decided about a month ago to attend George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Talk about a shocker. I never thought I would get into the school (that actually happened to be my dream school), and now I'm accepted and actually going! I still can't believe it, and I don't think it will really be real until I'm there.

I'm still trying to figure out how everything will get paid, but I'm trusting and relying on God to help me figure out how to pay for school and everything else associated with it. The more important thing is that I'm going to be studying what I love at the best school for it. I will be getting my Masters of Arts in Museum Studies, and I cannot wait for all of the opportunities that will be available for me in D.C. This is truly a dream come true.

Personal Victory

It's only 10:30 on a Monday morning but I already have achieved a personal victory this morning. Since I joined Weight Watchers in July I have lost 30 pounds, and while that is a victory in and of itself this mornings was almost better. I began working out sporadictly when I began Weight Watchers (and I still do not work out as regularly as I should). I decided to check out the work out room at my complex because lets face it, if I'm not going to use it if it's free I'm certainly not going to pay to use equipment. Well I walked in the room and just saw machines. I was not familuar on how to use the machines spart from the treadmill and stationary bikes. The first one I saw was the infamous eliptical. I had never been on one, and it seemed like the most popular machine based on facebook/internet comments about it. Well I got on the machine 6 months ago and about died. I could barely use it for 2 minutes. I moved on to other machines.
Well today after walking on the treadmill, I decided to get on the elliptical and just try it for a few minutes to see if I could do it. To my surprise and delight I could! And I was on there for 12 minutes! It totally has made my day. To me these things and even smaller clothes show me how much better my health is getting in just these few short months with Weight Watchers. It also shows me that of all the weight loss programs on the market Weight Watchers is the only one that works! I need the accountability of a weekly meeting and that is what has helped me to be successful. 

Praise

Praise is something I've done often. Many times it was out of sense of obligation that as a Christian I need to praise God for the blessings He's given me in my life. Often when I have felt the lowest spiritually I will try to keep my longings for change and petitions to myself, and focus on praising God, but it often feels fake. However lately I have come to feel that my circumstances and life are completely out of my control right now. I'm in a holding pattern. Therefore, I feel like the more I think about it and what I can't change the more I begin to obsess and become ungrateful and often blind to what God has already blessed me with. I feel like I shouldn't be ungrateful. I also have recently felt that by not taking the time to recognize and acknowledge these blessings I'm being ungrateful. I know that my faith isn't about all the good things that I can get from God. Obviously struggle is necessary , but I believe that there is something so powerful about thanking God for the non material things, the little things in life that I normally would not consider as a gift from God. I believe that I have missed many of these moments in my life, but I think that for my true spiritual growth, I must be conscience about God working through the everyday seemingly unimportant details. In these small parts of life I hope to find and maintain a joyful spirit.
This is partially inspired by the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp which I'm waiting to receive and read. I also read an entry from Frances J. Roberts book Come Away My Beloved entitled "Learn to Reign" where she writes. "Praise Me, O y People Praise Me Praise me out of a  heart full of love. Praise me for every blessing and victory. Yea, and Praise me when the most difficult thing to do is to Praise. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith and praise is the voice of faith." (168).

Update

It's been a crazy few weeks. I have been working a lot at my new job as well as volunteering for Flagler working on the civil rights archive that will hopefully launch in a few weeks. I also have been working on a presentation that I will be giving next week on my senior seminar topic for women's history month. I'm slightly terrified! I don't think it will be much of a problem once i get up there and start talking, I just hope everything makes sense and that it is interesting. I also have to tweak my presentation because I don't want it to really be just a paper presentation, but a genuine presentation. I am excited for the opportunity though.

I did receive the best birthday present on Friday! I found out that I got into the musuem studies program at George Washington Unviersity! I really didn't think I would get in, and it's just an amaizng thing to get in! I don't know if I'm going to end up going there because it is so expensive, but it would be awesome if I was able to go.

Finally, I have lost 25 pounds on Weight Watchers since I started in July. I have dropped two dress sizes and kinda love to shop now. I am hoping that I can get refocused a bit and really work to get quite a few more pounds off before I have to leave St. Augustine and my wonderful group here!

Done!

Well as of last night I have officially applied to all of my grad schools. There are four total and I am praying that I just get into one of them! I am applying to all of them for the programs either named museum studies or public history. Although they are all similar type programs they have different names for them.
I applied to:

I will find out from the schools beginning in about mid march. I am so nervous, but I no matter what I'm trusting God for His plan. Ideally UNC Greensboro is my first choice in schools for various reasons. I am ready to leave Florida! I love it here, but the program looks amazing, the tuition is the least of all schools, and North Carolina actually has seasons which I love.
So now that this little project is finished, I am probably going to keep plugging along with the class I'm auditing and perhaps edit a paper to submit to a history conference in February. I also have begun to watch videos that will be included in a new civil rights archive at my college, and abstracting the information out of them. I'm about half way through the first interview and it is so much fun! This is really the work I was born to do.

Passion 2011

This year at Passion was interesting. The group of people I was with were really great people and I realize that I am in an extremely different place in my life than last year. However I have really yet to process and unpack everything I learned and experienced from Passion so I'm not sure what I learned, or if something is going to happen in the next few weeks or months and something I heard at Passion will influence that. I'm in this really weird place right now where a lot is happening around me and I think the gist of it is that I'm unhappy.
I'm not a fan of being done with school right now. I'm not a person designed to just work in a job that doesn't involve my degree and field that I love. Which is what I'm doing right now. I miss the excitement of a new year and of mountains of school work as stressful as they are. Yet today I'm realizing that my unhappiness is taking me away from being present in this season of my life. I'm not really a fan of that either.
So I'm working on my attitude with my station in life right now and trying to enjoy the people in my life. I want my focus to be on my relationship with God and with others, and not on me as much. I often focus on my plan and the way I think things should go. However, I have to remember that I am not in control! I just need to rely on God and let Him do His thing, while I respond in such a manner that I carry His name effectively to those around me.

Passion 2011

Today I am leaving for what should be an amazing four days in Atlanta for Passion 2011. This college student conference will be a time of rejuvenation and just spending time with some great people and God. I was fortunate to go last year to Passion 2010 and although it was a very trying time. I also was given a vision for my life last year that I hope will also happen this year. I truly believe that this conference is the most brilliant thing ever created, and having the opportunity to listen to great speakers like Louis Gigilio, Francis Chan, and Beth Moore is just the tip of the iceburg. I also love having the opportunity to really make an impact on the community and world through Do Something Now!

If you have missed the opportunity for Passion 2011 in Atlanta. There will also be a second Passion 2011 in Fort Worth in April. I would recommend this conference for every college student!

Check out the website www.268generation.com for more information!