Seventeen Days

I'm getting married in seventeen days.

Did you read that, I'm getting MARRIED in SEVENTEEN days!

Oh my goodness.

So you may have seen the ring or the cake in the fancy little picture at the top of the blog (nope, not my actual cake or actual ring, but anyways). Well this year I've been planning a wedding, a marriage, and also many other things.

Let's break it down. When I started the blog I figured I was in a growing relationship, I was moving further away from home, starting an internship, taking out a student loan, and growing up, right?

NOW: Now I'm finishing my internship (getting all things completed 21 days early actually), getting my resume reviewed to send in to jobs, hunting for jobs, preparing to be the activities manager out at a summer camp in Colorado this summer... then planning a wedding, write thank you notes, figuring out finances for the new us, figuring out when I need to renew my driver's license, apply for my marriage license, change my name on my license, change my state residency, get a new drivers license after changing states, change the name on my social security card, join checking accounts, find a place to live, change my name on my insurance (which I got, yay!), apply for provisional license to practice dietetics before my RD exam
...oh and also apply to sit for the Registered Dietitian exam.

Whew!

But I cannot tell you how excited I am to marry this man. He honestly is absolutely incredible. I don't deserve him, but by the grace of God He gives us more than we deserve. Our wedding is in 17 days and I could not be happier... only I have a lot to do before then, lol.

PS - pictures to come, and also I'm going to try to convince him to start us a family blog, he's funny, and he'd be funny to read too.

Growing Up

Oh you would be so proud of the way I'm growing up. Or well, how life is growing me up.

It's funny how the world around us changes, and honestly we seem to stay the same. Growing older may only be us changing because of a response to our surroundings. Example: My older brother (by only one year, mind you) is turning 24 years old tomorrow. I asked him when did we even grow up... then I realized in 31 days I'll be a Mrs.

I guess we grew up.

Refreshingly enough though, I'm wrong and right about us staying the same. Yep, I'm still the little girl who runs around in the back yard in the rain, smiles constantly, and would love nothing more than to fill her hair with wildflowers and create something. But fortunatley I know how to read now, I can drive, I can cook for myself... but better than that I've learned a little more about how to live and how to love.

Really still learning about how to love well. It's a constant learning that I really think will not be complete until I meet my Savior in heaven and can finally love and praise Him unconditionally. Oh I cannot wait for the day.

:)

...but in case anyone is counting the growing. I have a wedding dress ready to wear, 216 people have told me their coming to our wedding, I'm managing activities for tons of families this summer, and daily at the hospital I make decisions that may help or hurt a patient... planning is to always help. I've attended a marriage conference, read tons of books on being a grown up...

...but honestly I don't think that one day it hits you: being grown up. But more like every day there are little thing that reachin and whisper or run out and scream "today you're more 'grown up' than yesterday" :)

We'll see.

Health Insurance... better yet, maternity insurance.

HEalth Insurance

I've always had it. Wonderful. I could go to the doctor for $15 and I could go to the dentist for free, and I did not have to worry about anything!

Then I grew up a little and realized that the dentist sent the remaining bill to my parents and they payed for it. Then I grew up a little more and realized that my parents PAY FOR insurance. Call me crazy, but I had no idea. I mean I knew people did, but I thought that if my dad's work provided health insurance as a benefit that it meant he didn't have to pay for it... but he has a wife and 4 kids, so he did.

Upon getting engaged, Kyle and I are making all the grown up decisions that will affect our lives over the next few year, or a lifetime. We're signed up for a marriage conference in a few weeks, we've picked out our silverware, and I picked out my wedding dress...

Then we've had to make the actual decisions, lol. Like figuring out our budget, finding a place to live, and as you may have guessed: Health Insurance.

So I'm shopping around to compare the additional cost of adding me to Kyle's plan versus getting my own plan. And here's the thing you can get some pretty decent insurance for $150-300 a month honestly. Then comes in maternity.

So Kyle and I are not planning on having kids the very second we get married;however, maternity insurance is something we'll need in case God blesses us early with a little bundle of super duper joy! And maternity insurance is not standard, it's an extra option that DOUBLES every other quote I originally found.

Last night I thought about this maternity insurance while catching up on The Office (episode where Pam and Jim have the baby) and well, almost needless to say: I drempt I was pregnant and waddling and it was actually hilarous.

All that, all that to say that: Ladies who are getting married soon. Make sure you look into that insurance as you plan. And make sure to mention "maternity" but be careful because it will affect your pocketbook.

But it's still beautiful outside, and I'm still a little too excited about making grown up decisions (even though it takes me about a month to make each one :)

Love. Claim the fruit of the Spirit.

No worries, I'm not trying to define love in 250 words or less. The Bible does that: I'm no Bible.

But what's interesting to is that we has an amazing sermon this Sunday Mr. Dennis Sims brought it to the pulpit and was not afraid to talk directly to both our youth after their D-Now weekend and to our church about responsibilities involving loving like Christ and even specifically in the family, friend, work, and romantic relationships around us.

1 John has a lot to say. It's a recommended read that I'll need to commit to memory.
CHAPTER 3
¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
²³And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
CHAPTER 4
⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

(Note: Read the whole thing... it's worth it.)

But what struck me this weekend, and what hits me every once in a while. I remember the times specificically: last time I was sitting in Van Texas in the activity center staff worship on a Friday night... and this time it happened to be Valentine's Day weekend.

I'm overwhelmed by the way God loves me. IT's usually sparked by the way those around me love me so well. I know I do not deserve it, and I cannot possibly repay it...and that leads me to Christ.

Oh how incompetent I am to love him. Oh how I fail him every day. I'm reading through the Bible now and I'm yelling in my heads at the remnant left in Isreal in Jeremiah and telling then "No! don't go to Egypt, don't burn incense, just follow God!" yet I seen to do the same. Oh I am overwhelmed by his love, when I don't deserve it.

But then I have to claim his gift. God gave me Christ. He has sought me out, romanced me, loves me, sent his Son to die for me, so that I may be a co-heir to the throne. No i do not deserve it but He has made me worth it.

And so I must claim the fact that I am filled with the Holy Spirit and the fuit of the spirit is Love. I have been given the ability to love like He loves. I may just have to pray like crazy for it.

That Girl.

You do you ever have one of those days that makes you feel a little bit silly... a little bit like you've become one of the people that you strived so hard not to become.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm pretty sure love can make you do silly things. Today it made me into an obsessive stalker.

Let me explain. So this Kyle character well I generally talk to him a lot, right. I mean we're getting married, soon, poor thing's going to have to talk to me every day. But today I hadn't heard from him in "forever" and I started to think that maybe something happened to him. That something may have actually went wrong!

It's storming outside, and I think about all the things weather can do. I have some friends who's parents are in the hospital right now, and I wonder oh no! maybe his mom or dad is in the hospital! And then I wonder what if something happened to him and he himself is in the hospital or trapped somewhere!

Okay kids, so this hadn't heard from him in "forever" um, it hadn't even been 24 hours. I got a text from him last night... and I began to think this at about 5:00pm today.

Really!

I've become one of those girls (usually age 13-16 or more) that stalks their significant other and has to talk to them all all the time. Maybe it's just today, maybe since the Saints won the Super Bowl all kilters are off... but I've never been this way.

Anyways, today, I'm that girl.

Oh, PS, this weekend Mom and I made the wedding invitations, totally DIY and I'll post pics soon!

So what is a Doppelganger?

So, sure, I'm on facebook... who isn't? And I've seen lately that my friends have new obsessions with celebrities, and wonder who my friends have gotten so into celebrity pictures... then someone explains that recently a new trend is to change your profile picture to a celebrity that you look like. Oh! now I get it.

So I look up "doopelganger" to see what that actually means. And here's what that reliable source called wikipedia gave me:

In the vernacular, the word "doppelgänger" has come to refer (as in German) to any double or look-alike of a person. The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. They are generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. In Norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance.

A little creepy, if you ask me.

But the funny part is that I seem to have a 'twin' at work. See I'm an intern right now at a hospital. One one of my first days I had other staff members seeing me int he hall and saying "hey! how have you been?" like they were catching up with someone they already knew. I felt bad for not knowing these people, so I smiled and talked to them anyway. Some of my fellow nutrition staff finally told me that I look just like one of the case managers, who wears the same color scrubs as me, has the same color and cut of hair, is tall, younger, etc.

So today I'm on the 7th floor where she apparently works and someone says "Christy!" and I'm thinking wel I'll the only other person in this hall, who is she talking to. then again, "Christy!" and so I turn around, double take, and turn around even again... so confused.

The "Christy"-yelling girl found me today and explained that I just looked like her friend Christy who also works int he hospital. If she mistook me for her friend, no wonder people all over the hopsital seem to know me.

So my doppelganger, sorry, is not a famous rock star, or actress, but a case manager at the state hospital... but who no doubt is probably wonderful.

Funny thing is, I've never met her.

French Toast Merci!

Here's an old favorite, I know. But I figured, not everyone knows how to make it, honestly. But it's so easy. With the ingredients you would use for toast, scrambled egg, plus a few house pantry staples... you've got a yummy, Saturday breakfast.
-De rien (Your welcome :)

French Toast Merci
(Makes One Serving)

1 Medium Egg
1/4 Cup Skim Milk (or whatever kind you have)
Pinch of Cinnamon
Little Drop of Vanilla Extract
3 Slices 100% Whole Grain Wheat (or whatever kind you have)
Powdered Sugar
Syrup

1. Heat non-stick skillet to Med-High. (If using regular skillet, simply spray with cooking spray)

2. Mix egg, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla in bowl. Make sure yolks break.

3. Dip 1 slice of bread into mixture, making sure to coat both sides.

4. Throw that break in the pan. NOTE: It may drip :)

5. Wait approximately the time you would wait when flipping an egg (maybe 1/2-1 minute) and flip. NOTE: If it gets black real fast, turn the heat down. You want golden brown :)

6. Repeat for the last two slices of bread. At some point there may be the slippery part of the egg in a lump on one side of one piece of bread, no worries, that's yummy, just slop that bread into the pan.

7. Layer bread, sprinkles of powdered sugar, and syrup.

NOTE to DIABETICS: This is not the meal for you. UNLESS you skip the powdered sugar and use sugar free syrup. In that case it's about 3 carbs choices (45 grams of carbohydrate) and 1 protein.

Feel free to add fruit, especially bananas. I'll get around to making and posting banana stuffed french toast on Hawaiian sweet bread...soon.