no time.

I've been working in an office the last 19 days.  I've had no time and no desire to spend a lot of time on the computer, but I do miss communicating with my friends and family.

I've learned this week that I don't smile if I'm sleepy.  When I'm sleepy, I feel like a zombie and I probably look like one too.  I guess my brain just decides it can't waste energy smiling or laughing.

However, this last year I've learned that I smile a lot more when my life is a fast paced.  When I have lots to do and everything's crazy, I think I feed off of that energy and become a lot more cheerful.  It's weird.  I don't get stressed out.  I think I'm the strangest person ever.

Maintaining a marriage sure is hard though, when things get crazy.  I feel like I've barely seen Jesse at all these last 2-3 weeks.  Actually, marriage is hard anyway.  It's hard to be intentional.  It's easy to sit around watching Dr. Who together and just be friends, but it's an effort to open up and communicate, grow together, push each other, and listen to each other.  It's definitely too easy to just "skate by" in marriage, but it sure is difficult to have a vibrant, living, exciting marriage.  It's kind of like school.  It's too easy to do the bare minimum to get an A, rather than just going all out and doing to best you can and investing a lot into it.  We're quick to become content with just getting by.  Of course, there's sometimes when you have to just accept that this is as good as it's going to be for awhile (like these last few weeks. . . ).

I'm just excited I have the rest of my life to spend with my Jesse. :)

shwoosh

tick tick tock.

time skips by with no order.  has it been a minute?  an hour?  a year?

new names, new faces, new stories, new places, new roles.

life keeps rolling along, even when I'm not ready.

questions keep coming, but the answers escape me.

the anticipation is great, but my mind wanders and my attention fades.

why i can't just stick with something, i don't know.

cooking

I haven't done much cooking lately.  It's been kind of nice.  I've been eating lots of salads and vegetables and fruits at home.  I've also eaten many of my meals at work (one of the perks of working in the food service industry).  To be honest, I've been kind of spoiled by the food there.  I eat lots of delicious (but bad for me) foods like fresh white rolls, chicken chardonnay, chicken marsala, chicken parmesan (lots of chicken), asparagus, vegetable medleys, steaks, caprese salad, potatoes, green beans, salads, hamburgers, and sandwiches.  Because of this, I haven't been as motivated to cook at home.

Part of my lack of cooking is also because I've been trying to change the way we eat.  I've started buying a few organic things, but really don't have the budget or the option of buying everything organically.  The farmer's market opens up in town this week though, so I'm excited.

I think Jesse and I are also slowly becoming vegetarians.  Not intentionally, but since meat is expensive and I'd rather buy vegetables with my money, we haven't eaten it as much.  Now when we do eat it, we don't enjoy it as much as we used to (I've never been able to finish the serving of meat I get at work).

Another thing that's made me more reluctant to cook is that I've been trying to cut back on carbs.  It seems like the majority of the interesting recipes I see are flour and sugar based.

All this has also caused us to unintentionally reduce our dairy consumption.  I love cheese and butter, but have realized we've used way less cheese, butter, sour cream, and milk (though we've been using nut milks most recently) than we used to. I don't think I'll ever cut it out completely, but it is nice to free up that portion of our budget.

When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I had a fun game of reading the labels on food.  It was crazy annoying to see food colorings (petroleum based), high fructose corn syrup, nitrites, preservatives, and other things in just about everything I picked up.

I don't want to be obsessed with this stuff though, I just want to be informed and make good choices for my body.  I want to put the right foods in my body and take care of it - the foods God designed it to use.   Similarly, I'm not going to put 87 octane fuel in a car designed for 91 octane fuel.  I think I'll occasionally indulge in something not so good for me though, I just don't want that to be a regular part of my diet.

Work work work

I've been working a lot recently.   It's been fun.  And extremely tiring.  It took me a full day to recover.

I'm really enjoying my job, which is funny considering I went into it thinking I would hate it.  My first week I got tossed right in and experienced quite a lot.  I thought for sure I would get fired after being severely cussed out by one of my co-workers.  After some thinking, I decided I was going to do my best despite the attitudes of the people I work with.

And it's paid off. :-)  This week I worked hard and did everything that was assigned to me, plus some. It was tiring, but I'm learning to love my job and love the people I work with.  No, I don't want this job for the rest of my life, but there's plenty of things I can learn here.  Most importantly, I'm learning to be committed to something and how to get along with a variety of people.  That's something I can take with me no matter where I go.

I'm excited to see how this job makes me a better person. :)

nuts

I love nuts. All of them.  Almonds, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, macadamia, pine, peanuts... (we're going by culinary definitions here!).  If you give me a nut, I'll be happy.  I promise. Thank God I don't have oral allergy syndrome, because my life would be over.

Cashews are probably my favorite nut (followed closely by pine nuts, pecans, and peanuts), and I just discovered I am allergic to them.  I am sad.

A few years ago I bought 2 pounds of cashews. They were roasted and delicious and my mouth still waters at the memory.  Nuts just might be my addiction; I can never eat just one. So, in less than 48 hours, I ate all 2 pounds of the cashews.  Yes, all of them.

Something funny happened to me after that.  I got a rash.  All over my arms and legs.  It itched, but it was only mild.  I made a mental note that perhaps it was an allergic reaction to the cashews.  I don't eat cashews very often, so over the next few years I never ate them.  Last year I munched on some cashews at my in-law's home but nothing happened, so I told myself I wasn't allergic to them.

Last week my husband and I were in Austin for his spring break.  We were staying at his sister's home, which is just a few blocks from a hike and bike trail.  One morning we got up and took the dog on a walk.  It's a beautiful trail, right on the edge of Lady Bird Lake. After a couple miles, we turned around.  It was then that I noticed the whole trail was surrounded by beautiful, green, leafy plants.  Poison ivy.  Everywhere.  I'm horribly allergic to poison ivy.  I don't even have to touch it to get it, the oils just need to be in the air around me.  I've gotten it twice all over my body.  All over my body, in every place you can imagine.  I think the worst place to get it is inbetween your toes and fingers, because they're constantly rubbing against each other and those spots get sweaty easily.

Later that day, we went to Whole Foods on North Lamar and I bought half a pound of raw almonds.  I ate about 2 ounces of them.

The next day, I woke up with a rash all over my arms.  I never get stressed (ask my husband), however this morning I began to feel a little bit panicky and we rushed over to HEB to find some medication.  Problem is, I wasn't sure if the rash was from poison ivy or cashews.  After much deliberation and a discussion with the pharmacist, I decided it was probably a cashew allergy and bought the recommended Zyrtec - the most expensive drug I've ever bought.  It was $25 for the generic brand.  After 48 hours of Zyrtec, the rash went away.  So, I've come to the depressing conclusion that I'm allergic to cashews.

I did some research on cashew allergies and found that lots of people who are allergic to poison ivy are also allergic to cashews. Apparently cashews and poison ivy are cousins - so beware of cashews if you're allergic to poison ivy. I also discovered that cashews are closely related to mangos and pistachios.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not also allergic to those

I sure am going to miss my cashews. :(