Waco State of Mind

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New Year..... Resolutions?

This year I decided not to make any resolutions persay but I did make a few decisions. The chief decision I made for 2010 is: GET OVER IT. Or, in Tiffani words: Choose to be happy where God has placed you.

Don't get me wrong, there are things I hope to accomplish for this year, goals we'll call them - lose 35 pounds, get healthy enough that I can run if my knee lets me, find a fella, pass my quals and finish my coursework (hallelujah!), move to an apartment with 500 square feet, etc. But all of these pale in comparison to my one decision: CHOOSE to be happy.

When I moved to LA in 2008, I was still reeling over the loss of my grampa - as you faithful readers will remember. The pain of that loss, coupled with a move to an unfamiliar city where I knew no one really fostered my ire at the Lord. I "didn't want to be in grad school anymore", I "didn't want to be in LA with no friends or family", and I "didn't want to live in a tiny studio apartment with no room to host friends should I ever make any." Oh man, was I harboring resentment.

Despite knowing that the Lord had called me to this endeavor, I was seduced by my feelings and the whispers of the enemy to be discontent. I was like Eve in the garden with everything at my disposal (the Lord had given me such favor here: a three-year fellowship, grace from my faculty advisor and a great working relationship besides, other Christians in my program) but wanting the one thing the Lord had withheld (in Eve's case, the Tree of Life, in my case I saw it as "my plan" - a husband, children, an income....).

I tried hard to give an aura of happiness and contentedness, but ultimately it was not true. In the first year, I can give myself some grace. Grief can easily become complicated and entangled with other losses and I know that my sadness was just as often the brokenheartedness I felt at the loss of my grampa as it was my life situation. But then the summer came. It started out great with visits to friends in TX and friends coming to visit me, yet soon I was mired in the self-pity and sadness that I had experienced in late 2008 and early 2009. As the fall quarter began and it was not getting better, I got to a breaking point. I knew I needed to talk to someone, so I sought out a counselor at UCLA.

My times with her were good. But even better was that through our few meetings, I realized that I was hindering myself in a lot of ways. I was fighting the Lord on every front. Where the Lord had given me grace upon grace here in LA, I was screwing up my face as though He was feeding me medicine - like a little child. So I made the decision to be proactive with my life instead of reactive. To receive what the Lord had to offer with open and willing hands and to see what happened.

Since January, my circumstances have not changed much outwardly - though my community of friends in LA is getting stronger and my relationships are deepening which is an answer to prayer - but my inner circumstances are improving. I still get discouraged when the road blocks pile up, and because I've been struggling with headaches since December I have to be vigilant to keep looking up even when I feel sick (it is much harder for me to have a good attitude when my head hurts). And there have DEFINITELY been times when I am a total jerk still. 

But the Lord is working in me.

I used to say, "I never wanted to get a PhD! What am I doing?" but now I say, "The Lord has called me here, and I will do my best and see where he is leading me." I used to say, "How in the world does this pit stop in my life facilitate the other goals I have? (i.e. to be a wife and mother, to live in a house with a dog, etc)" but now I say, "The Lord prunes us to help us grow in a certain way and his plan for me involves this place and time."

Sometimes happiness is not a choice. If you are trying to choose happiness and you continue to be in a dark place, then I encourage you to seek out a trained counselor who can help you talk out why it is that you might be experiencing those feelings. But if you examine yourself and realize that your discontentedness is a result of fighting the Lord, as mine was, then I urge you to join in with me in my New Year's Decision and choose happiness.

I'll keep you posted...... 

Deliciousness... and weight loss.

In the last couple years, I have increasingly been trying to eat healthier. While it hasn't always worked, I have certainly rebooted my love for cooking food from scratch, experimenting with new recipes and trying new foods (Brussel Sprouts being the most notable for 2009). Cooking good, healthy, whole foods just for me is sometimes a trial, because my kitchen is small as is my refrigerator - which means I don't have a ton of space to store ingredients (and thus have to buy smaller quantities, which are more expensive) and my fridge doesn't hold as much as I'd like - so I can really only make one or two things a week that are going to be stored in the fridge/freezer. That part is kind of lame. But despite that, I have tried some really fun recipes in the first month of 2010. I forgot to take photos of most of them, but will tell you about a few here and provide recipes for your review.

Additionally, my mom has a recipe of the week ministry. She sends out a recipe weekly along with a note about her life and what she's learning in church or through other areas of her life. She's been doing it about three years and I have garnered a ton of great recipes from it. If you're interested, let me know in the comments section (leave your email address!) and I'll get you on the list.

So last week I made a really delicious soup (pictured at the top). I found it in the Rachel Ray magazine and it was full of healthy fresh vegetables including yukon gold potatoes, carrots, green beans, roasted tomatoes, and onions. I added celery and some white beans - I just think every soup that starts with onions should also have celery! The chicken gets put in whole and then pulled out and shredded before serving. The recipe: Hearty Vegetable Chicken Soup is available online.

Despite eating more healthy, and walking to and from campus daily, I was not losing any weight. I had gained about 10 pounds since July and was not feeling great about my body shape and weight. I'm the first to tell you that weight is the least important measure, but because my body wasn't in the shape I wanted, I was feeling frustrated. I had considered joining Weight Watchers a few times in the past year or so, but wasn't sure about spending the money or the time. But last week I bit the bullet and just did it. I have a few friends who have lost weight with WW and kept it off as well as adopting more conscientious and healthy lifestyles and decided that if 2010 was going to be the kind of year I wanted it to be, then I was going to get on this train.

I'm diverting from the stories of the awesome food I've been cooking to tell you this story, because the next two recipes I cooked were WW recipes. But before we get there, I'm going to put my goal out here. Because I'm doing WW online, I don't have a weekly meeting of people to cheer me on. So you, faithful readers, have become my cheerleading squad (well, y'all and some of my friends at school). My big picture goal is to lose 35 pounds in 2010. My short term goal is to lose 11 pounds. Each time I lose 5 pounds, I get to buy a $10 gift card at Best Buy, to go toward buying a Wii when I finish my qualifying exams in May. I'm hoping to put up a goal meter here on the blog - so keep an eye out for that.

OK, back to the food....  :)

I made two INCREDIBLE dishes this weekend. And I'm so excited to tell you about them.

The first is a great vegetarian recipe with Butternut Squash and Ricotta Cheese*. While I don't normally love pasta dishes (its just a lot of carbs!), this recipe had a great "macaroni and cheese" feel to it, without being high in fat and calories. The sauce is made of mashed squash and once tossed together is topped with Ricotta and Parmesan. I added some spices to the recipe, including a tsp of Nutmeg (which I just think should always be included with Butternut Squash).

The second recipe is a Slow-cooker recipe for Chicken Paella*. I've never made Paella before - it always sounded too complicated, but the words "slow cooker" lured me in. While I was making the pasta dish, I prepped the vegetables and rice for the Paella and put them in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I layered the chicken, onions and peppers, diced tomatoes, and broth, added a bunch of spices, turned it on low and left for a study date with a friend. When I arrived back home, the smell was divine. I stirred it up, shredding the chicken, added a bag of frozen peas and the rice and let it heat up on high for about 15 minutes. The only downside was that I didn't have any Tumeric, so the Paella wasn't yellow. The nice part about not having the yellow color is that the color of the vegetables really stood out. The flavor was great and I have enough to have lunch all week! (incidentally, I subbed brown rice for the white rice in the recipe)

Well, friends, that is enough for now. My first weigh-in is tomorrow and I'm not sure that I actually lost any weight this week, but I was definitely more aware of what I was eating and of the mental habits that I've been cultivating around food. I've also been more aware of my physical activity levels and how that interacts with what I eat and how I feel. Hopefully I will continue to become more self-aware on this journey. Thanks for walking it with me!

* If the WW recipe links don't work, let me know in the comments section and  I will email them to you if you're interested. Remember to leave your email address.