Meshes Sands

I saw this video and well, it speaks for itself.  Volumes. 

First time visit to Meshes Sands.  June 17th 2017. 

Thankful.

     Thankful.  I have so many blessings of which I am thankful.  Don't get me wrong or let my appearance fool you.  I get depressed and I have anxiety. This weekend I was reminded, if we keep our blessings in focus and what God has done for us, the negativity and anxiety subsides.  What could I be anxious about? Well, finances for one.  My daughter's school tuition will be due again in a few months and will need to go shopping for school clothes and  supplies.  I have been looking for extra work, or some place I can get in hours, but getting no where.  This would have sent me to drown my worries in a whole cheesecake in the past. I have learned from experience, I am not going to get the relief I am looking for nor am I going to feel any better after I devour cheesecake.  I am blessed to have gained knowledge and tools over the years to deal with this anxiety.  I also want to get my passport this year, get back in school and work on furthering some other projects.
     So, I am thankful for having a roof over my head, food in my fridge, clothes on my back, reliable transportation, the health of my self and my daughter (though I am overweight, I know there are people who were not able to get up or out of bed without the assistance of another)  and so much more.  As I sit here looking around my place, I realize what I am most thankful for is the love of my Savior.  He has always provided for me, when I was unsure about moving, he made a way.  When I tried to get my daughter in her current high school, He made a way. When I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for her tuition last year, He made a way.  I make mistakes and fail, I am human, I have doubts fears.  I should be comfortable in just knowing He has always provided for me in the past. He has always been there to see me through the rough times.  It is through these times praying, focusing on the humility and being thankful have gotten me through so much anxiety and heart ache.
     I am also thankful for God's timing.  Being grateful for his timing is hard.   I am grateful that I am not in a loveless, affection less marriage, that I am not tied to someone in the eyes of God and feeling alone.  I couldn't imagine anything more heart breaking. Expecting to have your needs met, whether it be physically with affection, emotionally, or otherwise by your partner, yet not getting what you need, can be overwhelming.  It takes both people in the relationship working hard to make sure they are doing everything possible to be help for the other person.   I do not mind hard work, one might even say I like hard work.  The return on hard work is normally good, if not great.  My thinking is if you work hard, you can play hard without any worries.   All around me I keep hearing the saying "God's timing" lately.  I can not see the whole picture like God can, so I get worried, and even afraid.  Afraid, because like a child being away from their parents for the first time, a teen going off to college or a mom giving birth for the first time, you do not know what is going to happen.  I watched a movie this weekend that helped remind me, that I may not know what is coming up ahead or anything for that matter, but I know God will be there with me.
    The movie I watched this weekend, that helped me arrive at this new outlook was the Shack. Disclaimer, I cried for at least half the movie.  The movie was about forgiveness and love, two of the most hardest things a to deal with in this walk through life.  It is amazing, that we learn how to deal with it because of how we were taught by our Savior, the King. Thanks, Papa.
Keep Your Eyes On Me:


                                    





                                                     



 



This guy is my absolute favorite public figure.  When I am down, I just look online and he always says something uplifting and inspirational. He has such a respect for women, it helps me keep hope there is a guy it out there for me still, I just have to wait for God's timing.  I happened to be looking for the song to post on this blog and found this video of Daniel E. Henderson.

He is funny to boot and sexier than anything.  He is sensitive and strong, not to mention brave enough to share is journey online and it is amazing. 

                                                       

Hill of Beans

     I like trying new things.  My current plan of eating or meal plan calls for high amounts of protein and fibers and low to no carbohydrates, processed or "refined" foods.  It is more economical for me to  shop at Sam's for big quantities of protein like eggs, fish, chicken and shrimp. Veggies are the next food group to provide a good balance of nutrients and caloric content for energy.  The Flea Market is another good place besides Sam's club to get veggies.  I can make a mean spinach salad, but I need some more variety.  This lead me to take  a look around the food pyramid, where I found beans.
     This week I tried dark red kidney beans first. They were canned, but they didn't take  nearly as long, it was more heating up once they were washed.  The beans were swimming in this gooey juice, which was mainly preservatives. I read somewhere it is best to make the dry beans, to avoid this preservative goo.  I decided to go traditional southern on Friday and make black-eyed peas with smoked sausage.  This is the recipe I used:

Smoked Sausage and Black-Eyed Peas

(Adapted from Emeril Lagasse’s recipe)

12 – 16 ounces smoked sausage

1 cup chopped yellow onion

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon cayenne

4 whole cloves garlic

5 sprigs of fresh thyme

4 bay leaves

3 teaspoons finely chopped Italian parsley

8 cups chicken stock

1 pound dried black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained

1 tablespoon minced garlic

Minced green onions, to garnish (optional)

1. Slice the sausage and cook it in a large pot over medium heat to render some of the fat. (Mine didn’t yield much.)

2. Add the onions, salt, cayenne, whole garlic cloves, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.

3. Add the chicken stock, black-eyed peas, and minced garlic.

4. Bring to a boil, and simmer, covered for about 1 ½ hours, until the peas are tender. Serve garnished with green onions, if desired.

     This recipe was so simple, however I managed to make  it way more difficult.  You see I was putting off making dinner. Finally, I decided I was going to make the recipe above, using dry peas I bought at New Leaf Market.  The recipe said the peas were to boil for an hour and half.  Since I bought the peas in bulk, they didn't come with directions if they needed to be soaked or not.  I had a genius idea to not soak them first, but to put them on the stove on high heat.  Things were going really well at first, I was checking on them regularly and adding water as needed.  Then my friend called that I haven't talked to in a while. I am on my balcony when I hear this loud beeping noise. I was just thinking to myself, look somebody is somewhere burning something. When I walked back into the the kitchen, there was smoke everywhere.  

The smoke alarm was going off.  The smell of burnt beans permeated through the house. Surprisingly, once I removed the burnt beans on the bottom and cleaned the pot, the peas turned out really good.

     What I had not planned for was the aftermath.  Beans and peas have a lot of fiber, kidney beans and black-eyed peas especially.  It was not 30 minutes after I had finished dinner, my stomach started to do flip flops.  I ended up with the "bubble guts", and didn't even see it coming. My stomach was not used to all the fiber. 

I have a lot of other beans or peas I want to try.  I never realized how many lentils there were, green, orange, red, the list really goes on. I got two big bags of whole black lentils on clearance.  Looking forward to the new recipes using black lentils. 

     Numbers are can play a big part of weight loss. For me it can be a source of contention and anxiety.  Many people are so fixated on the number that they become obsessive. I tend to be upset because I feel there should have been more of a change in the number for the amount of work I have done. I hate having to factor in muscle gain. What I am trying to say is I tend to stay away from the scale, because I can get fixated on the numbers. I thought it would be healthy to look for other ways to show growth and success with maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  I found this, Non scale Victories:

                                     

                                   

                                       

     I have been really distracted lately, fantasizing about scenarios of this guy.    I asked God to just make it clear to me if I should try and pursue getting to know him better or not.  It finally clicked in my head today, to move on, this fantasizing was just in my head. Letting go is not easy, but if am to get anywhere, I need to focus.  

                                

                                   

Time to hustle and grind. . . .

                          

                                                                      Come back by Danny Gokey