JOTOS.... Wonderfully Wednesday

Happy WEDNESDAY everyone! I do NOT celebrate Halloween so I am determined to make today as happy, cheerful, and BRIGHT as possible. My shoes are gold, and my shirt is multicolored today for that very reason.

Tonight, many wicked and evil things will be done. Tricks will be played, children harassed, Elderly vandalized and so much more. While all this is going on... there is a church, my church, in Magnolia, Tx that will be worshipping Jesus and learning more about his word. Our children will be having their own celebration, A Hallelujah Night, as they call it. I will rest easy knowing that my friends children and my Sunday School children are safe and out of harms way.

On another note, I have discovered the most fun app ever! It is called Smule. It's a global karaoke party and SOOOOO much fun! You can sing by yourself, duet with someone from across the world, or join a group and just have fun singing along. There are lots of songs to pick from. You should check it out! You can find me on there and follow me (LindsStrawn).

Oh, all you Sonic lovers... They have their corn dogs for only $.50 today!! I may stop in after church and pick up a few for dinner;) I love me some corn dogs!!! (Though they aren't very good for me)

I promised I would share the recipe for my Fruit Salad (or pie filling, you can make it into either by just adding to a pie crust and topping it with whipped cream). My fruit pie got 3rd place at our Fall Fest btw!! :))

It's called:

Sunday Best Fruit Salad (allrecipes.com)

Submitted by Pattie Price
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Ready in: 45 Minutes
Serves 8.

Ingredients:
1 20oz can of pineapple chunks (reserve juice)
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped (or one really big one, I used a Jonagold I bought at HEB.)
1 21oz can of Peach Pie Filling
2 bananas, peeled and diced
3 kiwis
1 pint of strawberries

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, toss the chopped apples in reserved pineapple juice. Allow to sit for 5 - 10 minutes.

2. In a large salad bowl, combine the peach pie filling and pineapple chunks.

3. Remove apples from pineapple juice and add to pie filling/pineapple mixture. Add chopped bananas to pineapple juice and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes.

4. peel and slice kiwi and 1/2 of strawberries. Chop the other 1/2 of strawberries and set aside. (Only do this if you are wanting to make your fruit salad decorative or want to use some as garnish atop your pie. If you are just making it as a salad, simply chop and mix all ingredients)

5. Remove bananas from pineapple juice and add to pie filling mixture. Add chopped strawberries, toss together.

6. Arrange kiwi slices and strawberry slices around the edge of the serving bowl. Chill and serve.

ENJOY!!!!

JOTOS.... My little Monday

The weather outside today was absolutely gorgeous! Highs in the low 70s and tonight it's 46 degrees!!! I love sweater weather:)

My sister is getting married in July of next year and we have been discussing who was gonna plan the wedding since she got engaged back in April... She FINALLY gave me and my future BIL's sister the reigns to plan it! Woohoo!!! I can't wait:) I downloaded The Knot's apps to my iPhone and have been searching for hours for things to use. This will be so much fun!

Her tastes are so much different than mine. I like vintage, classic, elegance and she like modern, clean lined, simplicity. So here begins the long journey!!! Lets just hope I come through this without any gray hair! ;)

Tonight we are sitting at my grandmas ... I love when we all get together. The jokes just keep rolling.

Fingers crossed that I can find a dress somewhere that will fit my sisters tiny self! Do they make triple 0 dresses?! Seriously, she's so skinny. Sigh. We'll find one eventually. I love this one but she doesn't. What are your thoughts?

JOTOS.... Fruit Filled Friday

Having a loved one with cancer is a very difficult thing to cope with at times... Grandma makes it feel as if everything is peachy keen though. She is such a trooper. She has been very sick because of the first round of chemo but she still finds time to worry over us and make sure our needs are taken care of.

Today was a good day. She had to go down to MD Anderson for some more bloodwork and some maintenance to her port. On the way home she wanted a Veggie Delight sandwich from Subway so grandpa stopped and got her one... She was upset though because there wasn't enough veggies on it. Which is progress seeing as how a few days ago she couldn't keep anything down.

Mom and I cleaned her house for her while she was out. So. Much. Dust. It's amazing how fast it accumulates even though you clean house weekly. Anyway, we had to be sure not to use too many strong smelling cleaners because of her sensitivity to smells.

Grandpa cracked me up today. He needed help figuring out something on his kindle fire and so he called me over. He couldn't figure out how to bring up the keyboard on a website he was trying to log in to. So, I took the stylus and clicked on the box... Up popped the keyboard. Poor thing was so embarrassed!! He couldn't believe he couldn't get that figured out. We both had a good laugh over it:)

Okay... Now time to explain about the fruit... Tomorrow is our annual Family Fall Festival and I am entering a pie, a fabulous fruit pie to be exact. I had to go to HEB and get some produce. I am now up to my ears in fruit!! Strawberries, pineapple, peaches, kiwi, bananas, apples and more!! This pie will be epic!

I will be sure to post the recipe later;) Fingers crossed that it wins!!

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JOTOS.... Things to Know About Me Thursday

Ahhhh it's almost Friday! Are you looking forward to your weekend? I know I am.

A few blogs ago, I posted a comment about my health. Well, since I never explained what all is going on, I will do so in this blog today.

Now, before I go any further, let me preface this by saying this is probably not the best post for men to read. So, if you're a male and reading this, here's your last warning... the following is probably not something you would want to read. Last chance! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! :)

Back in  late April / early May, I had a few changes in my body. At the time, I had no idea what was going on and chalked it up to an imbalance in my hormones. (Which I have struggled with since I was 14 or so) Then, the totally unexpected and the most awful thing happend.... I had a miscarriage. I did not know I was pregnant. I had taken tests and all results were negative. I, even though I had not known, was devastated. No, I didnt really need a baby right then... No, I wasn't ready to truly be a mother quite yet... still, the knowledge that I had lost a child left me broken. To top off the cruelness of it all... it happened a week before Mother's Day. As you can probably imagine, Mother's Day was extremely hard for me. I ended up excusing myself from the Mother's Day presentation that I CREATED during our church service that morning so I could go get a grip on my emotions. I ran to the nearest room, closed the door, and sobbed quietly. No one really knew at this point... just my husband, my parents, and a few close friends. I felt alone. I felt defeated. I felt... broken. The news broke slowly among my other friends and family and the pain worsened with comments like "Oh, don't worry over it too much. You're too young to be a mom right now anyway." or "You've got your whole life ahead of you and plenty of time for more children." and my absolute favorite "Well, just think of all the money you can save now by not having to pay for a baby. You can enjoy going out with your husband and just being a couple." People's words hurt more than anything. I was screaming on the inside begging them to just shut up. They had no idea what I was feeling. They looked past the pain in my eyes and just threw out their words without any regards of what I was dealing with. Did they really mean to harm me? Probably not. When you're going through that though... you just need a shoulder to cry on. No words. Just to be held.

It took me a while to get over the loss I had experienced. Especially when I learned of my 2 dear cousins who had just found out they were expecting. My due date would've been right with theirs. Another round of tears came. There was seemingly no end to this long dark road I was walking. Eventually, I found myself able to be happy for them. I realized that God indeed had a plan that was bigger than I could even think. Still, I longed for my lost baby, my child that I would never have the chance to hold, or even name.

A few months passed and I managed to only experience a few breakdowns. I had busied myself with things at the church, my family, and my friends to keep my mind off of things. It's how I was able to maintain a level of sanity. I was having some pains in my abdomen and lower back more and more frequently. Other symptoms had flared up and left me feeling sluggish, sick, and frustrated. So... off to the doctor I went. When I got there, she had be do a full hormone panel. (blood work) Which, if you know me very well at all, you know I am terrified of needles, so that was a very frightening thing to do again. She told me due to my symptoms and previous problems I've had, she was 75 - 90% sure I had PCOS. (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Where cysts develop on the ovaries and your body produces too much androgens and not enough insulin) I had googled my symptoms and come to that conclusion on my own... years ago. I just never did anything about it. (I know, I know, shame on me)
She then rushed me down to the Hospital for some ultasounds to see how extensive this was and what was causing the problem I was currently having. 6 hours later, I was home and thouroughly exhausted.

My results came back a little abnormal and I got put on a medication to help the PCOS. I will go back in a few weeks to a gynecologist to figure out what else can be done to fix the problem.

Other than that, I have to go on a low-fat diet due to my cholesterol being high. So, no more sonic for me :(

I know that God is able to heal everything going on with me right now. While I'm waiting for that healing, I'll continue to serve Him! He has the power and He has a plan! :)

Alright... enough about me this week... tomorrow I will give you all an update on how Grandma is doing and our funny adventures thus far with her!

Have a happy Thursday!

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JOTOS.... Well... It's Wednesday!

Thank you so much for your incredible response to my blog post yesterday! I received such sweet feedback and my page views jumped from 169 to 444 overnight! It felt so good to just be real.

Today, I busied myself with preparations for another Children's Musical I am directing in December. Copying activity pages, highlighting scripts and casting rolls filled my day. I am excited to see the outcome. This musical is one of my favorites we've done.

Tonight Noah is preaching at home, wish I could be there to listen but alas, duty calls. I will be teaching my kids choir another new song tonight. This one should be fun!

I caught myself daydreaming today. Well, maybe remembering is a better way of putting it. I went back to the first day I talked to Noah and the joy I felt then. He still makes me laugh and gives me butterflies 3 years later. I'm a blessed girl. Then I started contemplating some "what if's". You know what my conclusion was? There really is no point in thinking about those missed chances or untraveled paths... None of them would have brought me to where I am now. And right where I am.... Is exactly where I want to be.

Do yourself a favor... Don't waste your time and tears on what could have been. Instead, be thankful for where you are and rejoice in the fact that you've made it this far. Some people don't live to do the things you will do or have already accomplished. Be thankful that you've been given an opportunity to live another day and have another moment. Smile and rest easy knowing you, are loved.

P.s. how do you like the new blog layout??

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JOTOS....Tell All Tuesday

Since my computer decided not to work, I will have to do all of this from my phone. You'll have to excuse me if there are any spelling or grammatical errors... Autocorrect is not exactly my best friend at times.

My name is Lindsey, and I battled mild depression for years. This will probably come as a shock to some, but it is so very true. I was never medically diagnosed with depression, although had I shown outwardly what I was feeling I would surely have been placed on some kind of anxiety medication. It all started years ago....

When you're 13 you think you've got the world figured out. You are a teenager now after all, and teens lead the most exciting lives, right? Eh, not entirely. I was 13 going on 30. I had a lot going for me, a stable home life, good church, school was going well, I had plenty of friends, and was even somewhat popular among my peers. Yet, something kept eating at me. A little voice in the back of my head that told me I wasn't good enough. I allowed that "spirit" to control my attitude towards other people. It was terrible.

Outwardly, you would have never known a thing was wrong. I had the world on a string, and everything was perfect. Ah, there's that ugly word... Perfect. The word I thought I would never live up to. The word that literally haunted me every single day. You see, I didn't have name brand clothes and purses like some girls... I must not be perfect. I didn't have a clear complexion like other girls... I'm certainly not perfect. There was (like every young girl) that one boy who I thought about every waking moment but I would never have, why? Because I wasn't perfect. Perfection became my worst enemy. I resented anyone who had it all together and inwardly longed to have the same things they had. I was desperate to be seen as the epitome of perfect. By the time I turned 14 I had already contemplated what the world would be like had I never been born. That voice that snuck its way back into my dreams and daily thoughts told me there was no use for someone like me... I should end things now before they got worse. I had lost my best friend, because of other circumstances, but I blamed myself because I wasn't perfect. I had myself convinced that the world would be a better place without me in it. It was one of the darkest periods in my life.

Rejection came next, I had prayed and felt like God was ignoring me because I wasn't worthy of him. I tried dressing differently to please other people and possibly fit in with the older crowd only to find myself crying to sleep because they had no time for me. The boy I had dreamed of liking me for years had moved on to bigger and better things and I was left feeling the worst pain a young girl could feel. No one knew. No one saw the tear stained pages that read "I hate myself". No one heard me crying in the middle of the afternoon. I would get lost in thought in the middle of the day and excuse myself to the restroom just to look at my reflection in the mirror and pick out every flaw. I had become addicted to perfection. 15 came, and went, along with a relationship with a great guy that I didn't deserve at the time. Then 16, my parents, for my birthday, set me up with an orthodontist because I wanted a perfect smile. Over the previous months I had put on a few pounds and when I started the braces process I dropped weight pretty quickly because of not being able to eat due to sore teeth. I noticed myself getting slimmer and sometimes would fake a toothache so I didn't have to eat, or would get away with just drinking a meal replacement shake. I went from 165lbs to 125lbs in a month.

I then took to laying out during the warmer months so I could get that sun kissed glow. I, again, was striving for perfection. I got down to about 120lbs before I plateaued and couldn't drop anymore weight. I could now share clothes with my size 00 older sister. 120lbs may not sound like a big deal, but on my 5'6" - 7" frame - it was. I finally looked like the person I always wanted to see in the mirror. Skin and bones with a perfect tan complexion. Only, still, something was missing. I resorted to flirting with whichever guy would look my way at the time... Which at the end of the day left me in tears because I didn't really like any of them.

I was so empty. I prayed to God for him to help me through this mess I was in and I never realized he was right there with me all along.

In October of 2009 a guy named Noah stepped into my flawed world and was in awe over how.... Perfect.... I was. Me? P-p- perfect? Ha! The thought was too much. As weeks passed and I got to know him more I quickly realize that what I saw as imperfections he, and more importantly, God, saw as absolutely flawless. A warmth unlike any other flooded my heart and my mind and I became broken before God. How could I have missed this all along? Our relationship grew an together we encouraged one another and found ourselves closer to God than ever before. God had taken my broken pieces, and Noah's, and blended them together to create the most beautiful of masterpieces.

Now, Noah and I are very happily married and living our lives as a testimony of what God can do. Looking back I realize that had I not gone through all that heartache, I would never have been broken enough to relate to Noah... Had Noah not been through what he had, he never would have been able to relate to me and help me out of the funk I found myself in. The moral of this story? Well, it's simple really...

God takes us through some things that we don't understand and takes us to places we never wanted to go not to harm us, but to form us into just the right material for someone else's miracle. We may not realize at the time just who our life will impact further down the road. So don't give up. Don't give in to those lying voices. Keep on believing. There is a light at the end of the tunnel... and a blessing waiting for you there.

I hope my testimony had ignited something in your soul that inspires you to keep on moving. God has a perfect plan for your life.

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JOTOS....Monday, Monday, Monday

Whew! It has been a crazy month since I've posted last. Sorry for not keeping you all updated.

Grandma is at home recouping after her first round of Chemo. The Doctors found the cancer to be aggressive and are trying to contain it as much as possible and will then remove the bladder in late December. She has been a trooper through this whole process. Poor thing can hardly keep any food down, yet she's more concerned over others well being than herself. She is one of the most amazing women I have ever met! Things started looking better today. She was able to eat a grilled cheese sandwich so we are hoping that tomorrow she can eat something solid again.

This past weekend we had guest ministers at our church. I have to say, it was probably one of my favorite times to have an evangelist. All Nations Sunday was the 21st, so, Sis Green taught we who are in the choir some new material. My voice has never been so worn out in my entire life! From one end of my range to the other, I strained to hit some of the crazy notes she had us doing! It was all so wonderful though! I was blessed by both Bro Green & Sis Green.

I try not to get involved too much in the political scene due to the messiness of it, however, this years debates have me completely fascinated! I have enjoyed listening to the plans for America all the while knowing that no matter who is elected, GOD's got this! I am excited to go and cast my vote this week for the candidate of my choice. I believe brighter days are coming for both America and the Church!!

My mind went back to several songs today... One in particular really stuck out.

"He Will Carry Me" by Mark Schultz

This song perfectly describes the things I have felt over the last few weeks as well as the battles I've faced. I don't know why I'm walking through "the valley of the shadows" but I will still hold tight to His hand.

My own health has been in pretty bad shape recently... More on that later.

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