care package rescue

as of friday, april 6th my student teaching is complete.


did it get any better than how i described it going in my last post?
well....
there were ups and downs, but it basically stayed the same for the entire 65 student teaching days.

running off steam
engulfed in the black hole of tiredness that - no matter how early i crashed asleep on my bed (10pm? 9pm? even 7pm sometimes!) - never released its grasp
seeing no one but 7th graders and the occasional roommate who happened to be around when I made my way from the door to my bed
having no life

words like chaos, crazy, .... even "hellish" are, in my mind, just putting it lightly.



at one point - about a month before finishing my student teaching - i was on the phone with my sister discussing how things were going in my life.

obviously this wasn't the most positive conversation.


i vividly remember being stressed out of my mind because
1) my supervisor was coming the next day to observe me and things weren't perfect
2) there was more than a little grading to be done ... ugh, isn't there always so much grading?!?
3) i was exhausted - mentally, physically, and emotionally - as always
4) i was down to my last pair of underwear and needed to do laundry, but that entailed:

getting cash -- finding a place to exchange the cash for quarters -- lugging my laundry to the machines -- waiting and waiting, then changing machines -- and staying up long past my bed time.

sundy replied, "you know things are bad when you only have one pair of underwear left."


we had a good chuckle about that, then the conversation moved forward.
(don't worry, everything worked out and i got clean clothes thanks to a lot of help from others :)



well, at the end of that week, i received a care package from none other than miss sundy sunshine-ray-of-my-life.


here are the contents of the package:

this is what her tender "may the sun shine on you today" card said -----

to my punkin lamb --

31 days to glory. {a countdown chain}

a pair of clean ones just to tide you over. {the underwear}

some sweet humor for the hard moments. {laffy taffy}

permission to feel sour. {sour jelly belly jelly beans}

a token to remind you why (for some beautiful reason) you started this journey to begin with. {a ring stating, "love is patient, love is kind, love never ends..."}

dark chocolate & pb for... well, just because! {dark chocolate reese's - my fave!}

and if all else fails, a means in which to forget about the stress and bless someone else for a moment in time. {butterfly thank you cards}

i believe in you; love, sundy

here is a close-up of the "token" {ring}:

her care package could not have come at a better time. that weekend was spent grading 260 human reproduction tests and diagrams.

here's a couple pictures of the stack:

the countdown chain helped my mental state enormously. watching the chain get shorter and shorter kept me going -- like the little engine that could.

i wouldn't have survived the entire thing with out help from sisters, brother-in-law, brother* (he helped in many ways, only one of which was laundry :), bishop and other church leaders, parents, prayers on my behalf, etc.

but i survived.

and now i need to stop blogging {aka procrastinating} and get to work on my senior project that is due in a few short days ------ if i can survive this last thing, i'm graduating at the end of this month!!! after seven long years since high school.

ok.
fine.
i'm getting to work.

but i'll be back soon, if the project doesn't kill me :)

. just . breathe .

sometimes i get caught up in the whirlwind.

ok.

not sometimes.

all the time.


emotions have a tendency to sweep me up and blow me in any sort of direction.
emotions, feelings, .... stress especially.


the whirlwind i'm currently navigating is squeezing the breath out of me -- i'm wondering if that's also in a literal sense, as well. not only am i struggling to keep everything in my life together as i feel like life threatens to smush me flat like a bug on a windshield, but starting late last year i started to develop a weird breathing problem. i constantly have the sensation that my lungs aren't filling up with enough oxygen until i take huge, deep breaths.


you see... i'm student teaching.
at a junior high school.
seventh graders.

i do love it. i do! and i love them. yet, having so many of them.... 40 students in each of my six classes. oh, but one of those classes has 41 students. this is all so much.

not that it feels like i've been thrown into the ocean without a life preserver or a knowledge of how to swim. it's more of a feeling that i've been thrown into the ocean with a knowledge of how to swim, but my life jacket is too big and i'm tired. i'm starting to sink lower into the water as i see the sharks watching and waiting for me to drown.

there is a lot going on around me. a lot to deal with and a lot to figure out.
sometimes i let these things consume me.

maybe that's when i need an emotional breather just as badly as a literal one.

for now, all i can think to tell myself is: "just breathe."

brutal {and} bodily

if any of you have wondered why there has been a lack of posts in the recent week, the answer is simple. i've been too tired and busy with medical *stuff*. to explain the 'what' and 'why' i'll give some background first.

just over a year and four months ago i posted this little goal.

i would like to say that, though challenging, i achieved my goal and am now much more aware of the strong will power i possess.

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

however, i did not achieve that goal and belief in my will power is dwindling by the minute. i even posted here, in october about my class assignment ~ doing a whole research study on myself and sleep. yet nothing has proved to be the key to better, more consistent sleep.

the thing is, ... it hasn't been so "cut and dry" lately. i have been involved in a fight against my body for a few years now, and only recently am i starting to accept the facts. this fight is a brutal one: my knowledge of a body's normal range of capabilities versus my body's deliberate, obstinate refusal to follow-through with those 'normal' tasks. the result = pain.

image found here

my family physician officially diagnosed me two years ago with fibromyalgia.

for more info, see here, here, or **here.

i somewhat ignored this information and continued to expect my body to act like normal ones "should". if it ever relented to my will, i was punished with over-exhaustion and the need for abnormal amounts of sleep.

well, with ever-worsening pain and a slow humbling of stubbornness i am finally seeing a specialist in salt lake city. besides my on-going appointments at their office, this last week has been full of even more various doctor appointments. i had an appointment with my family physician {for tests and drawing blood}, an appointment to get m.r.i.'s and x-rays done, and friday night I endured a sleep study {the only good thing about that was the technician was a good friend of mine, making the experience less scary} where i got very little sleep.

oh, and all this happened while trying to at least remain afloat in my three summer classes.

hopefully the sleep study will bring answers to the sleep problems i have had since i was a little girl. hopefully one of the many tests done on me will provide solutions to my bodily ailments.

::~:: * ::~:: <3 ::~:: * ::~::

i wish i could travel back in time and reach out to touch the Savior's hem.

instead, i guess i must find ways to symbolically reach out to touch Him.

"trust in the Lord" by liz lemon swindle

...for i know He is the true source of healing and power.

mission impossible

this fall in school i'm taking a course entitled "modifying health behaviors" and guess what the semester-long project we all have to complete is! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

if you guessed "a behavior change project" you win a prize! {not really, but yay! for you}

i don't even think it is possible to pinpoint which part of this monster is worse! first i thought it might be the pure fact that i had to choose the behavior! how could i narrow it down to just one?! terrifying, right?

then i thought the worst part of the project was going to be writing the description of the problem, or the behavioral, medical, and physical assessments. no, the worst part is that i actually have to change this behavior.

you may be wondering what behavior i ended up choosing to modify.

~ ~ ~ sleep ~ ~ ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i've had a problem with healthy sleep schedules since elementary school. and no, i promise i am not exaggerating in the slightest. just ask my dad if he can remember a time when i wasn't late or absent from school because he couldn't get me out of bed. yeah, these instances were few and far between.

here is my planned course of action:

{approximately 60 minutes}
-clean-up any messes in bedroom and make bed [ 10 minutes ]
-change into pajamas and put clothes in hamper [ 5 minutes ]
-prepare herbal tea and take medications [ 15 minutes ]
-wash face and brush teeth [ 5 minutes ]
-journal / write in ‘worry book’ [ 15 minutes ]
-turn on woodlands music album and practice yoga stretches/meditation [ 10 minutes ]
-turn off lights and practice progressive-relaxation until asleep

and guess what! tonight is the night i'm supposed to start doing the routine. i'm going to slowly work myself up to starting the routine at 9pm so that i'll be in bed by 10pm. yeah ... i know ~ wishful thinking.

so here goes nothing!

{or rather: hopefully something!}

perfect sheets

do you know "uptown girls"? i'm not talking about the hit song by billy joel from the 80's. it is a movie. what relevance does this movie have to my post?

there is a song about sheets of egyptian cotton sung in the movie. i always wondered what was so great about egyptian cotton.

now i know.


(just imagine them in a deep blue, but not a royal blue)


hopefully this post will explain why it is SO hard to get out of bed every day.


imagine being surrounded by silk, except that it's not as slippery.

they are the definition of soft.
luxurious.
the arch enemy of my goal to live a productive life.


i think i'm in love....



with my sheets.

is there a recovery group?

dear three am

here it is, 3:30 am and what am i doing? i'm still awake {as always} doing who knows what. i found this and decided it's a great new year's resolution. yes, i know it's already the third of february, but i've always been slow. better late than never, right? especially with goals.
my goal: be in bed, with the lights off no later than 11:30pm. to those of you who think that's late .... well, it's early for me. by going to bed by 11:30pm i can hope to wake up at a more appropriate hour in the morning.

so far i haven't done this because i kept thinking, "oh, but it's so much more fun to just stay up and keep doing whatever i'm doing! i don't have any responsibilities to wake up for in the morning." that may be true {very true, because it is}, but i believe that i would be of much more help to the world if i found things to do in the morning instead of late at night.

this is going to be a hard habit to break.

i need help. and, unfortunately, they do not have a rehab facility for nocturnal addicts {if you hear of one, let me know}. if you have any suggestions, tips, or information that could help me on my adventure of habit-breaking, please please please post a comment.

finals are finally final

december can be the best month of the year ... yet it can also be the very worst, most stressful time as well! with final projects due and final exams to take, it can sometimes feel like anything but christmastime! however, i'm done!!! i just took my last final and i am officially done! and ... by the way, i got a 96.4% !!!!!!!! yeah, can you tell i'm ecstatic!? oh yes, i am.

check that one off the list

i am a student at utah valley university and it's been fall break this last thursday and friday. at the same time, the alpine school district (where I teach seminary) has had uea break. considering the fact that my entire life centers around school and teaching seminary, the last two and a half days have been completely uneventful. unfortunately, i've had unending hours to think about how i've neglected any kind of social life i used to have.

on the up-side: i've more than made up for the lack of sleep i've been suffering from. all those nights of falling asleep at my computer or all those mornings of waking up to kinks in my neck from hunching over my homework all night has finally caught up with me. only those who have experienced this 'thrill' in life can understand how perfectly this picture depicts the life of a student, a teacher, and yes - especially a student teacher. sleep is a beautiful thing; a blessing from God to rejuvenate; a chance for our bodies to heal themselves. when i see a student start to nod-off in my class, i totally understand! i want to be right there with them! is it the increasing pressure on ourselves to surpass our capacity to cope? why do so many of us feel like lazy failures if we have a few moments each night to breathe and relax? it's a good question, if i do say so myself. what is the answer? well, i'm not sure about everyone else, but i know my problem has to do with ocd tendencies (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and my constant need for perfection. ... give me a break - i'm working on it!

well, at least now i can check "sleep" off the list of things to do ... i've just got to think of more things to put on that list so there's more than one item. ... then i can then work on checking those off as well. wow ... i think i need a life.