The One With Reality.

It's funny how one day you can be the happiest you've ever been and the next, you are questioning where your life is headed. It is so hard losing something you had for so long. Especially something you thought you'd have forever. And to have it taken away so quickly like it didn't even matter is even worse. You'd think that a few months would be enough time to get over something, but you find yourself still thinking about it constantly, and having your moments. It's tiring. It's funny how you can think your life is going to turn out a certain way. You can be 99.9% sure, but then God decides, "Nope. I'm going to take you in this direction." and then you feel completely lost. Like your life has no direction, and you don't know which way is up. I know God has a plan. That's not the problem. I know that all I need to do is trust in Him, and know that He is leading me in the direction I need to go. I'd just like to feel SOME sort of direction.

I graduate in December. I have 9 hours left of school. and my mom makes a great point. I'm not excited about graduating. And I should be. I'm about to graduate from college. from the University of Texas, and instead of being excited, I'm almost dreading it. Why? Because I have NO idea what I'm going to do when that day comes. I feel like I have to figure it out soon, or else...well I don't know. And I know that most people will say, "Alex, you have time. No one knows exactly what they are going to do." But what people don't understand is I can't do ANYTHING with my degree. I have to go to grad school. But I don't want to. I don't want to go to school for another 2 years. At least right now. I don't know, I know it will all come together eventually, but it'd be nice to know at least a little something.

It's funny how when you're young and you see these 22 year olds, you think, wow they are so old, and they have it all figured out. I thought by 22, I'd feel 22. I don't feel the way I saw those 22 year olds as a young'n. I'm still considering the culinary school route. I just need to be 100% sure. It's not a decision that needs to be made lightly. I just feel like time is moving too quickly, but slowly at the same time.

It's also kind of amazing how you can feel so lonely, in such a huge world. Full of people.

I try to read this quote to make myself feel better:
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
- E.M. Forster

God has me. I just have to trust.

The One With The Homemade Spaghetti Sauce.

I've been living at my parents' house for the past 2 weeks just because. It makes it a lot easier for Noah to be there during the day while I work and/or go to class. I hated thinking of him being all alone in a tiny apartment. Now he gets to run around a huge house with a backyard, and pester my mom. and trust me, he definitely pesters. This morning when I left, he was running all over the house. If he got close to you, he'd nip at your ankles and run off. He has so much energy. I've been taking him on my runs every now and then, and it still doesn't seem to calm him down. He gets ahold of little things, and decides he wants to eat them, so I'm running around the house screaming, "Noah! Drop it!" and he will let me get just close enough before he runs off again. My mom the other day said, "Wow, I just got a visual of you and a 2 year old." Thank goodness Noah is the closest thing to a 2 year old that I have. No babies for me anytime soon. But anyways, the point of me telling you all this is that on Tuesday/Thursday's I work from 10-2 and then there is no point in going all the way back to my parents' up north before class, so I just stay downtown and hang out in my apartment or run errands until school at 6:00 pm. This past Tuesday I decided I needed to use some of awesome new kitchen equipment I got for my birthday (Thanks Mom and Dad!). So, after work, I headed over to the grocery store and picked up some things to make homemade spaghetti sauce. I know spaghetti is such a boring, typical meal, but it's cheap, and that's what I like. And it's pretty healthy if you pair it with some whole grain pasta.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
• one 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes, pureed in a food processor (IN MY NEW FOOD PROCESSOR) 
• salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 3 large fresh basil sprigs
• Whole grain pasta 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium low heat. Add onion and cook until soft and translucent, stirring occasionally, about 6-7 minutes. 

Add garlic and crushed red pepper flakes (I did without the crushed red pepper), and cook another minute. 

Increase heat to medium, and add pureed tomatoes. Season lightly with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens slightly and the flavors meld, about 20 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in basil sprigs. 

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti until about 2 minutes before tender. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water. Drain pasta. Discard basil from tomato sauce and heat skillet over medium heat. Stir in 1/2 cup reserved pasta water to loosen sauce; bring to boil. 

I then individually sized pasta in a bowl, added some parmesan, and topped it off with the sauce. I also baked some garlic bread to go along with it, because how can you have homemade spaghetti without some delicious garlic bread? 

After finishing that delicious meal, I decided I wanted to make a smoothie for class. So I put together a coconut, pineapple smoothie. 


Ingredients: 
1 cup vanilla yogurt 
1/3 cup fresh or frozen pineapple chunks 
1 medium banana, sliced 
1/4 cup low fat coconut milk 
1/4 cup 1% milk 
Ice cubes 


Place it all in a blender and let it rip! 


When I got to school, I parked in the garage, and I open my door to find this car next to me...

I don't understand how you can let your car get that nasty. I'm pretty messy, but there's no way I would allow the only possible seating available in my car to be the driver's seat, and everything else full of trash. 


"Oh my God, there's a toe in my kitchen." 

The One With The Wonderful Life.

I decided I was in NEED of writing a post, because of how wonderful my life is right now. I figure when the time comes that I think my life is awful, I will need something to read to remind myself that my life ROCKS. I am so blessed.

I have never been more happy in my life I don't think. Do I still have my moments? Of course. But when I'm happy, I am SO happy.

I've learned a few things in the past month or two. Do not live a life that you are unhappy in. No matter how happy you actually think you are, be honest with yourself. Really dig deep and think, "Am I happy?" Do I wake up every morning thinking, "Wow, my life is blessed beyond belief, and I'm living it exactly the way I want to." It's so easy to get comfortable in a situation, go through the motions, and think that you want to live your life that way the rest of your life. BECAUSE it's so comfortable. Will it suck for a little bit while you suffer through the moments of realizing your life is completely different and your future is completely up in the air now and not at all what you expected? Yes. But it is so worth it. So if you are unhappy, change it. Do something about it. God is so amazing, and is in so much more control than you think He is. He will take care of you. Through ANYTHING. I mean how comforting is that? That there is Someone who will be there for you, and comfort you in times of need, and has this wonderful future planned for you if you just listen to Him and trust in Him and His plan? I don't think I can think of anything better.

I've also learned how important it is to really think about yourself. I'm the type of person that tends to think about others a lot more than I do myself. I care about others so much that sometimes I forget about listening to my needs and my wants. I put others before myself, and don't get me wrong, that is a wonderful trait that I am so thankful for, but it can definitely be a downfall at times. I try so hard to please other people and give them the attention they need, that my life gets put on the back-burner. And I do this with all kinds of relationships, my friends, my boyfriends, my family, and even Noah (which I know doesn't come as much of a surprise to most people). So, if you are like me, and you aren't paying attention to what you need in your life, I'm telling you right now to stop, and do something for yourself. Do something that will make your life better. Then you can go back to caring about everyone else. :)

Something else I have realized is how confident of a person I actually am. I had my doubts in the past. Partly because of myself and my own thoughts, and partly because of other people making me believe I wasn't as confident and secure as I am. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. However, I've come to realize I really can hold my own. I'm so much more independent than I was 2 or 3 years ago. And I do give some credit of that to the people who did bring me down, because they made me look inside myself and say, "No, I am not dependent. I am not insecure. I will overcome that perception." Am I sometimes dependent and insecure? Hell. Yes. But isn't everyone? I don't think ANYONE can honestly say they aren't those things at some point in their lives, and if they are, they are deceiving themselves. So I again ask you, if someone or many people are bringing you down and making you doubt yourself, realize you are so much stronger than you think, and you will only be a better person because of them and their criticism. Look at it as a blessing in disguise.

I love the song Blessings by Laura Story. If you haven't heard it, and you are going through a hard time, listen to it now. RIGHT now. Actually, even if you aren't going through a hard time, listen to it. One of the lyrics says, "What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?" If you are going through a hard time or the next time you are just hating life because you feel like the world is caving in on you, try to realize that God HAS YOU. He is in control. These trials that you are going through are only blessings that God will bring you through, and He will bring you through them even stronger than you can imagine. I also love, "Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops? What if Your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near? What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?" I mean, how beautiful is that? What you are going through is only the pain that God needs you to go through to know He is there for you, and to make you a stronger person. Another song that brought me comfort was Josh Wilson's song Before The Morning. I've got a couple favorite lines in this song. The first is, "Cause the pain that you've been feeling, it's just the dark before the morning," and similar to that is, "Cause the pain that you've been feeling, it can't compare to the joy that's coming." What an amazing statement, because you go through these hard times, but there really is joy at the end of them. There really is this light at the end of the tunnel. You WILL get through it. And even if you get to the light, yes, there will be times you slip back into the dark, but the light outweighs the dark so much more. I know it's hard to understand for some people why God puts us through hard times. Why God allows us to feel the way we do sometimes, but what you have to trust in 100% is that He has a plan, and He is doing something in your life that is wonderful and that is for a purpose. It is for the betterment of your future. He cares about you so much, and it pains Him to see you in pain, but He knows it's for your own good. Sometimes He puts us through pain just so you remember He's there, because it is so easy to forget, especially when your life is fantastic. But when your life is so wonderful and there aren't many complaints, that's when you need to be thanking Him immensely, and thank Him for those awful moments in your life where you are thinking, "Why am I going through this? Why are You allowing me to go through this pain?" because they are molding you into the person He wants you to be. Talk to Him constantly, and I promise you, you will see His work in your life eventually, especially if you can't see it at this moment. 

Trust. In. Him. 

I think it's only appropriate to skip the Friend's quote and end on an even better quote. 

You are my strength and my song, my God

    I trust in You and I shall not fear.

My heart is dancing, if not my feet

    before I even think of You, You are my Creator;

It's You who sustain me on my journey

    wherever I go, you are there before me -

You are my strength and my song

    I trust in You and I shall not fear.

It's Your sun that warms my limbs

    Your wind that chills, and sharpens my feelings.

You care for the simple blackbird

    Your love for me is sweet and powerful.

God says: “I love you, you are precious to Me

    just as you are, you are My friend and partner.”

For You are my strength and my song

    I trust in You and I shall not fear.

The One With Stephanie's 21st.

This past weekend was one of my best friend, Stephanie's, birthday. She turned 21. However, it wasn't the "typical" 21st birthday where she went and got plastered. I actually haven't even been downtown with her...yet. It will happen soon.

Friday night I planned on a low-key night. I didn't have any specific plans so I decided to head to my parents to hang out with them, and let Noah run around, because he absolutely loves it. I ended up meeting my mom and her long time friend, Robin, for linner? Dunch? at Iguana Grill. Then we headed home and the intern from our church, Nik, who is staying at my parent's for the summer ended up being home. Neither of us had plans, so I offered to check off some of the Austin things to do from his list. I took him to Spiderhouse and then Tiff's. I sat down at Spiderhouse, and if you've never gone, first of all, you should go because it is one of the best Austin-y places out there, and second off, they have a bunch of metal lawn chair type seating outside. So, I sit down, and there were these square holes, that apparently if you press hard enough, my button on the back of my jeans could fit through. But I couldn't just pull it right on out. It's like in the movies when a kid can push his head through the stair railings but can't pull it back out because his ears get in the way. So, I literally couldn't move much, and I was trying to maneuver the button out of the hole (of course, since it was on my back pocket, it was really hard). Anyways, after like 10 minutes of trying to find a way, I did it. Thankfully, my dad taught me to laugh at myself, otherwise, I could have been very embarrassed, since I didn't know Nik very well.

On a side note, one of the ways my dad taught me to laugh at myself, and one of the reasons I am as crazy paranoid and anxious as I am, is because when I was in elementary school, we would be going through a drive-through. We would order our food, and when we were like the next car up to the paying window, my dad would say, "Oh my goodness. I don't have any money. I don't know how to pay for this. Do you guys have any money?" and of course, worry-wart Alex would start FREAKING out. I remember thinking, "How are we going to pay? This is going to be so embarrassing." I would start looking in the back for coins. Then right before we got to the window he would say, "Oh, wait I found my wallet." Oh, how I just love my father. :)

Saturday, I got up, and ran a bunch of errands, got ready for the night, and cooked Stephanie the same cake that I made her last year. It's a yummy chocolate cake, that I just top with strawberries and powder sugar, but you can top with any icing of your choice. I'm just not a huge fan of icing. I always eat just the cake and leave the icing (unless it is cream cheese icing, then I eat that like it's going out of style).

"The Best Chocolate Cake Ever" (That's what the blog called it)

1 box devil’s food cake mix
1 small pkg Jello instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a very large bowl, mix together everything except chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into cake pan of choice (I normally use two 9-inch pie pans). For cooking time, I use the cooking times on the back of the devil’s food cake box as a guide and usually add 10 mins to whatever it says. Then I do the toothpick check, and if it’s not done, I check on it every 5 mins after that. It usually takes around 45 mins for two, 9-inch pie pans.

Nik decided to come to Z-Tejas with me for Stephanie's birthday dinner (since it was on his list). Z-Tejas was yummy as always. It was a bunch of Stephanie's friends, and her boyfriend, who is in the army and lives in Alaska came into town.

The group! 

Nik and I outside Z-Tejas (had to document it for him) 

After Z-Tejas, some of us headed over to Peter Pan Mini Golf. I brought a cooler of beer, because it makes it a lot more fun. This pretty much consisted of me drinking and taking lots of pics with Lindsay. We ended up not even really caring about playing. We even would just skip some of the holes because they looked boring. We were more interested in all of the awesome creatures around the course. Also, in the frat boys, who brought vodka and soda...just kidding...kind of. The frat boys took a picture for us by the turtle, but they insisted that we climb onto the turtle, so we thought, why the heck not? 

We hopped right on. It was a lot harder than we had anticipated. 

Stephanie looked sooooo pretty. Her hair was rocking. If I had that much hair, I'd definitely be a happy girl. 

When I went to pretend kiss this dog, I was too entranced by his charm and accidentally kissed him. When I walked back I said, "Oh man, I think I actually kissed him." Laura then asked, "Was there some tongue action?" I then proceeded to say, "Yes...on his part." (I only share this conversation, because other people laughed. I always hate it when people share a story that they said something "funny" in. It seems so arrogant and makes it not so funny - which is probably what I just did). 

I mean does she look like a model or what?! 

After putt-putt, my other friend Stephney came and picked me up. We wanted to go out. We headed over to a little show and left pretty quickly from that. Then ended up at a friend's house. We did some two-stepping in the kitchen. It ended up being a pretty fun night, and a very happy birthday to Stephanie Lynn. I'm so glad I met her in sign language a year and a half ago. 

Then Sunday came around. I woke up and went to church, even though I was out til 3:30 the night before. I told myself I wouldn't have a late night out Sunday night, but then life happened. I ended up at Spiderhouse with Elo and Marshy. Then Nik and his two friends met us there later in the night, and they said they were going to go downtown. So, of course, I had to say I was coming along, and I even convinced Elo to come out. (which is a rare occurrence as she always ends up in bed by 10:00 pm when she's back in Austin. I guess she just parties too hard while in California). It was a really fun night. We danced our brains out, and burned about 50,000 calories from it being so dang hot in the club. I also had many drinks spilled on me. It was a successful night. 

I woke up Monday for the holiday at like 11:30, which I never sleep that late, even when I do stay up late (which also shows how successful the night was). Since it was memorial day, my parents had planned on cooking out with some people. So, Stephney, Elo, Nik, and I ended up outside by the pool for the afternoon. Have you ever watched Cougar Town? It's a great show. But Courteney Cox's character always has a HUGE wine glass for the "tough" times. She named it something like Big Joe. Well, Stephney and I found a wine glass that holds an entire bottle of wine, and since we both love the show, I had to buy both of us one. So we pulled those babies out for the holiday. Only, we put beer in them instead of wine...because we're classy like that. I named mine Big Bart and she named her's Big Al. 

I tried to get Stephney to jump off the roof with us, but she refused after standing up there for like 10 minutes, because she's a big pansy. 

Stephney and Elo ended up leaving somewhat early, so Nik and I played some pool. I won the first round, even though I haven't played in years. 

This is Nik sad that he lost to a girl. 

Then we played some cards with my parents and the Woottons. And then watched a movie and went to bed. It was a great weekend. I am so happy with my life right now. I finally feel like I'm living my life the way I need to live it. 

I need to end on a pic of Noah. He's been missing in my posts. He likes to lay in my lap and watch TV with me. 

Rachel: Just come by at lunch so that my boss doesn't see you, 'cause Kim will just freak out, and she already doesn't like me very much.

Chandler: Oh, that's weird. I don't think my boss likes me either.

Monica: I don't think mine likes me either.

Ross: Maybe it's a universal thing.

Joey: Yeah. Or maybe... it's because you're all hanging around here at 11:30 on a wednesday.