There’s a reason for everything…

Although I have grown up with this mantra, the past year has really tested my belief in the words themselves.  I was very blessed in that until the last year, I did not run into many major snafus in the road we call life, at least ones that I really questioned why it happened.  Sure, I had my share of the usual break-ups and “unanswered prayers”, but it did not take me long to understand the reason behind them. 

  Like anyone, I have had my shares of emotional ups and downs, but for the most part I am a fairly positive person and try to see the good in everyone and everything.  However, the past year or two I should say, have really made me dig deep for the reasoning behind things.

After getting a pink slip last year, I thought that maybe I would get another teaching job, but when the end of the summer rolled around and I didn’t have one, I began to question God’s reasoning for this one.  My whole life, I felt like he was calling me to be a teacher and then now he is not presenting me with the opportunity to teach:  what is going on here?  I spent many hours crying and praying for some guidance because I truly felt lost.

As I wrote in this post, I had a friend tell me that she missed my upbeat personality…and that was my turning point.  I decided that God was giving me this “free time” and I needed to make the best of it.  When I wrote that post, I made the statement “I know there is a reason for everything and although I don’t see the reason right now, I know it is there.”

As I was walking home from class on Saturday, this song came on my iPod and it made me smile because I was beginning to feel the same way about my life for the first time in a long time…

Of course I could be completely wrong, but I really felt like the reasoning behind my pink slip and lack of a job, was so that I could go back to school and pursue my PhD in something I truly enjoy.  Now this reasoning didn’t just pop up out of nowhere, but resulted from some signs I think God sent to remind me I am where I need to be! :)

First of all, I love my classes!  For the first time in a long time, I am getting to focus solely on my classes and I’m getting to actually enjoy learning for a change!  Secondly, I have AMAZING professors.  They are so encouraging and I feel like I can go to them about anything.  Thirdly, I have an amazing cohort.  In my introduction during class (although I’ve done the same one in every class I’ve taken), I always mention that I’m not currently working, but pursuing my degree full time and my classmates have been extremely supportive sending me information and offering to help me in any way they can.  On that same note, with my professors and classmates help, I might have some professional “opportunities” in the works that I hope to be able to reveal soon. 

Anyway, I am happy with my decision to go back to school.  No, I do not have a job or really one lined up and yes, money is going to be tight this year, but I am just going to take it one day at a time.

In our sermon last Sunday, we were reading from Matthew and we read this and it really stuck with me

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34 - Something I need to learn to live by!

Have a wonderful Monday!

Love,

Maegan

Trying to Shed a Few Pounds…

or 20 to be exact, but minor details right? ;)

Over the past 6 years (particularly the last 3), I’ve put on 20 pounds and I absolutely hate it! 

As I’ve mentioned quite a few times before, I was a dancer in high school.  Although at the time I never saw myself as skinny (Like the old saying, you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone! or the reverse in this case ;)), I never really worried about what I ate because I danced so often, I knew I would lose it right away.  I could have been a little skinnier if I had eaten a little healthier, but I was at a very healthy size and weight as you can see here in my senior prom picture (I couldn’t get that dress over my head now if I tried!)

When I came to college, I was dating a guy back home first semester, and because I didn’t bother getting to know anyone, I kept to myself and did my own thing and stayed in decent shape walking to class every day.  Near the end of the semester when things got stressful with the boyfriend, I would go run to relieve some stress.  Second semester, after the boyfriend and I broke up over Christmas, I continued to walking to class and added on running a couple of miles every morning with my friend Crystal.  this resulted in me actually being more healthy and even losing weight (isn’t that always how it works when you get out of a relationship ;))  This is a picture of my friend Crystal and I in February 2004.

Alex and I kind of got back together the end of that semester, but by the time summer rolled around, I was single again and staying busy with orientation so I didn’t have a chance to gain any weight!  I was proud of myself because here I was losing weight while all of my friends from high school were packing it on…I had escaped the freshman 15 :)

Alex and I started dating again the following fall, and school started getting busy as I started my education classes.  Having a boyfriend here really made a huge difference as we began going out to eat and eating more meals together (which meant less Lean Cuisines for me!).  Subsequently, I started gaining a few pounds.  By few, I mean, literally a few in like no more than 5, however, if you are only 5 feet tall like me, 5 pounds really show.  I originally chalked it up to water weight thanks to “that time of the month”, but I eventually realized that I was actually gaining weight :(.  (Picture:  my friend Jenn and I in April 2005)

I gained a few more pounds before summer rolled around and eventually realized I had to do something about it.  I started Weight Watchers with my friend Lauren that summer

I actually got within three pounds of my goal weight, but that following May my grandfather passed away and I put that weight back on and more over the past 3 years. (Picture from the following September)

I’ve learned to hide it pretty well with baggy shirts and cropped pictures, but overall I’ve gained 20 lbs.

This summer I’ve had lots of time to analyze every aspect of my life (because when I have free time, this is what I do) and one area that was lacking was the healthiness part of it.  Although I’ve not gained that much weight over the past year, it is definitely clear I have stopped taking care of my body.  All of this would of course be due to stress, lack of sleep and exercise, and of course unhealthy eating habits.  This is actually one of the main reasons of my doctor’s visit during Christmas break.  Not only was I shedding hair and physically sick all of the time, I was just overall unhealthy. 

Since my confidence is wavering due to previous circumstances, looking in the mirror to see my not so healthy self does not help things.  So this summer, I’ve tried to make some changes in my life, especially since I’ve heard several times that you’re metabolism stops at 25!

On Saturday, Josh and I walked to do some errands on campus, then walked to the rec center, walked over 2 miles on the treadmill, and then walked back home (a total of like 3 hours worth of walking).  Needless to say, it was quite a workout (and I felt it!).  Between my exercising and healthier eating, I’ve actually lost about 5 or 6 pounds which I am super proud of!  To make things even better, a friend told me tonight that I looked great and looked like I had lost a ton of weight :)

Anyway, one thing I really liked about going to weigh in at WW is that I got to share my successes with someone which held me accountable. Since I’m not going to weigh in anymore (I do the online version), I thought I would use my blog to share my successes and frustrations so on Wednesday’s, I’m going to share my weight changes so that I’m accountable and hopefully by February I will be close to my goal weight :)

I weighed on Sunday so I’m not going to weigh again until next Wednesday (I’m a firm believer in not weighing yourself every little bit) so I will start my Weight Loss Wednesday’s then! :)

Have a great Tuesday! :)

Updates

I know my posting has been sporadic lately but between last week’s events, officially moving my brother this weekend, and then most recently, the death of Alex’s grandfather, I have not had much energy or creative juices to pump out some posts.  I do plan on getting back on schedule next week, but until then, I wanted to just do a quick update post of random things I haven’t had a chance to share!

• Sometime last week (it was so crazy, the days seemed to run together!), I found out that I made A’s in both of my summer doctoral classes!  Although it was just a little glimmer in the mess that was last week, I was excited!
• Josh finished bringing his stuff down this past weekend and moved in to stay!  It has been entertaining getting used to having him next door!  He was sweet and made dinner for us last night: steak, macaroni, & french fries…I was so proud :).  Today is his first day of college classes so keep him in your thoughts as he embarks on this new adventure!
• As I posted yesterday, Alex’s grandfather passed away Sunday night.  He was originally put in the hospital for pneumonia, but they later found out he had suffered from a stroke.  He took a turn for the worst on Sunday morning and passed away around 10:40 our time Sunday night.  Alex and his brother are flying out to Oregon today to get everything ready for the funeral and probably moving his grandmother to Alabama.  The whole family is having a difficult time with it (as expected) so please continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers! (Thank you to those who have sent your condolences…I know it means a lot to them!)
• My computer is officially back up and running.  Before doing the lovely “System Recovery”, I backed up my system on my external hard drive, but unfortunately it didn’t work :(.  I did have some stuff backed up previously, but every time I get on the computer, I’m constantly reminded of something I lost :(. 

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, so I’m still trying to regain my footing.  I felt this quote from Miss Carrie Bradshaw (I eluded to this episode in this post) was perfect for for the time.

“After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot.” ~ Carrie Bradshaw

Prayer Request

If you are a praying person, please keep Alex and his family in your thoughts and prayers for the next few days.  His grandfather suffered a stroke about a week ago and passed away about 10:40 our time last night.  Please think about him and his family over the next few days as they fly out to Oregon, have the services, and deal with some important decisions about the future.

Love,

Maegan

I’m back!!

Okay, so after 4 days and many frustrating hours, I’m back!  When I called Staples yesterday to have them send me a box to ship my laptop off, he told me all I had to do was to do a System Restore and it should fix it.  I bought a new external hard drive and went through the whole back up process only to find out, I don’t think it backed anything up :(  Oh well, thankfully I had almost everything (at least the important stuff) backed up elsewhere so I’ll live.  I learned an important lesson and I’ve already downloaded a backup program that backs up all my computers every night at 11:00 pm :)  Anyway, I had to restore my computer back to factory settings, but I’m slowly getting it back up and running.

Since it has been a busy week, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do!! However, instead of cramming it all in one post, I’m going to do some back-blogging to catch up so look for quite a few new posts from me over the weekend!

I hope everyone had a fabulous week!

Love,

Maegan

My Day in Pictures…

As mentioned here, yesterday, I opened my computer to find this…

Not my computer, or the actual message…but I found the blue screen of death, nonetheless

So today, Alex and I took a lovely trip to Birmingham to here:

to be told this:

and that they couldn’t save anything off my computer, which resulted in a reaction similar to this…

because I haven’t backed up in a while :(

The whole situation was eerily similar to this….

To make me feel better, Alex took me to lunch here…

and then here…

to visit these…

Then we went here…

to do some more shopping.  Just as we were about to check out, the storm caused this…

so we didn’t get to purchase any of our cool stuff :(  So we headed back home and Alex headed here…

to bartend a party and I spent the rest of the evening, doing a little more of this

 

and then finally this….

all while telling myself this…

 

THE END

*Note:  all images linked to their source

When It Rains...It Pours!

I have had the WORST luck this weekend!  It just seems as one thing goes wrong, we fix it and something else goes wrong...ugh! 

On Friday, I opened my utilities closet to find this

That would be my hot water heater…and that orange slimy watery stuff, yeah that would be what is leaking out of the hot water heater and not draining like it is supposed to…EW!

Then last night, my family and I had to deal with this.

That would be the blown out trailer tire that I blogged about here.

Anyway, since this is my first official day of vacation, I had hoped to update my blog with pictures and posts about this weekend from moving Josh in, but life seemed to have other plans instead.  I woke up this morning/afternoon, went to turn on my laptop and lo and behold, it won't get past the welcome screen.  I'm fairly tech saavy, but even this is beyond my realm of expertise so after messing with it literally all day, I've given up and am taking it to the hospital tomorrow (better known as Staples...if they can't fix it, at least they might send me a new one ;))  I am now on my dinosaur of a desktop computer so I'm much less productive (at least on the computer end of it, I might be more productive on other things since I am without the distraction :P)  Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and I promise I will be uploading pictures soon!

Hope you've had a wonderful Monday!

Love,
Maegan

Update:  I am finally all caught up!  You will find the posts on their respective dates :)

Moving In Part 3

So as I said in my last post, I got a call from my parents around 11 pm, only about 45 minutes after they left my apartment.  My mom starts off by saying, “You’ll never believe our bad luck” and she was right, I didn’t.  Apparently, as they were driving down the interstate, they blew a trailer tire.  To make matters worse, they were no where near anything useful and in a not so great area.  I of course asked what I could do to help and they didn’t have a clue (I don’t know how I could have helped anyway, but I thought it was appropriate to ask).  I know you’re thinking, “Why couldn’t they just change the tire?”  Well, here is the issue (or issues): 

1.)  They had spare truck tires, but no spare trailer tires.

2.) It was 11:00 pm at night and no car repair places were open.

3.)  Even though we have AAA, we weren’t sure if trailers were covered and IF they were, we highly doubted they had a spare trailer tire sitting around.

Dad also talked about running to Wal-Mart and just getting a tire, but he would have had to leave the trailer at the gas station (which closed a few minutes after they pulled in) and was sure to get stolen, tire or not.

Anyway, Alex was over here when I got the phone call and him being the car guy that he is, I consulted with him and we, along with the family, decided we’d go by Wal-Mart on the way pick up a tire and meet them so if nothing else, they would have another car to use if needed. 

The trip to Wal-Mart was entertaining enough because here was my Dad’s list:

• A tire in which he gave me the exact model number (which Alex explained to me where they get the model numbers…something about the width, the size of the rim, blah blah…I don’t know :))
• A file
• Sandpaper (I quickly learned that the higher the number, the finer the grit :))
• A crowbar

Now, I grew up helping my Dad a lot in his shop, so I know a great deal about tools.  In fact, I did so well on the “tool-naming” part of the ASVAB that they wanted me in the military…but that’s a whole other story in itself ;).  Anyway, this girl may know wood-working tools, but car stuff…not so much.  Thankfully, Alex was with me and did all the asking of the questions and hunting of the tools (I did handle the sandpaper though!) and after checking all of the items off of the list, we headed to meet the family.

 

Dad was very thankful for all the tools and the tire, but until that tire was on the trailer and the trailer was homeward bound…we weren’t out of the water yet.  First things first…getting the tire on the old rim.

 

As you can tell, they used just about every tool they had as well as graphite and green slime (that is not a description, it is the actual name of it)  Want to know what actually worked?  Josh’s shampoo…yes all of that other stuff was useless compared to the shampoo! :) (It was blue…you can probably see some of it on the tire in the pictures above). 

Once this was finished, I thought that was it and we could go home, but I was informed that getting the tire on the rim was the easy part…”seating it” would be the hard part.  Now, I had no clue what seating meant, but apparently there are two little ridges inside the rim that the tire has to sit in to hold it on to the rim and one usually uses a heavy duty air compressor to pop it out, but since we didn’t have that, we had to get creative.

First they tried airing it up using the air hose at the gas station.

That didn’t work, so they resorted to squeezing it with ropes and straps to see if they could pop it into place…

That didn’t work either, so they were beginning to get creative (maybe it was the heat!) and Alex mentioned that he had seen someone mount a tire with WD-40 and a match so since we didn’t have either, he went down the street to a gas station that was open, got some WD-40 (a half a can borrowed from the owner because he didn’t have any in the store) and a lighter.

He contemplated a while, but everyone decided it was probably not the best idea so we moved on.

Alex then took the crow bar to it to see if he could get one side seated and then try some of the earlier methods to get the other seated.

   

Surprisingly, he did manage to get one side seated so then they took it back to the air compressor and surprisingly it popped back into place!  YAY!!!

We were all very excited and relieved because I’m not sure what we would have done had that not worked!  The boys then got busy putting the tire back on the trailer.

Josh lowered the jack and we all kept our fingers crossed that it was going to work…

Thankfully it worked and they headed on their way!  Whew!

Alex and I made our way back to Tuscaloosa, and thankfully the tire made it all the way home and is holding up fine!

Although my move was quite eventful and dramatic in itself, Josh definitely wins the award for most eventful move in! :)  He’ll be moving the rest of his stuff and himself in next weekend for good!

Now it’s bed time!  I’m exhausted after the stress and craziness of this weekend!  Have a great Monday!

Love,

Maegan

Moving Day Part 2

Saturday:

We spent the majority of the day furniture hunting (even after only a few hours sleep!).  We lucked up and found his bedroom furniture right away at Ashley Furniture (picture below is something similar…can’t remember if it is the exact one)

 

Unfortunately, it will take a few weeks to get in, but Josh has a temp bed to sleep on until then.  Josh really wanted black leather furniture for his den, similar to mine, but unfortunately black leather furniture is “out of style” and nowhere to be found…at least in Tuscaloosa.

Around 5 pm, when all of the stores are about to close, we found a set we really liked at Spiller Furniture.  It was reasonably priced, comfortable, and as close to black as anything we saw before.  Thankfully they allowed us to pick it up and bring it home right away!

Moving them in…

Look at how great they look!

                 

Sunday:

We did some last minute organizing before everyone headed out (even though they didn’t get to leave until like 10, but oh well)  I did manage to snap a few pics of the apartment throughout the process…

Den

Kitchen

Bathroom

   And finally, bedroom (remember this is the temporary furniture)

As much as I love my family visiting, it was nice to have my apartment back and all to myself.

However, around 11:00, I got a phone call from my parents and you will never guess what happened next…

Stay tuned for part 3! 

Moving In!

The parentals and Josh came down this weekend to move some of Josh’s things in and move some of my things out :)  As with everything my family does, it proved to be an eventful weekend! :)  I’m posting this in a three part series (on the respective days for archiving purposes) and will share some pictures, but will include a link to the online album in the last post for the rest of them (because of course I took way too many)! :)  Enjoy!

They arrived about 3 am on Saturday…I was fighting to stay awake, but once they arrived and we started unloading, I got a second wind.  Now, we discussed the idea of getting a UHaul since we would be purchasing Josh’s furniture down here and transporting it back to the apartment, as well as taking my stuff from the storage building and moving it back home.  My dad, being the crafty guy he is, decided that instead of spending money on a UHaul for the weekend, he would fix up our old flat bed trailer to save us a few bucks.  So now, I present to you the Slaten’s redneck UHaul (drum roll please….)

  

I know, super classy right? ;)  Now, let me explain all of the work that went into this so you can truly appreciate the idea. (In my best announcer voice)  Notice the lovely wood paneling on the side to keep those smaller objects from falling to their death on the interstate.  The net, which is of course used to keep things from blowing out, is held on by lovely silver eye hooks with a matching metal rod.  Total retail price:  priceless ;)  Anyway, despite its true redneck appeal, it got the job done! :)

So we spent about an hour unloading the truck and moving things into the apartment.  Alex had just gotten off work (bartending) so he stopped by to provide an extra set of hands, especially since my brother said we needed more than 3 1/2 people to help (the half meaning me…yes, he’s sweet like that!)

Alex moving in a desk

Josh and Dad moving in the piece de resistance of every man’s apartment:  the giant TV!

Once we got everything moved in, it was time to sort through the chaos and do some organization, but first…the TV has to be set up.

Now, the organization can commence :)

  

We cleaned for about an hour (remember this puts us at like 5 am), and then we all went to bed.  I have to say, it was kind of nice because for the past 6 years, every time my parents visit, they obviously have to stay with me, but for the first time…I got the entire apartment to myself :)

Next up…furniture shopping!!!