...Plain Upon Tablets

I received some news today. The stage was set for it three weeks ago, and today confirmed it. I have diabetes. Out of all illnesses you can get, diabetes has been #1 on my Please, Dear God, not that  list my whole life. I've had great aunts and uncles that had it and saw some of the more extreme effects of it, and wanted nothing to do with it, ever. Three weeks ago, blood work results came back. Sugar was pretty high. My doctor decided to schedule more blood work within a two to three-week span of time. I had that done this past Friday. Today, after smiling and talking with my bestie about my good talk with my dissertation chair, after declaring the completion of my dissertation, after excitedly telling bestie of new writing project; the call came. About the norm in a roller coaster life in which at 1:59 you can be on Cloudy Infinity and at 1:59:10, you can hear the thud and the crack of bones as you fall back to earth. Doctor told me the number was lower, but that...

Last week, I talked about the Forward March . This "movement" is a bit different. This one is about the movement that keeps your body at its optimal level, that keeps your feeling good, that keeps your healthier. Before I came to Lubbock in August '09, I was on the road to better movement. I exercised three, four times a week. I drank less coffee. I drank less soda. I drank more water. I cut a lot of fast food, fried foods from my diet. And it showed. Not only was my cholesterol levels getting back to normal, but I was also losing weight. Was even able to purchase jeans two sizes smaller than the ones I had worn in what felt like forever. And then I moved. Have you ever heard of the Freshman 10? Freshman 15 (probably now the Freshman 20!)? It's the theory (very loose theory) that when a freshman goes off to college, he or she (usually she) will probably gain about 10, 15 pounds. Well, I'm here to tell you that not only is this theory true (for me anyway), but it a...

First full week of school kicked off last week. I'm excited, nervous about the semester. I'm excited because every class I'm taking will provide a practical benefit almost immediately to me. For example, my grants/proposal class will enable me to submit a proposal to a conference, to develop a proposal for a non-profit organization, and to develop an academic or industry proposal...with a purpose . Last semester was heavy in theory, in the foundation, the understanding of all the things we will be doing. It got very tedious, very fast with the mounds upon mounds of words to read and dear God, try to understand in order to articulate a fairly intelligent response. I've always been good at doing . Not to say I'm bad at thinking and understanding , but if you give me a task, the task will get done , and usually, done well . So though there is a lot of work to be done this semester, the act of doing is right up my alley. Having said this, the first week, week and a ha...

Happy New Year, Everyone! I've been on (and still am on) vacay, so I was away from the blog, but I plan to get back into the swing of things - especially with me going back to Lubbock at the end of the week and with school starting next week. If you follow me on any of the social watering holes like Twitter {I'm HERE }, Facebook {and HERE }, and MySpace {and HERE , too!}, you know that the semester ended pretty well for me. Despite my issues and wishes to flee Lubbock for Lake Charles, I finished the semester with great grades and even a few papers that sparked me into General Dissertation Thoughts. Always a good thing. The biggest thing I learned over this semester was if I could succeed when I felt so overwhelmed, so unstructured, so unprepared, so un-everything, then with more organization and preparation (and heavy, heavy doses of God and prayers), I can shoot for beyond the stars. I'm nervous and excited about the new semester. Why? Well, though I'm happy to be tak...

Recently, God has me buying a lot of things - faith-based things. Books. CDs. DVDs. I know he's getting me ready for something, and I thank him for the preparation. Today, I received Kenneth & Gloria Copeland's Healing & Wellness: Your 10-Day Spiritual Action Plan . There's a praise CD, a healing CD, and a sermon-laden DVD...in addition to daily readings and journal writing activities. For each day, there is a morning devotional time and an evening devotional time, which I love because it encompasses my entire day with God. Today was DAY ONE . The purpose of this blog site is for me to chronicle my journey into new phases of my life...to, in essence, be bare so that I can see the flaws, learn to love them, and learn to keep on moving on to the wonderful life God has in store for me. I thought it appropriate considering this was day one of this spiritual action plan to start by being bare, so... This is a recent pic of me - bathed, sans makeup or anything that c...