Thursday, November 17, 2011

Many Thanks

With Thanksgiving just a week away I can't help but think of all the things that I am thankful for.
Sometimes it's good just to remind yourself and give thanks for what you have.
1.  I am thankful that I serve a God that is bigger than anything I will ever have to face.  I am thankful for His love, grace, peace, and mercy that he gives without needing anything back.
2.  I'm thankful for loving parents who always have my back.  I've always been able to call them and ask them for help with anything and they always come through.
3.  I'm thankful for an amazing big brother that has always been there to protect me and laugh with me.
4.  I'm thankful for the absolute most amazing husband.  He is loving, caring, selfless, kind, funny, and brilliant.  He is my best friend; always there for me.  He is always taking care of me and making me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. 
5.  I'm thankful for the sweetest Grandma on the planet.  I'm thankful that she has kept going all these years because she's all I've got left of grandparents and she is quite the lady.  I hope to be like her one day.
6.  I'm thankful for friends.  Old friends, new friends, far friends, and close friends.  They always come around when I need them the most.
7.  I'm thankful for a job.  I must admit, the last three days of my job have been challenging, but again I serve a God that would never give me anything more than I can handle. 
8.  I'm thankful for my home.  Trailer, shack, mansion, or apartment; a home is more than just walls.  It is where you feel comfortable, safe, and is somewhere you can't wait to be.  Anytime I'm away for even just a couple of hours I start missing my home. 
9.  I'm thankful for transportation, which provides me with the opportunity to go places and see people I love.
10.  I'm thankful for my new family, who have really welcomed me in and shown me so much love even before Kyle and I tied the knot.
11.  I'm thankful that Kyle and I are always with food and shelter.

There are so many more things to be thankful for, but that's just a few.  I can't wait to see my family and to see what else is in store for my life.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Changes

We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive. - Tupac

I'm kind of excited for this new day.
I'm making changes.
First change:  Wake up at 6 with my husband and make him breakfast.
I decided yesterday that I was going to do this and he didn't think I would.
He told me he wasn't going to wake me up when he got up, so I set my own alarm.
He gets up at 6 and I set mine for 6:05.
I heard his alarm (not that I needed to because he pretty much crushed me trying to reach his phone on the table beside me) but I dozed a little.
At 6:04 I heard him pouring cereal.
I stumbled out of bed and waved at him from the hallway shouting, "Don't pour the milk!"
At this point I lost my balance and fell against the way.
I'm a stumbler in the morning.
I've never been drunk before, but I assume the way I walk in the morning would be how I walk as a drunk.
He asks, "why?" and I reply, "I'm making you breakfast."
Classic Kyle says, "You can't even stand up."
All in all, the first morning was a success.
I made him a waffle with crunchy peanut butter.
Once I'm up, I'm pretty much going so I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.
Then I started making the bed, which brings me to the next change: Keep the house clean.

This involves me making my bed every morning, which I'm halfway done with.
Kyle interrupted me and wanted to cuddle for a couple minutes before he left for school, so how could I resist that?
I will also be putting things away after I use them.
Seems simple enough, right?
I tell the children I nanny to do this and I think to myself, "If only you did that in your own home."
So, I'm going to do that.
I've already done pretty good this morning with the whole kitchen thing and the bed.
Next thing, keep up with the laundry.
As of yesterday I am caught up so fingers crossed I can lock that one down.
The next thing would be to maintain a clean home, which pretty much means if I can keep the clutter gone all I need to do is dust and vacuum here and there during the week.
I WILL keep a clean home.
I will.

Next change:  Change my eating and physical lifestyle.
I'm good so far today.
I had wheat toast with some cottage cheese.
Yay me . . . now it's just the rest of the day I have to deal with.
On the agenda today is some cardio before work and maybe some boxing later after work.
As long as I get that cardio in, I'm happy.
I got a new game for our XBox Kinect called Your Shape and it's pretty cool.
You can do one-on-one training with an avatar type trainer.
It's a little creepy because when it scanned my body I showed up on screen, like skin color and everything.
I feel like someone somewhere is secretly watching me make a fool of myself, but oh well, if being a fool for someone gets me into shape then I'm happy.
Part of this change will be more vegetables.
It won't be hard to eat them, because I really like veggies.
I like carrots, squash, asparagus, broccoli, etc. but I've found it's a little bit of a hassle to keep them around.
You have to go to the store more for fruit and veggies.
Take peanut butter, for example, you can buy like ten of those at a time and you're good for a while.
You buy ten squash and you will have to eat squash day in and day out to eat it before it goes bad.
But, it's worth it.
I hoping now that Kyle got me an intern at his school to see and now that he himself can do some cervical adjustments, I will be able to be more active.
My neck has been in a lot of pain the past month.
Jogging hurts it pretty bad and lifting isn't the greatest for it either.
Kyle has been providing some relief lately by adjusting my lower cervicals (C4 and down).
The only thing he can't do is my C2 and C3, which are fused.
This just means they've grown together, basically.
He also can't do the one above (C1, which is right there at the base of my head) because he hasn't learned upper cervicals yet, but that's what the intern is for.
I'm really believing that once I can get that adjusted, I will get some major relief.

I like change.
I like structure.
I like working towards something and today is the start of that.


I came to win, to fight, to conquer, to thrive.
I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise.
To fly. - Nicki Minaj

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Gray's

I have this problem with not sticking to one blog, but I'm pretty sure that I am going to stick to this one.  It's been awhile since I've written in this one so I will do a few updates.

  • We live in Chesterfield, MO and by we I mean Kyle and Nicole Gray.
  • Upon arriving I tried a day of working at a daycare (ugh), got a job at Dillard's (2-3 weeks), got a job at Molly Maid (only long enough to do the training), started working with a chiropractor (great hours and pay; sucky sucky boss), and now I am a nanny for a wonderful family with three children.
  •  Kyle is in the middle of his fourth trimester.
  • We will be here at least until December 2013 (you do the math).
  • We love the town, the area, and the people we have met.
  • Kyle is starting to be able to actually practice his adjusting on me and has been able to give me some relief with some pain I've been having in my thoracic region.
  • We miss New Mexican food like crazy.
  • We went on our official honeymoon in August/September and it was fantastic!
  • We've been to three OU games this year. (2 in Norman and the Texas game)
  • I'm pretty sure we found a church that we like.  It's been tough because we've been out of town so many weekends.  We are going to a newcomer dinner on the 15th.
  • My family is coming in 2 weeks!  90 year old grandma in tow.
  • Kyle and I are going home a month after that!!!!!
  • I'm excited for November 18th to come so that the Twilight hype will die down. (not a fan)
  • While home I will officially become Mrs. Gray to the state and country. Yay! 
  • Oh, and I really, really, really miss my long hair.  It is now at the awkward sits-on-your-shoulder-and-flips-out-stage.
So, that's really what's been going on lately with the Gray's.  We are really coming into our own as Mr. and Mrs.  We talk about things, try to be better for one another, and really try to do the give and take thing.  We went to the grocery store last night and stocked up on vegetables.  We have come to the realization that we don't eat enough veggies.  It's stuff like going to the grocery store together that is better when you're married.

I'm not the best at keeping the house clean, BUT in my defense, the last time I started to really clean the house I got stopped two rooms away from it being perfect, so I figure this weekend I will really give it a good clean and then just maintain it until my family comes.  (That might have been the longest sentence ever.)

I have been so pleased with some of the new television this Fall:  Pan Am (love, love, love), Revenge (my new OTH), Last Man Standing (who doesn't love Tim Allen), and New Girl (Zooey, need I say more).  I've also been pleased with the return of two shows:  It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (this season is so funny) and Dexter (if you saw this last episode you know what I mean . . . holy crap, Dex!). 

I plan on blogging more but, I always plan on that and it doesn't always happen.