Hi, everyone! This is a guest posting for Fit Chocoholic. I don't have a blog, but Fit Chocoholic has been staying with me this week. She asked me to write a post for her when she went to her conference. This was a very special week, because I got to spend time with Fit Chocoholic (who I only see every three years). Is there someone you only get to see every few years? I am not much of a cook and can't offer much advice on exercise, but my post will be about music. I have been playing the piano for eight years, and I also play the ukulele, guitar, and marimba. What's a marimba you might ask? It's a large wooden keyboard instrument that's similar to a xylophone. I am in the front ensemble of my high school marching band. This week has been our band camp, and it has been very fun. Being in the band requires a lot of time. I am doing someone band-related six days out of the week. That's a lot of dedication! Do you have any activities outside of school like band or a sport? Besides playing music, I love to listen to music. There are so many different genres to listen to. I enjoy Christian, pop, some country, 80s music, and some movie soundtracks. The soundtracks to movies aren't just the songs you hear. They also contain the music that really sets the mood of a certain scene. What music do you like? This week has been really fun with Fit Chocoholic! She is my best friend. Thanks for reading my post.

I'm Baaaack!!!!! (Part Two)

Hey guys!!!! Hope your week is going well so far!!!!!

Its time for part two of the Memphis portion of my trip!!! :D

My best friend (at whose house I am staying right now), her mom and sisters, my aunt and two cousins were all at the airport Friday afternoon!! My checked bag was one of the first out so we grabbed it and were on our way. I said goodbye to my aunt and cousins, and will actually be spending today and part of tomorrow with them.

Sleepy airport picture number two for ya! :D

So, we all loaded into my Aunt Carole's car (my friend's mom), and headed to their house to grab some lunch and hang out for a little while. After that, I went and got my hair cut, we made a Target run, got the froyo that I was talking about yesterday, and went to Olive Garden for dinner. At that point is was 8:30-9 ish and I was seriously about to pass out! hahaha I did call my family from the restaurant and chatted for a little while to see how they were doing! They all wanted to know how the solo trip had gone and were glad that nothing went wrong! :D

Saturday was spent mostly at my friend's house, which was awesome! We went swimming, watched some TV and movies and pretty much just hung out! Oh and we also went to her church's Saturday night worship service, which was awesome! 

Me and my friend!

Sunday we did some more shopping (I actually got a business outfit! Will post pics later! :D) and some more froyo-ing, and some more hanging out! We also went out for dinner at Jason's Deli, which was pretty much awesome! I'm about 99% positive that my salad was so gigantic that it could have eaten everyone else's salads! Awesome stuff!

Yesterday, I did some more shopping with my aunt and cousins and spent the night at my grandmother's house!!!!! 

So far, I've really had an awesome time on this trip!!! Now, I'm just really throwing everything together in order to be ready for my trip to Chicago on Thursday!!!!!!

That's about it for now....hope you all enjoyed my recap! :D

I'm Baaaack!!!!! (Part One)

Heey everyone!!! Hope you all have had a fabulous weekend!!!! That guest post was awesome wasn't it?

I know I've definitely been MIA for the past couple of days, so I thought that I'd do a two-part recap of my trip until now. Part one will go up today, and part two will be for tomorrow! :D I leave for Chicago on Thursday, so this recap will be the Memphis recap!!!!

So I got to the airport at about 10:30  (Recife time) on Thursday. We checked in, and after a little while an escort from the airlines came and took me to my gate (as requested by my mom! love ya mom! :D). After that, I hung out at the terminal for a little bit until it was time to head to Sao Paulo.

Aaand here you have sleepy airport picture number one. 

I was in SP for eight hours (WAY too much time). I was checked in and had eaten dinner by the time that 3 and a half hours had passed, so I went ahead and got to my gate. While there, I ended up calling my mom and sister both because I missed them (and still do!) and also because I was sort of bored. Apparently this little guy was sleeping on my bed at the time:

Here he is on my suitcase....."You aren't goin' anywhere without me!"

Sooo after what felt like an eternity I was on the flight from Sao Paulo to Miami. There were like two student groups headed to Disneyworld, so it was loud and I didn't get any sleep.......but we eventually made it to Miami! From Miami, all I had to do was go through customs and immigrations, and then board the plane to Memphis!

Well, that's it for part one of my trip recap!!!!!

Have you ever traveled alone? Do you enjoy it or do you prefer to travel with someone?
I didn't particularly mind traveling alone, but I definitely miss my family and wish that they could be here!!!!!!

Oh, one more thing that I want to add: I GOT FROYO!! Yaay! I've been drooling over all of your yummy froyo pics, and I finally got some a couple of days ago! No pics, because it was the day that I got here and I was not thinking clearly at all, but the flavors that I got were birthday cake, tropical sorbet and chocolate with a TON of fruit on top! :D

Guest Post------XCFoodie!!

Heey everyone!!!! Hope you are all having a wonderful day!!! As I'm currently in an airplane, the awesome Tara wrote a guest post for me!!! Check it ooout:

Hi I’m Tara and I blog at XCFoodie! I am going into my senior year of high school where I run cross country and track. I also lift occasionally and lately I’ve been experimenting with biking and swimming because of an injury. I used to suffer with very disordered eating habits and anxiety, but I learned that to perform my best I had to fuel myself with the best. Now I’m happier and healthier than ever!

Recently I realized something pretty important. I had been restricting my breakfasts. I would eat a smaller breakfast so I could “save my calories” and then I would end up snacking just as much as I would usually eat at a meal. This left me feeling unsatisfied and disappointed. I was disappointed with the way I was acting – I don’t want to go back to that kind of restrictive behavior; and I was disappointed with my meals – I knew I would feel so much better and have a way more delicious meal if I ate more.

We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Look at why skipping breakfast is bad:

• ·         Increase your bodies insulin response due to fasting
• ·         Slows your metabolism
• ·         Triggers overeating later in the day
• ·         Irritability and Fatigue

And why it is the most important meal of the day:

• ·         Gives you energy for the entire day
• ·         Replenishes your glycogen stores
• ·         Enhances concentration
• ·         Provides essential vitamins and nutrients
• ·         Breakfast eaters have lower cholesterol levels
• ·         It’s delicious!

Eating breakfast is a crucial step towards a healthy, happy life.

Here are some of my favorite breakfasts to eat to start my day off right:

Overnight Oats! This is my chocolate walnut brownie overnight oats. It’s delicious!

Poached Eggs, Toast, and Fruit

Sometimes I use leftover brown rice for breakfast!

Pancakes made with my go-to recipe!

But my favorite breakfast when in doubt is this:

Cereal Mess: my favorite is fage greek yogurt and kashi go lean cereal!

And a banana with nut butter.

Now that I eat hearty breakfasts, I am energized and pumped for the day ahead of me. I’m so glad I caught myself before my behavior made detrimental changes to my health and happiness. It’s crazy how one meal can affect so much, but the power and deliciousness of good breakfast can’t be denied!!

What’s your favorite breakfast?

 Personally my favorite breakfasts are waffles with peanut butter, eggs and toast, smoothies, or cinnamon rolls! :D

Pre-Trip Thoughts

Hey everyone!

Hope you are all having a great week so far!!!! I've been trying to cram in every possible moment of family time that I can!! I'm super excited about my trip and about the conference, but I've also never traveled without my family, so I'm really going to miss them a lot!!!!

I'm pretty much done packing, which is probably a good thing. Have to remember not to take too much because I'll be coming back with all of next year's school books and things. To make sure that I have room, we've put what will be my carry on for my return inside of my check-on luggage. So we have to pack around it. That will really help me not only to keep from overpacking, but I also won't have to worry about carrying anything besides my backpack. The trip to the States has more layovers than the trip home, so it'll be helpful not to have to keep up with too much. 

Actually two of the things that I was initially the most nervous about was not working out regularly when I'm there and how I'll deal with the transition itself. I've had some really awesome workouts this week (tried a new class monday.....we jumped on those mini trampolines! :D and spinning today!), so I think that I'm prepared to take a couple of weeks off. Heck it'll probably help me gain weight (if my appetite doesn't change much, I know it will :D). I'll definitely miss being active on a daily basis, so my plan is to find something every day that will be an activity where I'm not just sitting on a couch watching TV.....even if that activity is shopping for 9 hours straight (hey, its happened before :P). Have you ever had exercise guilt? How did you deal with it?

As for the stress, I'm praying about it and for God to guide me through it. I tend to stress out a lot (bet ya didn't know that, huh?) even about things that may or may not happen. "So this weekend we might have to go visit so-and-so? Oh no.....wonder what is going to happen.....will I have to wear something nice, or can I just wear jeans......how long are we going to visit so-and-so....and the list just goes on and on. I could probably teach a class in how to stress out about virtually anything. But all joking aside, I'm only 16, and the amount of stress that I put myself through is definitely not a good thing.

Well, that's about ti for today! Tomorrow I'll be in the air, so I have an awesome guest post for ya'll!!!! Don't miss it!!!!! :D

Fresh Bread = Awesome!

Hey everyone! Hope you all had wooonderful weekends!!!! Mine was great! We got to relax, watch some movies, and just have some family time before I leave on Thursday! The only bad part about the entire weekend was the rain. But it really only rained yesterday and throughout the night, so it wasn't that bad. :D

Saturday night we had baked potato soup(one of my favorites) for dinner. I had asked my mom if I could bake something to go with the soup, and when she said yes, I decided to try out some focaccia bread. It turned out amazingly, and mom even said that its her favorite out of everything that I have baked so far! Sooo without further ado, here's the recipe:

Focaccia Bread

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons oregano (or any combination of herbs)
• Dash of pepper
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon oil to brush

Directions:

1. Heat the cup of water to 110 degrees. Add sugar and yeast. Wait about 10 minutes or until mixture is foamy. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt,garlic powder, oregano, and black pepper. Stir in the vegetable oil and yeast mixture.
2. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. 
3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Punch dough down; place on greased baking sheet. Pat into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle. Let rise another 20 minutes. Brush top with olive oil.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm. 

We all thought that this would be good with some basil and mozzarella melted on top, so if anyone tries this recipe out and likes it, pleaaase tell me! :D 

 

Besides baking, I actually have managed to pack some of my stuff.....I have most of the clothes that I'll need, except for the business outfit that I'll pick up in the US. I'm also taking back some gifts for friends of ours. When I return to Recife, I'll be bringing back all of my schoolbooks, plus some things that my sister ordered, so I have to make sure to not pack my suitcase too full on this part of the trip, so that I'll be able to fit everything in it on the way home. 

 

Weight wise, I'm pretty stable right now. Still not gaining quite as fast as I'd like to be, but I haven't lost any weight in a while. The hardest part of this trip for me will be to remember to nourish myself correctly even when I'm super stressed out and in transition mode. I'm just praying for the strength with which to accomplish this! :D

 

Do you have a favorite bread recipe? If so, what is it?
 

Packing and Kale Chips

Hey everyone! I hope you have all had a wonderful week!!!!!!

Mine has been pretty rainy......its winter here, which basically means tons of rain and a low of 85 degrees, at which point all the Brazilians bust out their sweaters and complain about how "freezing" it is. :D

So, tonight I'm going to start packing for my trip next Thursday. I'm going to see what I already have, and what I'll need to get once I'm in Memphis. One thing that I know I'll need is a "business outfit", ie: blazer, blouse, skirt and heels (ugh!). As a girl who practically lives in comfy gym clothes, and whose idea of dressing up consists of throwing on jeans and a cute shirt (sometimes I even go the extra mile and wear a skirt hahaha), I really have no idea how to dress in a business style. Thankfully, I have an aunt and cousin who love to shop and know just what to look for! :D They'll probably end up teaching me how to do my hair and makeup correctly as well...:P. Anyway, since I am leaving Thursday, and didn't want to spend the whole weekend thinking about packing, mom and I decided to at least get started tonight. I've traveled enough that I know how to pack, I just don't like to.
Are you like me, and don't like packing at all, or like my mom, and love packing for a trip?
If you like to pack, could you pleeaaase give me some tips? hahaha

My sister and I have been trying to hang out as much as humanly possible for the last couple of days. So when she asked if we could make kale chips, I practically jumped up and down for joy. I mean, I looove cooking, and I looove to spend time with my sister, so it was the best of both worlds!
I'm pretty sure that most of you know how to make kale chips, but just in case, I'm going to tell ya what we did.
First of all, we washed the kale leaves and ripped them into chip-size pieces. Then, we tossed the leaves in some oil, put them on a baking sheet and seasoned with salt. Sometimes we use some other seasonings as well, such as ranch dressing powder or barbeque dry rub. Then we put the baking sheet into the oven (at about 250 F) for 5-8 minutes or until the leaves were crispy but not browned. That's it! :D They were a yummy side for our dinner!

'

There ya have it! 

Well, that's about it for me today.....What are your weekend plans?

I'm a Doofus

Got straight to the point with the title, huh?

Well, here's what happened. I was in the midst of taking pictures of my homemade pop tarts  because last time I made them, I didn't get around to doing so. I ended up taking a couple of blurry, crappy pictures so I thought I'd delete them. Bad idea. I deleted all of the pictures on my SD card. Luckily, the pop tart pics were the only ones not on the computer, however, by the time I got around to trying to take some more pics, there were no more pop tarts!!! Have you ever deleted all the pictures from your SD card by accident? 

This is actually not the first time that  I've done that.......it was worse a couple of years ago because I deleted the pictures right after a trip to the states, and lost all of these awesome pictures with my friends and family! :(

Here's what is now the only picture on my camera:

Sleeepy........

 

Well, nothing much has been going on at all.......sooo I'm going to jump to random tangent number two of the day! Hope ya don't mind. :D
My sister and I looooove sushi, but neither Mom or Dad do....so we don't eat it very often. A few weeks back, my sister, who is majorly in to nail art, did "sushi-inspired" nails, and because of that, my mom bought us some sushi as a treat!!! The coolest thing was that we got to the store as the man was making sushi, so we could customize our plate!!!! Got some salmon sashimi, a california roll (with MANGO!), and a philadelphia roll!!!!!!!! And check it out...you can sorta see her nails in this pic:

Ok so that ya'll for bearing with me through my dumbness and randomness.....I promise to have a decent, more normal post up very soon!!!!!

Fourth of July!

Heey!!!! Hope you all had an amazing weekend!!! We relaxed and had an awesome time!!! :D

Living in Brazil, we're pretty much the only ones who celebrate the 4th of July, so we're going to do something small this evening!!! I'm pretty sure that mom is going to make some bbq chicken, and some other sides to go with it!! What are your July 4th plans????

In a completely unrelated topic, I've been thinking about the importance and value of true friends. This really came up just now because of my upcoming trip. I will be staying with some of our family's friends, and they are really amazing people! My "aunt" is already planning everything out, and wanted to call the University of Chicago to find out the dorm in which I'll be staying!!! Her daughter is pretty much my best friend!! Last year, when  I was really struggling with my eating disorder, she was the one who I would talk to about pretty much everything! Here's a pic of us:

  Personally, I've never been the one with tons of friends or anything, but I've really been blessed with a couple of amazing friends, so the quantity of friends that I have doesn't matter as much. I can tell my friends anything, and they can tell me anything. We help each other and cheer each other on. Do you have a ton of friends or only a few really close ones? Why are your friends important to you? 

   Aaand, just because I'm feeling extra pensive, here's one of my favorite songs about friendship:

Friends

Michael W. Smith

Packing up the dreams God planted
In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes He's granted
Means a chapter of your life is through

But we'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

And with the faith and love God's given
Springing from the hope we know
We will pray the joy you live in
Is the strength that now you show

We'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

To live as friends

Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

No a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends 

Pretty, right? 

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July, celebrating with friends and family!! :D

Time is Flying By

Hey everyone!!!!!!!! Hope you all have had an awesome week so far! :D Mine has been pretty busy.......it seems like this entire year is just flying by!!!! I remember when I got my NSLC letter back in March, and now I'm about to leave in two weeks!!! Can you believe it??? Do you think this year is flying by, or is it just me? 

Oh and by the way, to make those yummy chocolate scones that my sister was talking about, all you have to do is take my lemon cream scone recipe, and instead of adding the lemon zest, add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cocoa powder! Easy!!! We made the glaze by adding some strawberry extract instead of vanilla to our typical glaze recipe!

So, workout wise, this week has been pretty awesome!!!! I've done several strength circuits, gone to a spinning class, and will try out my very first ab work class today!!!! I've been doing that 30 minute incline run a lot recently as well!!! I really love it! What is one of your go-to workouts or workout classes????

In other news,  my sister and I baked one of Jessica's yummy recipes........cinnamon sugar flatbread crackers! Except, we cut them into tiny squares, and called it homemade cinnamon toast crunch!!!!! I won't post the recipe here, because we followed it exactly, but I will post a (blurry) picture!!! Sorry 'bout the poor pic quality, apparently my hand was shaking that morning, because all of the pictures that I took were fuzzy......

This was made two days ago, and only about a third of it is left....can you say addicted?

My sister caught in the act of snacking!! hahaha

As far as the weekend goes, I don't really think that we have too much planned....what about you?