I am a BUSY BEE!

I promise I am not a bad blogger, I am just a busy blogger. I have been drowning lately in school, basketball and ok, I will say it, my T.V shows. I am highly addicted. My current favorites that I MUST watch or record are the following:

1. THE BACHOLOR

2. Greys Anatomy

3. Private Practice

4. Modern Family

5. Desperate Housewives

5. Million Dollar Money Drop


On top of those, lately it seems the T.V is exploding with shows calling my name. On Saturday night I stayed home and watched the Miss. America Pageant. I felt like a Grandma staying in on a Saturday night. It felt pretty good actually. I have to say though; I am not so sure I agree with the fact that our Miss. America is only 17 years old. She is not even old enough to vote, this just does not make since to me. She is beautiful don't get me wrong, just seems so young.

Anyway back to my shows. I also have recently become addicted to Real Housewives of Atlanta. These shows somehow suck me in. I watched that show on Sunday for 3 hours straight. I finally told myself how ridiculous I was and got up, I went to a different room and turned it back on. At least I changed locations right?

This is why I have not had time for blogging. I hope you see how busy I have really truly been. I am so excited to continue this busy life I lead all weekend long. I am going to our house in Throckmorton with my family. I have a love hate relationship with that place. I love to go because it is extremely relaxing. My daily routine in Throckmorton during hunting season is this:

*Wake up at 4 to hunt with dad.
*Come home to a yummy breakfast of sausage and eggs.
*Go back to sleep.
*Wake up in the afternoon to hunt with dad.
*Come home to a wonderful dinner of steaks or hamburgers.
*Watch T.V and relax in bed.

Somewhere in that routine, I get lucky and get a deer. When it is not hunting season, I do the same thing taking out the hunting part. I go to grade papers that I am behind on, catch up on rest, be with family, and not go out and stay up late. Our house is really cute... I will update with a picture this weekend while I am there. I have hate the place sometimes because there is NOTHING to do in this town. I am talking population a couple hundred. There is only a dollar store and a gas station in the town. You better come prepared in this town!

I hope you all have a great weekend and start next week off as rested as I will be.

<3 Randi

My Journey to Be G-Free.

 The Beginning

So, if you know me well you have probably heard me talking this crazy talk lately, the talk of going Gluten free. G-Free as Elizabeth Hasselbeck refers to it. I am not crazy, well maybe sometimes, but really I am not. I am just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Those of you that are my close friends know my relationship with the doctor’s office and blood work recently. Over the past year I have been in to see the doctor more than usual to give blood and try to find an answer to some common problems that many people face. I NEVER GET AN ANSWER. “You are as healthy as can be.” And “Your blood work looks great, see you next year.” And my favorite “Just relax, you are stressing too much, you are in perfect health.” Yes, I know I am a stress ball. BUT some things you just want answers too.

 About 6^th months ago I was about to get an answer. An answer I refused to accept.  It is hard to believe that 6 months ago I was living a completely different life. I was still a school teacher but just about all the other logistics were different. I was living in Dallas with my best friend April Holly. She was tackling her last semester of Chiropractic school (GO APRIL!) while I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off teaching two different TAKS tested subjects, coaching volleyball and track, and trying to survive my first year as a BIG GIRL. (Definition of BIG GIRL: adj-name given to one who is jumping into the real world, being cut off financially from her father and has to figure this whole money situation out.  REFER to SCARED.) I did have a lot going on and was not eating the most nutritious foods, but had never had any problems in the past. I started to notice some strange things going on, so I just went to check, to put myself at peace. WRONG! After a nice talk with my doctor who I love so much she decided to run some blood work. Not an unusual thing I know.

The phone call a couple days later was however was very unusual. She succeeded in scaring me to death. She told me that I needed to see an endocrinologist as soon as possible. I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. I replayed what she said in my head time after time thinking, she must have mixed up my blood work with someone else’s. She told me that I had the highest blood sugar level she has ever seen in someone my age. She told me that the chances of Diabetes was very high and that I should get immediate assistance, and to have a nice night. Have a nice night? Um, your life is about to change, but have a good night! Although I do like her a lot, at that moment in time I wanted to strangle her. I immediately called my mom who immediately put me at ease reminding me that we have no family history of diabetes and that something must have triggered that sugar spike.  I thought about my diet lately and had a BIG ah ha moment. I was currently on a 21 day detox (one of my many random diets). On the way to the doctors office I had stopped at Subway. (I wanted to cheat real badly and had decided Subway was meeting cheating and staying on track in the middle.) I also got a cookie, opps.J So, thirty minutes before the blood work I ate a big sugar cookie, therefore making my sugar level sky rocket since sugar had not been taken into my body for about 12 days.

 I did make the appointment to see the endocrinologist to make sure; after all I am not a doctor even though I like to think I am. She did a lot of questioning and paper work and then finally blood work. A waited a few days and they called me back with my results. I guess I would make a pretty good doctor because I was exactly right; the cookie spiked my blood sugar level. Who would have thunk it. Dr. Randi Salley world renowned doctor.

 So that answer to the random concerns that I have about my body that I wanted so badly in the beginning… I thank god I didn’t get one, at least not that one. I know a lot of people live completely normal lives with diabetes, and I look up to those who do. I am just thankful that I do not have to deal with that issue.

So, when I went to the doctor again over Christmas break I was told the going Gluten Free might be a great natural answer to fix my feeling sick to my stomach and tired issues. So that is how I stumbled onto this phenomenon. I raced out to Barnes and Nobles and decided to research the idea and was soon addicted to it. I read Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s “The G-Free Diet” and loved it. Her life changed and she speaks about how wonderful, energetic and joyful she feels daily.  This is my goal. I will stop the yo-yo diets and fads and make a life style change for the better. I know it will not be an easy change but it will be a worthy change. I am not going to totally cut Gluten out of my life all together, I am going to start replacing it little by little until I get that energetic, joyful and blissful feeling daily that Elizabeth speaks of. I am on my 5th day of my jouney to be G-FREE.

A New Year means a NEW BLOG.

I am officially a blogger! OK, I have to admit I was one of those people who swore up and down I would never resort to blogging. I mean come on, write in a journal or talk to a friend but don’t blog it for the entire world to see. These were my thoughts. I have since decided to throw those away, like many other old thoughts and habits. I just want to blog dang it. I want to tell people about my not so cool life. Even if no one reads this beside my mom and my sister, it feels good to blog. It’s like letting all your stress out onto a piece of paper (or computer screan) and saying "Here, you deal with it." In fact, I am already feeling a lot better just from these 5 minutes of blogging. So, that is that. I am officially a blogger and I like it.

To my future followers,

My hopes are that I keep you entertained, encouraged and empowered to keep reading my posts! The 3E's I shall call them. It is true that I am not a movie star, a professional athlete or even a star teacher. I also have no big news to blog about. No engagement and wedding plans to indulge you with, no baby on the way, no big move, and no job change in the near future to blog about. (Although I have had many thoughts over the year about that last one)  However, I believe this is the unique part about my blog. I am just your normal, average, typical, everyday run of the mill 24 year old 6th grade teacher/coach who is trying to live life to her fullest and thanks god for the chance to do so. I will simply blog about whatever is on my mind. This, believe it or not is A LOT usually. I also really enjoy writing, so this is actually a really good outlet for me. I like to refer to most of my personal writing as rambling, hints the title "Randi's Random ramblings." A perfect fit. Well, fellow bloggers here we go!

*I hope you are not too on edge waiting for my first post. It won’t be long, so just hang in there. J

<3 Randi