A few updates and a potential challenge

What is it about cold, rainy days that put you in the writing mood? Whatever it is, I've finally been inspired to pick up my (virtual) pen again and give you guys a few updates.

The past couple months have consisted of several changes for Chris and I. Mostly good ones, thank goodness, but they have emerged from semi-negative places. Allow me to explain.

First things first, just in case any of you are under the impression that we live a fun and fancy free life because of our luxurious journalism and in-home care jobs, let me assure you: we are poor. Dirt poor. Paycheck-to-paycheck poor. And there's no shame in that, because a million other young people are in the exact same situation as us and are getting along fine. But getting behind on bills and not being able to put money in savings has caused a lot of internal strife, especially in regards to planning for our future. So in order to get our finances in order, we recently met with a financial planner. Sure, we've done Dave Ramsey and we've tried our hand at building our own budgets, but truthfully ... we suck at it. It's high time we get guidance from a professional so we can see what things keep tripping us up and figure out a solid system that works for us. I'm excited. It'll probably be a lengthy process, but worth it in the long run, especially since we're doing it at a young age.

Another new thing in our lives is Bible study. Chris and I love our church and have been going there since before we got married, but we've been very slow to get involved. We both have struggled a lot with our faith over the past few years, so getting to a place where we're comfortable attending regularly again is huge for us. Still, we hadn't really met many other couples our age or done much beyond Sunday morning worship. We recently started a group study called Storyline after our friend and assistant pastor invited us. It's the most unique Bible study I've ever been a part of. Although it's founded in biblical principles, the study almost is like a therapy session. It lets each participant to evaluate the positive and negative "turns" in their life and assess how it has affected their development and turned them into who they are today. The end goal is to see how our stories measure up to God's plan for us, and allows us to redeem the negative things that have happened to us to find a greater purpose. We're almost halfway through and we love it so far. It's definitely an instance of right place, right time, right frame of mind that got us to this point, and I'm thankful for it. Our supportive church family is steadily growing, along with our faith again.

Amid all these changes, I've kind of let my health fall by the wayside. Things got busy and life got in the way, so I wasn't eating or exercising like I should. I actually even ignored a few issues I was starting to have because 1) I didn't have time to deal with them and 2) I didn't want to pay for more doctor's appointments. Co-pays add up, people. But I recently had a scare and a good talk with my parents that prompted me to refocus on my health.

The "scare" wasn't as bad as I thought, but I'm glad I got it checked out anyway. My arms, hands, fingers, and eventually my right foot kept going numb and tingly off and on for several days. I wrote it off for a while, thinking it was nothing, until I shouldn't shake the feeling that if I didn't address the problem it could turn into something really scary. (For some reason I kept thinking stroke or ALS. I tend to get panicky, if you couldn't tell.) One last-minute doctor's appointment later and I'm still not sure what it is, but it's been narrowed down to either inflammation or possible carpal tunnel symptoms. I have a follow-up next week to check things out even more. In the meantime, they put me on a 7-day steroid pack to address any inflammation I might have and I haven't felt numb since. I'll keep you updated.

Finally, since I'm refocusing on my health again, I've been inspired by social media to try something new. As everyone who enjoys food knows, it's really hard to make healthy diet choices when so many delicious, fatty things are available all the time. Chris and I have dabbled in vegetarianism, veganism, and even juicing to see if it would help us. In the end, each was just too extreme for me. When a Facebook friend recently documented her family's journey with the Whole 30 Challenge, I was intrigued.

From what little I've read, Whole 30 is basically eliminating dairy, sugar, and grains from your diet to "detoxify" your system, but ONLY for 30 days. That's a big incentive. I could never, ever go full paleo indefinitely. I still roll my eyes every time I see or hear the word paleo. But the challenge has its merits, because eating strictly fruits, vegetables, and proteins all month and eliminating processed foods is a pretty simple diet plan. Once the 30 days are over, you can start reintroducing foods to see how your body feels. It's a way to recharge both your diet and the way you think about the foods you eat. Chris and I have talked about it and are contemplating doing the challenge in the near future (probably after I talk to my doctor). We cook so much homemade food anyway, with an emphasis on veggies and a lot of chicken, that I hope it won't be too difficult. We just have to finish the off-limits food in our kitchen, because let's be real, we can't afford to throw food away. We're poor, remember? But I'm pretty excited. Hopefully this can at least curb the amount of cheesy, bready, fatty stuff we eat too often and give us better options.

Whew. This one was a biggie. Thanks for reading! I promise to post more regularly from now on, especially if we go forward with Whole 30. I want to document our progress on my blog instead of Facebook or Instagram, mainly because I don't want to annoy people with my pictures and recipes. But if you like pictures and recipes, stay tuned!