The Metaxi take on Christmas

Christmas has officially hit the Metaxas house!! 

And I am so excited! I don't think I can contain my excitement. But before I jump into Christmas, I will go ahead and update you on what has been doing on since my last post. 

I have been so busy with school and with work that I feel like I don't have anytime to do anything else. This past week has been absolutely crazy and I am so happy I made it out alive! My schedule every day went: first school, work, then going to the apartment to work on homework. This past week is like a trick that professors all planned that was to make every major assignment due. I think I had a major asignment due this week in every single one of my classes. It was crazy, but I successfully completed every assignment and had them turned in on time! That's a huge thing for me ;) Yesterday was a sad day at Trafalagar and especially for me. One of my beautiful two year olds in my class left our center and yesterday was her last day. I told myself over and over that morning that I would not cry because its not the end of the world. Well guess what, I cried. Like a baby. Thankfully, I held it in till her and her mother left then it all came out. I will miss that sweet girl so much. That was the first time that I really realized how much I love these kids and my job and also about how I get attached to things really easily :)  


I guess the only other thing is CHRISTMAS! Today, we pulled out all of our Christmas stuff. I know it's a sin to do this before Christmas and that's what I kept telling my parents but they didn't listen. We pulled out our huge 12 foot Christmas tree and its beautiful. It may just be one of my favorite things in our house right now. It literally took 20-30 minutes to get all the ornaments. To do this we had to use the stairs, each others shoulders, and a ladder. It was quite a sight. 

We also put out our other Christmas tree that goes in our living room and our stockings. My dad and sister came down stairs with some boxes and Anna said "Steph you're stocking is lost. We can't find it.." How sweet right? I move into an apartment and now my stocking is "lost." So our mantle has 5 stocking holders and 4 stocking holders, including my dog's stocking. :( 

We also spent some time outside watching my mom pull weeds. Chloe and I tried to act busy so we didn't have to help with the yard work. Isn't she so cute? Look at that cute snaggle tooth. It gives her character  :) It's about to be her 10th birthday :( She's getting so old.

I hope ya'll have a great week! I'll post some more this week with some of our family traditions. What does you and your family do for the holiday season?

My Life With Dysautonomia

This week is Invisible Illness Awareness Week. Many people that you never would of guessed probably live with an illness that seems to be invisible. 

Invisible disabilities are chronic illnesses and conditions that significantly impair normal activities of daily living. In the United States, 96% of people with chronic medical conditions show no outward signs of their illness, and 10% experience symptoms that are considered disabling.

A little over a year ago, I found out that I have Dysautonomia. In this post I am going to tell you about Dysautonmia, POTS, and my life with both of these. I am not writing this post to find sympathy from others, but to find awareness for the disease. I hope and pray that my story will reach out to others and maybe give some type of answers to someone who is feeling unwell but does not know the causes. Also, I am hoping that these diseases will become more known in the medical field and just through out the world.

For as long as I can remember, I was always what I thought was "out of shape." My family was constantly telling me that I was "lazy and not athletic."(sorry mom, had to put that in there) Even though to some extent I was those things, I really was not "lazy" and I did not know how to explain how I felt or how to convince my friends and family that I was not just choosing to lay around. I have always hated running. Not because it's not fun but because of how it makes my body feel afterwards. The only term that I thought described how I felt was "out of breath." Not only did I feel this way about when I ran, but also walking up or down stairs. I can not even think about how many times we went to my pediatrician to see why I felt this way. Once, we found out that I was anemic. My iron levels were insanely low from not eating meat. For a short period of time, I did feel better with the iron pills I was not completely well. I still had periods of time that I had no energy. I'm not sure if this is completely true, but I think I was at my pediatrician for a physical or maybe to see if I had asthma but what I do know is they had me go outside to run 4 laps around a small section of the parking lot. I could not do it. With everything in me I could not go more than 2 laps. I was so hot and weak and about to pass out and I couldn't breathe. So they took me back inside and told me to go see a lung doctor. So I went to see a lung doctor and they said I was fine. Then we went a few years without knowing anything else. Then God spent the wonderful Mrs. Lisa into my life as my Sunday school teacher for a few years. After she had heard my prayer requests for awhile, she came to talk to my mom and me about possibly going to see the doctor that she sees for Dysautonomia. Well comes to find out that you had to be at least 18 years old to see her and I think I was around 16. 

Around this time last year, I went to go see the neurologist. I got an ANSAR test done. This is a test that measures your blood pressure, respiratory activity, and the way your heart rate changes to activity. The results were instant and she was like "yep you've got dysautanomia" I was so happy but also upset. I was so so happy that we were finally getting answers, but also upset knowing that things in my life might have to change.

Here is some back ground information: Dysautonomia is an umbrella term used to describe several different medical conditions that cause a malfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System. The Autonomic Nervous System controls the "automatic" functions of the body that we do not consciously think about, such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, dilation and constriction of the pupils of the eye, kidney function, and temperature control. People living with various forms of dysautonomia have trouble regulating these systems, which can result in lightheadedness, fainting, unstable blood pressure, abnormal heart rates, malnutrition, and in severe cases, death. 

The Sympathetic Nervous System is commonly associated with the "fight or flight" responses - those bodily reactions that you need to respond quickly in an emergency. When faced with a life threatening situation, your human instinct takes over and you either fight the danger you are facing, or you take flight and run away from the danger. Your Sympathetic Nervous System allows your body to do this rapidly.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is commonly associated with the "rest and digest" responses - those bodily actions needed to restore energy and rest the body. 

When we were talking with doctor about everything all I could say was "yes! yes! yes!" Everything she was saying made so much sense, she was saying and using terms that I had been looking for, for so long to describe how I felt! Here is an example that she likes to use to explain how we feel to people that are having a hard time grasping it. 

So you (a person with dysautonomia) wakes up in the morning after a great night of rest and you get up to go take a shower. When you're taking your shower you end up just standing there in the water for a little while because you are getting tired and weak from washing your hair and body. So then you get up the energy to finish your shower then when you are done you are so exhausted that you go a lie down. But you don't even have much energy to get dressed first so you just lie down while still wrapped up in your towel. Then you start getting really really cold but you just don't have energy to cover yourself up but also you don't even have enough energy just to call out for someone to come wrap your up.

This is such a great example of how we and I feel on a normal daily basis. Sometimes it is not to that extreme but it is a good representation of how this feels like. My sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are all out of whack. My sympathetic is doing too much and the parasympathetic is not doing enough. My adrenal gland is always, constantly in over drive. No matter what I am doing, lying or sitting, my heart and my adrenal gland is sending out adrenalin like my body is running a marathon. Consequently, when I actually do get up to do something I don't have enough adrenalin to help me because my body used it all when I was sitting down doing nothing. Also, upon standing my blood pressure drops a lot lower than it should. This is called POTS. This is when the blood pressure changes drastically upon the change of position like sitting, standing, to lying down. Also, my heart rate at a normal resting pace is around 110. The average for a normal healthy person is 60. 100 for when they are active. I usually have to get no less than 8 hours of sleep. I work best on 10-12 :) I know that's a crazy amount of sleep, but I can not physically function without at least 8 hours of sleep. This is very difficult as a college student when most of my friends like to do things at night. If I have a busy day I usually do not have the energy to go out and do anything with my friends. I feel like most people think that I'm just a flake but I'm not, I just can't physically get up to do anything. 

Thankfully, once I am done growing around the age of 25, I will out grow this!! At this point, my doctor will not allow me to work over 4 hours because I can get tired and week. I can not wait till that day when I can work and do activities without feeling weak. I have always thought about what it would be like to still have this when I get married and have kids. Props to all the mothers out there that have to do this, it has to be a struggle to not only take care of yourself but also your family even when you feel weak. 

I hope that post has taught you some things about this disease. Unfortunately, not many people in the medical field know about this but it is slowing starting to be known. Help me in raising awareness so that there can be found a cure. October is Dysautononomia Awareness Month, help us find awareness! You can learn more about this at http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/index.php and also http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=30. If you have any questions about my story or about any of this, please feel to comment below or email me at stephanie.metaxas@yahoo.com

"I'm so glad I go to the U of M"

Last week I started my Sophomore year at the University of Memphis. Well, if you want to be technical with credit hours and all that good stuff, I'm a 2 year Freshman. Yay me, all because of one bad semester.. If you wanna know about what happened click here to read my post about it. These past few weeks have been so crazy that I haven't had time to just sit down, relax, and have some time for myself. I have constantly been on the go, therefore I haven't had time to blog. Sorry!

 A few weeks ago I moved into my apartment with 3 of my best friends! We moved into an apartment right down the street from campus. I love it so far! It's the perfect distance to my classes. Since I quite a lazy person, I planned on driving to the General Permit parking places. I drove to ONE class on the first day and it took me 20 MINUTES to find a parking spot.. 20!! So after that class I booked it back to my car and decided from that moment on I will walk to classes. Surprisingly, it's not a bad walk at all. It's about 7-10 minutes to my classes. Thankfully, all (but 1) of my classes are right on the side of campus where the street that I walk down from my apartment meets with campus!! I kinda love our apartment, we all have our own separate rooms and two of us share a bathroom. It is slowly coming together, I cleaned last night so I could take pictures for y'all!!

 Here's my bed!! I love love love my bed. I think because of the price I got it for!! It was originally $89 at Bed Bath and Beyond and I got it for $39!! The fitted sheet was a twin size when it's suppose to be a Full/Queen so I guess someone returned it so they put it back out on the shelf for 50% off then I had a 20% off coupon!! I still haven't found anything to put over my bed and also over my desk. Like I said, it's still a work in progress ;)

The bookshelf is my favorite part of my room so far, I just love it!!

These next pictures are the things that are on my book shelf.

My vase that I got from the new At Home store. It goes 

perfectly with my room and my color scheme!

So after a few days, my grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and my great aunt wanted to come and see my apartment. So we all jumped in our cars and headed to the sweet humble abode. 

hen we all got there we all jumped on the elevator to head up to my apartment, yes you read that right.. all 12 of us were on one elevator. We were fine going up but on our way back down we got stuck. What better quality time with your family than being stuck in an elevator?? After around 30 minutes finally the fire department came to save us! Don't you just love little Drew's face? Poor thing was so freaked out!

Also last week, I started as the new Extended Care teacher at work. I was so nervous about this because I have always been a floater so I was not only going to have my own room but I also was going to be by myself. On average I had about 12 four year olds to myself. It was very very stressful. The kids were very rambunctious and hard of hearing. (not really but it sure seemed like it) They would not listen to anything I said and would run around screaming. By the 4th day, I was so fed up. I had a horrible week at school and this was not helping. I was well over my breaking point and I did actually end up losing it. The office knew that I was having a tough time so they put someone else with me and right when she walked through that door I knew that was my cue to go to the bathroom to calm myself down. When I went to the bathroom someone saw that I was upset and gave me a hug and you know when that happens you can't hold the tears back anymore. So long story short, I'm not the extended care teacher anymore. They thought that it would be best if I went back to being the floater (mostly in 2's) because that's where I seemed the most happy. I was really upset. I feel like a failure. Even though I know that everyone can't be good at everything.. I just feel like I messed up.

Well thats my past two weeks in a nutshell. Hope y'all have a great day!!

Memorable Yet Frantic

You know how when you get so excited for something in the future, you feel like the days leading to this moment are like years passing by? Yeah well this is how I felt on Monday the 18th. Monday felt insanely long. The hours felt like they were slowly ticking away. I caught myself looking at the clock at work more than usual, thinking that time would go by fast but it never did. Tuesday was the day i had been waiting almost 365 days for. The One Direction Concert. WAIT WAIT, don't leave yet. I know what you're thinking.. "Oh yeah, this post is about One Direction.. I don't feel like reading this. I know nothing about them and I honestly could care less about the concert.. blah blah blah." Don't lie I know that's what you were thinking, but that is not exactly how this post is going to be. I'm not going to be posting all my pictures and videos saying "OH MY GOSH you'll need believe what Niall did or Harry is so much better live!" No, I will be telling you about the trip and the experience because this was sure one for the books. So please stick around because I promise you don't wanna miss this story.

So here was the game plan that we had set for the past few months for how Tuesday was going to go: My mom was going to pick my sister and my cousin, Maggie, from school at 2 o'clock when they got out and were going to pick me up from work and we would head to Nashville. 

I had asked off for this day about 4 months in advance but couldn't get the full day off so instead of working 2-6 I was going to go from 8-3. To me, this was alright to work with because it was better than working 2-6 because then I would totally miss the concert. When I asked off for this trip, it was before my doctor told me that I'm not allowed to work over 4 hours. Even though my normal shift was 4 hours, the past 2 weeks before my doctors appointment I had worked 9-6 every day for 2 weeks. With my dysautanomia, this really wore me out and she could tell in my ANSAR test numbers. So she mailed me a letter to give to my boss, so no more long days for me.

On Monday when I went into work, I asked my boss if I was still working 8-3. I said "I wanted to make sure about tomorrow," and she said "Oh yeah you're off tomorrow." WHAT. I wish I could of seen what my face looked in that moment. I was so confused and I probably showed it. She said "didn't you originally have 8-3? Well, I figured with everything thats going on with you right I just thought it would be best if I just gave you the whole day off. I'm trying to take care of you!" :) This meant the world to me and also my parents. 

So change of plans AGAIN, but this time was good! Around 10:15, mom and I picked up my sister and cousin from school and then we headed to Nashville!! The ride down there was so much fun as we jammed out to some 1D the whole time ;) poor momma. When we got there we sat in the hotel and changed clothes and got ready for the concert. We thought we were doing great on time since we left our hotel, which was 15 mins away from the stadium, around 4:30 and the concert was at 7. Well, of course we got stuck in traffic. We still were going to have to get dinner once we got in Nashville, but plans changed once again. Mom just decided to go ahead and drop us off at the stadium. We got to the stadium probably around 5:30-5:45. We were all stressing out because we had no idea where to go for mom to drop us off and also we had to come up with a place for her to meet us, and the police officers were no help. Finally, we arrived where mom would drop us off and we had to jump out and run because the police officer was whistling and pointing for her to hurry and go. We jumped out at Gate 10 and had no idea where we were. Our tickets told us Gate 1 and section 112. When we walked into the stadium, it was so crowded. There were girls everywhere. Moms were yelling at their daughters to "come on," girls were getting lost yelling for their friends, workers were yelling "ice cold water, no wait, get your ice cold water!!" It was so hectic. We stood in line to get some ice cold water and some nachos. Then we were ready to go find out seats!! After weaving in and out of people, we finally found Section 112. Once, we got situated in our seats after we were in awe about how great our seats were it started to get really really hot. Without even sitting there for 10 minutes, my chair was covered in sweat. The side that the sun was shining right down on was our side. Just our luck. I started to get really really anxious. I never do good in heat because I'm always scared I'm going to pass out. I ended up spending over $20 on water just for myself. That was 4 bottles of water and I also finished everyone else's water too...

Unfortunately I was not on an end seat. The poor lady sitting alone on the end seat probably hated me. I went to the bathroom about 12 times the whole time we were there. I know I know thats crazy..I also ended up having some of the worst panic attacks that I have ever had. Usually, when I get anxious I will leave wherever I'm at, but I couldn't leave the concert. I was stuck there and had to deal with my anxiety all alone. I ended up taking a crumb of my "calm  down pill" to ease off some of the nerves. I really hesitant taking this pill because it calms me down so much that I feel "Bleh" I kinda feel like I'm just there. I don't know how to explain it, but I didn't want to feel this at the concert and not have fun. Of course, my anxiety felt like it was getting too bad to handle so I ended up taking my crumb. I knew all of this was going to happen.. I knew that I was going to have panic attacks just because I don't do good with heat and crowds. This may be part of the reason why I had them, because it was all subconscious. After about an hour, and halfway into 5 Seconds of Summer's performance, my anxiety went down but of course I felt so mellow. As you can tell, I didn't really get to enjoy the concert as much as I had hoped too.. I was counting down till the concert would be over, I think that is what bothered me the most about the concert, I was waiting and wishing for the concert to be over.. the One Direction concert. I normally would cry when it was over and cry during the whole thing. But that just didn't happen, I wasn't myself. It really upset me knowing that this is where my anxiety has gone. It's affecting my daily life and things that I usually enjoy.

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"Come to Me"

"Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me."

On Sunday, this is how the book Jesus Calling stared. Those three short words have so much meaning to them. Just that short sentence has so much love and meaning than one would think. 

This weekend, my family and I went over to my PawPaw's house for family birthday parties (yes another family party that I am blogging about.) It's always nice to get together with family to just talk about what has been going on in our lives since the last time we saw them. Even though there are many stories that I could tell you about the party, this is a different post than the other family birthday parties posts I have written. 
After a few minutes of being at PawPaw's and saying hey to everyone, my great aunt pulled me off to the side and said she had something for me. She took me to the guest bedroom and handed me a little purple present. Before opening it she told me that she has loved reading my blog and that she got me a little "happy." When she was reading my posts she felt that God was telling her to buy me the book that she had been reading called Jesus Calling. I was so happy to get this little "happy"!! I had always wanted to buy this but never got around to it and now I know why, God wanted me to receive it from my Aunt Susie!!! 

On Sunday I started Jesus Calling. It started out by saying "Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me." Just sit there and think about those 3 words and picture God saying those 3 words to you. Picture a tall man wearing all white saying in a deep voice "Come to Me, *insert your name*" This really opened my eyes. I began to think about this one short saying. God, the man over millions of people, all the animals, and the moon and stars, is begging ME, a small life on this huge planet, to come to HIM, the God over this world. How crazy is that? Every day, God is trying to get my attention. All of these minuscule things are crowding my life and making my life so busy. I've been pushing God off to the side and wanting Him to wait and do things on my time. This is not how things are suppose to be done. The God of this universe is trying so hard to get my attention, through my crazy life He's been calling out to me "Stephanie, hey, Stephanie look at Me. Come to Me. I want to talk with you and spend time with you." In the book it states, "coming close to Me requires no great effort on your part." It requires not great effort on my part, but it is still so hard to stop and focus on Him in the craziness going on in life and I am personally making it hard when it takes not effort at all. Jesus suffered and died on the cross for ME so that I can live and talk to God whenever without going through anyone else or anything, and I still struggle with stopping just to talk to God when it was made that easy for me and I'm taking it for granted. 

Today, through the craziness of your day don't forget to stop and talk with God today. Thank Him for the greatness of His love and mercy. Thank Him for being patient with us.

Pray with me.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for this beautiful sunny day outside. Thank you for waking me up today and loving me unconditionally. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for me and my sins when it should of been me. Please forgive me for not spending as much time with You as I should and getting caught up in life and not turing to You when I should. Thank you for  Your greatness and mercy. Please open my eyes to see the richness and love that You have for me. Thank you for still pursuing me and chasing after me when I turn my back because I want to do things my own way at my own time. Please keep me safe and help me to be patient today. I love you.

Amen.


Revelation 22:17
John 6:37
Ephesians 3:16-19

Living a fearful life

If you read my last post, you learned about how all my anxiety started. After a few months, things started to lighten up. Doctors were helping my family and me get things back to normal. One thing that we were told was that my mom needed to stop reassuring me. Whenever I start to panic, I will run to my mom for what the doctors said was "reassurance." They told my mom that she needed to stop reassuring me, and to help me realize on my own that everything is okay and I will be okay. Also, since I was becoming best buds with the school nurse, mom called the nurse and told her to put a big note on my file that said "DO NOT LET STEPHANIE CALL ME OR HER FATHER UNLESS SHE HAS A FEVER OR IS THROWING UP!"  I was so mad. All the doctors were changing my life style around and I hated change. They were making me deal with all the anxiety by myself and it was too much for me to do alone. I felt so betrayed. My doctor gave us a few different things to do but none of them lasted very long. We tried having one hour a day to where I could talk to my mom about what I was nervous. As you can probably guess, I broke that rule many many times :) I also tried to journal my thoughts and that didn't work either. The thing that I just could never do was pray. Whenever I was anxious and having a panic attack, I never thought to just stop and pray. This is something that I still struggle with and I have to be reminded of to do. Even then it is honestly really hard to do. Handing over everything over to God especially my anxiety is difficult because I am selfish and I want to fix them and want to feel better now. Not on God's timing or anyone else's timing. One of my favorite bible verses is 1 Peter 5:7.

Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.        1 Peter 5:7

I feel like this verse was written just for me. I need to cast ALL of my anxiety on Him because He cares for me. He is the God of Comfort and the Prince of Peace. 

I still deal with lots of anxiety now. I rarely can go anywhere in public without having a panic attack but I'm learning how to deal with it all still. I have learned that it's not going to go away on its own and I shouldn't be ashamed of it and that I will be okay. I have decided that I am going to major in Psychology. I dream to be famous like Oprah or Dr. Drew ;) I want to have my own private practice and focus on anxiety and depression patients, marriage counseling, or adoption counseling. I have many dreams and ideas in mind that I want to do, so who knows where God will lead me. I would love to help others with anxiety. I think that there would be no better person to talk to than someone who has or is dealing with what you are dealing with. I hope that I can change lives and help others to feel better and to go back to living a normal life. Dealing with anxiety is never easy, it can be life altering but just know if you are dealing with anxiety, you are NEVER alone. More people deal with it than you think. 

Thank you for reading!

Fight or Flight

Ever since I can remember, I have always a scaredy cat. I have never been the type of person to do anything that could put myself in danger. I have never liked amusement parks, rope swings, water slides, four wheelers, cruises, roller coasters, airplanes, or anything you can think of that I could possibly get hurt while doing or putting my life into someone else's hands. My sister and I are polar opposites. She loves to try new things and be a dare devil type. Well to me she seems like a dare devil type but in reality she's just like everyone else. Anyways, I am always the "party pooper" that no one likes to be around. I'd rather stay safe then possibly getting hurt. I'm the 19 year old who doesn't like to go in the ocean for many reasons like not being able to see what's around me, drowning, getting eaten by a shark, and lots of others. I will not ride the Tower of Terror if someone paid me one million dollars. I don't like the feeling that roller coasters give you in your stomach and when you can't breathe. I've always had fears but when I was a Sophomore in high school the fears were turning into what seemed to be real.

Social Media has always been my worst enemy. I would read things on Twitter, Facebook, and on Google that would make me so anxious. Starting at some point my Sophomore year, I had awful anxiety. Not just occasional worries and fears, but full on panic attacks. To me, it came out of no where. My mind was constantly tricking me and had me so gullible. Whenever the sun set, my anxiety would click in like clock work. 5 years later, and I still don't know what caused this to happen. I was 15 years old and was like a baby during a thunder storm. Every Tuesday night, Dad and I would go pick up my sister from CSI where she had tumbling practice. I remember on the way home, EVERY week at the same time I would start having a panic attack. 


I was addicted to being with my mother. I never wanted to be away from her side. If anyone has the seen the episode of Full House, where they have an earthquake and Danny wasn't home with the rest of the family. Stephanie freaked out and never wanted to leave his side after that in case it happened again because she was so scared that something happened to him. Well, that was me. I couldn't stand being away from my mom. This was very difficult since I had to go to school and she had to go to work. It got to the point where I had basically kicked my dad out of his own bed, to where he was sleeping on the couch, and I was sleeping with my mom every night. My panic attacks had gotten to a nightly thing where I would be up all hours of the night and also keeping my momma up too.

Side note: Have I mentioned how awesome my parents are? I know in my last post I talked about how my dad was so patient with sharing a bathroom with 5 girls at the beach, but its so much more than that. My dad is always putting himself before others and especially for his girls. He is always going above and beyond for my sister and me. For MONTHS, he gave up his bed to me when I needed to be by my momma. (well forced out ;) ) And my mom, my mom has been SO patient with me, no matter how much I drive her insane with my anxiety, and she always has the right words to say to me. 

When I would go to school, after a few class periods I would start to feel sick and go to the nurse to call mom and I wanted to be checked out. At that point, I didn't know that this was my brain tricking me and I actually thought I was sick. After lots of conversation and brainstorming, my parents decided that I needed to go see someone for my anxiety. The doctors suggested that I start taking medicine for my anxiety. My parents were very hesitant about putting me on medicine at 15 years old. So they put it off for a few months but once it started to get worse they decided that we would try it because I was miserable and we were all exhausted. After a few months of my anxiety getting more extreme, I started to have patterns in my panic attacks. We didn't recognize these patterns at the time, but now we know about them. Whenever I would walk upstairs, something would trigger my anxiety. When I would feel out of breath from the stairs, I would start to panic because I thought I was going to pass out. (side note: one of my biggest fears is hospitals and ambulances. I had started to make the connection that usually when people pass out at school, they would call the ambulance. So in my brain, passing out = ambulance = hospital= I die.) I know that sounds crazy, but that is what I had decided happens when someone passes out, and then people die in hospitals so I figured I would die too, which is another fear I have. And somehow that all led to passing out. Then passing out led to stairs and stairs led to school. So I got to the point where I was afraid of school, because school had stairs, stairs means passing out, passing out means ambulance, ambulance means hospital, and hospital means dying. Thats basically how my mind set was and still is. 

After my mind started making all those connections, my anxiety would start kicking in, in the classes before I would have to walk up stairs. Like I said before, at that time we didn't make the connections of why this was happening but now we know. So at that time, it still was just like I was constantly having panic attacks. I wasn't sleeping and I was missing lots of time in class because I would go to the bathroom when I was having a panic attack. 

This was such a rough time in my life and I am so glad that, to an extent, it is over. I am still currently dealing with a lot of anxiety that I will write about in my next post!!

Thank you for reading!!

Paradise With My Toes In The Sand

Family Dinner at Desoto's
Left to Right: Mom, Dada, Drew, Hannah, Maggie, Bo (Kim), Anna, Dad, Me, Nana

This past week I went to Orange Beach with my family. Every year we take a family (intermediate family) trip to the beach. Usually we go with our family friends, The Burdicks, but this year we were going to take a family trip with my grandparents, aunt, and cousins. Every year that we go, we always stick to the same schedule, same places to eat, and same activities. Because they are rituals, and dad is all about rituals. ;) Every day we wake up early, or attempt to, but every day gets later and later. We head down to the beach/pool for a few hours till lunch then we go up, on our own time, and eat sandwiches on the balcony of our condo. My parents, my sister, her friend, my cousin, and I all stayed in a Condo while my grandparents, aunt, and cousin all stayed in the camper at the campground. After lunch, we would head back down to the beach/pool or a few more hours, then slowly one by one head up to shower and get ready for dinner. Getting ready this year was very interesting, we had 6 people to 1 bathroom, 5 of which were girls. Poor dad, had last shower almost

every day and still had to wait about 30 minutes for all of us girls to get ready. He was a trooper though :) Every year we head to the beach with a list of restaurants that we just HAVE to go to! Usually, I bring my friend, Taylor, to the beach with us every year but I wasn't able to this year. I felt so lost without her, I didn't know what to do with myself! I was laying in bed watching Netflix by 10 pm, when usually we would be out looking for crabs, swimming, or just hanging out with Ian and Will! It was a nice week just to lay back and relax, which I really needed since I've been working a lot more than I usually do. It'll be nice to go back to work today though, I've missed those kids! 

On our first full day, one of my best friends and her family were actually down in Gulf Shores too, but that was their last day. So I met up with Alaina and her family and got to spend the afternoon with her family! It was great just hanging out in the ocean with her and getting to catch up. Her sister, Alaina, and I found about 7 hermit crabs that afternoon! We played with them and tried feeding them some Ritz Crackers, while also feeding Sea Gulls since they caught us feeding the hermit crabs and decided to join in. One of the hermit crabs loved crawling on the cracker and holding on to it, it was so cool! 



My sister and I decided to reenact a picture that we found of ourselves when we were younger!! 

 



Even though it's not perfect, we tried!! And I still thinks its really funny! It's crazy how not so little my little sister is :'(

We had a great vacation but it's nice to be home again! I missed my friends and Charlie :)

Where I left part of my heart pt 3

A year ago today, I was in Guatemala!! 

When our teams got split up, I was apart of the team A and the team that had to move locations. We drove for awhile to our new location. We ended up in this little area that was fenced off with just land. We were going to be building two houses. One of the houses was for the grandmother of the family, and the other house would be for her daughter and granddaughter. We worked really hard for the next two days to get the houses finished and to make lifelong relationships with this family. The houses we built were very interesting. They were made with just wood and tin.We were led by, Samuel (Sam-Well), a Guatemalan who helped mission teams build these houses. He was hilarious because he was such a perfectionist and it was hard for us to understand sometimes what he wanted because of the language barrier. He would just look at things and shake his head and say "aye yi yi." When I was making post holes, he walked over and looked in my hole and said "aye yi yi, theres China!!" We finished the two houses in two days. The picture above is the kids that were on our site. I got really close with the girl on the right. When we were leaving they were screaming adios and waving. Telling them bye before that was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. While trying to keep my composure in front of them, it was time to get in the vans. Right when I looked at them from the van, I lost it. As my friends were comforting me, the girl ran up to my window and gave me her bracelet and gave me a huge hug. As you can imagine, I really lost it at that point. It meant the world to me that she wanted to share something of hers with me. 

 

Where I left part of my heart.. pt 2

Once we arrived at the mission house, things started to feel real. I had always dreamed of coming to Guatemala and I was finally there! I couldn't wait to see what the next week held for my team and me. That next day, we drove to a little village (either Parramos or Chimaltenago) to build houses. The drives to and from the work sites were probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. My friends Alaina, Haley, and I all sat in the back seat of out wan, I say next to the windows and had them open. To every person that we drove past I would shout "¡Hola!" Everyone was so sweet and would wave back and shout it back to me. It was so interesting to just sit back and watch how Guatemalans lived their lives. I never realized just how blessed I am. These mothers worked so hard day in and day out for their families by cooking and cleaning, and the fathers were up before sunrise to go to the land and work just to make ends meet and for their family to have food. Even if they didn't enjoy their job, they still did it without complaining. One thing that really stood out to me were the dogs. In Guatenala, dogs are not treated the same as in America. They are not considered pets. They roam around the street and just eat whatever they can find. As a dog lover it broke my heart, I wanted to love on all these puppies but I couldn't get near them because of possible rabies. 

When we arrived at our site, we unloaded all of our equipment and wanted up a huge side of a hill. The view was incredible. Actually, the picture from the top of the post is the view from our worksite those next two days of the active volcano, yes active. This first day was very eye opening, keep in mind I'm a huge germaphobe. The owners of the land that we were working on showed us through the home and lead us to where we would be working on a new room for the family. We walked through a very tiny walkway that had sheets hanging up in place of walls in between rooms. There were mattresses on the floor with no sheets and kids everywhere. They were peeping through the sheets to look at us and when we would make eye contact with them they would hide. We started to try and make conversation with them with the very little English we knew from Spanish class we took in highschool. 

Katie and I played hide and go seek with the kids and tickled them while we waited for instructions. Before we really got to get to know this little girl, Rose, she walked up and gave Katie and I flowers. It warmed my heart, I started to cry. I only knew this beautiful girl for less than an hour and I already loved her so much. She had inspired me, the joy that she had, and the smile that she always had on her face will be with me forever. Once we got our instructions, we broke up into two teams, which then ended up being guys on one team doing the building and then girls on the other team playing and loving on the kids. I was ecstatic!!! They were tons of kids to run around and play with. We played lots and lots of fútbol as you can imagine. That's all they do up there. We played duck duck goose (pato pato ganso), played with bubbles, and also pained their nails!! 

It was such a great day, I didn't get to spend as much time with them as others. Half of us got split to another site to work at. I'll write about that on the next post. Thank you so much for reading!!

Where I left part of my heart

Around this time last year, I was starting to pack up my things. In a few days, I would be heading to the beautiful country of Guatemala. For my senior trip at my church, they took all of the seniors to Guatemala. When I was in 8th grade, I gave my heart to missions. I did not know much about Guatemala at this time but I felt God was calling my heart to this country. When I found out that Guatemala was where our senior trip was, I broke down into tears. It was always my dream to go there because for all these years this country, that I had never been to, had such a special place in my heart. Bright and early on the morning of July 4, 2013, I was headed to the airport with all of my closest friends, my youth pastor, my mentor, and also my daddy! I was so excited but also very very nervous. I had never been on a mission trip before that was outside of the country. This was a moment where I was totally trusting God and going out of my comfort zone. As an extreme germaphobe, this was going to be an experience where I would be totally out of my element where I would be doing, smelling, touching, and seeing things that I would not normally experience. Thankfully, both our flights were great. We didn't run into any trouble. Once we arrived into Guatemala City,everything started to change. Everything was different. All the signs were in Spanish and we stuck

out like a sore thumb. Everyone was staring at us as we tried to find out way around an unfamiliar airport with sign and people that spoke a different language. Finally, we found someone (I'm not positive who this person was, but he was who we were suppose to find and he helped a lot) and he helped us with all of our luggage but it was very difficult because of the language barrier. We went and stood outside for what seemed like hours. We were waiting for our translators to come pick us up. While we were waiting, I was really really confused.. I felt like we were still in America. These Guatemalans were dressed just like people in America. I didn't want to ask someone about it because everyone seemed to be really stressed out so I just stood there, kept my mouth shut, and just examined everything. Our translators, Alfrado and Maricio, picked us up in the coolest cars. We drove for what seemed like the longest time. I could never drive in Guatemala City, they have no lines and everyone is just on their own and if you make it out alive then you did good. The further that we drove out of Guatemala City, that's when things began to change. We were starting to make it into the villages. There became less and less cars and more and more people walking like the woman above in my picture. After we drove for awhile, we ended up in Chimaltenango, Guatemala where we stayed in a beautiful mission house.

A glimpse of the mission house

The view from the roof of the mission house

Come back tomorrow for part 2 :)