Tyler Schulz overcame partial paralysis to play football - Tulsa World: Football

Tyler Schulz overcame partial paralysis to play football - Tulsa World: Football http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54488/78/358613D49EB2FFC122DE4385B6DC476F.png

Plant based lifestyle

I need a place to post my new journey in hopes that I keep this darn Lupus at bay. I've gone a good 9 months without feeling horrible, then summer family stress and school starting hit me hard. I'll be posting my meals so I hope no one gets sick of seeing them. I haven't blogged in so long-I'm not sure anyone will notice. 

Breakfast:

1scrambled egg with 1 tbsp cheddar cheese

Sautéed spinach, mushroom, onion and a small piece of a very hot jalapeño

Lunch:

Sautéed zucchini, onions, mushrooms

V8 spicy juice in place of stewed tomatoes

Piece of jalapeño

1 tbsp cheddar cheese

1 tbsp sour cream

Cavenders Greek seasoning and seasoning salt

First real job and other stuff

Tyler got a job at Tastee Freeze last week.  He's the meatboy, which means he makes about 400 hamburger patties a day.  He works with one of his friends that he's played soccer with forever so they have a lot of fun together.  I mean, how hard can it be to make 400 hamburger patties. Ha!

He's always liked getting money and I think the love of having his own will really kick in, making him want to work really hard from now on. 

I'm getting ready to register him for the ACT test.  He's taken the prep course and I'm ordering online study materials so that should help him. I think if you make a 27 on your ACT in Oklahoma, you get to attend any college in the state free.  We would really like a 27, por favor!

Hunter is finishing the eighth grade and is really struggling with organization.  He had 29 missing assignments in two classes.  We've had a serious talk about it and he's going to work hard on keeping things together for ninth grade.  He's growing his hair out like Johnny Depp, which cracks me up.  He's so stinking cute that any hair looks good on him!

Life has been calm this past semester, the boys aren't playing a Spring sport, which, dare I say, is a wonderful thing.  No meets, games, late practices.  I love it.  After all the years traipsing to practices and games, it's nice just to have a break.  It's helped my stress level and my ability to keep from feeling worn out constantly. 

My health is getting better, my doctor prescribed a rheumatoid arthritis medicine for the pain I always had in my arms and ribs, and I haven't had it since the day I started taking the medicine.  It's a miracle.  I don't think anyone around me realizes how horrible I felt on a daily basis.  I was in constant pain but tried so hard not to show it.  I even walked three miles down our nature trail the other night....I hadn't done that in three years.  Three years!

Now I just need to get this Lupus/steroid weight off and I'd feel tremendous.  I hate how I look right now and it's definitely weighing on my self-esteem.  I'm trying to eat mainly a vegetable/fruit diet so we'll see how that goes.  I hope it helps.

Football State Championship 2014

On December 6th, our Skiatook Bulldog football team went to the 2014 5A State Championship in Oklahoma City.  We played Lawton MacArthur in Yukon, Oklahoma. 

To say that we were excited is an understatement.  Our little town hasn't had a state championship in football since 1974.  I've never seen the entire town so united in a common goal in my life. 

The week before the game, people were posting pictures of themselves in their letter jackets from high school on Facebook.  It was the funniest thing to see all of the football players' dads trying to squeeze into their twenty five year old letterman.  Jim pulled his out and put it on.  He had to suck in a little but, by gosh, it fit. 

Our downtown area had all the windows painted for the football boys with their names and encouraging words.  It was so wonderful to see how much excitement there was for our football team.  We weren't expected to do as well as we did at the beginning of the year, which made it even better.

New Year's Day luck



New Year's Day is always a time of tradition in our house.  My Momma is from deep south Alabama, where you don't break tradition, no matter what.  She's been following the same Southern traditions for years.

The most important tradition for the New Year is eating Black-eyed Peas.  You have to eat them for good luck in the coming year.  It's also a tradition to eat greens for wealth.  Believe me, we eat the greens because we could always use a little more wealth! Ha!

I was so proud of myself after cooking our Christmas ham, I took the bone with some good chunks of meat left on it and froze it wrapped in tin foil.  I use three or four layers of tin foil just to make sure the ham doesn't get freezer burn. 

I started the ham cooking in two tablespoons of olive oil.  It's best to get some color on the meat, bringing out all the flavor.



It doesn't look very appetizing coming out of the freezer.

 

Put your dried and soaked black-eyed peas in a pot with just enough water to cover the peas.  Add one onion, rough chopped and let the ham and peas cook until the peas are soft.  You'll have to add water occasionally as the peas soak it up quite a bit. 

 

We've been forked

Tyler picking up the forks some of his "buddies" left for him

A couple of mornings ago, Jim came back into the house and said, "We've been forked!"

I thought, "What on earth is forked?" Then I remembered.

I glanced outside and was instantly impressed. I mean, how on earth did teenagers put so many forks into our grass? It had to have taken at least 30 minutes to get all of that work done.

It took Tyler at least 5 minutes to get it all out of the yard.

Teenagers-they just kill me sometimes!

Letterman

#gagecancook2015