Today our Ray of Sunshine is our friend and talented photographer Jennica. As you'll hear from her blog post she is a newlywed, volunteer, photographer ~ working on getting fit and hoping to start a family in the next few years. Thanks Jennica for letting us glimpse your day.
A Day in the Life…the Jennica edition.
7:30- I wake up at this time each morning, which is
miraculous. I have been known to sleep until noon, so my first step in making
my life more productive was to actually wake up and have a few extra hours in
my day. I spend a quick 30 minutes waking up, and honestly, it takes me that
long. I’ve never been much of a morning person.
8:00- Every weekday morning, my best friend Deborah comes
over to work out. Again, if you’d known me 3 months ago, your jaw would be on
the floor. This girl does NOT exercise. Or sweat. Period. I had known I was
overweight for years, but it had never been enough of knowledge to actually
make me dedicate to ritualistic exercise. I HATED exercise with every fiber of
my being, and I thought the people who talked about “endorphins” giving you
energy were simply full of it. From the time I met my husband (Summer of 2010),
to when I graduated (May 2012), I had gained a minimum of 40 pounds. That
knowledge was astonishing to me. How could that happen? My lifestyle hadn’t
changed that much. But it was true. I had crossed the dreaded “200lb” mark by
20lbs. Not okay. Not healthy. What finally tipped my mindset was acknowledging
that I didn’t want to be skinny for myself, I wanted to be healthy for my
future children. In the less than 2 months that we have been eating healthy and
working out, I have lost 18lbs. My darling husband joined me in my journey
(though he barely needed it), and he is right there with me, and feeling great.
9:00- As soon as Deborah leaves, I put on a load of laundry
and unload and load the dishwasher. Every morning I sit down and catch up on
certain blogs that I follow. These range
from Christian themes, craftiness/DIY, food and recipes, photography, and
missionary blogs. There are a great many of these, so it usually takes me a
leisurely hour. My two kittens, Mosby and Bruce, who I treat very much like my
“babies”, typically join me for this. Their favorite place to sleep is right on
top of the laptop keyboard that I am trying to use.
10:00- At this time I make myself a smoothie and quickly get
presentable and head to The City of Hope Outreach (CoHO). www.cityhopeoutreach.com. I have
volunteered and been on staff with this wonderful organization for going on 3
years now. They work with the under resourced here in Conway in a community
called Oakwood. I worked with their summer reading and lunch initiative for all
of June and July, and now that that is over, I am a general assistant for
Deborah and the director of the organization, Phillip. Lately, we’ve been
working hard on a conference that is taking place tomorrow. My
specialty is making fliers, documents, signs, and anything “graphic design”, in
addition to being their staff photographer.
4:00- I am usually home multiple hours before this, but
today Deborah and I worked longer than usual and then hit up Sonic for
happy-hour and then visited some sweet puppies at the pound. On an average day,
this time varies from day to day. Sometimes I am prepping for dinner, sometimes
I have a few hours to pick up a book and read, sometimes I clean and organize
my ever-messy home. 
This particular day, after I put up the laundry, I am
working on things for my photography business. www.jennicagayle.wix.com/jbphotography
. I have contracts to write up and prepare for a session the next night.
Photography has always been a passion of mine, but the business aspect is very
new to me, and can be challenging. There is so much information to keep track
of, but for now my system seems to be working. I have been blessed by interest
in my business and service, so I spend this time responding to emails as well.
This all happens, of course, with two kittens in my lap. Typically I would be
preparing for dinner, but it’s my brother-in-law’s birthday and we’ve going
out!
5:00- My dear husband arrives home, and we chat about our
days for a few minutes before we head out the door.
5:30- Dinner at our FAVORITE restaurant, Fuji’s Japanese Steakhouse. This is definitely an “off night” for our diet, but we’re not sad about that! The delicious hibachi shrimp and fried rice is more than worth the extra workouts that will be required later. We laugh and chat with my husband’s sister and her husband. We are very close with them. They were married 3 weeks after us, so we’ve gone through so many of the same things in the past year and their friendship is a blessing.
9:30-Bed. My husband works early, so we go to bed early. It
always takes me a while to fall asleep, but if I’m going to be getting up at
7:30, I have to be going to bed early! I am enjoying the full nights of sleep
while I can before we decide to start our family.
So that is a typical day in my life. I am very long winded,
and go on a lot of tangents, but I hope you’ve gotten something out of it. :)
Jennica
grt
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