Thankful Thursday :)

I've noticed that quite a few of my posts have been on the more negative side lately. I plan to change that right now.

Here is my very first "Thankful Thursday" post :)

1. My Job:
   So I know I did a post just yesterday to complain about how bored I was. In all reality I am so very thankful that I even have a job to complain about. It seems like every single night, there is a new story on the news about all of those without jobs, those with college degrees who have jobs that someone in high school could do and those that are losing their home because they can't find a job to support their family and their bills. I am blessed enough to have a job, that pays well, and that I most of the time enjoy!
2. Blogger & Pinterest
   I am so excited to have finally got into the swing of things with blogger. I made my blog in February and just recently have actually set my mind to posting multiple times a week, and sometimes multiple times a day, still sorry about that one! It's so refreshing to be able to talk about whatever I have on my mind with little to no opposition. And Pinterest, I was looking at other blogs and noticed a growing trend. I quickly jumped on the trend wagon and found myself checking my email every few hours to see if I had received my invite yet. There is just something about this "secret pinterest society" that you have to be invited to. I finally got my invite this morning and I am super excited to start pinning - post devoted entirely to pinterest in the near future
3. Having Fridays Off

   I am so happy to have Friday's off. While I would much rather have a few more days off a week, there is nothing like a 3 day weekend, every week! I always wake up on Thursdays with a smile on my face because this is my Friday. I know that in 8 short hours it will be my weekend! Whether I choose to have a pajama day and catch up on my daytime shows, or run errands/clean having Fridays off is wonderful. Tomorrow's day off will consist of running errands. I want to get my hair dyed back dark brown and trimmed, plus Carrie and I are going to check out Curves, the all women's gym!
4. My wonderful brother Daniel

   I am always thankful for him, but especially on this Thursday. He turns 21 on Saturday, a milestone he has been waiting ever so patiently for. I've tried warning him it doesn't really feel any different and evenutally the newness of being able to purchase alcohol will wear off. We fought like cats and dogs growing up and have recently became great friends. I know if I ever need anything he is there and the same if he ever needs anything. I can't wait to spend his birthday with him, although I may call him early Sunday morning, just to show that sisterly love :)
5. My Best Friend

   My bff is my mom. I am so very blessed to have such an amazing role model and woman to call my best friend. When I was growing up we butted heads like it was our job. We rarely got along and I thought she was as dumb as a box of rocks. However, now that I have grown up, came into my own as an adult, and live 100 miles away, I have learned that I was completely wrong. She is there when I need her most. I seriously talk to her at least once a day if not more. She always knows what to say to calm me down, or to cheer me up. I value every minute I get to spend with her and look forward to every get together we plan. She has become even more special to me over the past year. Losing you best friend is a hard thing to handle. It always helps having one, your momma, to come to the rescue.  

Work

First of all, let me say that I am beyond thankful to have a job. I am so blessed to know that I have a steady income and that I won't wake up one morning and be without a job.

I've been here for 4 years in November. It's definitely a high stress job during some parts of the year (I work for a company that provides cap and gowns, graduation accessories and class rings to high school juniors and seniors) and very low key during others (like now). Here is a brief timeline of what I have went through here:

• November 2007 - My first day was somewhere around Thanksgiving
• June 2008 - The Office assistant that I was hired to work with, was fired - I was now in charge
• Fall 2008 - My boss hired a friend of mine to help out (note to self: don't work with friends)
• While I love her dearly, its can sometimes ruin a friendship and for about a year, it did ruin ours
• March 2009 - We moved offices
• Summer/Fall 2009 - Two more coworkers were hired who I loved dearly. There was Lee who worked in the field and Baylee who was my assistant, such a great girl :)
• November 2009 - A mental health business move into our office building. They serviced teenagers as well as sex offenders, we had to move
• December 2009 - My boss made the decision to move the business to his home in Garner (I lived in Fayetteville at the time) but offered me a big pay raise to come along.
• I was fresh out of a horrible two year long realtionship - I had nothing to lose, so I went
• March 2010 - My boss tells me he is taking a corporate position in Minnesota and my job is safe for at least one year.
• August 2010 - I meet my new boss and we instantly don't get along ( I contemplated quiting a few times along the way)
• April 2011 - My old boss decides to come back, when my new boss decides to quit :)
• Summer 2011 - Here I am now, writing 3 posts a day because work is just that slow!

Like I said before, I really hate to complain. However, I come in to work at 9AM and sit here until 5PM doing nothing. The phone rang once yesterday and twice today.

Luckily, I do get Friday's off but still. Just to let you know what I'm going through, one of the office managers about an hour away works Tuesday-Thursday 1-5.

Ugh. Is it 5 yet?









It's Not a Diet, It's a Lifestyle

Three posts in one day? Yes I know, but I had some making up to do for my lack of posts from this weekend and last week.

Dieting. One of my absolute least favorite things to do. However, I have been putting it off way too long and have looked at one too many pictures of myself that I am unhappy with.

I have never been the type that I live to eat. I don't sit at home and eat, eat, eat. I just eat a lot of really bad foods. I'm very picky, which I have been trying to work on, however its difficult. I don't like a lot of the things you can eat a lot of and not gain weight, like salad, veggies and so forth. There are a few fruits I like, but vegetables are not my fave.

I have always struggled with my weight. Always. I have looked back at pictures from when I was a kid all the way through high school and college and while now I wish I was what I thought was "overweight" in high school, I finally decided I had to do something about it. This time I am determined and nothing  is going to change my mind.

Diets always work better when you have a support system. Therefore Justin and I are doing this together. We both decided we want to be there for our kids and grandkids. We want to be able to play in the yard with our children and not get tired. Most importantly, we don't want this to happen to our children.

So far, on diet day one I am doing well. I'm drinking lots of water, and keeping my calories below 2000. I've given up soda completely (diet makes me want to throw up) and I'm eating less of what I used to eat a lot of.

I don't want to be super skinny, but I want to feel desirable and while Justin has told me time and time again that he'd love me if I was 120lbs or 400lbs, I want to feel good about myself.

I'm going to try and do at least one diet post a week, just to keep y'all updated on my progress!

Losing a Life-Long Friend

I haven't shared much about this, because it is very painful. Anyone who has had to go through this would understand and for those of y'all who are lucky enough to have not been through this, I'm happy for you.

December 2010 brought forth some of the biggest changes in my life. I decided to move in with Justin. He was the first man I ever wanted to actually live with. I whole heartedly believe you should "test drive the car before you buy it" but I am not one to test drive every car out there. So me deciding to move in with him was a huge step for me.

I value my friendships with my friends greatly. I have those friends who aren't judgemental, no matter what I say or do. I have those friends who I can not see/talk to for weeks and pick up right where we left off. I have friends that I talk to every day and it never gets old. I used to have one friend who I could do all of these things with and had done them with for 15 + years.

We will call her HD. We met when we were kids at church. At the time we fought like crazy. I live by the fact that anytime three friends are together someone is going to feel left out. It's just expected. HD and I were so much a like. We share the same exact birthday, only one year apart. We are both older sisters to a younger brother. We both love our parents like crazy. So when we decided to move in together in December of 2009 I thought it would be perfect. We normally lived an hour away from each other so we weren't able to spend a lot of time together.

I quickly found out that while HD and I still had a lot in common, we were both growing and going in separate directions. I was becoming very career minded as well as looking for my future husband. HD was still stuck in college. She partied every night, and slept all day. She looked for her future husband at bars and clubs while I looked for mine at match.com. I had to be up Monday-Friday to go to work, she worked nights at a restaurant. While we were the same friends, we were becoming very different people.

Then I met Justin.

I have said before that at first I wasn't sold. Justin had to work very hard to get me to even go on a first date with him. His perseverance is what makes me love him. Once I gave him a chance, I quickly begin to realize that this was going to go somewhere. While all relationships go through their bumpy stages while getting to know each other and learning to see what each person brings and what they expect, getting through those times is what makes a good relationship. HD always jumps off the wagon during these times.

Prior to Justin, I was in a very bad relationship. I let this guy do things to me that I never thought I would put up with. I drove everywhere, paid for everything, had to beg to see him without his friends around, had to beg to even see him. I can't count how many weekends went by where we didn't even talk. How many nights went by that I stayed awake fearing that he was cheating on me. I still put him before my friends and sometimes my family. I finally got the courage to end it and I promised myself that I would never let anyone do that to me again.

I started the realtionship with Justin very different. He knew how important my family and friends were to me. He knew what I expected out of a boyfriend and the minute he showed signs of something different, I told him how I felt and we got through it.

However, as some friends can be, he wasn't good enough for me (per HD). Because we didn't spend every waking minute together, he wasn't good enough. Because he hadn't said i love you after a month of dating, he wasn't good enough. Because he didn't spoil me every minute of the day with "things" he wasn't good enough.

None of this mattered to me. I was happy for the first time in years and I wasn't letting him go.

A few months after I started dating Justin, HD met Josh. He was a nice guy and he and HD could have went far, but they were both more focused on rushing things that really seeing the full potential of their relationship. All in a month: they said I love you, looked at engagement rings, planned to move to Florida together, picked out baby names and probably more I wasn't aware of.

HD's weapon of choice when a fight happens is "breaking up". Every single time she has ever gotten in to a fight with a boyfriend, that is her automatic reaction, "lets break up". She doesn't talk about things, she breaks up. All during this month of I love yous and lets get married, multiple break ups occured.

Our friendship got to the point where we saw each other only in passing in the apartment, and anytime conversation of Justin or Josh occured, we argued. I distanced myself from her in the hopes that time would heal our wounds and we would both realize that as long as the other is happy, that's all that matters.

I realized it, but HD never did.

Since December 2010 I have been screwed over more times that I can count. I have continued to pay my rent at the apartment because she said she would "be a bitch to whoever tried to sublease". I had to completely delete her out of my life to have any kind of rest.

Once again, I fell into her trap and tried to help her brother by letting him stay in my room for $200 a month because he couldn't afford the full $600.

I received a call yesterday from the apartments that she opened a notice from the apartments for me and called them about it.

It looks like I will have to pay to have all of my keys replaced and any kind of damages she might have made.

Long story short - while I think about her everyday, and wish that somehow, someway we could put this past us. That she would grow up and realize what she has done to people. That I could have my friend back. I know that once July 31st comes and she has moved out of the apartment, and everything is finished. I can finally have my full life back. One that doesn't involve her and doesn't involve the pain she has caused me.

I can finally move on and be completely happy.

Truly Blessed

I am talking about me.

I honestly believe I am so truly blessed its crazy.

I'll explain why...

This past weekend was the first weekend in probably a month and the last for a few weeks that my honey and I were/are going to be able to relax and be at home. We've gone to West Virginia, I've made multiple trips home and we've just been busy.

I came home Friday from my mini vacay at my parents house. I could have spent more time there, but frankly I missed J. Yes I was only gone for a few days, and we've been apart for longer, but there was just something this time telling me to go home, and I'm glad I did.

J's grandparents (Ed and DJ) live about 30 minutes away. We used to live in the same giant neighborhood, until we made the much needed move to our current home. We try to visit as often as possible, but with both of us working 40+ hours each week, and with our social calendars being completely booked on the weekends, its been a little difficult lately. 

Justin's grandma, while a sweet lady can be somewhat judgemental...about everything and everyone. I sure would hate to hear what she may say about me! Friday afternoon I found out she was in Florida visiting her daughter, so Justin and I decided to visit grandpa. Now while Ed pokes fun at me constantly...it's all out of love. Justin got home and just like a giddy little boy getting a new toy, he was quite excited to see me. (See he missed me too :)

We picked up Buffalo Wild Wings (I'm addicted) and headed out. We visited and headed home. I forget what we did, but I think we both just went to bed.

Saturday morning he woke up to weed eat the driveway/yard. Boy do I love having a strong man that does those kinds of things so that I don't have to.  We had scheduled a breakfast with grandpa, so he had to put off the mowing until later. We had breakfast and visited till around lunchtime. On our way out of town we picked up a bacon and pepperoni pizza from Howe's Your Pizza. (caution: we eat out a lot in this post, since our diet was starting Monday)

The rest of Saturday was filled with mowing the grass, me FINALLY completing the guest bedroom, grocery shopping at Target, dinner from Five Guys and relaxing.

We slept in Sunday and then decided to spend the day watching Harry Potter. They had a marathon on ABC Family and it seemed like the easiest thing to do. We had Chili's for lunch and then spent the rest of the day in our pajama's watching HP. J did grill steaks for dinner which were quite delicious :)

Now on to the even more blessed part.

Monday morning we both woke up griping that we had to go to work (in reality we should be thankful we even have jobs) Justin decided to go in to work at 12, as he got some pretty nasty fire ant bites this weekend and has felt sick ever since.

I had to stop by my bosses' apartment (him, his wife and 4 kids are sharing a 3 bedroom apartment until their flooded house is finished) to feed their cat while they are on vacation. I got to work and to my surprise the AC was broken. Now while I don't want to seem like some snobby "I can't work without AC" kind of girl, its hot here, 100 today to be precise. My wonderful boss told me to head home.

I got home and probably scared the crap out of J. Once he learned that I would be home the rest of the day, we had a total cheat on the diet/hooky day :) I went and picked up more Buffalo Wild Wings, some snacks from the store and we rented the remaining HP movies we either missed or ABC Family didn't show. We did that the entire day! Except for when I picked up more pizza for dinner.

I am so blessed to be able to do things like Hooky Mondays with Justin. I woke up this morning a little happier and a little more aware that my life is amazing and that I am TRULY BLESSED

Home is Where your Heart is

I was lucky enough to have this entire week off of work and while I enjoyed it, Monday is creeping up ever so slowly and I'm sure I'll have a hard time getting out of bed when my alarm goes off. Anyways, I decided to take full advantage of my time off and head to my parents house for a few days.

There is just something about being home that always makes me feel good. I don't know if its the time to catch up, or just being with momma and daddy, but I feel like I'm a little girl all over again. I got in Wednesday morning and from the tiem I got there until the time I left, I was busy visiting friends and family. I saw quite a few people and am proud I was able to fit it all in.

The best part is that I was able to spend some wonderful time with my momma, doing what we do best: shopping :) The even better part: she bought everything! I didn't go crazy, I just got a few things I've been wanting.

Friday afternoon came too soon and while I could have stayed and spent more time at home, my parents were going to the beach for the weekend and I really missed J.

The weekend has been pretty productive so far. Luckily he is starting to listen and actually kept the house pretty clean while I was gone. I woke up this morning and decided I was finally going to tackle the guest bedroom. We have been here for almost 4 months, and im so stoked I finally finished it. It could definitely use some decorations on the wall, but for now it will do. It will be the perfect place for my momma to sleep when she comes to visit the end of the this month.

J mowed grass, we went to his grandpa's for breakfast and I did some grocery shopping at Target and actually didn't blow more money than I should.

I believe I'll do some straightening up tomorrow and of course some relaxing since I have to head back to work on Monday.

Hope ya'll are having a good weekend as well - now for pictures of our guest room :)

Home

So I know all of my posts this week were supposed to be about the people I love. And I promise to continue with that theme the remainder of the week, but today I don't have time.

I am getting ready to head to my Momma and Daddy's house for a few way. I am so blessed to not only have wonderful parents who I enjoy spending time with, but I also have an amazing boyfriend who understands how important my family is to me and doesn't get all fussy when I say I wanna go visit. If there is one thing I can't stand, its a boyfriend who acts "jealous" when I do things with out him. J is the farthest from that, thank goodness :)

So I am just going down for a few days. I'm gonna catch up with some friends, eat at some hometown restaurants and spend time with my family. My baby brother will be in as well. It's alway nice to catch him while I'm home too.

Happy Wednesday Ya'll