Me Right Now

I have been disconnected from the blog world lately. When I sit down to write the words do not form like they once did and my mind is blank.

I am also insanely behind on reading all of my favorite blogs.

I hate this and it makes me sad because blogging has become such a big part of my life. I have met some of my best friends through blogging. Seriously. It's like the E-harmony for friends.

Friend-Harmony. Somebody market that quick.

Anyways I don't feel entirely disconnected from my blog friends because I keep up with a lot of friends through Twitter and this has helped me when I feel like my blogging days are over.

Today a sweet friend on Twitter reminded me that I just need to be myself on my blog. That is what first drew people to my blog, nobody expects me to always be "on" people just want me to be real.

It seems so simple, but when I received her simple message it really resonated with me.

I have always been real on this blog and I want to continue to be that way.

So for now, this is who I am right now, the real me on June 28, 2010.

I am an employee who is trying to balance a crazy new work load. Who is loving all of the new work, but at the same time overwhelmed and wanting to succeed in every way, without letting work overcome my every thought. An employee who is taking everything one day at a time.

I am a wife who loves my husband more than I ever thought I could. A wife who wants to cook dinner for my husband every night and keep a clean house, but realizes I can't always do this on my own and I'm learning to accept help. I am a wife who wants to walk beside my husband, I do not want to be spiritual dead weight that he has to drag.

I am a Christ-follower who is working through an ugly case of bitterness right now. A believer who often forgets to fill myself with the daily nutrients I need through some one-on-one time with my Creator. A person who fails everyday but strives to live a life that is pleasing to Him. A Christ-follower who is learning to not ask so many questions, but instead learn to seek Him more.

I am a girl who sometimes opens my mouth when I shouldn't. Who knows all to well what it feels like to wish I had just kept my mouth shut. But at the same time I am a girl who loves that trait about myself, learning to use it appropriately is a goal I am working towards.

I am a friend who is thankful for all of my friendships. Long distance and close, blog friend through email and blog friend turned real life friend, work friends, family friends, and friends who came out of nowhere. I am thankful for all of these friendships, and I hope that when people think of me they think of me as a good friend.

I am your typical "first born child" who is always worried about something and tries to "fix" everything, even when it's not my place to remedy the situation. I will (and have) spent hours laying awake at night worrying and trying to resolve a situation that is out of my hands. I am working on trusting God more (obviously).

I am a reader who is working through the Harry Potter series right now and is loving every minute of it.

I am an avid TV watcher who is currently obsessed with the series Friday Night Lights and can't believe I have lived this long without watching it.

I am a family person. I love family time so much and am thankful for the family that surrounds me. Not only do I have an amazing family, but I married into an amazing family. Blessed is a good way to describe how I feel when I think about my family.

I am a blogger who is sick and tired of Chinese spam comments and wants them to GO AWAY.

And lastly I am me. A me who is trying desperately to balance everything in my life and realizing that I can't always please everyone, solve every problem, or change everybody who I feel like needs to be changed. I am in a season of learning and growing. I stumble everyday but never take my eyes off of the One who created me to be me.

A recap of sorts

Hello friends, this is me trying to explain to you why I have fallen off the blogging face of the earth.

I really don't know why. I mean life has gotten a bit busier lately, but thats no reason to neglect the ole blog.

So, because I use the ole blog to keep an update on my life, I want to use this time to update myself on what I have been doing.

I have been told that when you have kids you think to yourself: "what the heck did we do before we had kids?" so that is one reason why I love keep track of what we do, to show "what we did before we had kids."

Plus I'm a nerd.

Here we go:

1. In early June I signed up as a consultant for Scentsy wickless candles. I love the products and so far I am absolutely loving being a consultant. I had an open house at our house a couple of weeks ago which was fun because several friends who had not yet seen the new house got to come by!

The setup in the dining room:

The kitchen:

I found this super cute glass drink thingy at a garage sale the day before my party and I was SO excited. Until my party came and the flipping thing didn't work! Garage sale rip off!

Some of my beautiful family members came to the party. It was so fun:

(grandma, me, sister Haley, mom, nephew Maxton)

2. In mid-June Luke and I joined his family for some time away at the lake. We all stayed in one big cabin and had such a great time. We spent our time:

talking:

eating:

playing wii:

driving go-carts, (which I might add I completely wrecked and got hit about 10 times, oops)

and I spent some quality time with my main squeeze:

I am so very thankful that I married into a family that I love and love spending time with. I realize how blessed I am in that area.

3. I conquered my after workout hair in the morning. I now wash it at night, let it air dry and then use a curling iron to "curl it down." My beautiful friend Amy did a vlog on this and it has been a miracle worker for me. Check it out here. (fyi, my hair doesn't look near as good as Amy's hair, but, I'm attempting).

Me after bootcamp one day, with the miracle curl: AKA: curl down:

I just did a recap on my hair process. That is sad.

4. My guest room has now been turned into a Scentsy room and I have been a crazy woman putting orders together. I am loving it.

Cards on the bed, orders on the floor, and laptop with all the orders ready to go and bags on the bed to wrap the orders in:

Completed orders, wrapped and ready to be delivered:

Piles of scents stacked on the desk, in baskets, and on the floor:

5. This past Saturday I, along with two other lovely ladies, hosted a bridal shower at my house. I am so thankful for a home that I can use to bless others. It was a fun time. I love weddings, they are so exciting!

(Julie, the bride Stephanie, me, and Melanie):

6. Today my mom and dad drove up to eat lunch with us for Father's day. We had a great time. I made Pioneer Woman's lasagna. Yum Yum.

(me, dad, and my mom):

Well, that was a giant recap of basically nothing. But it's what we've been up to for the past month.

I plan to be more consistent with blogging from now on, cause giant recaps like this are pretty boring!

Love love love to all my bloggy friends! I have missed blogging!

Bitterness

As we all know I'm obsessed with Webmd and googling certain "sick symptoms" that I feel.

If my right pinky toe is tingling I will look it up on Webmd and before you know it I have diagnosed myself with some sort of disease only found in a third world country and my leg will need to be amputated.

Its a sickness. Also known as hypochondria, which I have also looked up on Webmd. And would you believe that I fit the profile for a hypochondriac? I mean it was scary how much the symptoms matched my personality. Freaky.

Lately I have tried to stop looking everything up on Webmd. Let's face it, its not as reliable as I once thought it was. I wonder how many irritated Dr.'s there are across America because 88% of their patients come to them with their diagnosis in hand, positive that they already know what is wrong with them?

I made up that 88% number but it sounds legit to me.

Recently I was thinking about my current state of mind, you see I haven't been blogging lately, but thats not the only syptom that just doesn't seem right. There are several areas in my life where I'm just not myself lately.

I won't go into all of the ways I have not been myself, because really, who wants to hear about how I have been irritable, or how I will worry myself to the point of real life tears, or so on and so on.

None of those things would be flattering, and who wants to show themselves in a non-flattering light?

Not me.

Except for when I post pictuers of myself in my pajmas for the whole world to see.

Which is just scary.

But not as scary as the nasty bitterness that I have been battling lately. I was thinking about this word one nigh and decided to google it.

As a Christian I know that bitterness cuts me off from the Lord. When I allow bitterness to flood my heart, I am in essence cutting off a close connection with the Lord.

When I googled bitterness I found several key definitions. One definition stated that bitterness can cause a loss of emotional stability, peace, and joy.

Bingo.

Which made me think; how many times do I turn to the Internet, or Webmd, or the world in general, to tell me whats wrong, when really I should be turning to the bible?

I so often will feel something and will chalk it up to a physical symptom, when sometimes, my heart is simply crying out to be renewed.

I feel like lately I have been living in a fog of bitterness. It started a couple of months ago and I have let it escalate much farther than it should have gone.

So now I need to cleanse myself and get back on track, and get rid of this nasty bitterness.

I feel like I am always battling bitterness, it seems like I would learn to nip this thing in the bud.

Maybe one day.

I know this isn't the best post after not blogging for a week or so, but this is what is on my heart right now. And I think the plague of bitterness on my heart has had something to do with the lack of blog posts.

But that is one thing I love about having a blog, I can record all the way that God is speaking to me.

And also record what happens when I cut off conneciton with him.

BITTERNESS.

Sick.

So thats all I have for now. I will return with my pointless random posts soon.

I feel like I still have so many pointless random things to blog about. Like the fact that I hate pencils. It makes me shudder to think about using a pencil. They are sick. We can talk about this later. I wonder if there is a fear of pencils in Webmd?

Bad Hair Day

Holiday weeks throw me off.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE them, but man, they throw me off.

And just in case you are wondering. In my mind a holiday week is when I have one day off of the week. (i.e. we had Monday off of this week)

(i.e. I don't know if I am using i.e. right but my 10th grade biology teacher always used it and it makes me feel smart)

Yesterday Luke and I went to a local Mexican restaurant and I was SO excited because it was 99 cent taco night.

I'm not the biggest fan of tacos, unless they are 99 cents. Then I am taco's #1 fan.

So I asked for several tacos. For the record I asked for more tacos than what I would normally get. I mean they are 99 cents right?

Wrong.

After the less than enthusiastic teenager working the register rang me up he told me my amount, and it was MUCH more than I expected.

To which I told him, umm It's Monday tacos are 99 cents.

To which he said, umm actually it's Tuesday.

Perfect.

Then for reasons I will never know I got up this morning at 5:30 and went to a boot camp class at 6:15.

Clearly I have gone insane.

The class itself wasn't bad if you are into that working out thing.

Which to be honest I'm not really.

I mean, my legs feel like jello right now. WHO WANTS THAT?

But I understand working out is good for the heart, yada, yada. And I don't want knees that look like two elephant butts by the time I'm 30 so it's time to start working out.

And yes I'm still doing the Couch to 5K, also known as the Couch to NEVER.

The boot camp wasn't that bad, other than the fact that I had to run a stadium for 10 minutes and I can't feel my legs.

However it was the aftermath that made me never want to go to boot camp.

It wasn't the smell of my body after rolling around a football turf. (shiver)

It wasn't my shaky jello legs that scared me away from ever going again.

It was my hair.

My hair that looks like somebody stuck my finger in an electric socket.

Which is oddly how my legs feel. Interesting.

I tried straightening it. (my hair not my legs)

I tried curling it.

I tried teasing it to give it some sort of structure other than the look of electrocution.

It wasn't budging.

So here I sit with my nasty hair in a pony tail, looking roooooough, wondering if I will go to boot camp again.

I actually enjoyed getting up early and doing something active, but this nastified hair is about to push me over the edge.

And I'm not even a girly girl, so you know it must be bad!

The next class is Friday morning so we shall see.

Decisions, decisions.

Does anybody else work out in the mornings? What are you secrets for getting ready for work and not having hair that looks like you got struck by lightning?