T.G.I.F.

O.M.G.

Life is crazy.

12+ hour work days. 1 month old baby. Church. Family. Friends. Fur Babies.
I feel absolutely drained. It has been a hard work week. I have five huge events for work each year; two of those are in the next month. Insane amounts of planning go in to these events and hundreds of volunteers put countless hours of blood, sweat and tears in to each event. I LOVE working with these people. They are so passionate about our cause (I'm not sure I've really said what I do before, but I work for a non-profit responsible for raising money that funds cancer research) and I love sharing my passion for it with them.
As much as I love these people, and the cause, it is sometimes so hard to not be completely discouraged when every single day you deal with absolutely insane, demanding, rude, completely insensitive people.
And trust me, for every amazing volunteer and co-worker I have, I also have one that makes me want to pull my hair out, take up drinking and possibly move to a cave in the mountains and shut myself off from any chance of receiving 41 emails from one person in one afternoon, ON THE WEEKEND. Yes, this happened. No I did not answer any of them then, and still haven't weeks later. Don't be ridiculous and I might consider replying. Enough said.
So, even though it is not technically the weekend yet, I am so thankful this work week is almost over! I'm going to spend this
glorious Friday chatting up sponsors and presenting to the lovelies in Kiwanis, and this is going to be the most relaxing day of my week thus far.

Hope you pretties have an amazing Friday and enjoy the heck out of your weekend!!!

Happy One Month

A day late, but this post is dedicated to the sweetest little guy I know turning 1 month old!!

I am so thankful that I was able to start this chapter of my life with this precious baby boy. Fostering has changed my life in the two short weeks that I have had Baby Boy in ways that I can't explain, so I won't even try. 

I just hope and pray that Baby Boy continues to grow in to a healthy little boy that knows how much he is loved by my family and I, but also his Momma and Daddy. M & D got to visit with Baby Boy for the first time in over three weeks today and while I was extremely unsure about it all, I was oh so relieved to get to meet them and see so much love in their eyes when they looked at their little miracle. M & D definitely need prayers and encouragement and I hope that I am able to help them along this journey as we work together to raise this most handsome gift!

So, HAPPY 1 MONTH BIRTHDAY BABY BOY!!! Love and hugs!

Cuddle time is the best time!!

Just Call Me Nancy

Ok, so I'm definitely not all about ruining someones day but I feel like if you read the rest of this post that is exactly what will happen, so *READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*.

I am not naturally a sad, depressed, angry, bitter, desperate for change type of person. However, that is exactly what I have become in the last year and a half at my current job. Things were really rough from the beginning because of previous actions. I was completely naive, though, and thought that I would be the positive change this area needed. Boy was I wrong! I honestly feel like it does not matter how positive, encouraging and uplifting I was and still try to be for the people I work with, they are just naturally angry, cranky, down-trodden people!

I know that sounds horrible, but I am honestly at a loss right now. I have never let other peoples actions and attitudes affect me, maybe because I typically stay away from people who are negative, but with me being forced to deal with this kind of crazy EVERY FREAKING DAY I find myself acting more and more like them!

My poor family and friends have to deal with the overly emotional freak that I have become. Like, I cry just as much as one of my pregnant best friends. Like, we are having scheduled pity parties because we hate our lives. This CANNOT be NORMAL!

So basically I am ranting here for a couple of reasons... 1. my friends and family are tired of my sob story 2. I'm feeling super frustrated right now and just need to let it out and 3. I need prayers!

Now, please enjoy the following display of "ugly cries" that represent my life as of now...

You know you want to Google search "Ugly Cry" now!!

i'm back.

Life has been so crazy busy, I just had two seconds to sit down and realized that I have not blogged in like a month. A MONTH. How did that happen!?

Things have been so uber stressful with my job lately. I'm so not happy doing what I'm doing and I really feel like I should be doing other things BUT until those opportunities present themselves I have these little demonic things called bills that keep me locked up tight in this torture chamber called work. (And that was officially the longest sentence ever...my apologies.)

So, enough with the sad, depressing, makes me want to cry stuff.

In other news, in the last month my home was officially opened by DHS to allow me to foster kiddos! This still blows my mind, mostly because I'm a single 23 yr old girl that has no kids of my own, yet they trust me to love on these sweet babies. In the beginning I was only doing the classes and working to get my home opened to take in a sibling group in my community that had been split up. They have since returned home so I had decided to not take in any kids right now BUT I got a call about two weeks ago asking if I could take a sweet two week old baby boy. How can you say no to a gorgeous itty bitty?! Well, I couldn't, so now I'm "fomma" (my mothers creation.. foster + momma = fomma...don't ask) to the most cuddly, adorable, now three week old baby boy! I've had him for a week and a day and I can't even begin to explain how things have already changed for me, not just the obvious, but mentally and emotionally, things change so fast!

Keep this sweet baby and his bio family in your prayers, and remember me and my family also. It is so hard not to get attached, and I would be lying if I said this sweet little guy didn't already have me completely wrapped around his little finger!

We took Roxy and Baby Boy to the daffodil farm at Wye Mountain yesterday afternoon. Roxy loved it as usual (we have taken her every year for Easter pictures!) and Little Man was too sleepy to care. lol. (I would love to share pictures of him but since he is in DHS custody I can't post any. :( He's super cute though, you'll have to take my word for it!)

today i am THANKFUL

Thankful.

That is all I can say right now. 

It has just been one of those days that I literally just want to jump up and down and do my happy dance. My job has not been so great lately, but the last week has been fabulous. On top of that I get to spend the next three days with some of my co-workers that are more like family.

AND even better than all of that, I finally feel like doors are opening for certain things in my life. I have been praying and researching a couple of different things that could really change my future and today I had my first meeting that is leading me in, what I feel, is the right direction. Luckily, my mom also has great connections so that helps a lot too. :)

I know we are called to praise God even on our bad days, and I truly try my best, but days like today make it SO easy. I am so thankful and so excited to see where things go!! It is amazing where God leads you when you simply give turn things over to Him!

It's Go Time!!

So, with 205 days and 17 hours until I set sail for Mexico and my 24th Birthday, I have decided it is really time to buckle down and make this healthy living thing a bigger part of my life. I started back to the gym in early December, and I've lost a little weight, but I'll just be completely honest. I am large and in charge. A little weight is good, but I need to lose A LOT of weight. I always have been bigger and quite frankly, I'm over it.

I've got the working out down, but the whole prepping meals and eating regularly has been difficult. I'm on the road a lot for work so eating breakfast and then eating every 3ish hours has been hard. BUT tonight I FINALLY sat down and planned out my meal plan for the entire next week AND I went grocery shopping! The hard part is done!!

So, now that that is all out in the open, this will be my place to be held accountable! I can do this!!

Ya see! I bought groceries!!!

My new favorite thing! Kale chips! Yummo!

its kinda cold.

I feel like the movie Frozen threw up all over Arkansas over the last week. Thank God it has slowly...and I mean VERY slowly melted away, but for a few days it was absolutely miserable around here. I was without electricity for three days. THREE DAYS! I mean, I'm pretty good at roughing it, but three days in below freezing weather was intense. We had an abundance of ice (the pictures here are after the ice had been melting away for a few days) so leaving the house was virtually impossible. After weather reports that we could possibly get up to 10 inches of snow yesterday into this morning, we woke up with no snow but rather a beautiful glimpse at the sun. I hadn't seen it in so long I might have done a happy dance!

One very positive thing about being stuck inside (on the days that I did have electricity) is that I was able to officially plan my 24th birthday cruise! This year I will be spending my birthday in Mexico!! I absolutely cannot wait...and thoughts of the warm beach makes these horribly cold days a little more tolerable! (Let me go ahead and start the count down...206 days and 16 hours until sailing!)

I'm puppy sitting for a friend right now so my sweet Maylie had a cuddle buddy!

After we could get out and about I had to go visit my grandparents. Their home is absolutely beautiful in the snow!