Weekly Round-Up: May 10-16

1. & 2. Birthday celebration with The Marshell's! 3. $200 Schwinn for $99!

4. & 5. Went to Pop's on the Harley! 6. Ollie wanted to lay with Hank.

7. Mother's day with my beautiful mama! 8. & 9. Hank looks huge.

10. Spent my Saturday night with cross-stitch & Mad Men! 11. Dressed up. 12. Updated my office!

The List: Week 16 - Accomplishments

See the previous week here.

16. What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?

These are things that mean a lot to me & me only.

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1. My marriage.
It's strong & thriving.
Considering that half of everyone we know
seems to already have been divorced by now,
this is apparently a big deal.
Okay, really it's just a great accomplishment
that I found someone that wanted to marry me. :)

2. My job.
I shouldn't be where I am today
but I was lucky & got a head start at the age of 16.
In actuality, it's just an accomplishment
that I wake up each morning & go to work.
You have no idea how hard that is for me.

3. My finances.
They're not perfect.
Everyone can always use more.
But I'm content.
& I'm proud that I'm always working
to get more out of them.
It's hard to have self control with money.
I know that.
& sometimes we fail & we get off track.
But you know...
we have enough control to get right back on
& that is what makes me happy.

4. Right now it's not smoking.
Yes, technically I am still smoking since we have the E-Cigs,
But if you've ever been a smoker,
you know how big of a deal it is to put down cigarettes
& I have
& it feels more amazing then I imagined.

5. Leaving the car business.
Hardest thing I've ever done.
That place was more a part of my soul than I can describe.
& I left it all behind to be a stranger in a new land.
There are 2 reasons why this is a big deal to me.
One. My anxiety that happens when I'm a stranger
usually prohibits me from branching out.
Two. I hate letting people go.
I've lost so many people I love so much
& that is my only regret.

This pretty much sums up every day with Leslie @ Automax

The List: Week 7 - Dream Job

See the previous week here.

7. What is your dream job, and why?

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My hearts desires to be at home with or without kids. I've found that people find that preposterous and lazy that I would choose to be a homemaker without kids. The fact is, I love serving my family. I love knowing that our house could run more smoothly and that our evenings could be spent more peacefully. Would there be days where I'm lazy? Of course there would be. The truth is, when I'm at work I spend half of my day thinking about my home anyway and what I want it to be and what I need to do to get it there. There's one problem. When I get home from work, I don't want to work so those things don't get done.

On the other hand, I am okay with working. I'll do what I need to do to survive. A homemaker is my dream job. It is my "if I could do anything in the world" job. Just as people have their "if you could live anywhere, drive anything, do anything" choices, you don't always get those things. It doesn't mean that you're disappointed and life didn't turn out right. So if I never get to stay home, I'm really okay with that but I pray that one day I will be able to live that dream. One day, my husband will come home to a clean house and dinner on the table.... okay so maybe he'll just come home to a semi-clean house, dinner in the oven and a crying baby... but still. :)

"Peel back our ribs again and stand inside our chest. We just wanna' love you." - John Mark McMillan

The past few weeks have been really tough for me. I feel emotionally and physically drained.
Why? I couldn't tell you. I have been extremely discouraged.


I am tired of being flesh. Of making human mistakes. I want to live righteously. I am sick of stumbling. I am tired of messing up.


Ryan and I were talking last night about finances and what we want and our selfishness and we both came to the conclusion that we think God is trying to teach us about sacrifice. We have lived a coushiony life as a married couple. We haven't had to make sacrifices. Even when Ryan got laid off two years ago for two months we didn't have to give anything up. Here lately, if we want to stay on the right path, we're going to have to give things up. It won't be easy and we might whine at first but I'm thankful for the lesson. One year of sacrifice ahead and I know we can do it.

For a less serious note, and to keep you updated on what we've doing lately, here you go:


We celebrated Jeremy's birthday this past weekend by taking it old school and having a roller skate party at Skate Moore complete with 3 hours of skating, pizza, soda, cookie cake and the Hokie Pokie. How can you go wrong? It was a blast and it was awesome exercise. I can't stop thinking about when we're going to get to go back. Happy Birthday Jeremy. We love you dearly.


Ryan started his new job and it's gone really well. His eyes lit up when he told me all about his first day and it made my heart so happy to see. I've got such a good feeling that he will thrive there and really find his place.


We're addicted to a game called Wahoo and if you've never played it, you are seriously missing out. It calls for 4 people to be able to play and it's a blast. Although the past two nights we've played and I've gone home with what felt like a fever because my blood pressure got so high. Ha! It really makes you anxious and nervous. I can feel my heart pounding towards the end because it's such an intense game. We play with the wonderful Marshell family and we're currently Boys - 10 and Girls - 9... which means we've played 19 games that generally take atleast an hour to play each. Yikes!


Ryan and I thought we were going to have to bite the bullet and buy a second car this week because of his new work schedule. We spent all of last night driving all over Edmond, Del City and South OKC test driving cars. It was frustrating. All in all we fell in love with the first car we drove (a 2010 Jeep Patriot). I even got Ryan to love the burnt orange color but decided we needed to think it over and see more cars before we made a final decision. I am so glad that we did because after we were done seeing all the cars and we were driving home I started to realize how much it would suck to have two car payments, two cars to put gas in, two cars on the insurance, two anual tag renewals and two cars to maintain. We came to the conclusion that although yes we can technically afford it, we don't want to right now. We can deal with sharing a car for one more year until the Cube is paid for. After all, Dave Ramsey taught us better than that. It was hard falling in love with a car we knew we couldn't have though.


My birthday is next Friday and I could care less. Is that weird? It's not a "I don't like birthdays" kind of thing. I just honestly haven't thought about it. There are so much more important things I want to do or care about than turning one year older... Maybe this another step to adulthood? Haha.

"Yahoo! This is your celebration..." - Kool & The Gang

Ryan got a new job and as Jeremy puts it, "Momma's gettin' a new washer!" (I'm not really getting a new washer...although that'd be nice)


I am so excited and proud of him. I just know that this is going to be a great opportunity for our family and I can't wait to see where it goes.


On a worse note, I just filed my taxes and feel extremely depressed... and desperate. It makes me sick to my stomach looking at the balance we owe.

November.

My posts are getting fewer and farther between and I'm sad about it. I feel like I have writer's block.
I don't want this blog to be only about how we spend our days step by step. (We wake up and complain about doing it. We go to work. We come home. We eat dinner. We talk and watch our shows. We go to sleep. Repeat.) I want to look back and see where we've been spiritually, emotionally and physically. I don't know how to capture that and it's frustrating.


Why is it easier to talk about life when life is on the rocks? It reminds me of the question I've heard so much in church my entire life, "Why do you only call on God when you need Him to fix something?" I am extremely guilty of this. When life gets bumpy the "Please God" and the "I'm sorry" comes out. Why is it so hard to say a simple thank you throughout the day? I wish it wasn't. I wish my faith was how it was when I was 10. Pure and naive. No shame. No pride. No fear.


These last few days have been torture for me. I lost someone this weekend that once was extremely dear to me. The only thing that calms my soul is listening to Waterdeep, Phil Wickham, Jason Upton or The Glorious Unseen at a volume that blocks out the universe. One day I'll stop breaking. That's about all I have to say on that matter for everyone to see.


I haven't quit smoking. All you non-smokers like to ask how "smoking" is going as if it's like a favorite childhood toy you just grow out of one day and don't look back. Well, props to you non-smokers for never starting. You were the smart ones. Meanwhile, my dumb-ass is going to sit on my porch and smoke because unlike a childhood toy, I haven't grown out of it. One day, when I really have the will to quit, I will. In other words, when I finally start that family I think about all day, I will quit. Until then, keep 'em coming Marlboro.
(This isn't supposed to be as snarky as it sounds. I mean it when I say props to you.)


It's hard not to blog about your job. But, I don't feel like getting fired one day for someone running across this and taking something I say out of context so I won't do it.


I am a child of the car business. This statement used to do nothing but depress and embarrass me. When people ask where I came from and I say, “Automax” they look at me in shock and say something along the lines of, “How did you get this job then?” with their noses turned up. I suppose the medical field and the car business are polar opposites and it probably does seem weird considering I have no formal education and I don’t shop at Banana Republic. I find great self satisfaction knowing that I can do it. I did do it. I didn't go to college and yet, I did it. I know that I have what it takes to succeed and find stability in a world outside of cars.


With this said I miss knowing that the people I work with are people that love me like family and have my back. I miss being able to tell the people I work with every aspect of my life with complete comfort and zero judgment. I find myself lost here and often wondering if this feeling of being an outsider will ever go away. There is something missing in my life and it’s the craziness known as accounting.. and my best friend Leslie.

In other news, my husband is adorable and I’m obsessed with Instagram and Tilt Shift Generator my iPhone4 because it makes things pretty like this: