It's so hard to believe that it's January 1, 2014. The older I get, the faster time goes. And I know plenty of adults told me that when I was a kid. Now I completely understand. (I'm guessing I've said this before!)
I have to admit, I haven't even started my video for my Year in Review 2013 but hoping to do that this weekend. For now, you're stuck with the mundane details of my life from the past year. I doubt you'll find it all that interesting...or maybe you will. Who knows. But either way, I'm going to write it! And hopefully I'll throw in a few pictures to keep you occupied until I get to the actual video!
I started off 2013 with a goal! After a few very successful months of selling Thirty-One, I had a goal!! And I was determined to reach it. The location and dates of the 2013 National Conference had been announced and I was going to go!! I was going to at least earn the Bronze Level incentive to help pay for that trip. I knew I had to stick with having a few parties a month. I knew I needed to work hard at things and I did! I wanted this!
In February, some friends and I had our first slumber party in years! Well, it was our first slumber party all together. And we were celebrating 3 birthdays in Feb. We had so much fun! Stayed up late playing games! Laughed so much our sides hurt and tears were running down our faces. Who cares how old we all are (I'm the oldest...but quite a few years)?? Girl time is needed!!!
March was full of just as much fun!!! Some other friends and I had a Twilight Marathon! We spent one whole Saturday watching all 4 movies! There were 5 of us and 2 of our friends hadn't seen any of the movies (right, how insane is that??). So it was so much fun to watch their reactions as we moved through the series. I still wish I had recorded their reactions to the last movie. It was so hard to just sit back and watch and let them believe what was happening when we knew what was coming. And their reactions were classic! We had so much that day! I think it's time for another one of those days!
Yep! We even had giant cut-outs! I don't want to ruin all the fun from the Year in Review video (that I'm just sure I'll get done this weekend) but thanks to another friend and some of my own collection, we had a real Twilight party! When I do it, I do it right!
March was also a little nerve-wracking! My boss talked me into taking the spring pictures at our daycare. AHHHH!!! You would think it would be easy. The kids know me! Ha! That's what made it hard! The kids are so used to me that they could care less that I was in front of them with a camera. They're so used to me taking their pictures all of the time that they acted like I wasn't even there most of the time! The older kids were easier but the little ones, wow. I think I only had one or two cry through the whole process. But getting them to acknowledge my existence was quite the challenge! At one point, Christina was jumping behind me and making every face she could think of. We were both exhausted!
March was also my best month with Thirty-One. Woo hoo!!! With the help of my best friend and her AMAZING Thirty-One party, even I was surprised by what I was doing! Just another step in reaching my goal!
I also got to see the Thirty-One Home Office in March and finally meet Melissa, my Thirty-One Director! I was so excited!! I think visiting the Home Office made this adventure with Thirty-One even more real and more personal. It was such a great experience.
April started off with seeing Casting Crowns with Shanda. Oh, do we love that group. I could see them in concert every month for the rest of my life and I don't think it would get old.
I also got to go to Savannah, GA in April with my amazing friend Sarah! Oh my gosh! This was a dream of mine! I've wanted to visit Savannah for years!!! And Sarah and I were finally getting the chance to go. We had such a good time! We stayed at this cute little cottage right in the middle of a neighborhood. The steps inside the cottage were a little steep but otherwise, this place was just adorable! We took tours of the city, enjoyed the beautiful area and had some AMAZING food!!! I hope that it's something we get to do again. It's definitely a vacation I will remember for years to come! I honestly can't imagine a more beautiful place to see.
June was Vacation Bible School at church. I love just going and being able to take the pictures of the kids. The kids have so much fun! And I remember my days in Vacation Bible School. I hope these are memories these kids hold on to for year to come.
July was a little tougher. My mom spent almost a whole week in the hospital. Ugh. I've always known that I'd be younger than the majority of my friends when my parents would start to really age and get sick. My parents were 36 when they had me. And my mom had muscular dystrophy. So this was something I knew would come. But that didn't make it any easier. I'm so thankful for a job where I could go in for a few hours but spend the majority of the time with my mom where I wanted to be. She did come home with all of her tests coming back negative but that didn't make it easier.
I'm also thankful for amazing friends. My mom wasn't out of the hospital long before I was off to Atlanta, GA for the Thirty-One conference and it was good to know that my friends were here checking in on my mom and would have been by her side in a split second.
Yep, this girl hopped in the car and drove down to Atlanta all by herself! The drive wasn't extremely tough or anything. And I like to drive. But I don't usually make trips like that on my own so this was new for me. Plus it was short trip. I drove down on Thurs and was coming back on Sun. But it was totally worth it! What an amazing weekend! I got to meet so many great women from my Director's team! I got to learn so much more about Thirty-One! I got to see Cindy Monroe!!! No, I didn't get a chance to personally meet her that weekend but just to see her on stage was exciting! I had a good time with my roomies too! Which, by the way, I had not met these women before attending the conference. Angels was from my team but I had never met her. And the other two were from other teams. This is a big deal for me. I don't step out of my comfort zone quite like that on my own. But I did! And it was worth it! We laughed! Shared a lot of who we are. It was a great trip!!!
Then there was August! And August was exciting because I had finally bought mom tickets to see Justin Timberlake in concert and we all know how my mom feels about her JT!!! And she was determined to go even though she wasn't 100% yet! And since the concert was in Detroit, we decided to spend a little extra time in Michigan visiting with our friends, The Nagy's. We were supposed to stay with them over the duration of this trip but they surprised us with a hotel room to relax in. And we had a GREAT time at the concert. I'm not a big fan of Jay-Z but just to see the talent JT has in person was awesome! And mom and I WALKED back to our hotel room in Detroit after the concert. It wasn't til we got back to the hotel room when we both said, "We can't believe we just did that!" It wasn't the distance. It was only about one mile. But Detroit isn't know for it's safety, that's for sure! It was so good to spend time with Cathy, Dan and Kristen. Hopefully we do that more often. I know we won't be seeing Justin again any time soon but hopefully we get to go spend time with them more often.
That very same weekend, a bunch of women from our church went to Columbus for the Women of Faith conference. Talk about a good time! We laughed! We praised! We bonded. It was such a good time with an amazing group of women!
I also look forward to September! It's my birthday month! And usually "new phone" month (yeah, I like my electronics). And it's college football season!! GO BUCKS!!! My church hired on a new interim youth pastor. I had known this guy since he was a baby! So I was excited to see him take over in that position. And he asked me to help as one of the leaders. I was excited about that as well! I knew it was going to make my schedule a little more crazy but I was willing to work that out. I celebrated my 1 year anniversary with Thirty-One as well and promoted to Senior Consultant!
I turned 35. I'm not sure how exciting that is! I didn't really do much for my birthday. My best friend surprised me the night before at my church council meeting with a yummy dessert!!! I was supposed to go to Mansfield to my friend Sarah's to spend my birthday and the day after with her and her husband taking some pics of them before their baby was due in Nov. But as I was on my way, my check engine light came on. That's always fun. So I turned around and heading to the car shop. I won't get into what was wrong, but I didn't go to Mansfield. And I spent the evening trying not to worry about how I was going to get everything fixed. My mom did come over that evening and hung up with me. We watched movies and ate junk food! So that helped!
I think October was a little quieter. I was getting my Thirty-One business back on track. Staying busy with work and with youth. And I was figuring out how to get my car fixed! Life could have been much worse though so I'm not complaining about the lack of excitement!
Mom went into the hospital at the very end of October...again. Ugh. But November started off well with the birth of Sarah and Destry's first baby Caralee!!! Let me just say that I HATE they don't live closer. I could just sit and hold that baby girl almost everyday! She's so precious! And I am thankful for the few times I've been able to hold her. I'm hoping that I'll get to do that more often. I don't want to miss too much of that baby girl's life.
The Church of God Ohio State Youth Convention was also at the beginning of November! We had an amazing time! I am a firm believer that teenagers should get time like that away from the normal things and have things presented to them on the level they are at in their lives. Plus I love the chance to bond with them and get to know them more. And that's extremely important this year as the youth group is growing.
November also starts the busiest time of year for most people...at least in my opinion! We had our Thanksgiving Feast at work, Thanksgiving of course, looking forward to the Christmas season, getting end of the year stuff done...my list goes on!!! And we can't forget the Ohio State vs Michigan game (which literally had me on the edge of my seat). It's such a busy time of year but a wonderful time as well!!
December was full of wonderful things. Mom and Dad celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary. Our 4 and 5 year old classes at work got to ring the bell for the Salvation Army. (My small group from youth was also supposed to do it a few days later but the snow ruined that!) We took our kids at work to the Christmas Tree festival. We had our Christmas program as well (and my best friend surprised me by coming). We had our staff Christmas party and I had a small Christmas get together with some friends. Plenty of shopping was thrown in the middle of that, too.
Then there was Christmas! It started with a wonderful Christmas Eve service at church and then we had an amazing Christmas Day. It's just me, mom and dad for Christmas day and we spent the day relaxing! Oh! And I cooked the ENTIRE Christmas dinner. Now, I like to think I can cook. But I don't usually do the ham. And I know, people tell me all of the time how easy it is. But the ham is my mom's thing. She makes the BEST. That's a lot of pressure, people!! But I did it. Now, I made it differently than Mom does. I guess I figured if I did it different, then I'm not treading on holy ground! Guess what??? The ham was soooooo good!!! Everything was but that was what I was most nervous about!
I brought in the new year with a few good friends. And now here we are in 2014. And before I get to a few of my resolutions, I might as well share some exciting news with you!!! OK. Well, I think it's exciting anyway! Most of you who know me, you know that I was adopted. And I think that's part of the reason I've always had this desire to adopt. So I recently decided to apply to be a foster-to-adopt parent!!! I am so excited!! I know this means lots of changes but I am so ready! I know I have a great support system behind me to be there for me through this whole process. And I'm excited that they'll all be a part of this too! Don't worry...I plan to keep you updated on it all!!!
I have made some resolutions for the year. I don't usually make them. Seems silly really. People make all of these resolutions they have no real plan to keep. But I had some things I wanted to do this year...but I didn't want to call them resolutions. So I made some endeavors! I won't share them all with you but I will share a few. I want to read through the whole Bible this year. And I do believe this will be the hardest thing for me to keep up with!!! But three days in and I'm doing well! And I want to stay in the word with reading devotionals and sticking to them. I also want to read one book a month. I love reading. But I often let the silly things in life get in the way of that time. So my goal is to make that time for myself and do something I enjoy so much!! I probably should have put this blog on my endeavor list! But I'm hoping with all of the new things going on in my life, I'll want to come here and talk about it all!
And I picked the world Progress for this year. I want to make progress in so many areas of my life. My day-to-day job, with Thirty-One, with my friends, with my family, with starting my own family...and I could keep going. I challenge you to pick a word for the year. My hope is that the word progress keeps me on a forward path of being the person God intends for me to be.
I pray that you will have a wonderful 2014. I pray that you spend it with the people you love and who love you back. I pray you follow your dreams and that path God has for you. Tomorrow isn't promised to us. Don't wait to do those things you've always wanted to do. Don't want to hug the ones you love. Don't hesitate to say "I love you" when you mean it. Be thankful in everything!!!
I have to admit, I haven't even started my video for my Year in Review 2013 but hoping to do that this weekend. For now, you're stuck with the mundane details of my life from the past year. I doubt you'll find it all that interesting...or maybe you will. Who knows. But either way, I'm going to write it! And hopefully I'll throw in a few pictures to keep you occupied until I get to the actual video!
I started off 2013 with a goal! After a few very successful months of selling Thirty-One, I had a goal!! And I was determined to reach it. The location and dates of the 2013 National Conference had been announced and I was going to go!! I was going to at least earn the Bronze Level incentive to help pay for that trip. I knew I had to stick with having a few parties a month. I knew I needed to work hard at things and I did! I wanted this!
In February, some friends and I had our first slumber party in years! Well, it was our first slumber party all together. And we were celebrating 3 birthdays in Feb. We had so much fun! Stayed up late playing games! Laughed so much our sides hurt and tears were running down our faces. Who cares how old we all are (I'm the oldest...but quite a few years)?? Girl time is needed!!!
March was full of just as much fun!!! Some other friends and I had a Twilight Marathon! We spent one whole Saturday watching all 4 movies! There were 5 of us and 2 of our friends hadn't seen any of the movies (right, how insane is that??). So it was so much fun to watch their reactions as we moved through the series. I still wish I had recorded their reactions to the last movie. It was so hard to just sit back and watch and let them believe what was happening when we knew what was coming. And their reactions were classic! We had so much that day! I think it's time for another one of those days!
These are some of the best women I know!
March was also a little nerve-wracking! My boss talked me into taking the spring pictures at our daycare. AHHHH!!! You would think it would be easy. The kids know me! Ha! That's what made it hard! The kids are so used to me that they could care less that I was in front of them with a camera. They're so used to me taking their pictures all of the time that they acted like I wasn't even there most of the time! The older kids were easier but the little ones, wow. I think I only had one or two cry through the whole process. But getting them to acknowledge my existence was quite the challenge! At one point, Christina was jumping behind me and making every face she could think of. We were both exhausted!
March was also my best month with Thirty-One. Woo hoo!!! With the help of my best friend and her AMAZING Thirty-One party, even I was surprised by what I was doing! Just another step in reaching my goal!
I also got to see the Thirty-One Home Office in March and finally meet Melissa, my Thirty-One Director! I was so excited!! I think visiting the Home Office made this adventure with Thirty-One even more real and more personal. It was such a great experience.
April started off with seeing Casting Crowns with Shanda. Oh, do we love that group. I could see them in concert every month for the rest of my life and I don't think it would get old.
I also got to go to Savannah, GA in April with my amazing friend Sarah! Oh my gosh! This was a dream of mine! I've wanted to visit Savannah for years!!! And Sarah and I were finally getting the chance to go. We had such a good time! We stayed at this cute little cottage right in the middle of a neighborhood. The steps inside the cottage were a little steep but otherwise, this place was just adorable! We took tours of the city, enjoyed the beautiful area and had some AMAZING food!!! I hope that it's something we get to do again. It's definitely a vacation I will remember for years to come! I honestly can't imagine a more beautiful place to see.
And I reached my goal for Thirty-One by the end of April in the time frame we had! Woo hoo!!! I was so excited!!!
My friend JC and I got to start of May be surprising our friend Karen at her college graduation. To see her face...she was speechless!! I'm so glad we got to see her end one chapter of her life and begin another.
My mommy took me to see Sesame Street in May! Don't hate! You know you're jealous! :-) I remember being a kid and wanting to go but it just wasn't something we could afford. I did get to go a few years ago with my best friend's son but this was different. Mom was finally able to take me. And we had fun! That may sound silly to you but we did!! And I'm so glad that I have another memory like that with my mom!
July was a little tougher. My mom spent almost a whole week in the hospital. Ugh. I've always known that I'd be younger than the majority of my friends when my parents would start to really age and get sick. My parents were 36 when they had me. And my mom had muscular dystrophy. So this was something I knew would come. But that didn't make it any easier. I'm so thankful for a job where I could go in for a few hours but spend the majority of the time with my mom where I wanted to be. She did come home with all of her tests coming back negative but that didn't make it easier.
I'm also thankful for amazing friends. My mom wasn't out of the hospital long before I was off to Atlanta, GA for the Thirty-One conference and it was good to know that my friends were here checking in on my mom and would have been by her side in a split second.
Yep, this girl hopped in the car and drove down to Atlanta all by herself! The drive wasn't extremely tough or anything. And I like to drive. But I don't usually make trips like that on my own so this was new for me. Plus it was short trip. I drove down on Thurs and was coming back on Sun. But it was totally worth it! What an amazing weekend! I got to meet so many great women from my Director's team! I got to learn so much more about Thirty-One! I got to see Cindy Monroe!!! No, I didn't get a chance to personally meet her that weekend but just to see her on stage was exciting! I had a good time with my roomies too! Which, by the way, I had not met these women before attending the conference. Angels was from my team but I had never met her. And the other two were from other teams. This is a big deal for me. I don't step out of my comfort zone quite like that on my own. But I did! And it was worth it! We laughed! Shared a lot of who we are. It was a great trip!!!
Then there was August! And August was exciting because I had finally bought mom tickets to see Justin Timberlake in concert and we all know how my mom feels about her JT!!! And she was determined to go even though she wasn't 100% yet! And since the concert was in Detroit, we decided to spend a little extra time in Michigan visiting with our friends, The Nagy's. We were supposed to stay with them over the duration of this trip but they surprised us with a hotel room to relax in. And we had a GREAT time at the concert. I'm not a big fan of Jay-Z but just to see the talent JT has in person was awesome! And mom and I WALKED back to our hotel room in Detroit after the concert. It wasn't til we got back to the hotel room when we both said, "We can't believe we just did that!" It wasn't the distance. It was only about one mile. But Detroit isn't know for it's safety, that's for sure! It was so good to spend time with Cathy, Dan and Kristen. Hopefully we do that more often. I know we won't be seeing Justin again any time soon but hopefully we get to go spend time with them more often.
That very same weekend, a bunch of women from our church went to Columbus for the Women of Faith conference. Talk about a good time! We laughed! We praised! We bonded. It was such a good time with an amazing group of women!
I also look forward to September! It's my birthday month! And usually "new phone" month (yeah, I like my electronics). And it's college football season!! GO BUCKS!!! My church hired on a new interim youth pastor. I had known this guy since he was a baby! So I was excited to see him take over in that position. And he asked me to help as one of the leaders. I was excited about that as well! I knew it was going to make my schedule a little more crazy but I was willing to work that out. I celebrated my 1 year anniversary with Thirty-One as well and promoted to Senior Consultant!
I turned 35. I'm not sure how exciting that is! I didn't really do much for my birthday. My best friend surprised me the night before at my church council meeting with a yummy dessert!!! I was supposed to go to Mansfield to my friend Sarah's to spend my birthday and the day after with her and her husband taking some pics of them before their baby was due in Nov. But as I was on my way, my check engine light came on. That's always fun. So I turned around and heading to the car shop. I won't get into what was wrong, but I didn't go to Mansfield. And I spent the evening trying not to worry about how I was going to get everything fixed. My mom did come over that evening and hung up with me. We watched movies and ate junk food! So that helped!
I think October was a little quieter. I was getting my Thirty-One business back on track. Staying busy with work and with youth. And I was figuring out how to get my car fixed! Life could have been much worse though so I'm not complaining about the lack of excitement!
Mom went into the hospital at the very end of October...again. Ugh. But November started off well with the birth of Sarah and Destry's first baby Caralee!!! Let me just say that I HATE they don't live closer. I could just sit and hold that baby girl almost everyday! She's so precious! And I am thankful for the few times I've been able to hold her. I'm hoping that I'll get to do that more often. I don't want to miss too much of that baby girl's life.
The Church of God Ohio State Youth Convention was also at the beginning of November! We had an amazing time! I am a firm believer that teenagers should get time like that away from the normal things and have things presented to them on the level they are at in their lives. Plus I love the chance to bond with them and get to know them more. And that's extremely important this year as the youth group is growing.
November also starts the busiest time of year for most people...at least in my opinion! We had our Thanksgiving Feast at work, Thanksgiving of course, looking forward to the Christmas season, getting end of the year stuff done...my list goes on!!! And we can't forget the Ohio State vs Michigan game (which literally had me on the edge of my seat). It's such a busy time of year but a wonderful time as well!!
December was full of wonderful things. Mom and Dad celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary. Our 4 and 5 year old classes at work got to ring the bell for the Salvation Army. (My small group from youth was also supposed to do it a few days later but the snow ruined that!) We took our kids at work to the Christmas Tree festival. We had our Christmas program as well (and my best friend surprised me by coming). We had our staff Christmas party and I had a small Christmas get together with some friends. Plenty of shopping was thrown in the middle of that, too.
Then there was Christmas! It started with a wonderful Christmas Eve service at church and then we had an amazing Christmas Day. It's just me, mom and dad for Christmas day and we spent the day relaxing! Oh! And I cooked the ENTIRE Christmas dinner. Now, I like to think I can cook. But I don't usually do the ham. And I know, people tell me all of the time how easy it is. But the ham is my mom's thing. She makes the BEST. That's a lot of pressure, people!! But I did it. Now, I made it differently than Mom does. I guess I figured if I did it different, then I'm not treading on holy ground! Guess what??? The ham was soooooo good!!! Everything was but that was what I was most nervous about!
I brought in the new year with a few good friends. And now here we are in 2014. And before I get to a few of my resolutions, I might as well share some exciting news with you!!! OK. Well, I think it's exciting anyway! Most of you who know me, you know that I was adopted. And I think that's part of the reason I've always had this desire to adopt. So I recently decided to apply to be a foster-to-adopt parent!!! I am so excited!! I know this means lots of changes but I am so ready! I know I have a great support system behind me to be there for me through this whole process. And I'm excited that they'll all be a part of this too! Don't worry...I plan to keep you updated on it all!!!
I have made some resolutions for the year. I don't usually make them. Seems silly really. People make all of these resolutions they have no real plan to keep. But I had some things I wanted to do this year...but I didn't want to call them resolutions. So I made some endeavors! I won't share them all with you but I will share a few. I want to read through the whole Bible this year. And I do believe this will be the hardest thing for me to keep up with!!! But three days in and I'm doing well! And I want to stay in the word with reading devotionals and sticking to them. I also want to read one book a month. I love reading. But I often let the silly things in life get in the way of that time. So my goal is to make that time for myself and do something I enjoy so much!! I probably should have put this blog on my endeavor list! But I'm hoping with all of the new things going on in my life, I'll want to come here and talk about it all!
And I picked the world Progress for this year. I want to make progress in so many areas of my life. My day-to-day job, with Thirty-One, with my friends, with my family, with starting my own family...and I could keep going. I challenge you to pick a word for the year. My hope is that the word progress keeps me on a forward path of being the person God intends for me to be.
I pray that you will have a wonderful 2014. I pray that you spend it with the people you love and who love you back. I pray you follow your dreams and that path God has for you. Tomorrow isn't promised to us. Don't wait to do those things you've always wanted to do. Don't want to hug the ones you love. Don't hesitate to say "I love you" when you mean it. Be thankful in everything!!!
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