Don't Forget To Turn The Light On

Today's post was inspired by something that I posted on my personal Facebook page (Please, feel free to send me a friend request) last night. 

It might sound kind of silly to say that something you said about yourself inspired you, but honestly, it happens to me all the time. I am a thinker. I think everything to death. So after I put something on the internet, I read it a lot. I think about what I said, why I said it, and what it means to me. I won't lie though, sometimes I also giggle a little bit over what I say. I think I'm hilarious. 

But anyway, I'll try no to climb the whole mountain before I get to the point of the this post.

This particular post earned 29 likes (come on people! You couldn't give me 30?!) and a couple of comments. Lately, my facebook has been pretty active. Ever since I discovered twitter, I've sort of been neglecting Facebook, but I decided to split my attention a little bit. Ugh, I'm sorry, I'm hiking up the mountain again. 

My post said the following:

"Last winter, I was recovering from a surgery, tired of it being dark and cold, depressed that the person I loved was far away, and felt completely hopeless. Today, I have embraced this cold weather, I even sat in my car in which the heat does not work in 12 degree weather to finish listening to a song and I wasn't bothered. I am beyond recovered from my injury. I'm not terrified that a relationship is going to fall apart and I'm two weeks from fulfilling a major dream. Things seem pretty dark at times, but I think that I probably just forgot to turn the light on.."

I'm not sure what spurred the thought, I suppose I was simply reflecting, like I often do, on my situation and thinking about if I was happy or not with the way that things were going.

This is what I came up with:

Yesterday, I went out to lunch alone. I don't work on Tuesdays, but everyone else does...

But instead of being all depressed about it, I gathered together my multiple Cafe Rio card and ended up with a free meal! 

When I came out of Cafe Rio, I jumped in my car and drove away. Well, I didn't get very far because I had a flat tire. Of course, I was wearing dress so even if I did have a tire iron in the car, I couldn't change it myself. I had to call my daddy to come and rescue me.


Instead of letting that ruin my day, I took note that my daddy was wearing the hat I got him for Christmas, and he has been ever since.

I spent the day hanging out with my dad by accident. I guess that's pretty okay with me.

Then later, we went over to my sister's new place. As I've mentioned before, my big sister is pregnant. I'm going to be gone when she has the baby, so I'm putting together her baby shower for this weekend. Well, she just barely moved into this house and we've got to get it ready for a whole bunch of guest by Saturday. The first thing that we had to do, was get her new (well new to her) sectional down the stairs and into her family room...Well it was too big to fit, so my dad busted it up into pieces and he's working on putting it back together by Saturday...

It's sort of stressing me out. But we got to go over to her new place and have dinner.

Ever wonder how you check to see if the spaghetti noodles are done yet? You throw one at the fridge. Totally works, I swear. 

Then, my sisters and I watched one of our all time favorites, The Master of Disguise. Well, we made it through most of it before we fell asleep.  I guess in our old age we can't stay up late anymore...

My mom snapped this picture of us before she woke us up to brave the tundra outside to go home.  I'm really going to miss my sissies when I go...

So...Now you're like. Hmm...what the heck does this have to do with turning on the light. Well, today was not the best day ever. It was inconvenient to get a flat, but let's face it, flat tires are never convenient.  I had to eat lunch alone, but it was free!  And because I can't drive my car, I get to carpool with my dad. My van has heat! 

Basically, what I'm getting at, is that although there are something that happen throughout your day and throughout your life that don't seem to go as planned, things that simply just don't work out, sometimes, you just have to turn the light on. Watch the Master of Disguise and forget about the darkness. 

And while you're at it, enter this great giveaway I'm running until the first week in February! Win a free medium silver locket from Origami Owl.  Check out Tina's design Facebook page. Like it for your first entry and head over here to enter!

Excuses, excuses...

Over and over again, I say that there is no way to predict what is going to happen next in your life, yet I am always extremely surprised at what I find around the corner. But lately, it's good stuff :D

I'm kind of afraid to talk about what is going on right now...I don't want to jinx it. But when/if everything that I'm hoping for works out, the blog will hear about it, that is for sure.

After my consult tomorrow, I will lay down a post that will blow your mind with how awesome it is, but right now, I can't keep my mind in one place long enough to write something that feels worth it. So, until tomorrow!

To-Do

I love lists. I write lists at work all day long.

I write them about all kinds of things such as things to do before I do, what I want to buy at the store later on, things I think will make my life easier, stuff I learn on Pinterest, and so on and so forth.

Today when I woke up, I wrote myself a to-do list. It looked like this:

1. Start  wash.
2. Water the Garden.
3. Go to the gym (I had to write it on the list, or else I wouldn't have gone.)
4. Change over laundry
    (Start new load)
5. Take out trash
6. Empty dishwsher
7. Clean room
8. Clean living room
9. Do something about the cross stitch sitch.
10. Put cars on KSL
11. Make DI pile of clothes
12. Do something pointless like watch Dawson's Creek or Gossip Girl.

It ended up looking like this:

1. Start Wash
2. Water the garden.
3. Go to the gym
4. Change over laundry.
    (start new load)
5. Take out Trash
6. Empty dishwasher
7. Reload dishwasher
8. Clean room
9. Change over laundry
    (Start new load)
10. Do something about the cross stitch sitch.
11. Foood!
12. Restore the fish take to it's former glory (That thing was in some serious need of some TLC)
13. Put away laundry
14. replenish towel supply
15. Clean the kitchen
16. Clean the living room
17. Vacuum the hallway
18. Mow & water the lawn
19. Finish cross stitch (really not part of the plan, but I saw it sitting there and I was on such a roll.)
20. Change over the laundry
     (start a new load)
21. Put away all my clothes
22. Put the cars on KSL
23. eat some popcorn and blog about how much work I did today.


I'm honestly not sure that I have every done so much laundry in my life...I could tell you about all the crazy stuff I ran into while doing all this stuff, but frankly, I'm so tired I don't even know how I'm still typing...but I feel like this day did not go to waste and I certainly did an good job making my house look nice.  I don't know that I still love lists like I did yesterday.

I shoulda been a farmer...or at least a fence builder

So, my garden is complete. I have been working my butt off out there for days under the hot sun and it is now planted and I'm so excited to watch it grow...(hopefully!) 

My garden has been a figment of my imagination for quite some time now. At work the other day, I drew plans for about 79 different gardens I knew I would never have (however, I did discover that I have quite a knack for drawing 3D plans.) Ieally, I would have made three different raised beds and it would have been so adorable and it was going to yield beautiful fruits and vegetables that I would be very proud of. Currently, my garden is nothing that I planned, but I couldn't be happier.

I made cute little signs out of random wood and some old nails I knew no one would ever use and strung together a bunch of wire fence pieces that I found. I love that I can just take what I have and make it work. (case and point, hoe/machete...)

Today I drove two fence posts with a driver that weighs 20 lbs. Let me tell you, if you have some pent up anger or some type of issue in your life and you need a physical outlet, driving a fence post will make you feel real good.

I planted the herbs in the adorable washtubs. Don't they look pretty?

And of course, it's necessary to make a sign that says "Herbs" just in case you forget...

Here is my lovely finished product. Looks pretty good to me! Now lets say a little prayer that it doesn't get eaten by snails... 

What I Learend At Work Today [Week 3]

I learned a lot of things today.

I did some cross stitching and I read some blogs of other people who are in my similar situation. They are married to, or are in realtionships with men in the military. Each one of them seem to have different struggles. Sometimes it's that they are raising a child alone. Sometimes they are surviving a deployment. Other times, they are just dealing with the every day struggles of loving a man in the military.

Well, I think that I learned something from these ladies, is that this is not as good as it gets. I read all their stories of how much fun they have in exciting new places and I see how wonderful  (and have felt how wonderful) it is when you see your man for the first time in so long. I learned that I need to try and see the bright side of my situation. I'm not alone in this and I have a whole lot to look forward to. I need to be more excited about it and less anxious.

I also read something that was...kind of strange. I saw something on Pinterest that was about "Fitspiration" I had never heard that word before Beauty Redefined told me about it. Basically, it's all those picutres you see on FB, Twitter (I don't tweet, but that's what the article was saying...so I guess I believe it.) and Pinterest that have a photograph of a very fit person with something "motivational" next to it such as "No matter how slow you are going, you are still lapping everyone on the couch".  They likend it to "thinspo" (the stuff that promotes eating disorders) and made is sound bad...This article was basically saying that we shouldn't be encouraging these types of Pins, tweets, etc. because they promote negative body image towards oneself. It makes you think that one body type is better than the other or even one type is "correct" when put next to another.

Personally, I like those motivational pictures. I don't really pin a whole lot of them. I have a few but they aren't exactly like the ones that are being described, but I feel like this article only saw one thing in these pictures:  The "perfect" bodies of the women. It's like they ignored the fact that the things that the little quotes say are not negative things most of the time. They are just trying to say, Hey, get up off the couch and do something active. It's good for you. The people that take that as "my body is not acceptable" should take a second look. Becase it's not about having a body that is right or the best, it's about feeling good about the way you look. And If you aren't happy about it, do something about it.

But of course, that is only my opinion...What do you think about "fitspiration"? Is it motivational, or does it make you feel bad about yourself?

I learned something else today, but it's really boring. I heard something on the radio this morning about it being the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 this year and I realized I couldn't remember what it was about. Well, in case you were wondering, I found out that the war of 1812 began becasue Great Britain didn't want Napolean's France to trade with anyone so they started trying to regulate the trade from other countries including the US. The US having only just gained independence and not wanting to be threatened by the "Mother Country" began to defend themselves. They fought many battles that eventually ended with the Treaty of Ghent (Modern Belgium) that settled their issues and ended the war. Unfortunately, news of the Treaty didn't travel fast and another battle began against Andrew Jacksons' soldiers. They won their battle and it boosted U.S. Morale and was really a good thing for the US. So Cool. 200th anniversary of a pivitol war that no one knows anything about!  To learn more, I got my info from History.com. It's

And that! Is what I learned at work today.