NEWS!

So. First of all. Let me say that I am HORRIBLE at doing hair - especially my own. But I did manage a decent messy bun up-do thingy that I was pretty proud of the other day for a first try. And I took a picture. I'm trying to be more adventurous with my hair and I'm slowly getting better with practice! But so far, all I can manage is pigtails, braids, and whatever you want to call this crazy mess.

And second. We have BIG news!  Those of you who are close to us already know, but for those who aren't - we are moving. AGAIN! Just to the other side of Charlotte this time - nothing too crazy. We're leaving Lake Wylie and heading up farther north. But nonetheless, it has been super crazy and super exciting.

We ended up having to move because of work, so we were going to have to break our lease four months into it. Which was going to mean a TON of crazy fees on top of moving costs. But after lots of prayer and consideration, God came through to take care of us. As He always does! A man who lives in our building had put in his notice to leave, but at the last minute ended up having to stay. When he went to the office to re-sign his lease, he found out they had already rented out his apartment so he had nowhere to go. So he had been working with the office to find a place in our building he could move to for a few more months.

At the EXACT SAME TIME, Nate approached the leasing office to see if we could find someone to take over our lease so we wouldn't have to pay all of the breaking fees. And in God's perfect timing, we all got together and now we had somebody to take over our lease and he had somewhere to live! The only catch to this was that we found out on Saturday that we had to be out of our apartment and have it completely cleaned by the 26th. Which meant we had FOURTEEN DAYS to get our lease switched out of our name, find a house to rent, get our application approved, pack everything up, move in, and then get our old apartment cleaned out.

And on top of all this, I have been going to job interviews like it's my, well, job.

Basically, life has been CRAZY.

But God is in control. And He is good. He is oh, so good. And even though things are very uncertain right now, they're starting to come together pretty nicely.

Have you ever had to do anything crazy like find a house and move in two weeks? What's your story?

i've got the power.

My inspiration for the day, or the week, or for whenever.
I've needed to keep telling myself this a lot lately. Thought I'd share.

(source)

PS. Anyone have this song stuck in their head now? Because I sure do.

wholly strange and new.

Day sixteen. Can't believe I'm over halfway through this and I haven't slacked off yet.

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can you remember a moment in your life when you had life in yourself and it was wholly strange and new? Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own?

Write about that moment. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, let the miracle play out in your mind’s eye and write about that moment in your future.

(Author: Bridget Pilloud)

I think my life has been full of a lot of little moments like this. Times when I have chosen to do what is right for me, no matter what everyone else might think. There were the times in college when I made the decision not to go out every night with my roommates. There was the point where Nate and I sat down and made it a point to pay off all our debt and live a financially responsible lifestyle.

But one particular time stands out to me more than the others, because it was a turning point for me in multiple areas of my life.

I had gone off to school for my freshman year of college and had a lot of difficulty adjusting (for a number of reasons which I will not go into now because I could probably write a book on the subject). And after a semester and about a month, I ended up moving back home. My parents and I sat down together and worked out a plan for me to follow, which included me taking the rest of the semester and the summer off to work full time, going to the local tech school in the fall, and then seeing how much progress I had made at that point.

I had a life up at school. I had friends, a church, a boyfriend who I was still seeing long-distance. I had every intention of doing what my parents wanted (no more, no less) and then moving right back up to school.

But then things started to change. Once I was back home, I started to get involved in a church. I met Nate. And I started to see my life up at this other school in a different light. Up there, I was stuck in a rut. I had issues I had to work through, and the environment I was in up there - the people and things around me - were not supportive of my working through those issues.

I remember the night like it was yesterday. Making the decision to stay at home final. It didn't magically solve all of my problems. That took quite a few years. Honestly, I'm still working through a lot. But that moment was the turning point in my life when I decided that I was going to start doing what was best for me, no matter what the world thought I needed to be doing. The path has not been a clear cut, straight, or even a flat one by any means. I've fallen down and sometimes I haven't thought I'd have the strength to get back up. Sometimes I haven't had the strength to get back up, and it's only been with the help of wonderful people like my husband or by the grace of God. And sometimes I've climbed and climbed up giant hills only to get to the top and run freely down the other side with the breeze in my hair.

But I have made it. And it's my path. And that feels pretty good. :)

our little bean needs help!

Friends, meet Chloe.

She is our youngest puppy. She's a lovable, playful, energetic, joyful, amazing shih-tzu who will be TWO YEARS in August. Chloe is the life of the party and she doesn't meet a stranger. She isn't really scared of anything, either. She'll even fight the vacuum cleaner. 

Until recently.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a HORRIBLE storm here and something happened to Chloe. She's experienced quite a few storms in her lifetime and has even played outside in the rain without any issues. But for some reason, this one storm really bothered her. And she had a really bad panic attack. Here's some video of part of it.

It all started when I got out of the shower that night. I went in the bedroom to change and when I walked out, I found her crouched in between the toilet and the shower violently shaking. I called her to come into the bedroom with me and she ran into the corner in between the bed and the wall and hunched over. When I walked over to her to try and comfort her, she started frantically running around the room in circles, and after much comforting by both Nate and myself, she resorted to what looked to me like pacing all over the apartment.

And now, ever since that storm, she starts to have these anxiety attacks every time she hears thunder. We've been putting her in her crate or holding her really close to us to help her feel safe, but I'm still not convinced it's really working. Any other ideas on what to do? Or do y'all think we're doing the right things?

fear.

trust30.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

(Author: Lachlan Cotter)

I guess the obvious answer to all of these questions is no. It's not worth giving up my dreams, love, and joy because I'm holding on to insecurities. And boy, do I ever hold on to insecurities. I am the queen of insecurity.

Mistakes I make now most likely won't matter down the road. At least in the negative sense. As long as I don't let them. It's up to me to decide how I let my mistakes shape my future. I can choose to let them bring me down or I can choose to learn from them and let them drive my personal growth.

It's entirely my choice whether I let those times I screw up feed into my insecurity or I turn them into learning experiences that help me move toward my goals in life. And I'm working very hard to choose the latter. I don't always make the right decision, but it gets easier as I grow as a person and get closer to my goals.

I think it's really hard to be truly happy if you aren't fully being yourself. There's a discontent that comes along with not living up to your full potential. Until you can begin facing your insecurities and start pushing yourself forward in spite of then, I'm not sure that happiness can really be achieved.

What do y'all think? I feel like this could go quite a few different ways...

divine idea.

officially on day eleven of the challenge.

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

(Author: Fabian Kruse)

I don't know that I necessarily have the tendency to imitate others. I think my tendency is more to blend in. If I see that I am different than whoever I am around in some way, I start to automatically tone down that part of my personality. I don't like to stand out and be different. It scares the living daylights out of me. So instead of letting things about myself that people might actually like shine through, I dim the lights until I'm at a brightness where I just fit in with everyone else. 

I think this tends to stifle my growth and my potential as an individual. Actually, let me take that back. I KNOW it does. It's something I'm working extremely hard on. I have a quote on my Facebook that I have to read daily, sometimes more than once a day, that I'd like to share with y'all because it helps serve as a reminder that I should never be ashamed of who I am or try to hide who I am.

“Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘who am I to be so brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God: Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson

I don't know that there is one specific area of my life in which I tend to hide my unique self. I think I pretty much do this across the board.

I would say that my goal is to continue to step out of my comfort zone professionally, spiritually and artistically. And now that I have addressed this prompt I'm definitely going to look at how I can do that more specifically.

Gah. These prompts aren't easy. It's more difficult than I thought it would be to think through these topics and then put my thoughts out there.

Thoughts?

afraid to do.

Check out the trust30 project here.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.

I'm a perfectionist. At everything in life. So I think the scariest thing for me to write about is failure. The 'what ifs?' What if I screw this up? What if I don't succeed at something? What if I don't get it right the first time? What if someone doesn't like me? What if I don't meet my goal? The list could go on forever. And believe me, in my mind, it does.

I think I avoid writing about all of these fears because it makes them that much more real to me. If they're out there on paper or on the internet, the possibility of them coming true is even stronger.

Rationally, I know it's crazy. And rationally, I think writing about it actually helps on some level. Even though it scares the crap out of me. Because it forces me to face whatever I'm afraid of and it forces me to think about it on another level. And it helps me to see that facing my fears head on might not be quite as bad as I think it is. Possibly.

So. There it is.

What are you afraid to put out there?