Today is the day!

Bootcamp starts today!  This is how I feel about it.....

Apparently we have to do a shuttle run?!?!  Didn't I do that in elementary school?  I practiced last night, so we will see how it goes. 

Want to know what I'm dreading the most about bootcamp?  (Ok, maybe not the most, but it's pretty high on the list-and the list is pretty long!)  Sometimes they post pics on the official "Bodyshock Bootcamp"  facebook page to promote bootcamp.   I'm pretty sure a picture of me during class isn't what they need to get more people to attend. 

I honestly don't think it's going to be as bad as it is in my head, but I want to expect the worst so that I might be a little relieved when I get there and it isn't some kind of new torture technique they might consider using in prison.

These are the ladies that will be attending with me:

Jecca and Kourtney

Cristi (This is a pic of her and her husband-which she likes to call him her "Italian Stallion."  Haha!  She's going to kill me!)

and April

I have a lot of fun with these girls, and I'm hoping I don't get the giggles during class!

And here are some pics of my weekend....

Friday night a few girls got together and went to dinner and then came back over to our house for cupcakes and a movie.

Maggie brought these.  It's reasons like this I need bootcamp in the first place.  So thank you Maggie :)

We also built a fire in our fire pit.  It was a very last minute decision so all we had for fire wood was our Christmas tree that is still sitting behind our house and a phonebook.  Not really the best idea I've ever had.  We had a big flame but there was so much smoke you really couldn't get near the fire.  My plan was to sit by the fire, drink coffee, and eat our cupcakes.  Unfortunetly, between the smoke and the fact that I just can't figure out how to make good coffee, that didn't really happen.

We gave it a good attempt

I saw a cute wreath on another blog that I really liked.  I tweeked it a little and here is the finished project.

Hope everyone is having a Happy Monday!  I actually look forward to Mondays now because I really enjoy starting a new week.

Superficial Post

This may be a post that not many people really care about, but I know I've talked to some of you about make-up in the past so I thought I would just share.

I've recently made the switch to bareMinerals make-up.  And by recently, I mean last weekend.  Several friends wear it so I thought I would give it a try.  For the past year I have been wearing M.A.C.-which I love, but I was ready for something new.

Incase any of you are considering it, here are my thoughts so far:

1.  It is way better coverage than I thought it would be.

2.  It last longer than I thought it would. (As far as staying on all day)

3. It takes several days to get used to.  At first I didn't think I was going to like it, but I'm starting to become a fan.

4.  I'm curious how often I will have to buy it.  I don't think it's going to last as long as my other make-up has in the past.

5.  I LOVE the bronzer that comes in the starter kit. 

So that's all I have so far.  Let me know how you feel about it if you've tried it or if you have any other make-up suggestions.

I will say that I have heard it may be unsafe???  Apparently it's bad for you because you inhale the particals or something like that.  I'm hoping it's not as bad as it sounds!

Finding a Routine

So I signed up for this yesterday:

I'm really nervous!  I have two friends, Cristi and Jecca, that encouraged me to do it with them.  We went and ran/walked last night.  (It's pretty sad when you have to get in shape in order to 'get in shape.')  I haven't ran in so long.  I did a little better than I thought I would, but no where near what I had been doing when I was training this time last year.  Running is NOT like riding a bike!  You don't just pick up where you left off!  Dang!  And I wish I was a natural runner that made it looked effortless.  But I'm pretty sure my face and my body scream, "This isn't easy!"

My friend Maggie has been doing it (bootcamp) for a while and she looks amazing!  So she's my current inspiration.....no pressure Maggie!

Something else I've realized is how crucial it is to be getting enough sleep.  I am a night person.  I don't always mean to be, but it seems that midnight gets here faster than I realize. So my new goal is to be in the bed by 10 on week nights.  This is going to be a HUGE challenge for me.  I think the first thing that is going to help is putting the iPhone down!  (Did I tell y'all I finally got the iPhone?)  I waste so much time on that thing!  But I was in bed at 10 last night.  I slept terrible, but that was due to the fact that I was on call for work.

I struggle with this a little, because I'm 26 and single and a blessing I have is not being on a strict schedule.  So I feel like I should be staying up late and doing random fun things while I still can.  But I have a real job that just doesn't let me be as random as I once was.  But I guess that's just part of growing up????

My little sister is hoping to have a job with Student Life this summer.  I found myself a little jealous of her wishing I could go back to those care free days where summer vacation is an actual reality and not just a past memory.

And just for fun, here are some recent pictures.  All are from my phone because apparently I don't believe in using a real camera anymore.  Or actually being in any pictures I take.

These are some cookies I made for my friend's baby shower.  It was my first attempt with royal icing.  There's a shadow, but it's an owl incase you can't tell.

These are the cupcakes.  They were so yummy! (White cake with white icing is my ultimate weakness!)

 Last night after we walked, we sat around the fire pit.  It was such a gorgeous night!

 And this is from our Valentine's Party.  We just got several girls together and had a "party" at a local Mexican resturant.  It was actually super fun!

Now I have to get back to work.  This has been my motto recently......

Happy Monday!

P.S.  We had 520 (I think that was it) at church yesterday!

Still Here

I'm still here.  Just not a whole lot going on that I find blog worthy. 

Random note, I started taking vitamins this week.  I'm hoping they will give me more energy.  I'm lacking motivation to work out and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I feel exhausted all the time.  Which is because work is crazy busy right now.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to hearing about them. 

And just because I have nothing else to blog about, here are some random pictures that never made the blog.  I just closed my eyes and chose these, so they really are random.

My friend Cristi and I At Mallory's Lingerie Shower

Side note:  10 years ago, if anyone would have ever told me she and I would have been friends now, I would not have ever believed them.  There are so many people like this in my life now.

Does anyone else have friends like that?

Me and Karley when the Osborn's were here in July.  The picture here is my inspiration for the rooster picture in my house.  Karley painted it for me after seeing this one.  It's in a few post back.

These were my eyelashes I wore for Halloween this year.

Mal and I at the Alabama Theater.  They play Christmas movies here during the holidays.  Mal had never seen 'White Christmas.'



That's all I have for now!

Bored at work

I'm currently sitting at work waiting on 4:30 to get here (I have 2 hrs 9 mins to go).  It has been such a long day, and I didn't even get here until 11! 

When I leave here I'm meeting a friend to go to "Body Pump" class.  The new year has inspired the typical weight loss/get in shape plan.  Over the last year and a half,  I have lost a total of 30lbs. Which is crazy to me.... 1) Because I can't believe I needed to lose that much weight 2) I just can't believe I actually did it. 

I'm hoping to lose another 30 this year.  And by this year I mean before the summer ;)  Or at least 20 by the time summer gets here!  I want to start running again, but its so cold outside and cold weather is not very motivating.  So for now I'm going to get in the habit of taking the indoor fitness classes. 

Usually starting a new year isn't that big of a deal for me, but this year I have found myself more excited than usual.  Excited may not be the right word, but I am definitely anticipating what 2011 holds more than I have any other year in a while.  There are three areas in my life that I'm really choosing to focus on:

1.  My spiritual life/walk with the Lord.
     -  I have been on an interesting "Spiritual Journey" over the past 6 years.  A journey that has definitely been different than the one I would have chosen for myself.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that can say that.  I'm at a place now where the only way I know how to really describe it, is I am ready to go deeper with the Lord.  You know the feeling you have when you start a new relationship?  Where you are really excited about what's to come?  That's where I am right now.  I have no idea what's coming, but I feel like I'm ready. 

2.  Finances
    -I have seen a lot of people who feel like the Lord is moving them to do something, but finances seem to stand in the way one way or another.  I know with God all things are possible, but I also know for me personally there are things I need to be doing/taking care of now so that I am doing my part. 

3.  Getting in shape
     -I've pretty much said all I'm going to say about this already in this post.  But I'm more motivated than I have been in a long time.

One other area I'm working on is what I'm doing with my time.  I'm the worst ever at volunteering to do things that I really have no desire to do.  I stress myself out over things that aren't important to me.  I know that sounds selfish, but the problem is I do things that other people enjoy doing or simply because I think there isn't anyone else to do it.  But because I'm doing them, those people aren't.  And in order to focus on these other 3 things, I need to evaluate what I'm doing with my time.  So I'm definitely learning to say no to a lot of things.  Or more importantly learning to keep my mouth shut and my hand down when asked to volunteer for something.  And I'm learning that down time is ok.  I don't have to constantly be on the go. 

So that's just a little about why I'm looking forward to 2011.
And just for fun, here is a picture from 10 years ago.....
I'm on the front row, 2nd from the right.

Tonight we start our new small group, which I just remembered I'm supposed to be taking a dessert to!  P.S.  It's these kind of things that makes losing weight not very easy!  Looks like it's probably going to be raw cookie dough to bake when I get there.  I'm sure the ladies won't mind!

Happy Monday!

I'm getting old!

You know you're getting older when these are your favorite Christmas

gifts :(

But this vacuum is awesome!  Especially for hardwood floors.

So one thing I have figured out recently is that furniture is expensive!  And when it comes to decorating, I want everything done immediately.  I don't like waiting. 

So when I found out I would be moving, my cousin and I began making a list of things that we would need.  I bought a couch from my friends that lived in our house before us.  They were wanting something different and I loved the couch so I just bought it from them.  Lucky for me it was in great condition!

This is the couch.  I just got the picture from Ashley Furnitures website.

As soon as I knew we were moving, I began looking for furniture at yard sales and thrift stores (I call it "treasure hunting." And I LOVE treasure hunting!)

This was my first find.  I actually found 3 of them.  They came out of an old church that was close to our house.  They were not much to look at but the guy sold me 3 of them for $10. 

Before

After

I basically just sanded and painted two of them and they are now in our foyer.  The walls in there are a chocolate brown.  I'll put pictures of that up later.

For my next find I knew I wanted a buffet for our dining room.  I found this one at a yard sale and negotiated with the man so I got it for $30.  I was pretty impressed with myself.  Especially since my negotiating skills are lacking!

Before

After

(It's a terrible picture but I painted it a smokey gray color and the hardware is white.  I love it!  Except that the drawers get stuck, any suggestions on how to fix that?  They stick from the paint.  The picture is thanks to Karley.  I saw it in a resturant here in B'ham and she did a replica for me.  I'm having a frame made for it.  The size is not standard so I couldn't buy one.  The lamp is from a yard sale but has since been moved and replaced and the red candle sticks are from the thrift store.)

I got this chair from my granddad's storage buildings.  The same place I got this.  So it was free.

After

(I know it's bold, but I loved this fabric!)

This is a table we put in the kitchen.  There isn't a lot of room so it needed to be something small.  My cousin had this so she painted it and recovered the chair.  She also made a valence to hang on the window.

Before

After

There is another chair but it wasn't finished at the time I took the picture.

 So that's all for now.  There are still several things to show you, so hopefully I'll have those up soon!

Weddings

Here are a couple pictures from the weddings. 

Mallory and Lance's wedding was in a garden.  It was the week before Thanksgiving so they were worried how the weather would be.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day.  Like could not have been more perfect. 

The theme of their wedding was rustic.  The reception was in a barn.

This is a picture leading into the garden.  There were four trees that had candles in mason jars hanging from them.  It looked so good once the sun went down.

Some of the honory bridesmaids before the wedding (They didn't have any groomsmen or bridesmaids stand up with them during the ceremony, so there wasn't an official wedding party).  We hung this fabric outside the barn. 

The fabric was my favorite part!

The gift table and "blessing tree."  They did a blessing tree instead of a guest book.

Mal walking down the ailse.  We did her bouquet too.

These are from Autumn's wedding.  Her colors were black, purple, grey/silver, and white.  All of the bridesmaids wore different grey dresses.

The bouquets mom and I did.

The reception was at a really fun resturant right down the street from the church.  It has a ton of stuff everywhere for decoration so there wasn't a whole lot we could do there. 

The food table.

Bride/Groom's table.  He had cheesecake from Chessecake factory.



These are all of the pictures I have for now.  I took some of these off of facebook.  One of our friend's did Mallory's wedding and he did an incredible job (photography).  Here is a link to some more of their pictures he put on facebook.  The last three pics I put from Mal's wedding are his.

Where has the time gone?!?!

To say I have been busy over the past few months is a major understatment.  Seriously, this has been the busiest I have ever been.  After the first of the year, I should be able to relax a little more.

So why has it been so busy?  I'll start from the beginning.....

Back in July two of my best friends got engaged, one being my roommate Autumn.  The other my friend Mallory.  So because weddings are crazy expensive, my mom and I decided that we would help them with the wedding design/decor.  I LOVE doing this, but it is A LOT of work. 

So we began planning for a Novemeber 21 wedding and a December 18 wedding.  Not a ton of time.

Since Autumn was my roommate and we lived in her house, I didn't think it would be appropriate to keep living there after she and Michael got married :)  I'm sure they are grateful!  So I began looking/praying about what I wanted to do.  The Lord completely opened up a door/house and a new roommate (my cousin).  So we moved into a house at the beginning of October.  We lived together our freshman year of college so we knew it would work out.  If we could make it in a dorm room together, we knew we would be fine with an entire house.

I LOVE our house!  And I will be posting pictures soon.

On top of working crazy hours, moving, and wedding planning we were getting ready to start up our new church (Desperation Church), which is also a lot of work.  But it is going GREAT by the way!

This is all I have time for at the moment.  I'm working on getting pictures up of the past few months and I'm very excited to share them with y'all!  Even though I haven't been blogging, I have still been keeping up with all of you!

P.S.  This blog design needs major help too!  It's on the to-do list!

I'mmmm baaaack!

So I'm back.  And yes, it has been A LONG TIME!  I can't believe I haven't blogged in such a long time.  There is a lot to catch up on and it is coming so hang in there a little longer!

A little more randomness.

This weekend several friends and I headed to the beach for our friends', Jill and Ryan, wedding.  It was a great weekend, but the trip was way too short!

We left Friday around lunch and got home around 3pm on Sunday.  We had a few hours on the beach Saturday morning (enough to get a nice sun burn) but that was pretty much it.  And I took no pictures.  I have somehow managed to lose my 3rd charger to my rechargable batteries so my camera has been dead for a while.  I'm determined to find it though! 

Last night we had Bunko at my friend Jenny's house.  This is my second year to be a part of this group.  The group itself is full of random people that really don't hang out any other time but once a month when we play, but I love these girls!  And there is never a dull moment! 

Our theme for the night was "Red, White, and Blue" since Memorial Day is coming up.  These were the glasses you had to wear whenever you got a "Bunko."  Because I NEVER seem to win and I have terrible luck, I wore them proudly for about 30 mins.

Still staying strong in the glasses......

After I was booted from the winners table.

I ended up coming in second place and walking away with a super cute Picnic blanket that I think will be great for laying out on the beach or at the lake!

On a completely different note: 

For the past 7 years we have had "The Generation" which is a service on Thursday nights that targets the 18-34 year old generation.  However, we have had people coming that were all ages.  Two weeks ago we had our last service.  It was probably one of the best worship services I have ever experienced.  I feel so blessed to have been a part of something like this. 

Here are a few pictures I stole from a friend's facebook...

We usually run between 300-400 people, but that night I was told we had close to 700.

Past and Present Leader's at our church and at The Generation

They brought back all of the worship leaders that have been a part of the Generation from the beginning.

Worship Leaders from the very beginning to the very end.

Tonight we have a meeting for our new church that will be starting in September. I'm getting super excited about what the Lord is getting ready to do!

I haven't blogged in forever.  Not a whole lot to blog about.  But summer is {almost} here so hopefully things will be a little more exciting.  I'm heading to the beach next weekend for my friends', Jill and Ryan, wedding.  Its a short trip, but its still the beach!  Then two weeks later I will head back to the beach for a long girls' weekend.

I don't have time to watch a whole lot of tv, so for now I am trying to read more of this and this.... and less of this.

My dad says I'm not aware of the things that really matter that are going on in the world.  I guess knowing that Larry King called off his divorce, or seeing pics of Dr. Phil's new granddaughter isn't going to get me very far in life.

Slowly but surely!

SLOOOOWLY, but surely, I'm getting the pictures up of my vacation to LA and Vegas.  I can't remember what day this is, but it was probably one of my favorites.

Lunch on the beach in Malibu

Ann and Keith (AKA: Ozzie)

Kar and I

I love these people!

After lunch we went over to Pepperdine to see Karley's dorm and decided to run around Malibu. These are some of the pics we took that day.

 There isn't a whole lot I can say about the views, except that they were AMAZING!

Please excuse my poof on my hair... the wind caught it!

 This is also the day I had my first celebrity spotting..... (Besides Heidi and Spencer from The Hills, but I don't really count them..... I saw them at the Apple Store.)....... Patrick Dempsey!  I was pretty excited.  He was outside eating at this little outdoor shopping center in Malibu.  I played it very cool and didn't embarrass myself!

My pictures are scattered all over, so that is my excuse of why it's taking so long for me to get them up!