Cleaning House...

Facebook is a great place to keep in touch with old friends or family in another state but for me it’s become a place to know what other people are up to… and they make it soooo easy to know everything that’s going on in their lives. Here is my complaint; I am friends with people that I knew in the past, people that were not nice (only to preserve feelings). When Chance and I decided to start dating we immediately hit it off, by the 3^rd date I knew that there could be something real and lasting between us.  I was attending a church that I had been introduced to through my family when I was 16, so for 6 years those people were my friends. We laughed together, cried together, we traveled together, they helped me through some really tough times and I did the same. So when I met the man that I now call my husband I was so happy, God had finally answered my prayers and sent me the most wonderful man, from our first date we had a connection. We talked about what we both wanted out of life and surprisingly it was the same. We dated for 6 months and he asked me to marry him so naturally I said yes! By this point Chance and I knew that after we were married we would move to Berryville where he was from to help out his parents. So when I told my “friends” from my “church family” I was not met with the reaction I was expecting, I ended up leaving the church 2 days after we were engaged and I have not been back. After that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get involved in church like that again, I thought that if the people I had known and had been friends with for the past 5 years completely abandoned me during the happiest time of my life thus far what was the point in trying to do that all over again… I was just glad to have the friends that really cared for me and were my friends no matter what and stood by my decision, of course they weren’t happy I was moving but they were happy I was happy. They were the ones that stood by me when I said “I do” (some were watching from the pew) but they were there!! I also found a new church family; Chance introduced me to an amazing group of people and an awesome church. We have become involved in the ministry and we wouldn’t trade it. We always said the move here to Berryville would be temporary but I honestly don’t think we will move back to Fayetteville, we have found an amazing church and we don’t ever see ourselves leaving, I’m sure we will raise our children here. We both have grown closer to God and our relationship with him just gets better. So now it brings me to the reason for my Facebook comment from earlier, every time I log on and see posts form certain people excited about getting engaged, or getting married or having a baby, and they get to be excited and those people are sharing in their excitement, I feel anger and resentment. How is it fair that they get to be happy for these joyous occasions but they are the ones who stole my joy… they stole my happiness… I was crushed by people I trusted. They never spoke to me again and it really hurts. But it’s time to move on, I can’t keep holding onto this resentment and anger I must let it go. So I am cleaning house, my Facebook will be place to check on the people that mean the most to me not people who treated me badly and judged me harshly. Chance and I will be married 2 years on December 5^th and I just want to say how amazing being married is, it truly is something that God has given us. We are so blessed to have each other and I can’t imagine my life with out him, I am so glad I answered that Facebook message 3 years ago from a man who I had met a few times at work and knew really nothing about, but I took a “chance” (hehe) and I found my soul mate. I encourage you to “clean house” if there are things in your life that are causing you grief or pain, or causing you to feel angry or resentful get rid of it. Pray about it and God will help you get over it.

Ashley

25 years...

So Friday is my 25^th birthday. This week has been a bit emotional for me; I found out Saturday that Pawpaw had an episode with his vein used in his dialysis treatment where it started bleeding. This is really scary because he can bleed to death in a matter of minutes; luckily he was only minutes from the hospital and everything turned out ok and we owe it all to God. It really got me thinking about life, Pawpaw has been through so much… diabetes, heart attacks, and now kidney failure. He just celebrated his 70^th birthday and he has the most amazing outlook on life, he wants to go go go!! He won’t slow down and you can’t make him! Growing up he was my father figure, I only saw my dad every other weekend. I also got to spend time with my little brothers and my stepmom Patty, growing up I didn’t like her I thought she was mean but as I got older I started to respect her more. Unfortunately the summer before I turned 16 she passed away from cancer, I lost an incredible mother figure and friend, my brothers lost their mother, William had just turned 12 and Joshua was 7 almost 8. Ironically that year was my best birthday ever, my dad knew how much I was hurting and he threw me a surprise party at my grandma’s house. He got me a cell phone and the best part was he invited my aunts (Patty’s sisters) and my uncle David and his family was all there and we grilled burgers and had cheese cake (my fave)! It was by far the best birthday ever. I won’t get into the story of the worst birthday I’ve had because I don’t want to call anyone out. Through out the years my dad and I had our ups and downs; right now we are in a down. I don’t understand it really, I know that my dad doesn’t like to talk on the phone and it’s hard to talk to someone that doesn’t like it. It’s hard too since I moved to Berryville, I try to stop by when I have time and I’m in town but sometimes there just isn’t time. I also have to think too why is it all on me to call and visit, am I the only one that wants to see him or talk to him? If the only communication you were able to have with a child was the telephone would you not use it? It’s hard and I’ve gotten to the point that I’m really tired of trying. About 7 years ago I got to this point with my mom, she hit rock bottom, she was never around and during the summer of 2004 she was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia. Over the next year she struggled with her addiction disease and was accepted into the drug court program. She completed the program along with 12 weeks in rehab; she came to me and apologized for being an absent mother while I was growing up, and for everything she did. I am proud to say that my mom has been clean and sober for 6 years. WAY TO GO MOM!!

Inspiration

So my friend Meagan inspired me to post about the dreams I’ve had… My dreams are not pregnancy dreams but here it goes anyway:

When I come to town (Fayetteville) Meagan, Mandy and I usually try to get together for dinner, one of our favorite places to go is a Chinese buffet in Fayetteville that had the BEST soft serve ice cream I have EVER had, this is where my first dream picks up…

Mandy, Meagan, and I along with our husbands were at the restaurant, and we were eating having a great time when I decided it was time for Ice cream. I go up to the counter to get ice cream and find out they are now charging $1.79 per cone, and there is a concrete barricade blocking the customers from getting to it … I return to the table with the news and everyone springs into action, Chris and Chance are using chairs to ram the barricade, Meagan is yelling at the top of her lungs what an “outrage this is” I am yelling “Charge” to Chance and Chris, and Daniel is consoling a pregnant Mandy because now she is crying uncontrollably. And then I woke up!

I called the girls the next day and we all had a great laugh!!

I have had another dream that involves Meagan and Mandy saying “Burn” and “Oh Snap” to a comment I made but to protect the guilty I will not share that dream, for those that have heard the story you can now laugh out loud! J

A different inspiration story…

My other friend Megan (different spelling) she has lost a lot of weight and has worked so hard to achieve, maintain and continue her weight loss. She is my inspiration and is now helping me on my weight loss journey since I have gained back all of my pre weight watcher/wedding weight… what is the saying fat and happy? Well I guess Chance and I are the happiest people ever because since getting married I have packed on the pounds! But I am actively watching what I eat and limiting my portions, I’m even getting back into an exercise routine!! Megan is my inspiration and my helper (from an hour away)!! Thanks Megan… I appreciate you!

Good night from Berryville…

Ashley

A collection of thoughts

I don’t think I will ever learn… I put trust in people and they end up stabbing me in the back. I was recently told by someone that they thought that I didn’t like them; I don’t understand this comment because I try to be nice to everyone. I was always taught that if I didn’t have anything nice to say that I shouldn’t say anything at all… I try to practice this everyday and maybe some people take it as me being a witch but that is simply not the case. There are a few people that I admit I will not acknowledge if I meet them in the street, it may not be the Christian thing to do but I am constantly praying and asking God for guidance in those situations.

Tonight as I sit here surfing on Facebook I noticed a post by what used to be a very dear friend… She’s getting married Saturday and I am so happy for her. She was in my wedding and I have known her since I was 5, will I be at her wedding you ask? No I won’t be… you see I didn’t get an invitation. Why? I don’t know the reasoning really but after my wedding she stopped talking to me, I guess the phone and email works both ways but I feel I tried, maybe not fully to the best of my ability but I did try. I miss her dearly and wish her the most happiness in the world and I just hope that someday we can get our friendship back. I know she will make a beautiful bride and I can’t wait to see the pictures.

Sometimes I wonder how people can be malicious and mean to people they have never met, not that it is justified but is it easier to be mean to people you don’t know? I ask you this how do you act malicious and horribly mean to your family? People do it everyday… there are families everywhere that never speak or are mad at each other and wont admit they are wrong. Pride is such a heavy word and I feel sorry for those carrying it around.

Food For Thought...

This is an older story that I've told before but it is such a good one it derserves to be re-told!! Enjoy!

I decided for our Sugar Bowl watch party that I would order a “Big Sandwich” from Wal-Mart which is nothing new to me because I used to order them all the time (for work)! I decided that a 6 foot would be too much for the 6 adults and 4 children (2 that eat big people food) coming to our watch party, so I just ordered a 4 foot sub. I wanted it pre sliced and I wanted the condiments on the side. So Tuesday I went to pick it up, I walk up to the counter and ask for my sandwich, the gentleman asks me “Do you have a cart?” I was a bit confused by the question because I don’t know why you wouldn’t get a cart to pick up a “Big Sandwich” but I answered “Yes”. “Ok good” he says “you’re gonna need it, let me go get your condiments”. He comes back with 3 large deli containers 1 full of onions, 2 full of tomatoes, and 2 bags of whole head romaine lettuce. Now I am a little more confused because normally they are on a tray all nicely arranged… Not so much at Berryville Wal-Mart. So then he says “you will have to follow me to the other cooler to get the sandwich”. I’m thinking, man they do things different here in Berryville! So I follow him to the large doors between the lunch meat and cheese coolers, I wait outside the open doors and he disappears in there, after about 5 min I see him appear from around the corner with the biggest sandwich I have ever seen in my entire life. It is all of 8 feet and I am not exaggerating. So I look at him and I look at this GIANT sandwich and I say “that is not what I ordered” and he replies “yes it is you ordered a 4 foot sub, see 1-2-3-4” (as he counts the actual sandwiches) and I reply “No that’s 2-4-6-8” (as I count the actual sandwiches) and he looks at them and he says “Oh you’re right”. So here I am standing in the Deli of Wal-Mart with an 8ft sandwich. Not two 4 foot sandwiches, not a 6 foot and a 2 foot, but an ACTUAL 8 foot sandwich. The things that are going through my mind are: Will they charge me for two 4ft sandwiches? How the heck am I going to get this to the check out? And how the heck am I going to get this into my car? I end up calling Chance back there to help me because at this point I have no idea what to do.  Chance gets back there and of course he knows the guy (he knows every person in this town) and they decide that we are going to take the cardboard pieces apart and make two 4 foot sections, and we are only getting charged the $20 for one 4ft sub. We made it to check out and it fit nicely in my car! We did however send some sandwich home with our guests.

I am adding this to the list of Crazy things that have happened to me since moving here one year ago, I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

A little extra food for thought, I wonder what I would have gotten had I ordered a 6 foot sandwich?

Crazy Visitor...

So this evening I had a visitor at my front door… Like I normally do I corralled the dogs, put them away and answered the door. There is a strange man standing on my front steps looking at the sky at the “clouds”. He approached the door and I keep it partially closed thinking ‘I wish I had kept one of the dogs out.’ So he starts telling me about the cleaning supplies that he is selling, it will take “everything out of anything” he starts a demo with a towel and a sharpie… then hands me the bottle to look at. He then takes the spray bottle that he is using for the demo and tells me that it is safe for kids and animals, he proceeds to taste it and then asks me to smell it. I said “no I’m not smelling it” (the first thing that comes to my mind is ‘he has something in this bottle that will knock me out’). I was getting tired of his talking and I was getting a really bad feeling about this guy. So I told him that I didn’t want anything, that I needed to go (I could hear the dogs barking) I told him that I needed to go get my dogs, he responds “what does your dogs have to do with cleaning supplies” I was like “well everything but that is none of your business”… he got rude and I shut and locked the door! It was a super scary situation and I was shaking after I shut the door! From now on I am answering the door with Max next to me! If you live in Berryville and you are reading this DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR FOR THE CLEANER SALESMAN!!!

Shhh… He’s sleeping!!

Do you ever notice when you try to be quiet you end up being louder than if you didn’t TRY to be quiet in the first place… Well it happens to me ALL the time! In the mornings Chance is still sleeping when I wake up, so usually Mason hears the alarm and is whining by my second snooze. I get up, still in a sleepy state, and I say mean things to Mason because he has interrupted my snoozing, I won’t repeat what I say because you will judge me harshly and think I am a terrible person! But I get up and as I’m leaving the bedroom I usually try to close the door quietly (like the alarm, a whining dog, and me expressing my hatred toward the whining dog does not wake up the sleeping man) but closing the door quietly never works… ever! I think I have a depth perception problem, I always pull the door too far and it slams. I also try to turn the knob so the latch doesn’t click, but I always let go too early! I fail miserably at this. Let’s take last night as an example; Chance was super tired from fishing ALL day and getting up WAY before dawn to get the right spot at the river. So he went to bed at 9:00, I followed at 10:00. I gather the dogs up and head to the bedroom I can hear him breathing deep, so that means he’s in a deep sleep. So I turn the hall light out and open the bedroom door very slowly, I make sure the dogs are in the room and shut the door behind me just as slowly as I opened it. I start off across the bedroom to the bathroom, I am walking very slowly because Mason is notorious for getting under my feet, and suddenly I came to an abrupt halt … I have hit my face on something… OH MY GOSH… it’s my closet door… At this point I’m trying not to start laughing because that will wake up the deeply sleeping man, so I start to close the closet door and something is in the way so I push a little harder and it gives and I get it shut. Now keep in mind that my closet doors to not latch, so now I can hear something in the closet… the hangers are rattling and something is moving around, I realize that I have shut one of the dogs in the closet and he is frantically trying to get out (which he manages to do)! By this point I can no longer hold in my laughter and I am giggling, I finally make it to the bathroom door and I get the light on and get the door shut when I hear Chance, OH CRAP I WOKE HIM UP!! So I open the door and he asks what’s going on and I am trying to tell him in between laughter and tears (guess that’s what happens when you try to hold in laughter) He then says groggily “I don’t understand” I tell him to go back to sleep and I will tell him in the morning! When he got up this morning he didn’t remember what happened so I got to tell him the story and we laughed together about it! So I wonder if I will ever be able to be quiet when people are sleeping… maybe if I don’t try to be quiet it could work… One can only hope!

Proper Clothing

I wrote this a few days ago but due to some comptuter issues it had to wait to be posted until today! By the way case in point... Today while out I saw a young girl probably 13 or 14 wearing a t-shirt jogging shorts and Uggs... Just sayin, read on!

First off let me just say that I am not some up and coming Fashionista, yes I still have and wear the same shirt that I wore to my brothers graduation 3 years ago. I also still have and wear the same dress I wore to my friend Meagan’s wedding rehearsal in May of 2007.

But I will say that anytime I leave my house to go into public I make sure that my clothes are clean and my hair is decent. I also make sure I dress for the occasion and the time of year, IE: in the winter time you will NOT find me in shorts or flip flops.  I will wear short sleeve t shirts with the appropriate jacket, and the same goes for summer; I’m not going to wear my Uggs and turtle neck sweaters in July. So with that being said, I hardly see people wearing Uggs and turtlenecks in the summer time so why do they feel it necessary to wear shorts and flip flops in the dead of winter? During a snow storm…  I don’t understand. What goes through a person’s mind when they wake up and it is 17 degrees outside and they say to themselves “Hmm I think I’ll wear my flip flops today, won’t that be refreshing” Really?!?!  My toes freeze when I wear regular shoes in winter I can’t imagine what would happen if I actually exposed them to the elements. Now don’t get me wrong I am all for taking advantage of those “nice” winter days, you know the ones that allow you to leave the jacket at home and roll the windows down in the car! But just because it is 71 degrees on January 29^th does not mean you can bust out the daisy dukes and tank tops, IT’S STILL JANUARY!!

Oh and I’m sorry if this offends any mothers that I know (it shouldn’t because none of the mothers I know would do this) but seriously if it is cold enough that you need a jacket then put a jacket on your kid! And cover their feet, I realize that babies don’t walk but they make baby socks for a reason. And just because it is summer time does not mean you can bring your baby to Wal-Mart in nothing but a diaper. I realize that some of people, if they could, would only come to Wal-Mart in their underwear and some come very close to achieving this but just because you want to be half naked doesn’t make it right to haul your baby around half naked! They make baby clothes for a reason, buy them and use them!  

I’m sure you all are wondering the reasoning behind my little rant, well when you see a man dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes and you see someone with kid with no socks or shoes on, on a day when there is over a foot of snow on the ground… I think you might get on your soap box also!

Snow Shoveling!!

So this morning I decided to get out and shovel the sidewalk and driveway, it’s a great story so I just had to share. I decided to start with the driveway; I started at the top and worked my way to the bottom. I made one swipe down to the 3 ft snow drift at the bottom and stopped to reevaluate the situation… I then decided to move to the sidewalk and come back to the driveway!  Those of you that have been to our house know that we have 2 sidewalks one that has a few steps and leads from the street to the porch and the other is flat and goes from the driveway to the porch. I opted for the flat one first, this was a much better plan, the sidewalk was much easier and it went by very fast.  

After the sidewalk I moved to the front steps, I started on the first step and soon realized that the inch of sleet we got the first day of our winter storm had solidified under the 6 inches of snow that we got. So I ended up just scraping the snow off of the top of the ice. I cleaned off the porch next and then moved back to the sheets of ice known as our front steps, by this point my arms were tired and I had taken off my heavy coat and just had my jacket on, I was also sweating… A LOT!!! I went and got our regular shovel… I then began to chip away at the ice with the shovel, it was working, and I got into a grove and started to move faster!

By the time I was done with the bottom steps my arms were like jelly and the feeling in my legs was coming and going from the cold, but I was still sweating profusely! I FINALLY finished with the sidewalks and couldn’t help to think that the neighbors were watching and probably laughing, especially if they were watching my facial expressions… I can only imagine! For some reason after I finished the porch and sidewalks I still felt compelled to finish the driveway, I have no idea why!! So I started the driveway again and again I found the sleet/ice, I some how managed to work through the pain in my back and arms and I was able to uncover half of the driveway. I decided that I was done; the sun was starting to emerge from behind the house so I figured I would let it melt a little bit! So I went inside took a shower, did some house work and a few house later I went back out… BIG MISTAKE!!! I could feel every muscle that I had used earlier and none of them felt good! I managed to uncover about three fourths of the driveway and I thought my arm was going to literally detach from my shoulder! DONE… this time for good!! As I sit here tonight typing this I can hardly move my fingers, and it hurts to walk. I have worked out before and I know how sore can feel… but nothing compares to this. My back is killing me and it feels like my back should look ripped, like I have a body builder’s back or something! This is worse than the arms and back workout of P90x! I have attached pictures of my journey and somehow I have none of he driveway, probably because by the time I was finished I forgot all about the pictures I had taken!!

The steps before...   

 

The steps after…

This was a very fun experience!! One I hope to never have to repeat!! Incase anyone is wondering why I did this instead of Chance it is because he was working today and I just decided to get it done! I am a good wife!

OMG, Wat haz hppnd 2 diz wrld?

Like my title... There is a reason behind it, keep reading...

I received a text message the other day from an unknown number.  The conversation went like this: (all spelling and punctuation have not been changed *names have been changed)

Unknown #: Heyz waz up

Me: Who is this?

Unknown#: who diz iz

At this point I didn’t respond, I was not in the mood to play games and it was obvious they had the wrong number.  So 20 min later it starts again:

Unknown #:  Helloz diz iz *jane

Me: I think you have the wrong # this is Ashley

Unknown #: Oh well *mary gave me diz numba 2 txt and im in 7^th grade and I AM a gurl

Me: I don’t know *Mary and I’m 24. *Mary gave you the wrong #. I’m also a girl, like that matters

Unknown #:  Wat *mary  tld me waz dat u waz a gurl dat livd nxt 2 her and waz her best friend

Me: Ok I live in Berryville my next door neighbor is 94. I promise you have the wrong number. My best friend’s name is Meagan.

Unknown #: Oh so sry!

I’m about to get on my soap box…

More than just the grammar stood out to me in this exchange, but first let’s talk about that. Ok so I know that short hand is much faster and the words are still understandable, I get that, but when did it become ok to spell girl “gurl”. I mean really does it save you any time typing the “U” instead of the correct letter “I”? I don’t think so. Also short hand is for texting, when you are at a computer and you are typing an email, or you are posting a status to FaceBook spell out the words and spell them correctly. I am the first person to admit that I am the worst speller in the world but I manage thanks to Chance and spell check.  Another thing that stood out to me was the age of this “gurl” she is in 7^th grade, what if she had texted a pedophile by mistake? She obviously had no idea who she was texting. It is really scary to know the information she offered up without being asked, I hate to think of what she would have told someone that would have used this situation to a malicious advantage.  The youth of today are so exposed out there; this is not our grandparent’s world anymore. We have to be more cautious, when I was in 7^th grade I was not texting people I didn’t know I didn’t even have a cell phone till I was 16 and I didn’t get texting till I was 18! When I look at my FaceBook news feed I can’t help to notice the younger girls I am friends with, the daughters of some of my friends and my mom’s friends.  I notice how they post when they go to work, and when they are driving home. They post about going to the movies and what movie they are seeing, they now have the “check in” option which allows you to post exactly where you are. It is scary to think that just by looking at someone’s FaceBook page you can tell exactly where they are, if they are offering up the information. My privacy settings are very high on my Face Book and for good reason. I have had a person tell me that they can’t find me, it’s because my settings are so high. For me FaceBook is a way to connect with old friends and new friends that you have met face to face.  I won’t accept someone if I don’t know them and I would hope that today’s youth would do that as well. There is too much evil in this world for young girls, and boys for that matter, to be “friending” perfect strangers.  It scares me to think what it will be like when we have children of that age, will they be spelling “wrds lke diz”? Or will typing and writing be a thing of the past now that the “voice to text” is coming on the scene? Will they have all of their info online for the whole world to see?  Will they be careful about who they text, and who they message and who they are “friends” with? Or will FaceBook be obsolete all together, replaced by something “better”?

Ok I am now stepping down off my soap box.

Tales of a Boxer… Or two!

I decided to sit down and compile my “boxer” stories!! A little back ground first... Max is a 5 year old Boxer; Chance got him when he was about a year old. His previous owner used to feed him bacon and eggs for breakfast and he would get McDonalds for lunch a dollar cheese burger. To this day Max recognizes the Golden Arches. While Max was living with Chance in Farmington he was known to get into mischief AKA: the trash. He also would eat things off the counter; burgers, short cakes, steak, etc!  Max always had free reign of the house and was allowed to sleep on the bed and be on the furniture.  So you can see how Max was king there. Lets switch over to Mason he is a 1 ½ year old Boxer, we got him from a breeder in OK, I am pretty sure he experienced brain damage during birth that or maybe he was born with the stupid gene, I’m still not sure! The dogs are not allowed on any of the furniture and are only given "people" food on special occasions!

Cut to October 09, Mason joins our family. I had all sorts of plans for him, he was going to be well trained and know everything. He would not get onto anything and we had planned to use him as a breeder dog, you know stud him out! Well one morning in March of 2010 I was folding laundry in the living room and I feel something wet on my leg, I look down and Mason is peeing on me… there went the stud plan he got neutered 3 days later! We thought maybe now he will calm down, no such luck it’s almost been a year and he’s still hyper as ever!

Now that Mason is about Max’s height he has learned that he too can put his front paws on the counter and reach food. Such as a pan of gravy boiling on the stove… Yes that’s right I said a boiling pan of gravy, doesn’t that sound delicious! Let’s recap the things Max has gotten; I was given squash from my Pawpaw’s garden and decided that I wanted to wait a few days to eat it, I had it setting on the counter (at this point it time Max was still loose in the house). A couple of days later I go to cook my squash and it is nowhere to be found, I ask Chance where it is or if he moved it, he says no. I call Memaw and ask her if I had left it there, she says no, that is when I realize Max had eaten it! But Max’s most famous kitchen rumpus was the day that he got into the pantry! We had forgiven him for eating the squash, that is until I came home and found him; he was hiding at the very end of the hallway, I had to maneuver across piles of macaroni and rigatoni, empty boxes of cookies, and a bag of cornflakes that were apparently not sweet enough for the fat boy! After I found him at the end of the hallway he went to the outside kennel, I went and met Chance at work, we went to dinner and the mess remained until Chance and I got home!

The last time they have gotten into anything was October. Sucker is really hard to get out of carpet, just saying! I had bought two 5lb bags of Halloween candy for our Church’s “Trunk or Treat” on this particular day I had to use the back door at the house, the reason escapes me right now though. So as I am walking across the back yard I see inside the window things all over the floor. I rush to get inside only to find they had eaten every tootsie roll in the bags and tried to get the tootsie roll out of the tootsie pops by biting into he suckers and getting them all over the carpet.  I am pretty sure the ring leader there was Max because he is the one that threw up 3 times and Mason only threw up once! 

Needless to say they are no longer left unattended inside the house. Chance tested this about a week ago and they got the oranges and onions off the counter, they didn’t like the onions but the oranges had bite marks guess they needed some vitamin C!

A reason, a season and a lifetime…

Remember the days when you had no responsibility, the most pressing thing you had to worry about was getting to the swings first at recess! When you think about it the many stages of our life gives us different worries.  As a child we worried about homework and getting to sit next our friends at lunch. When we hit adolescence we worried about what we were going to wear to school, getting to go to the football game and getting to sit next our friends at lunch. In high school we didn’t have to worry about sitting next to our friends, but we worried about getting a car, boys, and finding an after school job.  As we entered adulthood some of our friends were by our side, but we also made new friends and encountered new worries; paying rent, paying for college, relationships… the list goes on and on. One constant that was always there is “friends” what would you do without them? I have had many friends in my life and as I look back I am reminded of the saying “Some people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime”. I’m sure we have all had these types of friends, the reason friends; the ones that were there for you in a time of need or transition period in your life and when that need was over you somehow drifted apart.  The season friends, I like to think of the great times I had in school with my friends and even though we have drifted apart I know that we will always be friends, but we have grown apart. Then we have the lifetime friends, you know the ones that are in your wedding and there for the birth of your children. You may have not known them all your life but they are your lifelong friends.  They know everything about you; they have grieved with you and cried with you, and you have done the same with them. Before I got married I had plenty of friends, some were for a season, for a reason and some are lifetime friends, I have also met new friends and I am looking forward to the many years to come with them! This is to all my friends I am so incredibly thankful for all of you and I know that God has had a hand in bringing us together!

Lions, Tigers, and Bears... again!!!

So as I sit here tonight at 10:20, I am replaying my day in my mind: Church this morning, lunch with the in-laws, a short cat nap, watching football, getting bored with football and starting a blog... church this evening, then playing volleyball with friends!! What a great day!! There is a reason for my title though, I am about to explain. My husband has always been an outdoors man, he hunts, he fishes, etc... I've seen my fair share of hunting and fishing shows, because actually hunting isn't enough... we have to watch it on TV too! He has now discovered the National Geographic channel, and we have not one but 2 NatGeo Channels, our DVR is crammed with shows from these channels. Alaska State Troopers, Wild Justice, Boarder Wars... all these shows are about law enforcement in different areas of the country! Then we have the animal shows, which the names escape me right now but they are about aligators, and snakes, lions, and tigers, preditors and prey! I'm not someone that likes to watch animals KILL other animals and really I see nothing entertaining or appealing about it. But "its nature babe" that is what I am told when I complain, so I have since stopped watching the male hippo kill the infant hippo so that the male can sooner mate with the infants mother since she no longer has a baby bacause he killed it! Or earlier when the python was trying to eat an entire alligator...Really? This is something that is fun to watch??!!? I don't get it! Not at all! Good night, and God Bless!

Welcome

Hello world! I have decided to start a blog! So many crazy things happen to me that I think they need to be documented. Where to start... I guess a little about me: I'm 24 and married to my best friend and the love of my life, Chance. We live in Berryville AR and incase you have never heard of it don't worry, I hadn't either before I met Chance. We have been married for a year as of Dec 5th and we are still loving every minute of it (ok well mabe not every minute but you get the idea). We have 2 dogs, Max and Mason they are boxers and will probably be the subjects of many of my posts!! Max is about 5 and Mason a year and a half, they are absolutely crazy but we still love them, I have no idea why! Chance and I have crazy families and they aren't afraid to admit it. We live fairly normal lives day to day, we work and come home to our doggies. We lead a class of youngsters at church on Wednesday nights and that is he highlight of my work week! I am adjusting to "small town life" fairly well and I think I'm starting to blend in, lets hope so because I don't want any more of the craziness that plagued us in November! I'm really excited to start this blog and I can't wait to start posting the craziness!! Stay Tuned...