Whatever Is Lovely

Please tell me someone gets the title reference. So, people often ask me how I stay so fit. Okay, so maybe no one asks me this, but I have had friends and family witness a change in me over the past couple years. I was recently asked by one of these said friends to write about my health journey. This is going to be a bit difficult because I don't really view myself as someone who should  be giving advice on health and fitness. However, through some encouragement from some wonderful people, I'm going to give it a shot.  Now, I do not claim to be a fitness professional (insert laughter) and I also do not claim to be a nutritionist(more laughter because of all the cookies I might have eaten this weekend). I have, however, gained a considerable amount of weight and then finally lost it all. I guess this journey really started during my pregnancy with my, almost four year old son, Westyn. I did what a typical woman does while she's pregnant and I ate everything. I took the w...

 If any of you know Joe, then you will know that he is not normally the romantic type. He's pretty cut and dry when it comes to date nights or things of that nature. Over the years he really has tried to step it up, but usually it doesn't last very long. Luckily I'm okay with this. I don't really need a lot to make me happy. Well..... I like to tell myself that anyway. Joe probably has different thoughts on that subject. So a couple of weeks ago he started doing something incredibly sweet. Each morning before he left for work he would take a few minutes to leave me a note on our mirror. It would be something sweet about me, then followed by a bible verse that goes along the same subject. For example one of the notes read  "You are strong, beautiful, and capable. I believe in you. Psalms 28:8." Super sweet, right? I loved it! It was exactly what I needed to start my morning off, and a great reminder throughout the day if things started to get crazy. It wasn...

Moms Night Out is an incredible movie! Seriously though, if you are a mom please go watch the movie. If your husband doesn't really like movies like this just play the football card and make him sit with you and watch it. This will give him a little insight into our minds as mothers, and also it's pretty funny! I do have to say that the one thing I was slightly disappointed in is the way they depicted some of the dads. They were shown as very incompetent and that's not fair. Other than that detail I believe there so are many lessons to be learned in this movie. The realness of the emotion shown is amazing! At one part the main character says something like "she chose to be a wife and a mother, it's all she has ever wanted, so why is she not happy?". I'm pretty sure I have said those exact words. I chose to stop working and stay at home with my boys, so why does it feel so difficult most days. Why do I not experience all the joy and happiness I thought ...

Step one in my goal to be more intentional this year is to start with the most important subject; my faith. I, just like almost all Christians, struggle with keeping my faith strong in all things. I've really related recently to one of the stories in the gospel of Mark where the man brings his son to Jesus because he is possessed by a demon.  The father asks Jesus  "But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "If you can?" said Jesus "Everything is possible for one who believes." "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" Mark 9:22-24 Wow. Am I the only one who sometimes feels just like this father? It's so easy to trust God with all the small things in our lives, but do we really actually trust him with the large things? Like why did we have to move to South Carolina? Just throwing that one out there, not like anyone actually feels that way (cough cough). It takes an intentional thought process to let go and let...

So I thought I would start off by giving a short recap of the happenings in 2015. We had a baby boy!! Well technically Lincoln was born in 2014, but it was at the very end of the year so we can just put him in 2015's recap! My husband and I celebrated our 6th anniversary! My oldest son turned three! Now for the whooper. My husband accepted a job in a new state and got out of the Marine Corps! I know, I know! Big deal! Some of you who don't know us very well may not see the enormity of this! Lets start by addressing the big move. It all happened in about a month and half! He got a phone call about a possible opening at an independent auction in South Carolina. He and the boys and I hoped in the car a few days later and drove down here (over here?) for the interview. As you can probably guess, he got the job! So within about a month and a half of making that decision we found ourselves in a new city, in a new home, and away from all of our friends and families! Craziness...