What Would I Do? - Just One More Christmas With You

When we found out about my father's cancer, we knew he wouldn't make it to Christmas. The thought didn't really register with me. Here we are in December, and I rarely go a full 24 hours without breaking down. It seems like every tear I held back for everyone else has come flooding back to me. Today, I want to answer a question that wasn't posed to me. Someone asked my mother a version of this question, and it really got me to thinking about it.

What would you do if you had one more Christmas with your dad, knowing it was his last Christmas?

Angels, Mermaids, and Fates That Are Twisted - Monthly Reading Wrap Up

All the fall decor is being taken down, in its place, Christmas trees, lights, and ornaments are being carefully placed. Another month has come to a close, and while many people are busy with family, some of us have been reading like there is no tomorrow. I discovered something new this month... Audiobooks. And they aren't kidding with how easy and convenient it is to listen. I can't read in a moving vehicle. Audiobooks changed my car trips, mundane tasks around the house, and just about any task that I can do while listening to something else. This month includes a huge update for the Popsugar Reading Challenge that you will just have to stay tuned for. I have an array of books to talk about this month, so settle in and lets get started.

Thankful Thursday - November 26, 2015

For those of us in the US, it is Thanksgiving. I hope that you have had a wonderful day full of family, wonderful food, and blessings galore. That also means the last Thankful Thursday. Can you believe that November is almost over already? The month has flown by. On a day full of blessings and thankfulness, I am glad I get to share it with you. So everyone grab a mug, or even a little dessert, before settling in for my post.

Thankful Thursday - November 19, 2015

It has been a busy day for me, but even with the most busy schedule, taking time out of your day to be thankful is important and also uplifting. It is that time of week again, Thankful Thursday!! Sharing is caring and I am here to hand out some love! So grab a snack and a cup of liquid of your choice and we will get started.

Thankful Thursday - November 12, 2015

It seems just like yesterday; however, a week has passed and it is time for another thankful Thursday. For those who missed my original post, I will link it here, for the month of November, I will be posting once a week of things that I am grateful for. Myself and a few other women in my Bible study group are challenging each other to dig deeper into our lives for things that we are grateful for. I am thankful for so many blessings in my life. Here are a few things that really stuck out to me this week.

Plan With Me 11/2 - 11/8

Getting a new planner means trying out new products and new techniques. I know that I personally love seeing what other people do on their layouts. Whether it is planners, scrapbooks, or Project Life, I am constantly watching new videos and reading blog posts. For this week, I thought I would show you a look into my planner and talk about what I did. I will try to list as many products as I can throughout the post.

Thankful Thursday - November 5, 2015

For the month of November, my Bible study group is challenging ourselves to do a weekly recap of thankfulness. Each week we are talking about what we are thankful for and to share a verse or two that we find about giving thanks and thanksgiving. We have been challenged to reach deeper than the usual thankful list. Each Thursday, I will come to you with a verse and things that I am grateful for.

Dealing With Grief And A Plot So Thick You Could Sufficate - Monthly Reading Wrap Up

Like many others, I am wondering where October went. I feel like I blinked and the month was gone. As the year is winding down I am working hard to complete the Popsugar Reading Challenge. This month was a success on that; however, I hit a huge reading slump. Today I will be wrapping up the books that I read during the month with a spoiler free review, so let's get started.

Why Make The Switch? - Erin Condren To Happy Planner

With several planner options on the market, how do you choose between them on what you like and what works best for you? For a little over a year now, I have been using the Erin Condren Life Planner. It was approaching time to reorder my planner for the upcoming year. So I decided to spice it up a little and switch planners. I did a lot of research and decided on one that I thought would best suit what I want to do with it, the Create 365 Happy Planner by Me & My Big Ideas. Stick around, and I will talk about each planner and the reasons why I decided to try something new.

How Many Stickers Does One Girl Need? - Michaels Hau

Does anyone else know the struggle when you are set loose in a craft store? When you go in for one thing and walk out with eight or am I the only one with this problem. Today, I took a trip to Michaels. Since I couldn't just take you along with me, I thought I would to a haul of what I did purchase. I hope you are as excited to see everything as I am to show you! Let's get started!

A Book I Couldn't Help But Throw And Why - Monthly Reading Wrap Up

September has flown by and it is already time for me to tell you what I have been reading this month. The Popsugar Reading Challenge is starting to dwindle down, but I have loved every minute of it. (If you would like to see a completed wrap up when I finish, let me know I will be glad to.) From tears and throwing books, it has been a month of ups and downs in my reading. So lets stop chatting and get to the good stuff!

I Just Couldn't Help Myself - Book Haul!

The title speaks for itself today. I was out and about taking care of some errands when I decided to hit my favorite book store. One quickly turned to two... 2nd & Charles and Books A Million. I ended up walking away with a few books and only two books left to find for my Popsugar Reading Challenge. For the books that were on sale, I will list their price. Now let's get started on these books and one none book item.

What Am I Watching - YouTube Edition

Hello my dearies! Today I am doing a request from a dear friend of mine just started up her blog, Dreamin' In Seasons. It is something that my friends and I all love to do, watch YouTube videos! Any hing from crafts and books to makeup and vlogs. YouTube is my way of keeping up with the latest products, techniques, and ideas. I love that there is such a diverse community of people sharing their content with the world. Lets get started on the list of YouTubers that I subscribe to and watch regularly.

Sending Smiles Across the Miles - Craft Week

It is a sad day. We are on the last day of craft week!!! I hope that everyone has enjoyed this as much as I have! Today I want to talk about card marking. This is something that I have wanted to start doing for some time now. Here is a list of some of the supplies I will need to get start. Do you have any do to products you like to use? I hope they have made this list, if not comment with them down below! Let's get this list started!

Documenting a Lifetime - Craft Week

Hello my dearies, I hope that you are having fun with my craft week extravaganza. This week we are talking all things crafts. Today I want to share with you another project supply list of things to begin my Project Life journey. For those of you who don't know what that means, Project Life is a form of scrapbooking were you use small cards for layouts instead of 12x12 pages for one event. It was created to be easier to document every day life. So join me on this adventure to find all of the things and supplies I will need to get started!

Faith Through Creativity - Craft Week

Welcome back to another craft week blog!!! I hope that you are as excited as I am to share my love of crafts with you. Today, we are going to be talking about something I am wanting to start, Bible journaling. As my faith has grown, I have become more and more interested in finding new ways to do praise and worship. When I found these, I thought this would be a wonderful way to use my creativity to worship. Lets get to the list of supplies that I am wanting in order to start journaling.

Try All The Crafts!!! - Craft Week

Hello my darlings!!! I am here to announce an exciting week of posts for you! It is going to be craft week here at my blog. I am going to discuss the crafts I want to get into, any ideas I have, and any of the supplies I will be needing. Anything that I list out, I either do not own or I will be replacing/expanding my collection. Just a little tidbit, I will not be doing all this shopping at once, even if that would be one exciting time. So let's get into the list of crafts I want to start and just why I am interested in them.

Places To Go And Things To Do - My Travel Bucket List

There is always places to go and things to do, the list is never ending. So I thought I would share with you a few of my travel bucket list items. There is no order to this list. Being someone who has only visited a handful of states, I have always dreamed of traveling and exploring the world. Here are some of the places and things I would like to do around the world.

When Choosing Between Two Evils Isn't All The Easy - August Reading Wrap Up

While everyone else is happy to see September, I am over here wondering where all the time has gone. August has come to a close, and with it another month of reading complete. For August, I participated in the #5books7days readathon, which is where the bulk of my reading comes from. Many of those were for the Popsugar Reading Challenge. With only ten more books to complete the challenge, I am pretty excited to finish out the challenge. My Goodreads reading goal is 27 from completion. Now lets get to the books I have read and what I thought about them!

Keeping Up With My Prayers and How I Do It

Faith can be defined as giving complete control and trust to something or someone else. As a Christian, I put that definition to the test by trusting blindly. Many struggle with the idea of placing their hopes, dreams, and struggles into the hands of a God in which they cannot see. For many years my faith was tested in the form of prayer. More specifically, I struggled to remember to pray each day. I would often forget to set aside time to talk with Jesus. Today, I want to share with you how technology has helped me with my faith and my prayers.

#5books7days Readathon Wrap Up

We all know just how much I love to read, so many find it shocking that I have never participated in a readathon. That has changed! This past week (August 10 - 16) I made my first attempt at a readathon. For those who do not know what a readathon is, by definition it is to read as much as possible in the set amount of time. Some readathons include challenges or more specific guidelines. The readathon #5books7days was started on instagram by lottelikesbooks. See lets get started and see just how much reading I did.

Homeschooling Q&A With Avary

For many people, the school year is just starting for them; however, today starts week two for my children. Many may wonder why they were allowed to start earlier. The answer is simple, homeschooling. At the beginning of last week, I talked to one of my oldest, Avary, and asked her questions about her first day and her outlook on the year.

A Book So Immersing, You Will Never Want To Find Reality Again

Just like with any challenge or any book lover, there are going to be reading slumps, and boy have I been in one. My reading wrap up for July is rather short. Beginning with July being a difficult month anyway, it was busy, emotional, and just down right the hardest month so far this year. I did get to finish up a few books; however, only two of the four were actually for the Popsugar Reading Challenge. Lets have a run down of the books and my thoughts on them.

5 Facts About Grieving And How To Get Through It

Losing a loved one is hard, but moving on afterwards can be somewhat tricky. Expectations say that breaking down happens immediately and it is all-consuming; however, what about those that hold it in or lock it down? Today we are talking about grieving. From those who have lost many, to those who haven't lost anyone close, we can all identify with some of these facts.

Facing the Unthinkable

Cancer. A word that no one, especially a family wants to hear. It is devastating and overwhelming. Just the process itself is emotional and heart breaking. The topic alone is enough to strike fear in the hearts of many. So what happens when that conversation is no longer just a fear? When it becomes a reality, how do you move forward without falling apart?

The Book With A Perfect Ending

Some say that there is something to be said about a person by the books that they read. I am not so sure that is true; however, I love sharing what books I have read in the past month. This is my way of sharing a brief book review and a wrap up all in one. What books did I finish this month? Keep reading to find out. And don't forget the 2015 Popsugar Reading Challenge!!!

All The Books I Just Couldn't Resist

Have you ever found yourself online and the book prices are just too good to miss? That is exactly what happened to me. So in this post I am going to list all of the books I received from Book Outlet with a special surprise at the end as well. This post does not include all of the books I purchased for my Kindle as well. We would be here forever if that were the case.

Time For A Makeover - Come See My Transformation

Welcome my dearies, today we are going to be talking about a new step for my blog and what is in store in the future. If you are a blogger you may know where I am coming from. You find yourself in a rut and you aren't sure how to get out of it. The page views are slowly decreasing, the life is being drained out of your blog. (Maybe I am just being dramatic.) Or maybe your blog just never got off the ground. Some may not feel like their design and their message comes across clear to those that stumble or click onto their blog. I have been having all these thoughts and more lately. I wanted to know how to make my readers want to stay, feel at home, and ultimately subscribe. Keep reading to find out what I am doing about it and how I got to this point.

Just A Little Sand And Saltwater

Everyone has that one place that they want to run to. For some it is Disney World, or even the mountains; however, for me it is more salt water and sand. I am a beach bum. Naturally, when life knocks me down I am ready to go somewhere that I can clear my head and find myself again.

Fueled by the passing of someone dear to me (possibly more on this in another post), my family wanted to get away for a few days. We were lucky enough to find a hotel on the beach that still had an opening last minute. Everything was rushed and last minute (Remind me never to do that again). We literally packed and left out the same day we found out we were going on a trip. Several stops, a lot of driver switching, and a little over six hours later we find ourselves on the strip with the sound of the ocean to our right.

It was such a sigh of relief to be back at the beach after a little over a year of being away (never staying away that long again). Despite all of my worries, everything melts away once I see the waves. This trip wasn't about going out at night, eating out, or trying new things. My family and I just needed to get away.

After getting everything settled into the rooms, I find a place on the balcony of the tropical garden overlooking the beach from one story up from the sand (all the loveliness without the sand). I slowly feel myself start to unwind. I won't lie, many of the days after that were spent in much of the same way. I would lay out, read, walk to the shoreline, and just think and clear my head. I needed to find myself and face some of the struggles that had been weighing on me all this time.

I was nervous about going, knowing that something that had been haunting me could be staring me in the face. I won't go into details as I have before, but it was time for me to face it. I had spent so many hours thinking of reasons and explanations. I thought of excuses and what ifs. My best friend had the best solution, I owe this nothing. I am wasting my time and tearing myself apart for something that doesn't matter, for someone who doesn't think twice about it. I made the decision to walk on by, act as if it didn't scare me or hurt me, and let it go.

I left many burdens in the ocean after the days I spent relaxing, thinking, and reading. It was a joy to let it all go and to move forward. My heart was lightened. I also got to spend some much needed family time with my parents. Who knew that my father actually likes the beach!

What is your go to place to unwind and relax? Are you a fight or flight person when something happens in your life? Which ever it is, I hope that you are always able to find peace in your life as I have with a little sand and saltwater.

Reading Wrap Up - May 2015

Welcome back my darlings. It is time for another reading wrap up here on my blog today. Depending on how you look at it, this was either a good or a bad reading month. Overall, I read thirteen books; however, only two of those were for my Popsugar Reading Challenge. Why don't you stick around for a little while and find out what I thought of these books. At the end, I am going to be talking a little more about my reading goals, the challenge, and what is coming up reading wise.

Overcoming the Struggle - Article Review/Talk

It all comes crashing in at once, the feeling that my body is not good enough or that I will be judged, because I am a plus size woman. I have done several blogs on this topic before and I will have those linked below for you. What kind of pressure are we putting on ourselves when we compare ourselves to others? What are the long term effects of negative body image? I want to talk about an article I read, and how my negative body image affects my life and the lives of those around me.

Planner Addict Tag - Collab with The GFA

With the expected release of the new 2015/2016 Erin Condren Life Planner set to release in just under two days now, Hunter from The Girl From Alabama and I thought it would be a wonderful time to do a planner related collab post. Not only is she my best friend, she is also my biggest inspiration for my blog and my planner. We have a list of questions to answer for you during this tag. I will leave the link to her amazing post down below. Who is ready for some planner love?!

Reading Wrap Up - April 2015

Hiya my dearies! I know what you are thinking, it is halfway through May and I still haven't done my wrap up from April? Did she not even read?! Rest assured, I did some book damage in the month of April. At the end of April and beginning of May my family was faced with a very difficult event. At this time, I am not sure I will blog about it; however, that may change in the future. I took some time with my family. I am truly sorry for the delay in posting this blog. Now I am ready to jump back into my reading wrap ups. So are you ready to see what I read, spoiler free thoughts, and where it falls into my Popsugar Reading Challenge? Then let's get started, we have a lot to work through.

Sunday's Questions with The Girl From Alabama

It is time for another addition of Sunday's Questions with The Girl From Alabama. This week, she picked the questions for us to answer together. From a list of thought provoking questions, we pick five a week and pour our hearts out. It is a time to let our readers see a little deeper into our lives and our thoughts. The good, the bad, and the not so pretty is layed out for you.

March Wrap Up

Hello my lovelies! It has been quite some time since I did a blog not related to answering questions. It is time to start something new. March Wrap Up! At the end or beginning of each month I will be telling you which books I read, a little about them, my spoiler free thoughts, and where they fit into my Popsugar Reading Challenge. So let's get started.

Sunday's Questions with The Girl From Alabama

Since our last post together, The Girl From Alabama and I have gotten more requested from people close to us to blog together. Particularly, my fiance Nathaniel. He sent us a list of questions for us to answer. The list itself is rather lengthy and many of the questions are thought provoking. We decided to split them up into segments, doing five at a time. So for the next few weeks, you will be seeing a new set each Sunday. I hope that you enjoy our questions and answers. You can find a link to her responses here.

Erin Condren Life Planner Tag

Do you love all things planner related? My friends and I have come up with an Erin Condren Life Planner tag! Today this post will be a collaboration with my dear friend Hunter from The Girl From Alabama. She will be doing the same tag over on her blog, and I will have a link for that down below as well as more information about Hunter and her blog. Lets answer some planner questions for you!

The Never Ending Struggle

The title says it all... It seems like a battle that I can't seem to find the ending of. The battle of the Body Image. I know that I am not alone in my struggle, and I know that more light is being shed on the issues surrounding plus size women thanks to people like Tess Holliday, the first plus size woman to be signed to a major modeling agency. The fact still remains, even confident women have doubt from time to time.

Book Review: Looking for Alaska

We all read books that make an impact on our lives. We take away bits of everything we have read. Years later we may not remember the context of a book, but you remember how that book made us feel. Today I will be reviewing "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. Although not profound overall, the impact it has left on me will last a lifetime.

Tag - Book Edition

Today I thought I would just do something fun and silly. It is no secret that I love to read! I am doing the Reader Problems Tag. I originally watched several YouTube videos on this and thought I would blog it. (Let's be real, me talk to a camera? Hilarious!) As a avid reader, this tag hit home with all of the difficult questions. From Goodreads to TBRs, Covers to Tears this tag has them all. So let's get to the questions, shall we?

Just A Little Chat

I know that I have been blogging rather sporadically lately. It has been just very normal things, nothing special. So today, I wanted to just have a tiny chat about things going on in my life.

Favorite Books of 2014

Slightly late for you lovelies, but I thought I would give you a list of my favorite books of 2014. I didn't read too terrible much during the year, but I did have some stand out favorites. As we all know reading is something that I am very passionate about. I stepped out of my comfort zone for 2014 and read things I usually wouldn't. It really turned out well for me. I hope you enjoy the list!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (I didn't see that coming and I cried my eyes out. I will be rereading this again soon)

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (This was a reread, but still a favorite)

Guys Are Waffles Girls Are Spaghetti by Chad Eastham (You can read my review on this one here)

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares (Left me wondering and guessing throughout the whole book)

Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth (Oh the frustation)

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (And I cried and cried and cried)

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg (Long overdue to read, but I still loved the story)

Wicked Lovely and Darkest Mercy by Melissa Marr (I loved the 
first and last book, the rest are okay. Read my review here)

The One & Only by Emily Giffin (Definitely out of my comfort zone. Thanks Popsugar)

Kingdom Series by Marie Hall (I have only read the first three, but hello spin on fairytales I already love.)

I have already started working on my list of books to read for 2015. I would love to see what everyone has read and loved in the previous year. Feel free to share with me any books that you already plan to read in the upcoming year. Wishing you a lovely year of reading and I hope to see you back soon!