Thursday, August 30, 2012

it's fun to work at the Y-M-C-A

despite the fact that i so desperately am wanting a new job, i love working at the Y. i have worked there for 5 years, and they have been super flexible with my ever changing school schedule the entire time. they give me days off when i need them, and they let me work on homework when we are dead. but most of all, i love the encouragement i get from everyone there. i have to say i work with awesome people, and we have amazing, friendly members.

i made this goal to run 50 miles by the end of the year. i went there today to run and make some progress on this goal. i was able to get a mile in today, and did about a mile and a quarter last night. after i was done today our center director came out and was talking to us. i told him and the two coworkers that were there about my goal, and how i've got 4 miles in so far, and they were so encouraging about it (my boss even gave me a fist bump for it haha). at the start of summer, when i ran my first 5k, some trainers and all the directors were awesome about encouraging me before it, and asking how it went afterwards. i have to say i have awesome coworkers who actually care about what is going on in our lives.

we also have great members, who will also encourage you in whatever. there was one day i was working on homework at the desk and a member came up and was talking with me about school. he had asked if i was married or had kids. both are those are a big "no", and he said i could do pharmacy tech classes, and that i was smart for doing them while i was still young with no kids and not married. it was just nice to know that he knows i can do this. (by the way, i got an A in both of my summer classes and i'm super stoked about it!!!) we have another member who i simply adore. he's a great guy and a huge encourager. he's got parkinson's and uses a walker, but he still comes in all the time to work out and spend time in the pool. i love talking to him and see what's going on in his life, and he makes sure to see what's going on in our lives. i get excited to see his silver pt cruiser in the parking lot.

so i just wanted to say i really do love my coworkers, directors, and members. they are a great support team and great encouragers with whatever goals i have. i'm really thankful for all of them. and just wanted to give y'all a little peek of it.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

girl behind the blog episode three

okay seriously youtube, could you make me choose between any worse screenshots for a thumbnail?? this is just evil. so here is vlog number three. so thankful for 5ohwifey for doing these. and so glad i started doing them. please ignore the horrible lighting and mass amount of cream background in the video. i never realized how creamy the dining room walls and curtain are.




5ohwifey

Friday, August 24, 2012

high five for friday

linking up with from my grey desk again for some highs of my week.

one. coffee with christina. so the bff is in town to celebrate her birthday with her dad and step mom. so yesterday we spent like two and a half hours at starbucks. it was great to see her and spend time with her. she's moving to georgia at the start of october, so it's great to spend time with her before she leaves.

two. coffee with sarah. i went on multiple coffee dates this week. tuesday was at target with sarah. we meet at target so we can get our coffee and then walk around, which usually turns out bad for me. i spend way too much money at target haha. but i got my friends wedding present, just need to find some stuff to fill it with. i also got some wooden pencils (because i'm a nerd), the new magnetic nail polish from sally hansen, and a great plaid shirt. i have a love of plaid shirts. and she told me she set a date for her wedding =]

this is the shirt that i bought and am in love with. and pretty much the whole outfit is from target. (it was my first time using the self timer on the camera)

the sally hansen nail polish. pretty please with how it turned out

three. coffee with rose. so i seriously just got home from my last coffee date of the week with rose. i love spending time with her. she is such a dear friend and i'm so blessed to have her in my life. i really don't have many friends here any more, so it's great to have her. we are both trying to be more intentional, so hopefully we will get more consistent with seeing each other. i'm also thinking about going back to doing personal training with her.

four. grilled chicken and mashed potatoes. so last night was my first go at grilling chicken myself. i was super pleased with how it turned out. i was worried i either wasn't going to cook it all the way through, or it would be dry, but it turned out really good. i was kinda bummed that we didn't have real potatoes, but the spuds in a box weren't so bad. still made delicious garlic mashed potatoes, and heated up a can of green beans to go with it. i think it all turned out really well.

doesn't this look  yummy. cuz it sure did taste yummy. 

my chicken as i was grilling it. i'm thinking about making more recipes and putting them up here.

my precious cece was my grilling buddy. just laying on the bench by the grill.


five. bible studies. so this past week i started a study on youversion called the confident woman. i've really been enjoying it so far. it's a 14 day devo, and i've done 5 days so far. it's been really good. i can't wait to continue with it and see how it goes.

i went kinda camera happy with my cat yesterday. here are more picture of her. and luckily i saw her this morning with no battle wounds (i saw two coons on the deck last night but didn't see her, and it worried me) she gets annoyed when i keep taking her picture, so now she just ignores me when i have my camera.







Wednesday, August 22, 2012

12. five guys whom you find attractive.

oh goodness. this one might get interesting for me. i'm pretty open about who i find attractive, but some of them are times when my friends are like "really?"


first up, is my friend mike. (i stole this from his facebook) that's him on the left, his dad on the right. don't they look more like brothers? i met mike about two years ago. he said it was bad that i didn't have many friends here and hadn't been on a date in a while, so he decided he was going to change that. so we went over to Legends, walked around Cabela's,  watched Unstoppable, and had dinner at Outback. it was a fun night, and the start of a good friendship. he's in the reserve, and spent a bit less than a year in afghanistan (his dad was over there at the same place and same time as well). i already have a huge respect for anyone who chooses to be in the military, it's definitely a strength i do not have. so that's one thing that attracted me to him, (seeing him in uniform was just an added bonus). also, just spending time with him, you can tell he cares about other people. he's got a sweet heart, which i'm sure he wouldn't want to have me tell the world. he's a hard worker and seems to be working all the time. and he's quite a hunk. i like this man a lot.


this is my dear friend nick. (again, stolen from his facebook) pretty sure if he didn't move to oregon, we would have dated by now. we met at central christian college of the bible and after a bad breakup, he let me cry to him on the phone for hours. (if you know me, you know it takes a lot for me to cry in front of someone) so he's still never actually seen me cry, but boy has he heard it. i was back home, with one bff in michigan, and the other at boot camp, and had no one to turn to. so one day he messaged me on facebook and said if i wanted to talk, he was there for me. a few minutes later i started talking to him. he's been pretty much the one guy that i tell everything to. he's become one of my best friends. we barely talked when we were at school together (i was dating someone who like to control who i talked to) but that following summer we talked pretty much non stop. when he moved to oregon it got harder to talk as much. he is a great man of God, and has a great heart for helping people.  


meet my boyfriend, jeff francoeur, aka frenchie. he just is completely unaware of this fact. we have the same bday, he's just six years older, so my dad decided he's my boyfriend and we should get married on jan 8, so we can celebrate everything in one day. i like celebrating things, so that plan didn't fly so well with me. we will just have to pick a different date. but i am pretty much in love with him. (i have a thing for baseball players) as an added bonus, my friends went the faith and family game this year, and said he come out of the locker room and spoke about being daily in the Word and living for God. how awesome! and i was totally jealous that they got to see that and i didn't. but it still make my heart happy to know he was like that. (i guess him and a few team mates will have like a Bible study while they are on the road and away from their families as a way to stay committed and accountable. how awesome is that?!)


this is my other boyfriend, luke bryan. i am a sucker for his voice and will gladly have him sing to me any day of the week. so i went to the luke bryan and jason aldean concert with a friend back in march, and he made fun of me for how in love i am with this man. (i jokingly told him if he sang to me i'd probably fall in love with him too, neither of those happened) and from what i hear, when he's not on stage, he's a really down to earth guy. plus, aren't his kids adorable! him and his wife definitely make cute kids.


okay my last gorgeous hunk of man is channing tatum. i love that crooked smile of his. pretty sure i'm just gonna leave it at that haha.

if you think any of these are a "really?" choice, feel free to tell me haha. who do you find attractive?

Monday, August 20, 2012

happy birthday best friend!

so ya know how i said earlier that i could write a whole post on my best friend? well today is her 22nd birthday, and this post is for her.
this is basically christina 










christina grew up as an army brat, and came to good ol' pc mo middle of fifth grade. so wayyyy back in january of 2001. (that sounds like forever ago) we hung out, both enjoyed the same things, and became friends. in sixth grade we were in band together. we both were/are flute players, so we sat next to each other and annoyed the crap out of our band director. (we talked...a lot) this trend continued for the next three years until high school. for a few years we went to band camp together and were in the same band there, so of course we tried to sit with each other there also. i go through middle school years fast because we "fought" a lot then, meaning i had a really bad temper then and would not talk to her for a few days at a time. (thank the lord she stuck with me though) it was usually over really stupid stuff too. but when i wasn't choosing to be mad at her for things i can't remember, we were pretty much always together. we spent tons of time at each others houses, at the parks, or at the coffee shop in town. (it was pretty much our second home) in 7th or 8th grade, we thought she was going to move to texas. i came home a cried like a baby the day she told me. i even asked if we could let her live here. thankfully all of that fell through and she stayed here.





most of these pretty much define our relationship. very rarely do we manage to take a normal picture

so then we get into high school. we stopped fighting over stupid things. (i can't think of a fight we have had since middle school) she continued with band, but i took a year off of music (horrible decision) and we ran track together. i always thought she was going to play soccer in high school, but never did. high school is really when our relationship got solid, even though we had been best friends for years. we did tech for plays together, did forensics together. (not the csi type of forensics, the speech and debate type) high school is when we truly were inseparable. after we graduated, she went into the marines, and i had the worst break up so far. it was so hard for me to not be able to call her and cry to her. so i wrote her a really random letter instead. i still have her letter back. when she came home for like a month, we were together almost 24/7. now she lives in jeff city, and is moving to georgia soon. i can't wait to see her in a few days.

















christina - 
only we can manage to get locked in an open room.  only we would be crazy enough to have a sword and gun fight as seniors in high school. and who would have thought my mom would encourage us to blow bubbles in each others faces at a wedding.  i am so grateful to have you in my life.  you are basically the only person i can be goofing off with one minute, and crying to the next. thank you so much for being there for me along the way. you are truly a best friend and i can't imagine what my life was like before meeting you. i love  taking random pictures with you and somehow almost always making the same face without knowing it. i love barely ever taking a normal picture with you. i'm so glad you have pretty much become my sister over the past 11 years. (can you believe we've been friends this long?!) i can't wait to see where the rest of the years take us. i love you more than anything bestie. thanks for being a rock star best friend! have an awesome birthday, and we will celebrate it soon!