Day 9

Day 9 - A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.

I have been beyond blessed to have so many many people in my life who have loved and supported me! I have so much family and so many wonderful friends, and they have all been amazing. I couldn't habe been more blessed in life. Sometimes in life though, through the progression of time and circumstance we meet people who start out as friends, but end up being family. I have been blessed enough to have that happen to me. I can't say that this friendship evolved quickly, but I'm glad it did.

 This is Ashley, and she is my BFF, my bestfriend who has become my sister. Not biological or by marriage, but definitely spiritual. We have been through a lot together and a lot separate but through everything we have been there for each other. She has been the one who I could tell my secrets to and I knew I wouldn't be judged or ridiculed in any way. For about 17 years we have had each other's backs. Her family has been mine, and mine hers and we have shared so much. So much so that we had our daughters two months to the day apart. Adriana was born September 13, 2000 and her daughter Lexi was born November 13, 2000 and turns out they actually are cousins, somewhere down the line.

I can't say that everything has been peaches in our friendship, I mean we are both women and we are both stubborn. We started out in 4th grade as mortal enemies, thanks to a lovely girl whose name will not be mentioned here. She was most definitely an instagator of the hatred we had for each other, as a matter of fact she was the root of our hatred for each other. She was my next door neighbor through most of elementary school, and finally around the end of elementary maybe beginning of middle school she moved. She still went to school with us but she wasn't around us at the bus stops and she wasn't there to plant the little bugs she had planted for so long before that and slowly Ashley and I started talking, and the talking lead to an apology for all the bad things we had said and done to each other. We decided that each of us wasn't as bad as the other thought!

From 6th grade on, we were pretty inseparable. We lived within walking distance of each other and we were together all the time. We made it through middle school without killing each other, but high school was a little more difficult. We had to struggle to keep it together, and we fought hard. Now almost 20 years later, she is still the one I depend on and I hope she knows that she can depend on me as well. We have grown up now, we have had relationships and babies, and our babies are quickly becoming young women. I know that in the upcoming years I will need her just as much as I always have. She will be the one who grounds me when my teenager has me up in the air about something. I am hoping that I can do the same for her. I am hoping that we can continue to lean on each other, and learning new things together. She means the world to me and I am beyond blessed to have her not only as my friend, but also as my sister!

Day 8

Day 8 - A picture that makes you laugh.

This picture always makes me laugh. My kiddo has never been one for rides that go really fast or are really high. In the summer of 2007 Ron's uncle and cousins came for a visit, so we went to Dollywood to spend the day. It was pretty hot and we knew we would be riding some water rides so we had the girls wear their swim suits.

After riding a bunch of stuff, we came to Daredevil Falls and Adriana decided that she was absolutely NOT going to ride this ride. Ron and I decided that I would go on the ride with Emily since he didn't really feel like getting wet. Adriana was very content standing on the bridge waiting for Mommy to come down, and she was ready to laugh because I was going to be soaked. Little did she realize that, once we hit the bottom the water was going to splash up and reach her. No, she did not realize this and when she got splashed this is the face she made. This picture really is priceless, and I really appreciate Ron's eye for picture taking and knowing that this moment was going to make such a memorable picture to make a mommy laugh when she sees it!

Hope it makes you all laugh too.

Thank you Arby's!

I have to give a big ole shout out to Arby's today. There is an Arby's in almost the same parking lot as the bank, and thanks to them and their fantastic WiFi, (that's only fantastic sometimes) I am back to blogging at work. I love it. When I let our IT guy know that I was more than upset that they blocked my blog site I also informed him that I would resort back to bringing my laptop to work with me. Knowing that Arby's WiFi is kind of a hit or miss thing, I felt it was an empty threat but he didn't know that. Clayton Bank doesn't have Wifi, as stated in this post, so when our IT guy told me that it would do no good for me to bring my laptop as I wouldn't be able to access my page because it is blocked on Clayton Bank's server I knew I had one up on Mr. Johnathan. I knew that I could still block because good ole Arby's was right across the street! So thank you Arby's for allowing me to still be social, even though I should be working.

For those of you reading, I have a bunch more blogs planned and many that I have already done. I try to keep it interesting, and maybe a little funny. I'm definitely not opposed to comments or joining of my blog. The more the merrier! If you have suggestions to what I could be doing better, or what I should be leaving out, please feel free to let me know. I am still a novice to the whole blogging world but I really do love having an outlet and am really looking forward to making friends and improving in whatever way I can!

Oh, and btw... It's 9:52, we opened at 8:30 and we still haven't had one customer this morning. Long day!

Day 7

Day 7 - A picture of your most treasured item.

 This is my most treasured item. This picture is not of my Bible, although I wish I could make a picture like this because it's beautiful. I am so in love with my new relationship with my Lord. I am amazed at what he will do for you when you truly open your heart to Him. I have let Him down in the past, and I am certainly still stumbling as of now but everyday brings me one day closer, and I couldn't be more excited. This is my most treasured item because without it I wouldn't know Him at all, this book is my road map. The Bible is a way of life, and I haven't read it near enough to know enough to bring me close enough to Him. Everyday gets better, and everyday is a new opportunity to learn and grow in Him and I will live everyday trying harder to please my Lord.








My 2nd most treasured item is this--->

This is Adriana's blankie, and it's something that will stay with us forever. Adriana was such an amazing baby, she never cried and if she did you knew something was wrong. There weren't many times that you would hear anything out of her, only when her stomach was hurting and when she was hot. When she got hot she would SCREAM, I would take her clothes off and in five minutes she was fine. She was a blessing for a 17 year old, and I know if I were to ever have another baby I would probably get a rude awakening. Adriana was easy to break from everything. When I was ready to take her bottle, I handed her a sippy and she was done with her bottle, she never picked up another one. When it was time to take her passie, she cried for 2, maybe 3 nights and she was done. She realized it wasn't worth crying over because Mom wasn't giving in. When it came to potty training, she was a major blessing for a girl who had no clue how to go about it. We put on big girl panties, she pee'd in them about two times and when she realized that she was going to walk around with wet panties, she didn't do it again, to the potty everytime. She was definitely a mother's dream when she was a little tike, and this blanket was the only thing that she was attached to and I couldn't imagine taking it away from her.

When we met Ron and Emily almost five years ago he was stunned that she was still carrying around a blanket at six years old. He asked me many times when I planned on taking it away from her to which I responded, "it was never in my plans." A few years ago Adriana went to church camp with my aunt Pam, they camped at Pickett State Park in Jamestown, Tennessee. We packed all her stuff for the trip and we had to include the blanket. She couldn't be gone for days without it. The day she came back she fell asleep in the car on the way home so I carried her in the house and then carried all her stuff in. As I was unpacking everything I start to get nervous because I'm not finding her blanket, and the further I get into her stuff the more I start to freak out. Finally she wakes up, and I very nonchalantly ask my seven year old baby girl if she knows where her blanket was packed away at, and she says, "yeah, Aunt Pam put it in my pillow case." Shew, disaster averted and when I told Ron he said, "well, it's a good thing you found it because I'm not driving all the way down there to get that blanket." I replied with, "I would drive to the end of the Earth to get her blankie!"

I love my baby girl, and she loves her blankie and that makes her blankie one of my most treasured items too!

Oh how I missed you

I never realized how much I really do like blogging, that is until my employer decided that blog sites should be blocked. I have said before that my job is slow, sometimes we see as few as five customers in an eight hour day. I like my job, and I wish we were busier but we just aren't. I try to find busy work to do to keep myself occupied but there's only so much you can do at a bank in a mobile home. I know that going to work is about working, and trust me I know I am blessed to have a job but when you have done everything there is to do, then what do you do?? For me, I would blog or visit pinterest and now I can't! I am so upset.

I knew when I started that there would be no Facebooking from work, and I was fine with that because if I need to check it that bad it's on my phone. I usually only would check it though if I was tired of blogging or had nothing to blog about. If pinterest got boring, I would check Facebook. Now though, my phone stays dead because I have nothing else to do but be on Facebook.

No blog makes for very long work days, no pinterest makes for very long days at work. I guess I'm going to have to take my laptop and hope that Arby's WiFi works everyday, since Clayton Bank doesn't have WiFi! If not, I guess I will be forced to be okay.

Day 6

    Day 6 - A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day.

                                She is GORGEOUS.... that is all!!

Monday Prayer

Dear Lord,

It's me again coming to you with an open and humble heart. First of all I want to thank you for giving me another Monday with my family. Thank you for the beauty you are reigning down on us. Thank you for giving me life and helping me live it day to day. Dear Lord, I know that my thank yous can never be enough to make up for the things that you have done for me. Lord, I want to pray today for all of those who are lost and are seeking your presence in their lives and in their hearts. Lord give me words to say to lead them to you so that they may also have an everlasting life.
Lord, I want to pray a specific prayer this morning for the family of the angel you took from the race track this weekend. Lord I know that they are in pain at the loss of their loved one, please see fit to send peace their way and heal their broken hearts. I pray for all of those who need you dear Lord, the ones who are homeless or hungry, the ones who are unloved and broken. Lord, I pray for all those who have lost someone dear to them, Lord reach down and touch those lives and heal broken hearts, feed those who are in need and give shelter to those who have none. I need nothing from you dear Lord, not today except for you to touch the lives of others dear Lord as the many blessings you have given me have been many and very undeserved.
Thank you Lord for loving me and giving, even though I do nothing in return for you.

In your precious Name I pray

AMEN