My Life According to Pictures

While I was on my blogcation I was still taking pictures of everything. If you follow me on IG than you probably have seen most of these photos already. I figured it would be best to do a quick recap of what you missed or didn’t miss while I was away.

March Madness happened and my Louisville Cardinals made it to the Elite Eight. I think they could have won the entire championship but hey, I am one of those fans that will believe my team can do it all no matter how poor the regular season went. I am happy they made it where they did. Many people didn’t think we would even make it to the round of 32. Duke won the championship and I am pleased with that. They are a fellow ACC team and Kentucky fans hate Duke and I hate Kentucky so there you have it. (Kentucky wasn’t in the final game but I just don’t like when they win… I’m terrible like that and I accept it.)

Funny story, I have a grandmother in Colorado that can’t seem to understand that even though I live in Kentucky, I do not like Kentucky basketball and the team I cheer for is Louisville. She will comment on all my Facebook pictures during March Madness cheering for Kentucky. I have corrected her a million times; oh well… gotta love our grandmas!

Next up, I was lucky enough to get a flat tire on my way to dropping my son off at daycare before I head in to work. Thankfully my younger brother lives in the city (Brandon was at work with no phone access) and was willing to come help me change the tire. Upon arrival we get the spare tire out and as he is about to change the flat he points out that I have a special lug nut on my tire that needs a ‘lug nut key’. Apparently it deters people from stealing your tires; a problem I have never encountered and wasn’t really aware that people may want my Jeep tires.

I just purchased this vehicle in July and since I had never heard of this mysterious ‘lug nut key’, I didn’t think to make sure I had one. You can’t even buy this key from Auto Zone. You have to get it directly from the dealership and they will not sell it to you unless you bring them the car.

So then you have your younger brother take your son to daycare so that you can have your car towed to a delearship because you have a flat tire that requires a special ‘key’ to be able to change and they didn’t provide you with said key. I called the dealership and politely inquired as to why this wasn’t something that was in the car when it was purchased. What if I would have gotten a flat tire at 12am in the middle of nowhere?

Upon arrival to the dealership they inform me that it will be about 3 hours before my car is ready. Due to their mistake they did end up giving me a new tire for the low low price of free. I’m a huge baby, I can’t tell you how many times I cried and then had to hide it when people were around me. I prefer to wallow in my sorrows alone.

Next up, Easter happened. Look at this cutie just stealing the show making all of us look bad. He insisted on wearing his tie on the outside of his vest. It could be the new fashion craze for all I know.

We ate food that day and tried to take the best possible photo. We look really great together.

We went to Thunder over Louisville where my son used his super human strength to lift an Army helicopter all by himself. For those who are unaware, Thunder is a massive Fireworks and airshow that kicks off the events for the Kentucky Derby Festival. Lots of stuff happens, lots of fried food is prepared, lots of strangers come to town and I hate the traffic.

Now that we have gotten caught up on our missing time together I feel at peace. I hope to see you again this week. I’m putting in some extra effort. Check out the #linkup.

I’m back! True Life Story Plus Engagement Pictures

Man, I have been absent for quite sometime. It turns out that a week off from blogging really meant a month. My life has been anything but a routine lately. I have had more to do in the last month than I have had to do in the last 4 years of my life. Everything is changing and it is happening pretty quickly. I am excited and terrified all at the same time. I am very optimistic about the future and I know that everything I am investing in my life will be beneficial.

In short, I have been working on my own personal relationship with the Lord, while working on being engaged and planning a wedding. If you have read my blog since the beginning you have seen many posts that are pretty negative and seem like I have no idea what I am even doing in life. I still don’t really have everything together. I have realized that I can’t do this life thing on my own. I can’t get through the tough times and the worry that I face on a pretty consistent basis without faith. For a long time I was focused. I knew where I was going and my faith was very important to me. It never really stopped being important, it just became secondary. My personal wants and needs were first. It was all about me.

I have since been brought back to the realization that I need Christ in my life. I have to have him to be alright. Without that, I am really nothing. Not one person in this world can make me feel like no matter what happens; everything will be alright. I will still encounter hard times but knowing that my time on this earth is temporary and when that passes away I will be in a better place is really all the promise that I need.

I know what some of you may be thinking…. Christians are out of touch, judgmental, and think they know everything. It is a horrible reputation that I hate exists. Let me be the first to tell you, I am not perfect and will never be. I expect perfection from no one and neither does God. We are saved by grace and therefore no amount of actions or works that we do will ever make any of us better than the other.

This doesn’t mean that I will always talk about my faith and that is the only thing that exists in the world. It is very important to me and I will talk about it as well. I still plan to post about fitness, beauty products, my engagement, my little adorable son, and even laugh at Kanye from time to time.

The most beautiful thing about being saved is knowing that there isn’t anything I can do to ever lose the love that Jesus has for me. Even if today my fiancé decided that he didn’t want to be with me any longer because of my unrealistic ideas and unpredictable mood swings, I know that I will be alright because I have Jesus.

I hope you will stick around. I hope we can be friends still. I’m still a sinner and will definitely make mistakes because perfection isn’t possible. I’m human. That even means that I will probably post about being sad sometimes. I still have periods so we all know I am going to cry at least one whole week out of the month.

On another note… here are some of our engagement pictures. I hope you enjoy them. How have you guys been doing? I sure miss you!

Take a breather/Lion King Play

I am going to take this week off from blogging because I am a bit behind with work related tasks and I need to get those caught up as soon as possible. If I get caught up before the week is over I will return and grace you with a post that will hopefully make you feel like life has just begin..maybe.

Anyway, while I am here. The feyonce fiancé and I saw the Broadway Lion King play on Friday and it was amazing! You aren’t allowed to take any pictures during the play so this is all I have.

This is what the stage looked like before the show started. We waited until the last minute to get tickets and the only seats left that were together were very expensive however they were amazing seats.

Here is a YouTube video that shows some clips of the play and it is even better live! This entire production is amazing and the talent is unbelievable!

My son did not go with us, I felt he is a bit too young at 3 and some of the scenes with the Hyena’s and Scar may have scared him a bit. Here is a random picture of him from yesterday looking like the cutest kid in the world. The lion is not related to the play but still just as cool.

I’ll see you guys as soon as I catch up here. Have a great week!

Let Your Light Shine

I would like to start out today by giving a special thank you and shout out to Aisha who blogs over on Made with Zeal. She was kind enough to feature me on her link-up “Let Your Light Shine”.

This weekly link-up is for any bloggers to join in on and you just post about anything from the week that made your light shine! Aisha has been such an inspire and positive blogger that I frequent whenever I have no idea what to do to get myself out of a funk. She is so positive and chooses to be happy even when it is not easy. Not to mention she has some amazing fashion posts as well!

This week my highlight has been being engaged. Aside from the getting married aspect I have really grown closer to the women in my life. So many of you have said such kind things and I truly appreciate it. The love that I am feeling all around me is amazing and when times get hard I will turn to these times and remember the joy.

Life is full of moments that we will never understand and we never know when or how life will change. I must confess that up until the last 6 months I did not really enjoy reading posts about marriage and being engaged. I know see how horribly negative of me that was. I wasn’t truly allowing myself to be happy for anyone because I was a tad jealous of them. Please be gentle with me as I admit that. It is difficult and I think that it had a lot to do with all the negative talk I had going on about myself. Once I started to be more kind to myself it was easier to share moments of joy with others.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, comments, likes, or even just skims it as they pass through. I love sharing with you guys. Now lets shine our light as bright as we can ladies!

Difficulties of Forgiveness and Changes

Forgiveness is not always the easiest thing to do. In fact, depending on what it was that actually hurt you, forgiveness can seem like a near impossible task. I find that the things that hurt me the most in life (my dad being absent) are the ones that I often forget that I need to forgive and I have pushed it so far down that I forget it even effects me. Without forgiveness, I am still a hostage to that situation.

I am a bit of an over-thinker. Okay, I am a HUGE over thinker. I can take any small situation and come up with at least 5 different unrealistic scenarios of what I think could have possibly happened. I imagine that the person who hurt me was consciously choosing to do it and in the act knew and just did not care.

I have a very great memory combined with an imagination that can create a blockbuster movie in a matter of minutes and take me on an unnecessary emotional ride. I can take any small thing and make it personal even if nothing really even happened. For example, in a friendship, I can ‘think’ that a friend is being malicious and intentionally trying to hurt me when in fact they weren’t even thinking about me in that sense at all. I am overly sensitive as well and if my day hasn’t been the best I react as though everyone in this world has united against me. I am the last remaining human amongst the vampires and they are on the hunt.

It is all very unrealistic in retrospect. All of this negative thinking that I carry with me goes back to events that have happened earlier in life and they are mechanisms of defense built to protect me but at times they can push people to the side. There are many people that I have not forgiven in my past. For some reason, it is now easier for me to forgive but I haven’t applied that to things that happened earlier in life. I still carry those burdens around with me. This is very unhealthy behavior.

The truth is that we are all human and we will hurt each other. I am in no way perfect and I am positive that I have done my fair share of hurting others also. I try my best but even if I am unaware, there are people that I have hurt in some way or another.

Forgiving will set me free of my past. Forgiving will allow me to move forward in life and not feel like I have to look around the corner and double check everyone’s actions trying to determine their motive. I don’t want this burden of self-preservation any longer. I want to live my life and deal with situations as they arise rather than taking a ton of unnecessary steps to avoid getting hurt. You really can’t avoid it anyway. If it is going to happen than that’s the way it is. You can’t stop this.

This process is not going to be an easy one to undergo. I will have to check myself and slowly make these changes. Turning things outside of my control over to God is going to help me in the long run. I am confident in my abilities to do this. We need to forgive. I need to forgive. Let’s do it together!

Week 4 Update

This morning while I was getting ready for work my son came and asked me to take a picture of him.

The result is absolutely the most adorable thing I have seen all day long. As he gets closer and closer to turning 4 (September) he is becoming more polite and doing a much better job at following my instructions. It brings me peace because the last year or so has been a difficult time of him testing me multiple times. I love my son so much and his face just makes everything in my life perfect (even when he makes me feel crazy).

Today starts Week 4 of my personal eating challenge in which I set the following guidelines.

I will only have one cheat per week on each of the twelve weeks.

I am going to log all of my food in MFP – feel free to find me; cmarq01

Continue Facebook fitness challenges

Blog once per week on my progress and come clean if I have any struggles

So, I have yet to do all of these things in an entire week. This has not stopped me from continuing to do it. Today is the first day of Week 4 and I am going to do this. Yesterday I even did a pretty difficult workout with my fiancé (it feels so weird to type that word still, lol).

We ran up a very steep hill (pushing my son in the jogging stroller) at Iroquois Park and at the top of the hill there is a playground and a basketball court. When we reached the top of the hill we let my son play on the playground and we used the equipment to do 5 sets of 10 Pull-ups (modified for me, I have reached ‘real’ pull-up status quite yet), push-ups and dips. Our arms were killing us when we were done. We took a short break and allowed my son to run around and play a bit more and then headed back down the hill. I couldn’t get my run keeper app to act right the second time which is why the distance is less and the speed slower than the first run up hill.

Following the run we did have pizza. Yep, I ate it, enjoyed it and then when I got home I prepped my healthy breakfast and lunch for the day and kept it moving. I know I could have made a different choice and I should have but sometimes, pizza happens.

I’ll be heading to the gym after work for another round of working out unless the weather is nice and in that case I will go home and go for a run outside. I prefer that over the gym any day! I am always more active in the warmer months because I love being active and spending time in the sun.

Have you had warm weather lately? What is your favorite workout routine?

The Biggest Big News in all the World!

Take a look at the above picture. Notice anything different? Someone cut all of his hair off and is still looking just as handsome as ever! I love that adorable face he has!

My son found good use for the dreads and decided it was his turn to rock the long hair. He literally kept picking it up and putting it on his head. Why can’t adults be as adorable as children?

Aside from the lack of dreadlocks. Check out the ring on my finger friends! That’s right. We are engaged! It is such a surreal and exciting feeling. We have since been working on getting used to referring to one another as Feyonce. Yea, we are going with the more modern spelling of the word because, why not?

We got engaged on Friday the 13th. Good things do happen on that day my friends. Great things actually!

We have already decided to get married on September 5th. It is my grandmothers birthday and we are ready to get this thing going. I don’t have much experience with wedding planning so I am open to any suggestions that you may have. Please! Give me your ideas!

I’ll be back tomorrow with more but in the meantime I will let this breaking news marinate for a bit.

Hey Friday Favorites, Laughing and sharing blog love

It is Friday and I have some favorite things to tell you about! Are you ready for this? I sure am! Let’s do this then!

My favorite blog posts this week come from some amazing bloggers. While I still have not managed to catch myself up on my blog reading, I did manage to get a good amount in. Check out these lovely ladies and there amazing posts!

“Is it Over?” written by Making Melissa is one of the reasons that I started blogging and still love to read them. Her honesty and eloquent words are very relatable and were very touching to read.

“I am Free” written by Aisha over at Made with Zeal is another piece that was written from the heart. It reminds me that I am in control of myself and myself alone and I do have a say in how I live and how I feel (to a certain extent of course.)

“Skylights” written by the Kari Diaries is very motivational. She is a woman taking on something new and exciting. I love celebrating women who take on new adventures!

My favorite Youtube video this week is from BF vs. GF. This challenge video had me dying!

I have some new favorite beauty products this week. The first is Mac’s Prep + Prime Fix + Spray. I spray this on my face before I do any make-up and after I finish doing my make-up. I have tired the Smashbox Primer water and Urban Decay’s setting spray but I always come back to this guy.

Next up is my new mascara bff. I can’t even tell you how much I love this new mascara. I got a free sample of it from Sephora and I am in love. I haven’t had to buy one of my own because I have the sample size but I just may need to get it immediately! It curls your lashes while applying mascara without using an eyelash curler. I love it!

Finally, I decided to try a new moisturizer so I grabbed this bottle of Clinique. I usually would just use Target’s brand of face moisturizer but I started having to apply it multiple times because my face would still feel so dry after I put it on. So far this has done what I need and I love it.

Now, on to the best part of Friday Favorites. The funny stuff! Instagram never lets me down when I need a laugh and I bring it to you so that we can share. If you follow me on IG you may have seen some of these before.

There is a new instagram account, @beautifulbroetry, that takes poems and makes them pretty hilarious. Like this one…

When I saw this I just could not stop laughing….

This picture in itself made me laugh so hard!

Isn’t this true though?

I completely agree with this one…

This picture makes me happy…

Still looking for the next best idea from the kids….

Creppy, yet still pretty dang funny!

Now hope on over to the link-ups and show them some love!

Life Updates

I have been very far behind on my blog reading and commenting lately. I used to be so on point and waiting for some people to post so that I could jump on it and enjoy what they had to share. I have been horrible at following along and I feel bad for that. So for anyone who all of a sudden gets mass notifications that I am commenting/reading it is because I am stalking your blog and trying to get caught back up.

Life is continuing to grow and evolve. Great things are happening and I can’t wait to share it with you.

I am now spelling certain words because my son understands/repeats things that I say. I’m not trying to get blamed at daycare for some of the things he repeats. Its bad enough that the radio has him rapping to the other kids and apparently that is a bad thing.

I’m still very sleepy since Day Light Savings came in so swift and unexpectedly. Maybe I knew that it was coming but since it was snowing the week prior it kind of confused me and I didn’t really get it.

I’m ending my blog post here so that I can go read your blogs in the time that I have left before real work happens. Headed to read your blogs….now!

Snow, challenges, sleeplessness..

For some reason when it snows and I am off of work I decide that I don’t want to touch a computer resulting in ZERO blog postings happening for the last 5ish days. I was on the computer yesterday but being off unexpectedly meant that there was a ton of catching up to do. I must tell you in advance that the time change has messed my sleep up horribly and I can’t even tell you how exhausted I am this morning. My poor son is struggling in the mornings as well. It is so hard to go to sleep at night and so hard to get up in the morning.

I’m back and here to update you on my challenge progress and also show you some pictures because pictures are the best….maybe.

We had about a foot of snow at my house and it was the good kind of snow. The kind that allows you to make epic snowballs and build enormous snowmen. My boyfriend is 6’5 just to give you an idea of how tall our snow man ended up being. We tried to make him look like Olaf which is why his face looks so weird. We did attempt a selfie with the snowman but our heads are too big and arms aren’t long enough.

When we went to Target the other day they had this cute little set-up to take pictures and my son wanted to take a million of them with the Target dog. I don’t blame him, I kind of wanted one as well. We have a small case of dog fever in my house if you haven’t noticed.

We did manage to make it to my boyfriend’s gym on one snow day which was very much needed. Building the snow man the next day was a workout in itself. My face always looks like a tragic car accident after working out so I decided to only include half of it in the collage that I made. We did a warm-up on the elliptical followed by a Planet Fitness 30 minute workout and then some abs.

As far as my eating on the challenge goes I can say that last week was better than the first week. I still was not 100% in it because nachos got in the way. I don’t know what it is about cheese that makes it so hard to live my life. I just love all the cheese dang it!

I’m pretty impressed with this week so far, I mean, it has only been two days but I am sticking with it. I’m determined to get this right and continue pushing myself even when I hate it most of all.

How has your week gone so far? Is the time change making you a sleepy psycho like it is me?