Christmas Eve!

I can hardly believe it's already Christmas eve!! It doesn't even feel like it's December yet. This year has flown by so quickly.

I've spent my day today baking cookies, sewing on my Toms, making brown sugar body scrub for presents, and helping mom make her tortilla cup dessert.

It's been a really nice day, being able to relax and spend time with my parents. (Poor Lin is having to work today)

I'm about to have to get ready to go to our Christmas Eve service at Grace tonight at 6:30. Most of our family will be going and I always enjoy this service.

Have a Merry Christmas! I know I won't post tomorrow, but hopefully I will soon after.

My Day

Today was a great day. I was able to take my time getting ready this morning since I didn't have any plans until 2. it was nice being able to lay in bed for a while, take a long & hot shower, eat a bite, and just relax a little.

Then I braved the crazy Tyler traffic to drive across town & meet with my best friend Macie at Starbucks. I hadn't seen her since this past summer and it was wonderful being able to catch up and just talk about what was going on in our lives. We stayed way longer than I thought we would and both of us ended up not being able to accomplish anything else in town for the day, but it was all well worth it.

It was raining ridiculously hard while I was driving home, but it has now slowed down to a nice and steady drizzle back home. I'm looking forward to crawling back in bed and enjoying listening to the rain as I fall asleep.

On a side note, here's a picture of my shoulder from this morning. I shot several different guns yesterday and didn't realize how much of a kick they had. My shoulder didn't hurt at all, but I still ended up bruising pretty bad. This picture doesn't really do justice to just how dark & large it is. Oh well, I guess it's just the price I pay for having so much fun yesterday!

Christmas Party

Today I attended a Christmas party hosted by Patti. I had such a fun time being around family and close friends right before the craziness of getting prepared for Christmas starts. During the party Naomi and I managed to sneak away to have a mini photo shoot. Her husband, John, was great and agreed to take the pictures. We really tested his patience I'm sure, with all of our silliness!

Here are a couple pictures that were taken today.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Current obsessions

Here are some of my current style obsessions...

For some reason I adore her style here... just started following her blog over at lovemaegan.com --You should check it out!

such a cute tattoo

LOVING braided hair!

and I adore the funky braids here

I love the wavy long hair here!

LOVE IT!

I'm also obsessing over leg warmers... even though I don't really have any boots like this!

Well, that's about it... I have a lot more that I pinned tonight on Pinterest... you should click on the link & follow me!

'Night!

Grandma's Baptism

I've kept putting off updating this about Grandma's Baptism, but here I am! I'm just so lazy when it comes to finally getting on here to write something down and post pictures... things that are pretty basic and easy!

Anyways, my Grandma was baptized this past Sunday by my Daddy. It was a really awesome experience to witness. Grandma wrote out her testimony and dad ended up reading it out loud for her. Grandma's a crier, so she knew she wouldn't be able to get through all of it. This was expected, but it really hit me when Dad started to get a little choked up while he read. Even Naomi and I started to tear up! I took as many pictures as I could, but all I had was my iPhone... so I apologize for the crappy quality. The lighting was not very forgiving, and Dad's white shirt practically glows in all of them, but here they are!

My favorite picture is the one at the bottom in the middle where Grandma turned to the audience and raised her hands up in the air while the audience whooped & yee-hawed & hollered! It was really awesome.

Yesterday's Post

I'm sorry if my last post was depressing, but I really needed to get all of that off my chest. I know that I only have a few readers, so I'm sorry that y'all will have to deal with the moodiness I'll sometimes leak out.

Anyways, today I have an eye appointment for a check up in Tyler this afternoon and then I'll come back home. I'm going to try to meet with someone about working over the break & figuring all that out, but I'm not sure about all that yet.

Tomorrow should be busier since all of the family will be home. Mom has a lot of things she wants to get done, mainly going to go try to find a Christmas tree out at nana & papa's place. Apparently we threw away our Christmas tree last year and didn't realize it until we started looking for it again this year.

We are also supposed to be making Christmas candy sometime soon. I think that if we don't get to make some Saturday that we're supposed to be try to next week on Tuesday or Thursday. Sad thing is, I don't know if I'll be able to help then since I'll most likely be working. 

Oh well, at least I'll be pulling in more money than I'd get from just giving plasma.

Dream Job

I don't want to have to work at Brookshires over the break. Yet I know how badly we need the extra money & I definitely do not want to add to the burdens mom & dad have.

All I want is to open my bakery. It's the dream job I've always wanted. I didn't even want to go to State... I wanted to go to culinary school instead, but mom & dad wanted me to get a bachelors degree in something (hence the food science degree!).

I know that opening my own bakery will be hard. It will take a lot of time, patience, sweat, tears, maybe even blood, and a whole lotta money. But that's all I've kept thinking about this past year, especially since I'm so close to graduating.

I keep dreaming up recipes & menus, designs & the layout, uniforms & cleaning, etc etc. Boring things that only I would think about this far in advance & get excited about. I yearn for the tiredness I'll feel, the pain in my feet from standing all day, the stress in having to make decisions & deal with day to day operations. All weird things that most people would normally shy away from, but it's something I genuinely want.

I almost feel like there's an emptiness in me since I know that I'm nowhere near seeing this dream of mine come true. I know I'll have to work at Brookshires, or a bunch of other jobs I won't like. I know that I have student loans I need to pay off once I graduate. I know I have hardly any credit and will have one heck of a time if I want to get a business loan. I know that I'll need even more money to start up the joint and will be lucky if I start seeing ends meet & maybe making a little extra in five years. I know all of these hard things and so it makes me sad. And it makes me upset. And I stay up thinking about all this and so it makes me tired.

But it's time for me to grow up and just deal with all these facts. I'll need to suck it up and just do the things I don't want to do and try to be happy about it.

Home for Christmas Break

My fall semester is over & so I was able to get home this past Friday. I was only back at school for a couple days, but it was weird how it felt like much longer.

Today is a super rainy & cold Sunday, so I'm just spending the day with my family.

I'll try to post something more interesting later!