I hosted Thanksgiving at my house last year, so that meant I had to clean it. Well, at least the front half of it. So then I took pictures! To blog!

I believe the last time I blogged about my house was before I even moved in last March. I’m coming up on a year renting from my friends. Being down the road from them means I get to see the kids every day, and I wouldn’t have that any other way. Plus, Laura and I have standing TV dates throughout the week, which is always nice.

Keep in mind that I am the world’s worst decorator, have no sense of style, and most of my walls are empty. My idea of organizing is tidying up piles of stuff into bigger piles of stuff. I’ll get there one day. I have big plans for this little house of mine.

Standing in the dining room, looking into the living room. Note to self: CLEAN the bookshelf and the TV stand off before taking photos.

My lovely canvases. I love how they turned out.

Standing on the rug in the living room, looking back towards the dining room.

Again, messy messy bookshelf. And for all things good and Holy why didn’t I hide the trash can??

See that chifforobe there in the corner of the kitchen? I scored that at a garage sale. A GARAGE SALE. My sister has my great grandmother’s and this one is identical. I love that we both have one now.

So. That’s the front half of my house. It only took almost a year to post these. One day I’ll have the bedrooms presentable. Plus my office. I can’t wait to tackle my office.

Until next time!

January 8-14, 2012

I slacked majorly this week in taking pictures. I told myself I wasn’t going to limit this little project to only camera pictures, so this week will have a lot of phone pictures. It’s just so much easier to whip out my phone sometimes…especially out and about in town.

I was home from school 2 days due to a yucky stomach bug. I spent a majority of those days in bed watching NCIS.

My sewing machine had been broken for a few months, and I never had time to take it to the shop, so I made time this week. He replaced all the gears and all is well now!

It’s 63 degrees in January. I know it’s typical for Louisiana, but it’s just weird to wear short sleeves in January!

We had a birthday party for Steve, and after the sun went down, we lit one paper lantern and let it go to kick of the bonfire that followed.

Last year I attempted to start Project 365/Project Life, and did well up until about February when I got the flu. After that, everything went downhill pretty fast. This year, I’m doing Project Life, and I’m not going to pressure myself in taking pictures every day, but taking pictures throughout the week to document what went on. Some weeks I may even have a theme, there may not be a total of 7 days that week, and I might include things that aren’t pictures! I’m not a huge fan of my own handwriting, something that I think will be my biggest issue with this, but I’ll learn to like it.

Here we go!

During one of our Skype sessions, Seth was still awake and was signing “I love you” to us. He’s come a long way since he got his implants, and I love getting to see and hear about all of his improvements.

Cade and Melain were dying to pop fireworks on New Year’s, so we went to the store to get some. Melain decided she didn’t like them after all, but Cade had a blast…especially indulging in our photog playfulness.

For Christmas, one of Laura’s friends gave them some seasoned pretzels. They were so addictive, so I decided to make some myself. They were very yummy! Landry calls them “cookies”, and I can’t stop eating them.

She wants everything that belongs to her sister, so it was no surprise when she came around the corner sporting her princess bike helmet. After securing it underneath her chin, she went on her merry way!

Landry has been an eating machine lately, and anything dealing with food cracks her up. This night, I was playing with a roll and she thought it was the funniest thing ever!

A girl from work set me up on a blind date Friday night. We met for coffee and conversation. It’s not likely to go any further than that. Now there’s already another co-worker wanting to set me up again!

Here are pictures of my title page and the first week. I’m probably going to go back and jazz them up a bit with some scrapbook-looking stuff, but until I get some things, this is how it will look for now!

Linking up to Jessica!

My friend Alece started this movement called One Word 365. Basically, you pick one word to focus on for the entire year. One word that will push you, inspire you, change you. This year, my word is joy.

I blame my friend Sara for this. Her life motto was “Choose Joy”. And boy, did she ever. Her disease left her in so much pain every single day, yet she chose joy in her daily life. She never left her condo, yet she found joy in her struggles.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” James 1:2

She was the epitome of that verse. And I want to be like her when I grow up.

I see my tattoo every day. And every day I’m reminded of Sara. I don’t need the tattoo to remind me of her, but it helps me remember to always choose joy. Even when things are hard.

Joy. Always and always.

It’s hard to explain online friendships.

Like, really hard.

“Have you ever even met those people? What if they’re not really who they say they are? Are you insane?”

So when my friend Sara’s health took a turn for the worse, most of my friends and family here didn’t get it. They didn’t get why I was so sad over someone who was dying when I’d never met that person.

Never met her? I beg to differ.

I may have only blogged about it once, but those Skyping sessions would happen once a week or so. I looked forward to them so much. And while I may not have ever physically hugged Sara, she was very much a real friend. A close friend. One of those friends you can tell anything to, who will keep your secrets and not hold them against you. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have many of those kinds of friends, and the ones I have, I’m holding onto.

When we got word that Sara was going to Heaven soon, the girls and I were crushed. I’m in Louisiana, Mandy’s in Texas and Ellyn’s in Indiana. Needless to say, we’re all over the place. We knew we needed to be together for this, yet it felt so wrong without Sara.

I got a text from Mandy saying she’d booked a flight to visit Ellyn the last weekend of September. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to miss school because I was already out one other day that week for meetings. I managed to work around it, booked my own tickets, and then we waited. We waited for that weekend to come, and we waited for updates from our other sweet friends who were kind enough to include us in what they knew. Basically, we waited for Sara to die. It was the strangest and hardest 10 days ever. My heart would jump out of my chest every time I had a text or a tweet from one of the girls.

Sara passed away the weekend before we left. We never thought she would’ve hung on as long as she did, 10 days since the initial post of her declining health, yet in a strange and weird way it was so relieving when she was gone. She wasn’t in any more constant, agonizing, debilitating pain. She could take deep breaths now without gasping. Her body wasn’t betraying her anymore.

The amazing thing about Sara? As heartbroken as we were about her passing—she was ready. She had told us time and time again that she had lived a full life. She had no regrets. As crappy as her quality of life was, she damn well made up for it with love. She may have been confined to that tiny condo, but she connected with people all over the globe with that little blog of hers. A minute-long conversation with Sara and you felt like you were the only person in the world when she was talking to you.

Mandy and I kind of were in the same mindset as far as going or not going to the funeral. The 3 of us had planned so many trips to see Sara that fell through at the last minute that it didn’t seem right for our first trip up there to be for her funeral. Instead, we knew Sara would be crazy happy for Ellyn, Mandy and I to get together, so that’s what we did. We went to Indiana.

For Sara.

We snuggled babies. We drank Moscato and ate frozen Oreos, both Sara’s favorite. And we lit lanterns for her.

Ellyn and I got tattoos of Sara’s life motto “Choose Joy”, and we got them done in her handwriting. El’s is on her foot, mine is on my wrist. They’re unbelievably pretty.

We spent the weekend together, just like Sara would’ve wanted. We mourned our friend by making inappropriate jokes at the worst times, and then laughing because we knew if we stopped we’d cry. It was the best weekend in the worst way.

And by the way, “those people”?

Are the real deal.

Sara went Home to Jesus around 11:15 last night.

Judging from the lightning storm outside right now, I’d say her and her dad are having a blast taking pictures at that reunion.

I’ll see you again, Sara.

Always and always.

If you have a moment, please pray for my friend Sara and her family. She’ll be meeting Jesus soon.