Thirty Days of Thankfulness; Week Two.

I am continuing on from last week with the 30 days of thankfulness link up from The Harrells on Hood.

November 8th: I am thankful for Fridays. The weekends are some of my most treasured times. My husband and I drive back down to our hometown every Friday and stay till Sunday to visit with our families.

November 9th: I am thankful for celebrating family's birthdays and spontaneous babysitting nights. We celebrated Josh's cousins birthday last Saturday at a Mexican restaurant and drove back to his home for cake. We also got to babysit two of the sweetest little girls who, though they are not related by blood, are our family.

November 10th: I am thankful for late night babysitting gigs and church and Sunday lunch. I got to babysit two awesome boys on Sunday night! They were five and seven years old and absolutely so fun to be with. Church on Sunday morning was very refreshing for my soul. Have you heard Nothing I Hold On To/Climb? It penetrated my soul so deeply. Give it a listen.

November 11th: I am thankful for the cold weather. I absolutely love it. Big sweaters, uggs, and great coffee!

November 12th: I am thankful for cute barber shops and new husband hair cuts. I found the cutest little barber shop in our town and I took Josh there to get his hair cut! I'll have to post pictures of it sometime later, but for now here's a picture of  my handsome husband's new do.

November 13th: I am thankful for a husband who takes care of me when I'm sick. I got a cold a few days ago and my husband has been so good to me.

November 14th: I am also thankful for husband's who call from the other room saying "This song is for you!" and precede to play my favorite song from The Nutcracker. He's a keeper, y'all.

wildest dreams.

I recently started a book study with the community at  (in)courage. The book, A Million Little Ways, has already changed the way I think about my life and the way I live my art for God. One of the chapters talks about our wildest dreams and it made me start thinking... what are my wildest dreams? I want to travel all over the world - from England to Italy to Africa to serve. I want to travel to the country where my husband and I will adopt some of our future kid(s). I want to live on a farm and grow my own food and raise chickens and goats and everything else. I want to hear many little feet pitter patter on our floors. I want to be an explorer, an adventurer. My husband shared with me he wants to have a windmill farm. That's his wildest dream.

There's a quote from the chapter that really sticks out to me. It says "What if you desire to do a particular thing because God created you a particular way, not to tease you or to make you miserable, but to actually mold you into becoming more like Him, for His glory and the benefit of others? Could it be possible that thing you most long for, the thing you notice and think about and wish you could do, is the thing you were actually made and are being equipped to do?"
That really struck a chord in me. After I read the chapter, I hopped on over to the discussion blog post on the chapter. I was reading through the comments on the chapter and I noticed a woman's comment that just inspired me so much. She said (to sum it up) that whatever our desires our, whatever our wildest dreams are, start pursuing them NOW. If you want to go to France, start learning French. If you want to live off the land, start growing things NOW! If you want to be a missionary, start now by sponsoring a child! There are so many steps we can take to start fulfilling our wildest dreams NOW! I just loved that so much. I am really going to start focusing on taking baby steps to fulfilling my wildest dreams right now.

It's not too late to go join the book study now! I'm three chapters behind just soaking it all in.

thirty days of thankfulness; week one.

I've been wanting to do a thankfulness challenge, but haven't really had time to do one. I finally found some free time this morning to sit down and catch up on some blogs and I came across a thirty day thankfulness challenge I found on The Harrells on Hood blog. So here it goes:

November 1st: I am thankful for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Specifically the one located in ATL. My mom had surgery there last Tuesday to remove cancerous tumors. She has complete healing in Jesus name.

November 2nd: I am thankful for the chefs at CTCA and that I have food on my plate to eat. The food at the treatment center was absolute incredible. I am blessed to be able to eat healthy meals and have food on my plate every single day.

November 3rd: I am thankful for stumbling upon this article that has went viral on marriage not being for you. Such a beautiful reminder of the marriage plan that God has for us.

November 4th: I am thankful for the holiday seasons. It brings so much joy to my life, brings families so close together, and reminds us of the true reason for the season.

November 5th: I am thankful for a place to call home. It may not be my ideal "perfect" image of a home, but I get to come home to a loving husband, a playful dog, and a pillow to lay my head on at night.

November 6th: I am thankful for laughter with my husband. Those moments when random laughter starts and it can't stop. Those are the best.

November 7th: I am so so so thankful for my family. They are my everything.

Thankfulness.

I am so very thankful.  I need to remind myself to cultivate an attitude of gratitude each and everyday, just not in November when I have constant reminders everywhere to be thankful.

This past week my husband, my sister, the dog, and I all drove to Atlanta to visit my mom who had surgery to remove tumors that have been causing the leiomyosarcoma cancer. Honestly, the whole experience was such a blessing. We know that God has healed her and that it will not strike it's ugly head again. I am thankful to Him for allowing her body to be healed and freed from the nastiness called cancer.

While in ATL, we celebrated my dads birthday. We took a day trip to Senoia, also known as "Woodbury" where The Walking Dead's governor's place is filmed! It was absolutely so much. Downtown historic Senoia (where it was filmed) had the CUTEST little shops. We enjoyed every minute of it. The third picture on top is where the governor's lab is filmed! How stinkin neat.

I am also thankful for eMeals. I recently signed up and it has been a grocery shopping and dinner lifesaver! I recommend it so much - especially if you are newly married and have no clue where to even begin in the kitchen.

God is sooo good, y'all. Lately, I have been struggling a lot, but I know if I just trust in the LORD He will make my paths straight.

This tiny apartment

Somedays I just get so worked up over where my husband and I live.

We honestly didn't look at that many apartments when we made our decision in May where we were going to live. We certainly should have expanded our search further.

Our landlords are the most unpleasant people. This is no exaggeration. If you were to look them up on Google you would find many bad reviews on them... We made the mistake of not looking them up first before we signed the lease. There have been many occasions of them being extremely rude to both my husband and I. Also, an incident happened a little over a month ago with our dog getting off his leash while I was walking him. A dog was coming towards us so he took off at the other dog. Long story short, for some reason the owner of the properties was just sitting in his truck in the middle of the apartment complex and he saw what happened. He decided to exaggerate way more and lie about the whole situation. He claimed that several people were trying to help the dogs stop wrestling each other, etc, when in reality it was just ME outside with him standing off to the side just watching it happen while I was screaming for help! That definitely caused me extreme anger, but I got over it.
I just can't wait till our lease is up.

Somedays I just want to cry because of this apartment. The dishwasher barely works, the downstairs toilet completely stopped working, the upstairs toilet barely works now, people leave out their trash on their doorsteps at night which ends up all over the complex the next morning, the neighbors fight, a cop and ambulance were here last Friday night because of something that happened with the neighbors a few doors down, there isn't any space to cook... I could go on forever with the list.

But I need to realize something.

Atleast I have a roof over my head, air, and heat.

I need to be thankful on a daily basis for that.

LORD, please remind me daily of how much you have blessed me with and that I am only in a season of stressing out over this apartment.

October!

Today is October 1st! I am so super pumped for this month! Fall, fall, fall! Bonfires, costumes, apples, pumpkins, crisp air, crunch leaves! I could go on forever about all my favorites of fall.

All dressed up for church on Sunday! Yep, that's part of our church right behind us! Our apartment is beside the church.

Life lately has been busy, but it's been fun. This past weekend Josh had a few friends over who spent the weekend at our apartment just chilling and hanging out. We all watched World War Z together... To be honest, I actually really enjoyed the movie! I am a fan of The Walking Dead also... but I am not a huge fan of zombies haha. My sister and my best friend also stayed with us this weekend... We definitely had a full house for such a little apartment.

My husband may or may not have asked me to paint his nails with glow in the dark nail polish he saw at Walgreens. It went on clear in case anyone was wondering. When we laid down for bed that night he pretended his fingers were spiders. He seriously had a blast. Isn't he precious?

Carry Me Through//Links for the weekend

This week started out with a sick dog and a flooding bathroom, but it has ended quite well. My best friend and I babysat my two favorite littles last night. Tomorrow, I'm going to the dog day festival back in my hometown! I'm pretty excited to spend the day with Ryland, my sister, and (hopefully) my husband will come along also! :)

For your weekend, here are a few links I have enjoyed:

I absolutely love this! This woman needs to make a sketchbook out of these for kids to finish! I love her daughter's additions to all her faces. I would buy this for my future littles.

I love this idea for a gift. I'm going to put one together for my dad's birthday at the beginning of Novemeber.

The Green PolkaDot Box. I just recently found this. It's an online grocery shopping site with organic/natural foods for CHEAP! Not having to leave the house to grocery shop and getting cheap organic and natural food sounds like a winner to me! I haven't decided yet if I am going to go ahead and use it or wait until we move into our home so all of the groceries aren't delivered to my apartment.

Speaking of grocery shopping, here is a list of foods for stocking up in your pantry! I am going to have to do that soon.

Have a happy weekend!

P.S. - Here's a picture from last night of my two favorite littles! How sweet are they?