Being Content

      With today's post I want to talk about the importance of happiness and being content. Lately I've been thinking a lot about my future. Mostly about how I can't wait to get in the respiratory program and finish my degree and where to move afterwards. I'm supposed to graduate in July of 2014 and I know that I'm thinking way ahead of time, but I'm afraid that if I don't think about those things now that I won't be ready to make a decision when it comes to choose where I will look for a job. I realized with stressing so much about what to do that I  was losing my a bit of my happiness that I could be feeling now. This give and take between contentment and looking to the future happens frequently in life. It is important that both gets the attention they need, but the most important thing for happiness is contentment in where we are in life. Looking forward to the future is a good thing too so we can accomplish our goals, but it is way over rated. We should make our goals and every once in a while take a look at our lives to see if we are going in that direction. If too much focus is placed on our future how can we enjoy the present. I learned this lesson a long time ago about contentment and I'm glad I did. I've been so happy in my everyday life and I've been living everyday one day at a time. We are not guaranteed a future and every  moment counts in life. Ever since I've been living for each day, I hardly regret anything in the past 5 years. Living in the present not only brings happiness, but also allows you to make better decisions and be more involved with others. It brings the focus more on the important things. So, I just kind of wanted to give my little input on life and what I've learned thus far.

Anxiety

     Since I was a child I have always had very bad anxiety. My home was very hectic and I was forced to grow up at a young age. For example, everyday when my parents dropped me off at school I would ask them not to die today. Then I would worry throughout the day until they came to pick me up. I know very weird, but I was kind of raised to worry about everything. As I got older the worse my anxiety became. I obsessed over anything and everything. It started to become a big block in the roadway of my life. I never realized anxiety wasn't normal until I got older and I was sick and tired of it by then. So, I decided to battle my way of thinking. First, I bought a study book called Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. Book on Amazon I swear by that book, it really helps you to understand how your mind works and what steps to take to change your thinking patterns. So, I tried every piece of advice the book gave me. The hardest part was to not let my mind think about anxiety. My biggest fear was of loved ones dying. It drove me nuts sometimes thinking about death and how once someone's gone, they're gone. I'm going to be completely honest, it was hard work to change my set way of thinking. It was months later when I realized one day that I had not put one thought to being worried. It was so liberating to realize that I really was changing into a happier and stress free person. When I realized how much the book helped me I started to read more christian books. The next one was Good Morning Holy Spirit by Benny Hinn. This book brought me to a greater understanding of God and made me see what christianity was all about. It really opened my eyes to God and as my relationship grew with God I could feel more freedom from that stressful world I grew up in. Good Morning Holy Spirit A few years had passed and I graduated and decided to go to college. One of the first classes I took was in phsychology. That class was a real eye opener to why I had been the way I used to be. I saw that abused children are more likely to suffer from anxiety and I also learned that it takes a week to form a habit, but 3 months to get rid of it. So I realized that my journey took so long because I was used to having anxiety and that had become my habit. If anyone reading this feels like they are suffering from anxiety this is a good site to understand things more and you can also find help here.Anxiety Disorders Association of America I do want to end with the fact that I live an awesome life now. Anxiety doesn't dominate my day like it did once before. I've been living an almost stress free life for the past 4 years. I chose to change my situation and sometimes only you can help yourself.

Living in a Material World

     As you can see my topic on this blog is about materialism. First I want to start off with the fact that most people strive to be giving and try to be selfless throughout life. At least I want to believe that. I grew up as an extremely poor child. I wore hand me downs from any person that felt sorry for me from seeing me in my worn out clothes. My friends thought of me as excentric because of my weird mismatched wardrobe. To explain what I would wear on a normal school day it would have been a pink year 2000 shirt with a chick hatching from one of the zeros, a capri pant that had little tassels all around the bottom hems, and colorful toe sock matched with plain flip flops. This is just a small example of my limited wardrobe from 6th grade. Like I said before, this wardrobe led other to see me as excentric and weird. Although, I was anything but that. I remember walking through the mall looking at all the new clothes and just wanting to someday wear normal clothes that the other kids wore. Maybe even some trends too. As life went on I grew up and got my first job. This leads me to my topic, materialism. My first paycheck I spent on one pair of jeans. A really nice pair that lasted a long time. That was the beginning of my love for clothes. Every penny I got I would squander it on some new fashion that came out. I started to become very selfish and caught up in being stylish. Then I met my husband. He was the opposite of me. Unselfish, a hard worker, and very reliable. I thought it was weird when he would leave for work 30 minutes early. The more I got to know him the more I realized I didn't like who I had become. That wasn't me at all. I guess having nothing as a kid made me go crazy as an adolescent. I finally realized what really mattered in life, love and family. I had put both on the back burner. I'm happy to say that I have completely changed from that old selfish person to somone who thinks of other and their feeling first. I'm a lot happier now, but every once and a while I still struggle with the pull of materialism. It is so prevalent in today's society and sometimes depriving yourself of those material things will show you what really makes a person happy. I'm not recommending anyone become a nun, but there is a happy medium in the mix for all of us.

Vacation!

We left this morning for our vacation to Branson. Today we went shopping at the Branson Landing, which has some of my favorite places to shop. We went to Apricot Lane, White House Black Market, and some weirdo techie store. The purpose of today's shopping excursion was to end up finding a present for Noah's dad, but I ended up getting some new shirts...oops. Branson Landing This vacation has gotten off to a good start. It's nice to feel lazy and not have to rush around everywhere. This is the second "just family" vacation we have had. We normally go along with others and it's usually only for the weekend because my husband has had to use his vacation days for leave when I had Kaitlyn and back when I miscarried before her. So we finally get a good amount of time to spend lolly gagging. For the rest of the weekend we plan to just go with the flow and not plan anything too ahead of time. We plan to have a restful and peaceful vacation. Also, I want to put a little plug in for the accommodations we are staying at. Cabins We are staying in a two bed, two bath cabin. It is absolutely beautiful! We walked in and I couldn't believe how nice it was. It's also cute because there's a guest book where you can see previous guest's comments. I would definitely recommend staying here if anyone every goes to the Branson area. Also, the cabins are in the middle of everything! They are only 5 minutes from Wall-mart and the Tanger Outlet Mall. Tanger Outlets The Tanger Outlet is my absolute favorite place to shop. Both the Landing and the Tanger Outlet are outside shopping centers, but this weekend is for casted to have great weather. Tomorrow this should be the first place we hit, but that would be after we go swimming. It's so great just to spend so much quality time with my family. That's why I love vacations. Not because of the fancy things people tend to do on them, but the closeness to family that a vacation brings. I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Josiah's 3rd Birthday!!!

     So, my son will be turning three soon. It is very bittersweet. Especially since I have another child, who is 4 months now. She reminds me of how he used to be when he was a baby. Today I was giving her a bath and she looked just like her brother with every face she made. For his birthday we bought my son Josiah a big boy bed! We put it together last night. Jo was a little confused at first when we told him we got him a bed, but pulled out several individual pieces from a box. He immediately said, "I'll fix it!" It was the cutest thing. He helped his daddy screw in the pieces together and was so excited to help. Once the bed was done we put the mattress on and Josiah finally realized what it was. He jumped up and down so excited to have a new bed. His old toddler bed broke a couple weeks ago when Noah, his daddy, sat on it. So Josiah had been sleeping on his toddler mattress for a while. He probably thought that was how it was gonna be from now on. Poor guy. That night when we laid him down to sleep he was so happy. It melted my heart and his joy overflowed to me. To see my kids happiness is what brings me the most joy. The bitter part is with everyday he's saying bigger sentences and looks more grown up. I can see him growing up before my very eyes. This is a hard thing for me. I really do wish he could stay my little baby forever. This year we are going to celebrate his birthday like crazy. We have a trip to Branson planned for this weekend. One to Tulsa the next to go visit his aunt and uncle. And Lastly, one big shindig inviting the whole family. This little boy has his momma rapped around his fingers. I love him and really hopes he enjoys his birthday this year. I know I will! I'm hoping this birthday that he will know how special he is to me and his father.

     With this post I was wanting to face something that is very controversial, abortion. I know that it is very hard  to persuade someone to change their mind on this issue, but that is not my goal of this blog. I just want to express my opinion on the subject.
     First, I want to talk about my old views. Before having kids when I was really young I used to be pro choice. I would never have aborted my own child, but I thought other people had that right to choose. I was very self-absorbed and really only cared about my own feelings and didn't want to start any possible arguments. So I went with the safe view of pro-choice. I'm feel very ashamed to have ever thought aborting a child was okay. It hurts to admit that, but I never gave it any real thought to what was really happening when someone aborted their child. As you have probably guessed I'm pro-life now. This site I'm about to put up has several questions on it about abortion including the most common procedure. If you want the answer you must push the + button beside the question. I must tell everyone that the answers can be very disturbing. Abortion Facts from Planned Parenthood
     I have two wonderful children now and wouldn't trade them for anything. Like I have previously posted I also lost one to a miscarriage. When I miscarried the doctor acted like it wasn't a big deal. He seemed to have no emotion when telling me that my baby had died. He said it was normal and also common. All I could do was cry. In my mind it was anything but normal. Normal would be the last word I would place on such a tragedy. Anyways, from my own loss of a child I realized that mother's who abort their babies, at least some, probably feel even worse. I can't imagine a feeling worse than that, but I think if that happened from my choice that I would never forgive myself. I found this website to show the emotional side effects of an abortion. emotional side effects There are also physical side effect that can result from an abortion. Abortions can also lead to the death of the mother because the procedure opens the mother's uterus exposing it to harmful bacteria.
     Now I want to elaborate more about why I believe abortion is wrong. In our constitution it guarantees that every individual has the right to life. When a child is conceived that child is its own person now. I know that some people believe that it isn't actually alive until it is born, but what kind of logic is that. I find it more of an excuse than actual human logic. I think of abortion as taking a life that had no choice in the matter. It also upsets me when people accidentally get pregnant and have an abortion. There are ways to prevent pregnancy that are very much known and even taught in schools from a young age. We have the tools to prevent pregnancy why should we make an exception for the people who don't use those tools. It just seems like well you can give into your carnal instinct because the government has you covered. Lastly I wanted to post what an actual doctor who used to preform abortion wrote. Doctor's Note It shows that sometimes we are blind before we truly see the truth. Somewhat like me, when I really researched it I saw that sick truth about abortion.

Valentines Day

    This Valentines will mark my husband and I's fourth anniversary.  After putting that out there, I want to bring up something that bothers me, but that I find sweet at the same time; he always outgives me. I know, you say how can that bother you? Well, I'm really in love with my husband and I know that I'm so lucky to have him as my partner, I would like to once be the one with the better gift. He's just deserves the best for once. I know most people think of valentines as a day that men express their love to women, but I really want to express how much I adore him.
      So this time I came up with a plan. Today I dropped my husband off at work saying I was going to go get my birth control, but I lied. I really went on a HUGE shopping spree. I got him a new suit, 2 ties, cologne, dress shoes, and something unmentionable. I win!!! At least I think I do. I made sure to cover my tracks this time so he will be so surprised. At his lunch hour I gave him a call to tell him I got his valentines present and that I would have to give it to him tonight. Like I thought he then proceded to ask me why I had to give him the present tonight. I then replied that it was perishable. HA! Lie number two! He had no clue, so now he probably thinks he's getting something lame like chocolates. Not that chocolates is a lame present, but that would be more of a selfish present to give. Like I have said before my husband always finds a way to outgive me. I'm not sure if all husbands do this, but for the first time I think I might have won. I'll have to write a post next week to tell you all how it goes. One last thought, maybe I should also get him a cake so he doesn't get dissappointed. Nah! I think he will be very happy once he sees how much thought I put into getting him a good present.