He Is Real

The past few months have been trying for me [and my honey]. In June, the boys started school. This meant that my hours were sliced in more than just half. They went from 45 to 20. While I knew this was coming, I had no luck finding another job.

With no other choice, my sweet, amazingly wonderful boyfriend said that he would take care of me for the two months that the kiddos were in their summer program for, and I would find a job by then. Well, those two months have come and gone.

August rolled around, I had been on a few interviews, and unfortunately the cards were never dealt in my favor. Luckily, I had four weeks that the boys were out of school, and was able to bump back up to full time.

-Week one, I needed to have surgery

-Week two, I had a blow out and had to buy new tires [goodbye $400 for TWO tires]

-Week three, playing catch up from the previous 2.5 months

-Week four, still playing catch up and our Labor Day trip [$$$]

Other miscellaneous issues included having my wound reopen and having to drive back and fourth over an hour to the hospital where I had surgery, registrations and inspections went out on both vehicles, and a plethora of other expensive curve balls that life throws at us all. Raymond was out of work last week with a toothache, rent is due this week, and I just dropped almost $100 at the Vet.

There I sat, upset, sad, confused, angry and asking why? Why can't I find a job? Why can't we finally just be comfortable? When will the struggle stop? After many days and nights of silent prayers, an entire day filled with back-to-back annoyances and issues for Raymond, I lost it.

Right now I'm feeling like things can't get worse. Now, I know they always could, but everything is so overwhelming right now. I'm ready for things to get back to normal and to finally stop struggling.

These are the times that I really am thankful that I decided to explore my faith and see what was out there. Nothing can overcome His power. He has a plan. He is good. He is real.

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Irrational Fears

For the past few months, I have been having dreams [err... nightmares?] about the world ending. These dreams are so ridiculously real and then I wake up freaked out of my mind. About a month ago I woke up from one of these dreams, assured myself that all the sun in fact did not implode right in front of my eyes, and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, I fell back into another dream where I had to take shelter on the side of the road with random strangers because there were oh I don't know, 8234485 tornadoes in sight, a gas station blowing up, and aliens dropping from the sky. Random and ridiculous? Maybe. Scary as heck? Absolutely.

While right now I can look back and giggle at myself for getting worried over a few silly nightmares, I really have started to think about all the irrational fears that I actually do have.

Besides the world blowing up in my face, I fear that--

-  One day, I'll be driving down the highway and someone will fire a gun somewhere and it will accidentally pierce through my window and into my head. One minute I will be driving down the road, belting out some Taylor Swift song at the top of my lungs, and the next, there I will be, splat dead in the fast lane of Interstate 35 with no suspect in sight. My murder will forever remain a mystery.

- Keeping with the whole gun/driving theme, my parents once had a guy on the road flash a gun at them through his window. That right there would probably make me faint and/or need a change of shorts. I forever wish I never knew this story, because it absolutely must be the route of my murdered while innocently driving home fear.

- My whole life, I have always known that at some point, I will lose a limb or become paralyzed. Don't ask me why [remember, these are irrational fears we're talking about] but I have a sixth sense about it happening.

Ok, so I know I'm insane and none of this stuff will ever happen, but IF I am ever found keeled over in the middle of the road with a Brittney CD in, just know that CD wasn't really mine.

What are some of your redonkulous fears??

The Heart Attack That Wasn't

My family (on my father's side) has a history of heart attacks. His grandmother died when she was 47 of one, and he had one last year at the age of 48. I can happily say that my father is fine, and healthier now than he was before, but it was definitely the scariest thing my family has ever experienced. While my dad was in the hospital, his doctor told my brother and I that we both needed to get ourselves checked out just to be safe, seeing that this type of thing runs in our family. You're never too young to prevent. Naturally, I didn't take his advice. I'm only 23 for Heaven's sake!

Sunday night as we were laying down watching TV before bed, I noticed that my vision started blurring. Everything that I tried focusing on was a blur yet I could see everything to the sides of said thing just fine. I chalked it up to watching too much TV over the rainy weekend. After closing my eyes and vowing to stop looking at the TV, I explained my issue to Raymond and sure enough, while I was looking at him, his mouth and nose were blurry. At that point I insisted that I just needed sleep. So with the beginning stages of a small headache I took some Ibuprofen and drifted off to dreamland.

Just short of an hour later, I woke up with a splitting migraine on the right side of my head that lead into my jaw, neck, and shoulder. Growing up I was used to getting migraines, but I have been lucky enough to not have one in almost a decade. That being said, this pain I was having was not how I remembered a migraine to be, and immediately thought something was a little off. Shortly after, I started feeling shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea. Once again, something just wasn't right.

After a few trips to the medicine cabinet, I gave up and tried to go back to sleep. The pain on my right side just got worse, and I started to notice a tingling in my fingertips. Within minutes, my entire left hand and arm were numb and that's when I freaked out. After googling heart attack symptoms in women with one eye closed and a noodle-like arm (not easy by the way), I woke Raymond up in tears, sure that I was having a heart attack. He assured me that I wasn't and sat there patiently with me rubbing my arm, and finally calmed me down enough to convince me to take a hot shower. After a long 30 minutes, I had feeling in my arm back and was calm enough to lay down again. Finally around 2 AM I was able to drift off to sleep.

via

Monday morning I called my dad to inform him and get his expert opinion (dad's know all, duh) on the situation, and in the end we concluded that I indeed did not have a heart attack, and it was just an anxiety attack. Apparently my mom started getting anxiety attacks when she was the age that I am now, and my dad also gets them from time to time. Just another thing to thank the 'rents for passing down to me! Thanks, mom and dad!

But really, I am thankful that I am ok, and that I wasn't having a heart attack. Now I need to go make myself an appointment to actually get checked out. And if you read all the way to this point, thank you and I'm sorry.

Crash

Every night on my drive home from work, before I get onto the highway (35 for you locals) I take a peek and see what traffic is like. Being that I typically work until 6:30, it isn't too bad. Unfortunately last night... it was bumper to bumper for as far as the eye could see. My first thought? "Dang it, there is a wreck and it's going to cause me to sit here all evening when I could be home with my lovies."

Turns out I was right. There was a wreck... on the OPPOSITE side of the highway. So why was the North bound side of the highway at a stand still? The answer: Because the wreck was so bad that the fire department had to use both sides of the highway to get to the injured people. As I drove past the wreck I couldn't help but see at least 6 cars that were involved crushed to pieces. Some just had the bumper pushed in, others were missing the entire back half.

I saw a man just sitting in the driver's seat with his head back, waiting for the whole thing to end. Another woman whose brand-spankin' new car had done a complete 90 degree turn into the concrete wall dividing the North and South lanes sitting in her seat talking to an officer balling her eyes out. Another woman behind her, laying on a stretcher with her neck stabilized. And then at least 3 more cars behind them... all involved.

My heart immediately sank and I felt tears well up in my eyes. Right then I said a prayer and asked God that he take care of every single person involved. The next thought I had was that I was the biggest B alive. How could I complain about getting home later than usual while these people aren't getting to go home now at all. So there I sat comfortably in my car, thanking Him that I was on my way home to my loved ones while these people were being hauled off to the hospital.

I quickly then reminded myself that driving is a privilege that we all take for granted and think we are the best at. I don't care who you are, how well you think you can drive, one small mistake and you could be crushed to pieces. I will be the first to admit that when I find out there is a wreck up ahead I curse the thought of it.

In February of 2011, I got in a wreck (my first and only). I was going 70 mph on the same highway and while I had enough time to slow down enough to where I didn't get hurt, I was still going fast enough for my car to be considered totalled and the air bags to deploy. If you have never been in a wreck, know that it is one of the scariest things to have to deal with. I was balling my eyes out and was so shaken up I wasn't sleeping well for a week. Thoughts of it just kept running through my head and kept me tossing and turning wondering "what if I would have been paying better attention?"

The whole point of this post is to just remind us all that car accidents are called accidents for a reason. Nobody wants to get in one, nobody means to get in one, and nobody wants to be stuck behind one. Just remember the next time you're waiting in traffic due to one, say a little prayer for the people involved rather than curse them. I know that's what I'll be doing.

That Had to Hurt

Ok, I know I deemed Fridays to be "Foodie Friday", but so far it's really not working out, haha oops! I promise as soon as I can get my crap together, the recipe posts will keep coming. For now, I will just continue to load you all with excuses such as:

"I had planned to make dinner on Wednesday night but wasn't feeling well and didn't feel like cooking so we ordered a pizza."

OR

"I was going to make dinner Thursday night but Raymond had a softball game and we didn't get home until after 10pm."

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Like I said, last night we had a softball game and let me tell ya, it sure was one heck of a game. Apparently the team they played were their "arch nemesis" so it was a big deal. Unfortunately our team came out of the gates SUCKING (sorry, guys), and were down 12-5 with 6 minutes left in the game. Somewhere, some how, The Baggs pulled 8 runs out of their you-know-whats and came back with the W! It was actually really awesome and fun to be cheering them on. I am so glad they won because the other team were a bunch of trash-talkers and they are absolutely not 12 runs worthy!

To top of the awesome win, we had a blow out on the way home. Luckily R can change a tire like a champ and we were back on the road in no time (seriously, not even 10 minutes)! I thank the Lord I have a man that is capable of changing a tire... something I believe every man should know how to do.

SOMEBODY thinks he is still small enough to sit on the console!

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All of this softball talk has me reminiscing about 5 years ago when Raymond and I first started dating. I want to say we had been dating for a month (?) when he took me to one of his softball games. Everything was going smoothly, and I'm sure he was trying to play his best to impress me. My first thoughts were that he was really really good and I was definitely impressed!

Raymond was playing short stop and a guy from the other team was up to bat. As soon as he hit the ball Raymond caught it (of course), but he needed to get the ball to 1st base to get out another guy. As soon as he threw it, I heard SMACK! and then a "Ohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!" from both teams, and all spectators. The ball hit the guy smack dab in the center of his upper back. Holy cow did that have to hurt! R felt like a complete jerk, to say the least and I'm sure he was completely embarrassed. What a way to break in a new girlfriend, huh?

Surely enough, his throwing tactics didn't scare me away and now almost 5 years later I'm catching his balls... (softballs, that is)!

Love you, poo!