About Goals

I have always been a goal setter.  I have always been excited about goals and work really hard to achieve them.  I always thought that goals were helpful and made me better, until recently that is.  As I looked back over my 23 goals for my 23rd year as well as my progress on my new years’ resolutions, I am starting to think that goals do not serve me well.  All they do is frustrate me and make me feel like I failed when I don’t reach them.  I crossed off many of my 23 goals for last year, but thinking over the ones that I didn’t mark off really made me feel bad, and I don’t think that is what goals are supposed to do.

I set a lot of daily goals for my new years’ resolutions and I do not think that I have done all of them for one day yet.  Daily goals are hard because you never know what a day is going to hold.  Having daily goals can limit your flexibility and who knows what you will miss out on if you are too rigidly focused on meeting those goals at the expense of everything else.  I set my new years’ resolutions to get in a routine that I thought would make me happier, but really having these new years’ resolutions hanging over my head has just made me unhappy.  It has turned blogging into a chore.  It has turned reading my Bible into something I do to get it checked off for the day.  Those are not good things.  So maybe goal setting just isn’t for me.

What if I just try to live every day to be the best me that I can be?  What would that look like?  One goal that I have already struggled with this year is my goal to get more healthy.  The reason that I set this goal is because I have put on 10 pounds since I got married, all in my belly, and I just don’t like it.  I have found that because I set a goal to eat more healthily, exercise, and ultimately lose weight, I am paying more attention to that weight and ultimately feeling worse about myself.  That is not at all what I wanted!  Goals draw attention to and make me dwell on the things that I most want to change about myself, but that is not necessarily a good thing to dwell on daily.  Who wants the things that they don’t like about themselves on their mind every day?

Do I want to read my Bible every day?  Do I want to lose some weight?  Do I want to keep the house clean every day?  Yes!  But it is not what I need to spend every day dwelling on and feel bad about it if I do not meet my goals.  So how can I make progress and do better without having a daily goal to measure myself against?

I need to filter my day though God’s words and let him be my checkpoint.

Colossians 3:23-24
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ.

Proverbs 31:10
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

Matthew 22:37-40
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

1 Peter 3:4
But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.

 

I’m deleting my goals.  I’m not going to dwell on them any longer.  Instead, I am going to put Bible verses around my house to remind me that I am not my own.  I have no goals of my own.  God’s goals are my goals.

 

 

The Long and Short of It

I have this thing with my hair.  When it’s long I (think I) want it short.  And when it’s short I really want it to be long.  This has been going on my whole life, but here are a few more recent examples:
My hair when I started college:
Long, wavy, I actually really liked it there.  Then it was dyed red, and then black, and really kept the length.  And then this happened.  A big time cut an dye job.
I was actually really sad when it got cut this short, but through everything I always try to tell myself that it’s just hair and it will grow back.  Well, sometimes it just takes a really long time to grow back.
I had finally grown out my hair and had these weird bleach spots in it (I’m sure you’ve seen those pictures) when my friend was going to get married, so my parents paid to have the color fixed and the unhealthy ends were cut off, so it was back to short.
This photo was in the summer of 2009.  I grew my hair out from here, with only trims, until my wedding in August 2011.  This is a picture of how long it was on the honeymoon.
I loved it this length, but at the same time I was kinda sick of it, so what did I do?  Chopped it off.
I kept growing it out and that November I went to get a trim.  My hair was a little past my shoulders at that point.  I had let my bangs grow out for the most part.  Here is a picture of what I ended up with, and remember I asked for a trim:
So short!  You may not be able to see it very well, but my hair is near my chin and well I have bangs!  And this haircut was terrible.  The layers were just awful and it was so short!  This was December 2011.  I have been growing my hair out ever since then.  I’ve been really happy with it long and while I want to keep growing it out longer, I am also so tempted to chop it off!  It’s a little longer than it was when we got married, and it’s really low maintenance right now.
This weekend when my InStyle magazine came in the mail there were these gorgeous photos of Shailene Woodley with her hair chopped off, and that really made me itch to chop my hair off.  This is the cut that I love!
What do you think?
To cut or not to cut?
Could I pull off this haircut?

50 Down

Well as of today I have watched 50 movies off my new list.  The list started with 196 movies on it, but it seems to keep growing.  People tell me about movies, I see trailers for movies, read books about movies, one way or another my list keeps growing. My list is now at 210.  And that’s not including the Coen Brothers movies that I want to watch, though there is some overlap.  And, I’m not only watching movies off of this list, I am watching many more.  To see the movies I’ve watched so far this year click here.  Here are a couple of movies from my list that I’ve watched recently.  (Click on the photos to see the IMDB page).

  House of Wax (NR 1953) *****
  I loved this movie.  I had seen the remake a few years ago with Chad Michael Murray and was not impressed, but when I read about this movie in one of my books it was supposed to be very good so I watched it.  And I was not at all disappointed.  This movie is about a wax sculpture whose partner burns down his wax museum, with him inside, for the insurance money.  The sculpture comes back badly maimed and with a vengeance.  This was a classic old school horror movie and I absolutely loved it!

  Sunset Boulevard (NR 1950) *****
This movie caught my attention from the very beginning and held it throughout.  An old silent film actress is all alone in her house, forgotten by Hollywood, but she is writing a script, preparing for her comeback return.  A writer stumbles upon her house and she convinces him to rewrite her script, and promises to pay him handsomely.  He soon realizes that he has gotten into more than he had bargained for.  This movie was fantastic.  The use of narration and the acting was so good.  I highly recommend this movie.

 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (NR 1966) **
My book raved about this movie and talked about how good it was, but honestly, I hated it.  It was boring and dragged on.  It’s the story of a married couple who has some young people over after a dinner party and they drink too much alcohol and start to fight, embarrassing their guests.  If someone knows what all the fuss is about this movie, please let me know.

  The Ref (R 1994) ***
I read an article online that had this movie on a list of great Christmas movies.  While I’m not sure about that, but it was a very funny movie.  A house burglar gets more than he planned when he decides to hold these people hostage and lie low in their house.  Their bickering and screaming get in his way and he ends up being more of a marriage counselor than a thief.  An entertaining comedy, but full of cursing.

These are a few of the movies on my shelf waiting to be watched:

Lately

I don’t know what the deal has been lately, but I just have not wanted to blog.  Like at all.  None of my “stuck” topics appeal to me, I’ve just had a major case of “I don’t want to write” lately.  I’m not sure if it’s been the crummy weather, or that I’ve been so busy, or that I’ve had a bunch of migraines this week.  It’s probably a combination of all those things.  I’m trying to get excited about writing again.  There are a couple things coming up that I’m pretty excited about.

Thursday 20th–I have still been battling being sick and migraines and just generally being exhausted all the time, so I’m switching doctors and my first appointment with this new doctor is Thursday, so hopefully I will start seeing some progress.
Saturday 22nd–I’m going to the Associated Ladies of Milligan Conference.  I’m going with a friend that I haven’t spent time with in forever, so I’m really looking forward to that, and the speaker is supposed to be really great.
Sunday 23rd–I picked out a movie that I specifically want Amanda and Adam to see, so we are going to be viewing “The Hudsucker Proxy” on Sunday afternoon.  I’m really excited and I hope they like it.
Tuesday 25th–My 24th birthday!  I don’t know why, but thinking about 24 seems really old.  And Rizzoli and Isles comes back!
Thursday 27th–Grey’s Anatomy is back!!
Sunday March 2nd–The Oscars!!
Friday March 21st–Divergent!  It’s almost here.

What are you looking forward to in the next month?

They’re Coming–back

All winter I have been sad because a few of my favorite shows have not been on TV, but it’s finally time!  They’re coming back in two weeks, and I’m so excited!
Rizzoli and Isles–Continuing it’s fourth season–New Episodes Start February 25th at 9pm on TNT
If you don’t watch this show, you have a week and a half to get caught up, and you definitely should.  It’s one of my favorites!
Grey’s Anatomy–Continuing it’s tenth season–New Episodes Start February 27th at 9pm on ABC
Will April choose Jackson??
The Voice (with Usher)–Season 6 beings–New Episodes Start February 24 at 8pm on NBC
Yay Usher’s back!!

Still impatiently waiting for the return of…
Returning to start Season 2 sometime in the Summer.  I can’t wait that long!!

Pictures and Stories

I’m linking up again this week with The Girl Between the Lines.  I found today’s prompt to be very difficult for me.  The prompt is: “Share one of your favorite photos and the story behind it.”  Well, asking me to pick out a favorite picture is just way to hard, and especially one with a story.

One of my favorite parts of organizing these family photos into albums recently is remembering my childhood.  Adam and I were looking through the albums the other day and I was telling him stories behind the pictures.  Sometimes my favorite pictures don’t really have stories behind them, they were just taken of life happening, and sometimes that’s the best of all.

I have picked out a few of my favorite pictures with stories to share with you because I couldn’t pick just one.

This picture is from sometime in high school with some of my very good friends from church: Ellis and Lauren.  This picture was taken at our church’s trunk or treat.  We knew that we wanted to go, but we couldn’t figure out what to go as.  So we went as the easiest costume ever: hobos.  It was a very fun night, even though the kids were too afraid of us to come and get candy.
This picture was at a cookout the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.  That was just a fun summer to begin with.  These are two of my best friends from high school and I remember that right before this picture was taken I had been choking on my hamburger and Kylee and Karie had just been laughing at me, and I had started laughing, making me choke more.  I just remember this summer and this party being full of laughter and that is what this picture reminds me of.
This is one of my favorite pictures ever of Adam and I.  He was such a good sport this day.  I wanted some pictures of us together, so we went out on this bright day and took pictures.  For this one I made him lay down on the soccer field with me, which he thought was stupid, but he was a good sport about it.  We took several pictures that day, but this one is my favorite, and is still a very favorite of both of us together.
This is me and Janna at the rehearsal for my wedding.  Janna has been my friend for as long as I can remember.  And we only lived close to each other for a small chunk of our lives, but somehow we have stayed friends, and I am so thankful for that.  Throughout our entire friendship we only had two fights.  One was a silly fight about a boy, and one was over this little purple guy.  Janna and I were little and at a garage sale.  We both found something that we wanted–Mr Fuzzy, who is holding a sign that says “Hang in there.”  My mom said Janna was the guest and so she got to keep it.  I was so mad.  A few years later I found out that my family was going to be moving away, I was devastated.  My going away present from Janna was the little purple guy.  Over the years whenever I would look at him on my shelf I would think of Janna and our friendship.  When I was trying to figure out what gifts I was going to give my bridesmaids, I knew that I was going to give the little guy back to Janna.  Who knows how many more times he’ll be passed along over the coming years, but that is one of my favorite stories behind a picture.  If you didn’t know the story behind this picture you would just think we holding some weird purple guy, but knowing the story makes it so much better-at least in my eyes.

Something I’ve Been Doing Lately

One thing that I’ve gotten into lately is drawing and sketching.  I have found it very relaxing and also easy to do while you are watching something else.  I do not usually have my own ideas.  Most of my ideas come from photos I find on the internet and then use for reference.  I just thought I’d share a couple that I have really been happy with.  I never really knew before that I liked drawing, but now I have found that I really do enjoy it, and it relaxes me.
Merida, from Brave

A minimalist Princess Bride poster

This one has been my favorite:
Beauty and the Beast

I hope you enjoyed this look into what I’ve been doing lately.  Have you tried something new lately and been pleasantly surprised?

A Guilty Pleasure

There are certain TV shows that I could watch over and over and over again.  For example:  Grey’s Anatomy and The Cosby Show.  I recently started re-watching what is probably my favorite TV Series ever–The Closer.
Any other Closer lovers out there?  Well if you don’t know Brenda Leigh Johnson, consider yourself introduced.  Get ready to fall in love.  This show was my favorite as soon as it premiered in 2005.  I don’t think my Dad and I missed an episode.  I have been really enjoying re-watching the series and even though I know “who did it” in every episode, I am still as entertained as ever.  I was so sad when the series was over in 2012, but watching now it’s like they were never gone.

The Closer was on TV for seven seasons.  The series follows Brenda Leigh Johnson, who is a southern girl from Atlanta.  She becomes the Deputy Chief of the LAPD’s Priority Homicide Division, and makes several people upset.  She is a CIA-trained interrogator and it is her job to get confessions and close cases–and she’s pretty awesome at it.  I was doing some reading online about the series and found out the each season has a major theme.  I never knew that or realized it before, but now that I do, I can see it.
Season 1–Woman Alone
Season 2–Partnerships
Season 3–Family
Season 4–Power
Season 5–Change
Season 6–Attraction
Season 7–Love and Loss
I started a couple weeks ago, and so far I am almost done with Season 2.  I think Season 2 is one of my favorite seasons of the show.  So many great things happen with the characters.  It really is all about the partnerships.

If you have not discovered The Closer, then please do.  I think it would be worth your time.  Closer fans out there–what’s your favorite episode?

Happy Valentines Day!

Yes, I know that I’m a week early, but Adam and I are going to be celebrating today because my family will be here next week.
Some highlights for today:
–Monkey bread for breakfast
–Seeing “The Lego Movie” in theaters, because we are both super excited to see it!
–Eating a homemade steak dinner
–Enjoying some much needed time together

I won’t bore you with a bunch of mushy couple stuff–just know that I love my husband and I am so excited to spend the day with him!  And Happy Valentines Day to you and your sweetie because I will probably forget to wish it to you next week.

One Big Project

For the past well, long time, I have been working on a project for my mom.  My mom loves to take pictures and save the prints, but since I was 5 the prints have just been in boxes.  The only album of our pictures goes until I was 5, everything else is in boxes.  So one day I had this bright idea and volunteered to take all those pictures, organize them, and put them in albums.
What was I thinking?!  Little did I know how much of a massive undertaking this would be.  I wish I had taken a picture of the pile of boxes at the beginning of this project.  There were 5 or 6 boxes full of walmart prints, school pictures, Christmas cards, every kind of picture you can imagine!  And in no order!

I also did not realize how much of a workout this would be on my brain and my memories.  Thinking, “okay…what year did I have that haircut…”  And “Adam, help me count how many candles are on this cake so I know which birthday it is.”  Sheesh.  Not only did I have to deal with all of the printed pictures, but the 20+ photo CD’s full of pictures, and then all the pictures from the computer that didn’t get printed and didn’t get put on a picture CD.

Why did I sign up for this?

All that to be said, that I am almost done.  This week, almost 400 photos are going to be delivered by Walmart.com to my apartment, yes that is how many from the CDs and computer needed to be printed, and then, once those are organized and put into the album I will be finished!

And on that day I will be so thankful to be finished.  And mother, if you’re reading this, please never let it get that bad again.  I’ll teach you to use Shutterfly.  You can just upload your photos, they will even auto put them in the pages, you just have to order it and then it comes to your house.  So easy!  Because I would really like to never volunteer for this again 🙂

I will admit it has been a little fun to look through all the photos and family memories, but it would be nicer to do that without all the extra work and brain crunching.  So be thinking of me in the next couple days as I scramble to finish these scrapbooks and get them out of my apartment!