New Year, New Us

Wow.  What a year, year and a half it has been.

Jimmy graduated from nursing school and has continued to be promoted in his job at Holzer Medical Center in Ohio.  

I followed in my mother's footsteps and became a court reporter, working for her firm Realtime Reporters.  

*Yes, she was taking down a job via headphones while being driven by me in the car.  She's amazing and no, I could not do that.**

We finally took our honeymoon cruise to the Caribbean and enjoyed ourselves so much we would take another one tomorrow.  That trip - being by ourselves for 7 days - really rekindled our love and although I love Jimmy everyday, I don't think I could have ever loved him more than on that cruise.  There was something in the air and we soaked it up!

We bought our first home and moved to Ravenswood, WV.  

And about five months after buying our Ravenswood home, we also bought our old home, another home, farm equipment, and land in an estate sale offered to us by our old landlord.  

Along with the estate purchase, we were able to rent out our old house to a wonderful family almost right away, but we had to clean-up and renovate the older home that was also on the property.  

Let's just say it was a huge undertaking and a very long and detailed blog post will be devoted to our "Rental Flip" but we learned a lot about each other in that time working together almost every day we had off for six months straight.  

Here are a few before and afters.  

Garage clean-up and tree cutting.

Outside with tree removal and inside clean-up to be done.

These "afters" don't do this project justice without all the other photos and details, but be assured, the post will come soon!

Because both of our purchases this year required a lot of work, we practically made ourselves cut out time to go on a motorcycle ride here and there to wind down.  

I spruced up our back patio with some new fabric and outdoor furniture.

We spent many a nights and cool mornings spending time under our Outdoor Oasis.

Also,  in our Outdoor Oasis we entertained our neighbors with a "We're new and we want to get to know you" party!

My very best girlfriends came over one evening and that's where we were all asked to be a party of Molly's wedding.  Her wedding is scheduled for Memorial Day weekend this year, so Jimmy and I are looking forward to a week spent with friends in St. Augustine, Florida.  

Where we live in Ravenwood, we're about two miles from my grandparents farm and we loved getting to see their "works of art" firsthand!  

We spent time with friends by the fire and laughed, reminiscing about the old days.  

Even though we no longer live on the farm, Jimmy is still being able to exercise his love of hunting at our new home.  

This ground hog had its' last day!

We got a friend for Baker.   Zeeker is his name and they're best buddies.  

(No, we won't be getting any more cats.  We've loved and lost too many.  These two are our babies now)

My brother and sister-in-law had a baby and named her Milaney!  She's such a doll!

Then soon after Milaney arrived, we found out that we're going to be an aunt and uncle all over again on Jimmy's side of the family.

His brother, Jon, and his wife, Stephanie, will soon have a new little boy or girl joining their family at the end of March.  Below is a present I made for their little girl, Charlotte.  She turned two just recently.  

Jimmy and I were in a wedding together this winter where we were able to see one of our greatest couple friends get married!

- Darci & Daniel's wedding - 

Soon after their wedding (December 14th) the craziness of Christmas hit, then January 1, 2014 rolled around.  

It was then that we both decided we were making a drastic change this year.  

Jimmy and I looked back on all we accomplished this year and felt proud, but we knew we both couldn't keep up the pace we were keeping and be fulfilled and happy.  

So we had a very open conversation about, "What would you like to do differently this year?"  

His answer was to farm more.  

With buying our old farm, being so close to my grandparents' farm now, and still having his parents farm up and running, his farming options are unlimited.  So this year he'll be spending more time adding to his cattle herd, preparing ground for planting, harvesting the corn and soybeans, and tending to the ground that will be used for hay production.  

My answer to the question posed was to blog more.  

I am not sure if you could really even call me a "blogger" before as I did a few posts and then got busy and quit, but in this past year there hasn't been a day that I haven't thought about blogging, titles, content (stories), videos, etc.  

If you know me well, you know I don't do anything halfway.

After the family discussion was had, we then had our plans and I started to research more about the bloggers that I've followed for the past year.  How did they do it so well?  What was their inspiration?  Did they have their blog streamlined?   Question, after question came and I started to feel overwhelmed.  

Was I doing this for my own gratification?  For a memory keeper?  What? 

Was this passion to blog (story tell) something that I have conjured up, or did God place this passion inside of me?  

Am I getting in the way of His plan by making my own? 

What did I need to streamline my blog to; what topic?

What would my name be?  I had to have a blog name, right?

All these questions kept coming to mind and the only answers I had were this:

God would never give you a desire so strong, if it wasn't part of His plan for your life.  Even just a recreational, fun part of your life.  My blog will not be streamlined.  I love talking about my farmer husband, our cattle herd, our motorcycle adventures, my Goodwill Goddess transformations, sewing and creating runway looks, a new fun nail polish, makeup techniques, Chic of the Week (fabulous fashion finds for CHEAP), taking designer items and finding budget conscious replicas, and there's much much more. 

I'm not doing this to get 100s of 1000s of views a day, to become a famous blogger, or to someday receive an invitation to New York Fashion Week so I can blog about a specific designer(s).  I'm doing it because I love it!  I am a story-teller.  My blog is a way to express the loves of my life (God, Jimmy, Fashion) all in one place.  This blog will serve as my handwritten journal for our children someday, for our out-of-town family, and friends who we only get to see every once in awhile.  I live my life out loud and my blog will just serve as the front row seat into the life I'm privileged to lead; one of created happiness in everything.

[See below just some of the updates from this past year]