Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Prompt 1 - My Life in 250 Words

Back with a second post today (my weigh-in was posted earlier this morning), because I want to share my super quick auto-biography, in 250 words or less. (Mine turned out to be 249! Bam.) I just found this fun idea today, and I can't wait to join in the rest of the month. I doubt I'll be able to do every single prompt, but I'll do what I can, when I can. If you want to join in on the challenge to Write Every Day in May, visit Jenni's cute blog HERE.


I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. For a long time, my little family was “broken” and so my mom took care of my sister and me basically all on her own; then my parents divorced when I was 12. Even through the trials though, my Mama raised us in a Christian home, and we know that our faith in the Lord is what brought us through some of those tough times. Luckily, my Mama got remarried to an amazing man when I was 16, and he loves us as his own. I was a cheerleader in high school, and was also involved in a ton of groups and activities in both school and church. I went to Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, for college, and made an incredible group of friends who I love dearly. I am so grateful for all of them! I am now living in Tallahassee again, engaged to an amazing man and planning our wedding for this upcoming October! Jeff and I love riding our bikes and going on adventures together. Besides blogging, I like to learn new recipes, try new crafts, and attempt cute nail art. I’m also on a journey to become healthier and lose weight, so that’s a big part of my life now too. I’m very positive and organized, and somewhat outgoing. I love smiling and laughing and playing games with my friends. I am a blessed woman, and I thank the Lord for what he’s given me! 

Photo by Phil Pullen Photography

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Pride, Accidents & the Fridge - First Things First

Good morning and happy Tuesday blog world and friends! I don't know if y'all have noticed or not, but I'm always super happy and peppy and excited on Tuesdays. And that's because I'm reeeeally loving our First Things First link up! Last week's link up however, was rough you guys. Why? Because it made me sooo hungry and crave such unhealthy things! I read each and every one of your posts that you link up, and so seeing almost 30 posts full of delicious food was kind of torturous for this girl who's trying her hardest to eat right! I'm thinking I need to ban food-related posts in the future, or maybe just do healthy food-related ones!

Today we've got two more awesome ladies co-hosting with me, and I know you'll love them too! Today's co-hosts are Jess @ City Sequins and Robin @ The Sunshine Diary! And once Robin sent me that beautiful, tropical picture of her and her man, I knew I had to make a theme out of it, and made sure Jess and I got in on the beachy action too :)


And this week's First Things First topics are:

First thing I reach for in the fridge
First car accident or traffic violation
First BIG accomplishment I'm proud of


First thing I reach for in the fridge
Well that all depends on a lot of different factors, but mainly the time of day. Is it morning? Maybe I'm reaching for some strawberries. If it's lunch time? Then I'm probably grabbing some condiments for my veggie burger. For my afternoon snack? Definitely a low-fat string cheese stick. And dinner time? That could be only Lord knows what... 

First car accident or traffic violation
Sooo, anyone who knows me in real life knows that this used to be a big issue for me... in high school, I had two speeding tickets, and a handful of minor accidents before I even made it to graduation. The first ticket or accident I had was a speeding ticket just three months after I turned 16. However, I already recapped my first speeding ticket issue back in my first ever First Things First post, so instead I'll tell you about my first accident...

However, I'm really embarrassed about this actually, because it just proves what a typical, dumb blonde I was in high school. (Really, I have gotten much better now. And I'm hardly even blonde anymore...!) But it was around June of that same year, so I'd only been driving for about five months. My sister and I had gone out to my Uncle's house to go swimming one night. When it was time to leave, I put the top down on the convertible, and just started backing down their extremely long driveway, without paying too much attention. And then BAM! I backed right into a tree. It crushed the right side of my back bumper and shattered the tail light as well. I of course freak out and start sobbing uncontrollably like my world had just ended. It was a major deal people.

And the reason I feel so stupid about this - is because I was in a convertible, with NO blind spots or anything, because the top was down. There's no reason I shouldn't have seen a giant TREE! But such is life, and I had to learn the hard way that I can't reverse down a driveway and talk to my sister at the same time, without a care in the world...

First BIG accomplishment I'm proud of
I feel like that's kind of hard to say actually. I mean obviously, I'm proud of my college degree. But I think anyone that has one would say they're proud of it. So I'm gonna go with back in 2011, when I successfully lost 35 pounds for the first time! I started out at 227 pounds in April 2010, and by August 2011, I was at 192 pounds! That was definitely an accomplishment I was proud of. Unfortunately, I didn't keep it all off, and so now I'm fighting to re-lose some of that again. At the beginning of January 2013, I was 217 pounds again. As of today though, I'm back down to 197 pounds! And my goal is to be 185 by mid-May for my sister's wedding! You can read my entire weight loss story here and you can read all of my weight loss posts here.


If you'd like to join in on this fun link up, check out the super simple 'rules' below, and get to writing! Can't wait to see all the new link ups this week, meet new friends, and read y'all's posts!

1. Write your own post about this week's topics
2. Please follow me, as well as this week's co-hosts,  Jess & Robin.
3. Put the new button on your post or somewhere on your blog
4. Link up with us! (Link will appear on all three blogs.)
5. Visit some of the other links, and share the love with them on their posts!
6. Spread the word on Twitter and/or Facebook



And if you'd like to prepare and get ready for next week's First Things First link up, start by checking out next week's awesome co-hosts, Carrie @ The Carrie Gland & Allie @ Tales of a Twenty Something.
1. First real piece of jewelry you owned
2. First magazine subscription
3. First time staying home alone

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Prom, Mornings & Heart Break - First Things First

Good morning my friends! Today is week 6 of our First Things First link-up with myself and Hallie from Life: Oceanside! Here's the deal - we give  you the topics every week, you write your post, put our button on your post, link-up with us, and spread the word! Then of course visit the other links to see their posts as well!

First, we have some exciting news -- we'd like some of you lovely ladies to co-host this with us each week! If you would like to get in on this action, just fill out the form! CO-HOST First Things First

And now moving on to our regularly scheduled post -- this week, we're talking about:

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning
First heart break
First prom or school dance

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning
Empty my tiny, child-sized bladder. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how true this is...I get made fun of all the time for this small issue of mine. Whatever, there's really nothing I can do about it! Moving on though...after that, I check Instagram and play Words with Friends. Duh. And I might also browse Facebook for a few minutes, and catch up on some emails. But I'd say mostly I'm just scrolling Instagram... (here's some of my recents)


First heart break
Well, since Jeff is the only real boyfriend I've had, I haven't had the typical 'boyfriend-broke-my-heart' experience. (And I'm really hoping to keep it that way...) However, I was super best friends with a boy in high school, who ended up breaking my heart even though we weren't even dating. We were really close from 10th-12th grades, and did soo much together - church, games, dinners, movies, concerts.... We also lived close to each other, so he even picked me up every morning for school for a while, because he turned 16 before I did. Then in the last month or so of high school, we got into a big dumb argument, and yelled and fought and things weren't pretty. We kind of moved on, but avoided each other for a month or so. Then I tried to fix things with him at youth summer camp, and he was a butt head and wouldn't accept my apology or even talk to me. And that seriously broke my heart. He left to go away for college about a month later, and I have only spoken to him probably twice since then in the past seven years...

First high school dance or prom
Since I went to a tiny Christian school from kindergarten through 12th grade, we didn't really have many dances and such. Really, all we did was the junior and senior prom that our parents put on for us. My junior year, myself and 4 or 5 of my girlfriends all skipped prom and went to see Relient K in concert instead! And it was totally worth it. So then my first high school dance was my senior year, when I went to a public high school's homecoming dance, with one of my friends from church! It worked out good too, because my friend Crystal (who had also gone to the Relient K concert with me before) was also asked by a friend from our church, and we could go together! 

And the only other time I went to a high school dance was for my senior prom! My date was one of my best friends, and we went with a giant group of girls and guys all together. We all met first to take pictures, then we ate at Outback (I think?!), and headed to the prom all together! My date-friend didn't want to dance too much, but I went out on the dance floor without him! It's more fun to dance with your best girl friends anyways :) Afterwards, we all went back to the house we took pictures at, to enjoy some midnight snacks, watch "Heavyweights," (we were obsessed with it that year), and then we had a giant sleepover! We woke up to pancakes and OJ from her parents, and made fun of the still-snoring boys :) So many fun memories!

I know the quality is terrible - they're crappy scans of printed pictures, so it's the best I could do today...

So ladies, go write your own posts about these three firsts, and join in the fun! The 'rules' are simple: write your post, include our button, link up with us, spread the word, and visit others! Easy right? And while you're at it, you can prepare for next week's post with these topics:

1. First thing you do at the gym
2. First date with your current significant other
3. First email address

Spread the word about our link-up by tweeting about it! And then link up with us below!


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Pumped About Sharing our Firsts!

Hello lovelies! I'm so excited this morning, because today is finally the day mine and Hallie's link-up starts! We've been talking about it since the middle of December or so, and I've been pumped ever since then! So here's the deal - and it's an easy deal, so don't be worried: every Tuesday for a couple of weeks or so, we're going to do a First Things First link-up!

We'll do different "firsts" every week, and we want y'all to write posts about that week's "firsts", and then link-up with us, obviously! (Your links will appear on both of our blogs.) All we ask is that you follow both of our blogs, add our button to your post or blog somewhere, and visit some other blogs from the link-up to share some love! We're looking forward to meeting new friends and reading y'alls posts. This should be fun!

First Things First

This week is: First Job, First Car and First Date!

First Job!
 I worked for one summer at a craft store that was going out of business, and it sucked. It was called Ben Franklin crafts, and was like a medium-sized Michael's. The managers  were rude and the other employees were mean, and the job just sucked. I mean, think about all the crazy amounts of tiny things at a craft store. Well, if people brought them to the register but didn't want to buy them, I had to put those away at the end of the day. Horribly tedious and horribly boring.

Then one day I called in to get my schedule for the next week, and they were just like, "Oh, we won't be needing you anymore." And I was like, "Thank goodness!" It did keep me busy for a couple of months that one summer before my junior year of high school, but it pretty much sucked. And since then, I've avoided retail work of any kind, at all costs. I think those couple months at the craft store gave me more than my fill of retail work for life!

First Car! 
1996 Chrysler Sebring Convertible, Sabrina, who I absolutely adored! And here's the story... my birthday is the end of January (as most of you know since I've been blabbing about my goals of 25 Before 25 for quite some time now), but I didn't get this car for my birthday. When I turned 16, I was graciously given my Grandmother's old Chrysler Concorde to drive for however long it took my parents to find me a car. You see, I had wanted this specific car since I was at least 12, and I wanted it bad. I don't even know what it was about it that I loved so much, but I really did.

So I drove my Grandmother's car for almost three months, and then I was stupid and got my first speeding ticket. I was going 45 in a 30 on my way to school one morning. I got pulled over, I was sobbing like an idiot, and my 13-year-old little sister calmly hands me the registration as for real I'm freaking out. So after the ticket, I got my driving privileges taken away, and my mom was like, "I'm definitely not buying you a car after that! You're not responsible enough and you haven't shown me you can handle it!"

So I was of course devastated - for about a week or so.

But then not even two weeks later, I came home one Wednesday night after youth (I was allowed to drive to church only), and the garage door was closed. I couldn't get it open with my remote, so I called my parents from the driveway. Then all of a sudden the door went up, and inside sat this little beauty! I literally freaked out, jumped out of the Grannymobile and ran down the driveway crying and in full freak-out mode! My sister and I immediately hopped in, and we took it for a spin around the block, with the balloons still flying behind us. It was incredible. :) I still wasn't allowed to actually drive it for a couple of weeks since I was still on restrictions and all, but once it was finally time - I was in love with this car! I drove it until right before my sophomore year of college, at which time she was too old to be reliable anymore, and sadly I had to trade her in.

The day I got my car! I came home and they opened the garage door to this, and I started crying I was so happy!

The last day I owned the Sebring, and her final goodbye kiss...


First Date!
I don't actually have many "first date" stories, because Jeff is actually the only "real" boyfriend I've had. So, I'm just going to share my first date story with him! Most of y'all may not know because most of y'all are fairly  new around here, and probably missed my post about us back in August for our one year dating anniversary, but Jeff and I met through an online dating site! We both rated each other with high stars, and he sent me a message just five days after I first signed up! We first messaged and emailed a lot for about a week. Then we moved to phone calls and texts for a week, and then we decided it was finally time go on a date. So he invited me to a super romantic, work-day lunch at Zaxby's on a random Tuesday. Haha, but he did at least pay! ;) 

I had been pretty nervous driving across town to meet him, but then once we sat down and started talking, it just came so easy! I don't want to sound cliche, or like I'm writing my own commercial for online dating success, but it really was great! We already knew so much about each other because of all the questions and "surveys" and stuff we did on the dating site. We had so many things to talk about, and we did just that! We talked about road trips, and food we liked, and movies, and our jobs, and so many other things. When that quick hour was up, I didn't want to leave him yet! We still had so much more to talk about, and I couldn't wait to learn more about him. Plus, I wouldn't mind staring at the cute, freckly face of his for a little while longer! I went back to work and couldn't stop thinking about him. We texted more all that afternoon, and talked later that night. Things went so well, we then had two more lunch dates that week! 

That first lunch date was May 31, 2011. We dated all summer through June and July, and then finally made it "official" boyfriend/girlfriend status on August 10, 2011! And this is our first picture we ever took together, in July of that summer, at the birthday party for his twins - and although I think he looks a bit awkward and I look a bit uncomfortable, I promise we really did like each other at this point :)


Now, go write your own First Things First post! Just grab our button below, and link up with us to be included on both of our blogs!

First Things First

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Present for High School Graduation

I have just one more post from my walk down memory lane and all of my old high school pictures... For my graduation present, me and my Mama went on a cruise to the Bahamas, and had so much fun. It was just us two, and we got to do whatever we wanted. But mostly we just wanted to relax and take it easy. Which we certainly did. It was a great time, and I wish I could go back and do it all over again! 

If you wanna see my other memory lane posts, check them out at the links I've provided below!





























We really did have a great time, and it's absolutely beautiful down there. I can only hope I get to go back to the Caribbean again sometime in my life! Thanks Mama for a wonderful high school graduation trip :) Love you!!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Peak of High School

OK, this will  be the second-to-last one of these memory lane walks - with the final one next Thursday, with pictures of my graduation present! This is the seventh one, so if you missed the first six, check them out at the following links...


The Peak of High School is definitely graduation - I mean honestly, what else could it be? So here are all the pictures from my high school graduation, and the festivities and events surrounding it! (The ones I could find at least...) There are some from Senior Sunday at my church, and also when we went on a little mother-daughter lunch date the day before graduation! 


















Everyone please check out the face my Dad is making... oh dear lordy...

Yay for high school graduations, and Mama/Daughter lunches, and Senior Sunday church services, and mainly just for making it out of high school, am I right?! There were definitely some fun times, but it was also a lot of drama. And I for one am thankful that I'm done with high school and it's drama! At least I had a pretty good group of friends to get through it together with!

How were y'alls high school days? Drama-filled or somehow drama-free? I wanna hear some high school stories!