it's still a new year

Sometimes we don't always get off to the most magnificent start in the new year.  Sometimes it isn't until Spring or Summer that we really start feeling ALIVE and wanting to live it up.  We are so gung-ho about New Years because we're in a celebrative spirit, but usually after the first of the year comes and goes the exhaustion from the holidays get to us and we find ourselves in a slump.

No, just me? 

This year hasn't been that bad though.  Last year my new years was a defining one.  I moved home after 6 years at school where I battled mental illness and depression more than anything else the last couple years that I was there.  I changed my life around and was in a home-coming spirit this time last year.  The world was mine to grasp... yet, sometimes I feel like I'm still just hanging on.

Except over the entire course of last year, I continued to learn and grow and become.  In the summer, I fell in love with my close friend from adolescence while he was in town mourning the loss of our other good friend who was taken from us too soon and unexpectedly.  The entire year was about taking the good from the bad, overcoming the little things and seizing the beauty in the bigger picture of things.

The events of last year made for a wonderful start to this year.  There is so much hope, adventure, and ambition boiling inside me that just wasn't there in the years past.  I am just so excited about what 2012 has in store!

So if you aren't off to the best of starts, I hope you keep going.  Keep truckin', keep dreamin', keep prayin', and keep livin'.  I'm glad I didn't quit when life tried to get the best of me last year.

I love you ALL!

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Neil Gaiman

 

peace & love

baily

long-distance lovin'

I'm so grateful for our iPhones and laptops giving us the chance to see each other's cute faces whenever we want.  There's something really special about a man who can't wait to see your smile everyday and who will go out of his way to do that.  It isn't always like that in relationships, and I am beyond blessed to be loved in the way that I am. 

LOVE.

It makes the world go 'round.

-bjj-

1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love on another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

EASY RECIPE!!! {Chocolate Chess Pie}

I absolutely LOVE this recipe!

As a Southern girl, I love some pies!! I’m very much on a pie kick right now, just like my cupcake, cake, and fro-yo binges in the past have played out – I can NOT get ENOUGH pie! I don’t know how I stay as small as I do.

When my sis was in town during the holidays, we watched “The Help” and could not take it any longer… we had to have some chocolate chess pie.  I will say – for all of you who have seen the movie – we fortunately left out Minnie’s “secret ingredient.”  Haha!

Try this out and I PROMISE you, your man, your kiddos, whoever, will LOVE it.  You might even make your grandmother jealous! J

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

1 ½ oz unsweetened chocolate

1 ½ cups of sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

½ cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (I added a little extra!)

1 unbaked nine inch pie crust/pastry shell

Directions:

Melt butter with chocolate.  Combine sugar, flour, salt, milk, eggs, and vanilla and mix together.  In a mixing bowl, combine chocolate and butter mixture with the other mixture. 

Beat with electric mixer for 5-6 minutes.

Pour filling into pie crust/pastry shell.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes, until set.

Let stand, cool, and set for a few minutes after baking.

ENJOY!!!! J

peace and love

baily

Quote

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth or power, but for the passionate sense of the people. For the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibilities never."
-Soren Kierkegaard

week's random

T G I F

 eeerrr??? whatever.

Hope everyone has had a great week and that the weekend is off to a good start!

My week was amazing.

 I started attending a Bible study, job hunted (that part isn’t so amazing but still), won a National Championship, slept good, and hung out with fabulous friends.

And I am nose-deep in my Jeff Ashton book – the prosecutor in the Casey Anthony trial.  Yes, I’m still obsessed.  It was a real-life soap opera happening in my neck of the woods… don’t judge me. 

Speaking of Soap Operas… who is sad about them ending?  My mother is mourning One Life To Live as it goes off the air afer 47 years today.  We’ll finally have space on the DVR now.

I finally got my sushi fix with Susan last night.  This craving was hindering my day-to-day functioning because it had gotten so bad.  Sushi Pop never fails me.  Wine, sushi, and best friend time is never overrated.

We even went back to her townhouse to watch the pilot episode of The Wonder Years.  It was a perfect Thursday night out.

 

On Wednesday, I went to a bible study at Haley and Simeon Castille’s house.  She’s the founder of I am Mermaid, llc. And one of my favorite new friends! She is from Central Florida, but married Simeon – a former Bama & Minnesota Vikings football player.  God brought them back to the Orlando area this past year and they are so inspiring as they are reverent in doing God’s work.  It was a really nice bible study and I loved the group, I look forward to going back.

Other things:

I miss Grayson baby. Bad.

I miss Sheldawg. Bad.

I need a job.  Bad.

Pray for me as I look to where God’s opportunities are for me this year.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEKEND?

Do Tell!

Peace & Love

BAILY

the little things

(link up here)

I’m a firm believer in the little things. This week I’m thankful for these little things that kept me going:

-baking cookies

-a good Sunday sermon

-wine and gossip with momma

-a daily picture of “boogie” (grayson)

-sweet and sincere messages from Sheldon

-hot tea, wine, and catching up with michabella

-snuggle sessions with mildred jean

…ahh, the good life! J

peace and love

baily

21      -      0

Bama        LSU

14 National Titles

An ALABAMA dynasty.

Roll Tide!

(both graphics via jesslynamber)

I'm so thankful that God made me a BAMA girl.

I can't wait for the rematches of all rematches tonight where I get to watch my school take on a conference rival in the BCS Championship game.

I remember Pasadena like it was yesterday... being there to see the Crimson Tide clench Title #13.  Tonight, in New Orleans, we battle for #14! 

It is something SPECIAL to be a Bama girl.

Roll Tide!

Beat LSU!

Go visit jesslynamber.blogspot.com and give her a Roll Tide!

I hope she doesn't hate me for using her purty graphics!

love her. xo

PEACE & LOVE & ROLL TIDE ROLL

baily

belated resolution

Well, this year is off to a mighty fine start. I just returned to "real life" from Charlotte where I rang in the New Year with Sheldon and his family. 

So in a way, I am just now starting my blank slate. I wasn't in my own structure until this afternoon. Hopefully, I can be a better blogger in 2012.  I'm going to try.

I want a new blog design.

I'm excited about 2012. I've never felt better in my entire life... I just know God is going to do amazing things in my life just as He did in 2011.  I really am SO blessed!

Excited to begin my new year - and maybe a litte belated - with a more regular blog routine.  So keep your fingers crossed for me not to give up on that resolution!

But I said it. It's out there now so you have to hold me to it.  Peace & Love.

Life Is Good.