looking forward

I’m excited about a lot lately. And life is GOOD!!
I have so much to look forward to in the coming weeks.
Not to mention, it’s purty darn exciting that I’m not feeling like I was this time last week. Oh what a difference a week’s recovery makes!

In a couple days, I'm headed to Charlotte to see Sheldon.  I am so fortunate that we do what it takes to see each other as often as we do, given we have a long-distance relationship.  He is THE best person ever!  I am lucky to have him in my life... and he gets me.  He's been putting up with my little bratty butt since I was 11 years old! :) I'm SO GLAD we are going to get to celebrate Valentine's Day together - even if it is a weekend early.  Come Thursday morning, I'm leavin' on a jet plane and I couldn't be happier. 

It’s almost ONE MONTH until my best friend Jackie gets married! I am so excited for her and her life with Brett. They are great friends! I’m so excited that Sheldon gets to go with me and meet all the crazies from my college days. The 1008 Oak Ave girls will be reunited… in NEW ORLEANS. Watch out, Bourbon Street!

I can't wait to wear this at their wedding next month.

It's going to be a beautiful event!

I’m getting excited and anxious for SUMMER to get here. Can you say MUSIC time?!? I’m super stoked about TOM PETTY in Orlando in May and I’m looooving my beloved Hangout Fest’s lineup for 2012. Can’t wait to reunite with the newlyweds (Jackie and Brett) for another groovy year at our favorite festival.

LIFE IS GOOD!

What are you looking forward to in the coming days, weeks, months?!?
Cheers to exciting adventures!

PEACE & LOVE
-bjj-

 

Where have I been?

A couple weeks ago, I set out for a week long visit to see Ashley, Tyler, and Grayson.  The very first night we were there, another tornado outbreak hit Alabama.  While Ashley was working the night shift at the hospital, my mom and Tyler and Grayson and I bunkered out in the laundry room with Maybelle, Beau, and Millie - and, wow!  Only a mile from where we were lifting the Birmingham area up in prayers, a tornado devastated entire neighborhoods.  When I say close call, I mean it was a close call.  To say something makes you think about life, blessings, and eternity is an understatement.  God bless those people.

This photo is from RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD from my sister's home where I was. SCARY!

Please pray for the Trussville and Clay communities, where an F3 tornado injured multitudes and took the lives of an adorable 16 year-old girl.  Other communites in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham were affected and I pray for the entire state as they face these turbulent times.  Sometimes I wonder if the South has seen so much devastation in these recent years because it's the 'Bible belt' and it has a been the chance for churches, communities, and society's finest and most gracious people to come together and show that through God there is a greater good in all things.  I believe whole-heartedly that the Christian nation is given it's chance to prove God's mercy and grace in these years of devastating current events like Hurricane Katrina, the tornado outbreak of April 27th, the Gulf coast oil spill and the depths of the economic crisis.  Churches from all over have come together to help the South and it's amazing to see a nation still be so good-at-heart.  I'm proud to be a Southern girl, as I've seen the most amazing things come about in these harsh times.  Continue to pray that God can show his LOVE through those communites as they face another devastating blow.  My love is with them all.

Right after I got home from Alabama - which was filled with amazing memories made with the most precious nephew of mine - I got the norovirus flu.  And I threw up a LOT.  I ended up in the Winter Park emergency room with bags of IV fluid, Zofran and all sorts of good stuff that made my stomach spasms stop.  Aaah, but it got the best of me for the ENTIRE week.  No bueno.

Happy to be back! Glad I'm feeling better! And I'm looking forward to my trip to see Sheldon in Charlotte this weekend! :)

Peace & Love

Baily

P.S. Can't wait to post my first week of my #FebPhotADay Challenge from Instagram. Who else is doing it... and what's your Instagram name?!?

ROMANS 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose.

I've been sick...

love

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