What does your morning look like? Do you wake up with enough time to get ready and make a nice breakfast, maybe do a little light reading? Or are you rushing out the door, still putting on your mascara in the car? Most mornings I'm up anywhere between 4 and 5 a.m., just depends on the day of the week. I roll out of my bed, I surprisingly don't hit the snooze button ever... to scared to sleep in I suppose. I go straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for the day. I have a job that literally focuses on the way people look, so my hair and makeup are always done. I give myself between 45 minutes to an hour to get ready. I leave the house- go by Starbucks if there is time- then get to the office and start my day. 

I come home, do homework if I have it- dinner is Stephen's chore while I'm in school, so I eat, shower, maybe watch an episode of mindless TV or a YouTube video & go my ass to bed. Not once in that whole break down of the day did you see "make my bed". I struggle to make my bed, like really hard. I know some of you out there are thinking, "Hell that takes like 5 minutes". And you would be right, but when I have the option between taking 5 minutes to make my bed, or spend 5 minutes with my pups in the morning or having that extra time to stop and indulge in some over priced coffee... well I'm picking whatever is NOT the bed. 

You may be wondering why I'm talking about this, I may have already lost you to an Instagram notification. I'm talking about this because we all have things we struggle to do. Its just the way life is. I like to look at my lifestyle as a polished Frat Boy. I don't always do the dishes, I don't always remember to flip the laundry. But you know what I do do? Clock in at 5:50 a.m.- clock out at 4:30, go to school from 6-9 then come home, do homework and then take a moment to give my husband my full attention. I choose to be a student and wife before other things in life. I used to beat myself up for my decisions. But I started to think of it like this about two years ago; when I die, will they remember my clean house, or will they remember the things I did and the time I spent with them?

Life, to me, is a series of decisions we get to make. It is a luxury we are given to argue on whats for dinner and weather we are going to stay up a little later watching another episode. Or better yet, who's had to make the decision on "one more drink". We make choices every day, and then we die. I want to make choices that make me a better person. Having a made bed always makes a room look so much cleaner and nicer- but last time I checked... I didn't invite anyone else in my room.

Keep that in mind- your house- your rules. 

Each year we are on this earth, we are faced with hardships, accomplishments, failures, and celebrations. Every year we have new opportunities to either grow or get left behind. This year was a lot of big changes and risks being taken for me and some days I definitely do not- I repeat- DO. NOT. have it together, and others... I let my self believe that I do. *shrugs * So here we are ladies and germs, another year older- and another year... wiser?

Here are twenty five things that I have realized/learned this year:

​
1. I am not nearly as cool as I think I am, and that's okay. Or at least I am learning that I need to be okay with that. I can be famous in my own mind all day long, but I need to understand that I won't be everyone's 21 Jump Street.

2. No matter how hard I try, I will never like Whiskey. Just why? I literally want my alcohol to taste like, well nothing- I don't want to know I am killing my liver while I do it.

3. Being a good student doesn't always mean good grades. Being a "good student" is showing up. I don't mean just "to" class, but actively showing up when it comes to putting in the work. I don't always make A's, hell sometimes I balls out f.a.i.l. But that's alright.

4. Being a good student means working my ass off to make good grades. Yeah, I know we got a double point, but hear me out. I can accept a shitty grade if I know that I did all that I could. Which means staying up later than I should because I 'm just not getting it. Passing on going out because you don't want to feel like hammered shit the next day and guess what little lady, you have a quiz due. I can accept a bad grade when there was nothing left that I could have changed. There will always be more that I could have done, so I do not accept bad grades.

5. Having kids isn't a race and some are more prepared than me to take that step- it's cool. Just means I have more time to work on myself before a tiny human.

6. My house is my safe place and I need to treat it like that. I have to put time into caring for it, cleaning it, and maintaining it. Houses don't raise themselves you know?

7. Instagram. Is. Not. Real. - no explanation- you know what I'm talking about.

8. Sometimes I don't have time to go to the gym. Self-love isn't always pushing myself to do more, sometimes it's letting my body rest. Skipping the gym for a few days, weeks, or even a semester doesn't mean I will automatically get huge, I just have to watch what else I put in my body. I gotta do what I gotta do, and sometimes its forgive myself for loving my self.

9. These are the years I am allowed to be selfish. Period.

10. I don't have to drink to enjoy the people around me, but I can't judge those who decide to drink- because girl, you have been that person; the only one going all out while everyone else is staying fairly low key. Whatever the situation is, you. cannot. judge.

11. Not everyone is going to tell you how awesome you are, in the real world there are no A/B Honor Roll Pizza Parties. Go to work, do your job, and maybe someone might tell you you aren't half bad. But you cannot expect it.

12. On that note- you cannot be disappointed in people who don't meet the expectations you set for them. No one can please you in every aspect and you are not allowed to place super high expectations on people then be upset when they "fall short"

13. I like having my picture taken- so what?

14. I have a hard time with speaking nicely to myself & it's something I have to desperately work on.

Follow me on my socials to get updates on new content ​

So a few weeks ago I made a post about questions I had concerning the relationship or lack there of with my biological  dad. A few days after that a long comment popped up on that post from his girlfriend, some of you may have seen it- most probably didn't, as I quickly took it down. Do you know who the first person I called was? Bobby. I could have called my husband, and I eventually did. I was on the way home to him as we were going on a long weekend trip to celebrate our fourth anniversary. My first instinct was to show up at this woman's house- yes I know where she lives... Google is a wonderful thing. I wasn't upset that she reached out to me, I was upset that she has been told plenty of lies about me, my mom, and my sister. Mostly lies about what all really went down between us and my biological dad. I know this based on her verbiage in the comment. Saying things with such validation as if they were true. And I guess in a way they are her truth; they are the truth she knows and has been told by someone she trusts. I guess like our parents tell us Santa is real- its complete fiction, but for some reason we cling to it even when logic tells us otherwise.  

I was angry that when I confronted her privately (which is what she should have done) she told me that she wanted nothing to do with hashing out the details. This tells me she is perfectly content with not knowing the truth. There was no emotional driving force for her to reach out. She didn't want to "get to know me" or "see what I was about". She wasn't reaching out to me on behalf of Robert, I'm sure that if he knew she had done that he would have been pretty ticked as that would have opened a can of worms and unraveled all of his lies. It wasn't anything heartfelt on her end- it was an attack... a defense against me for her man. That, my friends is why I was ready to show up at her door. Who does that to a kid? I don't mean a kid in the sense of being young, but as someones' child. 

Honestly, I would have some questions if both of the children of the man I was seeing didn't want anything to do with him. 

I know that was a bit of a rant, and I could have kept going, but I try to keep it positive here. Since then there has been a big change in my life. I've mentioned adoption a few times with you guys, and I now have news. Adoption papers were signed yesterday. Not for Stephen and I to bring home a baby, but for Bobby to officially adopt me. 

Being adopted as an adult doesn't do as much as it would if I was a kid, but it does change my birth certificate and my legal maiden name. Some of you may be wondering why I would do that as an adult and the answer is really more or less, for Bobby and I. See, it kind of completes everything in our little family. It doesn't matter if it doesn't "do a lot", it makes us happy.