Expand your horizons

Today I want to encourage you to try new things and expand your horizons. Now, I obviously don’t know what that looks like for your individually, but I believe it is important to always introduce new things into your life.

For example, when I travel I love to experience the culture of the town I am in. And that goes for when I am abroad and when I am within the states. No matter where you go the place you are in has something special to offer you.

When Josh and I were on the cruise with Nerium last year, one of the days was docked in Nassau, Bahamas. Since it was a free day to do whatever we wanted, we decided to explore the town. We literally walked all over. We got to see the homes of the people who live there, go in and out of the shops (which were geared for tourists, but have their own charm), and we got to see the “Queens Staircase.”

That day was by far my favorite of the whole trip. And we capped it off by cooling off at the beach and then bar hopped the whole way back to the ship where we chatted with locals and got to hear about the Bahamas from them. It was so fun!

And if I am being honest, Josh and I probably would never have chosen on our own to go to the Bahamas, but I am so glad that we were gifted that amazing trip! It fueled our desire to explore this world we live in and see new things.

Now obviously traveling abroad may not be for you, and even if it is, it’s costly and not something you can do whenever you want. But you can still expand your horizons, even locally. Josh and I also make an effort to try new cuisines. When we first got together neither of us would have ever given sushi a try, and now we order it every once in a while when we want something different.

So go forth and try something new! You never know what you will discover about yourself!

Clean home

There are few things better than a clean home. And lucky me, I love to clean. There is something completely satisfying about taking the place you live from disaster status to sparkling clean.

It is especially nice when you come home from being gone, be it a day running errands or a long weekend out of town. When you come home from being away and you walk in to find your home in beautiful condition, it is so much easier to relax.

Our apartment has gotten a little out of hand this week. There was stuff shoved places they didn’t belong, the stove was caked in grossness, and the bathroom looked like it had erupted the contents of our cabinet.

Our apartment was just not a great place to relax after a long day.

So today I tackled it. I turned on Pandora, pulled out the Clorox wipes and went to town on our apartment. Lots of vacuuming, dusting, scraping, and sweeping, and now I get to enjoy the fact that everything is in its rightful place.

I love having a clean home. And tonight when my husband gets home, he will find dinner on the stove and clean place to relax.

Changes

For the first time in my life, I am so excited about the changes that are coming up for Josh and I. This is completely unlike me. My personality tends to fear change and cling to what I know and love. So for me to be able to admit I am excited about changes that are heading my way is an exciting development for me.

I believe a huge reason for my changed opinion on change is my relationship with God. The changes Josh and I are going to be tackling are moving to a new city, he’s starting a new job, and I feel there is a something happening career-wise for me too (although I don’t know what that means).

When I first began thinking about these changes, I would just cry. I did not want to leave this comfortable life we have here in Madison. I didn’t want to live in a city where we didn’t know a soul and try to make our way. It was terrifying for me.

Honestly, a lot of the time, the fear I had towards these changes was debilitating. It would knock me out and completely derail my day. I couldn’t stop dwelling on the unknown and no matter what I could not get out of my own head.

Being the type of person who like to handle things on my own, I struggle in a big way bringing my concerns before God. And I am especially bad at praying for myself. I’d rather pray for other people all day long, than ask for anything for me. After many conversations with my parents and Josh, all of which didn’t leave me feeling better, I decided I needed to pray.

I needed to give up my desire to control our future circumstances and trust that God was going to be leading us to exactly where we need to be. So I found an old journal that was mostly empty and began lifting up my concerns to God. I asked Him to completely take control of everything that I was afraid of. I asked Him to help me be excited for the move, and confident that it was where we needed to be. I asked that He would meet me where I was and help me to understand the plan He was laying before us.

Now it didn’t happen over-night, but God took my fears and mental road blocks away. And I am so happy to say that I am really looking forward to the upcoming changes. So I encourage you to bring your concerns before God. Stop trying to fix things on your own, and experience the freeing feeling that comes from knowing God has it handled.

Regrets

Have you ever had things happen in your life that you are not proud of? And then you relive them in your head every day after, and once you finally get it out of your head, it comes back when you are least expecting it?

Of course you have. Everyone experiences regret on some level and wishes they could change something that they went through.

I have the tendency to relive those moments in my life when I am already sad or upset about something else.

About a week or so, I was having a moment where I was feeling really down and of course one of those icky memories came rushing back. I was sitting in our room trying to force the thought away and once again, reliving how bad I had felt. I absolutely hate when this happens!

Thankfully, my amazing husband came in to see what I was up to. I shared with him what was going on asked him if he ever relives the things in life that he regrets. His answer was profound and today I haven’t been able to keep it out of my head.

He said to me that he believes we relive the moments we regret, not because we need to constantly be reminded of our faults, but because it’s our way of reminding ourselves what we have learned and preventing ourselves from making the same mistakes. He said we aren’t meant to continually feel bad about something that we had already received forgiveness for. That we should see these memories as the learning experiences they are meant to me.

That was a pivotal moment for my thinking pattern. And once again I was in awe of the man God placed in my life. I swear I learn so much from him, and that quick conversation made all the difference in how I was feeling. And since then, I have learned to view these icky memories as the learning experiences they were.

Handling uncomfortable situations

“People are not against you; they are for themselves.”

When I first heard this quote it was at a very interesting time in my life. I was constantly being put in uncomfortable situations and dealing with individuals that weren’t very nice.

Over the past few months, I have been learning a great deal about myself and the way I handle “unpleasant” interactions. Since I have a desire to please people and don’t handle confrontation well, I am very often caught off guard when someone is rude.

I think that (even though this sounds dumb) I expect people to handle situations like I would. I expect people to be polite, accommodating, encouraging and helpful. So when I am met with someone who is the opposite of those, I generally freeze up. I don’t think on my feet well, and am left stunned by people’s negativity towards certain situations.

At first, and if I’m being honest sometimes still, I would take it personal and think that I was doing something wrong, or that I wasn’t good enough. I felt like their negativity was directed at me and that I was on some level not meeting their expectations. Well, as you can imagine that way of thinking leaves me drained and feeling inadequate.

So, after many incredibly in depth conversations, I am learning that their negativity isn’t my fault and it sure as heck isn’t something I can fix. My actions and the way I do things are not what makes people negative. It’s their own ambitions and expectations of the way things should be that cause their reactions.

It’s obviously a new way of thinking for me, so I still struggle with negative interactions, but I am getting better at asserting myself. My goal is to be able to stand up for my actions and thoughts in a polite and respectful way, while not being put down by other’s responses or opinions. And I believe the quote I began this post with is an excellent reminder of how to look at these tough situations.

(Huge shout out to my amazing husband, mother, and father who endured those countless and in-depth conversations about how I see negative situations, and for encouraging me to be myself because that is more than enough).

It's that time of year again!

So it’s approaching everyone’s favorite time of year… TAX SEASON!

Ok, so not everyone looks forward to tax season and I am one of those people. I don’t like tax season at all because I hate going through all my old bank statements, digging up all the information I need from the previous year, and I am not a fan of going to the accountant. (Which I need because I am self-employed and refuse to miss out on any deductions I am eligible for but may not be aware of).

This year is going to be incredibly different for me because Josh and I are filing our taxes together. Obviously, we have never done this before and trying to compile all of the information from the previous year for the two of us has been a pain in the neck. Especially since I have had to take the reins on most of it because my tax information is WAY more complicated than his.

Tonight we are going to meet our new accountant and I am praying I have all of the information he is going to need. This part of the process stresses me out because I never feel fully prepared and the experience I had with my former accountant always left me leaving the appointment feeling dumb. So here’s to hoping that isn’t the case with this new guy!

And here is to hoping for a GREAT return so that we can move without worries and begin planning those vacations I keep bringing up!

Have you thought about what you will put the any tax return money you get towards? And did you know that being a home-based business owner opens you up to NUMEROUS tax deductions? You may want to look into that for yourself. And feel free to hit me up if you are interested in Nerium. (My home-based business). Or if you don’t want to put yourself out there check out, www.averi.arealbreakthrough.com

Trip or Savings?

I’m sure that I have talked about it before on some level, but Josh is the realist in our relationship and I am the dreamer. For some reason it’s always been this way. I have crazy ideas about the different things I want us to do and accomplish and while Josh is on board with them, he tends to have to cool me off and bring me back to Earth when the budget doesn’t match my current desires.

And yes, it can be super frustrating when that happens. In my head he looks like a “fun-suck” and I’m sure in his head I look like the irresponsible one. (And in many cases he would be right…)

Anyways, this morning we came face to face again with having to deal with our differing opinions on things.

We have been planning on taking a road trip and for months we have been setting aside money and planning on how we would make it work. It’s been fun to think of different routes, where we would want to stop and ultimately where we will end up.

Well, I received a few bonuses last month that I want to put 100% towards our trip. My darling husband wants us to put it in savings because we will be moving in 4 months and need to have money to put down on a new place as well as cover moving expenses.

At first I was really frustrated. I just want us to take a trip! We didn’t get an actual honeymoon, although the pre-trip to the Bahamas was amazing, I still want us to have our “just us” trip.

However, I know that I do not want to put us in a bad spot financially, so I agreed it would be wisest to just save it and continue setting money aside for the trip as we have been.

It’s interesting to take a step back from a problem and realize that I am so lucky to have someone in my life who encourages my dreams but keeps me from getting us into money trouble! 

Crock Pot Dinners

I love crock pot meals and for the last two days I have been spoiled with the ability to throw food in, let it cook for hours while I forget about it, and then take credit for a delicious homemade meal at the end of the day. It’s pretty awesome.

(And with the help of Pinterest, the number of different meals I can create with next to no effort is amazing).

Last night was Josh’s late night. He has classes from early afternoon until almost 8, so by the time he gets home he is ready to eat. After a couple of attempts to time dinner to be ready when he walks in, I decided the only way to guarantee that happens is to have something simmering all day. So yesterday I pulled out the crock pot and made magic happen…

When Josh walked in last night we had chicken, stuffing, and vegetables ready to go. It was delicious, filling, and best of all, INSANELY easy!

All I did was spray the crock pot with cooking spray (because there is nothing worse than scraping dishes), put 2 pieces of frozen chicken in, topped it with stuffing, 2 cans of cream of chicken, and some corn/green beans. I let it cook on low for the whole day and called it dinner. Like I said, it was awesome.

Tonight will be another crock pot meal and let me tell you, it smells fabulous!

Again, I sprayed the crock pot, tossed in 2 pieces of chicken, a packet of taco seasoning, ½ cup of water, and a splash of salsa (just because I felt like that would be good). In about an hour I will use my mixer to shred the chicken and when we are ready for dinner we will just put the chicken in taco shells and top with our favorite toppings.

I highly recommend pulling out the crock pot, scrolling Pinterest, and trying something new! It’s such an easy way to cook, and on days when the thought of standing in the kitchen prepping makes you want to order pizza, it’s a great way to still prepare something homemade.

Valentine's Day 2016

Last night was Valentine’s Day and we had an amazing time!

Normally, Josh and I do not go overboard for Valentine’s Day. Generally, we stick to the typical flowers, sweets, and dinner.

Yesterday was different, and in the most wonderful way. We decided to not get any of the extra fluff this year- no gifts, flowers, or sweets, because we have a couple of big things we are saving up for. So instead we decided that we would just grab a fancy dinner and dine together.

It was perfect!

We started our date with drinks at the bar, lots of laughter and conversation. Two tasty martini’s later, and we got seated at our table. We followed up with a delicious crab cake appetizer, salad, and our entrées. Josh indulged in steak and a baked potato, I got seafood ravioli, both were amazing.

But the best part of our dinner was being together. We sat there talking, laughing, and dreaming. It was a fabulous date.

I know some people don’t like to indulge in Valentine’s Day, but I think it’s wonderful. It is a day set aside for love and encourages couples to make time for each other. Josh and I have only been married for 8 months, but we definitely get caught up in our day to day lives. Our night outs generally consist of ordering pizza and streaming a movie, so it was nice to have a real date night.

Hopefully, as Josh wraps up school and we settle into our new life we will be able to put more importance on treating ourselves all the time, and not just for a “holiday.”

Changes

Change scares the heck out of me!

I don’t like moving, starting a new life, or any of that. I like things to stay the way they are and I absolutely love my comfort zone. The thought of change makes me lose sleep and consumes my thoughts. It’s not an experience that I enjoy.

If I’m being honest, part of me doesn’t even like to travel. The unknown is something that I don’t feel comfortable with. While I do love seeing and experiencing new places, the process of getting there and the disruption to my routine is stressful.

I wish I was the type of person who thrived on new experiences and adventure and a small part of me does, but more often than not, I am unable to focus on the positive because I’m consumed with the unknown variables.

Thankfully, I am not alone. God blessed me with the most amazing partner in life. My husband is the perfect complement to my stressed, comfort zone craving, self.

He has this ability to look at situations from the most amazing perspective and help guide me to see it that way too. Having him to calm the storm in my head that surrounds the idea of change is something I will forever be grateful for. He always reminds me that I am not in the situation alone and that God has a plan for us.

With Josh and the guidance of God, I know that no matter what lies before me, I will be just fine!

Other's Opinions

Life is a non-stop learning experience, and to follow up on my post yesterday, one area I am learning that I don’t excel in is making decisions that fit me and my life regardless of the opinions of others. I have a crazy need to make decisions based on the impact they will have on the people around me and I spend way too much time trying to make everyone happy.

Part of that people pleasing aspect of me means I am constantly looking for approval from others. There is nothing worse to me than thinking someone doesn’t support or agree with something I have decided to do.

Yesterday, I was a part of a discussion where someone in a leadership position in my life was given the opportunity to support me and my abilities but instead they chose to demean the way I wanted to handle a specific situation and question my commitment.

It was a conversation that left me feeling inadequate and questioning whether or not I work hard enough. I was very upset after that conversation ended.

So upset in fact, that I almost let it ruin the rest of my day.

Isn’t that horrible? Someone who clearly doesn’t have my best at heart and who doesn’t even know me well was able to almost completely de-rail my day. It was an eye-opening experience.

Josh was still home when I got off the phone and as I tried to process what happened and explain to him where I was at in my head, he watched me start to lose it. And he did his absolute best to help me see it from another angle and provide his support and encouragement.

It wasn’t until he asked me (out of pure frustration) if I was going to just mope the rest of the day. You can bet that wasn’t received well right off the bat. But once he explained to me that if I don’t learn to let go of the worthless words and opinions of others, situations like this have the opportunity to ruin future moments in my life. His first example was Valentine’s Day, where he pointed out that if that call happened prior to our date it would have been the sole focus of the day and ruined it. Which would of course make me more upset for letting it. Then he brought up our future kids and said that I would hate it if a call like that could ruin a day with our kids.

And he is so right!  (It took me a while to come around to fully grasping this and feel better, but nonetheless he was right).

My new goal is to let stuff roll off. I don’t want the opinions of other people to continue to have the power to cage me. To make me feel amazing or like a failure. I know I work hard and am an excellent leader, the opinions of anyone else don’t have a place in my life anymore.

I know it will be a hard process to let go of this way of thinking I am so accustomed to, but it will be so worth it and so freeing!

Personality Types

Have you ever struggled with understanding yourself? (I sure hope I am not the only one!)

Recently, I have been dealing with some inner struggles about who I am. I don’t want to be defined by the different titles I have, but rather by the core of who I am. Does that make sense? For example, I understand my titles in life right now are: wife, daughter, sister, friend, sponsor, Nerium Rep, etc. But none of those titles really encompass who I am.

So I have been on this quest to further understand myself, how I’m wired, and why I react to things the way I do. And I reverted back to something I learned about years ago, The Myers-Briggs Personality Test.

It was awesome! I re-took the test on Saturday and the results were exactly what they have always been. The only difference this time around is that I was ready to dive into that result, and that was what I did.

I am an ESFJ, (if you take the test that will make sense). Reading the descriptions and then Google searching for more information really helped me to understand myself in a new way.

I highly recommend taking the test yourself and learning more about who you are. It really is a fascinating way to see yourself from a new perspective.

Here is the link I used: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Societal beliefs and Marriage

So yesterday my post about sleep clearly didn’t draw much attention… that’s fine, you guys just won’t know the “Yawn Story.” Your loss! (Seriously though, I know it wasn’t that great of a post so no hard feelings!)

Today I want to open up a conversation that is becoming more and more prevalent in my life and in society. The topic is on marriage and in particular, the growing belief that marriage doesn’t work in this day and age.

I have actually witnessed this way of thinking and it caught me off guard. Josh and I were about 4 weeks out from our wedding and at a work function I actually overheard a conversation (that wasn’t about me) where someone stated, “Who actually gets married anymore?”

When it was first brought to my attention that this was a belief people were buying into, I didn’t understand. Maybe it’s the Midwestern girl in me, with my traditional values, and the desire since childhood to grow up and get married. I thought everyone wanted to get married and start a value, create their own legacy, and be forever in love with one person.

Unfortunately, I am learning that this isn’t the case. The number of people who don’t believe in a marriage working is growing. Whether it be because the divorce rate is sky-high or society giving out unrealistic relationship ideas, people are not interested in marriage.

Our culture is embracing the idea that there couldn’t possibly be one person out there for everybody and even if there is, the marriage will inevitably end in divorce. What a sad way to look at something that is so beautiful.

So it’s gotten me to start thinking and really questioning this new way of thinking. To be completely honest, I don’t get it. I love being married. Truly, it is everything I expected it to be and more. Are there difficult times? Sure! Wonderful times? Absolutely! And I am firmly aware that my husband and I have not yet seen our worst day, and on the flip side of that, we have not yet seen our best either!

I believe in marriage and I believe in it lasting. And I encourage the people in our society to rethink the dismissive attitude towards marriage.

Sleep

Since the snow came on Tuesday, I have been having trouble sleeping. Maybe the two are not connected, but you never know.

My first thought Tuesday night as I lay in bed desperately trying to get comfortable and fall asleep was, “The snow makes everything in this city louder!” Again, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it certainly feels that way.

It seemed like every car, snow plow, or emergency siren would just echo incredibly loudly throughout the city on Tuesday, and it certainly was keeping me awake.

O my gosh, you may not even believe this, but I swear it’s true! You can even ask Josh. Tuesday night as we are getting ready to fall asleep, we were in our silent apartment and I kid you not, our neighbor across the hall yawned. And we HEARD it!!! It was the loudest and most obnoxious thing. Who the heck yawns so loud that it can be heard between upwards of 4 walls!! Crazy.

So not only am I fighting the noises outside to fall asleep, but our noisy neighbor too!

On top of the noise level I’m being subjected to in this city, (which you may recall I am from the quiet country, so I will never be used to this), I have been having the most insane and vivid dreams. None of them make sense but they feel so real that when I wake up I’m surprised to have been asleep.

I cannot wait to have a peaceful night’s sleep. Without crazy dreams, and loud neighbors.

(Also, I am open to ideas about falling asleep easier….)

Snowy days

Happy Groundhogs Day! (I don’t know if you “celebrate” it or not, but supposedly only 6 weeks left of winter! Woo!)

Of course that doesn’t mean much since today is also a snowy mess. Josh and I live 11 stories up in Madison and looking out our window all I can see is white/gray. I can barely see individual flakes courtesy of the fog and wind. It’s actually kind of cool.

We first heard that Madison was going to be getting hit by a snowstorm at church from the Pastor. You see, we don’t have cable or pay attention to the news. And let’s be honest, the weathermen are never correct anyways, so what’s the point.

After the service we googled what exactly we were in for this week.

Naturally every website was different and the expected snowfall ranged from 14+ inches to 2 inches, so we really didn’t know what was on the way. And now it’s here. The “blizzard” that had everyone ready to cancel events and school.

Isn’t it interesting that something like the threat of snow can turn people’s lives upside down? I mean yesterday the grocery stores I went to were crazy crowded and the traffic was insane. I saw posts that schools were cancelling for today, last night! There wasn’t even a flurry yet!

I understand that snow can cause a lot of problems, but I feel like as a society we have become incredibly jumpy about snow. It seems like every time snow is in the forecast we are told that it’s going to be “blizzard” or “winter weather warnings” are being put out. What was the turning point? When did we start jumping the gun on the weather? I remember being in grade school trudging down the driveway to catch the bus with snow up past my ankles and thick flakes were still coming down. Even in college when I was commuting when every other school was getting cancelled I was driving to class.

I’m open to theories. What made our society this way with snow?

Global Expansion!

If you have been reading along and keeping up on my blog posts, you have probably figured out/read that I am a part of Network Marketing. In particular, I am partnered with a company called Nerium International.

Today I listened to our upper level leadership call and we got fantastic news! In 2016 we are going to be increasing our global expansion!

We are going to start off with bringing Nerium into Japan, then Colombia, and Hong Kong!

You may not understand why that is exciting, especially since I have never been to those places and don’t know anyone there, but it is SO exciting! You see, just because I don’t know someone there, doesn’t mean that someone I do know, doesn’t have connections in those parts of the world.

At 24 years old, because of the people I know and work with, I have an international business! At the time we were only in Canada, Mexico, and just beginning to open South Korea.

Not many people have to opportunity to be my age and have a global business, so it’s truly a blessing.

If you are at all interested in what that could look like for you check out: www.averi.arealbreakthrough.com

It may just change your life!

***Shameless plug- I’m running a customer promotion this week. The first 5 people to become a preferred customer at my website (http://www.nerium.com/shop/averi/products) will receive a FREE box of our brain supplement EHT!