Exciting Week of Successes

This week has truly been amazing for Josh and I. God has blessed us more than we ever thought possible. 

For those of you that have been following along with my posts, my very first one was about trying to find extra income online. The reason for this was not because we are broke, but because like most middle class Americans we could use the extra money. 

Now remember that Josh is only 24 and I am only 21, so we are already succeeding in life compared to the majority our age. We have no debt besides a mortgage and a car payment, which is incredible. We have no student loans, no credit card debt, and nothing drastic hanging over our heads. We just wanted a little more spending money to be able to travel and do DIY projects on our home. 

Well this past Monday we decided it was time to trade my Chevy Tahoe in to get a more gas efficient vehicle because we have been car-pooling to work everyday. I am now the proud owner of a brand new 2016 Kia Optima, and I am only paying $30 more a month than what I was paying on my 2008 Tahoe. If you would like to know how we accomplished this, please comment and I will make another post about how it all worked out. 

On this past Monday, as we were leaving the car dealership, I got a phone call from a student housing complex in College Station asking if I was interested in interviewing for an Assistant General Manager position, AGM. I may have mentioned in a previous post, but I am a licensed Realtor in Texas, but put my real estate career on hold to get a more steady income. Being a Realtor at heart, I love being in the housing market, whether it be in rentals or home building. My current position is a Sales Assistant position with a local home builder. 

I went in for the interview on Tuesday morning, and was offered the job within 10 minutes of meeting with the General Manager. Now I am not one to be shy about money, so I will tell you what they offered as a salary. My current position is only paying me $14 an hour, which comes out to be about $28,000 in salary before taxes. The AGM position offered me $37,000 before taxes, which is almost $10,000 more than my current job. (In Texas, to be 21 and making a salary on $37,000 with out a college degree is extraordinary.) 

Needless to say I took the AGM position.  My start date at the new job will be in a week from this coming Monday, and I am excited/nervous to begin this new journey. 

Beauty In the Eye of the Beholder

Today I would like to talk about the world's view on beauty, and how women all over the world feel the need to obtain this unrealistic image of themselves.

Now before you say this has nothing to do with Simple Life Fails and Success, I believe that truly loving who you are in every aspect of your life is a SUCCESS.

It took me years to even come close to accomplishing this, and I am still not completely finished with 100% loving myself. There are days that I wake up and think that I look "fat" or "ugly." I put these words in parentheses because these terms are based on opinions, and are not facts. From societies standards, I am a tall, skinny, plain looking woman. I am 5 foot 7 inches, and I am blessed with a fast metabolism. But I think I am beautiful.

Women need to stop looking to society to figure out how the measure up, and men need to stop subjecting women to this as well. I was blessed that my fiance loves my personality, and could care less if I was a 10 or not.

Now this post is not about dissing the women that like to put tons of make up on to look beautiful, or shame woman that love being their naturally fuller selves. This post is to say that every woman is beautiful no matter their size, their skin color, how much make up they wear, or how little they wear. We were all created differently by God, and we are meant to love ourselves just as He loves us.

There is nothing more beautiful to me than a woman with killer confidence. Own who you are and what you look like, and love yourself no matter what others think. I say this to my friends all the time when we are shopping or getting our hair done, or whatever we are doing. If they ask, "How does this look," my reply is always the same, "I love it, but you are the one that will be wearing it, so do you love it."

If you do not currently love yourself, then you need to figure out what it is about yourself that you don't love and ask yourself why you do not love that part of you. If your answer is because it does not fit in, then the problem isn't the body part, it is your mindset about that body part. This was the issue for me. I used to say that I was a "But Her Face," meaning that everything about me was great but my face. I had to learn that no amount of make up was going to change what my face looked like, and I am 100% against surgery. I finally realized that I was the
only person that hated that part of myself. I always got compliments that I had an amazing smile, or pretty eyes, but I didn't believe their compliments because I did not like those items myself.

It Josh that set me down one day and told me to stop all my bull crap about not liking myself. His exact words to me were, " I love you because you are confident, and you don't let anything stand in your way. That is the woman I want to marry, and to raise my children. Not the woman that is self conscience when she has nothing to worry about." It was in that moment that I realized he was right , and I wanted to be a strong and confident influence for our children one day. So from that day forward I have made it a point to love myself no matter what.

There are days that I love putting on tons of make up and going out with Josh. And then there are days that I don't put any make up on and I am just as happy on both days. I am going to be completely honest, and say it is not an easy thing to do, and it will take time to figure out. But it is definitely worth it in the end. You will not even realize how happier you will be.

Jennifer and Joshua

 So today's post is for you to be able to get to know me more. I am written several posts so far and mentioned my fiance, Josh, and my puppy dog, Bevo, but I have not shown pictures or explained how Josh an I met, etc.

Here is a little back ground on myself, I grew up the oldest of four kids in East TX with two loving parents. My siblings and I are all only about a year apart, so that means there are four of us within five years of age. We are very close knit, and did just about everything togther growing up. 

I remember when I was little and wanting to play soccer, so my parents put my brother, who was only a year younger than me, and myself on the same soccer team. I hated this because he was better at the sport than I was. But when he wanted to play little league football, my parents placed me on his team as well. Which he hated because I was older, and played better than he did for a while. My parents grouped my two younger siblings in the same fashion. So instead of having four different sports going on they only had at most two going at the same time. 

I am now 21, my brother Jacob is 20, my brother Justin is 17, and my sister Jolie is 16. Unfortunately my parents divorced close to four years ago. They are both happily with other people now, and everything has evened out and become the new normal. But my parents going the a divorce was tough and brought its own challenges. Each one of my siblings handled it differently, but that is another post for another time. 

I was 19 years old when I met the love of my life, Joshua Mack. He was 22, and amazingly shy. We had gone to the same high school, and he was a senior my freshman year of school. I had seen him around the school, and he was always the Jock, the cool kid. He dated the head cheerleader and was on the varsity baseball team. I had a huge crush on him then. But time past, and he was in college playing baseball. I was still in our home town doing a couple of classes here and there at the local junior college. 

In may of 2014, Josh messaged me on Facebook and wanted to go on a date together. Which I would have loved, but I was about to leave for the whole summer on mission work to a Summer Camp. So I told him that I couldn't, but that when I got back at the end of the summer I would love to have a rain check. I didn't think he would still be around when I got back from the Summer Camp, but he messaged me on Facebook again in September and asked me on a date. I was so excited I don't think I slept at all the night before. 

We had our first date on September 11, 2014. And yes I know that is a national holiday, but on this day it was one of the best days of my life. We had an amazing time, and I was literally on cloud nine when I got home from the date. We hung out every chance we got for the next three days.

 Saturday September 13, 2014, we had gone to the lake that day with his sister, Courtney, and his nephews. They apparently fell in love with me and told him over and over to ask me to be his girlfriend. I didn't know any of this was happening, but I found out later. So when we got to my house that night he leaned in and kissed me, and then whispered "will you be my girlfriend?" I was ecstatic, and squealed "Yeessss!" 

Now fast forward two years, and we are happier than ever. We live in a beautiful home, we both have careers, and we have our puppy dog, Bevo. I am so blessed that God chose this man to come into my life two years ago. I have never been shown more love or understanding than for this amazing man, and I know I will never find someone as caring as him. 

Things we like to do in our spare time include guns, and water sports. We love going to his families ranch in Waco and shooting our guns. Just being outdoors is our happy place. 

I hope this gave you some incite into m world, and helped you know a little more about myself and Josh. Please comment if you have any questions or sweet remarks. 

102 Wild Flower Court - Our New Home

I promised I would write a post about the purchase of Josh and my home, so here it is. We live in Central Texas not far from Texas A&M University, even though we are die hard University of  Texas Longhorn fans.
We moved to this area when Josh graduated with his BBA last August, and he found a job here with an accounting firm. Neither of us had ever been to this area before let alone lived in this new area. We are both from a small town in East Texas, where both of our families live. So to say the move was hard is an understatement. Not to mention we had less than a week to find a place to rent, pack our things, and move before Josh's position started.
So we get here, we get moved into our steal of an apartment here in Aggie country. We found a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,200 square feet apartment for $1000 a month. Which is crazy good in this market area. The only problem was that it was a condo, which meant that we shared both walls of our home with others. And you might be thinking that we are crazy for hating that we were so close to our neighbors. I know there are places in the world today that live closer to each other than that, but we were used to living on a couple of acres with almost no neighbors, so it was quite an adjustment.
At this point in time I was a new Real Estate Agent. I had spent the previous 6 months working on my classes and taking my tests to get my license (which is another post for another time). But because we were new to the area, and every one I knew in the area were college students that I graduated high school with I was not working very much. It put a strain on our relationship because we both wanted my career to take off and get started, but at the same time we really wanted the extra income.
About this same time, we decided to stop throwing our money away renting, and buy a home in the area to invest in something and create equity for ourselves. It took us two months to fi

nd our dream home, but it was worth it. Like our condo it too is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1200 square feet home, but we are now investing in our future instead of throwing away money. Plus our mortgage is the same amount that we were paying in rent with taxes and insurance included.
We have now been in our new home for almost 6 months, and we love it. We have the whole domestic suburban life going on. And to tell you the truth, we love doing the house hold maintenance like mowing, weed eating, changing out air filters, bringing seasonal decorations up and down from the attic. A 24 year old, Josh, and a 21 year old, me, owning a home is almost unheard of in the day and age. We consider ourselves very blessed that God has helped us achieve all that we have.
If you have questions about the indepth home buying process, please comment below, and I will try to answer your questions as best as I can. If I don't know an answer then I will point you in the direction in which you can find it.
Thanks and God bless. 

Preparing for In-Laws to visit

Josh, my fiance, and I live about three hours away from our families, both of whom live in our home town in East TX. We have lived away from home for almost a year now, and still to this day it is overwhelming when my amazing soon to be in-laws come to visit.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was raised in East, TX where you drink lots of sweet tea, you cook dinner for your family, and you clean like hell when you have company coming over. It doesn't matter if the company is only stopping by for five minutes or if they are staying for a week, you always clean your home from top to bottom.

I am on lucky woman that my soon to be mother in law is quite literally the sweetest woman to have ever walked the earth. She is like a mother to me, and is always extremely helpful with anything we need. But, unfortunately, that does not change the fact that I must have our house spotless for when she arrives.

Their arrival date is a week away, and she is bringing my soon to be sister in law and my soon to be twin nephews as well. So we are going to have our house full (which I love). But that means I have to start cleaning like yesterday. This post is just to give you a little idea of what that week of cleaning in tells, so hopefully it will help you for when important company is coming over. And after reading this you are going to think I was preparing for the President or Chris Hemsworth himself (my favorite actor hehe).

They will come in on next Saturday, so starting today on Saturday, I will set up the guest room. We just moved in to our new home that we bought (my next post will be about the home buying process), and I have not had a reason to set up everything in our guest bedroom yet. So I will make the bed, hang pictures on the walls, organize the closet, and so on.

On Sunday, I will clean the entire guest bathroom. Wipe down the shower, wipe down the toilet, wipe down the mirror and counter, sweep and mop the floors, wash towels and wash clothes. And keep Josh out of there because that is the bathroom he uses when he is in his "man cave," or the extra room we have left.

On Monday, I will clean up Josh's "man cave." I will move the loveseat we have in there so that we can fit an air mattress on the floor for the twins to sleep on. I will vacuum the floors and dust the T.V. stand, and any extras that are left in that room. I will also have to keep Josh out of this room for the rest of the week, or he will suffer the consequences (re-cleaning the room himself).

On Tuesday, I will start to tackle our room. Now you may be wondering why I am worried about cleaning my own room and bathroom because surely they will not be going in there. True. But it makes you feel better when the whole house is clean, just in case something happens where you remembered you got new curtains and want to show them off. Happens to me all the time. So I start with the master bathroom and closet. I make sure all the clothes are actually on hangers, and the shoes are put up nice and neat. I then wipe everything in the bathroom down, and sweep and mop the floors.

On Wednesday, I clean our bedroom. I dust all the furniture. I vacuum the floors. I clean off side tables and dresser tops. Most importantly I make sure that my sheets are clean. (This is usually the easy day because we try to keep our room clean on a daily/weekly basis anyways.)

On Thursday, I clean the kitchen. I wipe down the inside and outside of the fridge. I organzie the pantry. I clean the oven and the microwave. I wipe down all the cabinets for fingerprints. And lastly I sweep and mop the floors.

On Friday, I clean the living room and breakfast nook. We have a puppy dog, Bevo, that sheds like it's his day job. So I will take off the blankets we keep on the couch and wash them . I will vacuum the couch seats, and vacuum the living room area rug. I will then dust the side tables and T.V. cabinet. Lastly I will sweep and mop. And try my best to keep Bevo off the furniture until after they get here, and then it is free game.

Finally, on the day they are supposed to arrive, I will wake up early and do last minute touch ups on the house, and then get ready myself. Josh tells me everytime his mom comes down that I am overreacting and that his mom doesn't care how the home looks. And logically I know this, but it does not change the fact that I have this is ingrained into my brain.

I hope this helps you when you have company coming over. Its not super crazy, but just a little bit that will go a long way.

Again I am new to this whole blog thing so please comment your constructive criticism. If you liked it then look forward to another post soon.

Looking for Extra Income Online

My quest to find extra income online has been a long and hard road. I did not go to college, but I have my Real Estate License and I have been an assistant for several years. So getting a good paying job online was not the easiest thing for me. 

I tried being a virtual assistant, but you need a website, a sole proprietorship, and a lot of experience being a virtual assistant. (I have never understood when jobs say that you need years worth of experience, but it is a position for someone who just graduated or is an entry level position. Like, where am I supposed to get this experience if no one will give me a chance to learn.) I never found a good source for where to go to get started, but I got the inspiration from other bloggers like myself and each one had a different suggestion. So I went on to the next recommended thing. 

I tried freelance writing. Now I am not the best writer in the world, I mean you know this just by reading this blog. I have good ideas, but putting them to paper and making them into something that makes sense is the part that I cannot do. Blogging is something I can do because I can just go off on a tangent and people will read it. (At least I hope they will.) If this something you excel at then here is a link for a great website to get started in your freelance writing career. They pay a couple of dollars per assignment you choose from, and the assignments are anywhere from 150 words to 1000 words. hirewriters.com So the freelance writing failed. 

The next thing I tried to do, I'm actually still trying to do this, is to become a search engine rater. Meaning that you go onto search engines and check to see how efficient their pages and answers are. Now to be able to qualify to do this you do not need any schooling, but you have to pass a series of three qualification tests. Now these aren't normal tests to see if you can just use the normal google search engine. These are tests to see if you know all the extreme technical terms and systems. (Which I do not because that is not something that interests me in my spare time to learn about.) If this is something that you like to do, here is a link for you to try it. I believe that this company was going to pay $13 an hour if you pass all the qualifications. leapforce.com I will let you know how my attempt at this method turns out. 

I also tried the survey system. I went to several different websites to try and get aid for taking surveys, and most of the ones I tried just gave you a point system for each survey you took and after you got to a certain amount of points then you could turn them in for a gift card to a certain place. But you had to complete a ridiculous amount of surveys to get to that magic number and then the gift card was only for like $10 and only to a couple of places. Here are a couple of links to the websites I tried if you are interested. vindale.com surveys.ipsosinteractive.com

So all in all I failed at the whole making an extra income online. Unless by some miracle my blog takes off. But because I am being so bluntly honest about everything I doubt it will take off. If you try any of these methods above please comment on whether they failed and if you succeeded where I did not. And maybe I can learn something from y'all that I am doing wrong. Not to mention I am new to this whole blogging thing so some encouragement or some constructive criticism would be welcome. (Notice I said constructive criticism.)