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.