A couple months ago, a fellow military wife shared a link on her blog to From My Grey Desk. On Fridays, this blogger makes a list of her five favorite things from that week. I happened to think that was a very neat idea and yet I wondered how a person could actually find 5 different favorite things every week. I decided to try that for this week and after the horrible day on Tuesday, I couldn't imagine finding anything happy about this week.

The thing is...if you don't want to find the positive in anything, then you won't. If you decide that you WILL find 5 great things about a week, you realize that they have been there all along. And here are mine:

1.) I was going to wait until it was my turn to check out the book from the library, but I decided to cave and download Fifty Shades of Grey onto my Kindle. I'm only on chapter two, so nothing sexy has happened yet, but I am very interested to see what all these women have been chatting about!

2.) There is a trail by my parents house called a "Rail Trail," which means it was converted from an actual railway track. It's about 2.3 miles from end to end and it's actually a beautiful path with woods on either side and during a 2 week period in the summer, wild berries grow along the path and are absolutely delicious. My mom and I took the family dog and walked it from end to end, a total of over 4 miles. It was exhausting, but a good time :)

3.) Dan manages to buy a ridiculous amount of clothes from Kohl's and the last time he went, he got $20 in Kohls cash, which he gave me (because he loves me!). I went to Kohl's this week and bought a super cute dress, which I am dying for an excuse to wear! And yes, it is from the Lauren Conrad collection.

4.) I took my third Piloxing class this week! It's exhausting, but a lot of fun! I love how fast paced it is, as well as empowering and upbeat. It is a Pilates class mixed with Boxing and I recommend it to everyone!

5.) My dad had taken my wedding bouquet and dried it out for me! I had completely forgotten about it until I was home this past weekend and he showed it to me! I wish there was some magical way I could have perfectly preserved the beautiful bouquet forever and ever, but alas. I'm not exactly sure if these will be able to last like this in the open, so I may see if I can find an appropriately shaped shadow box to preserve it in.

I look forward to finding the positive in next week!

February, March, April

In my last post back at the end of February, I was still working at my job and counting down the days until my very last. I worked at the manufacturing plant for 8 months and it took me about 6 months to have my epiphany: I won’t be happy going from administrative job to administrative job. The question then became, Well, Sam, what do you want to do that will make you happy? In a very soft, timid voice, I heard the words form in the back of my head: Guidance Counselor. Since then, that voice has been steadily becoming louder and more prominent in my head, and has now started spreading to my heart. I can keep trying to convince myself that it isn’t the right decision, that it’s too hard to go that route being in the military, that I won’t be able to help anyone and, therefore, I will fail. Mostly that last one. But now that those 17 letters have taken up space in my heart, it has been a lot tougher to ignore them. My question is now: How the hell do I start this process? I will report back on that when I have an answer to that question and have formed my next one.

In the book world, I convinced myself that I really wanted to tackle a classic, and I knew which one it was going to be. I was very excited to check out Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and it wasn’t a hard book to start. It is becoming a hard book to continue reading, though. It has nothing to do with the story, I am very interested in what is happening so far. And that language isn’t too…classic-y. I know it is practically sacrilege in the world of literature to say that I can’t get through a classic novel because I have a hard time navigating the story through all the curves and twists of the classic language. But it is true. I have difficulty enjoying the story if I can’t relate to the words and dialogue, no matter how much I may relate to the story itself. Example: Little Women. I fell in love with the story when I was a kid, because the version I read was written for kids. I then fell in love with the movie. But when I tried to read the original version, I found that I wasn’t loving the characters as much as I know that I do and I didn’t like that. I have since returned Anna Karenina to the library because I realized I could download it for free on my Kindle and not have to worry about renewing my library book. I truly hope to finish it before the movie comes out.

While at the library returning Anna Karenina, I picked up Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb, the new book in one of my favorite series. Blew through that in a week and then picked up Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich, a new book in a different series., and finished that in a few days. I highly recommend both!

In the meantime, I finally caved and bought Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James for my Kindle, instead of waiting on the long list for it to be my turn to get it from the library.

I look forward to reporting, on Friday, my favorite things about this week J