The Future...Marriage vs. Ph.D.

In recent months it has been brought to my attention that I should consider the next step in my life.  I completed my Master of Arts degree in May 2012 in Education, but a few friends think that I should be thinking about my future plans since I have "free time" on my hands now. I came across this funny cartoon today while at the office and thought that it was very appropriate. So enjoy this good laugh like I just did...

Home Organizing 4 the Busy Girl

I like to keep my house looking good, but sometimes it can be a challenge with my busy life. Sometimes I like to set the kitchen timer the first 15 minutes whenever I get home as motivation to “pick-up” around the house so that it doesn’t become overwhelming. I am a single lady so whatever mess I make I am usually the only one who sees it unless someone visits, but these fast 15 minute pickups usually do the trick. I like things within my house to have a location or “home” that is sensible and somewhat organized so that it saves me time and energy later whenever I need to find something.

Don’t get me wrong I have a few junk drawers, clutter collecting baskets, and cabinets that stuff somehow magically appears. I am not perfect! I put things in these areas and tell myself that I will deal with it later when I have more time. So occasionally I have to deal with it and face the reality of the “stuff” every now and again. I like to revisit these problem clutter collecting areas within my house occasionally because stuff seems to pileup overnight and no one else will put it up except me. Usually every season I will give everything a good once over to declutter and reorganize things. I do this in hopes to make my life more efficient when I do day-to-day activities. Plus this declutter session allows me to get a chance to take inventory of what I have on hand and it lets me wipe off places that sometimes don’t get touched during a quick clean-up around the house.  

When things are decluttered and organized I find myself happier and more efficient because I can find exactly what I need in a short period of time. Like I mentioned in a previous post I have been trying to lose weight, so whenever clothes get too big I immediately place them into a sell or give away pile in another part of the house so that I can make room for new purchases within my closet otherwise I try to get rid of one clothing article whenever I purchase a new item. I need to practice this in other areas of my house!  This weekend was one of those weekends that I tackled a few areas within my house since I had a little extra time on my hands. I took a good look into my laundry room closet, my bathroom, and my kitchen pantry and cabinets.

Whenever I am doing my seasonal declutter sessions I keep in mind and ask myself the following questions about whether or not I should…

Keep It
Toss It
Donate It
Sell It

Moving stuff gives me a sense of accomplishment, so if I come across something that has memories involved usually I set it back in a special place and save it for later to go through. I try to move swiftly and keep a steady pace so that I don’t get bogged down. I’m excited that this past weekend I knocked out a few spaces, next on the agenda is the catch all room in my house…the craft room / home office. Wish me luck…because it needs attention!     

Birthdays

This past week I celebrated another year of life! I turned 28 this year on January 23. I am so blessed to have an awesome family and great group of friends who all wished me a “Happy Birthday” through cards, texts, calls, visits, and Facebook messages. I was surprised by the warm thoughts and wishes by those who wanted to wish me another year of life. Thank you if you are one of those special people!

My birthday celebration consisted on what seems like a weeklong adventure of celebrating. It was kicked off by a weekend in Winchester, Kentucky with my special guy Scott. I got to celebrate my birthday with his sweet family in Lexington on Saturday night and then we followed it up on Sunday night with dinner with some of his friends after church. I took the day off from work on my actual birthday because I thought I needed a little girltime. I got my hair cut and styled and then my friend Courtney and I went to Glasgow to get pampered. We got much needed manicures and pedicures! A birthday for me would not be complete without having dinner with my awesome family and eating birthday cake!

Anyways since I celebrated another year of life revolving around the sun I want to stop and thank God for the freedoms I have been given all because He sent His son Jesus to Earth to die for our sins so that we might live and get to experience "birthdays" and "life" each day.   

Healthy Snacking

When looking for something at work this morning I found a great resource on "Smarter Snacking". Snacks are a huge part of my life and I normally can not go a day without eating a snack. So I thought I would share the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Extension resource I found since I thought it might be of interest to you if you are trying to be healthier in 2013 like me! Click on the photo below to go to the publication on "Smarter Snacking".

 

 

Work + Life = ME

If you are curious about what I do professionally, I am the Monroe County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences. So occasionally, you might hear me blog about my work life and what is going on within that avenue of my life because it is a big part of who I am and what I do on a daily basis. For those of you who have no clue what this is and what I do on a daily basis…I am a community educator who brings research based information back into the county to encourage Kentuckians with new knowledge and skills to improve their life for their families, schools, and communities.

Last year in 2012, I decided that I was going to be healthier and actually practice what I tried to “preach” and encourage others to do with their lives. I thought of myself as healthy but occasionally I let things slip because I did not have “time”. Having no "time" was just a big cover-up and excuse because being healthy in our crazy world is hard and takes dedication and I was not willing to do it until 2012! Last year on my quest to be healthier, I set a few goals for myself. I wanted to lose 71 pounds and be more physically active. As hard as this sounds I am slowly making progress on these goals so I thought I needed to celebrate a few on my successes!  

As of January 15, 2013 I have lost a total of 45 pounds! I have been pretty faithful to my new physical fitness routine and my "healthy challenge". I  try to move more "4-5 times per week" and make healthier eating choices every day. Do not get me wrong this has been a challenge and I am still working hard at it!  I am 26 pounds away from my goal but I believe that I can do it! I feel better and I am in love with my new self!

Life is all about the choices we make on a daily basis. Balancing those choices within life and sticking to a plan while meeting our own physical and emotional needs in life can sometime be a challenging task. If you truly want a better body and better health for yourself and your family, I believe you can make “changes” within your life that you need to make if you are true to yourself and what you really want. That is what I did and so far it has worked. So with all that said, I am almost to my goal…I have the last 1/3 of the race still to run but I know that I can do this! That is why “Make healthier lifestyle choices to improve my overall health and well-being” was one of my goals for 2013.

Follow me as I share all of my favorite tips and tricks to losing these last 26 pounds of extra weight. I would love hear your ideas, questions, and comments! 

Lara

Professional photo of 2011-2012

The official "before" picture in 2012 with my mama

Me "currently" as I celebrated the start of 2013 with a "special" friend ;)

Love and Respect (A Book Review)

My intentions of reading this book are simple…I want to be an aware Christian now and for the future. Currently I am a single girl in the dating arena, so I thought I would read a few books this year on marriage to learn some principles that might work in the future if the dating stage moved forward.  I see the dating arena as a way to get to know someone by experiencing, growing, and learning new things and if the relationship deems worthy then “maybe” one day engagement and marriage. My thought is that dating is the time to see whether or not two people are compatible, so I thought that reading about “love” and “respect” might help me see what God’s design for marriage was all about. My past history with the last really serious relationship in my life did not necessarily go as I had planned, but now I realize that it was God’s plan for me to learn and grow as an individual. My past relationships have made me a stronger woman and helped me to become the person I am today. I am thankful for the past, but I do not want to revisit the same mistakes in future relationships so I have since made a conscious effort to grow stronger and closer to God’s word and see what His plan really is for my future whether in singlehood, dating, marriage, and etc. The book I choose to read on this topic was “Love and Respect” by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. 

I believe this book also talks to singles like me even though the main focus is on marriage. The book concludes discussing the “Rewarded Cycle”. Within the rewarded cycle the husband and wife both respond out of love and respect regardless of how the other partner is responding in the marriage because of selflessness and humility like Jesus Christ. This I believe can be applied to singlehood because it is my thought that we can show love and respect to others despite how they treat us! One day will be rewarded with the same blessing as married Christians, a home in heaven, if we wait patiently and practice obedience toward Christ. I believe that if a single person focuses their attention on unconditional love and unconditional respect within all relationships they have with people throughout their day then they will be rewarded like was mentioned in Matthew 5:46 when Jesus said, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”. 

Knowing the love and respect principles I believe could strengthen any single persons love and reverence for the Lord. In John 8:31-32 Jesus says, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”. As Christians if we experience “inner freedom” and “spiritual freedom” from our sin and learn from our past experiences instead of hating others then we are practicing “love” and “respect” within our own lives. Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary for our sins, so that we might live. If we “love” and “respect” Him then we should all seek out “love” and “respect” relationships within our lives and try to help out by sharing our Christian principles. We can do this by building stronger relationships based on “love” and “respect” with the people we come in contact with on a daily basis. We might be able to bring others to Christ by our Christian example and sharing God’s truth and love! 

The book also points out “God’s tests” concerning “inner freedom” and how He is testing us to show us that we can do this and increase our “rewards”. The author references James 1:2-12 which talks about believers being tested with trails and temptations and being made stronger under trial because of the “test”. So isn’t the “test” God is giving us on a daily basis seeking to see if we are practicing love and respect with others and see how we have shared the story of Jesus? How many Christians would pass the test? I know we all hope that we would pass, but would you pass? 

I believe that the author summed up the entire book awesomely when he mentioned that God’s color is “purple” which the color of royalty is. Purple, he goes on to say, is made up of “pink” and “blue” which are how women and men view and go through life but when combined together make purple. When the color “purple” is made, then God’s image is reflected which reinforces the memory verse for the book “[Every husband] also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” Ephesians 5:33. Yes, one day I hope to put the main principles of the book into practice within a marriage! Until then I am going to focus on the conclusions I mentioned above with what I can do as a single adult Christian.               

Just a few thoughts, 
Lara

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy (A Book Review)

Rivoli, P. (2009). The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade (2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

You might be wondering why on earth is a "Savage Girl" reading this book. LOL. I am challenging myself to read more this year, so when the opportunity came across my desk at work to join a book discussion and have a common reading experience with colleagues I thought "why not". So here are my thoughts on my most recent read.  
 

Rivoli’s book “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade” is not for the fashionista queen looking for a how-to guide on t-shirts and traveling. Instead, it is for the reader who wants to get engrossed with wanting to hear an interpretation and “story” of sorts from the author concerning where and how a T-Shirt travels throughout the world based on history, politics, international textile trade, free trade, and economics.

The author follows her T-Shirt throughout the world from its starting place in Texas on the farm to China. Then the author tells how our T-Shirts make their way back to American, then back into the economy into the free market as a “donation” in a recycle bin, which is then taken to another country like Japan Tanzania, Russia, etc.

She recounts the history associated with the textile manufacturing industry and highlights many truths of the industry. It saddened me to think that workers “left” the farm for a better life and entered “factory” jobs then to experience horrors throughout their day working in the garment industry just so that their family could survive on a daily basis. This was the reality of the people in the communities of where I am from in Celina, Tennessee and Tompkinsville, Kentucky! What makes it sadder is that those jobs were stripped away from our small American communities while many larger cities moved up in the industrial economy with other manufacturing opportunities yet our small communities experienced lay-offs and eventual factory closings. Many workers moved away for work, others used this as an opportunity to re-educate themselves to get better jobs, while others took jobs in the retail industry when the major retailer Wal-Mart moved into town. The latter is sad to me now after reading this book because I came to realize that this is ironic and one of the double-edge swords we face in America. This retailer sells cheap low-end products manufactured in the countries that received work from the communities that once employed the workforce that the major retailer now employees yet they pay them less money and offer fewer benefits. I somehow see something wrong with this picture. Slowly but surely, our local communities here on the Tennessee/Kentucky border are pulling themselves out of this slumber as new industries and opportunities are sought out and made available to the workforce.

However, what does this mean for you and me today? Should we still buy t-shirts? Here are some practical implications that I learned from reading this book:

1. I think we should be more consumer and buyer aware whenever we purchase items. We should ask questions.
2. We should seek out good quality items that will hold up and last when we buy items. We should not necessarily buy in “quantity” to fill our large spacious closets.
3. I also think we should be conscious of the items we discard out of our closets. Our “donation” so to speak can sometimes be a burden on someone else when we give our items away if they do not have the means of “handling” it properly. We can create more of a “disaster” without ever knowing the reality of the result because we are too caught up with “me” and “I” in American to think sometimes about others in the world around us.
4. We also need to know that things change because people in government make new rules and laws. It is our duty as citizens to play a part in the political system by voting during the elections! We should exercise that right by seeking out the candidates and get to know them before election day so that we can vote for the candidate that best supports our viewpoints and political stances.     

The author concluded that the world argument for “free trade” is very strong both morally and economically. The book challenges us to refocus our thoughts and see the textile industry in a new light. Personally, I felt the book was a good read, but you might want to pick it up for yourself and read to see the ins and outs of the politics and the human side of the globalization debate of a simple T-Shirt.

My Purpose & Goals

I decided to start a blog so that I can “share” my thoughts and journey with the world. Call me crazy but my thought is that by sharing my life and my story that I might inspire someone else. I am just an average girl seeking the very best out for my life. In my opinion, I am nothing more than average, but this is my life story and I am going to share it with you as it unfolds and evolves over time. Who knows our paths might cross one day! Feel free to post comments and share too because we can learn from each other.    

Getting back to my questioning mind and what I said in my first post…”What is my plan now”, “what kind of person does God want me to be” and “what’s next”. I know I need a purpose and goals for my life. Having these in place will allow me to have something to work towards. Therefore, to help answer these questions I am hoping this blog will help. I have never verbalized these thoughts and desires in writing before. They have only been thoughts and fragments of my imagination yet they are my innate desire for my future.

My purpose:

Be the best that I can be and do what God intends for me to do with peace, joy, and thanksgiving.

My goals are:

1.     Put God first in my life.

2.     Focus on my current family while building the foundation of my future “family” through building a strong relationship built on God, Love, Respect, Trust, and Loyalty.

3.     Continue to build relationships within my work community all while increasing productivity through efficiency, organization, and collaboration in order to build a strong family and consumer science program that will help others through life-long learning.  

4.     Have a servant attitude and give back to others.  

5.     Make healthier lifestyle choices to improve my overall health and well-being.

I know life is crazy sometimes and never is perfect. Sometimes life is not peaceful, joyful, or exactly how we want it to be. But with that said I hold to these words: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity" 1 Timothy 4:12.

What goals have you set for yourself?

Just some thoughts,

Fresh Start

In the past few weeks, months, and years I have been asking myself several questions like “what is my plan now”, “what kind of person does God want me to be”, and “what’s next”. These are questions that I have been thinking over in my head but have never told anyone because I did not think that anyone desired to hear them. However, it is a “New Year” and I thought why not share and get them off my chest so that I can start to “see” them in action as they happen.

I know God has a plan for each of us but we just sometimes do not know where that plan is going to lead us. Looking back I never dreamed that I would be where I am today at the age of 27, but I know that it was God’s plan for me to be where I am today. I just do not know what is next because it is still evolving! Like many of you, my past has molded me into who I am today. The path sometimes has not been easy it has come with its own set of challenges and problems. I am not perfect! I have made my own set of mistakes along the way. However, what I know is that I am a better person because of my past and now I am patiently waiting for the next road and wherever it may lead me. I know we need to hold fast to His word and seek out His advice through prayer and reading His word. He will give us answers and help us with decisions if we seek it out. Your road map might seem uncharted, like mine, but I know that looking back at my past God has played a large role in making me the godly woman that I am today and that He desires me to be in the future.   

With all that said it is a “New Year with a "New Fresh Start”! The calendar is clean except the ten days that have already passed.  The opportunities are ready, boundless, and limitless so journey with me as I begin my travels and adventures in 2013.