Summer time!!

Oh Summer time as a school counselor. It's my first one but it has been a fun ride. I did have to work a little longer this year, but it hasn't been too bad. This next year I won't be coaching, which is bitter sweet. I will miss my athletes and cheering them as we get to watch them grow and develop. But I will enjoy some extra time with my husband. Not having to go to work at 6 am and come home who know's when. We will also get to pour more time into our wonderful youth group.

This summer has been a good time for our youth group. TRCStudents has been able to do some really amazing things!! Church camp, girl's nights, Fast Food Fridays, Paintballing, Rangers game, instahunt, and we still have so much planned for the rest of the summer.

 















My husband is also excited about me not being a coach next year, so I won't always dress like a coach. I am going to take my fashion up a notch next year and try to look more stylish. I have even tried Stitch Fix, I should get my first stitch tomorrow. If you haven't heard of it you should check it out!! It is a company that will send you 5 pieces for $20 bucks. You try them on, keep what you like and send back the rest. If you decide to buy your $20 is a credit towards your purchase and if you buy all five pieces you get 25% off your purchase. They ask you a lot of info about what you like and you can even link a pinterest board so they can see what style you pin.

 




I am also moving campuses next year, which I think will be a really good for me to grow as a counselor. I am excited about a new campus and creating new bonds with co-workers and students. I spend the last few days getting my office partially put together. Here is my progress...

New house mode :)

Today me and Mom went to Granbury to have both of our cars serviced. So we decided to make use of our time in G-town and scope out Home Depot and Lowes. We had a random assortment of DIY tasks that we wanted to check out for each of our homes (Mom's current and my future home of course). I am pretty sure we were just "checking" on some projects and I think we brought home almost everything that we looked for.

She got some stuff to help with the air conditioning at her house.
 I came home with cushions for my front porch furniture...

stuff to add a shower to my future bath tub...

and stuff to make a headboard out of a door :) yes we can thank pinterest for that last one!!

We we got home a package had arrived for me...

My brand new bedding... I was in DESPERATE need of a new one before I moved, but I decided to wait until I moved to get new bedding kind of a fresh start.

 So then I got home and started dreaming of my new headboard and getting all excited about my Sat project of putting together and painting it... then this brilliant idea hit me... why wait until Sat, when I can do it right now?!?

So I went outside and asked my step dad in the sweetest voice possible, "How hard is it to run the nail gun??" then he agreed to show me how to operate it and help me set up my work station...

This is what I started with... $17 door + $5 molding + $5 paint = one happy Paige :)

Then I whipped out the nail gun... my new favorite toy (I have already told Mom I would like power tool for Christmas... I know very girly huh??)

And here is how is progressed from there...

So projects like this are making me REALLY excited about my new adventure!!

Ready to Move in!

Yay!! In a week this is where I will call home. Not that I mind living with the parentals, but I am DESPERATELY tired of living out of a suit case. I have been blowing Pinterest up lately with my dreams that I hope to turn into reality in this new home. It's funny how moving into a new place gives you a sense of getting to start over, a clean slate. This makes me all kinds of excited!

This will be the first time I am have ever lived in Dublin and not in my mom's house. I will be teaching/coaching in a town where I grew up. I will be living with my brother, who I have never lived with. And I will be going to a new church where I have a chance to plug into the youth ministry.

If I could rewind time to a few years ago none of this would have been in the plan that I had made for myself. But it is really AWESOME how God works. God really does know what is best for us and he doesn't make us wait on him as a way of punishing us, but as a way of preparing us for what he knows is best for us. In the last couple years God has put so many amazing people in my path and it wouldn't have happened if everything would have went the way I wanted it.

So with that being said... God bring on this new adventure. I am ready for whatever you have in store for me!!

New Beginnings and Coming Home

Well I haven't posted at ALL in 2012 to keep you up to date on how well things are going for me with my Operation 2012 challenge. But I have been working towards my goals and haven't achieved them, but I have made what I would consider a lot of progress and I have had an AWESOME 2012 so far.

 First I want to mention that I have had the opportunity to teach, coach, and be around some of the coolest kids, students, athletes, youth (whatever you want to call them) on the PLANET!! I meant these guys are awesome. And I truly have God to thank for that. I have been living in Bowie the last couple years and it was 100% a God thing that got me there. Over the last two years I have had the chance to fall in love with the community of Bowie. I have got to teach 6th grade Science, coach freshman girls volleyball, keep basketball stats, run the clock at many girls games, help with the youth at Southside Baptist... and there were times I thought I wound up at Bowie on accident. I know now that it was by God's will that placed me there. I don't think the community of Bowie will ever know how much they have impacted my life! So thank you Bowie for helping me to grow over the last two years. 







 So recently I have been given the opportunity to come back home to Dublin and get a chance to impact and be impacted by the students of my hometown. I am very excited to the chance to come back home (even though I will dearly miss so many people in Bowie). I will be teaching 7th grade Science and be a girls coach at the Jr. High. Oh how blessed I feel right now! Now only am I coming home, but one of my best friends K'rin Young and her family are coming back as well. I am very excited about reunited with her and many of my hometown buddies!! (Jess you for sure know that includes you and so many other great Dublin people)

 Also my little brother will be attending Tarleton starting in July and we are going to be roommates. We have never lived together so I am very excited about this chance that we get to just be siblings. I am sure we are going to have plenty of laughs, mixed in with plenty of arguments, but I am so excited about this new venture! We found an adorable house that we are going to rent from my new friends Amy & Tony Cortez (Good luck to you guys in Sweetwater)



 My parents have also been going to Timber Ridge church in Stephenville and I am excited to come and be a part of the great things that they are doing there and plugging in a getting involved. So 2012 you are half over, but I know that there are so many great things to come! SO BRING IT ON :)

Holiday Rewind

The 2011 holiday has been really amazing this year and I feel very blessed with the friends and family I have. This has really been a season to reflect on all that I have to be thankful for. Granted life is not where I had planned to be at 27, but also there have been so many blessings that I would have never expected. I have complete faith that God will bring me what I need when I need it.

Christmas turned out really good. I got to spend some quality time with my family. We got up Christmas morning and did our traditional gift opening. We had lots of fun cutting up as we opened gifts, took pictures, and just enjoyed being together. Then we went over to my Aunt and Uncles house for some more family time. I always love these times where we can prepare food, catch up and just be together.

The day after Christmas me, Mom and Gary ventured out and did a lil post Christmas shopping. We found a few good deals that we just couldn't pass up :) Then me and mom came home and got our technology fix. She worked on getting her new body bugg up and ready to go... and I updated some songs on my iPhone. Then me Kassi and Jess went to the movie with the intention of seeing "We bought a Zoo" only for the three people in front of us to buy the last three tickets :( So we went and saw Mission Impossible (which was pretty good).

Today I have spent my WHOLE day in my PJs... yup I have been in my PJs for almost 24 hours and I am not ashamed!! I slept in again, we watched the first two of the twilight movies (because I am in the middle of reading the third book), then I tried to finish the third book and decided that wasn't how I wanted to spend my last night here. So I then got all my stuff ready and loaded into my car so I could be ready to go back to Bowie once I get up in the morning. After enjoying some pizza for dinner I am not sitting here blogging and enjoying the last day of complete laziness!!

I am excited to go back home and launch Operation 2012. I have found some things that will help with the process and I am confident that I can make some of the changes that I want in this upcoming year. I hope that you all had a WONDERFUL holiday and I wish you great success in 2012!!

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

I can't believe that it is Christmas Eve... this time last year was quite a different story. I was having a hard time and acting like a brat because of it. I remember thinking that my family was really going to cancel Christmas because I was having such a hard time. But this year is so much different I am filled with so much hope for the new year and fond memories from the last year.

Yesterday I took my step dad for our annual Christmas shopping time and then me and Mom went and got goodies for Christmas and bought some last minute stocking stuffers. Last night we had two of my favorite people over (Jess and Cheriee) to play games with me and the parentals!

We had a blast playing spades and train... by the end of the night I was pretty delirious and acting in such a manner that Cheriee described me as a "little delirious firecracker". But I think we all had a good time cutting up and mostly making fun of me! Anything to entertain others.

Today we had a really good day as a family... First of all I slept in till 11!!!! Then we got up and me and the rents went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes... which was amazing! We then went and sat at Starbucks enjoying some festive beverages while we waited for the Christmas Eve service at Timber Ridge.

The service tonight was amazing! It is always a good spending time with other believers celebrating the birth of our Savior. Tonight Pastor Nic talked about the three trees of Christmas 1) The Christmas Tree-representing the traditions of Christmas 2) The manger- representing the birth of our Savior 3)The cross- representing Christ laying his life down for our sin. I love this time of year and what it represents. A mighty Savior leaving his thrown to enter the world in such a humble way to save us all. Something I love about Timber Ridge is the diversity of the congregation... a place where people can come and not be judged, just like Christ intended it!

To end the evening we went looked at the house with the lights that are set to "dance" with the music. Then we came home and put on our Christmas pjs and made some goodies to munch on tonight and tomorrow!

Last Minute Christmas Shopping

I am usually one of those people that get's most of my Christmas shopping done early, but that was not the case this year. I have kept my self pretty busy between church, teaching and basketball that I just haven't had the time or the energy to go out and buy Christmas presents.

So my mom graciously accepted an invitation to tackle shopping with me in the Fort Worth only a few days before Christmas. So we headed out this morning on our adventure and there were quite a few people out and about, but it wasn't as chaotic as I believed it would be.

We made a few stops at some of my favorite places including: JCPenney, Hobby Lobby, Pet Smart, Sam Moon, Kirkland's, Ulta, and Academy. I was very excited about some of the deals we found this day and I stayed within my planned budget (part of my Operation 2012).

I am very glad that we went out today since we had to put down my parent's dog Bandit yesterday. If Mom had stayed in today she would had too much time to sit and think about it all. Bandit at Thanksgiving was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and was given six months to live. Well a few days before I came home for Christmas she stopped eating and then yesterday she was swollen with fluid and was having a lot of trouble getting around. It was a tough decision but we all decided that she didn't need to suffer any longer. So it won't quite be the same without our furry little family member and she will greatly be missed.

But me and Mom had a nice day getting to talk and shop and enjoy this BEAUTIFUL weather (not very December like weather, I might add). Also we ran into one of my favorite people (Patty Shumate) on the way home and had a really nice chat with her. God is good and I feel very blessed to have such good family and friends.