A few weeks ago I was anxiously waiting for this day to come, hoping that my financial aide would go though ok and my classes wouldn't be dropped due to no payment. That feels like just yesterday and here I am on a break between classes of my first day back! The end of summer flew by with blessings, opportunities and who could forget Hudson?!
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| Hudson: The 80 pound cuddler. |
I'm another year older since my last post and the day after my birthday I spent the afternoon assisting my favorite photographer, at my favorite Ohio theme park, photographing my favorite magician, Ed Alonzo! Seeing him perform his show four times in a row was a special times I'll never forget!
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| Minion Cupcakes I got for my birthday! Loved them so much! |
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| The first time I met Ed Alonzo. I didn't get a picture with him when we went to take pictures of his show. |
I've been faced with great responsibility this summer. Not once or twice but three times. The first was mainly dog sitting with the occasional "bring in the mail and make sure the cat is still alive." The third I have done before, take care of all the cats, bring in the mail and newspaper, clean the litter boxes and give the best cat of all his pill each night. Piece of cake, I knew it by heart.
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| Annie: the dog from the first house sitting. |
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| Le Stat: the best cat from the third house sitting. |
But the second was a force to be reckoned with. This would be the almighty Hudson and his trusty sidekick Jasmine. I had little to no fear at my abilities of caring for the dogs, just a little nervous to actually stay in the house for the week and have full responsibility of every single detail for an entire week. This really put my perspective in check because not only was I being trusted with a key to the house but also the garage, their pool and the care for this families beloved pets including medicine TWICE a day for Mr. Hudson. It really humbled me that I can be known as a trustworthy person. That was blessing enough but then when the family returned and their house and lovely devious dogs were in one piece they gave me options for my payment. They offered to fix something of mine that was broken. Something that I may not have been able to fix for some time. My heart is so full of thanks towards that gesture and yet they are thanking me whole heartedly for their dogs being happy all week. I think of how someone would feel after breaking someone's trust? Being trusted with someone's whole life and then robbing them blind. Yes they may come out with more "things" but their conscience would eat at them everyday, their trust would be gone and they would never be able to return or even be trusted by others. They will have lost.
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| Hudson, Jasmine, and Charlie. These 3 were a handful. |
Another excited event that marked the ending to my summer was Vacation Bible School at church. We'd been planning for it all summer. I had saved cardboard from work to build the castle and everyone had little Pinterest projects they were working on to build the set. Finally the week had come, the set was built, and volunteers were there. I was put with team Truman. We had a great group of kids and I think they learned a lot form the lessons each night. It was exciting for me to be on the adult side of VBS because before this year I hadn't been to VBS since I was a little kid going to random church with my cousins to pass time during the summer. I don't really remember much from those days except that it was fun and I always felt safe. Our church gives out book bags full of school supplies to the kids that attend every night so it's such a great outreach and the parents get a big relief on the expense of school supplies. It also opened my eyes to just how different everyone's story is. Every one of those kids have a different background and hardship they have to face every day and hopefully one day, if not already, God will be in their hearts guiding them to make all the right decisions.
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| Team Truman enjoying a tasty snack! |
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The other side of the table, same tasty snack.
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The next point in my summer is best described by the movie Pay It Forward. Paying it forward is a third party beneficiary concept that involves doing something good for someone in response to a good deed done on your behalf or a gift you received. When you pay it forward, however, you don't repay the person who did something nice for you. Instead, you do something nice for someone else. In my case, I went with Lora to a store going out of business and was talked into trying on some amazing dresses. Everything in the store was on sale. My picture was taken in the two dresses I tried on so I posted them on Facebook because you all know how much I have worked at losing weight and I was very excited at how pretty the dresses looked and that they actually fit! I received so much positive feedback and one in particular saying they wanted to take me to possibly purchase one of those dresses. I was beside myself. I couldn't believe it!
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| The two dresses I tried on the first day. |
This was their chance to pay it forward from when someone did similar for them recently. So the next day we went dress shopping and found an even better dress that was smaller, cheaper, and more practical ad far as places I could wear it! I thank that person from the bottom of my heart! Their one request was that I keep the chain going and Pay It Forward and I 100% intend to do that as soon as I am able and find the person of course. Pay It Forward has always been one of my favorite movies and I think if everyone took on this project whole heartedly, the world would be a better place.
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| The dress that was given to me as a gift. |
So I bring this to an end. I am older, wiser, better dressed, have less hair, more animal friends than humanly possible, a magician following me on Twitter, and currently have poison ivy on my scalp (can't have a summer in Ohio without poison ivy in awkward places, at least I can't) and had lots of grand adventures with family and friends.
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| The big orange: Ben. |
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| Nevaeh and Gavin at the park. |
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| My girl Jazzy |
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| Pretty Boo Boo: that takes skill. |
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| My new hair cut. |
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| Superdog, Cowboy Hudson, and Sock Monkey Jasmine. |
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| LuLu in a box. |
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| Squeak! |
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| Penny Cat. |
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| I successfully went dress shopping on my own! $11 at Marshall's! |
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| My very last hoorah with my favorite little kids before we all start school. So glad I was able to spend my last free weekend with them. |
Achoo! Uh oh...here comes winter! Stay warm.
#StayHappy
Be Healthy
and always lend a helping hand to anyone in need.
My days are now full of design drawing, history of Interior Design, design basics all 3 days a week, Home Depot 5 nights a week, photo shoots here and there and somewhere in there I will never get enough sleep but hopefully I will still be inspired to write about my experiences. They may not come every Monday just like they haven't for the past couple months but stick with me everyone! Life's a struggle but there's always opportunities to get you through!
