Prompt 1 - My Life in 250 Words

Back with a second post today (my weigh-in was posted earlier this morning), because I want to share my super quick auto-biography, in 250 words or less. (Mine turned out to be 249! Bam.) I just found this fun idea today, and I can't wait to join in the rest of the month. I doubt I'll be able to do every single prompt, but I'll do what I can, when I can. If you want to join in on the challenge to Write Every Day in May, visit Jenni's cute blog HERE.

I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. For a long time, my little family was “broken” and so my mom took care of my sister and me basically all on her own; then my parents divorced when I was 12. Even through the trials though, my Mama raised us in a Christian home, and we know that our faith in the Lord is what brought us through some of those tough times. Luckily, my Mama got remarried to an amazing man when I was 16, and he loves us as his own. I was a cheerleader in high school, and was also involved in a ton of groups and activities in both school and church. I went to Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, for college, and made an incredible group of friends who I love dearly. I am so grateful for all of them! I am now living in Tallahassee again, engaged to an amazing man and planning our wedding for this upcoming October! Jeff and I love riding our bikes and going on adventures together. Besides blogging, I like to learn new recipes, try new crafts, and attempt cute nail art. I’m also on a journey to become healthier and lose weight, so that’s a big part of my life now too. I’m very positive and organized, and somewhat outgoing. I love smiling and laughing and playing games with my friends. I am a blessed woman, and I thank the Lord for what he’s given me! 

Photo by Phil Pullen Photography

Pride, Accidents & the Fridge - First Things First

Good morning and happy Tuesday blog world and friends! I don't know if y'all have noticed or not, but I'm always super happy and peppy and excited on Tuesdays. And that's because I'm reeeeally loving our First Things First link up! Last week's link up however, was rough you guys. Why? Because it made me sooo hungry and crave such unhealthy things! I read each and every one of your posts that you link up, and so seeing almost 30 posts full of delicious food was kind of torturous for this girl who's trying her hardest to eat right! I'm thinking I need to ban food-related posts in the future, or maybe just do healthy food-related ones!

Today we've got two more awesome ladies co-hosting with me, and I know you'll love them too! Today's co-hosts are Jess @ City Sequins and Robin @ The Sunshine Diary! And once Robin sent me that beautiful, tropical picture of her and her man, I knew I had to make a theme out of it, and made sure Jess and I got in on the beachy action too :)

And this week's First Things First topics are:

First thing I reach for in the fridge

First car accident or traffic violation

First BIG accomplishment I'm proud of

First thing I reach for in the fridge
Well that all depends on a lot of different factors, but mainly the time of day. Is it morning? Maybe I'm reaching for some strawberries. If it's lunch time? Then I'm probably grabbing some condiments for my veggie burger. For my afternoon snack? Definitely a low-fat string cheese stick. And dinner time? That could be only Lord knows what... 

First car accident or traffic violation
Sooo, anyone who knows me in real life knows that this used to be a big issue for me... in high school, I had two speeding tickets, and a handful of minor accidents before I even made it to graduation. The first ticket or accident I had was a speeding ticket just three months after I turned 16. However, I already recapped my first speeding ticket issue back in my first ever First Things First post, so instead I'll tell you about my first accident...

However, I'm really embarrassed about this actually, because it just proves what a typical, dumb blonde I was in high school. (Really, I have gotten much better now. And I'm hardly even blonde anymore...!) But it was around June of that same year, so I'd only been driving for about five months. My sister and I had gone out to my Uncle's house to go swimming one night. When it was time to leave, I put the top down on the convertible, and just started backing down their extremely long driveway, without paying too much attention. And then BAM! I backed right into a tree. It crushed the right side of my back bumper and shattered the tail light as well. I of course freak out and start sobbing uncontrollably like my world had just ended. It was a major deal people.

And the reason I feel so stupid about this - is because I was in a convertible, with NO blind spots or anything, because the top was down. There's no reason I shouldn't have seen a giant TREE! But such is life, and I had to learn the hard way that I can't reverse down a driveway and talk to my sister at the same time, without a care in the world...

First BIG accomplishment I'm proud of
I feel like that's kind of hard to say actually. I mean obviously, I'm proud of my college degree. But I think anyone that has one would say they're proud of it. So I'm gonna go with back in 2011, when I successfully lost 35 pounds for the first time! I started out at 227 pounds in April 2010, and by August 2011, I was at 192 pounds! That was definitely an accomplishment I was proud of. Unfortunately, I didn't keep it all off, and so now I'm fighting to re-lose some of that again. At the beginning of January 2013, I was 217 pounds again. As of today though, I'm back down to 197 pounds! And my goal is to be 185 by mid-May for my sister's wedding! You can read my entire weight loss story here and you can read all of my weight loss posts here.

If you'd like to join in on this fun link up, check out the super simple 'rules' below, and get to writing! Can't wait to see all the new link ups this week, meet new friends, and read y'all's posts!

1. Write your own post about this week's topics

2. Please follow me, as well as this week's co-hosts,  Jess & Robin.

3. Put the new button on your post or somewhere on your blog

4. Link up with us! (Link will appear on all three blogs.)

5. Visit some of the other links, and share the love with them on their posts!

6. Spread the word on Twitter and/or Facebook

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And if you'd like to prepare and get ready for next week's First Things First link up, start by checking out next week's awesome co-hosts, Carrie @ The Carrie Gland & Allie @ Tales of a Twenty Something.

1. First real piece of jewelry you owned

2. First magazine subscription

3. First time staying home alone

Prom, Mornings & Heart Break - First Things First

Good morning my friends! Today is week 6 of our First Things First link-up with myself and Hallie from Life: Oceanside! Here's the deal - we give  you the topics every week, you write your post, put our button on your post, link-up with us, and spread the word! Then of course visit the other links to see their posts as well!

First, we have some exciting news -- we'd like some of you lovely ladies to co-host this with us each week! If you would like to get in on this action, just fill out the form! CO-HOST First Things First

And now moving on to our regularly scheduled post -- this week, we're talking about:

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning

First heart break

First prom or school dance

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning

Empty my tiny, child-sized bladder. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how true this is...I get made fun of all the time for this small issue of mine. Whatever, there's really nothing I can do about it! Moving on though...after that, I check Instagram and play Words with Friends. Duh. And I might also browse Facebook for a few minutes, and catch up on some emails. But I'd say mostly I'm just scrolling Instagram... (here's some of my recents)

First heart break

Well, since Jeff is the only real boyfriend I've had, I haven't had the typical 'boyfriend-broke-my-heart' experience. (And I'm really hoping to keep it that way...) However, I was super best friends with a boy in high school, who ended up breaking my heart even though we weren't even dating. We were really close from 10th-12th grades, and did soo much together - church, games, dinners, movies, concerts.... We also lived close to each other, so he even picked me up every morning for school for a while, because he turned 16 before I did. Then in the last month or so of high school, we got into a big dumb argument, and yelled and fought and things weren't pretty. We kind of moved on, but avoided each other for a month or so. Then I tried to fix things with him at youth summer camp, and he was a butt head and wouldn't accept my apology or even talk to me. And that seriously broke my heart. He left to go away for college about a month later, and I have only spoken to him probably twice since then in the past seven years...

First high school dance or prom

Since I went to a tiny Christian school from kindergarten through 12th grade, we didn't really have many dances and such. Really, all we did was the junior and senior prom that our parents put on for us. My junior year, myself and 4 or 5 of my girlfriends all skipped prom and went to see Relient K in concert instead! And it was totally worth it. So then my first high school dance was my senior year, when I went to a public high school's homecoming dance, with one of my friends from church! It worked out good too, because my friend Crystal (who had also gone to the Relient K concert with me before) was also asked by a friend from our church, and we could go together! 

And the only other time I went to a high school dance was for my senior prom! My date was one of my best friends, and we went with a giant group of girls and guys all together. We all met first to take pictures, then we ate at Outback (I think?!), and headed to the prom all together! My date-friend didn't want to dance too much, but I went out on the dance floor without him! It's more fun to dance with your best girl friends anyways :) Afterwards, we all went back to the house we took pictures at, to enjoy some midnight snacks, watch "Heavyweights," (we were obsessed with it that year), and then we had a giant sleepover! We woke up to pancakes and OJ from her parents, and made fun of the still-snoring boys :) So many fun memories!

I know the quality is terrible - they're crappy scans of printed pictures, so it's the best I could do today...

So ladies, go write your own posts about these three firsts, and join in the fun! The 'rules' are simple: write your post, include our button, link up with us, spread the word, and visit others! Easy right? And while you're at it, you can prepare for next week's post with these topics:

1. First thing you do at the gym
2. First date with your current significant other
3. First email address

Spread the word about our link-up by tweeting about it! And then link up with us below!
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Pumped About Sharing our Firsts!

Hello lovelies! I'm so excited this morning, because today is finally the day mine and Hallie's link-up starts! We've been talking about it since the middle of December or so, and I've been pumped ever since then! So here's the deal - and it's an easy deal, so don't be worried: every Tuesday for a couple of weeks or so, we're going to do a First Things First link-up!

We'll do different "firsts" every week, and we want y'all to write posts about that week's "firsts", and then link-up with us, obviously! (Your links will appear on both of our blogs.) All we ask is that you follow both of our blogs, add our button to your post or blog somewhere, and visit some other blogs from the link-up to share some love! We're looking forward to meeting new friends and reading y'alls posts. This should be fun!

This week is: First Job, First Car and First Date!

Present for High School Graduation

I have just one more post from my walk down memory lane and all of my old high school pictures... For my graduation present, me and my Mama went on a cruise to the Bahamas, and had so much fun. It was just us two, and we got to do whatever we wanted. But mostly we just wanted to relax and take it easy. Which we certainly did. It was a great time, and I wish I could go back and do it all over again! 

If you wanna see my other memory lane posts, check them out at the links I've provided below!

Cheerleading // Prom // Senior Girl Presentation // Senior Trip

New Year's Eve // Homecoming // Graduation

Peak of High School

OK, this will  be the second-to-last one of these memory lane walks - with the final one next Thursday, with pictures of my graduation present! This is the seventh one, so if you missed the first six, check them out at the following links...

Cheerleading // Prom // Senior Girl Presentation // Senior Trip // New Year's Eve // Homecoming

The Peak of High School is definitely graduation - I mean honestly, what else could it be? So here are all the pictures from my high school graduation, and the festivities and events surrounding it! (The ones I could find at least...) There are some from Senior Sunday at my church, and also when we went on a little mother-daughter lunch date the day before graduation! 

Powderpuff Days

Here are a few pictures from homecoming week my senior year of high school. From dress-up days, to spirit day on Friday, and then a few from the football game with friends. Our tiny little Christian school didn't have a dance then, so that's really all there is. I did however get to go to a homecoming dance with a friend from church at another school, and that was a lot of fun!

And this is installment number six of all my high school posts. In case you'd like to look at those if you missed them, here are all the other links! One, Two, Three, Four and Five.

Wacky tacky day year year homecoming week. Not sure why I thought that pose was cute or necessary.

Party Like It's 2005

Here's another installment of my walk down memory lane! This was our New Year's Eve celebration during our senior year of high school. We all went out to our friend Brian's house, and we just hung around the bonfire and enjoyed some Welch's sparkling grape juice at midnight :)

For past walks down memory lane, visit them here, here, here and here.

Click "Read More" to see all the pictures below...

Plane Ride Numero Uno

And here goes walk down memory lane numero quatro! These are fun for me, so I hope they are for y'all too, since I've done quite a few already! If you need to catch up you can find my past posts about cheerleading, prom and Jr/Sr, and senior girl presentation. Check those out too! :)

This was our senior trip out to Winter Park, Colorado. And guys, this was a BIG deal for me. Why? It was a couple of my big *firsts* in my life. My first time on an airplane! And my first time seeing snow! (I have apparently seen it when I was about 1 or 2 years old, but that doesn't count, OK?!) And then with that, it was my first time skiing and snowmobiling as well! 

There's a picture below of the first time I actually touched the snow. We were rebels and sneaked out of the Denver airport even though our chaperones told us not to, just to go physically touch the snow! It was also my friend Kristen's first time touching snow as well. So look out for that picture towards the end :)

These are the guys from the tattoo show "Miami Ink!" I used to be obsessed with it, so I was pumped
when I saw them in the Atlanta airport! But too embarrassed, so a friend asked them about the picture for me :)

This silly girl wore her ski boots to the park the second day, and forgot other
shoes. So she had to be carried back to the bus at the end of the day :)

Our school was small - and this was almost our entire senior class... :)

First time touching snow in my life!

Practicing our Spice Girls moves...

Spice Girls in action again...

So there are some of the good ones from our trip to Winter Park, Colorado! It's always so much fun reliving some of the better days of high school :)

Presentation of Senior Girls

And here is number three of my walk down memory lane posts! My first memory lane post was all of my old cheerleading pictures, and then the second one was prom! So make sure you check those out too. :)

This is another thing that my school did, that I've never heard of with any other school. It's called Senior Girl Presentation. All the girls get fancied up, and each one literally gets "presented" before the school. Stuff is read off about them, including what they're involved in, stuff they like, and other kinds of nonsense. Kind of a school pageant - except there aren't "winners." Oh, and we have "escorts" - 8 boys we all voted are basically the most popular that walk us down the stage and stand at the front while we just smile pretty. It's sounds so weird now writing it out, but really everyone loves it, and the school has been doing it forever!

I wish I had more pictures from this, but alas, this is basically all I have, and it's impossible to go back and do over again. Oh well! At least I have this! And again, some are crappy quality because they were disposable camera prints that I scanned in years ago with a crappy scanner, but whatevs, right?!

So that's walk-down-memory-lane number three! Hope y'all are enjoying this as much as I am - because I've got about five or six more to go over the next month or so! Also, did anyone else do this kind of thing at their school? I would be so interested to find out if you did!?!