Anchors Away My Love - July Cara Box Reveal

Just got back last night from my fun and busy weekend in Florida. My plan is to post about that later on tonight with all the pictures that it entails.

I got my Cara Box, the day I was to leave for vacation so I opened it up and took all of the pictures and then put it all back in to pack and get ready, so that's why I am just now getting this post up.

This month I got to know two great people. The first was Elizabeth over at Get Busy Living, who I got to send my box of goodies too! I loved putting the box together and my favorite was the tote I made from a Pinspiration. Go check that post out over here!

The other person I got paired with was Cate from Random Crafty Georgia Girl. It was a fun exchange since I sent her a box back in April, it was nice to see what she sent me. I received just the cutest box and she nailed it on the head with everything!

Beach Smelling Candles

Rolos

Tote

Floatie

Adorable Notebook!

 

I loved everything and her note was so kind about me going back to school to get my Masters.

 

I love this exchange every time I do it!

 

Jenny

Lotto Daydreaming

I'm sitting at Monkey Joes. Thank the Lord it has Internet and I have my laptop. 4 hours of entertainment for the kids and time for me to get lost in blog world and study some more for the GRE, yes please!

Anyways I am linking up with Holly and Kristie for the If I Won the Lotto!

I have played the lotto, I do it on occasion, these days I'll just take a good couple mil.


1. If you know me you know the first thing I would do is invest 1 million of that joker in a high interest savings account, so that it can sit and make me even more money! Tithe 10% because if I won it was obviously because Jesus had a hand in it.

1. I would get all necessities out of the way, pay students loans, credit cards, and any other "bills" I have. Buy a house for mom and pay for my sisters college, so they don't have to deal with student loans like I did.

2. I would buy land and get my friend Patrick to help me deign and build our dream cabin that we can rent out and then have to use whenever we want to.

3. I would get over to Germany ASAP to see my bro and sister in law and my niece and nephew and would take my sweet time traveling to see my friends who will be living over there too.

4. I would probably subscribe to every mail subscription box I can get my hands on. I mean who doesn't just love some mail, especially when it's stuff you'll only use 1. But I don't care cause I got tons more where that came from!

5. I would get a personal trainer and personal chef to make the right food for me to eat, so then I can get healthier.

6. I would buy more calories to eat....oh wait, you can't do that? I wish I could so then I could eat Fried Pickles all day every day.

7. I would gather all my friends who lived all over the place and get them together for one big Jenny's Friends Reunion, where you ask? Disney. Duh!

8. I would probably go crazy nuts buying gifts for everyone because I'm the weirdo at Christmas Time who gets more joy out of watching others open THE perfect present I got for them as opposed to my own gifts.

9. Buy a cute cottage, three bedrooms. 1 for me. 1 for my crafts. 1 for all the lovely guests who want to come and see the cottage. Then I would invite all of my friends who live far away from me to come visit.

Yeah I think that's enough for now. I'm not asking for too much ;)

Jenny

My Brain Hurts

Have you ever been so tired that you just cried for no reason....yeah me to. I was at dinner with my friend Kirsten last night and just started crying in the middle of our meal, after 2 minutes I was fine. Thanks mother nature and lack of sleep.

Yesterday, I came back to work after my week of doing absolutely nothing. It was a normal summer day in the life of this nanny other then the fact that on top of working now, I am also studying to take the GRE in August. Now I graduated college in December of 2011 and even then my last semester was student teaching, so I have not really done any "studying" for over two years. Let me tell you. My brain hurts, like I can feel it hurting.

I ended up buying the GRE for Dummies book for only $4 on Amazon, who doesn't love a good deal, and my friend Melissa sent me this fantastic little package with 500 of the most likely to be seen vocabulary words on the GRE.

Vocabulary and the verbal section are what scare me the most on this test. I love math, it comes to me naturally somehow I got that part down cold and numbers just come to me. But put a reading passage about biology or physical science and ask me to answer the insanely hard questions....no thank you. To help with that I am focusing a lot on the verbal section and mainly vocabulary. The status right now is 20 learned and 480 to go. I am attempting to learn 10 a day and put it in with the ones I have learned already. So in theory when the test rolls around I will have around 500 words in my vocabulary. Of course they are words no human ever uses except to sound like a pedant (someone who shows of learning [new vocab word!]).

So anyways that has been my life for the past week. I am so glad my kiddos are back, they are all still sleeping right now because they are still on Colorado time. I took them to go see Despicable Men 2 yesterday and they loved it so much, it was my second time watching it and I liked it just as much the second time. We also got the Despicable Me 2 Operation game so the kids played a long round of that in the afternoon...of course I wasn't allowed to talk, or breathe according to them. They need silence to get all the pieces.

 I am not sure what we are going to be doing today, probably some crafts and maybe going to a play place since the rain continues to linger around. Our theme this week is Oceans! Should be fun, we a trip planned to the Aquarium later this week, and many other things as well.

Jenny

Pre-Vacation Weekend

So it' Monday afternoon and I am sitting in bed with this view right here....oh yes

Did I just get up? Heck to the naw, my body can't do that anymore. The family I nanny for is on vacation this week in Colorado and I am house/pet sitting. So it's me and the big scary house with two dogs, 1 bunny (1 ran away on Sunday morning, not my fault, so I am keeping an eye out in case she decides to wonder back.), 3 fish, and 2 frogs. What what! But anyways I got up and took one of the dogs on a walk and then worked out again, had lunch, watched some TV, and went swimming. This is the plan all weekend long until they get back Friday evening. Here are some pics from my walk with Chester this morning.

Let's see Friday evening I was suppose to go a Collective Nights but after a very full week I decided to head home and go to bed, and by 9pm I was out. Nothing like being 23 on a Friday night, falling asleep before the sun goes down.

Saturday I got up and went running and then proceeded to make some Salads In A Jar Southwest style, which you can find over here. They were a pretty big hit with my friends so I made a whole post about them on Sunday morning.

Saturday evening we had friends over to help raise money for a friend of ours who is out on the World Race through AIM. She is doing 11 countries in 11 months and left in January and we sure do miss her, but she needs some more money to stay on the race so we got some people together and helped her out. The pictures below are of brownies with cream cheese frosting and then my roomies boyfriend eating sad brownie. I love that kid, he's like a little brother I never had and he always comes over and eats pie with me.

Sunday was a crazy day in my world. I went to church like normal with all intentions of going back home and packing before heading over to pet sit for the week. I worked with Devan in the morning at church in Passion Kids and then went and sat on the front row for the 12:30 talk that I was hearing was an Ah-Mazing one. I was really excited. After worship I sat down and looked at my phone and had a missed call and voicemail from my boss and then messages from my brother, sisters, and dad.

I texted my boss to make sure everything was ok and she told me the bunny was missing in the morning and if I could go up to the house and check to see if I could find her. Then I went to read my messages from my family only to find out that my Great Grandfather had passed. I knew that I needed to leave right away to get into contact with my family but I was sitting on the front row at church, and it is soooo rude to get up in the middle of the talk. So it finally got a point where I just got up and left, praying that no one would judge me as I practically ran out of the building.

After getting out and getting on the phone with my dad I found out that he passed at 4am with his Son by his side. He leaves behind a wife, 5 sons and 1 daughter, and then an numerous amount of grandkids, great grandkids, and two great great grandkids. He served around 30 years in the Marines before retiring and starting a legacy. My Pawpaw is retired marines, my dad is retired army, and my brother is stationed in Germany right now as a helicopter pilot in the army. I remember visitng them when I was a kid. After a while they moved to Surprise Arizona to a retirement community and we would visit as often as we could, he let me and my brother drive his mustang convertible when I only had my permit. They would always take us to the pool in their golf cart, and I loved looking at all of the pictures of their family and the legacy he still leaves. He was a part of the Gideons who put the bibles in all the hotel rooms and lead bible study up until he got really sick. They were married for around 60 something years and he was in his upper 80s. I will miss him dearly but have so much peace that he is with Jesus now.

I will not be able to make it to his funeral but that's ok, it's life, and it happens. This is my first grandparent to pass in my life that I remember and had a relationship with. I still have my great grandmother, my pawpaw and his wife, my grandma and her boyfriend, and my mom's fantastic parents. I am so blessed to be 23 and have had so many people help mold and shape my life.

Last night after I got to the house I watched some TV before coming upstairs to lay down for the night. This is Annie and Chester, the two dogs, oh and the new project big screen that got put in down stairs...yes spending a good bit of time catching up on shows.

 

 

I am really excited for this pretty quiet week that lies ahead of me. I love the 4th of July, as you read, I am a part of a very patriotic family and this country means a lot to me and my family!

Linking up with....

Jenny