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Here's The Deal!

Everyone knows the trouble I've had with my hair this past year. It's no secret. Throughout my hair tab you can see where it first went wrong, you can see me trying to hold it together and trying to fix it, then you see the second atrocity. SMH! The word crazy doesn't even begin to describe my hair misfortunes this year.

I wanted to do this post earlier in the year, but I ended up getting a sew-in which distracted me and I let it go. I also kind of felt like no one would bite, but I may as well reach out now because you never know what will happen.

One Year Ago...

One last look at my old apt.

August 23rd, 2013 was one of the days my life changed.

See here before reflecting with me.

(You might also want to grab a snack because this is a long one...

but reflecting usually takes some time :-)

I've been on my own for a few years. I'm a very strong woman who takes care of herself, so I'd also say I have this independent thing down pat. I wanted more for myself; I wanted better; I wanted something new and different. When I was in high school I'd always say, "When I graduate I'm never coming back!" Ask my mom...lol. That could've just been the teenager in me talking, but over the years I equated success with not being in or around my hometown. I'm at a point where I can pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want so it seemed like a better time than any to pick up everything and move away from the comfort zone I knew so well.

The Yards

The farthest from home I'd ever been was when I was in college; it was about 2 hours away. No matter where I was I could always make day trips to see my family and friends. Being honest, day trips seemed to always turn into extended stay trips...LOL! Not being able to do that has been one of my biggest challenges to deal with. I mean, sure 5 to 7 hours can technically be considered a day trip but when you're used to trips being 30 minutes to 2 hours long...a 5 hour drive is a different kind of beast. I can't tell you the many times I've driven home in monsoon storms, or been in extreme traffic after leaving straight from work and getting home at 1 or 2 in the morning; or been so tired after the drive but had only one full day to try and see and spend real time with everybody. Yeah...weekends aren't really that long when you're squeezing so much in so it's been hard!

Joe's Crab Shack for the 1st time

Over the past year my relationships with people have changed. Some for worse, some for better. I must admit social media plays a part in hindering my reach out efforts. Free time is like a unicorn! When I get it, I'm guilty of having a list of things I need to do but doing absolutely nothing! What can I say?! Being an adult is exhausting and I love my rest! As much as I say I want to do better with reaching out to people, I don't always do as much reaching out as I'd like. Sure that works both ways, but I can only account for what I do.

It snowed so much here last winter

Social media makes me feel like I'm keeping up with everybody because it makes things easily available. Through social media I still feel like everybody is a hop, skip, and a jump away. Face Time has helped me feel like I'm sitting at home in the living room with my family many a time. So, it's served it's served a purpose for me. However, it's also left some feeling disconnected whereas in my introverted mind, I'm thinking things are good and we can pick up where we left off whenever we get back together! Some of that is because of social media and some of that is because of growing up and apart. There should be a balance there regardless and I know I'm not alone when I say that's something I need to work on it.

Reppin' NC at work

I started my job a year ago today; August 26th, 2013. I've grown in my professional life this year and I feel as if I'm on a good track to keep moving up. Knowing I planned to move away, I prepared well for the transition. I'd just accepted a promotion, so my resume was nice and still is! The most important professional goal I have is to keep moving up. I'm not saying this in a ruthless manner, but I don't want to accept any position I feel is lower than what I'm doing now. I want to take in as much as I can and learn everything that's put before me. I'm a hard worker and I excel because I can. I want to continue to prepare myself so I'll be ready when an opportunity presents itself.

This year has been an eye opener. I won't say I have any regrets about anything I've done. I feel like experiences are lessons. Going through something first hand is the best teacher. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't have preferred to learn some of these lessons by word of mouth...lol...but sometimes you can't firmly grasp things you don't actually experience yourself. I get that.

The Washington Monument during Memorial Day weekend

I have desires and dreams for my personal future, like I'm sure the rest of you do. They're my biggest motivation. I make decisions for my present based off things I know I want for my future. I'm not one to try and force things to happen, or manipulate people or situations so the outcomes will be in my favor; neither am I one to settle. So as much as I see this picture of the future and how wonderful it'll be, I'm here for the plan God has for me. I can desire, plead, and beg all I want, but it can't match anything God can do!!

SO, as frustrating as things can get, as homesick as I can get, as much as I can want to be in the presence of my family and friends...I can go on and on with this stuff...lol! I know there's a design for my life and I know God's the designer. The best I can do is be grateful for the life He's given me, be grateful for where I am in my life and for the things He's done for me thus far (if I were to go into detail about how I got my job right now, you'd know how real He is)!!

Nationals Baseball

I've enjoyed DC. I've had a great time. I've enjoyed my relationship; the beautiful scenery; my job; the new people I've met; the activities I've gotten into; and the person I've grown into. Now that I've gotten into a "comfort zone" of sorts, I hope to get out of that in this next year. I hope to make my house more of a home, to see more of the city, and to create even more meaningful relationships here (top of the list...finding a good church home! lol). Last but not least, I hope life is gracious to me and sees fit to grant me beautifulness because there's nothing wrong with wanting what you want! I know everything will be alright. I have faith!

DC Living

Will I be here forever?!

No!!

But I aim to continue enjoying myself while I'm here!

Peace and Love!

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We Are The Champions

Remember this post?! Well let me fill you in!

We played the three makeup games and won all three games (Game 1: 13-7, Game 2: 22-9, and Game 3: 13-3)!! Winning those games put us in 2nd place for our league! It felt great to have accomplished that because I knew our team was one of the better teams in our league. Honestly speaking we deserved 1st place, but that's another story for another time. We hit a mid-season slump after having 2 bye weeks back to back and we had a very hard time climbing out of it, but as you can see by those scores above...we made it!

The tournament was this past Saturday...ALL of Saturday! We had four one-hour games scheduled so I knew this day had the potential to be a long day (if we kept winning). Our games were scheduled for 10, 11:15, 12:30, & 2:30. These were single elimination games, so one loss would have had us a one-way ticket out of the tournament for good!

Since our first game was so early, I thought we'd have a nice, cool morning of softball ahead of us...WRONG! I was nowhere near ready for the amount of heat and humidity we had to face all day long. It was already hard enough having to get up that early on a Saturday morning but add to that having to competitively active and you've got yourself a challenge!

The first game was really close. I'm sure I wasn't the only one having trouble with having to be active that early in the morning because none of us were hitting like we normally do. I was nervous the entire first game. My stomach was in knots and I was shaking terribly! I'm super competitive but not in a showy way; I internalized all that anxiety and couldn't get rid of it no matter what I did! I'm sure nobody likes to lose, but I don't like losing when I know I (or we in this case) are capable of winning! A game that we should have won by a landslide we won by the skin of our teeth.

After barely making it out of the first game alive, we have about 10 minutes before our next game. Even though we couldn't get our bats going, we played the best defensive game we'd played up to that point so we were on a high. It was time for our game to start but the other team was nowhere to be found! This was such a blessing! We had the opportunity to rest, get hydrated, get some batting practice in, sit around and relax and cut up...like we normally do...so we could get our heads wrapped around being competitive yet still having a good time.

The next two games we played were tough, but we made it out champions. We got over our slumps and arrived at the end of this journey greater than we were when we started. We meshed as a team and showed DC what we could do!

This has been a great season and I've met some wonderful people who have created an interesting summer for me!! I've grown a lot as a softball player and I still have a lot of growing to do to become more consistent as a player. I can't wait to see what we do next year. I know they're are some teams out there gunning for us...but they're going to have to work really hard if they want to dethrone The Authority!!

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Memorial Day Weekend

Directly after my summer vacation my family came up to visit for Memorial Day weekend! We had to jam pack so many things into one weekend but it was worth it!

Me and Chris were the event planners. Friday we took my mom, sister, and nephew to our favorite restaurant: Matchbox! We take all our first time DC guests there!!

Saturday we met up with some more of my out of town family to do some see what kind of shopping the DC area had to offer. My plan was to make it to The Capital Wheel at National Harbor (for the kids) but Memorial Day weekend was the opening weekend!! Traffic was backed all the way up the off ramp to the highway, so we nixed that and hit up Tanger Outlets. This outlet mall is fairly new to the area and I've been meaning to visit. This was the perfect opportunity.

Sunday was the day I looked forward to because this was going to be everyone's first opportunity to see the monuments. My sister came back in October and we tried to visit the monuments then but it was rainy & cold! Since it was Memorial Day, we knew it would be too hectic to drive. We thought it would be a good experience and a little fun for everyone to ride the Metro instead! What a success! My family got a taste of the subway life and we didn't have to worry about driving or parking! If you read this post, you already know how I feel about this subject!

The initial plan was the definitely see the White House and the Lincoln Memorial because my nephew talked everybody's head off about these two monuments up to this point! There would have been trouble to pay if we didn't make the magic happen. We also had to see the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial because my sister wanted to see this one! My moma wanted to see it all!

The weather was beautiful, but it was a little on the warm side! My sister is 5 months pregnant and if you know anything about the monuments, you know they're not a hop, skip, or jump away from each other!! Walking around all the monuments would easily take a whole day! With this in mind, we planned to see as many as she could tolerate. The sun was wearing us thin HOWEVER we all got a second wind after the temperature cooled down and we grabbed a light snack. My mom wanted to see them all. I've been up here for almost a year and she's just now coming to visit. Who know when she'll make her way back! So, she wanted to take full advantage of her vacation and finish seeing as many as we could!

Overall we had a great time! I miss my family dearly and I wish home was a little closer but the visits are fun and I hope they become more frequent in the future (meaning more trips for them up here!) :-)

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I GOT A JOB...and I'm Moving!!

If you read the series I put out this past Monday, Friday, Saturday, & Sunday...THANK YOU SO MUCH!! That series was leading up to this great news I wanted to share!! And...if you read the finale, you also know how secretive this government job stuff can be! So, I may have to revisit this post at a later date, but I won't let the secrecy of my workplaces keep me from sharing such great news!!

I'll be working for the Washington, DC government doing something very similar to what I've been doing for the county government here. If I must say so myself, this move and change in career is definitely about 2 or 3 steps up for me!! I enjoyed my job and I had great opportunities there. I would even go as far as to say that I would take my job with me if I could; but along with preparing myself for my personal future I wanted to do the same for my vocational future. My desire to develop my personal future is much stronger than my desire to develop my vocational future, but my career path is important to develop because one thing you need to ensure a great future is MONEY!!

During the last five months I was job searching and getting interviews...but not jobs...and it was very frustrating and discouraging. But to God be the glory. He had a plan of His own for me!! In church you learn to trust, be faithful, and wait for God. When you're faced with real life situations that can be hard to do sometimes because it's so easy to be persuaded by what you see. Looking back, I can see that God has always shown up and shown out when it's come to my job searches. I need to become more confident in knowing that He will always come through in other areas of my life as well.



I've definitely added thousands of miles on my cars because of this!

As you can see from the picture on my left, the trek between NC and DC is not a light one. Both me and my boyfriend have probably made this trip more than either one of us would have liked to, but you do what you have to do for the things you want. If this were under any other circumstance, I would say good riddance NC...but the people I love are here, so I'll still have to make this trip...but it will be under completely different circumstances!!

In case you haven't noticed, that's a very long drive y'all!!

To make a long story short, things seem very surreal right now. Even though I'm going through all the motions of ending my chapter here, I still can't believe this is real. I've waited for this for so long, and it's like a dream to actually be going through with it. I just can't wait to start this new journey! I very well may be the only one who's excited about this as much as I am, but that's okay!! I'll be super excited right by myself!! With that excitement comes some nervousness about this transition. As much as I've said that I wanted to be in a big city, I've been experiencing DC quite often and I'm still not as comfortable there as I want to be. I think it'll take some time for me to transition my southern mentality to a northern one, but I don't doubt I'll be able to do it. With that being said, I will always be a southern girl at heart!!

I'm hoping everything will fall into place as it should so I'm not going to worry too much about it. The things that make me most nervous are not knowing what to expect from my job and the traffic before and after work! Let me explain. I'll miss my last job and as I say that I'm not quite sure if I'll miss the job as much as I'll miss my coworkers. As I mentioned in this post, things were very laid back at my last job and we were like a family (of sorts); my coworkers made the job what it was. Going into a new job, you don't know what to expect and, like the Introvert that I am, I have to feel a whole new set of people out! This job I'm leaving was also the ONLY job I've resigned from where I wasn't actually trying to break my neck to get out of the door!! As far as the traffic goes, I've experienced DC traffic before and I'm cool with that kind of traffic outside of work hours. BUT...since I'm new to the area, I don't want the traffic before and after work to affect my timeliness, take up too much time in my day, affect me or my car (parking, accidents, etc.), and things of that nature!! I know I'll have to deal with it, so I'm mentally prepared for it. With these things considered, my future called and I had to answer...so I did what I had to do.

I have a renewal of faith and I want to continue to build that up. I know God will be with me on this new job and during this venture from NC to DC!!

Y'all be praying for me!

Of course this is my favorite post of the week!!!

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