Life Update!

Oh my gosh, I stopped blogging for how long? I don't even remember now, but I do miss it so much! I have always loved journaling and blogging about my life was my way to keep memories alive so I could go back and reminisce. So what has been going on in my life lately? So much!!

I quit my VA business but still have my books for sale on Amazon and I still sell copies every month so that's nice. I accidentally got started selling clothing and accessories online. I cleaned out my closet to get rid of some things because I'm a shopaholic and all of a sudden things began to sell on Poshmark and from there on, I was obsessed! If you would like to check out my closet, just click the image below! I'm happy to give nice discounts on bundles. If you use code STYLEDHANGER to sign up, you will receive $10 to spend!

So basically now I shop for a living which is my dream job! I get to travel, shop, drink Starbucks all day- what's not to like?! I also do personal styling per request so if you would like certain brands, styles- I'm your girl!

Besides selling online, not a lot has changed except that I was in the hospital in 2017 with so many things- I was so sick and had lost 20 lbs in just 2 weeks- I couldn't eat anything. I was having allergic reactions to everything. It was the scariest time in my life but I also grew so much closer to my Heavenly Father. My eyes were opened to so much- I was delivered of my anxiety that I used to have constantly. My panic attacks stopped. It was honestly one of the best things that ever happened to me. Through the bad, came so  much good. 

Unfortunately, I gained all of that weight that I lost, back and then some. I was at 119 lbs and I don't even want to say what I weigh now. Quarantine has not helped- it has been a little depressing to have to wear masks and not be able to fly and travel like we are used to and it's affected my mood. We have been trying to make up for it by going on short weekend trips like Orlando, Jacksonville and trying to get out of the house shopping + Starbucks but it's just not quite the same. We are going on a winery tour & tasting this week so that should be fun!

Hopefully, I'll be back with photos soon!

xoxo,

Melinda

This was in my drafts from October 18 of last year (2019)

Inn in St. Augustine right on the busy downtown area- this is us at Happy Hour at the Inn

So it's been a few years since I've written on this blog. A lot has happened in 4 years. I'm not sure exactly where to begin, but I'll just start at where I'm at now in life.

So, the last time that I blogged, I had left my career at the Law Firm and I started my own successful VA Business and worked with alot of high end coaching and wealth mentor clients and celebrities. I published 3 non-fiction books and 1 fiction book on Amazon. I self taught myself tons of new things in that 1.5 years- how to build a website, graphic design, publishing my books, newsletter, opt ins, etc.

But, my business kept growing and became overwhelming to where I needed to hire my own Virtual Assistant. I was at a precipice and had to make a decision. I was also tired of taking so many meetings via skype, phone. It began to be something that I didn't like- it was no longer allowing me to use my creative side, but too much paperwork and the boring stuff that I didn't care for and I honestly didn't want to hire a VA and have someone new to have to train. I ended up getting stressed and became so sick that I was admitted to the hospital around my birthday in 2015. That's when I let go of all of my clients except for one and finally I let her go and gave up my VA Business. I felt such a relief to be honest!

Took me a while to get better but I grew so much spiritually because I only had God to get me through it for my healing

Poshmark (husband built me an industrial portable closet + an industrial hanging closet + shelving for my shipping station)

Learned so much about saving money/budgeting/went on a less spend plan which helped to pay down most debt

Lots of vacations- Disney, Savannah, Jacksonville, St Augustine, Cruises, Wisconsin

Upcoming cruise- all inclusive

Whole 30 Paleo, bought magic bullet

Acquired lake lot from husband's family and decided to sell it

Traded in Suburban and bought a Nissan Juke-smaller/better fuel efficient car

Paid off land loan and vehicle and consolidated- have only 1 small loan left

Hubby bought me a Juicer & we joined a Gym

Avoiding negative, unkind people who only take

House projects- gravel walk way, kitchen backsplash, tool shed matching our house, landscaping/flower boxes

Finally tried out Airbnb

Got on the Rae Dunn trend for about 8 months & met lots of new friends, then decided I was spending way too much money on my hobby
Stronger emotionally & spiritually- things don't bother me like they used to. I let things roll off my back. No longer care about being a people pleaser and what people choose to believe about me.

This was a draft from 1 year ago and a LOT has happened since then! Stay tuned for more posts!

No More Excuses-some short term goals for this year!

Okay, so after venting on my last post about the cons of my job- yes, I work super long hours, yes, I don't have much time to exercise or I'm too tired. BUT, the more that I started thinking about it, there are some things that I can do to be healthier {and hopefully lose weight & tone} while on the road working. One great diet that I used to live by, is the Raw Vegan diet, which is the perfect eating plan if you don't have much time for exercise, because the way you eat helps to detox and tone the body- in my experience anyway. I did some research and there are lots of great Raw, vegan restaurants/Healthy spots to eat in Texas mostly, but some in Louisiana as well. I printed out lots of options, along with the menus, so that I have everything organized for when I am on the road. I also noticed that there are Whole Foods Markets everywhere that we go- so if I can't find something to eat, I can always run in and grab a kale salad, green juice, etc. and still eat healthy.

I am also hoping that with this new eating plan, that I will have better skin, more energy and concentration. For me, it's about being happy and right now, I am not at my happy place as far as weight goes.

My other goal for the next couple of months, is to grow my nails! I am so tired of having short nails!

Another goal is to have a better work/life balance- I am going to work on fitting in some personal time for shopping, checking my emails, Blog more, etc.

I should also work on spending less money- I should be a millionaire because I have expensive tastes in everything. But it's unfortunate because I don't make a millionaire's salary- I need to work on cutting back on some spending. I have an obsession with Starbucks coffee and drink it like 2-3 times per day

Plan a weekend vacay for the hubby and I- beach, picnic, bike riding- something fun!

Try to do one new thing fun or something out of my comfort zone per week. Whether it's new foods, new restaurants, having date nights, etc.

Take more photos.

I would love to get back into crochet while we are travelling for work. This would be a fun goal that I could work on.

Take better care of myself- take my daily vitamins, work out at the gym, drink more h20.

Sell our House! It's been almost 4 months- if we don't get more bites on the house soon, we are planning on switching Real Estate Agents.

I would also like to work on selling some things that we don't need- I would love to have another sale if I can find the time- I need to go through lots of things.

Continue Reading Motivational/Success Books- find my path/niche in life. My problem is that there are so many avenues that I love & do well at, but it's hard for me to focus and just choose one, so I end up being confused and not choosing any. This is something that I am praying for- what my purpose is in Life.

Work on building great relationships with Managers, APMS, etc- connect more.


I think that is plenty for now- these are some short term goals for this year, I may come back and add more later. Hope you are all having a fabulous weekend!!

xoxo
Melinda

Photography//

I saw this beautiful caterpillar (Eumorpha fasciatus) when I was outside weeding and quickly ran inside to grab my camera- how breathtaking!!

Every since I was really young, I have always had a passion for photography. At the time when film cameras were popular- I would take hundreds of photos and be so excited to have the film developed. I would send off my film to York Photo and run to the mailbox every day to see if my photos had arrived. For me, it was a hobby that I greatly enjoyed and still do.

Lately, I have become so busy with life that I have forgotten how much I truly enjoy photography. I want to return to the things that I know and love- photography & photo editing, travel, crocheting, writing, running marathons with my husband. Our lives are finally coming back together and I am so excited to really start living again!

Biggest 2015 Goal//

My biggest 2015 Goal is to get back down to my happy weight. So many things that  make me unhappy all lead back to my issues with my weight. By fixing this one issue, it will repair several issues.

Reasons why I want to get back to my happy weight:

//Summer- shorts, sleeveless shirts, swimsuit

//Right now I hate people taking pictures of me half of the time

//I want to enjoy shopping and have things fit right

//Have more energy

//Have more confidence- tired of being insecure

//To be sexy for myself and my husband

Not everything in life has been so easy..

Sometimes, I get the feeling that people look at my husband and I  and believe that we have it made- that things have been so easy for us. It's easy to look at us and think that because we have no kids, we both have good jobs, a new home. But no one knows the struggle and the difficult journey that it took to get us to this place. We just took the bad and never let it beat us but rather we fought our way back up. There's a saying, "It's not how big of a Dog you have in the fight, it's how big of a fight is in the dog." And I am here to tell you, the husband and I both have a lot of fight in us- we don't back down when we are kicked down, we don't give up. We get back up and keep fighting and don't stop until we win. We have always had God on our side and without him, we wouldn't have succeeded in life.

We went through deaths, unemployment, people that have tried to spread rumors and ruin our lives, break up our marriage, accusations to assassinate our character, laugh and attack us when our dog was paralyzed and we were so broken already. We felt like we were left to die with no one around who cared- when you start feeling like Job in the Bible, that kind of tells you the place that we were in. 

Let me back up so that you can get a clear picture of our story..January 2011, my husband lost his Father which was extremely heart-wrenching for him. He and his Dad were so close- they worked together every day and even on the weekends, his Dad would stop by to see how we were doing on our house remodel. After his Dad passed, we weren't left with too many options- there was no such thing as a severance package or the office left for my husband to run as his own. Engineering was not at an all time high where we lived, so the only choice we really had was to sell our home and move on to find new jobs. But before we could do that, my husband had to finish out the last few work projects on his own and finish our house remodel- that in itself was a daunting task to take on. It took us several months to finally get it all together and meet with the first real estate agent to put it on the market.

We decided to move out of our home so that the real estate agent could show the house anytime without us being in the way. During that time, I prayed and made the decision to give up my comfy job at the hospital- that was really hard for me to do, because I had really great benefits and perks there and my boss adored me and begged me every day not to leave. But I had to do what God was leading me to do and that was to trust in him, take that leap of faith (with no jobs or place to live) and move back to my hometown of Thomasville. So that is exactly what we did.

We were unemployed for a while and it was interesting to watch the people that we had always helped in their darkest times, pass us by, never asking how we were doing. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, that is for sure. You find out who your true friends are and who is sincere and who is insincere.

We did finally get a job, but it was working on the road for 3 weeks out of the month, including weekends- it was 100 hour weeks and extremely exhausting. We took our dog with us for the cooler months but had to leave him at the kennel or with my sister for 3 weeks at a time in the summer months and that alone broke my heart. I came to resent the job, because they just kept loading more and more work on us because we were the nice ones. It got to the point, that we had no time at all left for ourselves, for family- we were just spent. The owner had promised us both office jobs, but in the end, she didn't give me the office job that I asked for and my husband's ended up back in Albany while we were living in Thomasville. The office ended up being chaotic and the driving back and forth everyday became too much, so my husband decided to leave and look for work elsewhere.

For both of us, finding another job was not as easy this time. Even with both of us having degrees and experience. After putting in almost 100 resumes to different jobs- it took almost 6 months for me to find a job. At this point, I was so depressed, we were running out of money, but I knew in my heart that God wasn't going to let us down- he had always been there in our lowest points in life. So this certain day, I dropped to my knees and just cried out to God -I  told him that I didn't know what to do any longer but that I was utterly broken and I was giving it over to him and giving up control. If I know one thing, whenever I've poured my heart out to God, he has always heard my cries and I trusted in him to make everything right. Then I went to sleep and I asked my husband to please not to bother waking me unless he had some good news for me..

You have to remember - we still hadn't sold our home after 1 year so we had to end up switching to a more aggressive real estate agent. Since we had no money from our house sale, we were using what money we had left in our bank account and home equity loan. With no money coming in for 6 months and still paying for our mortgage and land loan, you can imagine how little we had left to live on. I was so scared but still trusting in God- We had never had to worry about money in our life before, so this was a new thing for both of us..

So while I am napping, my husband comes into the room and I thought he said, someone called for you about a job and you can call them back when you wake up. But I realized he said that the man about the job was on the phone at that moment! So I jumped out of bed and tried to get myself together and I answered the phone as professional as I could (having just woke up with zero coffee) and the man from the Law Firm was on the phone and he said that if I wanted it, the job was mine. It took all I could do not to scream on the phone with him, but I was really excited, so I said, I would love it, thank you so much! He laughed and said I could come in on Monday- after I hung up the phone, I screamed and jumped into my husband's arms- I got the job!! God had answered my prayers! I was so ecstatic!

I want to leave this on a happy note for today, but I am going to continue it tomorrow- there's so much more ups and downs to this story..it's too long to put in one blog post. I hope that you come back to continue reading our story.

Compartmentalizing Emotions..

Have you ever had a certain place in  your memory that is so devastating and sad that you have to block it out so that you never remember it? I have memories like that- one of the worst ones that I have ever had was the day Roscoe died..I have so much sadness from missing him, but I am so afraid that if I let myself think about him too much, I will completely lose it. And even when I do allow myself to cry, I have to close certain doors and not let myself open them in fear of what I will find behind them... I call it compartmentalization- I have done it all of my life. I am a person that feels deeply, so when I hurt, I hurt very deeply..

According to Wikipedia, compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, within themselves. Although, I do sometimes compartmentalize unconsciously, I also realize that I also do it consciously- for me, it keeps me from having too many emotions and feel too much pain at once..

From an emotional standpoint, I know that this is not the healthiest thing to do, but it is a process that works for me. I did the same thing with my Dad after he passed- I was so devastated that I just made myself stop thinking about him all of the time. When I think about it too much, I get extremely sad, especially with him being sick with Parkinson's Disease from when I was 12 until I was 22- I spent most of my young years with my Dad when he was sick, taking care of him. And I didn't mind it, I loved him and I am so happy that I was able to be there with him everyday- I lived at home until I was about 20, until I met my future husband. I am mostly sad that I didn't have my Dad at the important moments in my life like my choir recitals or walking me down the aisle at my wedding and giving me away - those are things that I will never experience.

Lately, I have tried to escape by reading books back to back, at night- drinking until I feel numb (I can't tell you how many bottles of wine that I have gone through in the past month)..but at some point, I have to be sober and I have to face reality..honestly, I don't want to, it hurts so much..

I have such a deep-rooted issue with endings, with good-byes, with finality..I hate it, I hate sickness, I avoid funerals, death...I think even more-so because I watched the most important people in my life-my Dad and my Father in law slowly leave me, right before my eyes. And now recently, with Roscoe, I was literally holding him in my arms when he took his last breath..that was the worst moment of my life and I am still not over it- I just know how to put it in a compartment and ignore it. Just knowing that my Dad or Roscoe is never coming back is what really kills me, there is no hope, no matter what I do, I will never see them or hug them again until I get to heaven one day...but all I can do now, is pray for God to put the broken pieces of my heart back together. I have so much love that I need to share it by nurturing, uplifting and helping people- it's what I was made for..it's what makes me happy..

I know that God has a plan for me- plans for good and not evil, plans to give me a hope and a future. I know that he wouldn't take Roscoe from me, without replacing it with something good. As always, I will put my trust in God and hold on until he places me where he wants me.

Life for me has been a journey of ups and downs, I'm just so grateful that I have God to lean on, if it were not for him, I would be afraid of where I may have ended up- I can't tell you how many times that I have hidden under the shadow of his wings, where I know that I will always be safe from anything. As long as I have God on my side, I can get through whatever I have to..