Jill Victoria

Life has been pretty good since I last wrote.

I had my first Mary Kay party in nearly a year this past Saturday. I had four guests come and sold just shy of $500. Yep. You CAN succeed at Mary Kay.

I’m excited that April is just a few weeks away. David and I will be going to the beach condo down at Fernandina, FL with Krista and Spencer. All I can think about is being able to spend time hanging at the condo, looking at the crashing waves, feeling the warm breeze on my face and shopping with Krista! Oh, and fresh seafood! Thank God!

Not only do I have the beach trip to look forward to, but my brother Matthew will be home in April from Iraq! I will breathe and sleep a lot easier once I know he’s back in the States and safe. I miss him so much, but I know that God has a bubble of protection around him and everyone around him. I pray for that at least 20 times a day. I figure whenever my brother comes to my thoughts, I need to pray for him.

Matt says it’s working like a charm.

I wish I had more interesting things to report, but life is just simply living pretty easy right now. Not sure if I mentioned before, but David did get promoted at work. He’s not Vice President in charge of Operations or something like that. I’m very proud of him

Hopefully I will get more motivated and clean out the rest of my stuff from the second guest bedroom. Maybe actually move in my old bedroom stuff soon. That would be a big accomplishment after five months of marriage!

To wrap it up: Enjoying getting back into Mary Kay, looking forward to the beach and Matthew being home and just living life.

What more could I do?

Sometimes I feel like I have no real purpose in life. I’m 26-years-old and I have no career and no idea what I want to be when I “grow up”. In all honesty, I’ve never known. My attention span and my interest change faster than the temperature in Georgia. The few things that do hold me captive long enough are not exactly something to build a career on.

I am finally coming to realize and accept that maybe I’m not meant to have a career. Maybe I’m not cut out for college and then an office somewhere with a nameplate on the door. I could just be meant to be a wife, a homemaker and eventually a mother. In the mean time, I sell Mary Kay, write a blog, renovate and decorate my home and watch a couple of great kids in the afternoon.

I can truthfully say that I’m happy with these circumstances. I don’t have to try and force myself to have an interest in things that I know I won’t be happy with. It’s just hard to think that I’m not living up to my own thoughts of my adulthood.

I may not have a society deemed purpose in life, but I do have my own life filled with purposes for living it. My God, my husband, my family, my friends, my home, my passions, my pleasures and the pursuit of my happiness.

I can live with that.

Though we did get a decent dusting back in January, the snow we got on February 12th was great! Right now there is about 2 to 2 1/2 inches in mine and David’s yard.

I love snow! Being a native Georgian, snow is a rare commodity. I can probably count on both hands how many times I remember it snowing (and I mean really snowing) in Georgia.

You’ve got to love a snow day! A beautiful transformation of everything that is so familiar. It makes me see my world in a new way… a more appreciative way. The world we live in is amazing and beautiful.

I’m getting sick. Sucks… a lot!

This will be the first time David will have had to deal with me sick on a 24/7 basis since we’ve known each other. It should be interesting, for him at least. When I run a fever I hallucinate big time. Not sure who I should ask you pray for more: me to recover, or David to not think he married a lunatic!

I have been absent from my blog for a while. My last blog about my weird wedding event was the last thing I did on my computer before a virus destroyed it. I had to reboot, and thank God got rid of the virus that way. I’ve been trying to recover lost files and get my computer back to “normal” since then. My plan now is to save up and get a Mac.

Other than me and my computer both coming down with something, life has been good. David and I are in our third month of marriage, and we still love each other. Always a good sign, I hear.

I’m still trying to figure out when life calms down after a wedding. We’ve had some down time, but not enough in my opinion. I’m really looking forward to our trip to the beach condo in April. Krista and Spencer will be going with us this time. Sort of an “old married people’s” retreat.

Overall, I’m happy. I still count my blessings every day. I am a very lucky woman!

I try and have a list of personal goals for each year. These are things I know I can make happen over the year, rather than resolutions.

My goals for 2010 are:

* Find a better job.
* Work on my house.
* Lose more weight.
* Find a style I love for my hair.
* Unpack my boxes.
* Learn more dishes to cook.
* Go on vacation with Krista and Spencer and then with Emily and Greg.
* Get out of debt.
* Do well in school.
* Do home improvement and repairs.
* Maybe get a tattoo.
* Buy some more Coach shoes and some Clark’s.
* Weave enough scarves to sell.
* Sell more Mary Kay.
* Travel.
* Learn new things.
* Find a church home.
* Make new friends.
* Work on my French.
* Go to Disney World!
* Be a great wife.

I think this is a list of goals I can accomplish. Some aren’t mandatory, but others are. Should be an interesting year. Definitely not as hectic and life changing as last!

Sometimes…

You just have to let go and move on.

Things change a lot, and some things you can’t control. In the long run, I believe that all of the changes come at the exact right time and for a specific reason.

There are a lot of things out of my control that I wish weren’t. I can’t control that aspect either. Jobs, friends, family, politics, religion… all out of my control.

I can, however, control how I look at things. I can be the glass half empty pessimistic girl, hanging her head and writing blogs that drown in “woe is me”. Or, I can be the glass half full optomistic girl with the bright side shining through.

Life is about how you view things. As the witty Oscar Wilde once said: “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise“.

I have my moments of seeming to want to sip from that pessimistic glass. Really, I’m an optimist at heart… a masquerading cynic of sorts when it comes to letting the down side get to me.

So, while glasses may be half empty or half full, I think I’ll stick to seeing things through rose colored glasses. Keep things in prospective and trust that God has under control what I totally don’t have.

Here I am, the day before my wedding! I’ve already had my bridesmaid brunch and my rehearsal. Now I’m getting my nails done with Emily, Lauren, Rachel, Kris and Lucie.

Its hard to believe its tomorrow! Doing the rehearsal seemed so surreal, like it was a dream. Maybe its because I’ve had so many bad dreams about the wedding that now it seems weird to actually be living it. I know there were definitely enough pictures taken!

Soon I’ll be heading to our rehearsal dinner. I’m going on two hours of sleep and I’m going on pure adrenaline. I’m seriously not tired and so exhausted at the same time.

Its so exciting! I’m so excited!

Here we are, only three days left till I marry my best friend. There’s still stuff left to do, but its getting done.

This past Saturday, October 3rd, I had my slumber bachelorette party. I really had a great time just hanging out at the house with Emily, Krista, Laura, Lauren, Beth and Yoly. We had fattening foods and great drinks. We watched Sex and the City and had girl talk.

Over the weekend we did some improvements to the house. Lauren was awesome enough to bring over her steam vacuum and clean the nasty carpet. Its looks soooo great now! The difference is so big that Ms. Deb walked in and thought we had gotten new carpet.

Slowly, the house is becoming ours. Mark moved out Saturday before the bachelor and bachelorette parties. We also moved in a new queen sized bed and frame into the bedroom that will be mine and David’s. It looks great in there too. Now we just need to clean the other carpeted rooms and the hardwood, as well as paint.

I’ve been working on my school assignments for both this week and next week. I obviously can’t do class from the ship next week, not without paying dearly for it. So far I’ve finished everything but two assignments.

My Aunt Ellen arrived safely. Other family starts to arrive on Friday, and maybe Thursday. I still a bit bummed that I won’t have much time to spend with everyone. Chandra and I still have a standing date to get sushi.

Its exciting to think I will soon be Mrs. Jill Cole. Even writing that gives me a thrill!

I recently was told by a guy friend that I was beautiful. Not that I don’t already know that I’m beautiful (by real standards, not society’s), but it still took me by surprise that he said it.

David tells me I’m beautiful, and I totally believe him. I think my shock comes from the one time a guy friend told I wasn’t “pretty enough” for him to date. Seemed I was pretty enough for him to kiss, though.

One thing I do know is that it takes 100 “you’re beautifuls” to make up for the one “you’re not pretty enough”. I know that I shouldn’t let one negative thing influence how I think and what I believe about myself, but it did. I think most people can relate to that.

My opinion is that its not so much my outward appearance that is beautiful, but how I present and carry myself. This very act of self-confidence has earned me the adjectives of both beauty and sexy.

Obviously, two guys and their opinion that I’m beautiful trumps one guy’s opinion that I’m not pretty enough. And though I forgive my guy friend for his hurtful words, its still hard on ones self-esteem.

Still, I know I’m beautiful. It doesn’t take much to see that! And my opinion is the one that matters most.

It’s been a busy weekend so far.

Friday I was given the day off from watching the kids last minute. I went to the house in Fayetteville and my future mother-in-law was there working on cleaning out some of David’s grandmother’s things to make room for our own things. We talked and did some scenarios on how to rearrange the living room. I got a bit more history on the house and it’s previous occupants from her.

That evening, my brother Matthew came to the house in Fayetteville and brought some of my stuff from my house with him. He stayed for dinner and for Dr. Frank to take a look at his injured leg.

Saturday was rather jammed packed. My mom drove the van packed full of more of my stuff to the house in Fayetteville and her, my dad, David and I spent a few minutes bringing things inside the house. Right now, the living room is filled with my boxes. I need to move them to the spare bedroom and out of the way of David and Mark.

After that, my parents went back to McDonough and Matthew came to Fayetteville to eat BBQ with David, his parents, John, Yoly and me. David and I made a quick stop at Kohl’s (where I found the perfect pair of shoes for the rehearsal dinner and cruise!) after lunch and then met up with his parents and Mark to caravan to my house in McDonough so David, my dad, Dr. Frank, Mark and Spencer could go get fitted for their tuxes.

David and went and looked at paint samples for different rooms in the house. I’m not sure how well it went over with his parents, though.

Tomorrow is my first bridal shower. My mom’s lifelong friend, Jane Hammock, is giving this one for me. Just thinking of going to the shower along with the moving that we’ve done so far makes the wedding and the marriage seem all the more real. All these months of planning haven’t shown any results until recently, and I think that’s where a lot of my indifference to my own wedding came in.

I don’t see how some couples go for a year or more between getting engaged and getting married. I think I’d be going mad if I had to wait more than 47 more days.

That’s right. I’m countin’ ‘em down! Only 47 days until I’m Mrs. Jill Cole