no good, rotten traits.

today's prompt, errrr....two days ago...was tell us your three worst traits.  thanks, thanks a lot, jenni. 

i asked brad when i was about to write this post, "hey honey, what's my three worst traits?" 
he said, "you want me to be completely honest."

"yeah, i guess so.  well, heck.  yes.  be completely honest."
and then i sat down on the couch and braced myself.
do not cry jessica.  do not cry.

he said, 1. "well, for one, you're not selfish enough."
silently me, "shew, i like how this is going...keep talking babe."
no really, i am kind of a push over.  i always say yes.  i over commit.  i never have a hard time taking time for me.  all the above can be great qualities if you do this within reason, myself on the other hand...  give it all away, and then have nothing left over.  my new years resolution LAST year (like 2011-2012) was take more time for me, i still have the sheet of paper i wrote it on, on the 'frig.  because i need a daily reminder.  i will have to say I THINK i have gotten better this year.  i have made the time to workout nearly every day, go get the occasional pedicure, etc...  i have a servants heart, but i have learned that even having the heart of a servant, you still need and have to be selfish at times.  i am a work in progress.  sure glad i have patient people around me.

Source: pinterest.com via Medina on Pinterest

2.  i am a little too sensitive.  i can get my feelings hurt pretty easy.  i think i am all hard and bad to the bone and then brad can look at me wrong or say something silly and suddenly he's like, "why are you so upset?" "gaaaa, i don't know?  i'm a girl???"  i have gotten better at this the older and more mature i have gotten...but still...lacking. in. this. area.

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3.  i like chocolate a little too much.  i know this is kinda a lame trait.  but i adopted the whole dark chocolate is good for you slogan earlier in the year.  so in my pea brain thought i should always have some dark chocolate at the house...because a little piece of it is good for you.  except i have a hard time with the little piece thing.  so just this past week i came to the realization if it ain't here, it won't be a struggle.  

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4.  i'm not the smartest.

(these ryan gosling funnies have nothing to do with anything.  other than they are FUNNY!)

happy.

todays challenge was 'a favorite picture of yourself.'

this one was easy, not so much because i looked awesome and hot but because of the memory it represents:  but isn't that with all pictures?

the memory:  we were leaving our wedding heading to the hotel (well...) and then later headed to hawaii. i can not tell you the emotion i was feeling in this picture.  oh wait, i can.  pure elation, happiness and i can not believe this is me.  it was a moment i will never ever forget.  the best moment by far in my entire life to date.

and that guys hand i was holding.  hot. and mine.

and the amount of tan on my body.  lets not talk about that.

dreams.  they really do come true.

on a monday...

a day in the life, that's the the prompt for todays (errr, yesterdays) challenge.  better watch what you ask for...because thirty one (31!) pictures later, well...

obviously, i snapped these with my phone throughout the day.  since i am a nanny, my days change every day, this day depicts a pretty close to normal day for me...see if you can figure out my day, as you progressively look at the pictures...

a day in my life, and this day happened to be monday.  yawn.

p.s. my favorite picture is the one with all the stuff in the passengers seat including a half eaten ice cream. because of course, a backseat seven year old only wanted half and then said, "can you hold this please?" sure kid, let me hold that WHILE I DRIVE...

at least he said please.

do you love my blog redesign?  lisa did it, because she's pretty awesome!

10 words.

day 11 of the challenge is sell yourself in ten words.  this was impossible to me, so brad gave me those ten words.  he was doing pretty good til he got to eight and then he started struggling.

loving.

nurturing.

honest.

self-less.

considerate.

supportive.

attentive.

trustworthy.

beautiful.

understanding.

he forgot HOT.  how could he?  especially when i send him pictures like this after i finish working out for the day.  y'all he's that lucky. (and that picture is HUGE, i'm kinda sorry about that...)

trapper keeper with a side of panties.

unfortunately, when i read what day 10 of the challenge was..."tell us an embarrassing moment" - immediately my MOST embarrassing moment came to mind.  not that i walk around embarrassing myself, and really, i can not really think of any other moments, and i am confident there have been plenty.

oh oh oh, i just thought of another one! 

shall we dive right in?

so, i was in fifth grade, pretty sure i was eleven years old, maybe twelve.  i attended a christian school where you had to wear dresses/skirts below your knees everyday.

i had spent the night with my brother and sister in law the previous night and when i was getting ready realized i forgot my underwear.

underwear.  can you say underwear on blogspot?  is there a bleep button on this thing?

underwear, i forgot the second pair if i am honest.  you see, one of my moms thing growing up was...she would always put panties on top of my tights because that would keep them from sagging in the crotch when i was little.  got it?  one pair of panties because...panties are required.  and then tights, another pair of panties.  for no reason, other than keeping your tights up.

and. it. works. dot. com. 

don't. make. fun. dot com.

and you're laughing right now because that is a crazy idea you are thinking.  well, i carried this into my adult life.  don't judge.  with the advancements of tights i don't feel the need to double up on the panties now, maybe the tights are better maybe i am just low on underwear, the verdicts still out.

panties.  it's just what i call them.  i want to be all PC and write underwear, but it's just not me.

so, i was at my big brothers house, getting ready for school. and realized i didn't have that crucial second pair.  i decided the only way to solve this problem was wear my sister-in-laws on the top layer.  makes sense.  simple enough.

after all, i was eleven and she was an ADULT.  clearly there panties were way to big.  but try telling that to an eleven year old that always wears panties over her tights and without that second pair.
this is where being a rule follower gets you sometimes folks, panty dilemmas.

panties, tights, panties, ready for school.

grab the trapper keeper and i am out the door.

as i walk in my fifth grade classroom that morning, i hear one of my friends say, "jessica!!!" and then pointing to the floor between my legs.  i look down with a room full of my classmates and then and there were my panties around my ankles.

i looked down without missing a beat, grabbed those things and stuck them in my trapper keeper.
and that's where they stayed for the rest of the day.

Source: Uploaded by user via Karen on Pinterest

now, i have had another embarrassing moments.  writing panties like 400 times in one blog post.

fears. what makes me most afraid.

day seven of the blog every day in may challenge is here.  one week.  i feel like i'm back in college meeting writing deadlines pulling all nighters but turning the paper in on time.  and i always turned those papers in on time...sometimes they were crap.  but the words were there, and on time.
so goooooo me.

fears.  what am i most afraid of?

loss.

loss comes to mind first.  something bad happening to brad or him being in an accident that changes our lives.  fear, that fear is tangible and real as i typed that up above i couldn't think about it too too long because we only have today.  when i was a nanny for a baby fifteen years ago, often i would accompany his mom to his two hour long trek to occupational therapy and back home again.  he had the world against him as far as meeting those OT [occupational therapy] goals but every day, he tried and every day one of the best therapist i have ever watched in action steadily worked with him watching his every move. one day she said to us {that i will never, ever forget} when talking about her husband in a wheelchair, "every day i think, i can always become like him, but he will never be like me again."  makes you think.

when i get in my head to much and think about fears or sad things, i always think of something dr. phil said on his show one day talking about fears, "what if you spent your entire life being paralyzed with fear and none of these fears ever happened to you?"  good, so good, dr. phil.  

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

today is my mom's birthday.  may seventh.  she lives with one of my biggest fears every day.  as i mentioned above one of my biggest fears being something happen bad to brad, my husband.  every day she lives with parkinsons disease and dementia.  she has a clean bill of health, but my dad can't be left alone. she is his nurse, caregiver, friend, sitter and wife.  every day she wakes up to her normal.  which is helping my dad get out of bed, getting him groomed for the day, the list goes on and on.  she doesn't complain, she is positive, she is a warrior, she is tired.

but today.  is her birthday.  mom, i honor you.  i am so glad that i was born to you.

and even though i am pretty sure being born thirteen years after my brother, i might have been the biggest surprise of her life, she gave me the best she had every day.  even on those wiry teenage days when i didn't like a thing she had to offer, the older i get and have become i know what i always knew...what a blessed woman am i to have her as my legacy.  one day i hope to be as good of a mother as she was to me.

and she set the bar really high.

bicentennial, BABY!

so since its socially acceptable to be fashionably late to the party, although i loathe being late.  here i find myself thinking i need taaaa climb on board the blog every day in may challenge.  and since we all know what today is (NOT may numero uno!), we also know that i am a little behind, lucky for you that means i will be cramming (remember those days?) and writing my tail off to catch up...okay, i'm being a tad dramatic, seeing that it's all of may third, but still...

the first prompt was tell your life story in 250 words or less.  

shall we start at the beginning?  i was born on february 5, 1976 to roy and jane morrison.  (that makes me thirty-seven for those of y'all that are trying to do the math in your head.  also for those of you who are like "dang!  she only looks like 20!?!  i know, right!?! i really do, but...) some might say my childhood was boring, but i'll just call it good. we had dinner together every night and spent a lot of good, quality time together. my dad was a mechanic and worked a 9-5 and my mom was his secretary until i was in 7th grade and she took a job in town.

i have a brother that is twelve years older than me, and his name is trampas.  they NEVER ever spelled it right in the yearbook, never, not once.  some people like to call his TR, i have always called him bubba.  still do to this day.  i am the only one that calls him that, since he is my one and only and i am his one and only little sis' - and i like it that way.

my childhood was normal, we never moved, i always had the same address and during the week if i wasn't hanging out with my parents, i was often playing with my cousin skyler that lived across the road.  morrison lane is a dead end, with my parents house at the beginning, then there was my aunt mop and uncle dick and then my aunt sherry and barry.  only three houses on the lane, so i was usually at home or one of their houses.

i was raised without a TV.  this is my favorite thing to tell people, because they think it's crazy.  and it was great.  i read a lot, and really didn't feel like i missed out on anything.  there were no religious reasons or real reasons we didn't have a TV, and my parents have one now, my parents just felt like there wasn't anything great on to offer their family so we just didn't have one.

i went to college in my hometown and graduated with a degree in special education while i was a live in nanny for a local family who had three small children, one being special needs.

i never really dated much and knew that i wouldn't date until i found my person.  i longed to meet that person early on, but was pretty content with the wait.  sure, there were days, weeks and months, that my friends might tell you different, but i never dated just to date. i knew god had placed it in my heart that i was supposed to wait and save myself for that one guy however long it took---and like they always say, "don't ever pray for patience..."  because i met brad when i was thirty-two.  just when i thought that window of marriage and family might be running out.

fact:  one of the first things i randomly said to brad (sometimes i talk to much) is "i'm 32 and i really need to get married and have babies."  and no, i wasn't interested (he would tell you different) in him, i was just talking, i had NO idea later i would be telling OUR story.

brad and i were friends for a long time.  our story varies.  he says we were friends WAAAAAY longer than i say we were friends.  of course, my version of our story is correct.  i joke and say we were friends until we said "i do." he couldn't resist my charm or maybe it was that i would not go away...and finally in october of 2010 on the beaches of north carolina, he asked me to be his wife.  we got married in the same place we met and the rest....well...is history in the making.

my life has been blessed, i have far more than i deserve and i am so thankful.