We have not written Christmas cards since we have gotten married, and my husband, being motivated by someone on Twitter, thought this would be fun! So he reflected on his year, and encouraged me to reflect on mine.

While my husband broke his up into the categories: career, projects, life and future, I figured I could at least change up the categories to fit me better! Therefore, my categories will consist of passions, life, and future (not 100% different than his, but enough). 

In 2022, I decided to quit teaching. I had lost my fire and passion for it, not to mention my mental health was wrecked. I worked for an incredible school system and I loved my coworkers and kids, but I just didn't have it in me anymore to continue. Later that year, Samuel (my husband) and I moved to northern Colorado in order to be closer to family. When we moved into our beautiful home, I felt like something was missing. All I had to distract me were house projects (which was plenty to keep me occupied - for a while) and my beautiful fur babies - Tonks, Kala, Crush, and Rex. But, that wasn't enough to fill the hole that I felt gaping in my life.

Shortly after moving here, Samuel and I got involved with Calvary Severance, a beautiful church plant that was in the family of churches from the church we attended down south, Calvary Englewood. Truthfully, the only thing holding us back from leaving Highlands Ranch was Calvary Englewood, we loved our church and our life group. But we took the leap and moved and I am so thankful for that. After attending Calvary Severance for a couple of Sundays, we simply felt at home and it wasn't long after that before I was ready to get heavily involved in the community. I spoke with the Director of Children's Ministry, Tina, at Calvary Severance about getting involved. Initially, I wanted to help out with High/Middle School since that was my area of expertise, but Tina informed me about the help she needed in Children's ministry. I took the position of team lead for the elementary team and felt my hole starting to fill. I met each month with a few other women involved and loved it.

A few months later, the woman who had been the team lead for the 2-3 year olds stepped down, so I decided to take it on and fill her spot. I LOVE it. I am getting to lesson plan again, working with kids and teachers, and being more heavily involved in a church I adore. After a few months of leading elementary and the 2-3 year olds, I decided to take on the additional role of teaching in our Zone45 class (4th and 5th graders). I was incredibly skeptical as I initially started, not sure how I would respond and wondering if I could find my drive for teaching again. Needless to say, I was quickly reminded how much I love being around kids and teaching them, but this was so much more because I was getting to teach them about Jesus! My husband reminded me, after I confided in him that I was truly enjoying teaching about Jesus to these kids, that I had never once complained about teaching the Bible class at my first school, my biggest complaints had been about teaching English. I was overcome with a feeling of deep satisfaction as I discovered he was right, I still had a passion for teaching kids, I just needed to find the right content that brought my passion to life - and Jesus is the passion of my life. I love seeing kids understand more about Christ, but more so being willing to ask the hard questions that even challenge me sometimes, and I love learning alongside them. 

Apart from my involvement with the church, Samuel and I have had such an incredible year. We hit our one year anniversary of being in our house in June. When we moved in, we didn't love our house, that was all it was to us, a house. All the walls were white, our cabinets are white, the doors are white, truthfully, we felt like we were living in a hospital room. After painting the ENTIRE downstairs and living with it as a baby bluish-gray for months, one of us (I can't remember who) finally confessed they hated the color, turns out, we both did! After feeling like we were living in a hospital, we felt like we had moved into a little boys nursery, so the painting began again. We picked a color that we both love and painted the whole house. It completely changed our feelings towards our house. After decorating each room, we finally felt like we had created our home.

At the start of the year, Samuel's and my relationship hit a disconnect. Nothing was wrong, we were having great communication, financially stable, happy pets, we just didn't feel connected. After we addressed the issue, we have had a date night every single week where we put our phones away, and try to make one weekend each month an open weekend for us. It has absolutely helped grow our relationship in every way and I am so pleased to say that our relationship is thriving and so happy, I thank the Lord everyday for this incredible man!

We currently have four pets, two dogs and two cats. When Samuel and I got married, I brought Tonks, our black miniature schnauzer who turns seven in January, to the relationship; Samuel brought Crush, our orange kitty with an attitude who turns 8 in April. In May of 2022, literally a week before we moved to our new home, we adopted Rexy Kitten, our gray cat who loves bigger than I thought possible. He adapted so quickly to both the apartment and the house a week later! After a few months, we decided to tackle ANOTHER pet. We adopted Kala Bear, our beautiful yellow lab, from my little brother. Boy has she given us a run for our money, but she sure is sweet and lovable.

We have loved being closer to our families in Wyoming, but we have been so blessed to build a family here in Severance. We have a group of incredible friends and we are constantly reminded how blessed we are to have such a rare friend group. Over the past few months, we have also become involved in a life group full of wonderful people who help us feel so encouraged and excited to have these people to do life with.

Since we got married during Covid, Samuel and I finally got to take our honeymoon to Cancun in March. It was the absolute best week of my life. We sat on the beach, read our Bibles and books, and just plain hung out the whole week, it was incredible. We had the opportunity to take other trips throughout the year, but, apart from our honeymoon, my favorite was our Friend Cruise we took this December. We got to see the Chacchoben Mayan ruins in Costa Maya, zipline in Honduras, and snorkel in Cozumel. 

As for the future, we are just going with the flow at the moment! Samuel is working at Subsplash and has cofounded a company called VideoTap that I get to be a part of as a Platform Success Specialist! Our fur babies continue to grow and we are hoping to add a human baby to the mix next year, but it is all in God's hands! We are keeping the verse Proverbs 19:21 always in the back of our minds, "Many plans are in a man's heart, But the counsel of the Lord will stand." 

It has been a hot minute since I have written anything here! Our lives have been completely chaotic. So much happening with us and with our families! December was entirely on the go, but we are thankful that January has had a slow start and are excited to start 2023 off on the right foot! 

That said, Samuel and I have decided to undertake a difficult journey - we are trying out the 75 Hard program (we've been calling it our 75 Medium since we don't ENTIRELY follow it perfectly and adapted it to work for us.) To see a more thorough explanation of 75 Hard - check out the explanation on this website, here I am just going to talk about what Samuel and I are doing to tackle it! 

To start, it is important to know that this is 75 days. We decided to start it at the beginning of the year, not as a New Years Resolution (though it could be thought of that way), but because from January 2 it was exactly 78 days until we left for our honeymoon! So we thought it would be pretty cool to finish this challenge right before we took off for our honeymoon. We are specifically focusing on exercise, diet, and reading. 

Though we are doing this challenge together, Samuel and I have each decided to create our own exercise plan to follow along for the next 75 days that would suit us best. This is how my plan looks:

•  Mondays and Fridays: 
  • Squat: 5 sets of 5 reps at 155+ pounds (this will go up as I get stronger) 
  • Bench: 5 sets of 5 reps at 85+ pounds 
  • Lat pull downs: 5 sets of 7 reps at 80+ pounds 
  • Superset (hammer curls and dumbbell curls): 3 sets of 10 reps at 7.5+ pounds 
  • 30 minute walk on the treadmill 
    • 5 minutes at a 6% incline at 2.7 mph 
    • 20 minutes at a 9% incline at 3.0 mph 
    • 5 minutes at a 13% incline at 3.0 mph
  • Take the doggos for a walk! (hopefully a 45 minute walk)
• Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: 
  • 30 minute walk on the treadmill
    • 5 minutes at a 6% incline at 2.7 mph
    • 20 minutes at a 9% incline at 3.0 mph
    • 5 minutes at a 13% incline at 3.0 mph
  • Abs - 3 sets of 10+ reps (the reps go up weekly) 
    • Reverse crunches 
    • Leg ups 
    • Toe touches 
    • Roll ups 
    • Plank twists 
  • Take the doggos for a walk! (hopefully a 45 minute walk)
• Wednesdays: 
  • Squat: 5 sets of 5 reps at 155+ pounds 
  • Deadlift: 3 sets of 5 reps at 155+ pounds 
  • Overhead press: 5 sets of 5 reps with 20+ pound dumbbells
  • 30 minute walk on the treadmill
    • 5 minutes at a 6% incline at 2.7 mph
    • 20 minutes at a 9% incline at 3.0 mph
    • 5 minutes at a 13% incline at 3.0 mph
  • Take the doggos for a walk! (hopefully a 45 minute walk)

So far, the exercise portion of this challenge has been my favorite part! We get up around 5:30 to head to the gym and it has just been an incredible way to start my day. 

Similar to exercise, Samuel and I have each decided to do our own thing for diet! Especially considering, he's a dude and I'm female - so he needs to eat more than me. Neither of us are following a specific "diet," for example we aren't doing Keto or cutting out gluten (we have tried that in the past, but we love bread too much to commit!) Instead, we are just counting calories. I am allowed 1500 calories a day. MyFitnessPal has been a lifesaver and made tracking our calories so much easier!

In the past when I have counted calories, I would typically skip breakfast so that I could have a bigger lunch and dinner. I am doing it different this time. Instead, I am focusing on having a bigger breakfast and dinner with a smaller lunch, and let me tell you - I feel loads better doing it this way! Samuel has created an avocado toast recipe that makes all other avocado toast taste bland - he's even taught me how to actually like eggs (which is quite the feat.)

We are also supposed to be drinking a gallon of water a day, Samuel is CRUSHING that challenge, me...not so much. 

For our reading, we are supposed to pick a self-development book and read at least ten pages a day. Samuel is reading the book Good too Great by Jim Collins, while I am reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. So far I am LOVING Atomic Habits. I am only 70 pages in (I got it late so I was reading the nonfiction book The Children of Ash and Elm A History of the Vikings by Neil Price) and I have already learned so much about both good and bad habits. I am so excited to continue reading this book and learning how to tackle negative habits and how to strengthen and create positive habits!

We are also continuing to read our Bibles. I read the whole Bible from Genesis-Revelations last year, so this year I decided to challenge myself and read it in chronological order with a close friend!  

Today is day 12 for us, and we have been doing a pretty good job following through. I took on the added challenge of journaling everything everyday! How I feel, what I ate, what my exercise was, what I took away from my reading of the day. I just thought that it would be a great habit to start and something I can look back on in the future.

For now we are going to keep chugging along and I can't wait to see how it changes my body and how my confidence is changed at the end!

This has hands down been the busiest summer that Samuel and I have had since we got married - and I loved it. It felt amazing to just constantly be going, it didn't give me any time to get bored! That said, September is about to be the craziest month ever and I am ready to settle into it. 

July started the way July always starts - with my family. I went to Wyoming for a few weeks as my brother and his family came to visit for a couple of weeks while Samuel stayed home to work. Trev, Mariah, and Harper surprised my dad at the end of June by showing up to help out with branding and spend a couple of weeks at my parents house before Trevor gets deployed in October.

On July 3, we did our annual branding with our extended family. This year it was a breeze! My cousin, that has never been to our branding before, came and with his help - I felt like I did very little (it was AWESOME!)

After branding, we spent the 4th of July with both of our families. We went for a beautiful drive in the mountains with Samuel and his parents, and then celebrated with sparklers with my family. 

After the 4th, we went home and painted, painTED, PAINTED the house. We were so tired of the white walls and feeling like we were living in a hospital, so we settled on a very pretty grey color! It took a while for us to settle on a color. I was concerned that the grey looked like we were painting the whole house the color of a nursery (still feel that a little bit), and then buying furniture to deck out Samuel's office and our entryway. We decided to decorate room by room, and I have to say - I am so thankful to finally have stuff up on the walls and feeling like we are officially "living" in our house and making it a home!

The painting exhibition started in July and we just finished last week. During painting, we went to southern Colorado to spend a week with a friend and having him visit us at our home. It was fantastic! We had so much fun checking out some pretty wineries, picking raspberries, paddle boarding, and playing a good amount of video games. We also participated in the Tough Mudder with another friend! 

The start of August was pretty chill. Samuel had a bachelor party with some friends the weekend of August 20, so I went home and helped out with working some cows!

The following weekend, my college best friend and her family came to visit and check out Fort Collins! It was tons of fun getting to spend time with them and see how much their little princess has grown! 

Our summer is not even close to being over, like I said before - September is about to be CRAZY (starting with a Vegas trip to celebrate Samuel's new job) but we are so excited to keep our party going! 

Samuel and I moved into our new home about a month ago. We had so many big plans for what we wanted to do to the house to make it a little more homey for us, and none of it has gotten done yet! Let's just say, end of May-June is a pretty busy time for my lovely family. BUT - we finally committed to making the tree in our front yard look a little bit "cuter."

This is our sweet little Elm tree, her name is Iris (we just made that up as I was writing this). She's still a baby, so it still looks a little sad and small - but we know she's growing! What our goal was with our little tree, was to add a splash of excitement to make her more of a statement piece in our front yard.

To start updating our little tree, we cleaned out the grass clippings that had been spread around on the dirt from mowing and pulled out some weeds. We then covered the ground around the tree with weed barrier. We put a little bit of mulch onto it so it would hold the barrier in place while I cut the extra barrier off.

After cutting the weed barrier, we added the stone to circle around it. We literally spent twenty minutes at Home Depot trying to decide if we wanted to get traditional edging, cute edging, or stone and settled on the stone. We had to use a little mulch to support the stone and to make it even around the entire tree.

After the stone, was the mulch! We chose to do the mulch after the stone so that we could see how much mulch we would actually want, instead of dumping it and having far too much around the tree.

And then we were finished! In total, looking at mulch and stone at Home Depot took longer than the actual process of setting up the tree. We probably spent 15 minutes getting our tree all set up and looking not so much like an eye sore.

It was incredibly comforting adding this little piece to our house and helping the front of our home look a little more homey. We love our house, and anything we can do to make it feel like home, we are absolutely game!

So last week was kind of a wash. I didn't get to work out like I had planned - though I stuck to my diet! But my poor, sweet husband got Covid. For the first time in 2.5 years, he actually had Covid and it SUCKED. He was running HIGH, high fevers with intense chills and I just sat there helplessly, not knowing how to help him. It was awful. I was reminded, though I didn't need much reminding, how much I love that sweet, sweet man, and how God had given him to me because He knew exactly what I needed.

As Samuel went to bed one night, I settled in for my daily Bible reading. As it was, my reading for the week focused on Song of Songs. I went into the week knowing that I would be reading that book, but not that my husband would be getting sick. When I started to read through Song of Songs, I started to weep, for my husband, for myself, and for Jesus. How great a gift it is to be loved by Him. I was reminded that while my husband was so incredibly sick in our room, laying there shivering and me not letting him bundle up because it would only make it worse, that Jesus was with us and loving us and caring for us at the same time. There is a reason that Christ refers to the church as His bride. When you are married, you are wholly devoted to each other, the way a groom is devoted to his bride and a bride her groom. I love Samuel, and last week I was just reminded how desperately I love him, but I was also reminded how desperately Jesus loves me. He loved me so much that He went to the cross with my name written on one of His lashes and He died for me. I would have given anything to switch places with Samuel last week, to not watch him suffer as he was; but would I be able to do what Jesus did? Would I be willing to switch places with Him? To bear the sins of the whole world? To be completely honest, no, I don't think I would be able to do that. I'd like to think that yes, I am noble enough, but at the end of the day, the truth is none of us could do that. As I am growing in my faith, I am constantly reminded that I don't have to be perfect, because Jesus is; I don't have to know what my future holds, because Jesus does; and I don't have to have all the answers, because Jesus has all the answers.

Samuel is all better now, and I have fallen even more in love with him than before, if that's even possible! I am so thankful for the beautiful marriage that I have been blessed with and the most amazing man that I could ever dream of. I am truly blessed in this crazy life of mine, and thank God each day for all that he has given me.

I have been on a rollercoaster with my fitness for several years now. I set these elaborate goals for what I want to weigh or what I want my body to look like. I last about three months, lose some poundage, but also lose motivation and give up - which ultimately results in that poundage coming right back and the full-circle routine starting all over again. So this time, I decided to take a little more action and to put in a lot more dedication. Part of the reason I started this blog was to hold myself accountable, too post about my progress and to feel confident and motivated to keep going. That said, today will be the first day that I ever post a "progress photo" (really it's just my first day so I want to see where I started) on anything where people can actually see it.

I am a fairly insecure person, who am I kidding, I am extremely insecure. I have severe anxiety and at the end of September 2021-January 2022 I was at a pretty dark place in my life with my anxiety. I took initiative with that and decided to address the issues that I had been having with my mental health. Since then, I have grown significantly in my faith and have even felt myself becoming slightly more extroverted (which says a lot because I am incredibly introverted and usually leave the talking to my husband in social situations). So while I have felt encouraged by that progress, I have still felt insecure about my body and my fitness. I have goals this time, which I will share, but they are far different from any of the goals that I have set in the past.

My fitness goals this time: 

1. Feel more confident 
2. Become healthy mentally as well as physically 
3. Grow in my relationship with my own body and my own self-talk (DON'T BE NEGATIVE!) 

As you can see, none of my goals are focused on the number on the scale. I am trying a different approach this time. While I will still certainly be weighing myself, I want this fitness journey to reflect more on my mental health than anything else. I have a hard time looking in the mirror and not seeing every single one of my flaws and making myself feel bad about them. I dwell far too much on what people think of me and if they only see my chubby chin. I want to focus on being body-positive and feeling more confident!

So, here goes nothing. Below are three of my starting photos for where I am at today. (I have a pretty gnarly sunburn on my shoulders from a cattle drive this weekend - so ignore that!)

There is certainly some progress to be made, but I am looking forward to the challenge! An additional reason that I am taking this fitness journey at this time is because... we are FINALLY going on our honeymoon in March! We are heading to Cancun for a week and I would be lying if I said I didn't want to feel confident and a cute swimsuit!

Now that I have shared my starting point, my goals, and my super goal (honeymoon) - here is my plan to follow through on this: 

• Exercise six days a week:
  • Monday, Wednesday, Friday: lift and cardio 
  • Tuesday, Thursday: run and pilates 
  • Saturday: something fun with the family (ex. kayaking, biking, paddle boarding, hiking)
• Count my calories and watch what I eat to be more healthy 

That's it! It's a simple plan, but one that I feel confident that I can stick too! I am going to be using Mari Llewellyn's app Slay and Cassie Ho's app Blogilates for my workout schedule. I feel like the combination of these will help me focus on my muscle strength in addition to my flexibility!

I am genuinely excited to take on this journey. I am excited to see myself grow and change physically and mentally.

I love animals. I have always loved animals. I always will love animals. God created so many beautiful things and instructed us to care for them. Some people are better at caring for plants, others for animals. Since I certainly do not have a green thumb and would describe myself as a having a black thumb, I do have a way with animals. I grew up around all sorts of animals. Cows, dogs, fish, cats, sometimes horses, friends goats and pigs, even bunnies - and I loved every single one of those beautiful little creatures.

Growing up, I always said I wanted to be a vet. The problem was, I hate science. I hate excrements, and I definitely hate seeing ANY animal die so there was no way I would be able to put an animal down if someone came in with their elderly, cancerous dog and asked me too. So I went a different route - I chose education. Yep, I'm a teacher. I teach English (go figure right?) But that didn't stop my love of animals!

When I was twenty, I found myself at a fairly depressed stage in my life. I was away at college, my boyfriend and I of two years had broken up, and I missed my family dog (Elly - but she's mostly just my mom's dog). My grandpa, who I was actually living with at the time, thought of a genius way to cheer me up - he would get me a dog! He told me that I could choose the dog, as long as it was small. Growing up, our family pet had been a miniature schnauzer. Her name was Pepper and she was the light of my life. When I started searching through ads for puppies, I stumbled across an ad for beautiful miniature schnauzers. Pepper had been a salt and pepper color, and the ad for these puppies showed a beautiful snow white female. I HAD to have her. I called to ask if she was still available, but unfortunately she had already been claimed - however, they had two little boys who were still available. I asked for a picture of both and she gave me a day to pick which one I wanted. I looked at the picture, consulted my grandpa, and it took me all five seconds to decide which one I wanted. The black and white puppy. So I called her, told her which one I wanted; she was fairly surprised that I had decided so quickly, but thrilled he would be going to a loving home! One month later, I brought home that adorable black and white miniature schnauzer, and named him Tonks.

Since then, Tonks has been amazing. He was a piece of cake to potty train and chew train. He gets along great with other dogs (although he does have some leash aggression that we have been working on). He LOVES our kitties, and sometimes I'm not convinced he doesn't think he's part cat. He is the biggest love bug you will ever meet and incredibly protective of his momma (in a good way). This little dog has saved me from so much heart ache, and has been there through all my tears. He knows when I need a little cuddle and when he just needs to sit by my side. He even helped me pick out my husband. I feel so blessed to be the momma to this sweet little five year old pup that makes me so incredibly happy.  

I love to write. I love to handwrite, I love to type, I love to construct sentences, I love to see what you can put together when you combine words into a sentence and see a story come together - it's just a passion I have always had. I am sure some of my college professors would tell you that I am a weak writer, which is okay! That doesn't change my passion for writing. That said, I chose to create "A Time in My Life" blog in order to document my life through a passion I have - writing!

I am HORRIBLE at taking pictures. I have never been very good at holding the camera and pulling the trigger and making art out of what I am looking at, it's not a gift that I have. My husband is GREAT at taking pictures. He has a way of finding just the right angle or just the right lighting to make the pictures look great, so I leave the picture taking to him. Because of this weakness, I tend to avoid taking pictures and leave it all up to him, but I want to be able to take pictures as well. I was hoping by creating a blog that documents MY life in addition to OUR life, I could learn to take better pictures because I wouldn't be the only one seeing them!

I want to use this blog in a sort of scrapbook manner. I want to see how my house renovations went and what ideas I had; I want to see my physical changes that come from pilates and running: I want to see how my animals grow, and how my family grows in general. So, I have chosen to make this blog incredibly flexible with my posts all over the map in terms of content. Some of my blogs may focus on how much my kitten has grown since we got him, or what my bathroom looks like after our budget renovation (coming soon!), or even how my body has changed leading up to my honeymoon (which has been put off for THREE years), and finally there will likely be blogs about my growth in my faith. The flexibility I want out of this blog will make itself evident as you learn about me and grow with me. Hopefully, one day when this blog has grown, I will be able to start sharing what I have learned and how you can learn from it too!