Summertime in Dallas

It's freaking hot. I honestly forgot that the summer had started because I work indoors. I hear Mike always griping about the heat but never pay too much attention. I'm a native Texan so heat doesn't bother me. I grew up near Louisiana & the nasty humidity is what bothers me but not dry, hot heat. I could probably live in the desert even though it would be my last option. It's been in the 90's recently (I'm kind of scared for July) and it's been climbing up. Even though my son says it is "hot like Egypt", we've still been making our rounds outside. We've been venturing out a lot (which you may have seen if you are on my Instagram) & it's been really great! I just started to take my camera out again so imagine my excitement when we drove past a few sunflower fields. Flowers were in FULL effect! On our way back from hiking at Oak Point Park, we pulled off and joined the crowd of people to take a few pictures. 

As someone with Trypophobia, I can barely look at those sunflowers without flenching. But enough about me and my crawling skin. A man noticed we were taking pictures and offered to get one of us together. This is what he got. 

I look weird and tan in all the wrong places but whatever. We have a summer family picture! I'm sure we'll take more but judging from the heat, it might not be with sunflowers again. I mean, look at the flowers on the right. They look like they want to die already! Ha! If you're in the DFW area and want to take pictures before these suckers die, they happen to be in two places off 75 in Allen. I'm still looking for bluebonnet fields. I've heard of a few places and I'm pretty much on a mission to be surrounded by flowers this summer. I've even started making plans for a garden balcony! Anyone have any idea what flowers survive well in the heat? I'd love to know! Hope you guys are having a great summer so far and soaking up some sun! 

I'm Natalie Portman!!

Imagine yourself sitting in a dark corner for years. Tears running down your face. All you can feel is sadness. Your body feels numb. You cry out to try and feel something else besides the  darkness. You feel like you are screaming for help. HELP, PLEASE HELP ME! SOMEBODY SAVE ME! I'M SO TIRED! I DON'T WANT TO BE SAD ANYMORE. But nobody comes. Everybody else is too busy to help and even if they stopped and ask what's wrong, they would be lost. They wouldn't know how to help you. Besides, this isn't the first time you've asked for help. It's probably the 100th time, if anything. So you keep crying. You keep waiting for a force of life to be thrown back into your tired soul. Your body becomes cripple and you crumble up into the fetal position. You're ready to die. You're waiting to die. You want to die. And before your nose hits the ground, before that last tear falls from your face....before you spread your arms out and let your body float gently into the air, you feel something. 

Suddenly, you feel the hardest slap on your face. Your body feels like it's been hit by a lightening bolt. You start to feel the blood rushing through your veins. You get excited because that jolt of life has finally come to save you. You feel the coolness of the tears drying up on your cheekbone. You can see the light outside and it seems so much brighter than it was before. You can hear a giggle in the background as your child laughs at his favorite tv show. You hear your inner voice scream at you to GET UP! THIS IS YOUR ONLY LIFE!!

Then it hits you. Your body starts to jerk. You want to vomit. You can feel every single ache in your body. It feels like someone just beat you up, continuously, for years. It hurts. It really hurts. You run to the bathroom & grab medicine from the cabinet. The texture of the bottle feels so smooth in your hands. You pop those two ibuprofen pills in your mouth. They are tasteless. Your body feels sore but rejuvenated. You don't want to lay down in that bed anymore. Your nerves are jittered and the last thing you want to do is relax. So you step outside. The heat blasts on your face. It stinks outside. It's disgustingly humid as if it's going to rain. You don't even care. You just stand there for what seems like hours.

You were right. It's going to rain. It does rain. At first the rain dribbles down. You hold your hand out and feel the drops slide down your palm. You stare at them. They are so translucent and you're in awe of every movement it makes. Your feet are cold but as the rain falls harder, you start to feel cleansed. Cleansed of every tear, of every drop of sadness that ever entered your body. You feel filthy at first. Covered in remorse and sadness. You want to scrape it off of you but you're enjoying the moment so much you stand still. 

The wind starts to blow and the rain falls a bit harder. It's raining too hard, you think to yourself. Once again, you don't care. You take in every shiver, every annoyance. By this time your hair and body are completely soaked. 

BAMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!

Your body shakes from the sound! Tingles run through your body and you can feel yourself shake. Lightening! Thunder! Oh my goodness! You feel them rip right through you!!! You start to giggle with nervous laughter. A laugh! Oh my goodness! You laugh harder because you haven't heard yourself laugh in such a long time. It sounds gloriously loud...and annoying...and really beautiful. It sounds just like you. So you just keep laughing. Your face starts to hurt because you're smiling. You haven't smiled in so long. All these emotions start to take over your body. You don't know what to do with them so you start to jump up in down, holding out your arms, taking in the downpour.

I'm Natalie Portman!!!!!!, you think to yourself while visualizing her scene from V for Vendetta.

You can't help yourself anymore. You feel so alive! You can feel every single touch, every thought, every sound. You feel like you're on drugs. Everything went from 480p to 1080p in a matter of minutes!!!!! This is WHAT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! THIS IS IT!!!! THIS IS THE MOMENT YOUR LIFE CHANGED!!!!!!

You scream out loud! You want the whole world to hear your happiness!!!!

"I'm NATALIE PORTMAN!!!!!!!! I'M NATALIE PORTMAN!!!!!!!!!!!"

*******

This is the day I got out of my depression. 

This is the day that atheism saved my life.

I've never talked about this day to anyone. I've always kept it a memorable day that I could relive with just myself. It was the day that I admitted to myself what I believed. While in that corner, with tears down my face. In that admittance, I came to a realization that this was truly my one and only life. My child needed me. My family needed me. I needed myself. 

Ever since then, I feel like everything I feel, see, touch or hear is enhanced. I cry more often, not because of sadness, but because I'm so happy to be alive and experience all those things no matter how big or little they may be. Sure, every once in awhile, I start to feel sadness creep up but the moment it starts to attach itself to me, I feel my body fight it. I feel my body laugh at it. "I DONT HAVE TIME TO BE SAD! I COULD DIE TOMORROW!" my mind says as it slaps the feeling away. 

This is my only life. I'm so grateful and forever thankful to be here. I truly feel that now. I do live life to the fullest. I love harder than I've ever loved. I live deeper than I've ever lived. I truly feel alive. 

I'm so happy.

Happiness = Family Time

I've felt like my emotional/mental health has been getting a bit better lately. I couldn't quite but my finger on why. I'm poor. I'm struggling almost every day, especially for childcare. My hours at work suck and I can barely make a wage & it's never a living wage. My son hasn't seen his father yet for the summer and I've been bummed about it. I really want him to go. Their relationship is so important to me. Just patiently waiting on that. Among other things, every day just seems to be a fight with the world. 

I was in the middle of reading The Happiness Project when I just had to stop and talk to Mike. 

"Baby, I don't know what it is but I feel really happy lately. I mean our struggles have seemed to increase more than ever and I have never been so happy."

He agreed. Something had changed in us. Our stress levels had died down. We were more lovey dovey to each other than we had ever been. It's nice to have someone tell you "I feel so in love with you today. It's stalkerish." I found myself not wanting to tie myself up in distractions and actually feel like I was spending genuine quality, uninterrupted time with my baby boy, with my family. What the heck was it? 

The only thing that changed was Mike's schedule. His days off ended up being my days off. That was so stressful when thinking about childcare. Every week I already struggle with finding weekend care and to add another two days was bleh! But every week we somehow managed and got to spend a few days together in the process. After months and months of not having a day off together, we've been spending two full days together. Do you KNOW how wonderful that feels? I even mentioned it to him that I've been feeling great the past few weeks that he's had the same days off. Spending time together, as family, is the stress reliever we needed. I'm starting to think that paying an extra amount of money for childcare or getting a second job to work in the morning will be key to maintaining our family time. It's just so necessary!

I could go on and on about how happy I feel lately but I don't want to keep repeating myself :)

Texas Style Council Conference 2013

Let me just say that I have high hopes for #TXSC13 this year. The Texas Style Council Conference is based in Austin, Texas and started by Indiana Adams of Adored Austin. I went last year when its focus was fashion bloggers. So thankful that this year, they have decided to expand out beyond fashion blogging. I am no fashion blogger by any means. I have no money to care but boy, oh boy, do I wish I had money to spare to get together some awesome outfits. I didn't really plan too far ahead, so a lot of my outfits were thrown together. This time, I plan to plan ahead. I've already got ideas for my business card this year & want to revamp my blog design before I head out. I've already planned to stay at a hostel. I've had this dream to travel the world and stay at hostels worldwide but this is as far as I can get for now :) I have an idea of which hostel I want to stay in so let's hope they have some availability by time I get there. 

Let me discuss my experience last year. I went with my real life friend, Jessica, to TxSC12. I'm not really sure if she gained a lot of experience but I felt incredibly bored. Maybe it's because I wasn't a fashion blogger. Or because I've been blogging so long I felt like things were incredibly repetitive. Some of the panelist put me to sleep. There's only so many times you can hear "Just be yourself" over and over. Or so many nervous giggles. I'm not sure if some of the panelists were just there for fun (some were sponsored travel wise) but I didn't think I got my money's worth. I did learn from a few panelists though; the ones I learned from were not bloggers. I really enjoyed hearing Kendi speak as the Keynote speaker. I met a few fashion bloggers that I admired, though most were in their own bubble or were social introverts. No hate to social introverts! I am one myself. As a matter of fact, I was socially awkward the entire event! I felt bad for Jessica! I probably dragged her excitement down! Either way, we did have some fun & I DID speak to a few new people! Like Emily, who lives in the DFW area along side me. What I realized at the last conference were two things: I have a strong desire to learn more regarding blogging & it's actually important to have real life blogging friends to drive each other to blog well. 

I didn't have a great time at the last conference, why would I want to go back? Wait! I did enjoy my time there! I didn't learn too much but I had a great time anyway. It was thrilling to see so many people excited about blogging as I was (even though they were fashion bloggers). It was so fun to relate & meet others (when I did speak). It was exciting to dress up and I also won some dresses from Lulus.com that I hope to wear this year to the "Prom". I mean, when is the last time you really dressed up? What I'm most excited about is that the conference set up has changed. Not into panels but workshops. I'm pumped about learning more; I am so excited to meet people. I love people. I've been such an extrovert socially this year. A new me. I've re-branded my blog and I feel like it fits me so well. GoodLuckJenn is here to stay. I write what I want to write. And honestly, I love Austin. I am so excited to go back. I'm trying to tempt my boyfriend to come with me as the +1 to our "prom". I really think he'd enjoy it. I want him to see what blogging (& vlogging) has to offer. If only he blogged frequently because you guys are missing out on his personality. If you are going, I truly hope to see you and I hope we can connect before we get there. On the right is my link to twitter so feel free to stop by and say hello!