Sweet Sixteen

Saturday night some friends and I had a Sweet 16 theme party. We dressed in pink pj's and watched 16 candles. It was a blast. I love Molly Ringwald movies from the 80's. They are amazing. We also had junk food and painted our toe nails. I wanted to share some fun pics that we took.

I wore my hair in pig tails. :) FUN!!!!

What fun theme parties have you had or would you like to have?

Getting To Know ME

I have never participated in Getting To Know You but I was reading Courtney's and I decided to take a turn. Thanks to Mann Land 5....here goes:

1 - Why did you start blogging? I actually started blogging as an anonymous author. I was really depressed and suicidal. I used the blog as someone to express myself and to let someone know how I was feeling. (however irrational and twisted that was)

2 - Who's the one blog friend that you would want to meet most in "real life"? Just 1? Really? Well I'll pick 2. Sonya @ A Day in the Life & Sierra @ Ocean Dreams. I love all my blog friends. I just feel a connection with these two ladies.

3 - Why are you always concerned with losing that "extra 10 pounds" when chances are your husband/boyfriend/friends tell you that you look just fine the way you are? I have gained some significant weight in the fast 2 years due to life style changes(good changes) I would like to get back to a healthy weight.
 
4 - What's the one thing you wish guys could understand about you? Hum???? Good question. I have not dated in 2 years and I am very different that I was 2 years ago so I'm not sure there is anything that I feel misunderstood about. I am out of the dating game and waiting for the one God has planned for me. I am pretty sure he will get me. :)

5 - Tattoos. How many do you have and how many are visible when you wear your "everyday" clothes? No tattoos for me please. I hate needles.

6 - What was the best year of your life and why? 2008 -2009 because I got sober and started really living for God. It has been awesome since then.

7 - Name three things you would do if you were a man for one day. Play a game of football with the guys, drive a motorcycle, and carry something really heavy for someone.

8 - What's your alcoholic drink of choice that usually raises a few eyebrows? I don't drink. None, zero, zilch, nada, nothing at all. Does that raise your eyebrows?

**This was really fun! Maybe I'll play along again. I hope you all enjoy. 

To Read Or Not To Read?........

.......that is the question?????

Someone asked me recently why I liked to read fiction books. "Do you do it to escape?" was a question that was included. It made me think..... "Hum why do I like to read fiction books?" (I like non fiction too. I can just get sucked into a fiction book.) Reading is fun for me. I am a pretty creative person with a big imagination. I think reading allows me a way to stretch and exercise my imagination.  I don't the chance to as often to do that as an adult as I did as a child. The conversation came about because I was reading a series for the 3rd time, and I was sucked in like I had never read it before. Each time I read it I picked up something new and I saw a different picture each time. I love the freedom and decision the reader has when reading.

Another thought that came to me after the conversation was, "What if I did read to escape?" Don't get me wrong....I have no reason to escape like I use to. I love my life, but sometimes it is nice to focus on something else...to not think about the crazy world we live in. Isn't escape kind of the point of leisure activies and hobbies....to check out from the responsiblity and just have a little fun?

Do you like to read? What joy do you get from reading?

Favorite Thing Friday

So what am I loving right now? Here you go:

Hold Us Together by Matt Maher

Goodreads....it is awesome for anyone that loves to read (If you are on there look me up)

 

GIRL TIME

 

and...

 

BLIND FAITH

I just posted a new post. Check it out!!!!

 

What are you loving? 

Blind Faith

Hey all you blog friends! Long time no see huh. I have been a little down lately, so I haven't had much to say. I told you guys that I was making some exciting additions soon, but it has been put on hold. I was really excited about this new stuff and ready to role with it when I was hit with some major discouragement. I have been struggling for about two weeks now. Tonight I had dinner with my dear friend Peri and let all my worries out. Just talking and praying with her gave me the encouragement that I needed to proceed with my dream.

So what is that dream you may be asking? I started a new blog. It is a vision for ministry opportunities for the future. I am not sure what this new blog will evolve into, but I am trusting that God will use me through the blog to reach people. You all have been such wonderful supporters of this blog, and I hope that you will support me in my new blog too.

I am not giving up on this blog. I am going to keep doing my thing here. This blog is all Cary all the time. :) My new blog is all God all the time. It will be what ever He desires. I really feel that God has a calling on my heart. I am just not sure what my ministry is yet. I am trusting that this new blog is a jumping off point for a wonderful future. I hope I can share it with you. Thank you for your love and support. I hope you will check it out.

BLIND FAITH

Cary

Surrender to Love

I want to start by saying that I am not finished with my blog makeover, but I am still working on it. I am really excited about something new I am about to do. I can't wait to have sometime to work on it. It will be exciting to share with you all.

Now for the purpose of this post. I attend a life group (bible study) on Sunday nights with 4 other wonderful women around my age. We are doing One Month to Live as a study this time. It is amazing. One of the girls was out of town this weekend, and she asked for us to wait on her to continue with our next lesson in 1 month. The other ladies asked me if I would mind coming up with something to talk about. I was so excited. So I have prepared a little something and I want to share it with you guys. So here goes.

  

<sup>MercyMe is one of my favorite bands. Their song, Here With Me, is on of my favorite songs. I have probably listened to it 100xs. I heard it the other day and it the other day, and it struck a cord with me. 


The song talks about the power of God's love and surrendering to Him and what a beautiful act that surrender can be. I know for me surrender has not always been a beautiful thing, and in our society it is scene as a weakness. The fact is that we are all surrendered to something weather it be work, sex, drugs, alcohol, money, people, or God. Romans 6:16 says, "Don't you realize that you become a slave to whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God which leads to righteous living." 

I know for me surrender was a scary concept. I have been surrendered to a life of sin before (although that is not how I viewed it at the time), and my life was destroyed. So surrendering to God was hard for me. I struggled big time for a while, and when I finally handed it over my life was changed. Surrendering to God comes with a lot of perks: peace, happiness, love, eternal life, & contentment just to name a few. I still struggle with surrendering to Him daily. I am human and for some reason I feel like I should be in control. When I do take over is when I end up messing up. I heard someone say tonight (at another life group) that, "God is always in control no matter what. At times we think we are in control and that is when trouble arrives in our life, because we are fighting against the will of God." That held a lot of merit with me. 

Is there something in your life that you need to surrender? What are you a slave to? 

I would love to pray for you. Leave your request in a comment or email me if it is private. carydtaylor@gmail.com 

**Side note: This is the condensed version, but I am almost 100% positive that God has not called me to teach.</sup>

Progress In Process

I am in the process of making some changes and additions to my blog. I have had a new vision. So be on the look out for some exciting things.

Tuesday or Monday??

This Tuesday is really feeling like a Monday???

I have a long mental list of interesting things that I want to blog about and time to blog today, but I just don't want to think too hard. Actually I don't want to do anything today. I am a zombie. I don't really know why. I got good sleep last night. I didn't go to be too late. (about an hour later than normal) I'm not really tired. I just don't have any energy. Enough complaining.

Yesterday I started Couch to 5K. Have you heard of it? It seems to be a pretty good training program. It is not as easy as I thought it would be though. That may be why I am zombified. I am not use to all that exercise. I hope that I can keep it going. (I hope I didn't blog about this yesterday. LOL! Where is my brain?)

So I didn't watch the Oscars, but I did see some of the dresses. I have a favorite.

I just love Sarah Jessica Parker. She is such a natural beauty. I probably would have loved her in anything.

Sandra Bullock was beautiful too. So classic looking. I am so glad she won. She deserved it. I loved The Blind Side.

Well that is all I can think to ramble on about for now. I hope your Tuesday is going good. Maybe I'll be better by tomorrow. :)

Make a Difference Monday

On my favorite radio station, K Love, they always do make a difference Monday. I always here it at the end of the day on the drive home or at night while reflecting on the day and think, "I really would like to partake in this." (Not that I have to do it on Monday, but I like to think of so many people all over the country trying to make a difference at one time--so basically I'm going for a moment.) Well I heard a reminder clip about it yesterday so it was fresh on my mind. I was off today and staying at my sisters so I decided to wash and fold some towels for her and her roommate while they were at school, then I went and visited my Mamaw, and then I put up towels when I got home. Sometimes in life it is the little things that make a difference. 

Did you do anything nice today? Or did someone do something nice for you?

Woop Sided Hair

This morning when I was fixing my hair I was having trouble with this one area on the underneath layer on the back of my head. It always wants to lay differently than the rest of my hair. I usual don't worry about. It is no big deal. Its underneath and no one will be able to tell. But I got the mirror out and started looking and realized that the underneath not laying right makes the whole back of my head look woop sided.


I think that a lot of times our lives are that way. We all have scars, pains, and hang ups. Yet we hide them away from each other. We pretend that it is all hidden underneath, and no one can see it. Reality is that we may think we are hiding the dark areas of our life, but we aren't. As a child did you ever tried to hold a blown up beach ball under water? You may have put all the weight of your body on the ball trying to hold it down, but the ball pops up in another direction. That is the same way in our lives. What we hide we show in different ways.
As Christians and friends we should feel that it is ok to spill our guts and not be judged.


There are so many examples in the New Testament that instructs us to be there for one another.

    James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that  you   may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

    1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up


My prayer is that each of you has someone in your life that will encourage you. Someone that knows all your secrets and loves you anyway. Always know that God is that someone. He loves you. He made you. He thinks your beautiful and wonderful in every way.


*Image from www.weheartit.com

Twilight Love--Good or Bad?

I was having a conversation the other night with some girl friends about Twilight. And in case you didn't know I love Twilight. Though most of us really loved the series we came to an agreement that for teenagers the relationship portrayed between Edward and Bella really is an unhealthy one. It is really codependent and not what a healthy human realtionship should look like at all.

But on the other hand I think that it does an excelent job of portraying what our relationship with God should look like. We should be madly in love with Him, find our idenity in Him, be broken with out Him, feel like we can't live without Him, and find our happiness in Him. A codependent relationship with God is the healthest realtionship you can have. We should look to be dependent on God. We spend our lives looking for someone to fill the hole (or whole) and that we can depend on because God made us that way. He did not do it as a sick joke. He did it because He loves and He wants us to seek an intimate elationship with Him. We continue to look in the wrong places and then blame God when we get it wrong.  

1 Peter 5:6-7 (The Message) "So be content with who you are, and don't put on airs. God's strong hand is on you; he'll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you."

*Picture from Google Images

2 numbers and a Dash

Day 3 of 30 days to live               

I know the picture is probably not one that makes you all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I hope it doesn't turn you off of what I want to talk about today. I am telling you this journey is awesome. On every tombstone there is always 2 numbers and a dash. IE 1950 - 1980. The authors suggest that your life on your tombstone is summed up by a dash. - is everything that you ever did. - is what your life was all about. I think it is an interesting concept. I don't know about you but I want my - to say a lot. 

One of the assignments in the challenge is to write the saying that you want on your tombstone. For example my best friend died when she was 22. On her tombstone it says, "Our Guardian Angel." 

I want mine to say, "A Woman After God's Heart"

What would yours say?

My Life Metaphor

Day 2 One Month To Live                                                                                                                         

I am still in the beginning of my journey, and I can already tell that I am going to be stretched and challenged. I have found myself analyzing everything I do and it's importance to my life. For example, I am on a break from school for the next two weeks. Which means I have a lot of free time. Next week I will be spending my extra time at my part time job earning some extra money (during school I only have time to work 2 days a week), but this week I planned spending my time resting. I have errands to run, a to-do list to scratch off, books to read, and sleep to catch up on. 

During my life group on Sunday, when we were first discussing the concepts of this journey, I immediately felt convicted about the time I spend each week catching up on my tv watching. I am so busy right now so I have already limited my tv watching to 2 shows a week. (Grey's Anatomy and The Office) I know that if I had 30 days left those shows would not be important. Yesterday and today my conviction has grown to include more things. I have been spending hours reading a series that I have already read 2x's before this (Twilight). My conviction has not been to not read it; it has been to not spend so much time reading it. My newest conviction as of this morning is a little bit harder to take in-sleeping late. I love sleep, and get excited about when I get to sleep in. Well I woke up this morning (late) and felt very guilty. I was reminded that if these were the last 30 days I would not be sleeping much at all. My point is day two is already stretching me. 

(Now on to the main point I want to share with you) The interesting thing that the study had me do yesterday is come up with a life metaphor. It had a couple of examples, but none seemed to fit so I did a google search for ideas. This is what I found:

• A Battle - Everything is a competition or a struggle.  We are always either winning or losing.
• A Garden - Relationships are cultivated like flowers or vegetables.  We see things as growing, flowering, producing.
• A Mission - We believe that we have the truth and we need to convince others that our point-of-view is right. 
• A Journey or an adventure - We travel from place to place meeting new people and exploring.
• A Building - Starting with a solid foundation, then adding floors and rooms.
• A Roller Coaster - Life consists of ups and downs, and we are along for the ride.
• A Stained-glass window - full of light and colors. 
• A Mountain Climb - Life consists of hierarchies.  We are always climbing the corporate ladder.
• A Race - always finding the fastest route, "keeping up with the Jonses."
• A Courtroom - Everything in life should be fair.
• Stepping Stones - We barely get comfortable where we are before we are looking for better job or a bigger house.
• A Prison - Feeling like we don't have choices, like others have all the power.
• A Classroom - There are always new lessons to learn.
• A Battery - Every encounter seems to drain energy.  We need the weekends to recharge.

I picked a classroom, because I try to find a lesson in everything. The authors suggested to find a picture that represented your metaphor and put it in different places to remind you of how you would like your outlook on life to be. What is your life metaphor?

One Month To Live

One of the Life Groups I am in just started a new study. It is a really awesome study called One Month to live. It is a 30 day challenge in which you live like it is your last 30 days left. I am really excited about this journey. I will be sharing some of the process along the way, and I'll let you know if my life has in anyway changed after the 30 days.

5 question Fun

 

My bloggy friend Sam tagged my in this fun little game. Thanks Sam. If you haven't read her blog before you should. She is super cute.

Question 1: Where were you five years ago?
- I was 22 and living in Lafayette.
- I was going through a very hard time in my life.
- I was working on a business degree and hating every minute of it.
- I was working at Olive Garden and loving and eating there a lot. (I love the OG)
- I was broken and hurting and searching for something to fill the hole in my soul.

Question 2: What is/was on your to-do list today?
- Go to AT&T and get a new SIM card -- done
- Go to lunch with a friend -- canceled
- Women bible study tonight -- can't wait
- Get another new tax form (I have gotten 2 wrong forms so far) -- tomorrow because it is raining so hard
- Read another chapter in my One Month to Live study -- right after this post

Question 3: What 5 snacks do you enjoy?
- Pop corn 100 calorie packs
- Yogurt
- Almonds
- Cheese
- Crackers

Question 4: Name 5 places you have lived
- Haynesville, La
- Shreveport, La
- Lafayette, La
- Ruston, La
- I have lived in every place more than once

Question 5: What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?
- Give @ least 10% to God via The Simple Church
- Buy good gifts for my immediate family
- Take my nephew's to Disney World
- Buy a house
- Buy a car......a BMW

The 5 lovely ladies I tag are:
- Sonya @ A Day in The Life
- Jocelyn @ Inside BruCrew Life
- Juliana @ A blonde walks into a blog
- Sierra @ OceanDreams
- Mindy @ My Crazy Life