My favorite ThinNNNGs! (Oprah style!)

New haircuts! that make you feel so fresh and pretty. I finally feel like I have a little style in my life ;)

My new stove cooktop! I have been  cooking with 2 small and 1 big burner for the past couple of years since my other big burner gave out. Getting a little extra money at the end of the year, we have been checking out Lowes for a new top. They are so expensive, so what a incredible answer to a unspoken prayer was finding a listing for a BRAND NEW cooktop on Craigslist. My super handy husband did a lot of  squeezing and cutting, and Voila!-4 burners! Nice new quick cooking ones! So excited to try it out, altho for some reason Im cooking everything in the oven tonight..Ritz cracker chicken, and yummy Alexia waffle fries. and green beans to make it healthy. For some reason I have had no desire to cook lately! Gotta get back in the swing of things!

A new bathtub upstairs! Its in the working anyways, which is more than  its been for the last couple of months. Makes me happy!

Learning to love and accept myself for who I am. Stepping out, trying new things, being myself, I don't know that I have the right words to describe what I mean. Growing up, we were defined by what we wore, what church we went to, who are parents were or were related to, that was what made you "in". I was a poor girl from a 1st generation Mennonite family, who didn't always have the nice clothes and the right shoes to wear to the school program. Not coming from a "traditional" mennonite family meant not being accepted at face value, but being looked at as different, and judged accordingly. Whereas it used to bother me to be different, I am learning how its my differences that make me who I am. I should not be defined by the way I dress, by the church I go to or the groups I belong to, by how clean my house is or by how well behaved my children are (or are not). I want to be a good mom, a cry on my shoulder, love me thru thick and thin kind of friend, a awesome wife, a devote follower of God, trusting Him in everything, a better sister and daughter, the best that God has made me to be, not being consumed by the things that so many of us (including myself, Ive been guilty of this as well!) think are what makes us.