A little peek!!

Happy Wednesday friends! It's almost over, the week that is! Although I've never understood why Wednesday is the halfway point of the work week... last time I checked, 3 wasn't half of 5. {I mean I'm pretty crummy at math, but not that bad}. Maybe everyone means half way through the full week, which I guess it could be, but let's be real, we only count down the work week.

Enough of my random ramblings...food for thought people!

 

I wanted to show y'all a glimpse of what's been going on in Casa de Burton! I've lived in my home for 7 years this June, and for 7 years I've wanted to replace the carpet in the living room with hardwood flooring. Seeing as I'm not making money hand over fist, I resigned that I would have to go with wood laminate! They have come so far in the laminate world, you can't tell it's fake wood! So, for 7 years I've lusted over every wood floor I've seen. Any time we went to Lowe's or Sam's Club I'd have to check out the flooring and have my mom calculate how much it would be to do it. This year, I finally gave in and did it! I went through Carpet Giant and they were awesome! My mom being a realtor has lots of good connections when it come to this kind of stuff. So Julie came over with a bunch of samples and we spent a morning picking out which one I was going to put down. I was seriously so excited I could hardly contain myself.

They installed it the following Tuesday and while I'm still working on getting my living room put back together {See my 5 for FIVE this week, it's one of my goals!} I wanted to give y'all a peek of my new living room digs...but of course first I'll show y'all the before pics and then hopefully tomorrow I'll be back with the after!

 

Disregard the game of tag you see in the blur!

Again, my dogs think it's their mission to photobomb.

 Jackie wanted to make sure you could still see her!

In the process of moving all my crap out of the living room I also got to clean out my magazines...true life: I hoard mags.

 

 Taking off the baseboards...sorry 'bout the nastiness of myself...hey demolition is dirty work!

Daddy was a big help!

 



The end! All my baseboards ripped off. I had high hopes of keeping them in one piece and re-using them...ha! is all I have to say to that!

 

Check back tomorrow for the finished product! This promise will help me cross off at least ONE of my goals!!

 

xoxo,

SamanthaDiane

I almost lost...

Monday was a terrible, horrible, no good day. I woke up knowing it wasn't going to be good...I hate that! I won't go into details, but work is rough right now. The spring always is, but I'm just feeling more run-down than usual and Monday was no exception. I over-flowed a whirlpool {the Athletic Trainers out there feel me on this one}, had to cancel an appointment I was excited about and ended up working all day when I thought I'd have the afternoon off. {wah, wah wah, I know...I threw a HUGE pity party} All day long I knew it was the enemy making me feel this way and making me doubt myself and I succumbed to him and his evil ways! At lunch time, I went to the car and got my Bible, that's right, I brought my Bible into a public school and {GASP} opened it read it and left if open on my desk for the rest of the day! I just knew I had to get into the Word and get that pesky little devil off my back. It didn't work... it helped some and I could feel God's love, but I was still all "poor me".

As I've mentioned before, I have bible study on Monday nights. I was so tired and worn down that I actually contemplated not going and just telling my leader that I had a long weekend and bad day and needed a night to myself. But there was this tiny voice pushing me and proding me to go, I love going and look forward to Monday nights, so I listened to that voice! BOY AM I GLAD I DID! The chapters we covered were about serving and submiting to your husband {which I do not have...yet}, so I let the words of wisdom pouring from these married ladies sink in and put my two cents in every so often. When I had arrived my leader asked how my day was and I told her "ehh" but didn't elaborate. The time came to close and we were asked for prayer requests. I just said I needed patience, {which is a joke, because we can't ask Him for patience, we need grace!} and left if at that. Once everyone spoke their requests/ praises, Candice started praying and when she got to my name, the Spirit spoke through her straight to me! He told her everything I was struggling with and keeping to myself and she prayed for everything I was thinking! God is so amazing that way! He knows the innermost thoughts and desires of our hearts. He knew I needed to be at bible study JUST for our closing prayer! I felt like a huge weight had been lifted when she finished. I hung back as everyone left so I could tell her, and when I did she just said, "I could tell something wasn't right tonight". She knew me being quiet and keeping to myself was so out of character and through her the Lord gave her the words I needed most!

 

I woke up today renewed and semi-rested but completely freed from my burdens. Y'all our God is so wonderful and amazing and can use so many people to speak to you when you least expect it! He knew EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING that was on my heart and in my mind! How great to be able to have a relationship with our Father that we can keep nothing from Him, nor does he want us to. All day long I was taking it upon myself to "fix things" and looking for a way to get out of my funk, when the whole time, He was saying, "Give it to me, place your burdens on me, I will free you!"

Don't let the enemy get you down and tell you lies, because he is always trying to come between us and the Lord!

1 Peter 5: 7-9 reminds me of this!

"Give all your worries and cares to God, for HE cares about you, Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith."

The enemy almost won yesterday, y'all and I am determined to fight against him daily!

 

xoxo,
SamanthaDiane

 

 

5 for FIVE!!

It's Monday, so it's time to link up with Jenn and Jessica for my 5 for FIVE! I hope y'all had a great weekend and are ready for a good week ahead! I know I could use a good, uneventful week!

Here's a look at last weeks goals: Purple = accomplished, Blue = almost accomplished and Red= a big fat failure!

1. Workout 5 times this week! (I have NO excuses not to this week!) I did get one workout in and it was a good one, but I'm still counting that as a fail!
2. Plan and prepare my lunches for the week! having unlimited access to the concession stand is no bueno and I ate WAAAAYYY too much crap!
3. Mail off a care package to my sweet Brittany who is having ACL surgery tomorrow! I wasn't planning on working Thursday so I literally had no chance of getting that mailed
4. Make my green smoothies at night so they're ready for the morning! (I'm going to share some recipes tomorrow!) Had no spinach and no time to go to the store...lame
5. Clean my room/ upstairs.Ha! wasn't happening with my crazy week!


OUCH! That's way too much red for my taste! I told y'all last week was rough, it was just so stinking busy and unfortunately I let it all get away from me! Lesson learned. On my behalf, I did have laminate flooring put in Tuesday so it kinda threw a wrench in my whole week! So here I am to pledge to do better this week!

1. Workout 5 times this week: Seriously, I need to get my butt up in the morning and just do it!
2. Eat clean all week, no junk!!
3. Finish putting my living room back together and get everything cleaned up: I want to have a cleaning lady come and do a good deep clean so I have to prepare for her! {seriously, I'm going to clean for a cleaning lady to come}
4. Make my smoothies at night.
5. Mail that care package...I actually have a couple things to mail...such a slacker! :)

How'd y'all do last week? Hopefully better than I did! :)

xoxo,

SamanthaDiane



Quick recap of the weekend and an awesome song!

Happy Sunday friends! I adore Sundays!! I love my church and by beginning my week with my church family really helps me put everything together for the week to come and to focus on what truly matters!! So I hope y'all had a wonderful Sunday and are ready for a great week! :)

I haven't blogged since Wednesday and I totally intended on blogging if not daily at least every other day! This past week just got away from me! We are in full swing of baseball season which means counting the past weekend, the next three weekends we have tournaments Thursday - Saturday! On top of soccer and softball games...good times people, good times! I spent so much time with high school boys this weekend that by the end I was delirious and laughing at their immature jokes and cracking fart jokes. {Okay not really, but still...I needed today to remind myself that I am in fact a 31 year old woman!} Those boys sure do make me laugh though and are some of the sweetest kids ever.

Saturday night after the games were over, I got to spend some time with one of my favorite families and just catch up! God has truly blessed me with so many people that are wonderful in my life!

 

Which brings me to my song...we sang it in church today after we took the Lord's Supper. Going on a tangent, how awesome and moving is it to partake in the Lord's Supper? I always find myself with chills and such emotion during that time and can truly feel the Spirit's presence among my fellow believers. We sang a bunch of awesome songs {as we always do} today, but this one just stood out to me and reminded me how abundent God's grace is!  Here are the lyrics and the YouTube video!

 

 

He is jealous for me,

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And I realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us oh,

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

He is jealous for me,

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And I realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

Oh how he loves,

Yeah, He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh! how He loves.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,

If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.

And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,

I don't have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about, the way...

Oh, how He loves us oh,

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

How He loves

Yeah, He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh how He loves.

Oh what love

Yeah, He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us,

Oh! how He loves us so.

I've bolded this line: If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking. It's my favorite! What a lyric! This is how we should be...drowning in His grace, because it is sufficient and abundant! I've heard this song a million times on the radio, but it wasn't until today that it just hit me. I'm making this song my prayer this week, a gentle reminder that He loves us unconditionally and with such an overwhelming grace it's something we should cherish. I just listened to the song again and read the lyrics, the lyrics describe excactly how I feel when I think about how much He loves, no matter what and yet we push Him to the side all.the.time. He deserves to be loved the way He loves, yet understands we're human and still gives us unconditional love!  

 

Check back tomorrow to see how I did on my 5 for Five...it was a rough week so we shall see!!

 

xoxo,
SamanthaDiane 

 



Wednesdays...and a Bark Box!

I know most people love Wednesdays... it's the middle of the week, I get it, but I loathe Wednesdays! Okay, maybe loathe is a harsh word...they just are not my favorite! Here at my school we have block scheduling, so Monday, Tuesday, Fridays we have 7 periods a day. Wednesdays and Thursdays are different. Wednesdays we have 1,3,5,7...which are all athletic periods which means I'm super busy all day and barely have time to eat during my 20 minute lunch break. Thursdays are the complete opposite, we have no athletic periods and we use that time to catch up on paperwork, phone calls and filing. Also, all the district athletic trainers go to lunch...it's nice...I like Thursdays! Wednesdays are just extremely long, busy days! Today was no different, I was literally shoveling eating my lunch as my kids came in for 7th period. However after work I'm going to dinner and a movie with a friend so I guess this Wednesday isn't so bad! :)

Enough with my pity party ^^^, I've got a few things to share with y'all today!

Before Christmas my friend Megan tweeted and/or {I can't remember which} blogged about a Groupon for BarkBox! I knew my pups and my mom's pup would so enjoy this so I decided to get the 3 month subscription for them for their Christmas present {yes, we are those people that get the dogs gifts too}!

Fast forward to now and I received the first box yesterday...but wait, Christmas has been over for almost two months! Yes, yes I know, it's February! There was a mix up with Groupon but the people at Bark Box were great and found the problem and helped me figure it all out!

 Onto the reveal!!

                            Lots of cute stuff! Treats, a fun ball of rope and a super soft snowman!

They all ate their treats way too fast but I did manage to snap a pic of Divot playing with the ball of rope! He LOVED this!!

In all, I'd say this box was worth the wait and I can't wait to see what's in next month's!! Makes me want to try a Birch Box so Momma can get a little pampering too! :)

I'm going to leave y'all with these pics of the pooches! Jackie O is my Schnauzer and the eldest...she makes sure everyone knows she rules the roost {In true Jackie O form!}, Canton is also mine and a Yorkie {granted, he's a big (15 lbs!) Yorkie} he's also my snuggle buddy and just so sweet! Divot is my mom's Havachon { what's that you say? it's a cross between a Havanese and a Bichon} he's the baby of the group and he just LOVES Canton, however, Canton isn't quite feeling the BFF status! :)

Hope y'all have a wonderful Wednesday!!

xoxo,

SamanthaDiane

Smoothies!!

In January my church did a 21 day fast to start our year. If I'm being honest, fasting scares me...I mean I love food y'all! I totally get that the idea of fasting is to replace food, social media, whatever you're fasting from with prayer, connection with God and growing closer to Him. It sounds SO wonderful and amazing! Whenever you would be doing whatever you're fasting from you instead replace that time with time with God, however you choose to do so. Like I said fasting scares me, I immediately think I'll be starving myself and oh my goodness I won't be getting nutrients and fueling my body! The whole idea is to fuel your body/mind/self with God and His goodness! There are many types of fasting, there's the Daniel Fast, juice fasting and fasting from sun up to sun down. I decided to do a juice fast... well actually just replace my breakfast with a green smoothie. I had thought of this before, but never could stomach the idea. I mean these things look gah-ross! Pretty much like swamp water with algae! So for 21 days I made a smoothie every morning (really I made it then night before and just gave it a quick mix on my Ninja in the morning!) and used the time I'd normally be making breakfast and eating it to pray on the way to work and to open my Bible app on my Kindle at work when I had a break.
I've since kept my smoothie routine and not only have I grown closer to God during my prayer time, but it's helped me in my quest to lose weight and get healthy!! (Win/win!)  I figured I'd share one of my recipes with y'all! I've seen a million on Pinterest and have adapted my own recipe by switching things up and trying new ideas!

This morning's smoothie was as follows:

2 BIG handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 large avocado
frozen mixed fruit (I just pour in a bout a 1/2 - 1 cup)*
1/2 cup of low fat yogurt**
1 kiwi
1 cup of water

* this is all I had, I really like frozen tropical fruit better
** I'm planning on trying greek yogurt (has more protein) but I just have been chicken to try it!



All the ingredients...minus the seltzer water, ignore that!
 

Layer the ingredients staring with the spinach, I push it down with a spoon!

 

Add the fruit and yogurt ( I just eyeball the yogurt)                 


                                             




Blend it all up!
 

Doesn't look yummy but it totally is!!

 

 

 





I've tried kale and spinach and even some romaine lettuce! I've also tried apples (which unless you enjoy chewing your smoothies, I don't suggest). Instead of water sometimes I use unsweetened almond milk...it's actually very good and I NEVER thought I'd use it! I've started using avocado instead of banana a couple days a week and the smoothness that it makes is crazy good!

 

I got a Ninja for Christmas and I am OBSESSED with it!! It's seriously awesome!!It blends everything together and makes it so smooth and delicious!!  ** I am not a spokesperson for Ninja and received nothing for telling y'all how awesome it is!**

Do y'all drink smoothies at all? If so what do you make? If not, I am telling you to try it!! It's so good and satisfying!!

ps... I have NO idea what's going on with my pictures, well actually it's probably because I'm still figuring everything out! :) So sorry, but please chalk it up to my newness! :)

xoxo,

SamanthaDiane

5 for Five!

It's that time of the week again! I'm linking up with Jenn and Jessica for this awesome linkup!

Welp! Let's see how I did last week...to start off, it wasn't my best week! But I think I did okay! Just a reminder of my goals last week:

Purple = accomplished Red = failed Blue = almost accomplished


1. Start Blogging!
2.. Eat healthy!
3. Workout 5 times this week!
4. Spend at least 5 minutes a day talking to God and/or in His word!
5. Pay bills

Think I did pretty well! Last week just wasn't my week for working out! I didn't get one workout in... YIKES! I ate pretty healthy with a few hiccups... I'm pretty happy with the rest of the goals though!

Here's this weeks:

1. Workout 5 times this week! (I have NO excuses not to this week!)
2. Plan and prepare my lunches for the week!
3. Mail off a care package to my sweet Brittany who is having ACL surgery tomorrow!
4. Make my green smoothies at night so they're ready for the morning! (I'm going to share some recipes tomorrow!)
5. Clean my room/ upstairs.

Here's to getting all purple this week!!