{long} weekending

Ah, that extra day this weekend was much needed, and I say that without belittling the profound human for which yesterday was named after. 

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What an incredible soul. I am forever in awe of what his strength and perseverance was able to accomplish and the lasting impression he left {and continues to leave} on the world. 

This weekend also marked the end of Sammy's first week at the academy! I'll admit I was afraid of how he was going to adapt to the high pressure, stressful environment he's in while there. I had this {somewhat} irrational fear of him going home acting like a drill sergeant, but he has really been practicing what the experts preach about "leaving work at work" in order to create that work/life balance. While he's been learning so much, and his mindset has absolutely changed, his personality around me, and his family, and friends has not. I was so relieved even though it now seems silly to think he was going to come home completely different after only five days haha.

I know he's absolutely going to change as he experiences more training, but it was comforting to know that all of what I love about him will remain the same. 

While he's at the academy he has limited access to his phone during the day, if any at all, so I'm not able to talk to him every day like I normally would, so I definitely miss our little messages to each other, but that's what makes coming home special, and I'm so happy he's able to even come home on the weekends because I know a lot of service men and women can't see their families for months at a time. 

I got my merchandise in the mail this weekend too ;)

We spent a lot of the weekend together lounging around and with family before he had to go back yesterday. We ran some errands, lounged around watching tv & movies, and had dinner on Sunday night with his parents, brother, and SIL. 

I also got to do a little work on my One Little Word Project binder! I was happy to finally get through the January prompts since we only have around ten days left before new prompts are posted! 

I bought my own little binder from Target {except I did buy the pen from Ali Edward's site and it's AMAZING which you may think is dramatic when talking about a pen, but I assure you, it isn't. It's that good} and loved getting to be a little creative with how my pages inside look. The word I chose for the project, and this year, was "magic". One of the definitions for magic in Merriam-Webster is "having the power to make impossible things happen" which I just loved as a motto for life in general. I'd love to be inspired daily to strive to make what I think is impossible possible. It makes life seem limitless and I love that. 

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Ali Edwards talks a lot about choosing your word, or letting your word choose you, and I believe magic chose me this year. All throughout December I kept randomly whispering the word magic to myself over and over again. I'm sure some of this happened because it was the Christmas season, which is oh-so magical, but still. I took it as a sign when it came time to choose a word. I think the idea of magic is what I love so much about Disney as well. It adds such a lovely nostalgic sense of possibility to everything {if that makes any sense} and that's what I think Disney does. 

While I have many smaller goals attached to this project to remember throughout the ear, my big goal is to strive to see the magic in every single day. I think it will make my gratitude grow even more and make the tougher days seem a little less hard. 

While the weekend was relaxing and mostly happy there was some unfortunate news. My grandma was admitted to the hospital early Saturday morning with some complications due to the medication she takes after having her kidney transplant. Her complications are unrelated to the kidney {thank God} but side effects from the medication are affecting her lungs. Luckily, it seems to be nothing that serious although she needs a lot of rest and watchful eyes over her. Sammy was able to visit her with me while he was home and I spent last night at the hospital with my family. We're hoping the steps doctors are taking now will get her better as quickly as possible. 

Anyone who knows me knows how special my grandmother is to me, so it's really difficult for me to see her this way. I'm definitely praying to my Papa to help her :)

This week is going to be rather packed leading up to an even more packed weekend, but it's filled with all good things! Hoping to get some more creative posts up this week, and in the next few weeks. I'm finding how much more calm I am after a creative surge of energy, so I'm trying to harness that as much as possible!

Linking up with Biana today & I can't wait to read how everyone else spent their long weekend! 

xo