Five on Friday

I haven't done a Five on Friday in a while, so I thought I'd pop on here and join in on my favorite link up! It is a whole bunch of randomness this Friday which feels rather liberating after a week that felt so structured and scheduled. 

One // 

It's been an emotionally draining week for me. My grandmother hasn't progressed like we had hoped and it's starting to make me more and more nervous. We also received some distressing news about one of Sammy's family members this week and my cousin's baby was operated on as well. Luckily, that sweet babe came out of her surgery amazingly well and is going home today. 

It's been difficult dealing with everything on my own this week. I'm rather selective with who I go to with problems especially since I tend to get emotional easily, and with Sammy being gone during the week at the academy, I felt kind of isolated and alone. Luckily I have my family around me but we all deal with things differently, so it's been kind of a tough week dealing with this (while also keeping it together for work and school). Definitely in need of some prayers and healing vibes, that's for sure. 

Two // 

I have really been loving my journey with the OLW project. With this past week being so hard I found myself reminding myself to find the magic in every day even during the times when it seems magic would be severely missing because those have been the times when finding that magic has been most significant to me.

This practice has changed my perspective dramatically in this first week of putting it to use, so I can't wait to see what it will show me throughout this entire year. I had to include this quote because it's, A, Cinderella, B, has the word magic in it hehe, and C, because I've been repeating this quote over and over in my head the last few days which has helped my mood in general. 

Three // 

I have been obsessed with Anne of Green Gables lately. I got the entire book set for Christmas, the miniseries, and have been watching and reading, well, obsessively. 

I read that one of the writer's from Breaking Bad is going to be writing a new Anne of Green Gables series with the CBC and I'm so thrilled I can't stand it! I am a little worried though only because I love the Kevin Sullivan mini-series so much, but I'm sure this will be good as well. 

Also, more fun AOGG stuff: this buzzfeed article about Gilbert Blythe melting everyone's hearts and this Anne of Green Gables inspired wedding is just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Isn't Gilbert Blythe such a dream?

Four //

We had to read two Anne Lamott pieces for one of my workshop classes this week and I was so glad when I saw her name on the reading list because she's one of my very favorite writers. The two pieces are called "Shitty First Drafts" and "Perfectionism" and they're amazing pieces for all you writers out there to immerse yourself in. They're all about allowing your work to suck, and that it's okay and it needs to be shitty before it can be better. Also how limiting and soul crushing the need for perfection is. They're such liberating pieces from her famous Bird by Bird book about writing. She's absolutely a vision. I would recommend all creative people {which is all of us since we all have the capability of being creative} to read her. 

She also writes beautifully about God, faith, her family, and loathing Donald Trump. She is such a wonder. 

Five // 

This Sunday is the day! Disney on Ice! I hope with everything going on with both of our families we're still able to go because I could use a little bit of that incomparable Disney magic. 

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I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend ahead! I'm definitely going to be trying to stay as positive as possible and enjoy everything I can.

xo

{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. 

via

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. 

via

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