How early is too early to talk about my birthday?

Three weeks ahead?  Too early?  Sorry - the train's already left the station...
I was on the phone with my sister earlier, and I said "Well, here we are, one day closer to my birthday!"
Can you say self-absorbed?

I don't know what it is, but I really love my birthday.  I always assumed I would eventually grow out of it, but nope.  Here we are, pretty much grown up, and I'm still going strong.  This doesn't really mean I ever throw a big shindig or do anything super memorable, but I get just as excited about it every year.  There's something special about feeling like there's a day that's actually about you...
One year in college, I discovered two birthday twins - same year even! - and I was kinda weirdly sad about it?  I don't know what to say. Im ashamed of myself, but it doesn't mean I'm about to pretend like I don't care that MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING SOON!

I guess it's kinda like Buddy the Elf and his affinity for Christmas.
Except, actually, I get just as excited about Christmas.

December, in general, is just one of the best holidays months.
Yep, I just accidentally typed holidays there instead of months, because, really, December does sort of feel like one big holiday to me.

And?  I get to go to Lights of Tejas twice this year.  I can't wait.
The things to be excited about just keep multiplying.

Let's Get Personal

You know what's really hard?  Facing yourself head-on, and saying "Self, you're afraid of these five things," then proceeding to talk about them.

Just as a note - I don't have a ton of "physical" fears.  I tend to lean very much on the idea that I am the Lord's daughter, and I'm immortal until my work here is done.  That doesn't mean that I'll jump off a cliff or drive my car down the highway at 120 mph, but it does mean that I'm not incredibly afraid of what people can do to me.
The fears I do have are ones I have to face pretty frequently, though:

1)Snakes.  I seriously have so much terror in my heart when it comes to these things - maybe it's because they are so incredibly unpredictable?  They slither, and their entire body is basically made of joints, so they can turn in any direction at any given time!

2)Guns.  They make me incredibly uncomfortable.  Like if I see one, even if it's in a cabinet or something, with no other humans nearby, I just want to quietly walk backwards out the door.  I live in Texas, where people carry guns around with them and in their cars, and I've had to face this fear frequently.  Thankfully I've never had to face a person with a gun in their hand, and I pray I will never have to.  I honestly have no idea what I would do.

3)Failure - and here we're talking specifically about failure in my own eyes.  It doesn't really matter if someone else would look at my life and say I failed in certain areas.  That already would have happened multiple times, honestly.  I'm talking about looking back and saying to myself that I failed at something and never redeemed it.  That would be a horrible day.

4)Not being liked - okay, so this one does have a lot to do with other people.  I realize that I have been incredibly fortunate to have a life where I've almost always been well-liked in the circles I've chosen to run in.  The more I've gotten older, though, the more I've realized I really don't like not being considered like-able.  Yeah, it's happened, and I've dealt with it, but, if possible, I'd rather never have it happen.

5)Not being a mother - probably the biggest on this list. I've heard people say they want to get married because they're "afraid of dying alone" or something along those lines.
I don't know - that's not really my reasoning for wanting to get married.  I have friends and family that love me and will be there for me, and that's not a big fear of mine.  I do want to be married, and I do want to have kids.  I want both of those things equally, and in very different ways.
Out of the two desires, though, the greater fear lies in not ever having kids.
And just for clarity's sake, when I say "having kids" I'm not really referring to the biological process of pregnancy and child-birth (though I think that would be a pretty awesome thing to experience, leading up to raising a child).  More than anything, I want tiny people in my life who call me mommy, and ask me crazy questions, who will grow up to be adult people in my life who still ask me crazy questions, because they know they can bring me their crazy, and still be loved.
In a nutshell, if I don't ever have kids, I will always feel like there was some part of me that was denied life.

Told you this posting-every-day thing wouldn't last.

I am pretty proud of the fact that I was able to do it as long as I did!
And don't you worry - I'm not leaving you for good.  But, really, the past couple of days' prompts for writing were just a little...immature(?)...for my taste (first love and first kiss/night of your 21st birthday/tattoos you have and their meanings [okay, so maybe that one wasn't immature - just not applicable here]).  I mean, I could tell you about my incredibly awkward first kiss, or about the recent realization I've come to that I've probably never been in love.  I could also tell you that I don't remember my 21st birthday - and not because I got drunk, just because I had no interest in celebrating it in a typical American-College-Student way, and probably went out for dinner with friends or something - but those just didn't feel like blog posts that anyone would get any enjoyment out of. Neither I from writing them, nor you from reading them.

So, we come to today's topic, which was definitely worthy:



I always hated the "Where do you see yourself in five years?" interview question, because my heart answer was always "In a happy little home with 2 or 3 kids," while my mouth answer had to be something more like "In [insert name of leadership position] with [insert name of company], hopefully having used my creative abilities to add [insert name of program that would advance company goals]."

Oh yeah, I knew how to do it the right way.  After all, I worked in career services, and coached everybody else on how to be successful in their job search.

But my answer to that question has changed significantly.  I'm not sure there will ever again be that significant of a difference in my heart answer and my mouth answer.  At this point in my life, I don't really have a desire to ever enter the 8-5 office job world again.  I enjoyed being in that type of environment, being able to serve and help make other people's lives a little bit easier, but the way I answer this question now has much more to do with my heart than logic.

If threre's anything the last four or so years of my life has taught me, it's that you never know how things will turn out.
No.  That's too mild a way of saying it: Things will turn out differently than you expect.

So, now, I'm learning that I lean very heavily toward creativity.  I've got enough life experience under my belt to know that I cannot possibly predict where my personal life will be in seven years - there's no way of knowing where I'll be living, and with whom, and why.

But I do know what I'm working toward in my "professional" life.  There are three specific areas I'm working towards, but they all need more work than I'm giving them right now, so maybe this is me writing it out to keep myself accountable.

1)  I've recently been given an opportunity to work with a writing curriculum as a training consultant, which basically means I'll go to schools after they've adopted the curriculum, and train their teachers to implement the curriculum in their classrooms.
Writing and literacy are my passions, so to be able to do this for a company that I believe in is beyond amazing, but y'all!  It's almost like I've been afraid to make it happen.  I'm in the middle of training, and the next part is completely in my hands, and I'm just petrified to complete it...
I don't know what it is, but it's almost like I feel like this is too good to be true, so I don't want to invest in it for fear of losing something I've been happy about - like I'd rather leave it in my future, because as soon as I put it in my present, it'll be headed into my past.
But that is the WRONG way to look at this, and the job itself is one that requires a lot of effort on my part if I'm going to go anywhere with it, so I'd better start making efforts now, at the beginning.

2)  In case you weren't aware, I have an etsy shop where I sell homemade earrings (and, hopefully, sometime in the future, more than just earrings).  You can find it here.  Or just type essiejean.etsy.com in your browser.
The thing about that is, just like so many other things I do, I started it, and it didn't magically bloom into a thriving business, so I just set it aside and didn't do anything actively to make it grow.  I've recently begun studying up on how I can be more intentional and strategic in building it up over the next year - learning from other creatives and using marketing strategies that work for me, so hopefully you will hear more about that in the coming months.  I had big dreams of doing a Holiday marketing blitz, but I feel like I need to focus on other things this holiday season, and just steadily build up my little etsy platform with the goal of maybe doing something huge next holiday season after I've learned more about what actually works for me and my little shop.

3)  Grad School is still on my horizon as far as I'm concerned, but it's probably going to have to wait at least another five years, if not seven, for too many reasons to list here.  But here I am, putting it on this list, because I really do want to make it happen one of these days.  The nice thing is that my goal isn't grad school for grad school's sake.  I want a Master's Degree because I would love to one day teach college writing.  I don't know what I mean by "one day" - Lord willing, maybe it won't be until after I've raised a passel of kids, and taught them how to write.

Nonetheless, someday I'm going to wake up and realize that one day is here, and when that happens, I want to have the skills to meet the day confidently.

When your blog prompt is completely lame, it's okay to desert the expected for something way better.

I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life this weekend.  My friend Christa (one of the six best friends, and one who might as well be a sister - I can honestly say she and I have been friends longer than I've been friends with my actual sisters...) had a baby, and invited me to be her official photographer at the hospital.  She ended up having a C-section, and I didn't document that part, but I got to be at the hosoital with her family the entire time, and capture so many sweet moments that I will never forget.

She's given me permission to post a few photos here, so I'm actually delivering on the promise I made y'all the other day!

Join me and Madeline's family in welcoming her to this wide world:


Little cousins meeting for the first time is the cutest thing!


I promise everybody also loved on her, but this moment, with everybody pulling out their phones hit my funny bone, and I just had to capture it.

Oh my word, watching my friends become parents has been so incredible.  The way they looked at her is something just as new as she is - it's a fierce, deep, protective love I can only assume you never feel until a tiny human suddenly belongs to you, and depends on you for their every need.



I really didn't want to leave at the end of the day when the nurse finally told us we couldn't come back into the room.  Something about being in the presence of such a new person just slows down time and makes life seem utterly peaceful.





I went to a friend's house afterward, and just sat there in a chair, processing and soaking up all the little left-over bits of the day.

I went back to the hospital to document the morning they were released, and when I walked in, it was the same calm - just Mom, Dad, and Baby, together in a quiet, dim room - and I almost hated to disturb them, but they told me to hold her (didn't have to twist my arm for that) and before I knew it, an hour had passed of us just sitting there, soaking up her delicious new-born-ness.



When Christa's mom walked in, I had to hand her over, but I didn't do it til then...
Seriously, would you just look at these happy people!







Okay, okay.  In case you're dying of curiosity, my prompt was "a fruit you don't like."
Y'all, I cannot come up with a fruit I don't like.

I'm at a loss, because I just really love fruit.
Maybe more often than not with a little sugar alongside it...
That's all I have to say about that.

But I really am kind of wondering if there is a fruit I don't like?  Anyone who actually knows me want to weigh in and remind me if there is one?

Do I really have to choose just one?

Today's prompt is "A book you love and one you didn't" - seriously?  "A book?"  Only one?

This bookshelf sits in my home patiently holding books that are high on my to-read list, books I'm in the middle of, and books I read/refer to often enough that they need to be handy:



One thing that isn't on this shelf is my Anne of Green Gables series - I finally had to put them away because I would have just re-read them over and over, without ever reading anything else.  Rilla of Ingleside, the last in the series is probably one of my all-time favorite books.  I've read it at least twice as many times as the rest of the series.  It's just so wonderful, and though the story itself is a little too full of coincidences, it appeals to the entire range of human emotions.
Really, though?  I'm just a sucker for a good coming-of-age story.
I think I read it at just exactly the right time - I was the same age as Rilla when I first read it, and I understood literally everything she felt.  As much as it is a little bit less than believable as far as story-line goes (thanks, writing classes for knocking a tiny bit of magic out of my ability to read light fiction), everything about the teenage main character is S-P-O-T O-N, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a sweet, comfortable, feel-good story.

One Thousand Gifts is one of the few books I've ever read that I just really didn't like.  I've read blog posts by Ann Voskamp that I really enjoyed, but I just couldn't enjoy her writing style translated into book form.
I also may have read this one at the wrong time - I had just been through my own journey of learning to be grateful for the little things in life, so I really felt like the book wasn't showing me anything I didn't know.  Also, I didn't sense any real story arc going on, and I just felt very stuck in the middle while reading it.  I eventually came to a part where she spent way too much time describing rainbowy soap bubbles, and I just put the book down, feeling like there were better ways to spend my time than reading the same thoughts over and over.

It's still sitting on my shelf, though, in hopes that maybe there will come a time when I'm in the right frame of mind to pick it up again.

The Interloper

Today my subject is "a family member you dislike" - not exactly the best choice for a somewhat public platform.
*waves*
Hi, family reading this blog!

Really, though, there isn't a single member of my family, immediate or extended, that I don't like.  I sat for a little while, trying to come up with one, but I just couldn't do it.  And I'm not saying that because they may or may not be lurking around reading.  Even if I was doing this challenge in a journal, with the guarantee that no one would see it, I wouldn't be able to come up with a single family member I dislike.

When it comes to pets, though, there is one who is less than my favorite. dun dun dun.

A certain cat joined the family after I moved away.
I don't know that I really dislike her.  I just don't like her.

Actually, rewind: let's just establish that I do have a mild cat allergy, so liking a cat in the first place is rather an up-hill battle for me.  Despite that fact, though, I really have loved two of the several cats who have belonged to my family over the years.

The First One came into our family shortly before I moved to college, and he very quickly wriggled his way into my heart.  I can't spend much time with him because of being allergic, but he is so very wonderful.  He just wants to love and be loved.  He has never shown the tiniest bit of feistiness toward anyone that I've ever seen.
Ironically, the other cat whom I have loved couldn't have cared less whether or not I loved her, and would frequently box and bite my ankles just because I walked past her...

A few years ago, the Interloper joined my family, immediately adopting our home as her realm, and never minding how we felt about it.  She reigns supreme, and if her servants do not feed or pet her as required, they will know her disapproval by unidentifiable sounds and unnervingly steady eye-contact from the largest green eyes you have ever seen in the face of a petite cat.

All this, really, I could be fine with, and still like her fairly well, though probably not as much as the precious First One, but there is a portion of her behavior that is just inexcusable.

She is constantly mean to the First One, and he is too sweet and yielding to stand up for himself.

It's really the saddest thing in the world to me.  She doesn't even need provocation - he can be innocently minding his own business, and she just ambushes him to make sure he still knows she's in charge around here.  She torments his poor little heart out - as soon as he's settled comfortably in a sunny spot for a little nap, she pushes him out of it, sits in it for two minutes, then moves elsewhere, because she didn't really care about that spot in the first place.  She just wants to constantly aggravate him.

Honestly, I live in constant fear he'll decide one day that it's too much to deal with and he's just going to move in with the neighbors...

My First Attempt at Being a Fashion Blogger

Well, I knew it would happen eventually, and tonight's the night.  I drew the slip that says "What You Wore Today."
*Insert monkey-covering-eyes emoji here*
Despite my feelings regarding selfies, I do follow a number of fashion bloggers, so I figured I might as well do this thing right, hence, my first attempt at fashion blogging:
and a few things I learned while I was at it


Y'all.  It is NOT easy to take self-portraits.  As natural as I hope this looks (who am I kidding...) it does not feel natural at all.
Also, you'll have to try multiple different camera angles, and move every lamp in your house to different locations.

This morning, I went up to the hospital to take some more pictures of my dear friend Christa and her brand new little family of three.
A sampling of those pictures may be forthcoming! But no guarantees around here...
I don't know about y'all, but I always freeze in Hospitals, so I opted for long sleeves and boots.  Good choice, considering that it turned out cold and rainy all day.


After about 20,385,830,257,943,750 pictures, you might begin to feel a little more comfortable.

Shirt//Belk   Jeggings//J.C. Penney   Boots//Sold Out Similar Here


If you do this long enough, you'll end up just laughing at yourself, and that, my friends, is the sweet spot.
And you might even finally understand why your dance teacher always said you had chicken arms...

I was so excited to finally have the chance to wear this shirt, because the sleeves actually fit my crazy-long arms.  I always end up cuffing the sleeves on button-downs because they end just above my wrists in a super awkward spot, but these - no such thing.  They end exactly where they should!

On an entirely different subject, please excuse the less than stellar carpet and wall color in my dwelling... I only rent, so tearing up and replacing permanent fixtures is frowned upon.
Someday, I will fulfill my dream of flipping a house or two, but, sadly, this is not the time or place.