Sweet Carolina Blog

Ooooh apartment living, how very strange you are. I lived my entire life in a ranch style house (my parents house) before getting married (minus a few early years I don't remember in a trailer and duplex). I romanticized the idea of apartment-living because it meant my OWN space! Freedom! And that first year or two, it was pretty fun. We collected our own furniture, most of which was bought for us or given to us.  In the years that followed, we quickly began to outgrow our space and "upgraded" to a 2-bedroom with close to 300 extra square feet. We quickly filled that up as well, but as long as I keep a handle on our clutter and try to toss or give away what we don't use or need, the space stays manageable.  My husband LOVES apartment living. Mainly because, we have no yard work to do, since he hates to mow. Also because, anytime something breaks, it's someone else's job to fix AND pay for it ;-) But there are some other odd things that take place when yo...

On Monday, September the 16th, 2002, at about 7:45 AM, I was on my way to Dr. Dan Strait's Advanced English Composition class. Driving my cute little, baby blue, '94 toyota tercel. I had stopped to get gas that morning near the Meijer grocery store and a thick fog hung in the early morning air. My favorite music to listen to in my very first car that summer had been Superchik, Switchfoot and A Walk to Remember Soundtrack. It was one of the best summers of my life, filled with new found freedom and the new adventure of heading to college.  The road was narrow that led down that steep hill into Wilmore, KY. I reached into the passenger seat of my car, averting my eyes from the fog filled road for just a brief moment to pick up my water bottle. As I reached, my steering wheel shifted with my gaze and the unfinished shoulder of the road began to rattle my car and my bearings. I swung back onto the road and back again attempting to regain control. At this point in the road, the sp...

  Life is full of so many choices. There could be many "right" choices and even the "wrong" ones can be made "right" by the way you react and respond to them. Something I have learned about my melancholy personality (based on Personality Plus by Maria Littauer) is that the melancholy personality labors over each decision. Not because we don't know what we want, but because we are afraid of making the wrong decision. Because to the "perfect" melancholy, everything should be just that: perfect. I fully believe in living and making decisions based on faith and NOT fear. I also know that God can redeem any foolish decision we do happen to make. So that should ease my mind, right?  I face this dilemma now because I sense that I am at a crossroads in life. For the first time in over 10 years I am completely unemployed. I have applied to various jobs and received a couple of interviews. A note on something I have learned, but no one r...

Wow, our lives have changed sooo much even just since January. Let me start from a little before then. Last Christmas was probably my most difficult. Christmas has always been a magical, fun time for me. I love getting around family, giving and receiving cool presents. I love the food and the laughter and the conversations. Last year, I was the sickest I have been...maybe ever, but at least in a long time. We had been talking about the possibility of having children in the next year or two, possibly we might start "trying" in April of that next year. Well, with my laryngitis voice,  I told my husband, next year for Christmas, I wanted a baby. Lol. So, whether it seemed like the best time financially or not, I knew our family was missing a little somebody. I wasn't given all this heart and passion for children just to shower it on other people's children, although that had been working out just fine. I knew I was designed to take care of my own little kiddos. So in Mar...