First, I’d love for you to sign up for “Bloggers Helping Bloggers” – which will be coming out with a new name soon!  I was never a big fan of that one, but I think I have a better one!  We had some really great response the first month or two, but it’s dramatically dwindled! I hope you’ll choose to sign up for it this month!  You’ll get paired up with a sweet blogger to get to know (or you may already know them) and you spend the month praying for each other, promoting each other, and just helping each other out!  I’ve been tremendously blessed by Sarah and Jessa.  The only requirement is that you send an encouraging card or note.  This is the perfect swap for bloggers who don’t have the extra money to send a $15-$20 box every month, but still want to receive encouragement and new friends!

Now on to regularly scheduled programming….

The picture quality is pretty horrible, but let me sum up my morning in a few glorious words… Still in bed, cup of coffee (yes, I’m ready for as wintery of days as MS can get), delicious… no, really! delicious! waffles with whipped cream + blackberries + granola, and catching up on Big Brother.

The whole job searching aspect of life has it’s pros and cons

Pros: Sit in bed more than usual, work out whenever you want, have time for catching up on your favorite tv shows, snuggle with the most adorable puppy, and never have to change out of comfy clothes.

Cons: Well.. lack of money, living with the parentals, and no job.

I’m working on that though, I’ve been applying like crazy and as stated on twitter…. I hate cover letters with every fiber of my being! No bueno!

I could get use to living like this… then again, I probably shouldn’t!  I prefer the having a job route.

I had a good weekend up in Starkville visiting Nick and friends, but it’s always nice to be home where your belongings are.  It wasn’t anything too exciting, without a football game going on, there isn’t too much to do!  We did go see the movie, 2 Guns, and it was pretty good.  I actually did quite a bit of shopping this weekend.  I was planning on purchasing some stuff that in my mind “I need really bad” so I got myself a straightener and a bike pump.

I mentioned that I got a ticket to the Blog Elevated Conference in Houston, TX!  I’m really excited about this unexpected opportunity!  I’ll be staying with my beautiful cousin and her family, which thrills me to no end!  You may remember my posts about this little munchkin

Seriously… too cute!

I’ve been doing good with my training this past week!   I fully intended on doing a w/o re-cap post, but I didn’t make it this weekend.  I’ll have one plenty prepared for y’all next weekend though!  I had to switch out 2 of my days for this week, but I think it’ll all work out just fine.

I’m going to Atlanta this weekend and I’m so excited!  We’ll be staying with my aunt and uncle who are just absolutely hilarious!! We’ll grill out and go boating and snag some IKEA goodness, it’s going to be grand, I tell you!  Hopefully I can live up to full blogger potential and actually snap some pics!

Yeah… I totally missed my mark up there!  The entire reason I told y’all about this Blog Elevated Conference is because the sweet people hosting the conference offered me a discounted ticket for a friend!!  I offered it to my sweet Mississippi and Alabama blog friends first who didn’t take the bait (boo), but it is quite a drive for us (so no hard feelings, 100% understand!), so I wanted to now offer it to anyone who wants it!  I would love to meet some of you beautiful bloggers there and if you’re free to go and want a ticket, I have a wonderful discount code that will give you full access to the conference for just $99!  That’s a $150 discount.  E-mail me at heatherblack79@gmail.com  It’ll be first come, first serve for the discount code!  If you’re in the South and want to ride with me, that’d be great!  I’ll be staying with my cousin though so I won’t be splitting a hotel with you; however, they have a fabulous FB group where you can find roommates!

Today I’ll be applying for more jobs, I need to set up a blog to-do list because I have a lot of ideas and things I want to do for the blog, plus another blog that I’m working on!  I need to clean out my car some kind of bad and prepare for my trip to Atlanta!

I’m keeping my sweet friend Meg in my prayers over the loss of a special person in her life, I ask that you do the same!

Happy Monday!

If I weren’t a blogger…

It’s hard to imagine a life where only bills, credit card offers, and wedding/baby announcements came in the mail.  If I weren’t a blogger, I’d miss out on giveaway winnings, box exchanges, friendly mail for no good reason, free products, and more!

Sure, I have friends… great friends in fact!  I have a wonderful family that loves and cares for me.  What about the times when I royally mess up though?  These IRL people… well they see it all, know it all.  They get the good, bad, and ugly.  Although I try to be as real on my blog as possible, there is a lot that I don’t share, a lot of missed opportunity for bloggers to get to know the real me, the things that make me tick, the things that hurt my feelings.  If I didn’t have this other set of blogger friends to encourage me and lift me up during my rough patches, I’d be a lot more lonely.  There is also something strange about how much easier it is to open up to someone you’ve never actually met.  If I need serious prayer about something or just want to share or vent with someone, there are times that I go to a blog friend over a best friend because it’s easier that way. Please don’t misunderstand… I share a lot with my best friends and they truly know me better than anyone and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but when I feel lost or lonely because of things I’ve done, I turn to blogging and blog friends.  It’s additional friendship insurance!

I probably wouldn’t receive free money or handouts…
I don’t know about you, but people don’t just stop me on the street and say, “Hey, thanks for following me lately… let me give you a couple hundred dollars and some gift cards just for fun!”  Yeah… didn’t think so!  But that’s completely acceptable in blog land and thanks to some fabulous giveaways and wonderful bloggers, I’ve won money and gift cards with no catch other than finding more great bloggers like myself!

I would probably work out less….

A lot of my motivation to workout and run comes from blogging!  I read about others who run (motivating), I want to write my own blog post about training (motivating), I realize that this running thing could potentially get me connected with other bloggers in person (motivating!)

Luckily I get to try new products, which gives me insight into what’s up in the world.  I feel informed, I finally am one of the first people clued in.  That use to never be the case.  I was always the last to know, last to have.

Sure, I know God would have blessed me in other ways, but he chose to bless me in this.  I have made amazing friends, I have started an exchange that you can join that I think is really encouraging and helping people (I at least haven’t had any negative feedback so far), I have been asked to pray for people during extremely trying times and have been honored to do so.  It’s been a blessing and I can’t imagine missing out on this blessing in life.

So there are work conferences (been there, done that, love them!) and your office usually pays for those.  I love conferences, I think they’re fun.  I got my first real taste of one this past year for work.  A lot of people decide to spend their money on concerts or plays (well… that’s me too! Wicked, anyone!?) or other events, but only bloggers think it’s cool to go to a blog conference… other people look at us like we’re crazy!  We look at it as swimming in a sea of new best friends that we can actually stay well connected with in the future (thanks to their blog!).

My life would be different, If it weren’t for blogging and I must say… I’m thankful that it’s not.

I definitely enjoyed some Dunkin Donuts on the long 8 hour drive to Kentucky!! It was the perfect pick me up, as always!

I started my training plan this week for the Disney race!  My sweet friend created this fun training poster for us and I’m in love with it!  At the end of every week I’ll discuss how my training went for the week, but just a heads up, I didn’t get my first 2 days in because of my trip to KY and was told that if I went on a run, I’d need to watch out for black bears, red foxes, and rattle snakes… I say, “NO THANKS!”

You all know my interest in a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and I’m almost certain I’m about 2% away from being a complete vegetarian which is the perfect step to being a vegan in the future.  For the first time in EVER… I mean literally… EVER, I did not order the Chicken Tortilla Soup from Mcalisters.  Y’all, that’s my most favorite thing from there and I finally broke down and tried something vegetarian.  I got the veggie sandwich and the spud ole with veggie chili.  It was ama
zingly delicious!  I also ate a few casserole dishes at my great grandmothers after the funeral and they all had some type of meat in it… I had the biggest guilt in the pit of my stomach and that’s when I knew I could/should officially convert to vegetarian.  I may still have a few vices to break, but I’m pretty satisfied with this!

I missed the post yesterday for Bloggers Helping Bloggers, so you can sign up below!  This month I was paired with the lovely Jessa @ The Life of a Sports Wife and although I haven’t been as diligent in our relationship due to the all the changes going on right now, I was still tremendously blessed by her and grateful for the new friendship!  Please share your experiences with me!