“It’s difficult to understand the sum of a persons life, some people would tell you it’s measured by the ones left behind, some believe it can be measured in faith, some say by love, other folks say life has no meaning at all… Me, I believe you measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”

I read this quote today on someone’s Facebook status and loved it!  It made me think though… I can count a few people that I measure myself by.  All my closest friends and of course my wonderful boyfriend but do they measure themselves by ME?  I want to be worth measuring!! 

I’ve been struggling lately with someone that I used to call a friend.  No, we don’t have really ANYTHING in common but I did consider her a friend.  A conversation we had changed everything… it wasn’t a serious conversation, just a joking around chat and everything was blown out of proportion.  Since then I’ve been nice… said hello to her when I see her, ask her how she’s doing, I’ve been trying to put it past us but she hasn’t let it go.  It’s been almost a month now since the initial conversation happened and I have apologized before.

After reading that quote I realized that I can be nice and polite like the Godly woman that I hope to be but that doesn’t mean that I have to try and be her friend.  I don’t measure myself by her.  She doesn’t measure herself by me.  Life is busy and life is short… I want to surround myself with people that I want to measure myself by, people that inspire me to be a better person and people that shine God’s light wherever they go! 

Grace

So, God is good… sooooo good!  Sometimes I forget how GOOD He can be and then I feel so foolish but I guess that’s a good thing in a way?  Life has been very busy lately and I am trying to manage my time wisely with family, Peter, friends, and mostly God.  That’s the toughest one unfortunately…

Whenever things are going great I am thankful and I do send all that thanks straight to Him but I don’t take the time to TALK to Him.  Now, when things aren’t going so great I do talk to Him and I know that’s a blessing.  A lot of people seem to turn away from God in bad times so it’s nice that I do the opposite…  BUT I can’t help but feel like I am “using”  God in some way, only talking to Him when I need Him.  That’s the biggest thing I need to work on I guess… talking to God DAILY because I do need Him every day.  I was driving in my car the other day and this song came on the radio…

Only Grace by Matthew West:

There’s only Grace.

There’s only Love.

There’s only Mercy

And believe me it’s enough. 

Your sins are gone

Without a trace,

And there’s nothing left now…

There’s only Grace.

That hit me like a ton of bricks!  Grace is sufficient!!!  At the end of my Grandfathers funeral the pastor said that and it’s been on my mind a lot lately.  Grace. Is. Sufficient.  That makes me smile. 

** Side note from my babble… My wonderful, amazing, beautiful, inspiring friend Madison Hopkins has been doing Gods work here in Greenville to “Empower women to rise above their circumstances and take hold of a new way of life” and you can read her blog here and see the amazing work she’s been doing for His Kingdom.  I am so proud of her and excited to see what’s next for the organization!  You won’t be disappointed by this post!!  I sat reading it with tears of joy in my eyes!  So, ENJOY! **

Hope you all have a great weekend!!! 

Falling for Fall...

I love long weekends!!!  Very happy I had yesterday off but that always makes Tuesdays feel like Mondays and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  It does make the week shorter… but who likes Mondays?!?  Over the weekend there was so much to do so of course it flew by!

Fall for Greenville is seriously one of my most favorite things about Greenville!!!  It was definitely packed downtown on Saturday but it was well worth it.  

Peter and I spent the day munching on some food at a few of the tents… Sassafras for my Fried Green Tomatoes (of course!!) and we stopped by Brown Street for some yummy food too!  Most of the day we watched football at Green Room (recently awarded Best New Restaurant Downtown) which is now my new favorite place!  

It’s so quaint and has great beer… everyone that works there is SOO nice and they always remember us.  We go there almost every weekend now to watch some games.  We also had some food from their tent, of course delicious! 

After a day of snacks and football we headed down to Halfway to Habana since Peter planned for all of our friends to meet up for some drinks and conversation.  

It was so great!!!  We don’t do that nearly as often as we should.  There was a good, 20 people there at one point!

The party headed to Addy’s after that and then to Blu Martini (A MUST!) where we had a blast dancing… even though the music selection was not the best.

It’s impossible not to have fun when I’m with these ladies!!

And my man too of course!!! :)  Love this picture so much!

I believe it was a very successful day and night!!

On Sunday I dragged Peter to The Biltmore Estate and I am soooo glad I did because he really liked it!!  Like I mentioned before I’ve been asking on and off for about 2 years now so I was super pumped!  It was such a perfect day to go… everything was beautiful with the leaves starting to turn.

The house of course was perfect.  I still can’t believe that people actually lived here and called it home!  Completely baffles me…

After touring the house and sitting down for an iced coffee and peanut butter cookie we headed to the Antler Hill Village which is pretty new.  Along the way we stopped to see this beautiful waterfall and bridge! 

On one side of the bridge you see this!! 

Then the other looks like this!

Then Peter had the bright idea to walk up the hill to see if we could get a glimpse of the house and I was very happy we did (even though I didn’t have on the most comfortable walking shoes) because it was so beautiful!! 

And this is what we hiked walked up… ;) we were down by the river.

After we walked back down we hopped back in the car and drove to the Antler Hill Village!  It’s such a beautiful place…

And they had PUMPKINS!!!!!!!! 

We even got to have some German food at the Oktoberfest tent! :) 

Finally we went on the Winery Tour and did some wine tasting and even bought 3 bottles!!  Perfect end to a perfect day!

Next thing to look forward to… Girls Night on Thursday!  YAY!

happenings...

I'm sitting here on the couch on this BEAUTIFUL Saturday morning drinking my coffee with the windows up and I'm thinking life is so good!!!  After everything that's happened with my Grandpa its been a little hectic... but I find peace in knowing that he is in a MUCH better place than here and better than he's ever been!  


Some of the little things that have been going on in the past month that I haven't had a chance to blog about are.... Kickball, the very successful Oktoberfest Party, some Civil Twilight fun in Charlotte, and my Mom's Birthday!!  


Mom's Birthday was a lot of fun this year... we got a group of friends and family together at On The Border for dinner!  Most importantly I got to see this adorable little girl.... Brooke Smith! LOVE HER!

and of course Peter was there... we were told to do something "different" since every picture we have looks the same....?  so this is what he thought to do.  ;) 

And of course Jocie was there to celebrate her "other mothers" birthday!!  It was a fun night! 

Civil Twilight seriously gets better every time I see them!  Great new songs (I had to buy the live album from So-ho on Itunes... go do it now!) and their stage presence is incredible!!  Of course my favorite part of the show is when Andrew brings out the bow to play on the guitar for Perfect Stranger.  So awesome, I get cold chills every time!

And Steven's voice is so dead on it's crazy!!!  When you see them it seriously sounds like you are listening to an extra awesome version of the CD in person... haha, if that makes any sense!  

We had a great group go with us, we had a lot of fun and I think we had some great Greenville Supporters!

On to Kickball.... pretty much we rock!  We are undefeated and we beat the winning time of last years playoffs.  Last year we were HORRIBLE!!!  I didn't even want to play honestly.  We only won one 1 game and it was in the playoff tournament.  This year we have played 4 games and of course we won all of them (undefeated...duh) but the team just meshes so well and we get along... have fun while we are playing... it's just awesome this year!!!  We also go to Eastside Jimmy's (used to be Brick City Grill) after every game on Friday Nights which is a lot of fun! 

 Eat some dinner with the team... 

Have some Flip Cup fun.... 

Anyone is welcome to come out and join in on the fun!!!  :) 

YAY for KICKBALL!!!!

Recently Peter was wanting to have an awesome Oktoberfest Party... mostly because he wants to be in Germany right now but I thought it was a great idea.  We were having a hard time trying to find somewhere to have the party since he wanted to do an outside thing with some Oktoberfest Beer and then he realized that the Hans & Franz Bier Garden by Pelham and 14 would be PERFECT!  If you have never been you should definitely go... Great beer (Becks Oktoberfest is so good!) and the food is great too!!  

It was fun to see everyone and catch up since we don't do that much anymore... everyone is so busy all the time or moved away... like Jordan and Jon!  Glad we all got to hang out again!

Some nice Girl Time was had... I enjoyed it very much, ladies!!!  

And of course the host of the party was having a nice time as well... :)  

Great idea to have the party!! 

So, now on to this weekend...  Going downtown today for Fall for Greenville around 3 to watch some Football with the boyfriend then going to see all of our amazing friends!!!  


ALSO... since my boyfriend is so amazing and wants a HAPPY Girlfriend he is finally taking me to the Biltmore Estate after asking for pretty much, TWO years now!!!!  We are going on Sunday and spending the whole day there!!  See the house, (he's never been!!!) go to the winery, eat some dinner!  YAY, I am very excited!!!  AND I'm off on Monday!  Thank you Columbus Day! ;) 

Can't wait... a blog with pictures to come!!!   

Happy Weekending everyone!!

Thanks.

I don’t like this whole, getting old and dying thing that seems to be happening recently. My Mom’s dad died at the end of January and now my Dad’s dad is very sick in the hospital. Until this year the only person that has passed away in my family was my uncle (Dad’s, sister’s husband) and he was dying of diabetes for a VERY long time so we were as ready for it as you could be. My Papa on my Mom’s side of the family was expected as well since he had cancer but it was still a bit of a shock that he went so quickly… we were expecting a few more weeks with him at the most, not a few days after placing him in Hospice.

My Papa on my Dad’s side has been in the hospital since September 16th when he fell in the bathroom and hit his head. After that everything went down hill, he was by no means “in good health” before he fell. He’s been suffering from small strokes and diabetes for some time now. He’s had to use dialysis for over a year now so he’s clearly not in good shape. After he was put in the hospital on the 16th he flat lined and was placed in ICU on the 19th then hooked up to a breathing machine since he couldn’t breath on his own. Since then there’s been a few ups and downs but he hasn’t really been “there”… he’s mostly out of it and even when he opens his eyes they are all grey and doesn’t seem like he can see anything. He does respond to you when you are there but just by shaking his head and trying to open his eyes. On Monday (27th) my family decided to take him off the breathing machine since you are only allowed to be on the machine for 3 days and he was clearly on the machine much longer. He’s been breathing on his own since then which is amazing but like I said before, he’s not really “there” and to be honest with you, my Papa hasn’t been himself for years now.

You may ask why I am blabbing about this on my blog but I was hoping that by everyone reading this and understanding everything that’s going on right now in my family’s life you could understand what to pray about. I know that everything is in God’s hands and so does my family but it’s still hard and frankly it still sucks. We found out today that the next decision to make is about the dialysis. We were told the only thing keeping him alive right now is the 13 hours of dialysis that he takes every night in the hospital… he can’t even except the IV of “food” anymore since his body is rejecting it. We all agreed that the best thing to do is end the dialysis and move him to the Hospice House so he can be comfortable and someone can be with him 24/7. We were also told that after he is moved there and the dialysis is ended he would live 14 days at the most. He moved their this afternoon around 5 and everything started getting much worse. (Side Note: The room my grandpa was put in is the SAME room that my other grandfather was in earlier this year... there's 31 rooms in this place and they put him in the SAME EXACT ROOM.  I'm still baffled by that!) I went to the Hospice House after dinner tonight and was told that he had a matter of hours.  He goes through periods where he stops breathing for almost a minute and then he will finally take a breath, it's incredibly sad!  I left at 10 tonight because I have to wake up early for work tomorrow morning... 

So with that… I ask for prayers for my grandpa and my family. I really appreciate it and I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life to help me through this. The messages I have been receiving on Facebook really have helped more than you know!

Thanks again, Cas