You Are Enough

Over the past few weeks/month I have had about 10+ people tell me how lucky I am to have the life I have. They have told me that they are jealous of how perfect my life is and how easy it seems to be going.

I am here to tell you... I am NOT perfect and my life is NOT easy. I am, however, very lucky to have the life I have... but I have worked very hard to get to where I am today. Nothing in life worth having comes easy or free and I have learned this lesson the hard way.

With my weight loss... yes, I am great at setting my mind to achieving something and then achieving it. I wish I could bottle my motivation up and give it to all of you. BUT losing my weight hasn't come easy to me at all. I have had so many downs along with each of my ups. I struggle to lose the weight and I have to be 100% on top of the gym and my food to achieve the goals I have achieved. The minute I start slacking so does my weight loss. I get up at 4:30 am to bust my booty in the gym every day. I prep my menus in advance and prep my foods in advance so it makes each meal a little bit easier for me. I sometimes miss out on going out with friends and family, mostly because people wont invite me because they know I am on a strict diet. If I do get invited and go, I bring my own food. It is HARD and nothing is easy about it at all... but it has to be done!

My house... We are in the middle of remodeling a house we bought 2 months ago and it has been a BIG chore. What you see on Facebook and Instagram (#CJFlowersHouse) is all of the fun pictures of each project as we do it and complete it. What you don't see is that we were turned down to even rent a house a few years ago due to our credit. We had to work on our getting  our credit scores up by writing letters to credit bureaus and pay a lot of things off for our scores to go up. It took a few years and mine is still not where it needs to be but Casey's was there so he bought us that house. You also don't see the stress I am carrying around on my shoulders because having 2 kids and working a different shift as your husband WHILE doing a remodel is insane! We have to find sitters and arrange our schedules, miss out on events and family time so we can get the work done before we move in (next week, eek). Don't even get me started on the money aspect of it all... doing this is not cheap. And on top of it, in March we had to pay our first mortgage payment AND our last rent payment. Not fun at all, but we saved for it and cut back on things in our life so we could have a savings for a rainy day.

My family... Gosh, I love my three guys so much and I am very blessed with them. I thank God everyday for the life he has given the four of us. But trust me... we are NOT perfect! Casey and I fight, we bicker, we don't see eye to eye, we hold grudges, and everything else a normal couple does. I just don't share that stuff with the world because what happens in mine and Casey's relationship is between Casey and myself... no one else! We work different shifts and hardly get to see each other during the week. We are basically two ships passing in the night,... but we pass early afternoon. Thursday's and Friday's are his days off so those are my days to soak up as much husband and wife time with him. Every other Friday Caleb goes to his Dad's and Casey and I plan a date night (we find a sitter for Dax). We have to schedule time together or life gets in the way and we miss our opportunities which has happened more times than I would like to admit. As for the boys... trust me, I am NOT a perfect mom. I yell, I hulk out (like Caleb likes to say), I get frustrated, I cry in my closet (away from the boys), I wonder what my life would be like if I didn't have kids, I give them soda and junk food because it is easy sometimes... and the list could go on and on. One thing that I do know that I am doing right, is that there has not been a day that I don't hug, kiss and tell my boys that I love them. If I teach them anything in life, I want them to know that no matter what was going on, I love  them more than they will ever know. And don't even get me started on baby Isabelle... that was NOT perfect, was NOT easy and nothing to be jealous about at all.

My vacations... Yes, we take a lot of vacations and I hope that never ever changes. Traveling is something that Casey and I both loved to do and we are on a mission to visit every state together. How do we do this? Well I will tell you that it isn't easy and it isn't a spur of the moment thing at all. I start 6 months in advance, looking into flights, hotels, getting a budget together. We start cutting back on things in our life that we can do without. I sell stuff we don't use and save the money. I find deals and packages we can do payment plans on. A lot of time and research goes into each of our trips, nothing is ever... "hey lets go on vacation tomorrow". It does get stressful but when we start the vacation it is very worth it. Like for instance for Vegas (we leave on the 16th) we saved and bought our flights 4 months, the hotel we are staying at is on the strip but is a cheaper one and I did a LOT of research trying to find the best deal. For shows and things to do, we downloaded an app on our phones called "Vegas Slots" and have been playing to earn gold tokens which we can exchange for discounted tickets and much more. They also have discounted hotel rates BUT the time we are going didn't fall inline with the discounts for hotels... boo! None of our vacations are easy and it takes a lot of work and savings months in advance but they are fun and worth it when we are there!

I think with social media it is so easy to get caught up in seeing how "perfect" someone's life looks. No one is going to show you the ugly, it will make them look bad. I understand, I guess I do the same thing since I have been told that people are jealous of my life. Please, don't be... I have the ugly too, I just don't always post it.

I have to constantly remind myself daily that I am enough. That what I have to offer to my friends, family, co-workers, followers, etc. that it is enough. That I can only do what I am capable of doing and anything else that people expect of me, that is on them, not on me. I am perfectly perfect in God's eyes only and his forgiveness is what pulls me through each day.

Repeat after me... I AM ENOUGH!!!