NATALIE

Natalie is my sister and best friend. She always has been and always will be. She is always there to listen , give support, scrapbook with me, run to the grocery store with me at midnight... anything and everything... she is always there. She truly is my best friend.
Earlier this year, she was diagnosed with having pre-cancerous cells on her cervix and uterus. We had to wait for blood tests and biopsy procedures before anything could be done. After nearly 2 months of waiting she finally had her surgery on Tuesday. The doctors went in and removed half of her cervix and scraped off all of the cancer and pre-cancerous cells on her uterus. The surgery was successful and thankfully didn't take very long. She has been home for the week recovering and should be back to normal next week.
Over the 2 next years she'll have multiple check-ups and hopefully no more surgeries. And the doctors are pretty sure she'll still be able to have children. I am just so thankful that the problem was caught in time. If she had waited even a month longer then the cells would have all been cancer and she might not have had any chance at having kids. I am so happy to have my sister around for a long time and maybe one day become an aunt. I love you Nat Nat!

Did you know every 47 minutes, another woman in the United States is diagnosed with cervical cancer? HELP PREVENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HumoHUC8yQ

GOOD THINGS HAVE FINALLY COME OUR WAY

As some of you may know, I was completely miserable at my job. I was working at a portrait studio. I loved taking pictures and working with the customers that came in. And I was so excited to be doing photography every day. Long story short... my original manager was relocated to another studio and a new lady was brought in. She was seriously awful! My job became HELL. It became all about sales and only spending TEN MINUTES in the camera room with each photo session. Are you kidding me?!? I can't do pictures in ten minutes. And the studio cut my hours from 30 a week to 5. FIVE HOURS people! I can't live off that! So for about 4 months I looked REALLY hard for a new job. Nothing promising ever came about. So I opened an Etsy store and started decorating wood crafts to pass the time.
One night when I was at The Wood Connection (the store where I buy my wood crafts) I ran into the owners wife and after a short conversation she offered me a job. I seriously couldn't believe it. It was so easy! I immediately quit the portrait studio and started at Wood Connection a couple days later. I have been there 3 weeks now and I absolutely LOVE it! It's not even like work to me. Everyone is so nice and I love going to work in the morning! Not to mention it literally takes me 90 seconds to get from my driveway to the time clock. And I've already been given a raise with another one coming in 2 weeks. And I can get as many hours a week as I want. So I've been working at least 40.
It has been such a blessing getting this job. If you only knew how awful I felt at my last job. I felt so degraded and unappreciated. And poor Codee had to put up with a couple nights of me sobing my eyes out as I left work. It is just such a relief to finally be somewhere where I'm happy and being doing something that I love. I know I won't work there forever but it'll be nice to enjoy until Codee is done with school and we can move somewhere when I can use my degree and pursue my real life dreams.