My mom is my best friend

Moms are pretty cool. None of us give our moms enough credit, because moms deserve more credit than anyone could ever give. Moms are amazing. There is no better friend than your own mom. 

"Do you need me to call him and talk to him for you?" My mom would say after that darn high school boyfriend cheated on me for the second time. "Should I get ahlold of his mom and let her know what kind of parties this kid is going to?" 

My mom is my absolute best friend. I'm so glad it turned out that way too, cause there are some rough years in every woman's life where she is a preteen and hates her mother. When I was in high school, I went to my mom for everything. She knew everything about my life, where the parties happened, who was dating who, what was going on at school. I never had to sneak out of my bedroom as a kid because all I had to do was tell my mom where I was going and whether or not I was coming home that night or the next morning so she could leave the door unlocked for me. We trust each other. We've seen each other at our best and worst. When my dad had a heart attack I saw my mom crumble in front of me, and I've never seen myself more strong and focused than that week my family spent at the hospital with my Dad. I held my mom together just like she had for me so many times before that, she literally has seen me ugly cry more times than I'm proud of.

I didn't really have a best friend in school growing up. I had certain friends I would spend a lot of time with and I got along with a lot of people, but I always seemed to be the third in every set of friends. It was the two that were closest and me. I think that is one of the reasons why I grew up always kinda feeling out of place, a little uncomfortable and awkward. I got used to spending the afternoon at a friends house then coming home before dinner to hang out with my mom. 

My mom is the best at walking the fine line between being my mom and being my friend. She's my friend when I need to gossip about the latest Twitter beef and she's my mom when I need to cry on a shoulder and get a firm pep talk. At the end of the day she's the only person who knows me better than anyone else every will. We have an unbreakable bond. 

I'm so thankful for my relationship with my mom, and I hope she reads this and cries ;) and I think the key to our strong friendship is our communication. Sometimes the communication between mother and daughter can be the muddiest. When I was growing up, whenever my mother and I would go at it in some crazy screaming match, once we cooled off we would always go back and calmly try to explain why we were frustrated and what we can do next time were upset to avoid a meltdown. We tried to make it all as clear as possible, no mud.  It didn't help overnight, but after a while we both learned a lot about ourselves and how we are as emotional people. Over time we were able to civilly identify each other's flaws and correct them. 

The point of my embarrassing rambling? Love your mom. If you think she doesn't understand you, explain it to her. If you think she is disappointed in you, make it up to her. Hug your mom, cause you are her world and she should be yours too. Be friends with your mom. No one will know you better than her and please don't run away from that, embrace it! I know so much about my personality and my own soul because of the unique relationship I have with my mother. She helped me find myself. So yeah I'm an awkward little blonde girl and my best friend is my mom, so what! Love you mom :)

Nature's best kept secrets

Hello and happy holidays! Winter is coming very quickly and I wanted to share with you some of my favorite things in the whole world to help beat the cold weather blues. 

I love using all natural products in my every day life. Too many of the things we put in our bodies and on our skin has so many damaging chemicals in it that I try to solve all of my health and beauty problems with all natural products. My number one favorite things in all of God's green earth is COCONUT OIL. Pure coconut oil can replace so many products in your bathroom. I personally use it in the shower as a moisturizer. My skin is so crazy soft afterwards. It can also be used as an all natural makeup remover or hair treatment. 

Another product I absolutely love is Frank coffee scrub with coconut oil. It expholiates your skin without being harsh and leaves your skin feeling so baby soft. I have really sensitive skin so I like to expholiate it at least 3 days a week to keep it healthy and soft. 

The second thing I want to mention is wonderful, amazing peppermint oil. I suffer from chronic migraine headaches, and I haven't found a better remedy or treatment than rubbing pure peppermint oil on my temples and behind my ears and taking a long nap. I'm so thankful for peppermint oil. I also use it as a pain reliever for cramps and muscle aches. It's basically like icy-hot but even better. 

We all know the holidays mean stuffing our faces with food of all sorts. The post thanksgiving food baby is so real. Whenever I'm feeling a little bloated I always brew a cup of peppermint tea (peppermint is seriously the best). Drank hot or over ice tastes amazing and works wonders on your waistline. 

These products have saved my life and I love that I can use pure, natrual things to solve so many things in my life! I had to share them with you, because I feel like I'm always telling people about the amazing benefits of them, especially during the winter months! 

Loving our bodies-what it means in our relationships

I know I know, another post about "learning to love our bodies" blah blah....but that second part, "and what it means in our relationships." Ahh, there it is. I'm sure you've read plenty of blogs and articles on everyone's view on body positivity and how to get comfortable with how God made you. I'm not going to try and convince you that you are perfect and amazing, because you should already know that, instead I want to just give you some perspective from your boyfriend's point of view.  At the end of the day your boyfriend is the only person that sees you naked almost as much as you do yourself, so he has thoughts and opinions on how it looks too.

I want to start with some of my experiences. About a year ago I got very into working out, dieting and constantly obsessing over my before pictures and picking out what wasn't perfect about me yet. I worked so hard all summer to try and get an Instagram goals body. I drug myself to the gym every night and counted every calorie I ate. When I started getting results obviously I was always happy to tell my boyfriend that I had lost another pound or rave about what great my abs looks today. As the time went by and the winter season approached, I started to gain some fluff in a few areas of my body from all that holiday eating. I kept working out, but mostly just walked on the treadmill watching New Girl. I felt kinda crappy about losing my amazing body I had in the summer. Then out of no where, Zach can't freaking keep his hands off me! He started giving me so many compliments and commenting on how good my butt looks. I finally told him that I had been feeling really crappy about adding some holiday fluff to me and I didn't understand why he was complimenting me so much more than he was when I was so into losing weight. Turns out that version of me wasn't his favorite, he knew that when I was dieting like crazy I wasn't the happiness version of myself. I never ate onion rings. And I, freaking, LOVE, onion rings. When he wanted to have a fat burger I always got salad. When he's lovin' on me there wasn't as much to grab. At family gatherings rather than eat and be merry I sat and crunched on a carrot. I turned down a date to go to the gym. It took over my entire life. Granted, I was being healthy and active, but I was so obsessed. 

When I stopped feeling guilty for going out for a drink and appetizers with my boyfriend on a Friday night I became a lot happier. When I stopped going to the gym at 11pm to fit it in and just going to sleep instead I was sure a lot more energized at work the next day. Life is all about give and take, yin and yang, the push and the pull. When you go too extreme on one thing, other parts of your life begin to suffer. 

When I did finally start to listen to the comments Zach was saying and believing them I became happier than I think I've ever been. I'm still healthy, I'm still active, but it's a good balance. The people in your life are always going to love you, you just have to learn to love you. I learned that obsessing about what I looked like was not the right way to try to accomplish good health, and it didn't make me love myself it made me very critical of myself. We are all so hard on ourselves to the point where we stop rooting for ourselves and constantly pick apart what we want to change. 

I liked the perspective I gained from trying to understand how Zach thought of my body and mind. He loves me because I am me, and it is important to be healthy, but do it the right way. Everyone is different, and you need to make sure you are ways your happiest self. When I work out I feel good, when I diet and obsess over myself, I'm stressed out. Zach helped me learn the difference. He makes me so happy.