After everything changing in the past months things are starting to settle down.

My new job at the deli is great! I love meeting new people and seeing new faces.

My photography business is picking up speed...which is a Godsend

My car is out of the shop and running like it's old self.

The adoption is almost final. Praise the Lord!

I get my ACT scores back soon. Which means that I can start applying for colleges hopefully.

I am finally just content. Perfectly content. For the most part I don't worry about anything at all. I am completely comfortable with who I am as a person and where I am in life. And that's good.

This is going to sound silly, but when I was in 8th or 9th grade I used to be really depressed that I would never get to go to prom. It sounds funny now, but when you are a homeschooled kid just entering highschool that is a big concern. I mean that's what highschool is about right? I was so worried about it that my mom and I had a big long discussion about how prom was even invented and that it really wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. By the end of 10th grade I had just learned to accept the fact that I would never get to go and being sad about it wasn't going to help...

I was journaling the other day (I need to do that more often) and I looked at the date on the last time I wrote in it. "Nov 23rd 2013" it read. I realized that it was about time to catch the future me up on what has happened over the past 2 months. I was shocked at how any things had been happening, that had been changing.

They told us it would snow, the weather people that is, and to our luck that's just what it did. Down south we get very little snow if any at all. So when it is forecasted to snow we are sure to be excited about it. Everyone was one facebook, twitter, and instagram posting their cliche posts about how excited they were that it was coming.
My mom was so excited she stayed up most of the night waiting on it to start coming down. In the morning all five of us that actually slept woke to a beautiful white blanket of white. A thin white blanket, but I blanket no less.

My parents always lay out a tarp on the ground outside when they hear that it is going to snow that way we can make a "clean" snowman.

We had a blast throwing, eating, and frolicking in it.

This year I have starting making monthly and weekly goals and writing them down and posting them in my room. This has really helped me with my time management and staying focused.

The sweet 16 is over. The big 16 that everyone makes such a big deal about, yeah it's gone. They were right though, in the fact that everything changes.

16 was good to me. It taught me how to accept change, how to let people go, and how to love more deeply than ever before. It taught me how to step out of my comfort zone, and that what others think isn't all that important. Oh, and by the way God taught me these things not my age.

I grew a LOT this past year. Most was learned from hardships, and rough patches, but in the end I can see how much those experiences taught me.

16 was fun. I made lots of new friends, and learned how to be a better friend. Started driving. Marked several things off my bucket list. Met Donna Douglas. I am forgetting something...oh well. I had some great experiences.

Today is my 17th birthday. This next year I hope to learn more than ever before. I know that there are going to be a lot of exciting and fun things that are going to come this year, but with that I know that there are going to be hardships too. I am ready for all of it! I can't wait to see what God has in store for this new chapter! I know that He has BIG plans for me and I can't wait to see them unfold!

The left is taken a week before my 16th birthday and the one on the right was taken a month or 2 ago. I look too "comfortable" today to take a picture. :)