Where’s my unconfident women at?! 🙋🏽♀️ It’s me, it’s me. No lie. I struggle every day with this. And it’s so easy to let people see what you want them to see on social media but trust me, 99% of it is hooey. We aren’t showing you the bad and the ugly. And most of the time you don’t REALLY know these women you follow on social media. I think about this so often. I consider my own struggles so often. I think as women we need to learn to communicate, embrace and support each other more. Be real. I wish more people were. Like I might come off as thinking I’m better than you but trust me I don’t. I am naturally inclined to think most all people DON’T like me and are judging me. My silence around you is not because I think I am better than you or because I do not like you but the exact opposite. I think you have a problem with me. Why are we like that? Like why can’t I just be more outgoing and strike up conversations with people regardless of how I think they feel about me. Why do I feel like there is all these things wrong with me to cause someone to not like me? I know it is all in my head. I know it’s completely unrealistic that this person I hardly ever see doesn’t like me for some wacky reason. Why do I have such severe social anxiety. At my age?! It is craziness. A crowd straight up gives me hives. Like legitimate hives from my neckline up my face. It doesn’t matter if it’s at church or a restaurant or the post office, I’m anxious and I’m hived out or on the verge of hiving out. I avoid crowds at all costs. I’ve cultivated a career in which the only person I usually have to see is my husband. Am I alone here? I know there’s a fraction of women who feel the same. There has to be. I also know there are those women opposite of me because they’re the ones who embrace me and make me feel comfortable and strike up conversations with me, act interested in my life and my work. I aspire to be more like these women and I’m thankful for the ones in my life. Your mind can be a toxic place. If you are like me, what are your tricks for avoiding these feelings and suffering this kind of anxiety? Let’s help each other. Women need to feel unity. I love supporting women. I really do try to be a light for people. I want everyone to be successful and feel confident with theirselves and their work. The problem is, we are all our own worst critic. We are all struggling with the untrue things we conjure up in our minds.
Are you trusting God with your entire life? You entire being? With everything? Do you believe you are exactly where you are supposed to be right now? You are. We all are. I know firsthand it’s so difficult to TRUST that whatever you’re going through, hoping for, praying for – it’s exactly as it should be. Even if at the moment it isn’t ideal -- in your opinion at least. It’s all part of a bigger plan.
I have a friend who I speak to often about our struggles and inability to become pregnant. We always vent to one another and have an openness between us that we don’t have with others because well … we both know all the feelings. I always tell her, and I truly do believe, that despite the heartache of it, that SOMEDAY we will [both] look back and it’ll all make sense. I believe that. I really do. I get my feelings hurt sometimes and I may have an occasional meltdown but I know that if it’s in the plan for our lives, it’s going to happen. We may be 35 or we may be 40 when it happens. Or we might be adopting a Hispanic child named Maria, as that was always my plan as a teenager. Or Lance and I may live to be 100 with zero children, but I know it will make perfect sense someday.
I may be rambling, but I don’t really care what you think of this blog post – I really don’t! (LOL!) I am saying all of this because we have been going 90 to nothing these past 3 weeks. My cousin moved here to good ole’ Van Buren, MO with us three weeks ago and has began working with Lance on furniture. We have been so busy and working LONG, hard days but really cranking stuff out. I’ve been working in the garage with them before working in our storefront and then going home and working in the garage with them after I close shop. I just have to tell you though despite working harder than ever, I’ve been experiencing these feelings of … CONTENTMENT. I am purely and perfectly content – knowing that we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing right now. We have a business that sustains us, that we enjoy, and that we are able to do together. Now, is this what we will be doing until the end of our time? I have no idea. I know that right now, we are happy and we are hustling and one year keeps rolling into another. We are about to be blessed with a new workshop. YES! We are getting out of our garage and having space to walk around, space for the guys to build multiple pieces of furniture, and space for me to lay all my signs out and work on. We are so excited and we are SO busy, but it’s perfect and it’s great and I know it’s exactly what we are supposed to be doing with our lives. I had the thought though that it’s already so difficult to juggle all of the things and I DON’T have children. I can’t imagine how we would be getting all of this done along with children to tend to. Part of God’s plan? I am absolutely certain. I have another friend who sent me this quote: “God’s delay is not his denial”. I don’t know what the future holds, but right now I’m so dang content and thankful. I do not have every thing I want. The handle on my vehicle is falling off and every light is lit up on the dash. I need to get my wisdom teeth removed, better health insurance, and we’d love a vacation but I already have way more than I deserve. I am sitting here looking around our shop which is full of things that we have made that people want to put up in their homes. My shop is located right next door to my dad’s office. Never in a million years would I have told you I’d own a home décor and gift shop in my hometown and be working next door to my daddy everyday, but I do. We are so blessed and so content with exactly where we are.
This blog post may make zero sense as I sell home décor and that is probably what you expect to see a blog post about but oh well! Like I said, like it or not, this is me. Read this and maybe you’ll find a newfound contentment and thankfulness for exactly where you are at in your life.
Hi friends! We get so many inquiries about our framed TV! I have decided to tell you about that today. I begged for Lance to frame our TV for more than year and last year, just before Christmas, he finally did it! I just love it because the TV is such an eye sore, but I mean we watch TV every evening, soooo ... yeah. Now when the TV is turned off, it just looks like a giant chalkboard! We have gotten so many compliments.
So I’ll just jump in. Here goes …
What you will need:
TAPE MEASURER (duh, right?!)
LEVEL
PINE 1 x 6 (how much lumber will depend on the size of your TV)
PINE 1 x 4 (again, you'll want to measure before you visit the hardware store)
WOOD STAIN + RAG OR BRUSH
BRAD NAILER
18 GAUGE BRAD NAILS, 1 1/4"
AIR COMPRESSOR
MITER SAW
CORDLESS DRILL
1" SPADE BIT
4 L BRACKETS
WOOD GLUE
First, we held a 1 x 4 in front of our TV to ensure that the remote would still work. We have a Dish satellite and our satellite remote works just fine. Our actual TV remote, which we never use, didn’t work too well without basically putting it right up to the TV. It still worked, but inconvenient. Nevertheless, we were in business because our main remote worked.
So Lance basically built a box around the TV first using pine 1 x 6s, as you can see in this picture. This is also where you will need the L brackets to attach the box to the wall. In lieu of L brackets, you can also use a Kreg jig to make pocket holes and screw into the wall. This is what we did, but if you'd rather buy brackets, that works also. Don't attach this to the wall until you've ventilated, which you will see in the last photo.
Then he built another box around that with the frame for the TV attached to that box, which slides over perfectly, framing out the TV. You will want to get precise measurements of your wall box to ensure that your outer frame box fits flush to the wall and over the wall box. He used brad nails and wood glue to pop the frames together.
This is an important step as TV's get hot -- Lance also drilled several 1" holes in the top of both boxes for ventilation. Do not forget this step!
We used Minwax Early American wood stain. That’s just our favorite wood stain color! If you have any questions, send us an email at lance@currentlychicboutique.com.
If you do this DIY, please share a picture with us! We absolutely love seeing your photos!
I do my best thinking in the shower. Is anyone with me? I’ve been writing this blog post in my head (in the shower) for years now. I’m not a blogger. I don’t know what the blogging “rules” are. I don’t even know if I am doing this right. Truthfully, I don’t even read blogs aside from researching a DIY project, so to my blogger friends, I am sorry. I’m not a blogger – I’m not even a great writer. I’m just me. Which is 80% emotional, 15% insecure, and 5% girl boss … does that equal 100%? I’m not a mathematician either. I’m just trying to do all the things that go hand in hand with a successful online business and that allegedly includes newsletters, blogging, blowing up social media, tagging photos, playing hashtags … I can’t even tell you how tiresome it is. But I love CCB. And I believe in what Lance and I are doing. Well most days – remember that 15% insecure? Some days the devil tells me we are failing miserably. Some days I think we need to call it quits and get back to the “real world”, to actually MAKE money and be able to pay off debt. To have benefits. A retirement plan. Right now we don’t “make money”. Sure we have sales, usually not as many as I’d like, but we have sales and we are able to pay our endless stream of bills. That’s about all. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but I’m just being honest. Those are the days when the devil gets at me and tells me to stop. But I try my best to tell him to pipe down. Because I love Jesus, and I know Jesus is taking care of us. I know we will always “be alright” no matter.
I’m just me, as I said. I’m just a girl who loves Jesus, loves my family, loves my puppy dogs (that includes the cat Juan Pablo. We consider him a dog too), loves to decorate, loves to make things, loves to get to know my customers, loves to try to improve myself everyday. I don’t love when people are selfish, greedy, unkind, “braggy”, dishonest … and if I ever come across as any of these things, please just go ahead and smack me. Okay, not really – remember the 80% emotional. I’m not overexaggerating there.
I’m a girl who married a wonderful man who has loved me at my very worst. He loves me fat and he loved me skinny. He loves me with greasy hair and a cranky attitude. He told me the other day a shirt made me look fat and I love him for that. But he’s also been the man who knew when I was too tender to hear those words and instead said “no, you look great”. I married a man that moved to my hometown with me despite any hesitations he had. And now, I couldn’t pry him away from here with a crowbar. Is that a saying? I just made it one if not. He’s never made me feel bad for not being able to do the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do – give him a child. Because that’s really what this is about. I’ve been writing this blog post in my head for almost 9 years, but it’s been 9 years in the making. In 9 years, I’ve experienced every emotion possible with our inability to become pregnant. I’ve been angry and I still get angry. I get angry when I see tiny little baby women (that’s a phrase we commonly use in our house for a young, skinny girl) bragging about their sonograms or their nurseries, but they deserve to do that. I hope people would blow up my posts of sonograms or my nursery and make me feel that amount of shared happiness. So why do I get mad? I get mad when I see God has given a child to people who neglect their children. I get mad when people just pop out children like skittles. Is that a phrase? Just stick with me – I’m also super weird. We can maybe change those percentages to include some weirdness. I’ve been sad, obviously, and still am once a month when I invariably take ANOTHER pregnancy test that I want to smash into the ground because it always tells me no. I’ve been hopeful. I brazen myself (did I use that word correctly? If so, I’m super proud) once a month to become hopeful again. Because I know God wants me to be hopeful. What I end up settling on is just contentment. I’m content right now, currently as I type this, with the knowledge that Lance and I may never have a child. And right now (trust me this will change), I am content knowing that. I am content because I am married to my best friend and we are happy. We have a wonderful relationship rooted in honesty and love and trust. I had a wonderful example of a happy marriage growing up. My parents loved and love each other. They taught me to get through things as a family. They taught me in having priorities and that Jesus is #1 on that list. They taught me about integrity. They taught me love. At one point in my life I would have said my mom is my best friend, and she still is one of my best friends, but something has shifted in the last few years and Lance has become my best friend. We began Currently Chic Boutique several years ago, although our storefront isn’t quite 2 yet. We began with a passion of DIY. We began with those Pinterest projects. We began painting pallet signs and refinishing furniture, but I believe God placed all of those talents and passions within us because today it’s all we are doing. We are self-sufficient. Together. Lance had a job in agriculture and made good money, was provided a work truck, benefits, etc. A wonderful job it was, but he was also gone. He left at 4:45 AM to drive 2 hours to work and did not return until 7 PM, sometimes later depending on the time of year. Just before we were opening our storefront, which was for all intents and purposes “my baby”, Lance lost his job. His small co-op was bought out by a huge corporation and they just began letting people go. Oh, that phone call he made telling me he lost his job. I’ll never forget it. I knew he had a meeting with his boss but it was completely unexpected. He said “well the worst thing you could imagine just happened”. I was, for lack of better words, a freaking mess. A hysterical mess, in fact. My parents had to come over to settle me down while Lance drove 2 hours home. What were we going to do? How were we going to start a brand new business with no steady income? Jesus. That was Jesus. All Jesus. Lance would have never quit his job no matter how unhappy he was. Jesus intervened. And although I didn’t trust Jesus and his plan (typical right?!), we have been solely doing CCB for almost 2 years now. Lance has become so invested in what we are doing. WE. We are doing this together. He has dove into learning and researching. He’s building furniture and helping me find wholesale vendors and helping me inventory and helping me stock booth spaces. We’ve been together, working at this together. And it’s brought us so much closer. We used to fight when he got home from Arkansas working his regular day job, because I needed his help in the garage. As much as I like to think I’m capable, I’m a girl and can’t do it all in the garage. I’d need his help when he got home and we would fight. Oh my gosh, we would fight. Guys, we don’t fight in the garage anymore. We actually have fun in the garage. We enjoy each other’s company so much. We love this and we love each other and we love y’all for supporting our dream. We can’ t wait to see where it takes us. I have no idea what our future holds. I have no idea if in a year we will be doing something completely different. Or maybe we will still be doing the exact same thing. Or maybe it’ll be bigger and better than. (I’m beginning sentences with “or” and “but”. I’m not following any rules. This is my blog – get over it.) But that’s the contentment I’ve settled on. I’ve settled on knowing that God’s got this. He’s got us in his hands and He’s guiding us and He’s going to take care of, no matter what we are doing. He put all of this in front of us, so we are doing it and doing it the best we can – with every ounce of our being. I’m bouncing around because I’m a mess. That’s another percentage. We need to adjust that to include my messiness.
For a long time I was quiet about our inability to become pregnant. I was silently writing this blog post (in my head, in the shower) for years. And PLEASE, please do not think that I want your sympathy. Because I do not. That takes me back to angry. I don’t want sympathy and I don’t deserve sympathy because I am fine. There are people out there deserving of your sympathy. I am just more open about it now because I hate answering the question “so when are you all going to have kids … start a family”. I don’t ever want anyone to think that we haven’t wanted that – or that we are just two selfish people that don’t want to start a family and raise up good and decent human beings. I hate when people try to solve our problem by saying “just stop trying … that’s when it’ll happen”. Yeah, alright. “What about adoption?”. Well, that’s all good and fine but doesn’t God need to place that on your heart? It hasn’t been placed on our hearts to run out and adopt a child. We did however, 8 years ago feel inclined to “adopt” Lance’s little sister Paige. The year after we were married, we took legal guardianship of Paige and she moved in with us. We were 24 and Paige was 14. Paige wasn’t in a great situation and the details of that are not necessary but we wanted Paige with us. I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm at the time and am eternally grateful for the attorney who drafted up all the legal work to make that possible. I’d like to think Lance and I raised up a wonderful human being already – through the completely un-fun teenage years. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We went through some seriously awful things but we came out together. She’s currently still with us, in college, works three jobs, loves Jesus (that should have been first), and is a kind and caring person that I am incredibly proud of. Adoption hasn’t been placed on our hearts again. I’m not saying it won’t be in the future. Lance has been tested and he’s all good. I ovulate. It’s just a really strange thing. Fertility specialists? No. I’m certainly not saying there is anything at all wrong with people who choose to go that route but it isn’t for us. Number one, we don’t have that kind of money but more so, number two, I know without a shadow of a doubt that if it is in the plan for our lives to have a child, then God will make that happen. We have began seeing a doctor that suggested we try an IUI (insemination), which we did. We did our first one on February 19 at 8 PM. I was so incredibly hopeful. Spoiler alert – it didn’t work, but we will try that again. I’m not opposed to that. I just have to regroup and get the nerve up to do it again. Outside of anything our regular OBYN can do, I’m not interested in putting myself through. We will keep trying. And hoping.
If it never happens for us, we are okay. We are okay because we love each other and are already incredible happy and blessed.
Today I want to discuss the importance of taking care of yourself. It's imperative y'all. Guys ... no, girls, we have our plates full and carry a lot around on our shoulders each week. You know it's true! As much as we pray over the stress and the anxiety that we so badly want to release -- it's inevitably there. It's there morning, noon, and night 7 days a week usually. I encourage you to take Sundays -- or rather just an hour or two on Sundays if you can spare it and TAKE. CARE. OF. YOURSELF.
If you're like me, you can't afford a bunch of professional grooming, but my Sunday ritual for a long time has been this: facial, wax my eyebrows, at home manicures and pedicures, whiten my teeth ... you know all the teenage girl slumber party activities. These things are good for you. They make you feel great, refreshed, relaxed ... pretty!
No, I don't have time to do everything I listed, but I make time for some of it. Sometimes, life gets so heavy that you deserve an entire day off. Lock yourself in a room and just focus on yourself, your health, your happiness. You deserve it.
Here are some of my favorite products:
1) Biore strips - we don't have to talk about it but we all have blackheads. End of story.
2) Handmade Peppermint Foot Soak, Scrub, and Body Butter (from my momma). She found great recipes for these on Pinterest. Lots of sources out there for those.
3) Crest Whitestrips - only don't use them too often or you will get severe tooth aches. I think I do them once every two - three weeks
4) My most favorite face masque is from Sally's Beauty. It's mint julep. It does tingle quite a bit but I always feel amazing after.
5) Jergen's Natural Glow Lotion - I'm not a fan of a tanning bed. I do occasionally spray tan but I find this lotion works amazing for a tan on a budget.
6) OPI nail polishes - I NEVER pay full price. TJ Maxx and Marshall's are my favorites sources for these.
I hope y'all take this to heart and realize you deserve time to relax and maintenance. Life is busy, but I promise there's time. I choose Sundays, because I feel like it better prepares me to begin a new week refreshed and ready!
How do you all feel about white on white? Let me just tell you, I'm a huge fan. My family makes fun of my sudden transition to entirely neutral colors. In fact, I believe I used to make fun of my mother for her neutral tendencies and yet ... here we are! I'm the exact same now.
My favorite example of white on white is our banner on our shiplap living room wall. So, while I do change this out seasonally, it's always a WHITE banner. It's an inexpensive way to add some "art" and can be a major wall filler. This one is 8 feet wide! You can grab these unfinished wooden letters from Hobby Lobby (and remember to wait until they put them on sale) for little to nothing. Lay them out on some cardboard and spray paint them. I love Rust-oleum spray paint but a cheapy can will work just fine. Then I just use a drill bit to drill two tiny holes at the top of each and weave twine throughout from beginning to end. Lastly, tack the banner up with tiny nails and voila!
If you decide to make a banner, please share with us! We are on Instagram at: www.instagram.com/currentlychic or by email at: brittany@currentlychicboutique.com.
What am I doing today? (And have I been doing for the past two weeks?) Aside from getting our new website up and running, which has been a huge undertaking, I've also been researching shipping. Guys, I HATE how much it costs to ship our signs to you, but I hope you understand we are in no way making money off of shipping costs. In fact, just the opposite is likely true. We want our signs to make it to you damage free. And knock on wood, as far as I know, we have only had one -- well maybe two signs arrive damaged. I buy bubble wrap in rolls as big as me. It's pretty comical actually. I usually have two shipped at a time and they take up the entire rear end of my vehicle. We buy various size boxes and are able to use poly bag mailers for our smaller signs. I bubble wrap the heck out of your signs though. Especially those that I send in the poly bags. I'm currently researching corrugated cardboard by the roll. That definitely wouldn't be a time saver, because I would essentially be making each box. But it may be a cost-saver because it's going to weigh less and fit the package perfectly, possibly giving you smaller dimensions -- AKA less cost. I don't know, but please rest assured that we are always trying to stay up on this topic and are open to figuring out any way to lessen these costs.
On a brighter note, I'm also about to work out a new kitchen table centerpiece. I hit the Hearth and Hand section at Target. Stay tuned!
Follow up on Instagram!
