One year down!

One 'happy' year down and many more to come!

2011 was the first year of my life (honestly speaking) I have ever fully been happy. Before last year it WAS impossible to be happy. 

Every New Years Eve for the past 5 years I was either in Jail, on drugs, in rehab, or homeless. And every single year I would wake up on New Years day and regret everything I have ever done and accept the fact that I have no job, I'm an addict, I have no car, no life and at that point and time no family. (They love me, but I screwed them over. It was a trust issue.) I CANNOT believe I chose to live that way! It took me six years to pull my head out of my ass, but six years I wouldn't trade for the world.

This New years I looked back on my year and this is how it went:

I finally got out of a marriage that was toxic (Best choice ever!) I went to a lot of therapy and found a love in myself and found a meaning of life. I lived my life to master it, not survive it. I decided to choose sobriety over drugs (minus a glass of wine every once and a while!) I met the love of my life and he taught me, its okay to be myself. It's better to be extremely weird than extremely boring. Him and I bring out our goofy side (our favorite side) more and more everyday. I work full time and got promoted to a very important job when I thought I could never be that important anywhere! I now make more money than most girls my age. Before I made nothing, due to the fact I couldn't hold a job long enough. I mended relationships and had a harsh reality check when I realized how much I have missed my family (my best friends)! Instead of stealing money from my parents, I gave my parents a Christmas later finding out they had NO money. I got a car and my own place (which is beautiful, with amazing furniture I earned!). I received the dog I have been wanting since I was a child from Cody, a Rottweiler. And last but not least, I learned from my divorce and everything I went through in the past 5 years... I will never give up. Whether its my relationship with Cody, my job, my career or just an everyday life situation, I WILL NEVER GIVE UP.  I am a stronger, smarter and more intelligent person than I thought I was. Sometimes it just takes a person more challenges and time to realize it though. 

This is the first year of my entire teenage/adult life I am 100% happy. I have felt peace and not been afraid to be myself. 2011 I found myself and the things that really matter and will always remember that. But now I'm over it and CANNOT wait to see what 2012 brings me and my goals!!

 Hanna Greeting daddy at the door!

 My pretty bathroom!

 My beautiful Living room along with my two kitties! :)

 Living room/hallway/kitchen/Bar

 Cody and our Christmas morning! <3

My princess and dream dog, Hanna xoxo :)

Its a Girl!!

Coming out of the Human Society weighing 115 pounds and 7 ounces. Meet my little baby girl Hanna!

Well... We actually got her about two months ago and I kept forgetting to take pictures! She is a year and 3 months old and we love her oh so much. She truly is my little girl. Follows me everywhere, goes with me everywhere. Little did you know, this has been my dream dog since I was 7. I drew pictures of Rottweilers all growing up and my dream has finally come true! And I really could not have found a better girl, she is such a gentle giant. Best Christmas present I have ever received in my life. Thank you Cody Bear. 

Moment of Truth.

This week has been hands down the most eye opening week for me in a long time. For the past week or so I have been getting so much crap for who I am, things I do and what makes me ME. At first I got down on myself and for a split second I was trying to figure out a way to make myself be what everybody else wants to see. THAT MAKES ME SICK FOR EVEN THINKING FOR A SPLIT SECOND ABOUT CHANGING WHO I AM.

 

I am Natalie Cook, I love food and am usually 10 to 15 pounds over weight. I am loud and love to lie to strangers about who I am and what I do for a living. If I know I am never going to see them again, who cares right? Lol. (Don't even like you never have! Its so fun!). Besides that I am a pretty honest person. I can be insecure sometimes, but most the time I have high self esteem. I find myself extremely beautiful and love secretly dancing and singing in the mirror like I am in music videos. I joke like a man, play sports like a man, and sometimes I even wish I was one. Baha, BUT i love makeup, clothes and shoes WAAAAY to much. I stand up for myself at all costs and others I love. I am very opinionated and headstrong. I am obsessed with guns and collect knives. I have Bipolar, alchohol induced psychosis, and manic depression. I am not ashamed of anything that I have cause it makes me who I am. 

With all this being said, I hope some people realize next time they want to try and tear me down remember,

I know I'm overweight- And I don't care, I love food, and when I look in the mirror I think 

I'm drop dead sexy!

And I know I'm crazy- But that's what makes me different from other people. I am an extraordinary person. It's better to be extremely weird than extremely boring. And I am living life as happily as I can! And I refuse to live it how other people think I should.

Christmas Party Poisening.

Haha, I just had to start this post out with a 'laugh'. So this last Sunday Cody and I attended our Reiser/Shurtliff/Beckman family Christmas party along with our Cook family party back to back. Food was wonderful at both parties!! Sweets, Ham, funeral potatoes at both (my personal fav). Great night right?! Got home, cuddled up to my Hanna and let all that food digest and settle in my stomach. Less than 10 minutes later I was locked away in the bathroom hating life, meanwhile Cody is screaming for me every five minutes to come out in the living room and watch TV with him. HELLO FOOD POISONING! Have NO IDEA what I ate or what house it was at, but to say the least I have been deathly ill these past 3, going on 4 days. FML. I better never get food poisoning again, but its a chance I am willing to take. I cant just pass up all the good food. 

So other than puking my brains out, I AM HAVING SUCH AN AMAZING WEEK! AND Christmas is in T-minus 5 days! :D 

Growing up. UGH!

This week has been so freaking stressful. Sometimes I don't quite know how to handle it....

Bills, rent, dog food, cat food, other bills, more bills, and more bills. This all comes to the point that I miss working full time and going home and not having to pay 1 bill (when I say home, clearly I mean the parental units home). THEN and only then I got to spend my 700 dollar paychecks all on clothes, shoes and fun activities. Now I got bills. Both Cody and my car decided to not want to start right before Christmas -$400. Now I am spending about six hundred on Christmas for everything and everyone.

 Don't get me wrong, I love being on my own and having responsibility and being stressed out 90% of my week but HEY, its all for a good purpose right? Being responsible definitely has its ups and downs. And right now I am just trying to figure out which one is weighing me down the most.

GOOD OLE' PROS AND CONS

Pros-

I get to do whatever I want

I can get home whenever I want(not like that mattered at home)

I get to live with my best friend and furry babies :)

I work harder than ever and have determination

I can walk around naked in my own house lol.

I accomplish a lot more when I am on my own.

Cons-

-I have turned completely socially retarded (unless I warm up to you) due to the fact that all I do is work and have only a few friends.

-I am awkward around people now (weird I know, never saw it coming!)

 -I cant go shopping and blow 400$ a paycheck in clothes.

-I can only afford to buy a new pair of boots everyone in a while

-I can't go out anymore every weekend and attend fun activities because I don't have the sufficient funds. 

Welp, looks like the pro's won by 2. 

Dear Santa, if you could PLEASE, please, please, pretty please give my boss Dan the sudden urge to give me raise.... I will leave you extra cookies and booze out on Christmas eve.

I take back the booze part, drunk driving Santa= Dead Santa. Every child's nightmare. So Scratch that.

However, if you do not fulfill my request? Expect to have your sleigh shot down out of the sky next year. Not a threat, just a friendly reminder! Thanks Santa.  :)

Wednesday confession.

Confession- I haven't blogged in quite a while I realize.

Confession- but I also came to realization that I had nothing to blog because everything I had to say was negative.

Just today as I was following a few blogs I usually do, I came across a blog of a girl that I went to high school with. As I read her blogs I realized how uplifting, fun and interesting they all were! Every blog pin pointed such a good day she will always remember, and thoughts she never wants to forget, which then made me realize.... "Why am I writing about stuff I regret and stuff that brought me down? I could be pin pointing the things I love, and the things that uplift me."! I want my children to look back and take a look at my AMAZING journey through life, not my hardships.

So from now on I promise to myself I will only blog positive pin points in my life. It takes so much time and energy to focus on the bad, when I could be blogging 10x a day about the good! 

Well here is just a sneak peak of whats good in my life:

I am in love with a perfect strapping young lad name Cody Haight. We like to watch Disney movies with each other, Act immature, and plan on door bell ditching our neighbors some time in the near future. (<--Cody doesn't  know about that one yet though.).... I like to find every opportunity to scare him, so I lurk around every corner. Surprisingly enough I have only scared him once(more to come, I need more practice.).... He on the other hand is really good at scaring me. Have you ever been scared so badly your heart jumps a beat, you fall to the ground and let out a really ugly shriek? We will end there. Basically to wrap this all up, I have such an amazing life. I have such a wonderful Codybear.  That boy has seen me eat crap, trip, slip on ice , slip horribly into a flour bed of mud unable to get up out (it was our third day dating), stumble my words, get eatin' and beat up by 13 foot waves, trip up the stairs multiple times and still for some reason is not turned off by the fact I am clumsy and mother nature hates my stinkin guts. He loves me more and more every time I do something dumb along those lines. I'm so lucky to have such a sweet, cuddly, cute, strapping young man who loves my flaws more anything! :) I guess you can say I kinda like him. 

 

-----------------Girl nights, and slumber party's--------------------

Girls only nights with old friends are so important to me.

I am so thankful to one of my best friends Katy Stanley who has been there for me undoubtedly through thick and thin. She has seen me at my best to worst, as I have for her too. She is the best friend that every girl should have, and if not I am sorry.

10 reasons why this sweet girl

means so much to me:

1. She has a sense of humor that charms everyone.

2. She try's to stay positive about everything.

3. She NEVER talks bad about people.

4. No matter how bad of choices your making she never judges.

5. When she falls she gets back up with no help at all.

6. She knows what she believes and stands for and sticks to it.

7. I can always trust and know that when somebody is talking bad about me, she would never give in and stand up for me.

8. She worries about others, and will help out and be on her way after 1 simple phone call.

9. She absolutely 100% does NOT care what people think of her.

10. Although I know it's probably hard she makes every challenge look easy with a smile and pulls through, which reminds me when I am with her that life isn't so bad. Life is what you make of it.

Here is a few pics from out lovely girls night <3

^^^ Katie's face is thee best in this one ha ^^^

And there you have it! Ha ha