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Jamieson Diaries

Married | Mother | Millennial

All Posts, Dear Diary

January Goals Accomplished!

January 31, 2016 Leave a Comment

At the beginning of the year I shared a post outlining 12 goals I am striving to accomplish every month of 2016. Click here to read the post if you haven’t already. As of earlier today, I have accomplished all 12 of my goals for the month of January with one day to spare! Yeah, go me! I will share a picture of each goal for the month of January below.

Date Night:

While my Mother in law was in town the husband and I went on a few date nights this month so that was a lot of fun. Here is a picture of us at a stop light on our way to see the Hateful Eight for a day time date. 🙂

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New Recipe:

I follow the Tasty page on Facebook and decided to make the shepherds pie stuffed baked potatoes for my new recipe to try for dinner. It was an instant hit and I’ve made it twice this month for dinner!

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DIY Project:

I actually almost forgot to do my DIY for this month, but thankfully earlier today I was bored and decided to do one anyway. How about that timing? I re-purposed an old t-shirt I never wear into a workout shirt.

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Twitter Chat:

Thanks to a good friend who is a social media strategist I learned about the “My Creative Connection” monthly twitter chat. Not only did I love the Q&A but I learned so much from the first chat to help better my blog and brand. They do this #BlkCreatives chat on the second Monday of every month. It’s safe to say they have a loyal monthly chat customer now. 🙂

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Natural Hair Style:

This month I did a nice and easy, wash n’ go, natural hair style but it looked great! It has been my favorite wash n’ go result thus far. Talk about a selfie worthy hair style. 😉

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Periscope Cooking Broadcast:

I did my first ever Periscope broadcast (@BrienneJamieson) for cooking. The first meal I shared on Periscope was my yummy Potato Corn & Bacon Chowder. I know it’s yummy because my family loves it and I have gotten some excellent reviews from fellow followers and readers who have tried it out. Thanks again to those of you who watched and tried the recipe!

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Nail Color:

I have a drawer filled with nail polishes I haven’t worn in over a yea,r or ever, for that matter. I decided to try one of the colors I have never worn before. It’s called Russian Navy by OPI and I loooove it! I had to show it off with my lovely workout gloves while at the gym haha.

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New Book:

The book I read this month was The Pact by Jodi Picoult. I love Jodi as an author so it shouldn’t come as a surprise how much I enjoyed this book, but I was still impressed and emotionally drawn in. If you are looking for a tragic yet relatable book to read I highly recommend this one.

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Jordyn Activity:

Although Jordyn and I play and have fun all day everyday, I made it a point to do something each month that we’ve never done before. This month we built our first “fort” and we both had a great time eating snacks and watching TV/movies. It was the perfect cold and snowy day to do so too. 🙂

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Workout Reward:

I made a commitment of having to workout at least 20 days of each month in order to reach my post baby body goals AND buy myself a reward of $25 or less to keep me motivated. As of Friday night I hit my goal which gives me two off days before starting again on Monday for the month of February. I was happy to achieve this goal!

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The last two goals of the month were performing a random act of kindness and doing something nice for my husband. I didn’t take pictures of either of these “acts” because 1) I didn’t even remember to do so at the time and 2) some things don’t have to be shared through pictures. However, I will share what I did for each. While out running errands, and buying dinner for the family, I randomly decided to stop and buy some pizzas for the cops who guard the gate on base. It put smiles on their faces which made me super happy. For my husband, while out running those same errands, he had accidentally broken one of his PS4 controllers earlier that day. I bought him a card that very sweetly said “I love you” in mushy card ways and I put a Game Stop gift card in it. It made him smile and tell me how much he appreciates me so I think he loved it. Making people smile always makes me smile and that’s what it’s all about.

What goals did you set for yourself in the month of January? Did you accomplish them? If so, congratulations and I hope you have a great February as well. If not, what can you do to make sure you adjust and execute for the month of February? Feel free to share below.

Have a great Saturday evening and rest of your weekend everyone!

Brie <3

[01.30.16]

All Posts, Dear Diary

Be Patient Be Kind

November 25, 2015 Leave a Comment

We are only two days away from Thanksgiving Day which means it will be a week of craziness and last minute grocery shopping, making plans, and finalizing who is making what and traveling from where for Thanksgiving dinner. The ironic side of Thanksgiving week is because of people stressing out about different life events and/or plans, they tend to be running low on patience, especially when dealing with strangers. Due to the way I have seen people treat each other, and unfortunately how I have reacted on some days as well, I decided to write a post giving a perspective on being nicer to those around us. With all of the sadness going on the world, we always talk about wanting “peace on Earth” without realizing it’s the little things we do every day that is the stepping stone of peace.

Be patient, be kind means exactly what it says. While you’re out and about this week preparing for your grand Thanksgiving meal, I want you to think of others before yourself. Many of you may be thinking along the lines of giving back through volunteer work of some sort, but as nice as that is I’m talking about your everyday interactions with others. For example: while you’re out driving and you get stuck behind the one car going 10 miles under the speed limit, try and consider the person who is driving the car. Maybe the person is elderly and doesn’t have anyone who is able to run errands for them, or drive them around to get their errands done. Maybe the person driving under the speed limit is driving with tears in their eyes because of receiving some bad news about themselves or a loved one. When you go to the grocery store and there is that one person holding up the line with tons of coupons and/or multiple payments, maybe they are struggling to feed their family and this is the only way they can afford everyday necessities. Maybe they recently lost a job, or they are helping care for someone else and trying to find a way to make it work the best way they know how. On the flip side there are some people who are generally not the nicest people to others, but even for that person, consider the holiday season may make them sad and they respond with anger because they don’t have anyone to spend the day with or anywhere to go. Maybe the holidays bring them memories of pain instead of happiness due to their childhood. Not everyone grows up in a household that makes you feel happy and loved any day of the year let alone during the holidays.

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I say all of this to remind everyone to try and remember compassion when you feel yourself getting angry. Remember everyone is fighting a battle of some sort, and most battles you can’t see by their outward appearances. Remember we are only here and able to share joy with our loved ones because of the wonderful grace of God. If God can bless us with the gift of grace and mercy through all of our downfalls and sins who are we to not extend grace and mercy to those around us. We know of the atrocities happening in this world to our brothers sisters and we know the answer to all of it is love and peace. We can’t ask and/or pray for love and peace if we’re not willing to extend it to those in our own communities on a daily basis. Will we all fall short and find ourselves losing patience in some situations? Of course, we’re only human. However, it is what we do to correct ourselves and our behavior afterward that counts. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to run into that person again within your community. (Six degrees of separation is real) If so, apologize to them even if you feel awkward in the process. Your apology may make their entire day. They might have even forgotten about the interaction, but you could very well restore their faith in humanity with your apology, which may lead to them extended the same grace to someone else one day.

Although this post fit perfectly into my “thankful” Jamieson Diaries theme for the month of November, this post works for every day and every month in life. I would like to incorporate not only being thankful every day of my life, but to always extend love, and be an example of the peace I pray for in this world.

Be the change

 

Brie <3

[11.24.15]

All Posts, Dear Diary

Operation Home(less)ness

December 7, 2014 Comments : 4

Homeless (adjective): (of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets.

Homeness (noun): The condition of being a home; homeliness, domesticity.

 

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (NLT)” -Matthew 20:28

 

I have always wanted to help people. It’s something I’ve known I have been called to do for many years, now. For a long time I fought a losing battle of trying to find my passion vs. my purpose. There are many things we can feel passionately about, but feeling something due to passion doesn’t always mean it is the best option for us. Passion has gotten a lot of folks in unwanted trouble. However, when we find and serve our purpose, there is no greater way to honor The Lord. By fulfilling our purpose, we are doing exactly what God has individually created us to do. I know my purpose, in this lifetime, is to serve as many less fortunate people as possible.

For about five years I have had major aspirations and plans of creating a homelessness non-profit organization that eventually goes well beyond just clothing and feeding the homeless. The way I feel knowing so many people go without basic necessities hurts my heart. I don’t understand how we can live in a world where there are more than enough resources to go around, and take care of everyone, especially the children…but we don’t. I really don’t understand how we can live in the United States of America, and so many people here go without. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe everyone should be living the high life, but I do feel everyone should have clean water to drink, food to eat, clothes on their back, shoes on their feet, and a roof over their head. I don’t think anyone is undeserving of those basic living conditions. I believe I feel even more moved about homelessness, because of the verse that opened this post. How can Jesus, the Son of God, the only perfect man to ever walk this Earth, see fit that He serve others when it was He we should be serving? It really puts into perspective how nobody is ever too high and mighty to serve others.

 

This really all started my sophomore year of college. I was walking back to my dorm when I passed a homeless man in a wheelchair, outside of the CVS on Sheridan Road. Anyone who attended Loyola University Chicago probably remembers this same man. I was doing my usual routine of walking home after class to go get ready for work when I heard a man say “It’s a beautiful day today young lady. You should always smile!” I was a little confused and asked him if he was talking to me. He confirmed he was, I smiled, and told him to enjoy the beautiful day. It wasn’t until I got home that it really sunk in of what took place in the mini exchange I had with the homeless man. Here I was- a privileged young person who had the opportunity to be in college. But even more so a privileged human being who had clean clothes to wear, food to eat, water to drink, and a roof over my head…and a homeless man had to remind me to smile. It still blows my mind to this day how ungrateful I never knew I had been. How could I not be smiling when I had everything in the world to smile about? Why did it take a man who had practically nothing, to remind me I had everything and more? It was at that moment I recognized I needed to be a better person for myself. Even when I thought I was a nice and giving person, I realized I could be even nicer and give even more. I didn’t really know how I was going to go about this “new me” but I knew I had to start somewhere. The upcoming school year I signed up for a mentoring program called “GirlPOWER” through Loyola. The group aimed at encouraging elementary school girls, in underprivileged Chicago communities, to continue on the path of the importance of education. It was almost like having a little sister you mentored once a week on everything from academics to personal life. I enjoyed the program, and I really enjoyed hanging out with my little. After doing a semester of the program, many of the girls signed up for extracurricular activities, and we had to dismantle the group. It was bittersweet, because we wouldn’t get to see the little ones anymore, but it was a proud moment of knowing we encouraged them to sign up for the activities to keep themselves out of trouble. When this program ended, I once again was looking for somewhere or someone to lend a helping hand to.

I started attending Second Baptist Church downtown Evanston, IL in the Spring of my Junior year of college. It was while attending this church I learned of their Tuesday soup kitchen in the basement of the church. I decided to volunteer on a random Tuesday afternoon, since I was done with class early on Tuesdays, and only worked on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I showed up early and I was able to help prepare the food. We made spaghetti, with dinner rolls, and salad for the meal. There was bottle water to drink, and hot chocolate as a dessert/a way to warm everyone up because it was the middle of February. When they opened the door, I was so shocked and so sad at how many people I saw enter the basement. I couldn’t believe so many homeless people lived in the area, or needed to travel to this church to have a hot meal that day. Some of the people were just parents that had fallen on hard times and needed the help to feed their children and themselves. I met so many awesome people that day. I learned how so many of us are just a paycheck away from being in the same position. I think it is a common stereotype that the homeless have made a bad decision somewhere in their lives that has landed them where they are. Thus, giving many the entitled attitudes of them deserving to be where they are. The more I made my way around the room after serving food, the more I wanted to break down and cry. The more I wanted to cry, the more I realized I had found what I wanted to change about the world. In all of the volunteer work I had done over the years, this one really hit me hard. I’m pretty sure it was at this exact moment I realized what I wanted to do with my life, but like a typical selfish young 20 something year old, I convinced myself that I didn’t have enough to give. It’s funny how we equate everything to money, not realizing that all we need to give is our time.

Fast forward a year and a half, and I was working as an IRA Administrator in Montana. I graduated with a degree in Sociology, and somehow ended up working in the financial world. I knew the job I was doing was strictly for a paycheck and not because I enjoyed it. However, I loved the company I worked for, I loved my coworkers, and the paycheck was paying the bills and student loans. I can’t express how long I had been job searching while working in this position for something that would put my degree to use.  As much as I tried to avoid it being about the money, it seemed this was the first thing I looked for while job searching. It’s funny how hindsight is 20/20, because I now get why I never found what I was looking for. Searching for empty reasons will always bring up empty results. Fast forward two and a half years, here I am, a stay at home Mom, making “nothing” (monetary wise), but finally deciding to not make any more excuses and figure out how I can help others. I have started working on my business plan for this homelessness organization, and am praying to have it up in going within the next year or less.

The name of the organization will be “Operation Home(less)ness”. If you refer to the definitions in the beginning of the post, you will see the difference between the words “homeless” and “homeness” and the goal is to rid many of the word “less” in the middle. My current, simplified plan, is to start off with finding and collecting the basic necessities. Clothes, shoes, food, water, etc. I will plan to make “care packages” of these items so that I am able to pull them out and hand them out to people as I see them on the street. The long-term goal of this organization is to help people physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially. I want to eventually have something along the lines of a shelter that will teach people how to care for themselves in all aspects of a healthy life. I want them to leave the organization with more than just new clothes and food to eat for a few days. I want them to leave with spiritual guidance, a way to make money to get back on their feet, and at peace with themselves. For now, I will work on finding family, friends, and local companies that would like to help contribute to the cause. I know many people do not trust donating money to organizations because they do not know where it goes, and I am perfectly OK with people buying specific necessities to give. I am working on the mission statement, and once I have it figured out, I will create a web page, and social network accounts specifically for, Operation Home(less)ness, to start spreading the word of what people can do to help me get this organization up and going. I know this will take a lot of time, and dedication, but the time will pass anyway, so I might as well spend it helping others.

It is even more important to me for my daughter to grow up learning how important it is to serve others. If she learns anything from me, I want her to understand the amount of money she makes, will never define her as a person, but what she does with her time does. Of course I want her to be successful, but I also want her to put her success to use by redefining what we consider to be “successful” in this world. I want her to be thankful for everything she has been blessed with before she ever opens her mouth to complain about what she doesn’t have.

Above all, I want her to learn and understand at an early age, what took her mother 26 years to figure out: if Jesus Christ can serve the needy, there isn’t anything in the world that should make her ever look down on the less fortunate, or make excuses of how she is unable to help them herself.

 

-Brie <3

[12.07.14]

 

 

About Me

ABOUT BRIE:

Hey there! My name is Brie Jamieson. I've been a lifestyle + mom blogger since 2014. I'm Kris' wife. I'm Jordyn and Riley's Mom. And I'm Apollo and Chronos' fur-mama. We're a military family currently living in the burbs of Shreveport, LA. I'm a simple lady who loves God, family, food, and travel. If you'd like to learn more about me head on over to the "my story" page. But more importantly: Welcome to Jamieson Diaries!

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