So here it is. My first blog post ever. I was contemplating what I should make my first post about and came to the conclusion that I might as well introduce myself. Instead of doing just the typical introduce me stuff [name, age, likes, and dislikes] I thought I would go down more of a different route. Here goes nothing..
I identify myself as Claire Nicole Fogleman. I've been on earth for 19 years, 4 months, and 15 days. I am the oldest of four children and I absolutely love it. I adore my siblings and they are honestly my best friends. Life would be incomplete with all three of them. I have two soft coated wheaten terriers whom I love dearly. Rosie's a baby and Kipper is an old man. Chinese food/sushi are my absolute favorites, along with an 8 piece chicken nugget meal with well done fries from chickfila (with chickfila sauce of course) and a sweet tea. I love love love candy. Almost all of it. Reeses are my number 1, with twix close behind. I love brownies, cookies, and ice cream (cotton candy preferably) and hate cupcakes, cake, and pie. Sweet tea and dr. pepper with vanilla are my go to drinks. A peppermint mocha frappacino with chocolate chips is my favorite drink from Starbucks and the key to my heart. ;)
I'm not a huge sports fan, but I can handle playing volleyball every once in a while. I don't follow football but I'm willing to try to learn if someone would ever wanna teach me. I love alone time. Being introverted, I gain energy from being alone. I love just laying on my bed and listening to John Mayer; thats my ideal afternoon. Cuddling is my main weakness. Hold my hand, put your arm around me casually, rub my back, and I'm yours. Not really, but really. Thats how I feel most loved and that's how I know someone cares about me. A simple form of physical touch can change my mood pretty much instantly. I love receiving physical touch but also show others that I care about them through physical touch.
Honestly..I'm a complicated girl. I'm full of emotion (surprise) and a lot of the time have no clue why I'm feeling the way I feel. That can be a pain, however being an emotional person can be extremely beneficial as well. I care for people. And I don't just care for them like a normal person would, I care for them deeply. Once someone is in my life, I have some kind of attachment to them. I devote a lot of emotions into my relationships and friendships which creates some awesome connections with people; most of the time. Sometimes people get caught off guard by the way I feel about them. I can come across too strong-caring too much-and can make them feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, once someone hurts someone I love, or hurts me, it takes a lot for me to regain that trust and friendship that I once had. Because I feel things deeply, I feel hurt deeply. This can be soo extremely aggravating. But like I said, the pros of being emotional outweigh the negatives of being emotional.
I am extremely future focused. When I say future focused I don't just mean, "Oh, tomorrow I have class and Friday I don't," type of thing. I mean future future. This is another part of my personality that can catch people off guard. I think about being a wife and mom numerous times throughout each day. Some might say that I need to enjoy where I'm at in life and not worry about what's to come, but I don't see it like that. I'm looking forward to my life in the years to come-yes. However, I'm not forgetting that I'm a 19 year old single girl in college. I love my current stage in life and know that once I become a wife and mother I will remember my college years fondly and frequently. I have felt extremely blessed by the way I was raised and the situations the Lord has put in my path and many, if not all, of these have helped me mature quicker, be prepared to be a wife and mother, and to be ready to take on anything.
In my head, I have my ideal future perfectly planned out. I want to be married by 23, have my first child (preferably a girl) by 25, and then have 3 more children after that. Nora Ellen, Myla Jo, Landon James, and Luke Michael. At some point I would love a beautiful Husky with blue eyes and maybe even a Dalmatian. My dream is to live in Wilmington, North Carolina. But honestly..over all of these things, the thing I want more than anything would be to marry my best friend. I want to marry a man who first loves Jesus with his whole heart, and then loves me with his entire being. I want to find a man who knows me completely, yet loves me wholeheartedly. The way I sound in the morning, how I look with no make up, how I start crying if I'm laughing hard enough. I want to marry the man who makes me laugh more than anyone else in the entire world; a man whose sense of humor clicks with mine perfectly. I want to find a man who strives to live his life for Jesus Christ and who will lead me spiritually. Someone I can admit my failures, temptations, and shortcomings to and who can not only help me through those things, but approach the throne of Christ with me in those times. I want an honest man. Someone who won't always have to be right, who will admit he's wrong when he is, and who will always try to make me feel important. I want to find a man who will realize that I am a child of God just like him, who will respect me more than anything else, and who will do everything in his power to show me that he will take care of me no matter what. I want a man who loves kids as much as I do, someone who will devote plenty of time to raising our children to be followers of Christ with me, and a man who would do anything for our kids. On top of all these things, I want someone who will shamelessly eat an entire tub of ice cream with me, who won't mind all of the pictures I take of our life together, and who will make life an adventure; me and him against the world. I used to have specifics in my head of what I wanted my future husband to be: someone who played guitar, who had an amazing singing voice, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, etc. However, lately these "desires" I once had have completely left my mind. Now, when searching for the man to spend my life with, I first look for a man who's real with me, who is constantly striving to grow closer to the Lord, who makes me laugh effortlessly, and whose voice makes me smile no matter what he's saying. It's weird how the Lord can change your perspective on something..almost over night.
I'm the farthest thing from perfect. I would describe my younger years as "boy crazy". Through my time as a boy loving teenage girl, I became who I am today. Boys consumed my thoughts constantly, until one specific boy took over my entire mind. I officially gave my life to Jesus my sophomore year of high school. He totally rocked my world and made me reevaluate so many different aspects of my life. I've failed a lot since then, made plenty of mistakes, but I don't regret a single thing. Everyday is a battle to give Jesus all of my focus and to not worry about worldly things, but He's helping me every step of the way. I am so undeserving of His love and grace, yet He continually is pouring it out on me. The Lord has given me so many second chances, so many re-do's, and so many clean slates that I can't help but give those same things to others who have done me wrong. In the past couple months, the Lord has really been prying on my heart to treat everyone with the same forgiveness and love that He gives to me. At first, that seems easy. Of course I'll forgive and love! Then someones name pops up in my head who broke my heart, or broke my trust, or hurt me in an unforgivable way. And suddenly this whole forgiveness thing seems impossible. Then the Lord surprises me once again and reminds me what I learned through that hard situation, how I grew closer to Him, how I started to learn how to give every single aspect of my life to Him because of that trial. It's incredible how He uses those hard times and situations to ultimately bring us good, to help us become the people we were created to be.
I'm getting baptized in 17 days. I always knew it was something I needed to do after becoming a Christian, but the thought of speaking in front of thousands of people at church quickly put that thought out of my head. I've been putting this off for almost 5 years. Just a few months ago, Jesus opened my eyes to this whole baptism thing. It's not about the people in the audience listening, or what I look like on stage, or how fast I speak when reading my testimony. My baptism is about me proclaiming to the world that I am His. That everything that I do from that point forward is for His glory. That He deserves all of the worship and devotion that I could possibly give. As my baptism approaches, my excitement grows. I am absolutely ecstatic about standing in front of my church family and declaring my devotion to our loving Father. Am I scared out of my mind? Of course. But I'm not worried anymore. It's time for me to finalize my desire to follow Him through this act of commitment and I am so so so happy that He has brought me to this point in my walk with Him.
Well, I wasn't expecting to write about half of that in my first post but that's the freedom of a blog right? You just start writing and see what ends up on the page. Hopefully this wasn't boring and hopefully it made you look forward to my next post. Which will be about who knows what and will be who knows when. Anyways, thanks for reading.
p.s. hi austin [the only person who will read this]
