10 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Happy Monday, friends!  As I get in the swing of posting blog content regularly, I wanted to take a few minutes to reintroduce myself.  I love getting to know a little bit more about the person behind the blog, and I'd love to get to know y'all a little bit better, as well!

1. I am obsessed with goats.  My goat obsession is bad.  One of the happiest days of my life is when I visited a petting zoo (as a grown adult) and they let me brush the goats.  I will seriously go to the flea market just to look at the goats, and every time I'm there, I try to figure out a way to get a goat.  The best prank I've ever played was when I convinced my brother I was getting a goat off of Craigslist and needed him to help me pretend I found it somewhere.  I've discovered that there are lots of goat farms around the lake I visit in South Carolina, and I'm sooo tempted to ask if I can shoot a blog post at one of them.  Stay tuned ;)

2. I graduated high school early.  At high school orientation, the principal described high school as "the best days of your life."  My mom busted that myth really fast for me, and she was right.  I was never sentimental about high school, and I planned to graduate early the entire time I was in high school.  I graduated a semester early, took some classes at my university's satellite campus during that extra semester, and never looked back.

3. This month, I celebrated six years cancer free.  My battle with cancer is one of the top three events that shaped my life.  I was diagnosed at an age where I felt like I was invincible, and I had a future all planned out.  Cancer threw a wrench into my plans, but it also showed me how resilient I can be and what I am truly capable of.  While I'm not thankful for cancer, I'm thankful for what I learned from my battle.  (Read more about my cancer battle here.)

4.  I kind of fell into my career.  If you asked me 10 years ago what I would be doing at noon on a Monday at the age of 26, I can guarantee I wouldn't have described my current work situation.  But instead, I kind of fell into economic development, which is how most people get into this field.  I wanted a job where I would be doing something different every day and where I could genuinely help people, and I've found it.  (If you're curious about my career story or feeling a little lost in your own, check out this blog post.)

5.  I don't talk about them much on the blog, but I have the world's best friends.  Seriously, they are the best.  It's so comforting to know that no matter what I turn to them with - whether it's something hilariously absurd about my day or something that's heavy - they always have such authentic, amazing responses.  In the past, I would blog away about my friends and tag them on social media from my blog account, but people can get a little nosy, so I stopped doing that for their 

privacy.

6.  I will rescue just about any kind of animal.  Right now I have a rescue dog and rescue bird.  When I lived at home, we were always taking care of stray cats.  An injured opossum found it's way into our garage once, and I fed him for a few days until he was ready to leave.  If y'all know of any goats that need rescuing, I'm your girl ;)

7.  I'm in kind of a "woo woo" phase of my life right now.  For the past few years, I have become more and more cautious of the people I'm around and how their "energy" effects me.  People who are negative absolutely drain me, and I refuse to be around people that are perpetually negative any longer than I have to be.  I'm also learning to let go of things that don't serve me - whether that be material possessions, friendships, opportunities, etc.  Life is too short to be around people who only bring you down.

8.  Learning makes me ridiculously happy.  I am one of those people that will use Google and Youtube to teach myself how to do something.  If my schedule and budget allowed, I would go to conferences constantly.  I love reading, and I love solving problems.

9.  I love watching reality TV, but I would never want to be on a show.  I'm convinced that if I was on The Bachelor, I would be the most underwhelming contestant ever.  I also feel like I would be one of the girls that they give a made up profession to.  (PS - My current reality TV favorite is Southern Charm Savannah.  I'm fascinated by Ashley.)

10.  Mentoring is super important to me.  I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for my mentors.  I am forever grateful to the men and women who take time out of their schedules to help me with my life or even just to check in and see how I'm doing.  I also take a lot of pride in mentoring young women who are starting out in their careers.

That's probably more than you ever wanted to know about me.  I hope you'll pay a visit to the comments and tell me a little more about yourself so that we can all get to know each other here!  I have some fun stuff planned for this week, and I can't wait to share it with y'all!