A Royal Engagement

     Well they are FINALLY getting hitched!! Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their engagement today! Although I am a little sad Prince William is taken off the market (cause I was so going to get him), I am very thrilled for them! This wedding is going to be spectacular im sure.. the news said they are planning on next spring or summer.

     William (we are on a first name basis) proposed with Princess Diana's engagement ring, given to her by Prince Charles, the prince of Wales, in February 1981.The ring is a stunning 18 carat blue sapphire and diamond ring... it is absolutley shokingly beautiful!

     I would like to take this chance to recognized the emense beauty of Princess Diana and her wedding to Prince Charles. I have to admit something.. I became a smidgen obsessed with her life after her death.. I owned several hardback books and multiple magazines.

   Her glamorous life and tragic death just kind of consumed me. So while learning about her I also became smitten with the princes. Funny thing though, I couldnt have cared less about Prince Charles.

  Like I said, I cant wait to hear about their wedding plans.. I have heard it wont be as grand as Dianas, but it is sure to be beautiful! Hope you enjoyed and shared my excited about this momentous event!


I am in love with this whole process.. I will undoubtedly be watcihng every step of their wedding planning!

*please excuse me for my excessive amount of exclamation points.. I am very excited! 

       Have a blessed day!!

Updo anyone?

     I am super crazy right now... well sort of.. so I thought I would share some fancy hair I have done over the years!  I love doing formal hair. We had 4 family/friend weddings this summer that I did all the hair for.. roughly 8-11 girls a wedding.. it was nuts, but so much fun!! I have owned the salon for 2 years now and I have to say it is the best move I ever made! I love owning... I don't so much love being a boss, but we make it work pretty well and we are growing a lot everyday!

     So here you are Hair pics I love!

Crazy Model hair.. Brittany Tester

Mrs. Sarah Babb as Shirley Temple, before we put it up!

And after!

Simple, but lovely! Julia Haston

Oh I love the curls... her hair is one of my favorites to do.. Catherine Bennett!

Side Loops were really in this year..

The Bride! Elizabeth Fritz.. she was a beautiful bride...

I don't have actual hair pics from Julia's wedding, but these are the beautiful Bridesmaids.. I did the hair for some of them and one of my best friends, Lori Hughes, did the rest and makeup...

And the rest!

Beautiful Raegan Lyric Johnson... She is my Favorite little girl ever!!!

And my favorite hair of that day goes to THE BRIDE, Mrs. Julia Haston!!

These aren't great hair pics, but she was gorgeous!

Another Bride this summer.. Sarah Wilhoit... this is the preparation time!

Half back beauty!

Little Funky and twisty... Erin "Bill" Billingsby...

The only girl that day to bring me an idea of what they wanted.. thank you Laura Rowe!

Turned out very pretty!

And the Bride again, once we had put it up! (we had to touch up those bottom curls after this pic was taken)

Random updos from the salon...

Julia again..

Sarah Babbs niece, Amanda Cunningham, She looked like a little Lady that day!

And finally My Baby and I at my wedding! One of my Favorite most beautiful days ever, when I married my best friend (not Sarah, Mike! haha) and became a mom!

     There are just a few... Hope you loved them... There are some Beautiful ladies in there!! Have a beautiful Blessed day!!

Beautiful Fall

I haven't posted in a while, but we have had a beautiful fall!

A few weeks ago Mike and I ventured to Washington D.C. to spend a long, fantastic weekend with Julia and William (I am working hard on that post, but it is taking forever). We spent 5 days touring the city, seeing the beautiful sights, laughing in the car while almost getting killed, walking a lot, eating great food, and hanging out with my wonderful family. I have to say, it was a really amazing weekend! As we drove down everything was green.. the whole drive is mountains, fields, and trees. On the way back, simply over a weekend, fall was here. The leaves were changing into beautiful reds, oranges and yellows. God's work is so pretty! Now everything at our house is covered in leaves.. our roof, back porch, cars, pond and I can't see grass anymore haha!

Halloween snuck up on me this past weekend! We had Raegan all weekend and had a blast! Friday night the salon had a booth handing out candy in Jonesborough, there were around 1,200 kids down there, it was a mad house and really cold. Julia wrote a post about it on her blog, joyfullyinspired.blogspot.com, lots of pictures to see, check it out! Saturday I had to work for a few hours then we made cupcakes and headed to moms to carve pumpkins and do some more trick-or-treating. We had a great day, but we were wiped out when we finally got home. I thought we would just have a relaxing Sunday, but got a call from Julia around 11 telling me mom had sliced her finger, needed stitches, but was refusing to go. So here I go, to talk my adult mom into going to get stitches she needs! 4 hours and 6 stitches later I got home! (She is ok now) So then we did baths and supper and got to bed!! Another fantastic weekend!

So now I am preparing for November.. yes, I know we are already in November, but I didn't realize it until we were already in it! We have Mikes birthday coming up the 23rd, which should be fun, don't know what we are doing yet, but it will be great! Then Turkey Day.. also known as Thanksgiving, in which I will be thanking God for my family, friends and all the food I will be eating! I am by no means ready for winter, I hate the cold, but God is working in great ways in my life and I know winter will be as good as fall is turning out to be!

So have a wonderful fall and look forward to winter... it is bound to be BEAUTIFUL!!

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

I have watched my sister sing this thousands of times... with me "helping".. with her husband on a wedding dance floor (not even her wedding) with hundreds of people watching.. on the game sing star... or just jamming out in the car. She is the master of this song..

So when she showed me this video I had to share.. it truly made me laugh out loud! This is the original video with new words, if you know and love this song (as you should) then you will find it VERY amusing! Have fun watching!

*this video seems to have something about embeddingness (I don't know what that means) if you cant see it on here, please look it up on you tube.. it is worth it*

Roses and Bubbles

Life is too short...

Simply put... Life is too short...

Life is too short to not notice the flowers and the bubbles in the world. Everyday is hard in some way, but there is beauty surrounding it if you just look hard enough.

This particular day the beauty was easy to see. Raegan and I decided to play in the yard with bubbles. After a few tries she wanted me to blow them for her to pop...

So I blew tons of bubbles and after a bit she got bored, so at that point I was blowing them for my own enjoyment. I noticed a few land on my roses and I thought how neat that was, just sitting there. A delicate bubble, that would burst with a single touch, laying on a thorn covered rose.

God showed me some serious beauty on this day, as well as reminding me to "smell the roses".

Raegan and I continued to play. She was being a horse and I took pictures of her and 2 of our many pets rolling around in the dirt...

So please remember to stop and smell the roses.. and pop some bubbles along the way... These are times that make life oh so beautiful!



God Bless!

Curlers from Toilet Paper

    A few weekends ago, while "vacationing" at a beautiful cabin in the Smokey Mountains,  my hair was beautifully straighten on Friday, then that night we spent some time in the hot tub and I slept on it. If you know my hair, you know it can get frizzy really quick. Well Saturday morning I really wanted to keep it dry and not have to wash it, but of course it was raining and it got super frizzy. So I decided I wanted to roll it to take out the frizz, only problem I didn't have a flat iron, a curling iron, hot rollers or a hairdryer... I was very unprepared! I thought to myself  "what do you have?" and "how can I use what I have to make this work?". I didn't have socks or even enough clothes to roll it on (yes you can roll hair on socks.. we may cover that sometime) nor did I have any hair clips to hold anything in place....
    That is when I thought.. I should use toilet paper... and that is precisely what I did! I took small pieces of toilet paper and rolled my hair as if I were using hot rollers. I found a hand full of bobbie pins in my purse.. (cause who doesn't have 20+ hair pins in their purse right?) and I used those to keep the toilet paper and hair in place.... want a pic? Ok I shall provide...

Please don't judge, this is pre shower and pre makeup.. I know I look a mess without makeup, but I really needed to get this picture!!

*Funny side story to this picture.. Mike totally thought I was already in the shower, when I came down the stairs with my hair in toilet paper rollers and nothing else on you can imagine his amusement. I told him I needed him to take a pic of my hair... give a man a camera and naked woman and bad things happen, so I had to threaten him! Anyway he actually did good.. thanks Mike for not being a pervert! haha*

    So you can tell how I rolled it.. simply with pieces of toilet paper. It can be rolled in any direction, however works best for your hair.

   Next I got in the shower and cleaned.. the shower essentially steamed my hair. It added a little water to dry hair. Then I just finished getting ready.. got dressed, did my makeup, gave my hair time to dry all the way, considering I didn't have a hair dryer this was the only way.. give it time.

    Next I took the pins and toilet paper out and ran my hands through it.. If you use a brush it will pull all of the curl out. I pieced the curls apart and fluffed it a little. Then pulled the front back a little to get it out of my eyes. This is what I ended up with....

    It gave me a little more body and a little curl. My hair doesn't hold curl well anymore, so if your hair does hold curl then this would work better for curl in your hair. But as you can tell it works great for just a little body. Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial... Have fun trying new things with your hair and let me know what you have tried!! Stay Beautiful and Radiant!!

My new blog direction

   As I started this blog I had no real direction, just wanted to write and play on the computer... But I found that I was lost and confused about what to write about. You know, what is worthy of blogness! So I decided I needed a direction in my blog. I looked back at the post I have made and realized all of the things I write about make my life beautiful! Heck my profession is primarily about making others beautiful and feel good, I even named it Radiance Salon, hence the blog name "The Radiance of Life". So as I venture forward with my blog I am going to continue to write about the things that make my life beautiful! Some things may be silly, some may be striking, some may just make me smile, some may be just completely random... but I want to share the things that make me and others happy!!

   So I am going to start this new blog mind set with my family... the people that make everyday a joy and blessing from God. My family makes it all worth while and I would love to share some shots of these fantastic people!!!

Me and 2 of my favorite people.. they light up my life and make me happy to live everyday!!!

Raegan and I at the wedding... She looked so beautiful!!

Just the girls! My mom and sister are 2 fabulous people, I couldn't ask for better family. We have been thru so much together and help each other thru every step!

My sister got married this past summer, so I acquired a brother! William makes my sister happy and add so much fun to our family.

My Sarah, she is such an inspiration... always willing to bring a smile to your face if you need it.

Sarah Wilhoit didn't make it in the first picture, because, well, it was her wedding day and I think she might have been spending time with her new husband. The 4 of us were tight in high school and have stayed pretty close since. We know so much about each other, a little too much at times, but we have been thru a lot together. I know soon we most likely will all be living in different areas and I don't look forward to that day (we miss Ashley so much now) but I know we will always stay close!

I love my family so much, everyone that brings so much beauty into my life. Thank you all for the light you shine, God has blessed me with so many wonderful people!