Internet! At Last!

We've been without cable and internet for almost 3 weeks. It's been nice not having all the distractions around, but being without internet is pretty inconvenient. We set up internet last night, and our TV guy is currently setting that up. YAY! Pretty stoked.

Here are a few pictures! Hope everyone has a fantastic saturday. We are heading up to Raleigh here in a few hours to celebrate my friend Savanna's birthday!

Allman

Zepp!

Tess at her soccer game.

HAHA i love her. She is picking at her shorts while playing goalie

Our first home :)

Allman was trying to get the ball out of Zepps mouth. 

We are HERE!

We are officially all moved into our new home in our hometown! I'll totally post more pictures about it and what it looks like, but I also did something REALLY COOL and finally got myself a DSLR camera. After being at our home for a few days, we naturally couldn't keep it sane by staying here home this weekend, oh no! We went to the beach of course! I'm going to post a few pictures I took with my NEW camera.

I'll post about the house soon, and hopefully take some pictures once it isn't SUCH a disaster!

packing...well..sucks

This upcoming monday will be ONE WEEK until our closing day on our new home! Phil has been in major list mode. I am constantly getting text messages that read something like this, "Hey babe, don't forget to....." The "...." stands for ALL the crap we have to get done to get prepared for our move. I am so very excited to have a house of our own. We have plenty of things to get done and sometimes it can be overwhelming!

Biggest things on our list.

1 - Dog Inclosure. We have two of them now and we have no fence at the new house. Our backyard is SO pretty, and normally i'd want to dig right in and put up a privacy fence, but for some odd reason I just don't want a fence. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I guess you'd have to stand on the porch and look out onto the back yard to understand what I'm saying. So, we have to figure out how to keep the dogs IN the yard without a fence which we obviously will want to do an Invisible Fence. Now, our problem is our sweet precious 10 month old pup Allman. We have a creek in the backyard and Allman is not exactly a rule follower. So, how do we convince Allman to NOT break the invisible fence to get down to the creek??

2 - Our T.V. I know that sounds materialistic, but both Phil and I have the SAME t.vs from sophomore year in college. Now, I don't know about you guys, but my parents didn't exactly buy a big t.v. So, we've had our little 27 inch in the living room in our house now. We've been fine with it, but our living room isn't very big. Our new living room is going to be bigger, which means we're going to be further away from the t.v. This means the little 27 inch isn't going to cut it, so another important thing is a new T.V!

3 - A new couch. We have been SO lucky to have mom and dad's old furniture, but I've always hated the couch and i'm SO ready to get a new one. Phil and I thought about reupholstering the old couch, but it's going to cost not much less than a new one. Brown and leather is what i'm looking for, but we'll see what's in the budget.

Two of our biggest things are already crossed OFF the list! Washer and Dryer and Rugs! I've never in my life thought about buying a rug until we decided to buy this house. It has BEAUTIFUL hardwood floors and I'd prefer for them not to get ridiculously scratched (Ahem, two LABS!) so we had to get some rugs. We were also very lucky to be gifted a washer and dryer (which the whole story is kind of crazy, but I won't bore you with that).

Those are just the MAJOR things that need to happen immediately. Don't even get me started on the small things. Hopefully, everything will work out!

Sneak Peak!

Here is a little bit of the house! Obviously, the inside is the current owners decoration! 

Here is a tinnnyyy view of our back yard. It has a creek, YES!

We have so many things to do, and to get before we even attempt to close on this house. It's almost overwhelming. Like, who really buys a washer and dryer? I thought they just came with the house? Umm..that's a no. 

Where I come from...

I am SO excited to be able to annouce that Phil and I are finalllyyyy moving back to our hometown in North Carolina in 5 weeks!!!

We have already started the process of buying a new home and getting new jobs. It's super scary and super exciting at the same time.

We have already found a home and had our offer accepted! This past Saturday we did the home inspection and it turned out really well. If all goes well we should be moving in around the end of September!

We are SO excited to be near family, friends and of course...WOLFPACK FOOTBALL! Yayyyy!

Excitement

Nothing is more exciting when you have fun weekends planned out in a row. Two weekends ago was the lake with some of the girls, last weekend the family came to visit, and this upcoming weekend we are heading to Raleigh to see Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd with some of our favorite people!

Oh, the joys of being young with no kids!

I know it won't be like this forever, but we are taking advantage of every moment we can get before things get hectic.

So, here is to another exciting weekend!

A little update

Life has been prett-ay crazy here lately. I didn't take any pictures at the lake, guess we were having too much fun catching up to worry about taking pictures :)

This weekend has been exhausting! My parents and my nephew and niece came down to see us here in South Carolina. I absolutely adore my nephew and niece, but man they are tiring. It didn't take Phil and I long to realize that we were NOT ready for kids, at all!

Here are a few pics from my phone from this weekend. Mom got all the good pictures!

Nerds ^^

Breakfast with the girls :)

Tess took this picture of me :)

Childrens Museum

Gums

Having fun!

We also went to a place called Frankie's Fun Park, and we had a BLAST! I left my phone at home so I didn't get any pictures but it was the best part of the weekend!

Can't wait to share some exciting news with you guys here soon!! :)

What I've learned since moving away from home

Being the baby of the family, I guess you could have considered me "spoiled" or "coddled" or whatever it is you want to refer to me as. I'm not even going to try and deny that these speculations aren't true, because they are. At least they were (phil would like to argue that it still is "are" and not "were" HA!)

If you really know me, or if you've known me for any part of my life, you would know that I have been battling a pretty extreme form of anxiety disorder (it was WAY more extreme when I was younger than it is now). I had my first panic attack when I was 10 years old, and ever since then it has just been a part of my life that I've been constantly battling. My parents have been my rock and foundation since all of this started and have tried many different treatments and medicine and doctors.  Medicine worked some, but it didn't seem to be the clear answer.

I took myself off of medicine about 4 or 5 years ago and have been courageously pushing myself through anxiety attacks and have been really working hard on doing this on my own.
You can imagine what my brain was going through the last couple of days before I moved to South Carolina and the first few days I arrived there, which was about 2 years ago. Panic is kind of an understatement. I understand that everyone gets nervous before big events in their lives, and have somewhat of a freak out, but mine was pretty intense. I have been absolutely fortunate to have a husband that is so understanding of the whole situation and has NOT treated me like a broken person because of it. He never gives in to my anxiety and only helps me push through it.

Moving to South Carolina has been one of the greatest accomplishments to moving past my anxiety. Grocery stores use to be the bane of my existence, seriously I couldn't even go all the way in the back of the store without having a panic attack (talk about controlling your life!). But moving away from everything that I've ever known as a comfort helped more than I can imagine. I had to learn to become independent and stop relying on mommy and daddy for everything, because Phil sure as heck wasn't going to be my coddler. I had to learn that it was absolutely UNFAIR for me and my anxiety to control what someone else could and couldn't do with me around.
A good example of this is when Phil and I were planning our honeymoon. He kept going back to my fear of planes and flying and how maybe we should go somewhere closer. I felt so awful that this thought could even cross his mind. How could a disorder of mine control a destination that Phil could possibly want to see? I felt awful and told him that I wasn't going to let my anxiety control our honeymoon or ANY part of our lives and I would get over whatever plane ride we had to take. And I did, and I was fine, and we enjoyed every minute of our honeymoon without an attack.

Becoming independent and becoming more responsible for my actions has absolutely changed my life. I can't tell you the last time I had a full blown panic attack and how every day life is no longer a challenge for me and I LOVE IT. I try to explain to other people who experience the same thing I do/did/have/had (whatever you want to call it) that sometimes medicine isn't always the best solution. Medicine pushed me into the right direction, but it had to come from ME to do things that were out of my comfort zone, such as move away from home, get married, and change my life!

If you are still reading this, Bravo! I'm sure it isn't that interesting to many people, but I know a lot of people who deal with anxiety/OCD on so many different platforms. I figured putting my story out there may help someone, even if it's to see that someone else completely understands what they are going through.

Girls weekend

If you read the post before you will know how much I truly adore and admire my husband, but sometimes you need a girls weekend, am I right?

This weekend a few of my girlfriends and I are heading to the lake to drink some cocktails and hopefully (fingers crossed) we get to lay out without any thunderstorms!!

I am so so so so so excited. Like, REALLY excited. I love my friends and we have the best time together.

I'm sure as we lay out we will all look like this, and more than likely lay out like so because doesn't everyone look this awesome when they lay out??

 And of course we will stay classy by drinking some of these...which will also lead us to keep laying out like above.

And then once we are done with our classy lay out session and the drinks start kicking in, we will have dance parties such as this. And yes, we will look THIS CUTE while dancing. I'm sure of it.

I'm sure i'll have some interesting pictures to post after this weekend!

What's love got to do with it?

***WARNING: This is a sappy love post. If you are a hater of those in love, please refrain from reading****

There are days when I get an overwhelming feeling of pure love for Phil that I just want to shout across the world's (social media) mountain tops (not that I don't love phil everyday) . I realize shortly after that there aren't many people in this world who truly give a rat's ass how I feel about my dear Phil, so I refrain from using all sorts of social media mountains to express myself.


So, my dear blogger friends, today you are my mountain and I am shouting!


I become very nostalgic towards Phil when we are apart, because I don't feel whole. I know that sounds silly, but when he isn't around, I just don't feel like I'm 100%. He's gone for a few days and as I'm thankful for some alone time, I miss him.


For those who don't know Phil, he seriously is one of the most amazing people I know. Even before we started dating and we were just friends, one of my favorite things about him was how thoughtful and kindhearted he was. He seriously thinks about EVERYONE but himself, which can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time.


There are days when I get so frustrated with my measley paycheck. I get really irritable and frustrated not having all the things I want and watching other people gain material items, but Phil always reminds me that no matter how much money or things someone has, they don't have what we have.


And he's so totally right.


So, heres to me learning to be patient with material things and learn that pretty rings, nice bags, and big houses won't buy what Phil and I have. Thank you Phil for always being my rock, my best friend and now my husband.

And look at how silly he is, how can you NOT love him?

This picture was taken a few months after we started dating back in good ol' 2007 :)

And if you think this post is too gushy, well then you my friend, are what we call a hater. And just for you being a hater, I'm going to post more pictures. 

 This is the first time Phil came to visit me in college our first semester freshman year in 2005, and we weren't even dating then!

 Halloween 2007? or 2008? Not sure

  One of our first nights living together in Spartanburg in 2010.

We've totally been through the ups and downs, but I wouldn't want it to be with anyone else. LOVE YA BABEEEEEE (Thats me shouting on top of my social media mountain)

When Life hands you color...

I started running back in September of last year, and have honestly been pretty amazed at how well I've been keeping up with it. Right before the wedding I was running my arse off so I could look good in my dress and I wanted to look good in a bathing suit while in Jamaica.

I got up to a 4 mile pace and I was SO SO proud of myself. Then the wedding came, Jamaica came and then a break came. Usually, when this accurs I just jump OFF the bandwagon until my pants can't fit again, but for some odd reason - something just kept nudging at me to keep running.

So, after a 3 week break, I set my sights on the pavement again. I don't run on a treadmill. I have ADD, so staying on a treadmill for 20 minutes or more is absolute torture. Running outside is amazing, but it can have its downfalls - such as this 100 degree weather we are about to encounter. It was a lot easier to push myself and get more miles when it was colder out, but this heat is making me work harder!

Anyways, where I'm going with this is that I signed up for my first 5k. It's called The Color Run, and it's in November. If you haven't heard of this run, you should totally check it out. Even if you don't like running, you should at least see what it's about.

I'm really excited about it and get all nervous thinking about my first 5k. I know it's over a year after I started running, and I know I can run three miles no problem, but can I do it under pressure??

Little Reminders

It's funny how something so insignificant can make you realize why you are who you are, and why you AREN'T who you AREN'T. 


Such as today, I have an appointment with the Apple Store to fix my Iphone as the back of it cracked. At my job you have to dress somewhat nice, so I wore a dress today with some heels. I decided that I didn't want to bargain with the floor today, so I took my heels off and switched them out for a good ol' pair of rainbow flip flops.


As I was opening the car door and attempting to get out, I flashed the entire mall parking lot my underwear. No one was around, no one saw, and it really wasn't that big of a deal. It got me thinking that I never even think about how I get out of a car with a dress or skirt on, and I probably flash the world my vickie s's undies a lot, and it's probably (for the most part) gone unnoticed. 

(If I did flash the world my undies, I like to pretend that I look a lot like Megan Fox while doing it)

If I were to be a celebrity and try to get out of ANY car nonchalantly with my hoo-ha showing, I'd be put under MAJA scrutiny.  I'm not an un-classy person (at least I like to think I'm not) and I don't get out of the car and show my underwear because I'm thinking I want to look like a whore, I just don't even think about it. Which is something I think I take for-granted. Because I don't have 23483209432 cameras watching me get out of a car on a daily basis, I can be more careless. 


This is probably more of what I look like getting out of a car...HA (no seriously, I'm pretty sure this is spot on)

I guess the moral of this story is, either I need to be more aware of myself getting out of a car, or be thankful I'm not a celebrity and have pictures of my crotch on the internet. 

(Sorry for the crotch shot photos, I should have rated this PG-13, I also hope the government doesn't go through my computer one day and notice I googled "britney spears crotch shot", because that might be embarrassing)

Fathers Day

Yep, i'm one of those girls. I'm totally a daddys girl. 

This is my dad a good bit before I was born, being his typical self.

This is dad and I just 2 months ago at my wedding. I know you can't see it but I was absolutely balling my eyes out. I couldn't even make it past the announcer introducing the father/daughter dance without sobbing. My favorite part of this picture is Phil in the background, just patiently watching.

He's a pretty awesome grandpa too. This is him at Tess' 3rd or 4th birthday party. She got a lot of clip on earrings and she stuck them all over him. HA! He's such a trooper.

He's also a BIG fan of bluegrass, which is something he instilled in both my sister and I. This is some of us at Merlefest with the fiddle player of Steeledrivers (one of dad's FAVORITE bands!)

Dad - Thank you a million times for showing me an example of what an amazing guy is so that when I picked my life partner, I knew exactly what to look for. Thank you for being an absolute amazing dad, husband, "pawpaw", uncle, brother in law, father in law, son, brother, and everything else you are. I love you very much!

Update on life

So I finally uploaded half of my pictures I've been taking with my iphone and I figured I'd update my blog about my life, so enjoy a few pictures of what i've been doing!

^That's how much Allman loves Zepp. Seriously, LOVES him.

Sending daddy pictures of us when he's out of town :-/

Gums getting ready to hit one of the ball park! (hopefully)

Playing with Balloon animals at graduation parties :)

My strong girl after her soccer win!

Hiking with my loves.

Hiked to this beautiful place!

Allman making friends at the dog park

Friends laughing on the porch (Memorial Weekend/Coops Birthday)

Playing games in the lawn

Birthday shots!

Some of favorite people :)

My sweet Gums!

That's why I married him, he's the sweetest :)

My sweet girl Tess and my sweet girl Allman

Got some new digs for the place. Can't wait to get the whole room the way I want it!

Playing with the pups

Rehearsal for Nicole and Bretts wedding!

Nicoles nephew right as he pulled up decorations for someone ELSES wedding HAHA! 

Some pretty girls :)

Rehearsal dinner of the bride and groom to be! I didn't get any at the wedding as my phone decided to shut off (?!?!) at the ceremony. Lame. Oh well.

I should probably take MORE pictures of my life. But I don't. I think i'm only in ONE picture?? So strange. Guess I've got something to work on.

Until next time :)