Down the street from here

Thursday, July 19, 2012

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.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

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!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

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)

Thursday, June 28, 2012

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??

Thursday, June 21, 2012

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)

Sunday, June 17, 2012

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!

Monday, June 4, 2012

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!