• Coffee Dates,  Faith,  Life,  Marriage

    Let’s Have Coffee || Vol. 4

    December 14, 2016

    If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that this month has been a hard one so far. My anxiety has been flaring up again, and I think I finally figured out what’s causing it but it took soo long to figure out what it was, and I’m still not sure if knowing what the reason is, is going to make it go away.

    If we were having coffee, I’d share with you that I cannot believe that Tommy and I have been married for almost 7 months. I’m actually quite sad that the newness has worn off and we are now closer to being married for a year than we are to when we got married.

    If we were having coffee, I’d dig deep and ask what your biggest struggle is right now. If you’re comfortable I’d love to actually chat about this, email me? Mine is just staying positive. The cold weather has come on fast and strong already and it has really taken its toll on my emotions. I have a feeling it is going to be a long winter ahead. (Although I do have a surviving the winter post coming soon!)

    If we were having coffee, I’d share that I am actually attempting to take a break from coffee until Christmas. If I drink too much of it, which I have been doing, it throws my stomach completely off, so I unfortunately think it’s best if I stop drinking it for a little bit. I also think it is making my anxiety worse so we will see how these next two weeks go.

    If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I went to the gym tonight, by myself might I add, and ran/walked for 2 and a half miles! I am so proud of myself and have felt much better after doing so. It gave me so much energy for the rest of the night and I think it might just be the trick to managing my anxiety as well. Let’s just pray I stick to it! I think my mental sanity might be at steak if I don’t haha.

    If we were having coffee, I’d apologize that the majority of the things that I wanted to talk about tonight were erring on the side of sad, it’s just where my heart is lately. I’m hoping to turn it around for the rest of the month though, Christmas is coming soon! Hope you all are doing well. I’d love to hear from you! If we were having coffee what would you want to share with me? Are you having a rough start to the winter season like me, or are you loving it so far?

    Today I’m linking up with Erin from Erin Salmon Writes.

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  • Faith,  Life,  Marriage

    Christmas Home Tour!

    December 8, 2016

    I’m a day late to this linkup party, (no surprise there), but that doesn’t make me any less excited for it! I’m so excited to show you guys our Christmas decorations! I have always loved decorating for Christmas. As a little girl I used to bother my mom all the time to start decorating. I just the different feel of the house with all of the Christmas decor out.

    This year, as I’m sure a lot of you know, Tommy and I got to decorate our apartment for the first time as a married couple, so it was extra fun. We also got to pick out our own Christmas decorations (seeing as we had none before).

    christmas-decor-outside

    I love how wintery the mat and wreath give our doorstep.

    christmas-decor-couch

    This is the sight you see right when you walk in. We had extra Christmas balls and I just love how they look in the center of the coffee table with the pinecones.

    christmas-tree

    This is the picture I shared in my post about our Christmas traditions on Tuesday. I just love our tree. We only have a few “real” ornaments but it’s been fun getting to build our collection. A lot of them are very special already as they say “Our First Christmas”, or represent who we are as a couple, such as shells because we love the beach.

    christmas-decor-bookshelf

    I also love that little tree and snowman – I think they make that whole bookshelf.

    christmas-decor-table

    This tablecloth to me is so festive and screams Christmas and winter.

    christmas-decor-tv-stand

    And our new TV stand all dressed up for Christmas is just perfect. 🙂

    christmas-decor-end-table

    Of course the apartment wouldn’t be complete without baby Jesus. 🙂

    christmas-decor-truck

    And an up close picture of my favorite Christmas decoration we bought so far. This little truck has so much character. I bought most of the decor at my favorite place in the world, Target, and it wasn’t really all that expensive either.

    Tonight I am linking up with Victoria and Sarah for It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year linkup! Come join us!🙂

    its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-linkup

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  • Life,  Marriage

    Our Christmas Traditions

    December 6, 2016

    You guys Christmas time is just such a wonderful time of year, am I right? The older I get the more I appreciate this time of year too. I just love the feeling in the air, the decorations everywhere you go, and the sound of Christmas music too. This year is Tommy and I’s first married Christmas and I am so excited about it. That means that we get to create our traditions this year, so this year might just be the most exciting one ever.

    I’ve been thinking since we got married about traditions that I wanted to start with Tommy and eventually with our children when they come around. For Thanksgiving we always bake a pecan pie. We actually started that on our first Thanksgiving that we were ever together so it makes it even more special. We don’t have any Christmas traditions yet but that’s what this years for! These are the things that I want to do every year with Tommy and our future kiddies:

    christmas-tree

    Decorate for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving: I honestly might debate doing this sooner if Tommy would let me. This year we tried to chop down our own tree – something that I had done in the past with my family, but ended up going to a place that didn’t have very nice trees so we ended up buying a pre-cut one. But it’s okay because the one we got is perfect.

    Open one present on Christmas Eve: This is something that I always used to convince my mom to let my brother and I do, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. But this year we get to decide and I just know Tommy will be on board for this one.

    Bake Christmas cookies: This is something that I have been doing for the past three years and am very excited to continue on with in our new apartment together now that we’re married.

    Read the story of Jesus being born on Christmas morning before opening presents: This is not something that we have done yet, especially since we haven’t ever woken up together on Christmas yet. But this is something I am very excited about starting this year. I want to make sure that we keep our hearts in the right place and praise the one reason why we are even celebrating on this day, our Lord and Savior. I am especially excited to carry this tradition on with our kids when they come around!

    Eat Homemade Cinnamon Rolls: This one I’ve seen on a few of my favorite bloggers as their Christmas tradition, (Victoria’s included), and I’ve loved this idea. What doesn’t sound better than having some yummy homemade cinnamon rolls on this exciting morning.

    What are some of your Christmas traditions? Today I am linking up with Victoria and Sarah for It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year linkup! Come join us! 🙂

    its the most wonderful time of the year linkup.jpg

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  • Faith

    Your Hearts Desire

    December 2, 2016

    Hi guys. It’s been a while since I’ve written a real blog post. I didn’t keep up with my goal to blog once a week. Once I blow it one week I get discouraged and don’t have the motivation to keep trying. But our weekend getaway was a really nice and relaxing time. I can hardly believe it’s December already.

    But I want to talk to you guys about something that hit me very hard today. Something that is weighing heavily on my heart tonight. Something that I think is at the root of my hardest struggle right now. I wrote about how God had freed me from health anxiety maybe a month ago. And while I believe that He did, it hasn’t been just an easy hike since then. I confess that I’m still struggling a bit with it and mostly with anxiety that something bad will happen to either me or someone in my family. Something that has been helping though is looking back on what God has done in my life and remembering how far He has brought me. It reminds me that He is good DESPITE my fears.

    But part of the problem (and the root to probably all of our problems I think) is that I am not desiring God above all else. A girl I follow on Instagram wrote a very convicting post today about our hearts desire. What is your hearts desire right now? Is it a closer relationship with God? Or like me is it a problem-free life? Or maybe your own comfort? A relationship? Or maybe a job that you are good at and enjoy? When I read this post I was convicted because if I’m honest most days I don’t desire God above all else. Sure I do desire God but I wouldn’t say that His relationship is my first desire. It usually is just because I feel guilty if it’s not. And then I’m operating out of guilt and not love and God definitely doesn’t want any of that.

    But what would our lives look like if He really was our first and most important desire? And how do we get there, if we can honestly look at our life and see that this isn’t how we are living now? I think we would live anxiety-free lives that we really enjoyed because we would be able to enjoy every moment rather than being afraid that it was going to be taken from us.

    I think the first step to this is to pray and plead with God because the only way for us to have real change is for Him to change our hearts. Without first coming to God and admitting where we are really at then there will only be superficial change at best. So what I’m going to start doing is waking up each morning and pray for God to make Him my hearts desire and do my best to act like He is – because that is His rightful place.

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  • Life

    December Goals

    December 1, 2016

    Hey. Hi. Hello. Let’s recap my November goals shall we? I did not do well at all but I honestly knew when I wrote them that I kind of overdid it this month.
    1. Attend our new community group for the whole month. I’m gonna say we did this halfway. We went to two meetings, one was cancelled and one we skipped. But not bad.
    2. Read God’s word every day.
    3. Workout in some way 2-3 times a week. Ha not even close.
    4. Celebrate our first married Thanksgiving.
    5. Redo the floors in my moms house. Decided to wait on this one till next year.
    6. Go on our weekend getaway to Maryland! So much fun!
    7. Order our Christmas cards!  Can’t wait to get these.
    8. Buy TV stand for living room. I have to post a picture of this. Tommy built it this week and it looks so good.
    9. Get back into reading, read one book. I guess we can count this although I only finished the book I was reading but whatev.
    10. Stay off of social media on my phone. Nope. Also not even close.
    11. Clean out closets. Did one thanks to Tommy!
    12. Blog once a week.
    13. Study 1 Corinthians w Tommy every week. We did one week. We’re so bad at sticking to things we say we’re going to do. Sad.
    14. Do our couples devotional once a week. Also nope. We need to get ourselves together. But we have been praying together before dinner consistently and that has been very nice.
    15. Start Christmas shopping/make a budget for how much we can spend on gifts. Already have about half of my shopping done I think!
    16. Continue taking at least a half an hour lunch at work. No, didn’t do this either. Wah.
    17. Decorate for Christmas!🙂 YES and I’m so excited to show you guys all the decorations.
    18. Chop down our own Christmas tree. Nope but we did try so I’m counting this one as a yes. We went to a place to chop down your own trees but the trees sucked so we ended up buying one that was already cut. I need to do more research so we can do it next year. I was really looking forward to that.

    I didn’t do quite as bad as I thought I did. But I’m a little disappointed because all of the harder goals were the ones I didn’t do. Oh well.

    December goals!

    I only have two for this month because I want to stay focused on my relationship with Jesus and growing that during advent.

    1. Complete the She Reads Truth Advent study.
    2. Rest. Well.

    I have already started the Advent bible study and I’m super excited about it. It’s already shown me so many truths already. Maybe during the month I’ll share some things I’m learning. And for the second goal, I realized the past few months I’m overworking myself trying to be a good employee and also a good wife at home but I need to get better at giving myself breaks. I get burnt out very easily so I want to focus on avoiding that for the rest of the year.

    What are your goals?

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  • Life

    A Weekend Getaway!

    November 11, 2016

    Hi friends! I just wanted to drop in and share what’s going on in my life this weekend! I mentioned how Tommy learned how to surf this summer and he mentioned afterwards how he was thinking about buying a wetsuit so he could still surf when it got colder, since he learned how to surf at the end of the summer. I surprised him with a little getaway trip a few weeks ago to Ocean City, Maryland that I had found on Groupon and bought him a wetsuit!

    So since I had off today since it’s Veteran’s Day I booked the trip for this weekend so we could have a long weekend away. 🙂 We left around 9:30 this morning and arrived in Ocean City around 3. Now were just relaxing, which we plan to do for most of the weekend. Also on the agenda: visiting as many coffee shops as our budget will allow, dinner + a movie tomorrow night, and surfing at Assateague Beach! There are wild horses on Assateague so I’m really excited to visit there tomorrow.

    So just thought I’d drop in and share what’s going on for me this weekend. What do you have going on this weekend? Did you have off this Friday too?

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