First Cookout

We bought a grill over labor day weekend, because thats just what you do, right? We had Miles' mom and best friend over for our first cook out--not too many people in case Miles ended up being a terrible grill master (he wasn't). Matty brought one of my greatest weaknesses, cheese dip, and I snacked on that like nobody's business. We had delicious corn, burgers, jalapeño dogs, fresh watermelon, salad, homemade fries and good company. Here's to many more cookouts in our future--hopefully soon with a fire pit for my other weakness, s'mores!

 Rowan also enjoyed being the cutest center of attention, obvi.

 I can already tell that finally having a grill has changed the way we think about meals. Miles wants to make dinner every night--hallelujah! And I'm so excited to think of all the yummy grilled veggies we're going to have this fall!

New Friend

On Sunday, I met Stephanie for coffee at The Well. We lived doors down from each other during our freshman year in college, I had classes with a lot of her close friends, we are mysteriously already friends on a certain social networking site, but we really only just connected with each other through our blogs. 

Can I just gush for a second? I think my time with this wonderful lady can easily be counted as one of the best  I've had in a very long time. Throughout the conversation I found myself feeling so inspired, and challenged, and affirmed, and encouraged..and I had to keep reminding myself that we had only just met. We talked about the world, our lives, our hopes, our struggles, our cats (yep), and I realized how few the number of times in my life I had felt such an instant connection with someone before. Maybe people experience this all the time, but I feel like a newbie, and it feels so wonderful! I was completely oblivious to how long we had been sitting there, so much so that Boo called just to make sure I was alive, after not responding to several texts (of which I was also oblivious to). I met up with him for dinner afterwards and I had the biggest grin on my face and talked his ear off the whole time about how amazing it was to meet Stephanie.

So, here's to having a new friend, to being so thankful that she is a better planner than I, that we finally met up, and hopefully to many more conversations and fun times to come!

Junior Reminder

My junior year of high school, I had this friend who was unlike any other friend I'd ever had. Apart from having tons of fun together, we also leaned on each other pretty hard during some rough times that year. We've definitely gone our separate ways, living very different lives, on very opposite sides of the planet. But we will always have junior year. And I am a better person because of this friendship. One thing we both loved, was Dashboard Confessional. May I continue to remind you this was at the age of sixteen. And if ever I hear a Dashboard song, I immediately feel like that sixteen year old again. We used to tell each other to "remember to breathe*" during our various individual rough times. All that to say, I am reminding myself to breathe today. I tend to let everything build up in my head, and that always makes it worse than it is reality. So I need to inhale, exhale, and let every worry, stress, thought float away.

Source: destina-terre.tumblr.com via Bethany on Pinterest

Closing on our house was amazing, but we quickly realized we really needed to pace ourselves with all of our home projects. We have a lot of home projects, most of which are pretty expensive (for us, at least). We also need new cars, both of us. Yay! Not. We are eager to be able to adopt some kittens and pups, but need to get a few things sorted before that. I am faced with some decisions about my nannying job, and making those decisions with a lot of people. And all these decisions also make me think about life after nannying, whenever that is, whatever that will look like. All that to say, I feel pretty stretched thin. Very thankful, but very overwhelmed. 

So sometimes I just need to remind myself to breath, even if the rest of the song doesn't apply. (Because when would it?...I only sometimes wear blue)

*re-listening to this song...just...wow. 

Weekend, Beautiful Weekend

I choose to spend this Monday morning daydreaming about the wonderful weekend that we just had. Miles only had to go into work for an hour or so on Saturday, and other than that, he was all mine! One of the benefits of us both having jobs that require early rising during the week, is that while our bodies get to sleep in on the weekends, they still tend to automatically wake up around 7:30/8:00 anyways and we still have the whole day to have fun! (I'm also choosing to view that as a benefit)(And to also ignore that we can't seem to stay awake past 10:30 no matter how hard we try).

So we rose, still somewhat early, went to a wonderful breakfast at West End Cafe, I grocery shopped while he dropped by work for a hot second, we finished errand running and then went for a walk around Radnor Lake until we realized it was 4 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. We wound up eating delicious TexMex with Miles' mom and then heading over to her house to help install a new washing machine, where we promptly tested her new machine with our dirty laundry. Ah, Saturday. 

The next day, we went to the early service at our church, met our friend Matty, and went house hunting with our Realtor! We ended up making an offer on a house that I would live in forever if our offer went through. But I'm highly doubtful that our bid will be picked, since a million people looked at it over the weekend and probably could afford a higher bid. But we at least put ours out there! And that alone is exciting. I'm not ashamed (but kind of am) to say that we went back to our new favorite burger restaurant, seven days after we first ate there. I mean, The Pharmacy is ridic. And Matt was visiting! We also found at least four other houses that we liked enough to have to choose between if this offer doesn't pan out. Which is amazing! And also stressful. Ah, Sunday decision making.

(aaand by this point in the weekend I was pooped. Just looking at my face here makes me feel tired all over again)

Let's Pretend...

Right now I am home, cozied up on the couch pretending that it is much colder than 64 degrees outside. Pretending that the gusty wind is actually really chilly and the drizzles of rain are, in fact, flurries of snow. Listening to Dean Martin sing Silver Bells on Pandora and having my plethora of apple spice candles lit around me helps a lot with this game of pretend. Now Nat is helping with Joy to the World. 

There is a disaster of a kitchen just two rooms over, but I am ignoring it for now. I have a (nine days early!) birthday package sitting on my coffee table and I am trying to ignore it. I have a huge Goodwill drop off, and tons of movies and books to trade. But its just too cold to go out right now (remember?) 

Obviously I am all for bringing on the holidays a teensy but earlier than some would like. I am okay with that. I just need to stock up on candles. Or maybe I'll just start to mull spices. Thats something, right? At least it looks cold outside. I haven't totally lost my mind. 

I think the farm adventure this weekend allowed me to check off the "fall" season. Not that its not my absolute favorite. But really...its only my fave because it leads up to the holidays. So lets lead a little faster, shall we? Here's to our lovely fall evening out in the middle of nowhere. It was absolutely perfect.

All but the last were taken with my iPhone. Why did I even ask for a camera last birthday? I always forget it. But I love this last photo taken by someone else that night. With a real camera. 

Good Grief!

My life is so good. Why don't I always remember how incredibly blessed I am? Why does it take Josh Groban to come on the radio and make me smile and cry and sing at the top of my lungs and feel like the biggest carefree dork and then have an epiphery (Michael Scott style) about my wonderful life? I mean, we all know how much I love me some Josh Groby, but I feel like he shouldn't have that big of an effect on me.

Either way, I am one happy lady today. Miles fixed my car the other day, saving us a lot of money and stress. I mean how lucky am I to have a husband that is smart enough to fix a car? We only have one more task on our list of things we urgently needed to do as a newly married couple. I really love my job (and actually miss the babe's sweet little face today). One of our very best friends is moving back to Nashy after living four hours away for the past year. The three of us are going to see HP in a little while. I put on no eye make-up so that I could freely bawl my eyes out at the end. We're going to a music festival this afternoon and then a marina show tonight. I get to watch the sunset over the lake and enjoy a wonderful evening with my husband and aforementioned best friend. Yes, my life is so good. 

Slacker

Oh my goodness I have been slacking so much...blogging, thank you notes, becoming a chef extraordinaire. I blame it on the Kardashians. For the past two weeks I have been one part newlywed, one part baby watcher and one part vegetable. I have definitely watched more television in these two weeks than in the past 4 years. The other day I realized how serious my problem was...

Yes. That is me double watching Keeping up with the Kardashians (while the babe was sleeping, I'm not a horrible nanny, I promise). I finally caught up with all the episodes today so I feel like I can put a rest to this completely ridiculous obsession. I can also stop unknowingly channeling Khloe when I am home with Miles. Poor husband. 

Other than watching terrible reality shows and crying from laughing so hard while watching 3 Men and a Baby for the first time (diaper changing scene, anyone?)(such a sucker for an easy laugh), this has been what the majority of my days look like:

I can't even deal. This babe is so precious. Yesterday, I took her with me to change my name and get a new license. She screamed and cried the whole car ride but was a perfect little adorable angel when we we're at the social security office and the DMV. Such a little ham! Also, I am totally okay with how nice everyone is to me when I am carrying a baby around.

Tonight, Miles and I are going to try and revive our social life. I mean, not that our socializing with friends was on fire before the wedding, but what little flame we did have has died down to barely a simmer. That analogy was just...amazing (terrible). So heres to going out with friends who are moving away to D.C. in August. Gotta pack in all the hang times we can before that sad, sad day. 

Hopefully we don't fall asleep at the table/bar/party/wherever we are when the clock strikes 9 since that has been our old married couple bed time for the last 15 days.