HERE'S WHAT

 Today I'm linking up to talk about the things that've made my days a little brighter this week. 

1. Henry is becoming more and more independent. He has always been independent, but he can do so much more on his own, like coloring. I don't have to watch him quite so closely, and I don't have to worry quite as much that he will color on furniture. He also enjoys it so much that he asks quite often for "bapur" to color on. This makes my little artist heart so happy! 

2. Petsmart! We try to take Henry on a little adventure every week. There is not a true aquarium where we live, and his most recent favorite animals are "fitchies". I got a suggestion recently to just take him to Petsmart and it was the greatest suggestion! He was entertained for a good hour looking at the fish, birds, reptiles, and rodents (ew).  

3. We always have friends over now that we are out of school, and most recently we had pizza night with some friends. We played risk afterwards, which is the funnest game ever. We were floored when we looked up from the game and saw it was almost 2 AM. (sorry from the blurry pic). We decided that having regular game nights would be so fun. 

4. Home made breakfast sammies. Since I'm not working currently, I have time to make breakfast sammies every morning. I made cheddar chive biscuits a la Americas Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (so good), and added an egg and cheese. This is the perfect meal for a major breakfast lover (which I am) . I even figured it out so that I can make them in a jiffy when I do go back to work. These will definitely be in regular rotation around here! 

5. I have always said that I LOVE all 4 seasons, and I expected that living in FL would be hard for me. Butttt going to lunch  in October wearing shorts and a T-shirt and being able to sit outside with this view? NOT complaining. And its all the better that we found a GREAT super cheap place to get a mean po'boy.




6. One extra "Here's What". LOVING my new site design. And it did not break the bank. I'm not mad at that! Sasssyyyy.

SAYING GOODBYE PART I [A FRIDAY LINK UP]

Today I'm linking up with Casey Leigh about what's on my heart lately. I know I've talked several times about moving recently. I know it may be overkill, but we somehow managed to live in the same area for 7 years (my husbands entire Navy career thus far). 

We lived in two different cities but they were only 20 minutes apart, and I spent time in both on a weekly basis. 

In May of 2013 we moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia. And when I say we, I mean me because Robert was deployed (he deployed less than a month after we got married).  

I graduated from college on May 13, 2007 in TN, moved into my parent's house and planned on moving the next day ( because I had NO idea how moving with the military worked). After a few tearful phone calls to the personal property office with the military I quickly learned that I should have started the move process (ie: paperwork) at least 8 weeks prior to the move. whoops. So I scheduled some guys to help me pack up a  U-haul that my mom and I rented, packed up, and headed to VA with my and Robert's belongings and our dog Dakota. (Mind you, we never lived together prior to this so we didn't have a ton of stuff yet, no bed, sofa, tv, anything, all the while praying that we could some how recoup some of the costs for the labor/ gas/  rental.

After a day of driving, two flat tires, and a subsequent over night stay, we pulled into our first little apartment. 

Our apartment was on the bottom floor, the two windows to the left of that door. It was 900 sq. ft. Hugely expensive to us, and a huge dump. And we loved it. It was there that I learned how to make any space into a home- no matter whether you could paint or not (we couldn't), no matter the size of the home, and on any budget. 

We have grown a ton in our selves and in our marriage since we have been together, but I will say that this was where we learned not only how to live together, but how to be "grown ups". I got my first job out of college, and we adopted Lady, our second dog while we lived there. 

We moved out after our year lease was up to this little gem:

This little place was not much bigger, and not much better, but again we really loved this place. We lived on the left, where the fence was. This neighborhood was so awful and unsafe. A gang that roamed the streets there, and a brothel got shut down just down the street [we like to keep it classy]. 

 Robert and his dad built a nice deck off the side, and I built an enormous garden, full of vegetables and flowers. We loved our neighbors, and we learned how to be a part of a community. Our neighbors across the street and next door would all come sit on that tiny front porch and we would order pizza and wings and sit and talk and laugh and listen to music. Customers of the place I worked lived down the street from me, and we lived close to all of the places we frequented.

I began to discern what I wanted for my life and career in that home. Two and a half years after beginning my first job, I quit and began going to school to fulfill requirements for graduate school. It was in that little house that I gained the courage to follow my dreams. 

Stay tuned next Friday for the second part of this series. 

My life according to Instagram

1. Three of my favorite things lately. 

2. Henny's new anywhere chair from pottery barn kids. He uses it more like a tumbling obstacle, this is a rare photo of him actually sitting in it. [or sitting, period.]

3. Very french eating a Batard, grapes, and cheese

4. Playing around with hand lettering for the ladies in my bible study. I recently opened an etsy shop of my hand lettered prints.

5. I celebrated october with an orange hair tie. (I live on the edge).  brickyard buffalo has some cute halloween ones right now. I stocked up on some earlier this summer when they had a big hair tie grab bag sale. 

6. Home made guac & chips. Love my new Joe Patti's koozie. Joe Patti's is a P-cola institution.

7. We snuck away for a super casual [read: cheap] date lunch one day on Perdido Key and this was our view. I'm not mad at that.

8. I cannot wait to finally fulfill my dream of having a meyer lemon tree on my pattio. They sell these at Lowes [ a novelty for a mid-atlantic/east coast lady]

9. The Simplified Planer is hands down the best thing I've ever purchased - it kept our family scheduled while R and I were both in school/ trying to be awesome parents/ trying to have a life. I am for sure a life time customer. 

10. Wine margie from cactus flower cafe. Also a P-cola institution 

11. This guy. I don't know why I even bothered baby proofing. Both his father and I got around all things baby proofing when we were little. H handed me this after taking it off of a cabinet and said "THANK YOU!" 

ON PURPOSE [ A LINK UP ]

Hi Lovelies! I hope everyone is having a great day! It's dreary here but I kinda like it :). Today I am linking up with The Pleated Poppy for What I wore Wednesday. I love this link up because it was born out of her desire to spend a little more time on herself. 

I can definitely identify with wanting to step things up lately. Between staying home with H this summer and the move, I've been in yoga pants and running shorts   jeans and t-shirts for a little over a month. Don't get me wrong, I love a good yoga pant and I've always identified as a jeans and T kind of gal, but I am a visual person and I am a big believer that we should "begin each day as if it were on purpose" (from Hitch- remember that movie?).

 I don't really have an excuse now since I put myself together every day that I was (SUPERRR) pregnant with my gigantor baby boy, and when I was in grad school and doing an internship basically 60-70 hours a week between the two (and being a wife and mama). 

If you are trying to step it up a little bit, an easy way to start is to pick one day a week to really sass it up ( I used to do red-lipstick Fridays when I worked for a credit union that required a extremely boring very conservative dress code). OR just pick one thing to focus on every day. I love that Lara has really prioritized what is important to her and forgoes fancy hair and makeup for a cute outfit every day, and lays it out the night before. 

The following outfits are not all from the past week, more like the past couple, but I gotta start somewhere :). I also see a slow progression into being more put together.  

I call this WIWW: Moving Edition.

Aww old house photo. Also, I love this tank. Its from Tarjay. I had 2 others and got rid of them for who knows why. Jeans 7 For all Mankind

Top: Tarjay

Shorts: Jcrew Factory

Necklace : Tiffany

Bracelet: J.Crew Factory

Side note: I totally look like I'm attempting to do a pageant pose in this photo. 

Sunnies: Ray Ban

Top: J.Crew

Skirt: Target (old)

Flips: Rainbow

Hat: J.Crew

Dress: Target

Ring: The Silver Goose 

Shoes: Target (LOVE!)

Top: J.Crew Factory

Jeans: J.Crew matchstick 

Shoes: Target (old old)

Close up of Lipstick (So excited to be back in the lipstick game. Such an easy/ inexpensive way to sass things up) This one is from Sephora 

What are some things that make you feel like you're put together? 

THE WORLDS EASIEST (AND MAYBE YUMMIEST) DIY

Probably one of my favorite things to read on a blog is a DIY. And HELLO Pinterest. Its totally one of my favorite things in the whole world. ever. But when it comes to the DOING part of the DIY... I...don't. I have a hard time mustering up the patience to DIY even though I always want to save money, I hate to pay full price for anything, and I love creating (hello, I am an artist after all). But I do have a mean lazy streak. I'm trying to cure myself of that with our new home, I made a goal/pact with myself that I would DIY as much as I could and I'd buy minimal furniture that was actually new for the house. 

Anyway, I don't even know if you could call this a DIY so much as a recipe...but even THAT is pushing it. This is THAT easy. 

I know. Chocolate. You could put chocolate on just about anything and it would be A. MAZING. Kind of like those booths at the fair that fry everything. Fried Butter? Fried PBJ? Totally weird. Totally good.  I digress...

As a rule, I purchase one pack of semi-sweet chocolate morsels every single week when I buy groceries. Its basically just as important as buying bread in this house. Bread... Milk...Eggs...Chocolate. And I we use the entire package every week. What does that say about us? I don't know. And I'm okay with it. Any who. I was craving something salty and sweet the other day and I knew Henry was going to want a late afternoon snack. We rarely let him have junky food so I figured he'd get a kick out of chocolate covered pretzels.

Here's what you need:
A Handful of Chocolate Morsels (whatever type suits you best)
Pretzels
Cream or Milk (Optional)
Sprinkles (Optional)

Here's what you do:

Put your handful of morsels in a microwave safe container. I usually use a mason jar or glass pyrex dish  that comes with a top so that I can just pop any leftovers into the fridge. 

If you want creamier chocolate, or a softer covering for the pretzel then add enough milk or cream to JUST cover the morsels. Should be 1/8 to 1/4 cup at most. If you chose to do this, then you will have to keep the covered pretzels in the fridge to keep them solid-ish. 

If you skip the milk/cream then you still want to put the covered pretzels into the fridge to temper the chocolate so it hardens, but they should stay hard out of the fridge, but wont keep as long.

Basically, do whatever you want to do :). 

Microwave the morsels for a minute, and let sit for a few minutes in the microwave before stirring.

This prevents the chocolate from cooling too fast and becoming grainy (again- this step is nitpicky, you can stir right away if you're like me and don't want to wait :) ). Stir the mixture until smooth. 

Dip those bad boys into the chocolate and lay onto a cookie tray. I added some sprinkles for a little sass and additional crunch. Enjoy! 

And you're welcome. 

What's your favorite thing to combine with chocolate? 

HERE'S WHAT

As I mentioned last week, things have been a little stressful lately, but I always try to find the good in everything. Here are some things that have put a little pep in my step lately. I'm linking up with The good life blog today...even though I'm a minute or two late on that...

1. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. Whether or not you are in the mental health / social work fields, this book is something you should be reading. She's a social worker who spent 10 years of her life doing research on vulnerability, and ended up with thousands of stories and interviews that she analyzed and put into this book. She wrote this book to encourage parents and teachers, and...just people, to be vulnerable, to deepen their connections with one another. She is hilarious, and brilliant, and heartfelt, and just amazing. Do yourself a favor, go to Tarjay and pick yourself up a copy. 

2. This view, and well, Starbucks. You can't really tell in this photo but this is the back porch of the Starbucks on base where my husband works. It looks out over a Bayou. Its basically gorgeous. Its my new "place" . And Starbucks, well that's self explanatory for why it puts a pep in my step ;). 

3. This guy in baby shades. I mean. 

4. My thesis in book form! Signed, Sealed, and Delivered. I'm official. And boy, I'm so so glad THAT is done. I actually know what it is like to have a book deadline, and...whew. 



5. This. is. so. good. We moved from a place with a Trader Joe's to a place without a Trader Joe's. Can we have a moment of silence for that? Thanks, I feel better. So Now that means I have to spend more than $5 on an excellent bottle of wine. This, at $11 hardly breaks the bank. Its a lightly sparkling white wine. It is sweet, but not as sweet as a Moscato, and very refreshing on a hot FL. evening. When you head to Tarjay to get Daring Greatly, swing by the wine aisle and pick up a bottle. Yumsies. 



6. I was in line minding my own business at my local Starbucks - which is in a Target by the way, (wow lots of Starbucks and Target in one post) and the lady in front of me orders a bottle of syrup. I know at one point that Starbucks sold a bunch of "do it at home" kind of stuff including some of their syrup but I thought that was a one time deal. I'd also heard of people paying insane amounts of money for PSL syrup purchased black-market style on ebay and such. But for $10 she got 1 litre of the good stuff. Obviously I'm a quick study and got my iced two pump americano with a side of one litre vanilla sugar free syrup and charge it please. 

What are some things that have made you happy lately? 

Things I don't want to talk about

Prepare for an extremely long winded post that is perhaps hard to follow at times, but bear with me. (Also, none of these photos really relate to the post- but I figured it would help with the monotony ;) ) 

Today marks two days shy of a month from our big move. We have only been in the new house for a little shy of 3 weeks. Basically everything that has happened in our life in the past month has been good. But it has been really, really, really hard. I don't say this to be ungrateful- but to be real.  As an INTJ I am famously private, insular, solitary...to a fault, and I'm trying to be more open. I have been helped by the friends I've made through blogging or by things I have read on other's blogs; so I say all of this with hopes that maybe sometime someone will read this and maybe I helped them in some small way. 

The house we moved into was less than ready to be moved into. Its beautiful for the most part, its in a nice neighborhood, and all that. It had no hot water, holes in the walls, and filthy carpets to name a few. The landlords have been a nightmare to deal with, and we have additional unplanned monthly bills for this house. 

Money this month has been rough. Don't worry I was raised right, I'm not going into specifics here. We've saved for a year for this move. But almost as a rule, the Navy messes your paycheck up during a move or promotion, and well, both of those things have happened (again- both good!) but it may not get fixed next month, and the major amounts of money we spent on the move won't be repaid for maybe 12 weeks or longer due to the sequester (lack of manpower to do the needed paperwork).

A LOT of our belongings were messed up in the move. We put in a $15,000.00 claim for damaged goods (to give you an idea). That won't be accepted. (not being negative nancy- we try to keep a PMA - or positive mental attitude for those non-breaking bad watchers). But the movers just won't pay that much. My dresser, which was made by hand by my great, great, great grandfather was split up the side during the move. No amount of money will fix that or replace it. 

Since Henry was born I've struggled with major hormonal imbalances that still have not straightened out, coupled with post partum depression and anxiety. None of this was made easier by that. 

I promise I don't say any of this to be dramatic or negative. I am humbled every day at the unending blessings I have in my life. I am saying this because this has been what I consider to be a "white knuckle" moment in my life. 

Casey is a fellow blogger, and someone who I have never met in person, but I've read her blog for years. She talks a lot about entitlement in her blog. I am not entitled to ANY thing that has gone on in the past month to have gone ANY better than it did. None of us are entitled to anything. We are not even entitled to another breath, or another day. We are entitled to what has already passed.

(via pinterest- unsure of original source) 

My faith has been a big part of keeping me from "losing it" over the past few weeks. God doesn't promise an easy path, but he promises he'll be there. It has taken me a long long time to "get that", and I still struggle with trusting that it will all be okay.  I've had to remind myself to trust during my moments of entitlement, of expectation, that things SHOULD be different because I prayed about it darnit! Because I visualized it going well! Because I expected it to! Because I'm a good person, I deserve it! My husband who serves our country deserves this. My son deserves this. Well... Murphy's law and all that. 

I have been working on being more positive, as I've said before. This has been a perfect test of that. And I've failed many days, and many times each day. But this experience so far has taught me that you really truly can learn from every single thing that happens in your life. Sometimes it comes easier than other times. Some times it takes a note to self every hour, every minute, every second. Its not easy to just say "be positive", but I've learned that being positive (and that just means doing your best, not being perfect with sunshine shooting out of your ears all the time) through everything really is worth it.

via Pinterest unsure of original source