May 8, 2018 | Everyday Life, Week in the Life
M O N D A Y R E F L E C T I O N S:
A few thoughts on today as I went back through my photos.
- Monday of this project always starts with such high excitement and expectations and by the end, I feel like I’m just scraping by. This time around, I’m focusing on stories first and finding photos to go with them second. We’ll see how we go.
- Even though this is my fourth time participating in Week in the Life, it’s the only one that can be found on my blog right now. After losing all of my photos and lots of blog posts last year, I feel like I am completely starting over. I still have all of these photos in my albums, but it’s really not the same as having them here.
- I grabbed quite a few more photos but won’t be sharing them because I wasn’t intentional about the things in the background. I’m hoping to be more aware and really slow down over the next six days.
7:44 am // Our morning routine is always the same. We live in an older home and the only bathroom on the main floor doesn’t have an outlet. Each day, I get ready in the second bedroom upstairs – which hosts my craft space and an extra twin bed – and this is how I get ready. Chloe always joins me on the bed and I just love that I caught her watching me in the mirror.
Real life is that the quilt on the bed is the one my parents bought me when I was moving away to college, and I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it because it brings back so many sweet memories.
8:31 am // Everyday, I see this sweet face when I leave. She’ll sit and watch my car all the way to the end of the street. It’s precious and it makes me want to run back inside and give up on being an adult. Today I left later than normal and still had to stop by the gas station on my way to work. Because I live so close and since we rarely drive my car (we’ve had some issues with it lately) I only have to fill up once a month.
Real life is that I have so many variations of this exact same photo because it brings me so much joy.
8:38 am // It didn’t take me long at the gas station to realize that I had a wasps nest and wasps behind the fuel door and hanging in front of my gas cap. I drove back home and Kevin managed to get the nest sprayed without any issues. Thankfully, he saved the day on that one. Back to the gas station.
Real life is the love-hate relationship between the pollen on my car and those beautiful trees amidst a clear blue sky.
5:41 pm // After work, Kevin was meeting up with his brother, Dave, for dinner so I just threw something quick together for myself. Chloe has started doing this thing where she will only eat when we are in the kitchen or sitting down at the dinner table. This was my view of her eating tonight while I ate right alongside her. Feels like a proper family dinner.
Real life is having a hard time sticking to the meal plan for dinners I created over the weekend. I have teetered between planning out the entire month and just planning a week at a time and they are equally as overwhelming.
7:09 pm // We took a walk and she ended up taking a break mid-way through. She started doing this last year and managed to pick it back up again. I’m not sure if she recognizes that we think it’s funny but I know that she’s not tired because she did it after taking only 10 steps from our driveway the other day. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very long walk that day. Today we managed about 2.5 miles in the lovely 75 degree weather.
Real life is being so incredibly thankful for an amazing trail so close to home. It’s a huge part of the reason that we ended up choosing our house and we are both so glad. Our town has so many great trail systems that are all interconnected, so it’s great for any length of walk or bike ride.
8:17 pm // I met up with some friends at the gym after my walk which felt like a good supplement to our leisurely pace and a couple breaks.
Real life is hating arms day and loving legs. Tonight I got in some cardio, too! It’s amazing how good my body feels when I’m in the gym consistently.
11:01pm // As soon as Kevin starts getting ready for bed, Chloe will go to the back door to be let outside.
Real life is starting to worry at 11 o’clock that I won’t get 8 full hours of sleep. We just started using the white noise feature on our google home – we’re convinced it’s the best ever.
I’ll be sharing photos like these every day this week in conjunction with Ali Edwards’ Week in the Life project. Thanks for stopping by!
May 4, 2018 | Everyday Life
The good list: front porch sitting, pedicures (and unintentionally choosing the same color polish), grilling at home, a couple miles worth of walks, puppy snuggles, and spending time with my sweet Momma.
Apr 27, 2018 | Everyday Life
It’s Friday, ya’ll! This week has absolutely flown by and it didn’t help that I kept thinking Wednesday was Monday. Westworld Season 2 helped us start off the week and I haven’t stopped thinking about all the conspiracy theories people are coming up with. I’ve also been thinking about my lofty goal of publishing 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days. I mentioned this a while back and have been sharing here more often than I have in a long time, so I’m really proud of getting 13 posts out there so far this month. I’m ok with progress over perfection here.
Kevin and I got a new phones recently and I have to say, they have made some significant improvements in camera department. Poor Chloe has become the subject in all of my “portrait mode” test photos. This camera is making it really hard to want to bring my DSLR out.
We have hyacinths growing! It’s finally spring after what felt like the longest winter known to man. We still had multiple snowfalls/flurries this month and I’m 150% ready to be done with that garbage. I’m glad that the snow didn’t seem to affect the daffodils and tulips that have been popping up around here lately.
Kevin’s brother, Dave, came over this past weekend for a little grill out. I’m super proud of this shot because it candidly captured his whole vibe and his grill skills. This picture was followed by the best burgers (with pimento cheese) plus broccoli. Can’t beat that!
Chai lattes have always been my thing, but this month I’ve been loving them a little extra.
Now that the weather is nice, we’ve been taking Chloe on lots of walks! The last photo was taken on one of the trails here in town that she hadn’t been to yet, but that Kevin frequented a lot when he first got his bike in college. I love her sweet smile.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Apr 9, 2018 | Everyday Life
If we were on a coffee date, we’d be sitting inside the coffee shop in a cozy little booth. We’d talk about how we shouldn’t have to sit inside during April and how we would much prefer chilly spring weather. We’d shake our heads and I’d definitely complain about two snowfalls already in April.
If we were on a coffee date, I’d ask what you did for Easter. After staying in town for Easter last year, we decided to go to St. Louis this year. We kept it pretty low-key and didn’t make plans other than church on Saturday evening and brunch with my family on Sunday. Just as well because they ended up calling for snow, so we high-tailed it back home. Kevin and I ended up doing a little spring cleaning while it snowed which ended up being a great way to wrap up the weekend.
If we were on a coffee date, we’d talk about Instagram and I’d drudge some of my old photos. For some reason I scrolled all the way back to the beginning of my instagram feed and I felt two things: 1) completely embarrassed at what I posted and 2) a very strong urge to delete all my social media and crawl into a hole. I feel similarly about old blog posts that are floating around on the world wide web. This is my 3rd blog in 8 years (no, I’m not sharing links…HA!) and going back to those old ones makes me cringe. What’s worse is at the time I was really proud of it…am I going to feel that way about this blog in 10 years’ time?
If we were on a coffee date, I’d have to follow up the previous conversation with one about other ways we keep our memories. In addition to the internet, I pretty much keep every paper I’ve ever written on and every photo ever printed by me or for me. Each time I go home, I spend time looking at photo albums kept by my parents and grandparents. I absolutely love photos and stories and I want to be the owner of mine. I currently keep journals and scrapbooks but have started feeling the overwhelm of too much stuff and expectations on what I should be documenting.
If we were on a coffee date, we’d have to talk about all kinds of sports. My beloved Blues didn’t make it to the playoffs, Cardinals aren’t really off to a great start, and MPJ is going to the draft. I was hoping for a Rickie Fowler win at the Masters and he came in second place. I guess you could say that it’s not really the sports year I’m always hoping for. Kevin has been getting more into eSports, so we’ve been cheering on the Overwatch League as well. We don’t necessarily have a home team yet, so we’re just rooting for eSports in general.
What would you tell me if we were on a coffee date?
Apr 7, 2018 | Day in the Life, Everyday Life
Every time I do A Day in the Life, I am reminded of how much life can change in such a short amount of time, without really feeling different. I’ve been following along with this project (originally created by Ali Edwards) for quite some time, however, when I had photo hosting issues last year, I pretty much lost all evidence and previous posts. Regardless, I love this season that we’re in and even though I try to savor each day, reflecting and posting this here makes a difference.
Today, Chloe woke me up with one of her ridiculously loud yawns at 9:12am. I, of course, had to document the way she sits by my side of the bed and yawns continually (or in today’s case, barks) until I get up. She naturally ran straight to the back door to go outside while I got her breakfast. Back in the bedroom, she proceeded to jump on the bed to make sure Kevin got up too. After getting up and ready, we met friends – Jeff and Taylor – for lunch at Seoul Taco before heading to the Midwest Campus Clash for the gaming expo. I don’t know too much about League of Legends, but Avery (who met us there) and Jeff helped to explain as we watched. We didn’t have any stake in the game because Mizzou lost in the first round. During a break, we went to a rolled ice cream place…if, like me, you’ve never heard of this, you need to get acquainted. LIKE ASAP. Because wow, it’s good. We went back to the expo for a while and as we walked up I noticed the daffodils and had to play around with portrait mode on my new phone. We didn’t stay through the end of the tournament but we found out later that Maryville won. At home, we had dinner and I took Chloe on a walk. The beautiful sunset made the 40 degree weather worth it. When we walked back up to the house, I grabbed a shot of the pink and purple flowers since they’ll probably die in the snow that we’re expecting tomorrow. I wrapped up the day watching the Blues game (womp womp…we’re not going to the play offs) and working on blog posts for the coming week.
Thanks for stopping by! Happy Sunday.
Apr 6, 2018 | Everyday Life
It’s Friday, Friday! Gotta get down on Friday. I used to do weekend wrap ups on the blog and these posts remind me so much of those. I think these are my absolute favorites to write because they help me highlight the best moments and the small details I want to remember but will probably forget. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on in my life lately:
Kevin and I went home last weekend for Easter and we got to hangout with our families as well as our friend Bennet over dinner, drinks, and some march madness basketball. The guys have stayed connected via video games and they celebrated all their wins – called Chicken Dinners – in person, with 50 wings. This is why I love technology.
Dave, Kevin’s brother, came over last week and grilled up some food. Twice baked potatoes and the best burgers I’ve ever had. Notice that the veggies haven’t made it onto any of our plates. Ha! (PS: RIP table runner)
I joined Liz Lameroux’s Tell It: Collage class and have been powering away. I don’t know how much of it I’ll actually share, but I’m looking forward to more cutting and pasting and writing on this journey. The best part about these online classes is that it doesn’t have to end when the class is over. I can feel collaging becoming part of my normal creative routine.
The family gathered for Easter brunch and my oh my was it delicious. I love that we can all sit around one table and that we all had a say in the creation of Nana’s bitmoji. It’s amazing that you can take a photo and it will make one for you…if only my hair was as good as bitmoji thinks it is. HAHA!
Kevin and I upgraded our phones this past weekend and I’m on year 10 of Team iPhone (iPhone 3G, what’s up?). Naturally, I had to try out the portrait setting on Chloe and look how majestic she looks with that glowing fur. This camera is wicked and for that reason, I have to say that this has been my favorite upgrade yet.
