Blogging? What's that??

Long time no blog... Life has been spinning like crazy and I feel as if I never get time to sit down and blog, and when I do I choose sleep. Sorry, but it's true. I used to blog at work, I have an earlier schedule so I would blog as soon as I got there before we got really busy, well a little over a month ago they updated all of our computers with new software and it now block everything on the internet. Including things we needed on a daily basic so they had to go back in and reset some of the settings, unfortunately blogger didn't make the cut. I spent the first little bit of every morning when I first got to work to read your blogs and then write my post, but now I have to do it outside of work, and to be honest I don't know how y'all do it!! I have started multiple posts on here but got so tired I couldn't stay awake. Maybe one day I'll finish them and finally post them.      I WROTE THAT ^ OVER THREE WEEKS AGO. Got tired. Saved it in my drafts and called it a night. Seriously how do y'all do this?? I know once the wedding is over I'll have more time and maybe can take a rainy Saturday afternoon to write up a couple of posts but goodness, right now there just isn't time. So what have I been up to?  Well let's see... -I have had two bridal showers so far. What a blessing our friends and family have been so far! Organizing, planning, crafting, cooking, and decorating. All of it has been SO overwhelming, but one thing is for sure- we are blessed with the best! They have showered us, prayed for us, and have been so generous with gifts and advice.

 

 -I have been reading a lot! I have read two books some friends from church recommended.. His Needs, Her Needs by Williard F. Harley and Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs His Needs, Her Needs was good, but my goodness, Love and Respect, it definitely was my favorite. Seriously, I can't say enough good things about that book. I am hoping to do a post over it. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and read it ASAP. So many things in that book absolutely blew my mind and left me speechless. We aren't even married yet, but since reading that I have already noticed some positive changes in our relationship. IT'S THAT GOOD!   -I went on a work mission trip with the SOC last week...my last SOC trip. Let's not even talk about my emotions after I dropped everyone off that rode with me, and I realized that. Such a fun trip, even though some of us had to come back early.   -My sister graduated high school. Yeah, I still can't believe I typed that out, MY SISTER GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL. Keeping right on up with the crazy emotions, they were seriously all over the place. Happy/proud/sad/excited/freaking out...you name it. Sometimes I still can't believe she is old enough to drive and have a debit card, but graduating high school? I just did that...four years ago. Time is flyin' y'all! I really am proud of her! She worked so hard all through high school, especially her senior year, taking dual enrollment classes to get college credit, volunteering tons of hours, staying on top of her grades, and so much more. She is getting her first two years of college paid for thanks to the Tennessee Promise and then scholarships will kick in after that. We had a big graduation party at our house for her the weekend before and it may or may not have included a nacho bar. Heavenly.

  -I've still been working out as much as I can, eating healthier options, and smaller portions. So far I have lost 18lbs. I'm not at my goal weight yet, but I still have time. Also, I am losing inches. At first I had only lost around 10lbs and kept getting so frustrated on why I wasn't losing more, but then I started trying on some clothes I hadn't worn in about two years and they fit SO good. Some were even a little loose (insert praise hands emoji here). I do have to say that is one of THE best feelings. I was literally down to about two pair of dress pants for work because all of my other ones wouldn't even zip up anymore and I refused to buy new ones (they are expensive!!) Now, they ALL fit again!! Even pants from high school fit....like I said...best feeling ever! As crazy as it sounds, one of my favorite workouts is running bleachers at our football stadium. We set goals on how many we want to run, 10 or 15 depending on time. We can usually finish them up in 20-30 minutes!! Add in a few sets of squats and calf raises and our workout is done in 40 minutes.   -We had our engagement pictures made!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously a day I have been dreaming of finally happened!! I was on cloud 9 all week because I knew we were having them made that weekend. I felt like we put it off for so long, because I wanted to loose weight, everything to turn pretty outside, and for good weather. We didn't send save the dates and we aren't sending any pictures with invitations so we didn't have a deadline, thank goodness! We made some in Murfreesboro and then the rest in Cookeville. The weather was perfect and we had a good time...at least I think we did. I had a blast, Matthew on the other hand was totally out of his comfort zone but handled it all like a CHAMP! We may or may not have rewarded ourselves with Cookout after for over three hours of picture taking. HAAAAAY engagement pictures! We have the ones we made in Murfreesboro back, but the ones from Cookeville we only have a sneak peak. I'm pretty sure I squealed for a solid 10 minutes when we got that and ran around the kitchen a few times, bless my parents soul. I'll be sharing those with y'all when we get them all back.

  -One of my sweet friends from work got married at the beginning of May. We spent ALL last summer talking about her wedding, mine and Matthew's fall wedding (he had me convinced we weren't getting married until the fall), wedding crafts she could do, how crazy it is that she was finally getting married, and everything else. It made the work days go by faster and we loved chatting all through the day, we sat beside each other. So seeing her walk down the aisle to her groom literally almost made my heart burst out of my chest. She had it at her dream wedding venue she had wanted it at since she was a little girl, her dream wedding dress, and her best friends from elementary school standing beside her. She was glowing the whole afternoon, and the weather could not have been better. A dream I tell ya! They actually went to the same place we are going on our honeymoon!!

  -My three best friends graduated from college. Another huge emotional rollercoaster over here. One of them found out she got her dream teaching job the Thursday before she graduated. She told me right after she found out I was on my lunch break and big ole alligator tears came pouring. I am so incredibly proud and excited for her. She has worked SO hard all through college. Making good grades while most of the time balancing two jobs. Honestly, I don't know how she did it. She had told us about the interviews coming up and We prayed and prayed for guidance and peace when it came time for the principals to make a decision and they called her! She is teaching 4th grade and will be getting her classroom this summer!! We are already brainstorming ideas on how to decorate it. Fun fact: We met and became best friends in the fourth grade and she got to student teach with out fourth grade teacher! She had a huge impact on both of us and we made so many sweet memories in her class that year. Sarah, was definitely lucky to student teach with her!! I know without any doubts she is going to be the best teacher. I get so overwhelmed thinking about all those precious kids that are going to come through her class over the years and how big of an impact she is going to have on them.

  Okay, I think that is about it for now. Last Saturday afternoon was the first time in over a month I was able to sit down at home and relax for more than two hours at a time. Sweet sweet times, three hour nap and then some wedding crafting followed by hotdogs for dinner with my family around the fire.   If you made it through all of that, you.are.a.boss. I am hoping to get back in the swing of things and blog regularly again, not making any promises though ;)   oh, and 57 DAYS UNTIL WE ARE MARRIED!

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Blogging? What's that??

NASHVILLE

If you are following along on Instagram then you saw last night where I announced that Matthew has accepted a position with a CPA firm in Nashville! A LOT of prayers, spreadsheets and decisions were made last week. He graduates in 59 days (WHAA) with his MBA and then starts work shortly after that! His hard work is finally paying off and I am so very proud of him! I can't wait to see how God is going to use him there and in Nashville. I also can't wait to call Nashville our home once we get married!!

Yesterday was an exciting day! It's fall break and I was able to take off from work.

So we spent the day in Nashville looking at apartments/town homes! Matthew will move to Nashville first and I'll stay in Cookeville until we get married. Once we get married I will move to Nashville with him! So, the place we rent or buy is a decision that will be made by the both of us since, Lord willing, that we be the place I move into, after we are married of course.

Talk about exciting!!!!

I still can't believe everything is coming together so quickly! We have talked about where we were going to end up for a long time. If we are being honest we were a little disappointed it wasn't Chattanooga. Matthew's older brother is there, we love the town and he really liked the accounting firm there. We really thought we would end up in Chattanooga, but that just goes to prove that God has a plan that's bigger than our own, and honestly that is so comforting to know.

We are very excited about Nashville and the opportunities we will have there. The company Matthew will be working for is GREAT, and we have heard only good things about them. He is SO excited.

We are so blessed.

We looked up places online this past weekend so we would know where to look and where to avoid. I am so glad we actually were able to see them in person. The first set of apartments were just nasty and didn't look safe. On top of that the prices for a one bedroom literally double what I pay for my one bedroom now. We knew prices would be higher in Nashville, but that definitely caught us of guard. Especially for all the extras that aren't optional.

We did tour a town home that we just fell in love with. The area it's in is nice an quiet off the main road, it looked safe and friendly. We just aren't sure if it will fit in our budget starting out.

If anything, touring it gave us plenty of motivation to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE and SAVE some more!

Please keep Matthew in your prayers as he wraps up this semester and starts this new season of life!

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NASHVILLE

Finally catching up!!

It's time to play catch up since someone keeps telling me I haven't blogged in awhile (ahem...Ethan) This past weekend Matthew's older brother, Andrew, graduated from Tennessee Tech with his masters in mechanical engineering, so last week was his last week in Cookeville so we tried to all hang out as much as possible.   Last Sunday night Andrew was preparing and practicing his big presentation for Monday morning. Matthew, Ethan and I all went to dinner after church and then went back to the SOC house to listen to Andrew practice his presentation.

 

Monday night we had pancakes over at the SOC house as a study break for everyone taking finals

We played cornhole and sat around and talked.

I love this picture we took!! I just wish it was clear lol

 The crew!

 

 

Wednesday night before church we grilled out and celebrated Ethan's birthday at Matthew's apartment. Matthew and I had made his cake on Tuesday night, it was a four layer chocolate on chocolate cake aaaand it was leaning lol.

 

The crew!

After church Wednesday night we decided to all go eno on campus because the weather was PERFECT

Thursday afternoon Ethan headed off to vacation and we took Andrew out to dinner to celebrate his graduation. We didn't get a pic with him but I got pictures with my roommates!

Then we realized we were all wearing chaco's so this happened..

 After dinner we all went back to our apartment and watched Frozen!

 

Friday night Matthew had 2 church league softball games and they won!!

 

Saturday was graduation day!!!! I woke up early and got ready so we could get over there to save our seats!!

We were there plenty of time before it started and since Ethan couldn't be there we sent him snap chats and videos..

We went to one of our favorite Italian places here in Cookeville and celebrated with lunch and cake!

I headed home after that to celebrate mother's day with my mom.

We had dinner at my house with some family as well and then Sunday after church we went to my mema's house and grilled out with them!

 

After that I picked Matthew up and we headed back to Cookeville! Matthew and Nathan loaded up Matthew's 2 couches he bought last semester and I am going to use them in my new apt!!

This is my last week in good ole apartment D but I am SO stinking excited about my new apartment!

 

This past week/weekend was definitely crazy busy and it doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon. Matthew started his summer class this morning, it is a CPA prep course. Lord willing by the end of August he will have taken and passed all 4 parts of the CPA. It is a very intense course, he will have an online lecture for 4 hours a day and then he is assigned 8+ hours of homework to have completed by the next day. It is going to be hard and a lot of work for him but it will definitely be worth it! I am SO proud of him!! This week I will be packing things up each night getting ready to move to my new apt and then Friday when I get off I am heading to Georgia for a mission trip with the SOC! 

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Finally catching up!!

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is a pretty popular show. Most of my friends watch it and Matthew LOVES it. Matthew always jokes around and says he wants to get his law degree (he wouldn't be a bad lawyer because that boy can argue with a fence post...just sayin) just so he can say this...

 

In our group of friends we often reference HIMYM and make jokes about it. Every since Matthew and I started dating people have told us we are like Marshall and Lily (except we don't live together lol) so I thought it would be fun to match up who we are all like from the show, and this is what I came up with...

Left to right, Ethan is Barney, Andrew is Ted, Matthew is Marshall and I am Lily.   I made this little collage up the other day and sent it to them in our group message and they all got a kick out of it. Now, we just have to find Andrew a Robin! Also, a late congrats is in order for Andrew. He accepted a job in Chattanooga and will start in a couple of weeks. We are so excited for him, sad to see him go, but excited and proud of him for his hard work. He will be graduating with his masters in mechanical engineering here from Tech in a couple of weeks. Needless to say, Matthew, Ethan and I will be making trips to Chattanooga pretty often once he moves. Matthew and I already LOVE Chattanooga so we are excited for him.

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How I Met Your Mother

HE DID IT

Matthew graduated!!!! This post is WAY overdue but I still wanted to share with y'all about Matthew's big day.    Friday night I threw a small graduation party for him at my apartment and my two best friends came up for the party and spent the night. After everyone left that night we ran to Big O's to get donuts for breakfast the next morning. Matthew's loves donuts just about as much as I love them so I got him some because I knew he wouldn't eat anything the morning of his graduation because he would be too nervous. We drove over to his apartment and had donuts and milk :) and of course I had to snap a picture!!

 

and off to graduation we went! (Kathleen did my hair for my and I loved it!)

  Matthew's parents got there earlier than we did and saved seats. Graduation started at 10 and by time we got there at 8:45 a lot of seats were already saved!! Matthew had to go check in and get lined up and we sat and waited and then found him in line and made a couple of pictures...   Nathan will be graduating next December!

 

 

 

 

and then 10:00 rolled around :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew's family

 

Matthew with his brothers.

 

So stinkin good looking :)

Matthew is a member of Beta Alpha Psi at Tech.

 

 

 

After graduation we snapped a few pictures and then headed to lunch to celebrate!

We went to a delicious Italian restaurant here in Cookeville.

 

 

 

On December 14, 2013 Matthew became a Tennessee Tech alumnus after three and a half short years. Words can't describe how proud I am of him. Seeing him walk across the stage in his cap and gown is something I'll always remember. You might say I'm his biggest fan, and I am truly honored and humbled to stand by him as he reaches all his goals. Lord willing we will be back there again as he is receiving his masters degree. I sure do love my accountant!! 

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HE DID IT