Tuesday, May 17, 2016

THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 8 & 9

Time is flying by and I have gotten behind on my Marriage Diaries posts. I feel like so much has happened since my last Marriage Diaries post, and well, that's because so much HAS happened.


These past couple of months have been a little rough for us. I hate even saying that because things could be SO much worse, but it hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies over here. We're getting back to that point, fingers crossed, but it's been a little rocky. 5 different hospitals (Hermitage, Murfreesboro, Nashville (x2), and Chattanooga) resulting in 3 nights in the hospital, multiple (and I mean multiple) test and scans, meetings with 3+ different neurologists, so many restless/sleepless nights and we still don't have a a definite answer. When I stop and think of everything that has gone on I still find myself stopping and thinking, lucky us. Lucky us, the tests and scans came back completely clear. Lucky us, we were notified of Matthew's high blood pressure before something awful happened. Lucky us, Matthew was seen by some of the top neurologists in the state of Tennessee. Lucky us, we were taken back minutes after arriving at the ER, both times. Lucky us, the support we have been shown from family and friends was overwhelming. Lucky us, we both have jobs that not only encouraged us to take our time about coming back, but checked in on us to see how we were holding up.  Lucky us, we are working to get past this health scare, together.


Marry your best friend, you won't ever,ever regret it.


BEEFY-CHILI MAC - DINNER RECIPE

This recipe is so easy and we had plenty of leftovers for lunches the rest of the week. The best part about it is that you can change it up according to what you like or don't like. 


Beefy-chili Mac
Adapted from Mix and Match Mama

Ingredients 
- 1 lb of elbow noodles
- 1 lb of ground beef
- 2 (6 oz) cans of tomato paste
- 1 (8 oz) can of tomato sauce 
- 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, halved. 
- 2 - 1-2 Tablespoon of chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
- 1 Tablespoon of parsley
- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions
- Preheat oven to 350

- In a large pot, cook noddles al dente and then drain.

- Meanwhile in another skillet brown your meat and then drain.

- Once meat and noodles are done mix the meat in with the noodles. Then mix in all of the other ingredients listed above. Only mix in half of the shredded cheese. 

- Once everything is mixed together well in the skillet, add to a 9 x 13 baking dish and top with remaining shredded cheese.

- Bake in the oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

Monday, May 16, 2016

WEEKENDING

Friday night we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to Target to pick up our new planters. After that we went to Lowe's to get stuff to fill them!! Just getting #TheCoatsHome ready for summer...one plant at a time! 

Saturday we woke up and I made one of our favorites, sausage roll ups! We had a slow start to our Saturday, eating breakfast and watching a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother and then we got up and got to work around the house...

Trimming all of our bushes out front, pulling weeds and putting the planters together! If you look at the bottom left of this picture you can see a small peak at them! I can't wait to share them with you soon. Matthew cut down one of the bushes in the right of this picture and we plan on taking the second one out this coming weekend.

I also cleaned out my office. We put the rest of our unpacked totes in there as well as other stuff we hadn't gotten a chance to put up yet, and it ended up being a huge mess. I haven't had much time to work on that room until this weekend so that was very high on my priority list this past weekend. Here is the 'before' picture...it's bad.
I forgot to take and 'after' picture, but just know EVERYTHING is gone out of that room, except my beautiful desk!! I'm so excited to have it clean and looking like a real room now! I can't wait to get in there and decorate!
Late Saturday afternoon we went over to my aunt and uncle's house for my cousin's graduation party. It was fun to see everyone, and as always, there was a ton of delicious food! The weather this weekend has been very mild...almost chilly. We had the windows open all day Saturday and Sunday and it was great!

Sunday after church we ran to Lowe's to pick up painting supplies...because we got a FIVE gallon bucket of paint. We are so excited to start painting our house. We decided to go with Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams for the whole house. It's a beautiful neutral color and we are very excited! The color on the wall in the picture below is a darker beige. I'll update soon on everything after we get it all painted!

We ended up making 3 Lowe's trips this weekend!

Sunday night for dinner I made meatball subs...SO good but SO messy!

Friday, May 13, 2016

FRIDAY NO. 17

Happy Friday!! I am excited for the weekend and keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather. Matthew and I have a long list of things we want to get done around the house this weekend and we are ready to get started on all of it!

A couple of weeks ago I shared with y'all some lists that Matthew and I made. We have decided to go on weekly date nights. Some weeks it will be smaller, such as an ice cream date and some weeks it will be dinner, or dinner and a movie. We decided to try and check off some of the restaurants on our list, and last night we were able to check one off. We tried Mirko Pasta. It's an Italian restaurant, and it was delicious!
 I had the spaghetti with meatballs and Matthew had cheese ravioli with Alfredo sauce. It was SO good, and we plan on going back, and soon!!


We came home and made our a summer bucket list before the Predator's game. I'm so excited to check things off of this list together! Making lists just make me so stinkin' happy. :)


I have been wanting to put two black planters on each side of our front door. I found these on Amazon but they are just a bit out of our price range right now, so I've been doing some searching and found these at Target! Plus we still have Target gift cards left over from our wedding so they will be F-R-E-E! I'm so excited to pick them up today and work on them this weekend.

Have a great weekend!!

Blog posts from this week: