Getting Engaged

Hey Guys!

So if you've read some of my other posts I'm sure you've figured out by now that I am engaged! Yay! My fiancé proposed to me on November 4th, 2021! At the time we had been together for 4 years at the time that I am writing this we're coming up on being together for 5 years! We've been engaged for 7 months now and yes we are currently planning our wedding! By the time we get married we will have been engaged for a little less than a year and a half. We actually just started planning the wedding in April. It took us a little bit to find a venue. We had one that we both really liked but they some very interesting rules that we didn't really agree with. We were going to get married at this cottage on the property of a resort and they had this requirement that you had to rent out all 13 guest rooms inside the cottage and you could rent them out to your guests and the rates of the guest rooms were like $600. They said you get a discount but even with a 20% discount we felt we could not ask the members of our wedding party to pay those kind of prices for rooms that might not even hold their whole family. 

June 2022 Life Update

My dog Dooney and Me in the snow in North Dakota

Hey Guys!

Long time no talk! But no, seriously, it has been a while and I have really missed blogging! I want to start off by apologizing and even though I know that I really only had like maybe 5-10 people reading my blog posts and most of those were my family and friends, I want to say I'm sorry for taking such a long hiatus and for just randomly not posting anymore. Honestly, life got a little crazy! I mean, I think a lot of peoples lives got crazy once Covid became a thing. I really don't have any other excuse besides Covid and probably some mental health issues just like a lot of people kind of dealt with during Covid. We all had to stop seeing our friends and family and we all became shut-ins for a little bit. 

Anyways, I wanted to give you guys a little life update on where I have been since my last post in February of 2020! When I posted last, I had just started going to school for my Master's and Covid was just kind of in the beginning stages of being spread around the world...yay so fun! I was still working for the County at the time (remember? The job I constantly complained about) and my boyfriend had recently been stationed in Grand Forks, North Dakota and only had been living there since October of 2019. Wow that sounds so crazy to say! Time really does fly by! In the time since then, I was promoted at work to a job that I had really wanted for about a year or more, I am still currently working on my Master's, my sister went back to school for her Master's and moved to Orlando. We still have the house that we shared together and are in the process of turning it into an Airbnb/long term fully furnished rental property. My dog was also diagnosed with Cancer and we almost lost him. After 4 years my boyfriend and I got engaged, and I recently quit that job I was promoted to and moved to Grand Forks to be with my fiancé. I think that pretty much sums it up but if I miss anything I will probably blog about it later. 

I really want to get back to blogging, not necessarily full time seeing as how I am a full time student, searching for a new, hopefully fully remote job, and planning a wedding all while living 2,000 miles away from family and friends! I already have a few posts in mind that I plan on writing today, which is a Sunday and then finishing some of them up throughout the rest of the week. I will explain my current situation in a little more detail in one of the posts and as well as some of the other items I mentioned above. As for now, I hope you guys have a fantastic week and if there is anything specific you would like me to blog about please leave me a comment below! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Biloxi Mississippi June 2019 Day 1

Hey guys,

So my boyfriend is currently stationed in Biloxi, MS and my mom and I took a trip up there about 2 weeks after her got there which was about 2 weeks after his BMT graduation. I'm actually about to head there myself in about a week in and a half! I'm flying up after work on Friday and then flying back on Sunday in the afternoon/evening. 

Anyways, on our first trip up there, my mom and I actually drove up. We left on a Thursday after work and to be honest, driving up there again is not something I'm really looking forward to doing again. It was very long drive and even though we broke it up on the way up there it still felt like it took forever before we finally got there. We got there on Friday afternoon round 4 and then we left Sunday around 10:20 am and then we didn't end up making it home until about 10 at night. It was a very long day and we were both exhausted by the end of it. However, since I'm flying up there this time I'm going to compare the two and see what happens. We also have friends that live in Tallahassee so I kind of want to drive up there and stay their house for one night since it's like the half way point. 

On our first night we stopped like an hour outside of Tally and found a random hotel that we paid wayyyy too much for. And then on Friday morning we got up, ate breakfast and headed back on the road. Our first stop was Mobile, Alabama. I thought it would be fun to make a quick little pit stop. So we did and we ate lunch downtown at a very cute BBQ place and then we did a guided tour of a historical home in Mobile. It was called the Richards DAR House Museum. It was a very cute tour and ended with tea or lemonade and cookies! I believe it was $10 per person which isn't too bad of a price considering you get cookies!

Once we were done with the tour we headed back to our car and got back on the road. We were only about an hour and a half away from the base so that was nice. Granted the drive still seemed to take forever. We made it to the base at a really good time. We got there only like 30 minutes before he got done with his classes so we just hangout until he was able to meet up with us. We couldn't figure out how to check into the hotel on base so thankfully he helped us with that and then once we got all unloaded we decided to head into town and check out the fancy hotels down by the water. We parked at the Hard Rock and then he and I went on a date at the Hard Rock restaurant there because he had never been to one before. It was a lot of fun and split an appetizer and a meal and a milkshake!

We then walked around the hotel a little bit and then watched the Sunset which is what we are doing in the last photo. Some people apparently thought this photo was an engagement announcement because of my hand placement so that was kind of awkward! But it's okay, I'll just be more careful of where I place my hand in the future. I'm just an awkward posing so I didn't really know what else to do with my hand haha but other than that I thought it was a great photo!

We also walked to the hotel next door to the Hard Rock which is called the Beau Rivage and it is basically Biloxi's version of the Bellagio. It is an absolutely beautiful hotel and I would love to stay there someday. The Bellagio is my favorite hotel on the strip so I think it would be cool to stay at like the mini version of it haha!

Once we got done with all of that we headed back to the base and hangout for a little bit before it was time to go to bed and get ready for the next day!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

July Life Update 2019

Hey guys,

So not a lot is going on right now! I'm mostly just working and Facetiming my boyfriend every night. A little recap of the month includes spending July 4th watching some fireworks on the water with my family and my parents traveling to Alaska for two weeks and leaving us with their new puppy. She's only about 7 or 8 months old. But she is very hyper and active and our two older dogs are not! They are both 11 years old and puppies are very annoying to them! haha but we all survived and as annoying as she may be, she is a very adorable dog and it's hard to stay mad at her. We also had some of our friends come into town which was great! Some of them had never seen our house before so we got to show off all of our hard work and we had such a great time. My sister and I seriously cannot wait until they come back into town! 

I'm currently trying to do a small side business of redoing furniture. It's something I'm very passionate about and I really enjoy doing it. I already had two pieces of furniture and then recently went shopping for some more. I haven't decided where or how I'm going to sell the pieces once they are done but I'm really hoping it works out well. So far I've only invested about $100 into the project/idea so even if I'm only able to sell each piece for $20 then I've still made a profit. It will be a small one but at least I didn't lose any money. So far I have 3 tables, a vanity bench, a small chair and matching stool, 3 matching chairs that I'm going to break up and do 2 matching and maybe someone will buy them as their head of the table chairs and then another single chair by itself. Believe it or not but on all of those pieces of furniture I only spent $24.53 all together. 

I already had a few stains from projects that I've already done around my house so my goal is to use those up and then once I start making a profit and if the idea takes off then I can invest in some other color stains. I also already had some fabric leftover from a couple projects that I did around my house as well so I'm going to use that up and then I bought 3 new pieces of fabric to play around with, which is how I'm able to keep my investment so low. My goal is to sell them for at least $50 a piece so I can make some money and then put some of it in savings and then the rest towards buying more pieces of furniture and better supplies. 

I am also starting to think about what kind of car I want next and how much money I'm going to need to get a car. I'm currently thinking used but only by a couple years so that way I can still have all of the same safety features but not having to spend so much money on something new. I currently lease my car and I have to turn it in at the end of April of 2020 so I have less than a year and I really need to start saving! I still have my old Acura TSX that I plan on selling soon so that will at least get my savings started somewhat! My goal is to have at least $10,000 saved up so I won't have as large of a monthly payment. So it'll depends on how much I sell my Acura for that I need to save up. 

I currently know that I want an SUV but I'm not entirely sure which one or what brand. My longterm goal in life is to own and Acura RDX because I think it's like the perfect size SUV and my mom used to have one and I loved driving it around. I also know what color I want, which is blue. I absolutely hate basic car colors, white, black, silver and gold are not colors! They are accents colors that you wear to finish putting your outfit together. They are not something you drive around in! No offense to whoever drives a boring colored car! 

I also really want to spend some time focusing on minimizing the amount of stuff I have. I have the tendency to buy something whenever I think it's cute but lately my goal is to only buy something if I really need it and use whatever I already have at home. My whole life I've always been told "You can't take it with you when you go" so I'm trying to make sure I don't have too much stuff and that I'm not too attached to anything I already own. 

I hope you enjoyed this post and learning a little bit more about what's going on in my life! I will keep you updated with another post next month!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Deleting my Pinterest Wedding Board

Hey guys,

So this post is going to be more of a journal type blog post! So I recently decided to completely delete my wedding board on Pinterest! That's right 1,200 pins and everything idea that I thought was cute probably back from 2012! The colors I wanted, the theme, dresses, floral designs, invitations. Basically you name it and it was on there. And no this doesn't mean that my boyfriend and I have broken up, we're still good! But my reasoning behind deleting is because I want a clean slate. When I created my Pinterest account back in 2012, this was probably my first board. I wasn't dating anyone, I had just graduated from high school and was starting college. My plans were to stay single throughout all of college and then once I was a little more settled to see what happened with life! And that's pretty much what I did. I graduated from college, bought a house with my sister, got a job, and met my boyfriend about a year later! Well we technically had met before but we didn't really get together until later! 

Creating a wedding board is great and all if you're with someone and you're able to talk about everything with them. However, all of the ideas that I had in my board were exactly that, they were my ideas. They weren't our ideas. They weren't what we had agreed upon and when you're with someone that's not what it's about. It's about getting to pick things out together and deciding how you want things to go. Unless you have a boyfriend/fiancé that could careless then I guess go ahead and plan by yourself! 

Planning is something I'm really into and one of the reasons that I decided to delete it is because I wanted a clean slate. I'm kind of a control freak and I have a lot of anxiety so when something isn't perfect or going my way, I tend to overreact or freak out. It's something I've struggled with my whole life. My mom was telling me this story that I had never heard before but apparently one Christmas I had told her about a doll house to buy me and I guess she had bought me the wrong one and so I basically told her how much she sucked and how she ruined Christmas because of this. Granted now that I'm older and can handle myself a little better, I would definitely never tell her that! I might still think it haha but I would never let her feel bad for getting me the wrong thing. Or at least I would try not to!

But as my boyfriend and I get more serious, I want for us to someday be able to plan things together and come up with ideas as partners. I want for us to pick out colors, invitations, flowers, and all of the necessary things it takes to put on a wedding. I want us to agree on how the wedding should go and what should be done at the wedding. I want everything to be something we decide, except you know the obvious things such as my dress and stuff like that! But everything should be something we want!

I hope you enjoyed this kind of weird post haha! But I thought it was an interesting idea to talk about. But I really need to get more into the fashion side of this blog because I really miss it! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Boyfriend Q&A

Hey guys,

So I thought it would be really fun to do a blog post featuring my boyfriend! So I FaceTimed him and made him answer a few questions about me! I ended up deleting some of them though because we thought they were kind of weird questions lol! But anyways, I hope you guys enjoy getting to know a little bit more about me from his perspective! 

1) Where and when did we first meet?

At his desk at his parents house, sometime 2016?

2) Where was our first date?

Pinchers Crab Shack

3) What was your first impression of me?

Friendly/Cute

4) When did you meet my family?

Before we started dating sometime in the summer of 2017

5) Who said “I love you” first?

He did!

6) What I often do in my free times?

Watch TV

7) How long have we been together?

1 year and 9 months but we sometimes include the months we were talking and getting to know each other

8) What was our first road trip?

A month after we got together we went to Universal with some friends but our first road trip just the two of us was to Disney for his birthday which was like 2 weeks after my birthday!

9) First thing you noticed about me?

My eyes

10) What is something I’m not good at?

Video games

11) What is something I’m good at?

Interior Design

12) Favorite feature about me?

My laugh

13) What do we argue about the most?

Food

14)Do I have any weird obsessions?

How I fold my towels

15) Nicknames for me?

Stephie-poo

16) What is my favorite restaurant?

Cheesecake Factory

17) Complete this sentence “You’re my……..”?

You're my home!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

June Life Update 2019

Hey guys,

Long time no talk! I know it's been awhile and I definitely have a lot to say. I have been pretty busy lately. I've been traveling like crazy and I think I might be done for at least a month but we will have to see! Basically my life is going really well! My boyfriend graduated from Air Force Basic Training and we're doing really well. I will blog more about that later. Basically my goal for this summer is catch up on blogging and blog about all of the trips I've taken since December of last year because yes, I am that far behind. I will probably be going out of order but there's no like specific timeline so it's totally okay if I got out of order. I also want to write a few other things here and there but we will see. I honestly feel like life is on the fast forward button right now and it like refuses to pause or slowdown and it definitely will not rewind haha!

Anyways, so life has been great! Since we last talked in May, I have been to Boston, San Antonio, Alabama for a few hours and Mississippi! My boyfriend is currently stationed in Mississippi for his tech school because right after BMT you head straight to tech school where you basically learn the skills for your job. His tech school is a little longer than the average person because of his job is a little more complicated but thankfully he's only a 10 hour drive away give or take a couple hours haha. Basically he graduated from BMT and then two weeks later I decided to take a trip up there with my mom for the weekend! I currently do not have another trip planned up there for a while because I don't really know when I'll be able to get time off. I have an idea for when I would like to go back but so far it's still up in the air!

As far as everything else goes, work is still the same. I love my job and the people I work with are amazing! My boss went out of town for a week though recently and we were all freaking out that we weren't going to be able to get everything done but I think we handled it pretty well! We've been working short lately so we've all been struggling a little. Hopefully things will get back to normal there soon though. Fingers crossed!

Our house is still a work in process but we have friends coming to visit the weekend after July 4th so we've been working out butts off trying to get it in shape for them! However, it still needs soooo much work! We bought this kit to like redo our kitchen but it's definitely going to be a while before that gets done. We are currently working on my bathroom and trying to finish removing the wallpaper and getting it painted. I will probably blog about it when we get done with it! I'm really hoping it turns out super well! But we will have to see! I'm not going to give any details until it's done!

I think that pretty much sums up life so far! It's super hot here in Florida! Thankfully my Disney pass has blockout dates all summer long so I don't have to worry about dying in the heat there. I have a few more trips for this year that I want to take, I'm just not sure when or if I will be able to get time off. I have to say working full time has definitely put a damper on my travel life! I'm used to just being able to say hey I can't work these dates and then taking off on a trip but I guess that's a part of growing up and becoming an adult. I must admit, I have been very spoiled over the years. If I could get paid to travel I would definitely do it! Traveling and exploring new places is one of my favorite things to do! All right well that's it for now! I will talk to you guys later!

Oh by the way Happy Summer and Happy July 1st!

Talk to you soon!

XO, Steph