Update on Master's

Hey Guys!

I just wanted to share a little update on how it is going with my Master's. For those of you, who are new here I have been working on getting my Master's since March of 2020! I started right before Covid happened and honestly in the beginning I struggled a little bit because I, along with everyone else wasn't really sure what was going on in the world or what our future was going to look like. Zach and I were also in a long distance relationship and we had no idea when we'd be able to see each other again. So I basically freaked out a little bit and I took the first semester very slow. I completed the 3 classes that were assigned to me and then I took a month long break before starting my next term. In my next term I took things even slower. I only completed 2 of the classes and then ended up taking another break. By the time I complete my Master's it will have been almost 3 years even though it should have only taken me a year. I didn't really plan for it to take me this long but then again the world didn't plan for Covid and a global shutdown. 

August 2022 Life Update

Hey Guys!

Sorry this post is a little but life has been a little busy! I also haven't really had that much time to write any new posts lately, in fact I am supposed to be studying right now instead of writing this post! Anyways, I hope you guys had a great August! Mine was kind of a crazy month! I just wanted to share that I am back home in Florida staying at my parents house for about 8 weeks. Initially I had shared that I was going to be coming home for about 6 weeks as well as going on a week long vacation with my parents to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Badlands National Park but unfortunately my 14 year old dog (my baby) ended up getting sick. My fiancé and I had to take him and leave him over night a couple nights at the emergency vet in the next town over which is about an hour away from where we live. They did some tests on him and he seemed to be fighting some kind of infection which they couldn't really give us an answer why but they also found another tumor. This time it is located in his colon. Last year he was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma and he has a tumor on his spleen. Typically dogs get their spleen along with the mass removed when they get diagnosed with this cancer but due to his age and the condition he was in last year the vet did not recommend it. She didn't think that it would extend his life anymore and he was given about 6 months to a year to live. It has been a little over a year and thankfully that tumor hasn't ruptured and it doesn't like like it has really grown in size but now he has a secondary tumor in his colon which the vet said is most likely unrelated. 

Because of this diagnosis my parents changed their plans and came up about 10 days early so they could pick me and him up and we all drove home together. It was about a 3 day drive and we drove to Orlando and stayed a couple nights with my sister before heading back home to Cape Coral. Overall the drive wasn't too bad and my dog, Dooney just slept pretty much the entire time. Thankfully he does super well with car rides and he absolutely loves being in the car. He just hops right in and passes right out. Sometime he'll stick his face in the air vent so the wind is blowing in his hair and when he was younger he used to love to open the windows and give me a heart attack! Thank goodness for locking windows! 

Anyways, we're both back home and he's doing pretty well so far. We were given a couple different antibiotics to treat the infections that were going on inside of him and we were also given a pain medicine just in case something were to happen. He was also given an appetite stimulant and anti-nausea medicine! It was a lot to be giving my dog all at the same time and I don't think he's ever had to take so many drugs all at the same time. He definitely wasn't a fan of everything but thankfully they helped to get better and he has been doing well ever since. At the moment, we are taking it one day at a time. He is my best friend and it will be absolutely heartbreaking to lose him but unfortunately he can't stay with me forever. It's definitely the worst feeling of being a pet owner. 

Also, during the month of August, I got a black eye! It was actually kind of a funny story! My fiancé and I  were cuddling in bed and he was trying to play a song for me on Youtube and he had his phone up in the air and it accidentally slipped out of his hand and landed on my face! Right below my eye and kind of next to my nose. I bruised right away and had a black eye for over 2 weeks and I can't really press very hard on my face still because it's still kind of sore. I definitely cried but I mostly just laughed it off and when I called his mom to show her, she was like you need to milk that, no cooking dinner of the whole weekend lol. He felt so bad and he kept offering to buy me my favorite food but of course we were also on a diet so I said no to most of them but I did cave for some Chick-fil-a and QDoba! I definitely felt like it was never going to heal though and it changed colors almost everyday, it was kind of crazy!

For now I am focusing on getting my school done along with still planning a few trips that I have coming up. Once I am back home from the last trip, my dad and I will be heading back up to North Dakota! After that, the plans are kind of up in the air because I might have to take a trip to Atlanta in November to pick up my wedding dress and then I am also coming back home to Cape Coral to have my bridal shower along with my second Bachelorette party. My fiancé will also be taking a trip back home to Cape Coral to have his Bachelor party with his groomsmen. Also, my family is also coming up to celebrate Christmas with us in North Dakota and they will hopefully be having a white Christmas! 

I think that's all I have for now! I can't believe September is already half way over! This last half of the year seems to be flying by! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Bridesmaid Dresses

 Hey Guys!

So today's post is about my Bridesmaid dresses! Since I, along with pretty much all of my bridesmaids are long distance, I decided that it would be easiest for everyone to shop online. I also knew that I wasn't going to be that picky about what my bridesmaids wore. I pretty much only had two conditions: navy blue and floor length. Since our wedding is formal, black tie welcomed I want my bridesmaids to be wearing floor length dresses to fit the theme. 

Ring and Sign Bearer Proposal Boxes

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Happy Friday! Today's post is about our Ring/Sign Bearer Boxes. We have one Ring Bearer and one Sign Bearer. We haven't picked what sign we want our sign bearer to carry down the aisle and we are totally open to suggestions if anyone has a cute idea!

Flower Girl Proposal Boxes

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So today's post is about our Flower Girl Proposal Boxes! In total we have 3 flower girls, we each asked one member from our families and then I asked one of my closest friends oldest daughter. At the time of the wedding they will all be between the ages of 6-8.

Groomsman Proposal Boxes

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Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend! This week we are continuing with posts about the different proposal boxes for our wedding party! Today's post is featuring our Groomsmen Proposal Box. This was totally my idea, my fiancé thought it was kind of cheesy and I struggled with getting him to pick stuff out! But finally he did and I think that they turned out great. In total he has about 4 groomsmen and then his sister is actually his Best Woman! We didn't give her the best man box because we agreed to give her one of my bridesmaid boxes because she basically a bridesmaid just standing next to her brother on the day of the wedding! We both technically wanted her lol so she's participating in my bridal stuff and then depending on what he does she may participate in the bachelor party! And on the morning of the wedding she will probably be the first one to get her hair and makeup done just so that way she can go be with her brother and help him get ready and stuff! 

My Bridesmaid Proposal Boxes

Hey Guys!

Happy Friday! I hope you had a great week and enjoy your weekend! I don't really have any plans for the weekend except for school and wedding planning stuff mostly. My fiancé is gone pretty much all day during the work week since he works in office and so we try to get as much of our wedding planning that we need to get done together on the weekends. I also need to focus on getting as much school done as I possibly can before I leave for my trip with my parents and then my other trips I have coming up as well. I don't really plan on spending those weeks studying or doing any school work so I pretty much have to focus and cram in as much as I can. 

Summer 2022 Disney Trip

 Hi Guys!

Today's post is about my recent trip to Disney! I went for a long weekend for the last weekend in July. I flew into Orlando Thursday night almost Friday morning lol and then I flew home Monday night. I got to see my friends that I haven't seen in quite a while. Some of them I hadn't seen since November of 2020 unfortunately due to Covid, getting a new job and us living like 7 hours away from each other. When they told us about the trip I decided that I was going to go even though it wasn't really something I should be spending money on but three of them are my bridesmaids and two of their children are also in my wedding so I definitely felt like I needed to see them since it had been a while. Some of the kids barely even remembered me since it had been so long since I had last seen them!

July 2022 Life Update

 Hi Guys!

Happy August! Sorry for taking a couple weeks off from blogging! I got busy with school and wedding planning and honestly I've been re-watching Friends and sometimes I get a little sucked in since the episodes are so short. I also took a little trip which I will be blogging out about this week! 

Wedding Dress Shopping

 Hi Guys!

Happy Friday! I wanted to share a little bit about my experience going wedding dress shopping! First of all, I said Yes to the dress! It is my absolute dream dress and everything I could ever want in a dress. I will not be sharing any details about the dress and only a few close people know which dress I selected. Everyone else in my life, including you guys will just have to be surprised on my wedding day and when I finally get around to sharing a post about the dress after we get married. Anyways, we went dress shopping in Atlanta with my mom and sister. My future mother in law and sister in law were also supposed to attend but unfortunately neither of them were feeling very well and were unable to attend. We did FaceTime with them during the whole process of trying on dresses though so we definitely made sure to include them as I am very close with both of them! 

Inspiration for My Bridal Shower

 Hey Guys!

So today's post is another wedding post and it is the inspiration for my bridal shower! This won't be happening until January but like I've said before I will be home for a few weeks in September and I want to try to get as much planning done and decorations made so I'm not leaving it all to my mom and sister to have to do. And I know technically I'm not really supposed to do that but I feel really bad when people do things for me so I have to help out! Also, I kind of feel like it's my bridal shower and since my parents are paying for everything I feel like the least I can do is help with some of the heavy lifting type work.

Inspiration for Our Wedding

 Hey Guys!

Today's post is going to be another wedding post! We haven't actually gotten to the planning part yet of the wedding but we have been planning all of the other events that are typically included with a wedding such as the Bachelor/Bachelorette parties and the bridal shower. Our rehearsal dinner is pretty already planned to thankfully. That was probably the easiest and quickest of them all. I will do some blog posts on that as well, including our experience of finding a place and then once we actually have it, I will do a review and explanation of details!

My Winter 2022/ Spring 2023 Travel Plans

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So this is kind of part 2 of Fridays post! It is a list of more of my travel plans for the later half of 2022 and the first part of 2023. I hope you enjoy!

Grand Forks Air Show June 2022

Hey Guys!

Happy July 4th! I hope everyone has a great day celebrating with friends and family! Today's post is kind of fitting because it is somewhat military related! It is my review of the Grand Forks Air Force Base Air Show!

My Summer/ Fall 2022 Travel Plans

 Hey Guys!

So I wanted to talk a little bit about my upcoming travel plans! You all know how much I love to travel and go on vacation! lol Except most of the places I am going to will not be new so I don't really count it as traveling so much, just more going back home. 

Searching for a new job

Hey Guys!

So since moving to North Dakota, I had to give up my old job that I had working for our local County back home because they would not let me go remote unfortunately and it was also just becoming a toxic work environment for me and I needed to say goodbye anyways. But it has been about 3 months now and I still haven't really gotten many hits. I haven't had a single interview either. I have had a couple companies reach out to schedule one and after reviewing the job posting, the company on Glassdoor or just emailing with person who reached out to me I didn't end up taking the interview for various reasons.

Planning our Wedding

Hey guys!

So I wanted to talk a little bit about our wedding planning experience so far! I will definitely be doing a lot more posts on this topic now that we have a venue and a date picked but I wanted to talk about everything that happened up until we got to that point. 

That Time I Grew Out My Hair

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So this is mostly a post for me to look back on someday so I don't make the same mistake again haha. I'm just kidding! I thought it would be fun to put together a slow transition of me growing out my hair to finally see it's natural color. To start off, I have been dying my hair since I was in 6th or 7th grade! I really wanted to try dying my hair a different shade of blonde and since my mom had been coloring her hair for many years, she was totally okay with it. We tried a box dye at home and it did not go well! My hair turned like an orange/gold color and it was awful! I don't really remember too much about the experience except I got really upset and I think I had to go to school with my hair being an awful color for like a week before my mom could take me to the salon to get it fixed. But talk about instant regret! 

Getting A New Job - Prior to Moving

 Hey guys!

I'm not entirely sure why I wanted to write this post since it's kind of irrelevant now that I am no longer working in that position but I like keeping you guys informed about my life a little! So probably like this time last year, I was approached by my boss that there could be a new opportunity for me in a different department. The County hadn't fully made up their minds if the position was needed but they wanted to test me out and see if I could be of extra help. The new role would be in the department that I had wanted to work in for probably like a year or more at least but at the time there were only two spots in this department. One of the spots was going to be empty soon because someone was retiring and I was hoping that I would be getting that position but they ended up approaching someone else about it and not even offering it to anyone else. At the time I thought this was extremely unfair but then again when my turn came I thought it was totally fair and I was super happy that I was the only one being suggested for the position.

Update on 30 Things to do before I Turn 30

Hey Guys!

So I have a little less than a year and a half left in my 20's which is beyond crazy to think about. I am definitely nowhere near ready to turn 30. I still feel like I'm 22 most of the time. Honestly, this whole aging experience is kind of weird. I guess if I had settled down much sooner than I might feel differently but I am so happy that I did not settle down. I am so happy that I can still go to Disney or Universal at 28 and not have to worry about bringing a stroller with me, I honestly feel like that life is for your 30's lol. I never wanted to settle down early. Growing up I always had a rule that I would not get married until I was at least 25 and I think that a lot of this had to do with my parents getting divorced from their first marriages and not remarrying until they were in their 30's as well as my love for travel and independence. 

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. 

Working on my Master's

Hey Guys!

I just wanted to discuss getting my Master's with you all a little bit. Currently I am enrolled at Western Governor's University or WGU. It is a fully online program and they offer Bachelor's Degrees as well as Master's degrees. I currently have two Bachelor's Degrees; one in Business Management and the other one in Marketing. To be honest, I never really pursued a career in either of those fields. I didn't work at all when I was high school or college and I definitely think it set me back a lot. I really struggled with finding a job once I graduated and the best I could find was working part time retail for a couple of years after graduating to gain at least some working experience. Even though I had the education, I didn't have the experience and I have learned that employers care way more about experience than they do education. 

My Covid Experience

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I wanted to share a little bit about my experience with Covid. I did eventually end up catching Covid at the end of 2021. I was absolutely devastated. I had a two week long trip planned to finally visit my fiancé's hometown in Massachusetts as well as spend Christmas and New Years with his family. This would have been my second Christmas away from my family which is another reason why long distance relationships are really hard. You want to be with your significant other but you also don't want to miss out on those memories with your loved ones. Unfortunately I ended up getting Covid from a coworker like 3 days before I was supposed to leave for my trip. 

I was supposed to fly out on the Wednesday before Christmas after I got off from work that day but I ended up showing symptoms on the Monday evening before. However, I actually got infected/exposed on the Friday before at work. My coworker had just come back from a vacation to Nashville and she came back with a minor cold (or so she thought) along with a few of the other girls on the trip as well. She worked from home for a couple of days after she got back and she also took a couple Covid tests and they kept coming back saying she was negative so she thought it was safe to return back to work. I pretty much avoided her all week as much as I possibly could but finally on the Friday we decided to take a walk together to Starbucks and pick up a Christmas gift for our boss and I am 100% sure that's where I was infected. My coworker ended up getting worse throughout the day and actually left at lunch and worked the rest of the day from home.

I then went the whole weekend acting as everything was fine because I had no idea. I went out with my family on Friday night, then my sister and I went to our friends wedding on Saturday night, and then we spent some time with extended family doing Christmas activities since I wouldn't be spending Christmas with my family. On Sunday night my boss texted me that we were going to be working remotely that week due to the fact that my coworker had tested positive on Friday night and right then and there I knew I was going to get Covid. I was trying so hard to stay positive because I didn't want to miss my trip. It's the trip my fiancé and I had been looking forward to for so many years. I had plan the next day to go get my nails done for the trip with my fiancé's sister on Monday evening and I warned her about everything and just told her that we could wear masks the entire time we're together and roll down the windows in the car or we didn't have to go at all if she didn't feel comfortable. 

We ended up going to get our nails done and as soon as I got home, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I knew I was sick. I had a stuff nose and I felt extremely tired. I could definitely tell my body was fighting something. I told my sister and we kind of avoided each other but at the same time we both knew we would be catching it. I went straight to my room to FaceTime my fiancé and tell him how I was feeling and he was trying to tell me it was all in my head and that I needed to focus on the trip and just stay positive. I tried really hard not to think about it but it was definitely happening. I actually couldn't sleep at all on Monday night and I ended up feeling even worse on Tuesday morning. We didn't have any at home Covid tests in the house so my sister went out and picked some up. I ended up calling out sick on the Tuesday and I had already had a pre-scheduled sick day for the Wednesday because I was going to go and get a covid test somewhere before my flight that evening but this was before I found out I was positive. I ended up testing at home on Tuesday morning and it came back positive and I broke down crying. I was absolutely devastated that I had to miss my trip. I had to tell my family and my fiancé and he told his family that I wouldn't be coming. 

After the initial shock set in, I started doing as much research as possible. I started taking every vitamin that they recommend and my sister and I called our mom who was actually a Covid nurse but normally she is an infectious disease nurse anyways. She recommended all of the vitamins to us and other things that they do in the hospital because I wanted to overcome this as quickly as possible because I still had somewhat of a chance to be able to visit my fiancé and his family. I started doing the math and cancelling my flights. I looked at my vacation days at work and the time we automatically get off for the holidays. In total by the end of the holidays I ended up having 11 work days off and a grand total of 15 days off. By the time I went back to work, it felt like I had been gone forever. I honestly had to relearn some parts of my job because I had only been in the job for about 3 ish months. I also came back with Covid brain which was very interesting and annoying. I honestly would forget a lot of things and it would be random. I would also forget how to do random normal life things as well. It was a very weird thing to experience. 

Overall, my experience with Covid wasn't really that bad. Thankfully my sister and I had the one that came right after Delta, Omicron and we are so grateful that's the one we had. It was much more mild than Delta and I don't know if I would have survived if I had Delta because I don't really have the best of lungs. But my sister was pretty much a day behind me the whole time. I tested positive on Tuesday and she tested positive on Wednesday. We ended up driving to a local testing site to get a PCR and a rapid test done just to be sure. Ironically, all of my rapid tests came back positive and my PCR test came back negative. 

I ended up having to miss the first half of the trip but thankfully I was still able to make it out there for New Years. I still got to see his home town and hangout with some of his family and meet some family members that I knew all about but had never met them. Overall, I wouldn't say that my Christmas was ruined because I got to spend a lot of time just hanging out with my sister and catching up. We watched a lot of movie and TV shows and just hung out in the living room a lot. I FaceTimed with my fiancé some and went back to counting down the days until I could be up there. I spent a lot time resting because honestly Covid is exhausting. I didn't even have it that bad but I definitely got tired doing some random things. On Christmas Day our mom My mom brought us some Christmas dinner and dessert and we ate it out on our back porch sitting on opposite sides of the porch obviously. 

Since the height of Covid and after getting Covid I would say that my life has pretty much gone back to normal. I was vaccinated but with only two of the vaccines. I never got my booster because I had immunity after getting Covid and now I just stay indoors all of the time since I don't work right now. Honestly, this whole experience has been kind of crazy and I definitely can't wait for life to go back to 100% normal. 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

Turning our house into an Airbnb

 Hey Guys!

So today's post is about turning our house into an Airbnb. As of last October 2021 it has been 5 years since my sister bought a house that we both lived in together. We don't really know what we will do with the house in the end but we initially had the plan to buy the house together but unfortunately at the time we closed on the house I did not have a job or any income so my name could not be listed on the mortgage. I think depending on how we do with it or where we both end up in future situations we might just refinance the house to have it both in our names and just keep it as an Airbnb. 

My sister was the first one to move out in July of 2021 as she moved to Orlando to pursue her Master's and I moved out in April of 2022 to move to North Dakota. Since no one was living there anymore and we still need to pay the mortgage, we decided to turn it into a rental property. The house is fully furnished still and we have a lot of great amenities to offer our guests. We left behind most of our own pieces of furniture and then we bought and/or made a few new pieces if something was really special to us. It has been a long journey to finally get the house listed but it is finally live on Airbnb and I wanted to share some of that info on here. The house isn't fully ready yet but we made sure to make the available date a tangible one and it will be fully ready by the time our first guests arrive! Here is the link to the house and please enjoy a little tour of the house that I said I was going to do a post on so many years ago and never did! 

Please feel free to share this post with anyone who might looking to come for North Fort Myers, Florida and rent a home on the water. I hope you enjoyed todays post!

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph