Weeks of FUN!

How is it already November?! I feel like time is just slipping faster and faster away from me. I have some BIG news to share!!! :D (No, I am not pregnant :D)

I GOT A NEW JOB! I was offered a job at Duke University! I will be working for the Talent Identification Program and could not be more excited :D I had a colleague that I went to grad school with contact me and tell me about the position that was open and she thought I would be perfect for it! I interviewed for it and they offered the position to me! It all happened INCREDIBLY fast. It is such a great opportunity for my career and I am really happy that I get to use my degrees again :D 

I gave my notice a few weeks ago at my current job and I will miss them dearly. I have loved property management, but this job at TIP is just not one that I can pass up.

My last day with Weinstein is November 24th,  I'm off for Thanksgiving, and then I start at Duke on Dec 1!

SO EXCITED!!!!

Here are the other things of fun :D

1) Halloween- (I did say weeks!) I LOVE Halloween! This year John had to work :( So after I got off work, I went home for a little bit and handed out candy. Then I went over to Brad's for awhile to hang out. Hopefully, next year John will be off and we can throw a party or something :D Halloween and Thanksgiving are seriously my favorite holidays and I would love to do more for Halloween than we usually get to do :D Plus, we had SO many trick-or-treaters, It's fun to see all the costumes and hand out candy to kids!

The Hosts- so silly!

Thank you Sandlot and the little Minion. LOL

2) Krystal and Josh- They came down for the week and we just had a blast! They came in late Tuesday so I didnt get to see them much since I was already in bed for work the next am. But Wednesday came and they hung out with John some and then when I got home (John had to go to work :( of course) so we went up to 42 Craft Beverage and hung out for awhile and caught up. Then we ate dinner and I took them over to meet some of our neighbors and we had a really good time. And from here on out, just about each day they visited basically deserves it's own number:D

3) Surprise celebratory dinner!-  The Thursday Krystal and Josh were, after I got off work John had surprised me by getting a lot of our friends together to celebrate my new job with me!!! We went to Tyler's Taproom and had a great time. I seriously have the best husband in the world :D 

4) State Game- Two Saturday's ago was Homecoming at State! Which is why Krystal and Josh were here in the first place. lol. But the came kicked off at 12:30- which meant we got to tailgating at like 7:30am. IT WAS SO COLD. I am definitely not ready for the cold weather :(. But we had a great tailgate! We had so much fun and after the game, which we wont talk about, everyone came back to our house to grill out. Good times! :D 

Love this girl!

John's face is priceless. lol

So serious!

Kristain and Andrew!

We met some random guys from Scotland. They flew to the US and picked any game in NC to go to and they chose ours! :D So we let them hang with us :D

5) Maryland- Tuesday, after Krystal and Josh left Monday, we drove up to visit them! haha. John and I finally got some vacation time together and we wanted to go up there and visit them again. Another post to come for sure about that trip!

6) Job Interviews! John has had a few over the past few weeks and has another this week. MAJOR prayers are appreciated for one to come through!! :D

7) Neighborhood friends- John and I have been so blessed lately! So many changes going on, but a major one is that we've met a few couples in our neighborhood! One couple in particular we have become pretty close with already and just adore them. Slowly, we are getting to know more! We also had a huge block party- which is how it all began. One of the girls in the neighborhood put an invite on my door and I RSVP'd and volunteered to help put it on. It's been wonderful getting to know these people! Everyone in our neighborhood is so nice. I really love living where we do! We had about 50 people show up to the block party and we all brought food and even had the fire department come out for the kids in the neighborhood. It was awesome! 

8) Girls night! I had my first girls night out with these two lovely ladies from my neighborhood last night! We went and got Mexican :D Love these ladies already! It is a TERRIBLE picture of me- no judgments. :D

9) And always this guy: Just look at that face! Those ears!

28 things before 29 Summary

I still cant believe I am already 29! and a whole month in. Yikes. lol This past year as been a whirl wind for sure, so of course I didnt get to everything I wanted to get to. Again, I do it just as a guide, but I'm not upset I didnt get to it all. Life happens and SO many other things have taken the place. Here's the summary and keep an eye out for the new list. 30 is a big year!!!

Bold= Complete

Italics= In progress

Red= Have not completed...

1. Read 15 books
1. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
2. A Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain
3. The Good Father by Diane Chamberlain
4. Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain
5. Secrets She Left Behind by Diane Chamberlain
6. Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain
7. The Lies We Told by Diane Chamberlain
8. Divergent by Veronica Roth
9. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
10. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
11. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
12. Where She Went by Gayle Forman
13. The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
14. The Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
15. The Best Yes by Lysa TerKeurst
2. Run a 10k- I have not run an official race- but I've reached the goal of being able to run 6.2 miles!
3. Run a 1/2 Marathon!! (ambitious, I know)- yea, ambitious it was. Never happened. I got up to 6.2 and stopped. 
4. Lose 15lbs- ha. I've gained weight :(
5. Go fishing- 5/7 on our beach trip!
6. Try Geocaching
7. Start a garden of some sort- It's not a veggie garden, but I do have a pretty flower bed with flowers in it now! That counts, right? It sure was lot of work. lol
8. Start an IRA- Decided to not move my funds over from my 403B- yet. :D
9. Make homemade sushi- see blog post!
10. Create a first-aid kit for us and Carter- Still need to do this one :(
11. Go camping- and this one too. 
12. Take a random trip with John- Went to Kinston, NC and Pittsboro- see blogposts for more info!
13. Kayak 5 times this year
1. Corrolla, NC
2. Neuse River, Raleigh
14. Read through and study a book in the bible- Completed Job and Ruth
15. Host a theme party- Housewarming party! 1/25/14 and July 4th party! 7/4/14
16. Scrapbook our time in Miami- not sure I'm going to do this anymore I LOVED our time in Miami, but I have it all on the blog. I dont know if I want to scrapbook anymore or not.
17. Try 10 new restaurants
1. McCall's in Clayton, NC
2. Three Olive Pizza in Garner, NC
3. Yummy Yummy Japan in Garner, NC
4. Armstrong Seafood in Nags Head, NC
5. Terrafin Station in Garner, NC
6. The Clubhouse in Garner, NC
7. Fiesta Mexicana, Garner NC
8. Kings BBQ Kinston, NC
9. Carolina Brewery Bar and Grill Pittsboro, NC
10. Simple Twist Garner, NC
11. and lots more :D
18. Try 10 new recipes
1. Chicken Stir Fry with Peanut Sauce
2. One Pan Cheesy Smoked Sausage and Pasta Skillet
3. Sour Cream Noodle Bake
4. Layered Enchilada Casserole
5. Quesadilla Casserole
6. Meatballs
7. Million Dollar Spaghetti
8. Chicken and Wild Rice
9. Goulash
10. Sushi
19. Sew 2 items
20. Re-purpose a piece of furniture
21. Landscape our new yard :D
22. Establish a cleaning schedule for the new house.
23. Make a piece of art to go in the new home- I've started and almost finished!
24. Unpack everything and find a spot for everything- yea...
25. Find a church and get involved in it- C3?
26. Fence in yard
27. Host a family dinner (both of our families invited)- This thanksgiving will complete this one- a little late, but better than never!
28. Update a calendar with everyone's birthdays/anniversaries for the year and send out cards! I need to start on this like asap for next year. lol

Friday..errrr..Saturday Favorites!

Haha :D Life continues to be full of craziness! Here are my favorites from this past week-ish :D

1) MY HAIR! I have not changed my hair style in YEARS. YEARS PEOPLE! I decided that 29 needed a new look. I didnt know what the look was going to be though. My good friend, Kala, does hair for a living and I told her to just go for it. So, 11 inches and red hair coloring later- I'm a new woman :D 

Before. (I was trying to take a sad face picture, but some ladies were making me laugh)

11 inches!

 After! :D It looks so much happier :D

I think I look more grown-up now. lol

 2) FALL!!! I cant believe I haven't even posted about it being fall yet. MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR! :D Of course my house is all decorated! I also have a big beautiful porch to decorate now too! So I got to get some outside decorations! :D

 3) My flowerbed!! See the post about my birthday- but it looks SO much better :D

 4) GUTTERS! Praise the Lord for gutters! lol. Now we wont have any water damage issues and the mulch wont float away from the rain and my plants wont drown :D

5) Jamicure- My latest! LOVE this product!

 6) This lady- She cracks me up. Glad to say that she's my friend now and not just my mom. :D We have so much fun together. She's crazy. lol She has started to date again recently!! crazy. and this deserves it's own post with updates, so that will becoming :D

7) Throw Back with the Pack! John and I went with Steve to the Red and White basketball game last night. They started with a throw back game with some of the legends! It was awesome! :D Good time. Then we ended it with Mexican. You cant go wrong there. :D

 Love this man :D

Have a good weekend y'all!

Well, Hello 29!

Y'all. I'm 29. 29!! How in the world did that happen? Seriously. Geez. lol. Well all I can do is embrace it :D I'm JK. You all know I love my birthday. That might sound selfish, but its really the 1 day in the entire year that I feel like I can do everything for myself and not feel guilty about it. Although, I did make sure to prepare dinner for John the day before my birthday, so he didnt have to worry about it on my birthday (he had to work) :D. 

Anyway, It's also just a nice day because I get to talk to so many people I love. A day people carve out time to just call me and tell me hello. I love it. I was told a few times on my birthday "hey! you'll be 30 soon". Um, thanks! and "People respect you more and think more of you when you turn 30, so you have that to look forward to." I have a few feelings about that- 1) I dont care what people think of me (for the most part) and people should respect me anyway. 2) does this mean it's my last year to irresponsible? lol because I can do that! JK. People are silly. 

My birthday was fantastic :D I seriously have the best husband in the world :D He likes to call me at midnight on my birthday ever year, so he called me at 12 to be first! haha. Then he went and BAKED ME A CAKE when he got home. He also made me a flower arrangement. He is so creative. Then he brought me the cake and sang happy birthday to me- it was 3 am, but he was sad he wouldnt see me on my birthday so he had to do it then. Adorable. He also couldnt find birthday candles, so he got a candle candle and lit it for me to blow out. He cracks me up. SO in love with him. I wouldnt want to share this life with anyone else. 

When I got to work, my boss had gotten me balloons and pumpkin pie to celebrate with. My mom took me out for lunch and we went to Jason's Deli- YUM. 

When I got back from lunch we had the pie :D I told my boss about John using a candle candle to sing and so my coworkers copied him. lol

I also got surprise thank you flowers for helping someone find an apartment home, but she happened to bring them on my birthday! How nice was that?!

When I got off work my mom stole me again and we went shopping and got dinner. We went to Macy's and she bought me some really pretty earrings and a scarf :D I love scarves. SO. MUCH. Then we went to Olive Garden to eat. It's been a little tradition in my family since I was real little, so it was nice to go again this year with her. I know my dad would have been happy:D We had so much fun.

Birthday's are still hard without him here. I dont know if they will ever be easy. I hate getting older and getting further away from the time I had with him. But, I guess that's life. I'll be okay :D

The next day, John and I celebrated when I got home from work. We went and got dinner and then watched a movie. He picked Divergent for me :D Then we ate more cake. Y'all I have eaten so. much. cake/pie. lol Anyway, it was nice :D

Saturday my in-laws came over! They had decided that for my birthday gift they wanted to help with something around the house since we have so many projects we want/need to do. Well John told them I would most appreciate help with the flower bed and pulling weeds! LOVE HIM FOR THAT. Well when they showed up, they didnt realize what they had gotten themselves into. haha. Here are the before pictures:

It was a hot mess.

                                 

the weeds took over. it was SO bad.

In-laws working hard

The other flowerbed- no updated picture on this one yet- I need to take one still :D

Using our tiller!

Hard work!

And after! 

 It looks SO much better!

We pulled all the weeds up, tilled the dirt, got that black mesh weed blocking material to lay down, bought mulch and flowers, and made it all pretty! We ran out of mulch and time to do the smaller flowerbed, but John was able to finish it this week. Dad Martin let us dig up some monkey grass from his yard and I still need to plant that in the flower bed since it's a little empty, but it looks SO. MUCH. BETTER.

ALSO!! I cant believe I forgot to mention this!! WE GOT GUTTERS! WHOOP WHOOP! :D They came the day after my birthday! So it was perfect timing so all that hard work didnt go to waste :D 

You cant even see them! :D 

Anyways, I had a fantastic birthday. Now to make the last year of my 20's awesome :D

Can We Auto-Correct Humanity?

This video is simply amazing. 

I am so very guilty of using my phone/technology incredibly too much. Reflecting back on my days I look at conversations I have with people and how much my phone has been a distraction to those interactions. I want to have more meaningful conversations, improve the quality of the time I spend with my loved ones. There are more times than I care to admit that I will be having a conversation with John and as soon as my phone dings, I grab it, regardless of what we are talking about or doing. It drives him bananas. Then when I reflect on our time together I realize we didnt get the quality time I had wanted- and it's my fault! Granted, we are both at fault at times but I am REALLY bad about it. Last night John showed me this video. My goal is to stop relying on my phone so much. I'm pretty good about not using too much technology when I get home from work- except for my phone. SO my goal is to put my phone away. I do think there is a time and place for it (I have to update my clash and clans every now and then, afterall! lol) BUT I plan to limit my usage at home and with friends. :D I think I will enjoy my time much more :D 

Anyway, I challenge you all to do the same!

September

Well so much for keeping up to date this month like I kept swearing I would do. haha. My bad. Anyways, here are the updates for the month? lol.

1) Disc Golf- I mentioned we have been playing it a lot lately. I think I have now been to all of them in our surrounding area! My favorite is the one in Apex. It's a really pretty park and it's well labeled. :D I'm starting to get a little better and we even got some new discs! :D

2) John's schedule- I believe I mentioned in the last post John was going to be working mornings for awhile. Unfortunately, it wasnt all we hoped it would be. Or rather all I hoped it would be. Dont get me wrong- it was WONDERFUL to see John every night. But the time wasnt really good quality time. My poor husband never got a full nights sleep, it was always broken up and so he has just been exhausted. As much as I dont want him gone in the evenings (it can get pretty lonely!) I'm glad he gets to switch back to a regular sleep schedule. Being run down all the time just isnt healthy.

3) ESPN- John got to freelance for them for the State vs FSU game this past Saturday! He held a parabalic mic on the field (to capture field noise). What an awesome opportunity for him!

He also got look around the stadium a bit!

 GO PACK!

 Where he was located on the field

 SO CLOSE!

4) Beericana- John and I had tickets to go to this with Kristen and AJ! It ended up being the same day that John was offered the freelance job, so of course he took that. BUT The Klingenmaiers and I had a blast!!

 John is always with me! bahaha :D Didnt want to leave him out :D

5) State Game- John won tickets to the State v. Providence game! I had to work until 5pm that day, so I met him at the game. He did end up going with Matt and Kelly though and they had a little tailgate going. I made pretty good time to gget there and we had SO much fun with them! I got to play with sweet Riley and we got to watch a GREAT State win! It was so great, it was almost boring :D

SUCH A CUTIE!!!

 I need me one of these one day :D

Smooshed kisses for the hubs :D

 Game Time!

The fly over!

6) Homemade Pizza- Sine John was home most nights, we got to make dinner together a lot :D One night we got creative and made flat bread pizza! Okay, he got creative and decided to make it and I helped :D It turned out SO yummy!

OH yea! Get in my belly!!

7) Dentist! One of the days that we both had off together (one of the few full days) we went and got our teeth cleaned! YAY! haha. I actually dont mind going at all. I knew I didnt have any problems and I love how my teeth feel after a cleaning. It had been since we moved home that we had both been (YIKES) so it was overdue. We went back to the place Johns family has always gone and I had forgotten just how nice they are. They even have a massage chair for you to sit in while you get your teeth cleaned! We both came out with no issues and clean teeth! A total success :D

8) Home Inspection- After the dentist we had to meet our home inspector. We kept saying this day was an "adult day." Usually we try to do fun things together when we both actually have a full day off together, but this time we had too many grown up things to do. Like go to the dentist and get your house inspected. lol. anyways, Can you believe we have almost been in the house for AN ENTIRE YEAR?! Crazy!! We always said we would get an inspection so the builders could fix anything before the big warranty ran out. The inspection went great! No major issues and very little minor ones (so much that if we didnt have the warranty, I wouldnt worry about them. lol). So we were very happy about that. He said our house was very well built :D Now we need to book an appointment with the builder :D

9) Assistant Manager- WOOT WOOT! That's mee :D I finally did get my promotion! It's official :D I am working my way on up!

10) The Best Yes- I liked Proverbs31.org on Facebook awhile ago and really like a lot of the stuff they post. Well they hold different online bible studies throughout the year. There hasnt really been one yet that has peaked my interest until now! It's called The Best Yes. Which is perfect for me. Go check it out! :D and once I'm finished with the book, I am happy to share! I'm really excited about this book and how the Lord will use it in my life :D

11) SCANDAL/REVENGE-  ARE BACK! and all of the other shows that end up sucking up so much of my time. But thats okay! haha I LOVE THEM :D

12) Garage- Still working on it! We finally starting painting the ceiling. We figured that was the next step before we do more wall. Our goal is to get this finished by Nov. We'll see how it goes :D

Working hard while I supervise :D

Well, I **think** that might be it for now. Although I'm sure there is something I am forgetting. If so, I'll catch it up for this week! 

Friday Favorites!

Happy Happy Friday all! These favorites are from the past two weeks :D

1) FOOTBALL. Football is back and all is right with the world! :D 

2) Fantasy Football- Football spawns so many other favorites! :D We had a draft party two Thursdays ago for our teams. I am so excited. It's my year to win. I can just feel it :D

3) Wolfpack Football- See what I mean, it brings a lot of favorites :D We won our first game! It was rough, but hopefully we can make some adjustments and win more than 3 games this year. I'm not gunna lie, I wasnt even excited about our season because we were so terrible last year, but now that it's upon us I have to be a little excited. wolfpack fans never lose hope :D haha.

4) JAMBERRY!- I became a Jamberry consultant :D I am in LOVE with the nail wraps. I have had my sample on for 3 weeks and the only complaint I have is that my nails grow faster than the wear and tear of the wraps! haha. Its a good problem to have :D Last SO much longer than polish! and my favorite part is you dont have to wait for them to dry!

Day 1- the chevron pattern is my Jamberry and the pink is polish

After 1 week. 

 At week 3!

5) Date day!- John and I both had Labor day off! so we decided to take another random trip. This time we checked out a meadery! and a new disc golf course. We LOVED the meadery. It was a really neat place. It happened to be their birthday too, so some of the tastings were paired with cakes! The disc golf course was AWESOME too. Probably my favorite so far. It took us 3 1/2 hours to play it! My arm was SORE the next day. lol Such a fun day :D

6) Brats- When we lived in Miami there was a brewery that marinated hotdogs in some of their beer and some spicy peppers and such. They were SO good. So we decided to try with brats. John put them on to cook one day after he got off work. SO Good!!

7) This guys kisses :D

 8) These two. They hold hands when they nap. PRECIOUS! They have my entire heart.

A not so favorite- John had a flat tire when he got off work  yesterday morning and it ended up with us buying 4 new tires. Blah. Blessed to have be able to purchase what we need, but ugh. SO much money. But that's life I guess. 

Happy Friday :D