Gratitude.

Being thankful is something I've always struggled with. I'm trying so hard to get to the point where I thank people, truly thank them and truly appreciate them, whenever anything is done for me. Sometimes I feel like I just don't appreciate the little things. If it's something someone gave me that they thought I would like and I don't, I should sincerely be thanking them anyway for thinking of me! Sometimes I'm just not content in my life and don't realize how many great things go on around me and I don't notice, or I do but I don't say anything. I started this blog a few years ago to write about "Finding joy in everyday living", thinking it would help me appreciate life. It definitely has, but I just know it's possible to feel more thankful.

Thanking my parents for offering fresh fruits and vegetables from their garden with no thought of getting anything in return, thanking Tim's mom for scrubbing our kitchen sink and getting it cleaner than I ever could (I just texted her!), thanking my sister for letting me spend time with her and the kids on my day off, thanking her husband for thinking of organizing a family camping trip, thanking Tim for getting me water while I lazily don't move on the couch (actually, I just thanked him :D). Just little things. 

I just feel like I need to be more grateful, more thankful, and more aware. 

These things were partly done with the hope of my happiness as the result! Why is is so hard to be grateful?

How do you get to that point where thanking someone and being truly grateful just comes naturally? And a little off topic, but how do you get to the point where you ask someone how their day is and truly care? I know there's a couple of people in my life that talk about the same issues every time we're together, and it gets old. How do I stay interested in their current problems? I think I need to start praying.

"Cultivating a thankful heart is a safeguard against becoming bitter, prickly, and sour. A grateful child of God can't help but be a joyful, peaceful, radiant person." -Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I want to be that person. I want people, if they're talking about me behind my back, to have absolutely nothing bad to say about me, but that I am a joyful, peaceful, and radiant person. Caring too. That's the kind of person I'd like to be around, so what a great type of person to strive to become.

i think i love my cat too much...

I've thought for a long time about what my first tattoo would be. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what I actually got haha! 

Tim is very much anti popular tattoos-SO many people have the same tattoo, or at least a variation of one. For example: eternity symbols, skulls, hummingbirds, semicolons,...etc. He really encouraged me to get something that is meaningful to me. Something I will never regret getting. Well, I may never regret what I got; however, I do get annoyed now that I have to explain why I got what I did haha :)

Background: Every morning after I shower and am blow-drying my hair, my cat comes in the bathroom and sits and stares at me, just waiting. As soon as I'm done blow-drying my hair, she immediately whines and falls over, and I have to rub her down with the dryer. Never fails. Every time. It may seem like such a silly thing for someone who doesn't have a cat, but it's a favorite moment of my day. 

yes, that is one antique toilet haha

Fast forward to me thinking up a tattoo: Hmmm....what's meaningful and unique to me that absolutely no one else in the world would have...hmmmmmm, we have a cat (aka our spoiled, only child)-what the heck kind of tattoo would I get that has a cat on it??? Ahh, my kitty looking up at my blow dryer. 

This was the picture I gave of my blowdryer,

and this is the inspiration of the cat.

We did a lot of research in finding the perfect tattoo artist for both of us. Tim's getting two full-sleeve tattoos done, so obviously we needed to really trust the artist. Collective Ink in Traverse City was the place, and Jeremiah was our guy. 

He had me send him pictures of our cat, so the cat in the tattoo is our cat, not my inspiration picture.

Here's me in the beginning with the stencil on, smiling and excited. That smile didn't last for long haha-this tattoo was so painful in certain areas, especially where that blowdryer is. It really felt like he was scraping my skin. I mean, he was. It was definitely not pleasant, so it was really nice when he was done! It took about two hours, and he only charged $100! I was surprised; for something that size, I was thinking around $200.

Can you see my freckle in the blow dryer plug-in? :) I had actually asked for the flowers in the cat to be purple because I don't care for roses, especially red ones, but Jeremiah misread what I wrote. I didn't have him change it to purple though purely because I didn't want him to have to redo it! I wasn't 100% sure I liked it, but it's kinda grown on me.

This is what my tattoo looked like four days after it was done-SO INSANELY itchy and peeling.

I made the mistake of using too much Neosporin on my tattoo-I didn't even know it was possible! I started getting these red lookin' pimples where I used the most Neosporin, and they were very itchy. Thankfully, Jeremiah had seen it before and told me to stop and only apply it once a day with a light amount.

I would say it was fully healed after about 3 weeks.

She's my little girl. Always watching me, doing what I do. And destroying my yoga mat...

I'm okay with people thinking it's stupid. I didn't get it for anyone else. Just me, and I love it :) I may feel slightly stupid when I tell people what my tattoo is of (you should see the first two seconds of a person's face when I say what it's of haha), but it's okay. 

I will say I didn't think at all what my tattoo would look like whenever I get pregnant-that's going to be one fat cat hahahahahahahahahaha!!!

My something old and blue

My grandmother passed away in 2005. It was the weekend of my birthday. I remember because I spent my birthday alone that year; my parents went to see my grandma a lot that week at the nursing home, and I went later that night. Now don't feel sorry for me, I was fine. A friend that went to Romania with me mailed me a pan of homemade brownies :) I had rented movies and ate a bunch of junk food besides the brownies, and I think I stayed up super late watching a scary movie. By myself.  That was dumb. Anyway, going TOTALLY off topic :). The summer after she died, one of her kids brought a bunch of her belongings to our yearly family reunion, and everyone was able to choose something to remember her by. 

This was before I was engaged. I think Tim and I had only been dating for a few months. But when I saw this brooch, I immediately knew that I wanted to somehow wear this in my hair at my future wedding. It was going to be my something old. My something blue. 

I turned her brooch into a barrette. It was so easy. I just bought some jewelry glue, a plain flat barrette, and glued the barrette onto the pin. Bada-bing! Bada-boom!

I loved having something in memory of her at our wedding. I'm sure my mom thought about her at the wedding, missing her. I wanted to make sure my mom knew I didn't forget about her.

This past weekend, Tim and I spent time together. Wait, what? I thought you were married! We are! But you'd be surprised how many nights we get home from work and Tim spends the evening playing video games with his friends on mic while I spend it watching TV/browsing the internet. There was one night I counted, and we seriously said like two sentences to each other. Neither Tim or (nor?) I signed up for that! It was seriously getting to the point where I didn't realize why I was getting so frustrated with life in general; when I finally realized I was missing talking with my husband, all those frustrations made sense. Spending time sitting next to each other on the couch is NOT spending time with each other. I mean date time! Sounds lame, but communication really is key to a good and healthy relationship.

We had originally planned on going away for the entire weekend; but when hotel rooms cost $150+, you rethink. We spent all of last Friday together in Traverse City and then Saturday and Sunday at home.

Thursday night we went with a group of friends to a special screening of Jurassic World-I absolutely loved it! Tim thought it was cheesy, but I thought it was great :) The worst part though, was right when we walked out of the theatre, a friend of ours from high school that we haven't seen in 10 years came up to us and wanted to start talking! Now, I'm sorry, but not only had I run a few miles prior to going to the theatre (thank God I showered!) and wasn't wearing any makeup and just felt gross and kept telling my face to not get red because it likes to do that from time to time AND because it's just plain awkward seeing someone after that long (I hate small talk!), but I have the hardest time talking with someone (even Tim!) right after watching a movie. I like to take 10-15 minutes just thinking about the movie to myself and then talk. Our friend really threw me for a loop. Moving on.

Friday we took our time getting ready-we got up to Traverse around 3pm, had a consultation with a tattoo artist at 4 (Tim is getting a full sleeve of old video games! It's going to be awesome! And.....I'm getting one of our cat....and a blow dryer...I'll explain the story later when I actually get it haha), went to the mall, then went out for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Bubba's.

They seriously have the best food ever. And they have a tiny area in the back that's a bit more cozy for date night-it was perfect. They even started playing one of Dave Matthews Band's live cds before we left, which required us to listen to the whole cd on the way home :) It got us super excited for their concert NEXT MONTH!!! Wait, I'm sorry, 3 WEEKS!!!

Saturday we went for about an hour walk on the beach. We had it completely to ourselves :)

 Those are definitely not the most appealing water photos, but it was so pretty in person :) After our walk, we went to Meijer and bought a bunch of junk food, then went home and watched Jurassic Park I & II and ate said junk food. Then drank about 5 cups of water because we both felt disgusting after eating so much crap. Ugh.

It was such a nice weekend, not only because we actually got out of the house, but because we spent time together. We talked. We laughed. 

And what are we doing tonight? Well, Tim's playing video games with his friends, and I'm on my computer. Guess we'll have to go on another date.

Have you ever had Dill, Sea Salt, and Olive Oil Triscuits? They are so good. I've had a love for anything dill since I was little, back when I used to eat whole jars of homemade dill pickles my mom made. I don't know about anyone else, but my sister and I always used to want to be the ones that got to eat the piece of garlic at the bottom of the jar :)

When I was trying to decide what to put in our garden this year, my mind, of course, went wild. I had plans for a few flower gardens as well as a vegetable garden that would probably have fed 50 people. Thankfully, due to my hectic work schedule, I was unable to start my garden from seed; otherwise we probably would have ended up with 60 tomato plants like last year haha!

No rose bushes this year...this summer we're hoping to paint our home, so I want to make sure the roses that bloom match our house :)

 I just love these flowers. I'll probably go back for them.

I was probably the most fashionable person at the greenhouse with my bandaid. Bandaids are cool, Micah! (My nephew doesn't like bandaids, so my sister and I wore them hoping he'd agree. He didn't. We'll get him to like them...at some point...)

I picked up a bunch of goodies: cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, banana peppers, purple peppers, vidalia onions, zucchini, brussel sprouts, watermelon, muskmelon, basil, purple basil, cilantro, and dill.

This year I'm planning on canning some salsa, marinara, dill pickles, and banana peppers. I figured if I kept the garden "small", I'd actually end up canning everything and not having to freeze it all due to lack of time.

I picked the perfect day to weed the garden...it started out just drizzling; then about a 1/2 hour into it, it was a complete downpour. But I kept on going. Because I'm crazy like that. And I wanted to get it done.

And I finished! The best part is we've continued to have horrible to some (perfect to me) summer weather, rain every day for the past week. I've only had to water the plants once :)

I really hope everything grows well-it would be such an accomplishment to be able to provide marinara, salsa, pickles...etc., for Tim and I in the winter months :)

It's the beginning of June (duh); and usually in Michigan, it's pretty hot. I hate hot weather. I know, I know, you're not supposed to hate things, you can dislike them, but not hate them. Well, I'm sorry, but hot weather, I hate you....by the way, this blog post is proof that I'm sleep deprived from working so much this week haha, you're going to get to know everything I'm thinking :) Seriously though, hot weather brings, yes, swimming and other fun outdoorsy stuff, but who likes getting ready in the morning and having to blow dry their hair when they're sweating??? Not this girl. Who likes getting in their car when it's been sitting in the sun for about 5 minutes and having your face (and butt!) practically melt off it's so hot? Not this girl. Who likes working out, and within one minute every inch of their body is glistening with sweat??? Not this girl. 

Anyway, lucky for us, the weather has been pretty nice, below 80 degrees, so we've actually been able to enjoy a spring :) 

A couple weekends ago, Tim and I actually didn't have anything planned. I started out the day with a run and then ate that huge bowl of fruit in the picture. It was awesome. Tim and I then went to our favorite place in the world, Traverse City, for a few hours, and then Tim mowed our lawn while I ran around like a crazy person saving every flower I possibly could from the evil mower. 

 We went grocery shopping later that night, and I told Tim before we left to make sure I didn't buy any candy. Well, we went past the candy aisle fine, but then we got to the ice cream aisle, and Tim caved.

 I told myself that if I was going to buy ice cream, that I was going to buy the "healthiest" ice cream I could buy. I'm not into all the chemical ingredients and diet crap, so I decided to go with gelato-yes, it is quite fattening; however, there's only seven ingredients in it: milk, sugar, cream, coconut, dextrose, carob gum, and vanilla. Now I know that's not healthy, but if I'm going to indulge in something, I like to know what every ingredient is.

Let me tell you, this gelato is worth it. Every extra mile I have to run. I'd run for you, gelato.

On that note, good night :)

This week started out a bit, well, I guess you could say "off", seeing as it started with this:

 guess I shouldn't have kept ripening it for two weeks...oops haha!

And that is what happens when your husband is lazy...he's decided he's not going to throw the garbage bag into the can anymore haha!

 We spent this last weekend renovating our entryway-what a time consuming project but SO worth it! I'll do a post on it later, once we've got it 100% finished :)

The picture of me in our yellow entryway is the before :) I loved it, but it was time for a change, The flooring was Tim's first project in our home that he did himself. I'm so proud of him, it turned out so great! 

 After we finished painting and installing the flooring in our entryway, Tim and I were beat. And our entire Memorial weekend was just about gone. We decided we were going to end the weekend with some fun, and fun we had! I think we were both pretty exhausted, so numerous times while we were in Meijer and Walmart we just thought things were hilarious and couldn't stop laughing :) We then went to Arby's for dinner as well as the theatre to watch "Mad Max". We bought a large popcorn, so we were quite full and bloated by the time the movie was done! I'm not sure how I felt about the movie-the picture was amazing, just beautiful. And there were parts I liked, but I think it could have been better. I will go see the second one though that I've heard they're going to make.

Don't you just love the sign that Tim is holding???? It's going in our entryway!!! I live by that saying. Seriously. It's the perfect piece to see when you first walk in our home :)

I ended this week with an AMAZING mail day!!! All the best stuff! I also got my food network magazine and bon appetit magazine :) Those mugs are from Anthropologie, one is London and the other is Paris-I'll do a post of pictures of them close up because they're so gosh darn cute! And Gesine Bullock-Prado is such an inspiration to me-I finished her book the same day I got it. And the shirt and movie! What a great day :)

Tomorrow I'm picking out some new glasses since my prescription is about 10 years old :)...then will be picking up some flowers for our yard, and then I get to babysit my nephew :) Just the best day. Hope everyone has a great weekend as well!

A change in my then fiancé, now husband :)

I wrote this back in February 2014 and May 2013 but never posted it, which I don't know why? I absolutely love going back and reading old posts-I think I need to show this one to Tim to see if he'll start making food again now that he is finally done with school and working full time at the same place, but as their Web Master :) I swear, he's the smartest guy I know.

FEB 2014: Tim is now working (at his "dream" job YAY) and going to school; however, since back when he quit his previous job nine months ago, he's been a completely different person. I wrote this post back in May, but Tim is still acting the same way. It's awesome. I'm so happy! 

MAY 2013: It was Tim's idea when he quit his job that he would clean the house and cook dinner each day while I work to pay the bills. When he quit, I was seriously worried we wouldn't have enough money-really, could we live on only my income??? I'm happy to say its been almost five months since he quit, and we're way better off than we were before.

Tim's had a complete mood change. It's amazing! He was so unhappy at his job-we just didn't realize how much it affected his mood. He's so much more optimistic, which is HUGE, because his family are pessimists. He's able to put his full attention on school; and in his free time, he can drum and play video games :) A weight was lifted off his shoulders, and he's been able to look forward to the future and how great ours will be.

I'm strangely able to save money-I'm saving more money than I was when Tim was working...that shows how much money I wasted on worthless crap.

Tim and I plan our meals for the week on Sunday, and I grocery shop on Monday by myself. This helps us stick to our small budget of $50/week on groceries-we try to make food with what's on sale for the week. It also helps me get rid of my urge to shop, since I am still spending money. I just have a list to stick to, unlike before :)

homemade taco seasoning :)

I wasn't feeling well; and when I got home, Tim was at school, but he had put out the pan with water in it and chicken noodle soup for me to make :)

The most amazing stromboli with homemade marina that you'll EVER have. He used to work at a pizza restaurant, so he knows how to make pizza. Oh my, it's so good (I made the marinara-he's not that advanced yet lol).

Another stromboli, but with MANY added veggies. I normally have carrots, celery, zucchini, squash, and peppers with feta cheese on my pizza. I have to say I like stromboli with pepperoni and onions the best. All those added veggies make it taste kind of weird. Not bad, but not awesome.

Delicious homemade chili :)

White chicken chili-this was so good! Tim's really good at following recipes, so all I do is find what we should have for dinner, write it out, and he makes it. I had never made this before-he did awesome.

He slaves away cooking, cleaning, and doing his schoolwork...

He's actually suggested going on walks, something we are still doing. It's been fun exploring where we live.

He's fixing people's xbox's, ps3s...etc. Seriously. So smart.

There's so many little pieces. Crazy.

Update FEB 2014: I'm so happy we decided back in January for him to quit his job. It was SUCH a risk knowing we could make ends meet and not much else, but we have now realized that it changed our lives forever. Tim is SO much more optimistic, which is great for our relationship. We've figured out things to do for fun without spending money. We are better with saving money, which is obviously better for us since we plan to do a TON of traveling in the upcoming years. 

Update: MAY 2015: We have since this was written bought a home, got married, and change careers. It's amazing how much can change in just two years! And wow, $50/wk on groceries? We spend anywhere from $75-150 depending on what we need now, I need to get back to $50! Yes, we make a heck of a lot more money now; however, reading this has really made me notice how much extra money we spend when we should be saving it. 

How much do you normally spend on groceries? How many are in your family? Any best tips on saving money? For sure mine has been to set aside cash when I first get paid. I keep it completely separate from my bank account. I think for saving money on groceries, I need to not only continue to make a list, but maybe I should start making a more detailed list of approximate costs and make sure it's under $50 before I go to the store. Any other ideas?