Happy Christmas Eve eve in my new home!

So the darling hubby has gone out to visit with some of the "boys" while they are home for Christmas, which is just fine by me.  I am enjoying a Christmas ale, relaxing in the ambiance of our beautiful tree and watching reality shows!  

It's hard to believe that this is my new home now!  I only have one more trip planned to Columbus to get the rest of my belongings:(. The suitcase is officially unpacked for good and the shoes have found a home in my new closet.  Cheers to new beginnings and merry christmas!  I'm hoping there is something shiny under that tree for me this year!

You're fancy huh?

Having a fancy night!  Drinking the expensive wine (10.99 gas station bottle vs the 3.99 grocery store cheapo).  Bread with olive oil and spices because I'm out of butter!  Can't help but feel awesome right now!  What has my life come too? Lol. Oh and I've busted out the plastic wine glasses because all my nice ones are packed away!  That's just the icing on the cake!

How many boxes does it take?

The clock has starting ticking and the official two week countdown until the big move has begun.  It's getting a little frustrating trying to pack while still spending time in two different homes and on top of that trying to find a job.  I have not at all been myself lately.  I have not been going to the gym and I have so much to do that I just get overwhelmed and find myself doing nothing instead.  I'm ready for my life to be in one place and just have things settled down again and get back to my usual routine.

I'm beginning to get really nervous about entering the world of the unemployed.  I have decided to give up my career of elite coaching and to go back to school and try and find administration work in the mean time to help pay the bills.  It seems to be quite competitive these days and people want people with direct experience in the business.  I've never not been employed.  I have always had opportunities open before I have left previous positions and this is the first time that it isn't happening that way.  Even though the darling hubby is completely supportive, it starts to get more annoying than anything the more he keeps saying that it "will all be okay".  Of course for him it is okay.  He isn't the one moving to a new city, quitting his job, giving up his apartment and essentially the life he created for himself.

I had a bit of a breakdown the other day and gave myself a solid ten minutes to feel sorry for myself before I snapped out of it.  I had always told myself that I would not make decisions this big based on love and love alone again.  I would want a solid commitment before I made such a drastic life change.  Though he has never even thought of living with a girlfriend, which means this is a big commitment to him, from someone, like myself, who has lived with a boyfriend before I feel that it's not as big of a commitment as he thinks it is.  It's easy to separate when you simply play house.  At one point I had contemplated if getting married was even the right choice for me and my life because I really had questioned the idea of monogamy but now my feelings have changed.

At one time in my life I wanted the big penthouse.  To live in the city and have an exciting fast paced job and now I'm beginning to want to give up the penthouse for playpens.  However, I haven't been preparing for that life.  I have spent a lot of time in my twenties being a completely selfish.  Dating random men who I knew wouldn't be the one, living on my own and collecting my memories, going out on Tuesday nights and not taking life very seriously.

Now here I am, still wanting to finish school and start a career and begin a family with this man.  I finally found someone worth settling down for and here I feel like I'm not worth settling down with.  I should have figured that one day my clock might start ticking and I should have been more prepared.  Goals change as you change and I realize that sometimes there is no timeline but your own.  I have never been more scared and yet more motivated to begin a new part of my life.

So I'm throwing this out into the Universe.  I have finally met prince charming, now please provide me with employment or I'm ONLY going to be able to afford the picket fence!

Alright done venting for now!  Back to packing!

Wedding weekend was a success!

It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the sun shining, warm weather, very much unlike Tuesday of the following week where snow actually knocked leaves off the tree!  The wedding weekend was a success and I now have a new sister!

Nikki looked absolutely gorgeous and we all had a fabulous time catching up with family and friends!  Looks like I'm next (since there is no other option of course) lol!

The lovely bride and the bridesmaids!

The entire bridal party at the reception!

My dashing brother!

The love of my life! 

My sisters!

Exciting announcement!

I can now officially announce this...drumroll please...I'M MOVING!!!! 

The darling hubby has asked me to move in with him.  He actually asked me a few months ago and I didn't really entertain the idea at first.  The more we talked about and the more I've thought about it, I realized why not?  I truly feel that I have finally met the love of my life, my joie de vivre, the one!  I'm tired of putting my life on hold for my job and it was time to make a change!

Needless to say I'm a little nervous.  Not about living with someone but because it's a whole new city and I have officially quit my job and I'm leaving a place that I have fallen in love with.  I don't have a job yet and I had to give my job ample notice so I'm not officially moving until December so let the searching and packing begin!!  I cannot wait to start this new chapter of my life!

Skinny Fox Detox!

 Back in June I made the decision to work towards my ultimate goal of competing in a fitness competition.  My friend who used to be a personal trainer but is now a big shot at a gym here in Columbus was also training for a show and offered to have me come workout with him and see what it was going to take to do this.  So we dove straight in to heavy lifting and building mass and carrying around a gallon of water and eating ridiculesly clean!  I couldn't believe how after a few weeks I felt amazing and I was watching my body transform and I was officially addicted.  After a month and a half of hardcore training I went on vacation and fell in love! Go figure haha.  Even though I was still in the gym, I went from working out 6 days a week to 3 and clean eating was replaced with date food and beer and needless to say my body went right back to where it was comfortable.  Then I remembered that I was sized for my bridesmaid dress during my peak workout performance and lo and behold my dress is now a little tighter in the midsection.  So I decided that I'm not going to let love mean putting aside my original goal and journey so I officially began training again two weeks ago.  To jump start my diet and just rid myself of the nastiness I've been consuming I am jump starting my diet with the skinny fox detox!  All it is, is tea.  One glass every morning and one every other night.  I am only trying the 14 day detox and then if I really like it I may try the 28 day!  No dairy, alcohol, sugar or processed food for 24 days!  I'll post before and afters soon!

Busy busy bee!

I have been a very busy bee these last few weeks!  I always vow to keep up with this thing and then I let life get crazy and I fall off the wagon a little bit.  However, it is my goal to keep track of all the exciting things happening through the year because I don't want to look back like I did last year and say, "what did I even do all year?"  So this is what I've been up to the last few weeks!

The weekend after my birthday we had a fabulous birthday party in Cleveland for my friend Katie and I!  All I wanted was to finally have all of my bestfriends together in one place and I finally got my birthday wish!  It was an amazing night!

This past weekend I made another trip up to Cleveland for bachelorette activities.  Activity number one was completing a 5k with the bride!  I have to say I was very hesitant at first on doing the 5k.  If given the choice between running in the cold rain versus being able to wake up in a warm bed with my gorgeous hubby and having a cup of coffee, I'm always going to choose the latter.  But we did it!  My sister and I successfully ran it, even though we are not runners and we had a lot of fun and everyone loved our tutus!  Go team bride!

After we got warmed up and showered it was on to a wine tasting at the beautiful battery park wine bar and then to an amazing dinner at pier W restaurant, all right on the water!  And then the night ended with a wonderful evening of laughing and some drinks with my hubby!

Because we have been so busy the last few weekends and haven't had much alone time, the hubby and I decided to spend the day just him and I enjoying an absolutely noteworthy fall day!  After a trip to the apple orchard to pick 20lbs of apples and me making him take me to get my weekly Menchies fix, we picked up some of our favorite pumpkin beer, dinner and pumpkins and vowed to not leave the house for the rest of the day.  And we did just that!  

It has been a great few weeks!  Now we just have a diaper party, baby shower and this wedding to get through and then some super exciting things are happening for us!  I'll keep you posted!!

Wedding Shower Weekend!

Last weekend was my soon to be sister's wedding shower and I must say it couldn't have turned out better.  Her maid of honor is amazingly organized which is so appreciated when you live a few hundred miles away from everyone.  And brides need to take a lesson from my SIL (sister in law).  Know what you want!  It does not make you a bridezilla because you can say what you want without being a bitch about it.  And she does just that.  She told us exactly what she wanted, what she didn't, what she likes and what she doesn't like.  For one thing it takes out all the guess work.  It makes planning so much easier!  You're job is easier, the bride is happy and things just run so smoothly like this shower!

Now I cannot take credit for any of this except for planning and icing a few cupcakes, which as always I end up using way too much glitter, right mom?  and licking way too many beaters.  But I did put the cupcake dress together!  And I helped in the planning!  Nonetheless the shower turned out great!  I cannot wait until the wedding and I'll be sharing more photos!

DIY Coffee Mugs

So I have a lot to catch you up on which I will do later tonight when it's acceptable to do so with a bottle of wine.  But right now it's 10 am and I don't think work would appreciate me drinking a bottle of wine before I come in, even if it is my birthday!

A few months ago I met my amazing boyfriend and he started bringing out feelings of domesticity (perhaps that is my own word), that I have never felt before.  He had me wanting to be all responsible and shit, like cleaning out my fridge and making room in my closet by getting rid of things I haven't worn in a year (that was hard)!  I actually always had a back up paper towel roll on hand and even toilet paper (jk, er kinda).

This was when I realized that here I was actually thinking that this might be the one and I didn't even have a matching coffee mug to my name.  So that was when I decided that it was time to change a few things and I went out and bought some matching monogram coasters and four matching coffee mugs.  But c'mon, who am I kidding, I can't entirely grow up.  Hence my brand new DIY mustache coffee mugs.  Yes, I have a secret obsession with mustaches!

And these were super easy to make too!  I went and bought some dollar store coffee mugs ($1.00 each at dollar general).  Then I came home and drew on some mustaches.  I baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes in the oven.  Let them sit in the oven with it cracked and turned off to let them cool slowly so they don't crack.  And then hello beautiful DIY mugs.  I loved these so much I think I'm going to play around with more mugs soon.  Just a tip, they are microwave and dishwasher safe, but if you put them in the dishwasher the sharpie will come off slightly so wash them by hand.  I just want to point out that this was my amazing boyfriend's mistake and so now he gets to drink out of the cup that looks as if the mustache is just getting a few gray hairs.  This is his punishment.  A reminder every morning that despite how old I'm getting, he'll always be older :)

I'M BACK! (again)...

Ok I am back and committed yet again to blogging.  I spent some time reviewing some other blogging platforms but I have decided to stick with blogger so bare with me while I figure out some configurations and how to add links to my social media sites and what not.  It's a process.  I don't have time to do it today, but I will eventually (hopefully), and most likely since I will be taking time off from working here shortly (big news to come soon)!!

Anyway hello again!