Thankful

I have so many things to be thankful for. Here are just a few: 

I'm thankful for the love and grace of God in my life. This means everything to me, and I wouldn't be where I am today without His love. 

I'm thankful for my husband. He is my best friend and I couldn't imagine doing this life without him. 

 

I'm thankful for family. I've learned never to take it for granted and to cherish time with the ones you love.

I'm thankful for my friends. I've never been one to have a ton of friends, but the ones I do have are the kind I can always count on. 

I'm thankful for my dogs! I know that may sound silly, but they really are like family to us, and they bring us so much joy! 

I'm thankful for our home. It's not huge and fancy, sometimes it's messy and cluttered, but it's ours and we love it.

 

I'm thankful for provision- food to eat, clean water to drink, clothes to wear, and a roof over our heads. So many people don't have these basic necessities, and we are so very blessed to have all of these in abundance. I never want to lose sight of that in the constant push we feel for more.

 

I'm thankful for my job. I don't always feel like getting up in the morning to go, but it's a great job, I work with great people, and it helps to pay the bills!

 

I'm thankful for all of you, my readers! It's still kind of crazy to me that there are people who show up to this space to read my words. But I am so thankful for it, and for the amazing community of bloggers I have met.

 

I'm thankful for the legacy my parents left me of their trust in God, their kindness, and their integrity. I am so thankful to have such wonderful examples.

 

There is so much more I could say, but suffice it to say, I am truly blessed.

 

I'm going to take a little break from blogging for the next few days to unplug and really soak in my time with Adam and friends. I will be back on Monday to recap all of the Thanksgiving awesomeness! 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

Thanksgiving Must-haves

I LOVE Thanksgiving. Love. it. Not as much as I love Christmas, mind you, but I love it a lot. Mainly because of the food. Just kidding (sort of). I do love the food, but the main thing I love about Thanksgiving is the family and the traditions. There are a few things that I must have or do on Thanksgiving Day to make my little heart smile:

1. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Even if I'm not really watching it that closely and it's just background noise, it must be on and I must see the Turkey, Santa Claus, Charlie Brown, and Kermit the Frog, among others. No joke, one year my dad came to visit Adam and I in Tulsa for Thanksgiving and our TV decided to die the day before, so he literally went and bought us a new TV so that we would be able to watch the parade the next day. If you knew my dad you would not really be surprised by this.

2. Family



Pretend Rocky's in this picture too. 

As I have mentioned, we aren't able to visit our family in OK or MD this year, but I have Adam and our puppies, and that's just perfect!

3. Football

Ever since I can remember, even before I was into it, we have always watched football on Thanksgiving! There's just something about the tradition that is already inherent in football paired with the tradition of Thanksgiving that makes it so much fun to watch. I think I enjoy Thanksgiving football more than the Superbowl. We'll most likely watch the Dallas/Detroit game, and probably at least some of the Seattle/SF game too. We pretty much just love football, regardless of who is playing, and this time of year we start feeling like we need to cram it all in and watch as much as possible before football season ends.

4. Miracle on 34th Street

I mean, hello?? What better movie to watch to bring in the Christmas season! Total classic, and I love both versions, though the 1947 version has a special charm since that's the one I grew up watching.

5. Food

Duh. Ok, I love it all, but my must-have foods are turkey, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie. Adam doesn't like pumpkin pie, but I must have it! So I'm making one just for me. This could be very, very bad.

6. A Nap

 

What's Thanksgiving without a carb coma?

What are your must-haves for Thanksgiving?

Weekend Recap: The one with all the carbs and the shopping

I don't even care that it's Monday because I only have three days of work this week! WOOT! Plus there's practically no one here this week so it should be pretty chill. This weekend was wonderful and relaxing and I got to spend some quality time wandering around Target, which is always nice. Plus I ate my weight in carbs, which always makes for a good time. 

Friday night we went to Five Guys for dinner. 

Yes, that is grease on the bag. I'm not even sorry. 

It ain't food blogger pretty, but it's delicious.  

Saturday morning I got up and went to Target, where I tried to resist spending money and failed. But I did pretty good, this shirt was 40% off and these sandals were on clearance. And since this is FL and it can be 40 degrees one day and 70 the next, I most likely won't be waiting until Spring to wear them. 

It's hard to tell, but this shirt has a SUPER cute fox print on it. Here's the link to the listing on the Target website. It's SO comfy too! 

After Target I came home and watched the Gator game, and though we played a lesser division team, it was nice to see them have a good game and win for Muschamp's last game in the Swamp. Plus we're bowl eligible, so yay, better than last year! 

That evening we went to dinner with my aunt and uncle who I hadn't seen in forever, it was so great to spend some time with them! Then we had to go by Walmart to get some lightbulbs (most boring thing to spend money on EVER) and I found this for $5: 

I was kind of ridiculously excited. Of course I had to get it. 

Sunday morning we slept in and then had lunch at Maggiano's with friends (more carbs). I wore this, no sweater or jacket because it was literally 70 degrees in Jax yesterday. After being cold and in sweaters most of the week. 

Hurley's like, "Really mom? More pictures? Is there nothing you won't document??"

Sunday evening we got all of our shopping done for the Thanksgiving meal, and I finally remembered to bring these guys out: 

 

Other than that just worked on laundry, getting the house clean, and the RSVP's for the Christmas Party are slowly but surely rolling in so I'm getting a better idea of how much food we are going to need!

 

How was your weekend? Are you ready for Thanksgiving? 

 

Linking up with B Loved Boston, Join the Gossip, A Cute Angle, and Bella in the City!

 

 

Friday Favorites

Oh boy am I glad it's Friday! I feel like I really need this weekend to catch up on blogging, sleep, reading, and planning. I also really want to get our picture done for our Christmas card. This needs to happen ASAP!

Favorite song: 

Taylor Swift- Blank Space

Dang this song is catchy! I finally watched the video the other day and WOW is she crazy in this one! But the song is super fun to crank up in the car!

Favorite recipe: 

Chicken Tetrazzini

I made this last night to take to a friend this evening. I hadn't made it in so long and I had forgotten how much I love this recipe and how therapeutic it can be to cook when you have plenty of time and you are cooking something you enjoy! I will probably share the recipe next week if anyone cares to try it!

Favorite Workout: 

My friend Samm and I did T25 Speed 2.0 at Fit Club this week and it felt so good to work out really hard like that! Neither of us had done that workout in a while and with all the jumping our feet were cramping up! Plus my CALVES, OMG.

Favorite Links: 

This tutorial from Small Home Big Start on how to make dried orange slice ornaments! Aren't they gorgeous?? We have an orange tree in our backyard and I am so excited to try this! 

This recipe for cake batter confetti popcorn from Venus Trapped In Mars! OMG this looks amazing!

This post from The Daily Tay about increasing traffic to your blog! Such great tips! 

Favorite Funnies: 

It's like a little piece of my childhood dies...

This is totally something Adam would do. 

Don't forget your commas! 

Everyone have a wonderful fun-filled weekend! Link up! 

 

Carolina Charm

 

Loving lately...

* Planning our little Thanksgiving for two

* Discovering a new (to us) show with Adam

* This Erin Condren planner:

Only with my name and picture of my pups on it, of course



* Fuzzy socks

* Feeling like I kicked some major butt after a workout

* Afternoons in Target with nowhere else to be so I can wander around aimlessly sipping coffee and looking at pretty things

* Free samples from Starbucks

 





* Free apps at one of our favorite hangouts

 

*Just free stuff in general is pretty great.

* Murder mystery books

* REAL hot chocolate with whipped cream on top (not the packets, we're talking whole milk, Hershey's cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Perfection.)

* Comfort food

AKA dinner tonight

 

 

 

Confessions in Cat Memes

Somehow this turned into a post full of cat memes. I don't know. 

- I LOVE Christmas, don't get me wrong, but I am getting a little annoyed that I am hearing Christmas music in stores already! It's like, I'm fine if other people want to start listening to it before Thanksgiving, but when you go shopping and it's playing in stores you have no choice! Plus walking through the store with my fingers in my ears saying "LALALALA I'm not listening!" is frowned upon. I'm not ready! For me the start of Christmas is when Santa Claus comes down the road at the end of the Macy's parade and I'm not even kidding right now.

- That said I did have a peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-Fil-A Monday night. Which I usually don't have until after Thanksgiving, and I tell myself I will only have one a year because they are SO rich and fattening . But we wanted ice cream and it was the closest place and it was delicious and worth every calorie.

-Speaking of calories I was all set to restart my good eating today and then I remembered that my coworkers and I decided this would be the week of each of us bringing a dessert each day in celebration of Thanksgiving next week. And I am supposed to bring cheesecake on Friday. This time of year makes it SO hard to stay on track, I swear it's next to impossible! Well, maybe it's possible if you have an iron will and can resist such goodness as pound cake and cheesecake. At this point I feel like if I can get to January and still fit in my jeans, I will count that a success.

- Does anyone else crave ice cream more in the winter than the summer? Or am I just a freak?

- We can't go visit family for Thanksgiving this year, so we're pretty much on our own. Which means we will be cooking all of our own Thanksgiving food (That's a lot of cooking, yikes). It's only going to be the two of us, but we still want all the yummy stuff like turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pie, etc. In other words, we will be eating leftovers for a week.

- While I'm sad we can't see family, I'm actually looking forward to it being just the two of us. It will be kind of nice to just have the whole day at home with Adam, cooking and eating and watching movies and slowly sinking into a carb coma. It just sounds so cozy and nice.

- Don't laugh (Ok, laugh if you want, how would I know if you're laughing or not?), but Adam and I just started watching How I Met Your Mother on Prime last night. As in, we've never watched it before. I KNOW, we are way behind the times! But so far we love it! And no, I don't know who the mother ends up being, so don't tell me!

 

Weekend recap

I'm late posting this today because I took the day off of work and my schedule is all weird. This morning I had a doctor's appointment so naturally I had to get myself a treat: 

This afternoon we are going to the chiropractor and I'm pretty excited about it. 

This weekend was pretty uneventful, which was fine with me! Pretty relaxing and very low key. 

Friday night we had dinner with some friends and then I came home and got my butt kicked by Shaun T. 

On Saturday we went out to an RC event in St. Augustine and it was fun except that I was SO COLD the majority of the time. When the sun was out it was fine, but a good part of the day it was really overcast. 

We were out there all day so we missed the Gator game, but it sounds like that was probably for the best. ::sad face:: Of course if you follow SEC football at all you've probably heard that Muschamp is done after this season. Nobody was surprised and I think it's probably for the best for both him and the team. I wish him well, and I really think he is going to be just fine, he should be able to easily find a job as DC.

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill, I got some cleaning and budgeting done and started to think about what to get family for Christmas. I'm super excited that this is a four day work week and next week will be a three day work week! Holla!

Linking up!

Join the Gossip