Tulsa Recap + Giveaway Winner!

Happy Monday all! I had a very relaxing weekend after the craziness of last week, so I feel pretty good about getting this week started!

First of all I am so excited to announce that the winner of the $25 Starbucks gift card giveaway is the lovely Nadine! Thanks so much to all who entered!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This post is pretty much just going to be a bunch of pictures, mostly of food. Which should shock you not at all if you know anything about me.When we go to Tulsa we eat at all of our favorite places that we don't have in Jax.

This was my view for most of the drive to Tulsa:

He's not spoiled at all. 

We stopped for lunch in Memphis at our favorite BBQ spot there: 

Ate a few of our favorite things in Tulsa: 

El Chico :: Mazzio's Pizza :: Rocket Brothers 

Celebrated a VIP's birthday: 

And chilled with the fam:

Moved some stuff: 

Adam is like a wizard when it comes to fitting things together and maximizing space. 

Thank you Tetris. 

And drove back home. Hurley is getting his learner's permit soon. Otie is not impressed: 

And ended the weekend with a lazy, rainy Sunday, full of football, coffee, and craftiness.

Hey Y'all Hey

So remember how I said I would be kind of MIA in this post? That turned out to be more true than I thought it would be. We took a trip to Tulsa last week to help move my in-laws here to Jax! And it turns out we didn't have internet pretty much the entire time (which was kind of awesome actually).

I had a post planned for Friday and figured I would post at least on Monday or Wednesday this week, but since I didn't really want to write out a post on my phone that didn't happen.

 It was a total whirlwind of a trip. We arrived in Tulsa on Thursday night (last week), spent a few days packing the house and the moving truck, drove roughly 20 hours back to Jax, arrived in Jax late Wednesday night, and then unpacked the moving truck yesterday. I'm back at work today and while I feel surprisingly well-rested, I also feel kind of zombie-like.

ALL that to say, I know I have a crap-ton (yes, that is a measurement) of comments to respond to but I promise I will! I'm currently slogging through literally hundreds of emails (deleting most of them because they are junk) and I know I also need to announce a winner for the giveaway which I plan to do on Monday. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

I also wanted to say a huge THANK YOU and WELCOME to all of my new followers! So good to see you all here, and I look forward to learning more about you! Cheers to Friday!

Currently...

- Continuing to majorly slack in the blog department. If you left a comment on Friday's post and it has not been responded to yet I am very sorry and I promise I will get to it soon! With the in-laws here this week my schedule has been even more off than it already was and I've been focusing on enjoying time with them in the evenings rather than being online.

Not that you're all waiting on the edge of your seats for my response or anything, but I try to always respond to every comment because it means a lot to me that you all read and comment on my babbling!

- Trying to decide what I should do for my one year blogiversary coming up in August. Has it really been almost a year?? Shut. up.

- Thinking I might need to cut down on my Bloglovin' follows. I always feel bad doing that but my feed is getting outta control and there are just some blogs I follow that I hardly ever or never read and I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with all of my daily reads!

- Really needing to finish planning Adam's half-birthday dinner like now, since it's coming up in about two weeks.

- Wishing Florida didn't have flesh-eating bacteria in the ocean so we could go swimming at the beach without feeling like we're risking our lives. I wish I was kidding. I realize it's not that common for people to actually contract it and die, but really, who wants to take a swim with some flesh-eating bacteria??

- Enjoying the Summer but already looking forward to cooler temps, long sleeves, boots, and pumpkin everything. I realize I live in Florida and we have at least two more months of Summer temps but let me dream.

- Honestly so ready to put the first half of this year behind me. It wasn't horrible or anything, just disappointing and frustrating in a lot of ways and I'm ready to move on.

- Looking forward to eating dinner tonight because my MIL is making her Rigatoni and OMGeeee it's so good!!

 

What are you up to these days?

 

 

 

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!

 

 

Enough already!

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."- Philippians 4:12

I have been thinking a lot about contentment lately. Probably because we are trying to actually stick to a budget these days and really watch where the money goes. It really does open your eyes up to how much frivolous spending goes on without your even realizing it. It's also made me think twice before purchasing something: I'll stop and think, do we really need this? Could we get by without it, or do we have something already at home we could use instead?

A silly example: lotion and body sprays from Bath and Body Works. I have SO much of that stuff, and they are all partially used bottles! Really?? So instead of being drawn in by the latest delicious scent (You know what you're doing, you evil BBW), I'm trying really hard to consider what I already have at home and focus on using that up before I buy more. I mean really, how many bottles of lotion does one girl need anyway?

Or clothes. Clothes are a BIG one for me. I love to just go look at all of the cute clothes, the latest styles and find great deals! But do I really need yet another pair of shorts or pants? Or another pair of heels? Or are the 6 pairs of shorts and who knows how many pairs of shoes I have at home just fine?

That's just a couple of examples, but thinking this way is really making me realize just how much STUFF we have, and how so much of it is unnecessary. So many people in this world survive on the true bare necessities of life, like food, water, shelter. And so many don't even have those.


Now I'm not at all saying that it's bad to have nice things and enjoy the blessings I have, because that's certainly not the case! There is nothing wrong with enjoying a shopping trip and indulging in a treat! But if I'm not careful, I can so easily slip into the mindset of "more stuff, I need MOAR" and feeling like all of these things are something I NEED rather than something that would be nice to have, but it is no way necessary to life, or even necessary to happiness.

In fact, the more I feel that drive to buy, buy, buy, the less true joy I feel. Because those things, while they may provide temporary happiness, don't in any way feed the need for true satisfaction and contentment. They just leave you wanting more.

It's so easy to look at what everyone else has, nicer car, nicer house, nicer clothes, and feel like your missing out on some crucial part of life. But then, are those really the things that make life worth living, the things that make us truly happy?

I'm learning that it comes down to the fact that when you have true peace and joy, you can be content in any situation. Whether you have lots of extra money to buy whatever you want or whether you have just enough to get by.

So instead of feeling frustrated when I want something and it's just not in the budget, I'm going to work on being thankful for the amazing blessings that I already have, both the material blessings and the infinitely more important blessings like love, grace, friendship, peace, and joy.