Why marriage is awesome, according to me

I love being married. Not that I'm trying to rub it in the face of all my single friends. Quite the opposite actually. I feel like marriage has been getting a bad rap these days. The other day on KLG and Hoda, I saw a stat that 2/3 of single people never want to get married. Mostly because they see how a lot of marriages are and don't want that. Every day we see a new celeb divorce. (Heidi and Seal?!? I did not see that one coming!) Obviously after being married for a whole two years, I'm an expert. Ok, I'm still a novice. But honestly, marriage can be awesome. So in honor of Valentine's Day, marriage, love, and my sweet gun-loving, long-haired, hilarious man who is turning 24 on Monday, here is my list of why marriage rocks. In no specific order. (Disclaimer: my husband may not completely agree with this list. But he's not the one making it, is he?)

1. You have someone to put your cold feet up against in bed at night. Now your feet are warm.

2. Instead of doing all the hated household chores yourself, you can delegate them. He takes out the trash, I do the laundry. Win win win.

3. When you make bad jokes or quote lines from movies, someone always laughs.

4. You have someone to take you to the ER after burning yourself while cooking. But not before rolling his eyes that you would do something like that.

5. You get someone to celebrate things with. Like birthdays, paying off student loans, getting through a bad day.

6. You have someone to tell you how awesome you are and how you have the best ideas and that you should be getting paid at least twice as much.

7. Also, you have someone to tell you that your idea was dumb and you need to make a different decision because that one was just really bad. Ouch. Reality check. Have you ever watched an after school special. Come on, you know that's not going to work. (Real words, from my man.)

8. You have someone will to try all your new kitchen adventures. Someone with blatant honesty.

9. You have someone to pray for you and with you. Like when I was in the ER screaming about my pain being 10/10. Or before I'm about to serve something with a vegetable hidden in it.

10. Freedom. I fee like there is a freedom in marriage that wasn't in dating. Like I don't have to spend every waking moment with this man, we get to hang out with other people sometimes and that's ok. We get to have our own jobs and do our own thing sometimes. Because at the end of the day, we are going to be in the same house, in the same bed, in the same life. If we get in a fight, we won't break up. We'll work it out. Because we are married.

11. Office/30 Rock/Parks and Rec/Big Bang Theory+bagel bites+glass of wine. Perfect evening.

12. The same last name. It makes me feel like I'm on a team. And that I'm super awesome at baking stuff.

13. Someone to vent about work to. I like that he knows nothing about what I do. So he can just passively nod and say that I was probably right.

14. You always get the window seat on the plane.  Unless, of course, you are the one always giving up the window seat.

15. Black Friday strategy shopping. As in, you go get this, while I get this. Meet me at 0500 in aisle 15. Go time!


16. Traditions. Like pizza on a Friday night and hating Mizzou. It's the little things.

I feel like this list could go on for a long time. But marriage rocks. So far! Enjoy the throwback pics from my dorm room. I love you, my sweet nerd.

Celebrating Two Years in Charleston, SC (Part 2)

Back to our Charleston trip...which I had to split up into 2 parts since I'm kind of excessive like that...

On Monday (the last day of our little trip), we took a tour of Fort Sumter, which is where the Civil War started. I think this one is the best pic of us on the trip, which is funny since I always want nice pics of us dressed up and it never really works out.

The fort is an island so we took a lovely little ferry ride out. There was a museum and just tons of cool history to be soaked up. Nerdy, I know.

We also toured the Military Museum back in Charleston.

We spent our last evening at High Cotton, which was our favorite restaurant. The food was amazing, the atmosphere was great (live band and gorgeous dining room), and our waiter was hilarious.

Caleb had steak with bourbon bacon sauce and I had the most delicious shrimp and grits. Ever.

Seriously, go to Charleston just for the food. It is insanely good.

Pics of our adorable room at Wild Dunes in Isle of Palms. Very comfy and cute, it had a patio, kitchenette, large bathroom, and washer and dryer!

We got up bright and early to watch the sun rise over the ocean and were not disappointed. Beautiful.

Obviously, I have to share a pic of my sweet husband cooking me breakfast. Future self: remember, he does know how to cook eggs and bacon!

We stopped at a scenic overlook on the way back. Who doesn't love some good scenery? This reminds me how insanely beautiful it is to live in Tennessee. Also, I left my iphone here and a man that was blowing leaves picked it up and ran it over to the car before we drove off. I'm not sure how long this iphone will last...

Caleb has a mustache from my hair blowing in the wind. I think it suits him.

I love that we saw the ocean and the mountains in the same day. We are so blessed! This trip was a blast, go to Charleston for
1. the food
2. the good hair days
3. the shopping
4. the history
5. the ocean
6. the good times with your lover




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Celebrating Two Years in Charleston, SC (Part 1)

*Warning: serious picture overload! I can't help it...*

This morning I woke up, turned on the Today Show, made a pot of coffee, threw a load of laundry in the wash, and then sat down to put music on my iPhone and make a blog post. My house looks like a tornado went through it. But obviously blogging is more important.

We spent a fabulous four nights in Charleston, SC for our anniversary. Then we got back and I spent two days to renew my certification for ACLS (Advance Cardiac Life Support-I can save your life!) and then working for three days. But back to Charleston...

Can I just say that I loved Charleston? First of all, the weather was perfect. In the 80's, sunny, no humidity. I had amazing hair days every single day. We woke up on Saturday morning at like 6am, because we are old now and that is when we naturally wake up because that is actually sleeping in for us. We drank some coffee and got ready and drove into Charleston. (We stayed in Isle of Palms, which is about 20 minutes outside Charleston.) We were obviously the first people up because nothing was open yet. Around 9am, all the runners finally came out. And Charleston has many, many runners. Way more than Kingsport, ha.

Good morning, Charleston Harbor! I pose like this every morning when greeting the day. Oh wait....I don't.

We hit up the market, which is this amazing open air market in the middle of Charleston. Its four blocks long and has tons of handmade items and cool unique stuff. The coolest thing was these handmade sweet grass baskets. They were everywhere. And cost a lot of $$$. I didn't buy one because I was like "$50 for a tiny basket? $150 for a normal basket? No way!" But now I kinda wish I had...

Good looking backsides, ladies. Must be all that running...

We got some breakfast at the Sweetwater Cafe...the low country omelet was yummy...

I wasn't running anywhere after this breakfast.

For some reason, we had decided that we both needed new pairs of sunglasses very badly. So we found a Sunglasses Hut, stat, on King Street. King Street is like the mecca of good shopping. It was a beautiful, magical place. So we got some sunglasses. I almost got pink ones. Almost.

We also enjoyed some delicious moon pies from the Moon Pie General Store. 

We took a carriage ride of the city and learned all about the history as a a horse pulled us around. I was super impressed with the cleanliness of the city since there are horses everywhere. They actually put little bags on the horses to catch their poo. And whenever the horse urinates (sorry, just being blunt) they pull over and call someone to come clean it up.

For dinner Saturday night, we ate at Poogan's Porch, which was an old house made into a gorgeous restaurant. Caleb had pan seared jumbo scallops with applewood smoked bacon grits, wilted spinach and crawfish beurre blanc. I had pan seared snapper with sauteed arugula , and  summer tomato and bacon risotto with a lemon avocado compound butter. (And yes, maybe I did just go to the website to get the exact description of what we ate.) We had some pimento cheese fritters for an app and pecan pie for dessert.

I know the pics are yellowy but we are inside at night, helllo.

I was kind of obsessed with these boots for the whole trip.

Also on Saturday we got some iPhones. It was our anniversary gift to each other. I don't have any pics of them, but they are magical.

On Sunday (anniversary day!) we were tired from spending the whole day Saturday walking around, so we laid on the beach and read and drank mimosas. It was lovely. I am in love with beaches. I feel like I appreciate them more being from Kansas, where there are no beaches.

We went into Charleston for dinner and ate at A.W. Shucks, where the seafood is ah-mazing. Blue crab dip, oysters, seafood casserole, crab cakes, and stuffed jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon. We had a delicious peach bourbon bread pudding for dessert but we could barely eat any of it after the massive meal we just had.

Two years, baby!

Charleston, I love you. The second part will be coming later because I need to go get ready for the day. Can I end by mentioning that I hope my personal trainer doesn't see this blog? Because I'm pretty sure he would be making me do walking lunges for the rest of my life as a punishment.

The Happy List

Happy Friday! I'm just glad that I have a three day weekend. Work was less than awesome this week. I had my very first day as charge nurse yesterday. Someone coded. Code blue. Flat line. Not good. I'm so insanely happy that this week is over. I needed a little encouragement and I know that a lot of my friends and family are also in need of encouragement. Actually, when could we not use a little encouragement? Anytime, people, anytime! So I decided to make a happy list. Things that give me a little boost and hopefully will give you one too!

My Friday Happy List

1. A good breakfast

2. Coffee from Einstein Bagels at the hospital. Vanilla Hazelnut and Autumn Roast get me through the morning.

3. A double rainbow. All the way across the sky. I saw this last week and was reminded of God's amazing love and promises for us. (Ok, I was also reminded of the hilarious YouTube video.)

4. June Beatrice Baker. Born on Tuesday, September 27th to Zach and Audrey Baker. I haven't met her yet, but I know she is going to be amazing! 

5. This verse, that I used to carry in my pocket back when I was a brand new CNA and super freaked out all the time. I was reminded of it so many times this week. 

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self control. " 2 Timothy 1:7

6. Friday Flower Club

7. Looking forward to a vacation. (Celebrating 2 years of marriage in Charleston, SC in a couple weeks!)

8. The Today Show and Kathie Lee and Hoda. If I get to watch it, it means I'm probably not at work. And I just love those ladies. They make me laugh.

9. Cajun Chicken Pasta from The Pioneer Woman. I made it earlier this week and it was fantastic. Also it fed both of us for lunch for the rest of the week.

10. Pay Day Friday. Holla!

I hope you are having a great Friday and have time to think up your own happy list. (Thanks for the idea, Rockstar Diaries!)