Times are Changing

I'm so utterly fascinated with life. We spend so long talking about, dreaming of, envisioning what our future is going to be like. We think about meeting the person we want to spend our lives with, we wonder when we'll stop settling for less than we deserve and start to settle down, when we'll start cooking more dinners and having less wild nights out. Then suddenly one day you realize all this stuff isn't some far off reality anymore. You realize you are there. It isn't something you are hoping for, planning on, dreaming of...it's something you are living.

This is where I am. Over the past 3 years (almost), I have documented just about everything that led me to this place on this blog and I have loved every second of it. I've shared, sometimes in too much detail, my search for love; real love. I've shared my adventures and thoughts on who I am, what I stand for, what moves me, the mark I want to leave on this world. I've shared the "rainbows" and "storms" in my life and this blog has helped me survive the storms.

I didn't start a blog to be the next big thing in blogging, to turn it into a career or to make lots of money. I blog because I love to write. On a bad day, I can write and somehow sort out how I'm feeling. On a good day, I can soak in the joy I'm feeling by writing about it. I love documenting things and I love looking back on them later and being taken right back to the moment. This is why I blog.

With that being said, I feel like I am In a state of transition. I've found the love of my life and now rather than sharing my dating adventures, I want to share my thoughts on relationship dynamics and things I'm learning as I begin to build a life with someone. I still want to write about the fun things I do, embarrassing stories about my drinking too much, my thoughts on life and how I found a quote on Pinterest that really made my day.

Unfortunately, because of certain things I've written about, I've kept this blog pretty separate from most of my friends and family. I write on here under my nickname, Millie and I don't link my posts to Facebook or anything.

At this point in my life, I want to open the blog up to everyone, but would need to basically go in and delete posts I wouldn't want everyone to read. I would start a completely new blog, but there are so many non-dating related posts that I am really proud of and wouldn't want to lose. I also may not have a huge following on here, but I don't want to lose that either. I know I want to change the title and design, but I'm a little stumped on what to change it to right now.

Needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed with where to/how to go from here. I'm also really excited about moving forward and making these changes. I hope you'll continue to follow along no matter what changes I make and please, any insight, feedback or ideas you might have on my next step, please share them with me.

As always, thank you for reading along. The fact that anyone is interested in what I write really means a lot to me. xoxo

Unanswered Questions & It's Okay

Happy Thursday!

 

I'm linking up again for It's Okay Thursday, but before I get to that, I thought it was necessary to share the questions I've been asking myself this week:

Why are Charleston Chews so much better frozen than they are unfrozen? And why did I just discover this?

How did I manage to sleep through 4 alarms the other day?

Why are girls so hard on each other sometimes?

Why does anyone spend money on movie theatre snacks? Why don’t you sneak drinks and snacks in your purse? Jonathan and I brought a water bottle full of red wine to the movies with us the other night. Classy, I know.

Why is it that some days you walk in your closet and hate absolutely everything in there?

What strategy is involved when trying to win concert tickets on the radio? Do people start calling way ahead of time or do they just get lucky and their call goes through at the right time?

How did I go from absolutely hating cats to waking up yesterday morning with a cat snuggled on the pillow right above my head and not minding it a bit? Must be love.

Why is the Tupperware cabinet so hard to keep organized?

Will I ever successfully do a fishtail or French braid on myself?

On that note, will I ever learn to do anything interesting to my hair?

Now, It's Okay (I'll keep this short)...

It's okay to live for the weekends.

It's okay to be perfectly content cuddling on the porch with your boyfriend and a glass of wine on a weeknight.

It's okay to overindulge on Cadbury mini eggs since they are only available for a short time.

On that note, it's okay to lie to yourself in the name of delicious chocolate candy.

That's all for now! What's okay with you today? Join the linkup!

Oh, How Pinteresting

If you're anything like me, before Pinterest, you never knew there were so many uses for vinegar or that you can do so many different things with wine corks. You know the feeling of a good Pinterest find. Whether it's a new recipe, a hair tutorial or steps to tone your arms in 7 days, you get super psyched when you find it tell yourself, "I can't wait to try to this."

You keep pinning and pinning and eventually you realize you hardly ever follow through. Can anyone relate to this?

I sure can.

Since I started using Pinterest, I'd say the only pins I ever go back to try have been the dessert recipes. I bake a lot and really enjoy it, so I've been pretty good about going to my Pinterest board when I have an occasion to bake for or need a last minute recipe.

All of those dinner recipes, arm workouts, hair tutorials and other "good ideas" never get their time to shine. Don't get me wrong...I continue to pin this stuff, but that's about as far as it goes.

Over the last few weeks, I've tried to get better about actually putting some of the great ideas I pin into practice. I mean, honestly, just because I pin, "how to clean your glass cooktop with baking soda" doesn't mean my cooktop is going to clean itself. Even though I'm really bad at taking photos of my Pinterest projects (I'm going to try and get better about this), I thought I'd share some of my recent Pinterest projects/ideas and let you know how they worked.

• When I'm stressed or not feeling myself, cleaning is one of my go-to activities. It distracts me, makes me feel like I'm in control of things and relaxes me somehow. Earlier this week, while cleaning the kitchen, I remembered pinning "How to clean your hard water stains off your fridge water dispenser tray." I always try to clean this and nothing has ever worked. I made a quick trip to the grocery store for white vinegar and 20 minutes later I was easily scrubbing the stains off. Of course, I didn't take a before or after picture, but this worked like a charm!
• I'm desperately trying to pay off all the medical debt I've accumulated over the last few years. Kidney stones and hospital stays are not cheap, let me tell ya. Sometimes I feel like I am never going to climb out of this hole, but to help me feel like I have some control over this, I went ahead and made a bill binder to keep myself organized. I've seen so many different versions of this on Pinterest, so I kind of made my own to work for my needs, but this is the pin that I used to get a basic idea.



 

• Since I've been trying to cook more lately, I've finally started trying some of the dozens of recipes I have pinned. Here are a few I've tried...they were all super easy and turned out great!

Baked Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

zucchini bake

Bruschetta Chicken

Now that I'm finally cooking dinner on a regular basis, I'm so thankful for my Pinterest recipe board and I must say that Jonathan is loving it, too.

 

I'm on a roll lately, that's for sure. Who knows...maybe one day I'll be able to successfully follow one of the many hair tutorials I've pinned!

 

Linking up today for Oh, How Pinteresting Wednesday :)

 

 



It's Okay Thursday

Happy Thursday! Let's jump right in, shall we?

It's okay that I don't exactly understand all of this Google Reader/BlogLovin business. I did make a profile, so go ahead and  Follow my blog with Bloglovin if you'd like!

It's okay that I don't know what direction I want to go in with my blog. I know I need to make some big changes, I just don't know what.

It's okay to already be thinking of unique kindness ideas to do on my birthday this year. It's not until May, but I want to do something like this again!

It's okay to overuse "I love you."

It's okay to think that people are a little dramatic about the time change.

It's okay to need this reminder sometimes...

 

 

What's okay with you today? Link up!

 



Shootin' guns n' drinkin' beers

As per usual, here goes my weekend recap on Tuesday...hope you all had a happy weekend!

We hit the road early Saturday morning headed to the Ocala National Forest to camp for the night. It was an adventure, that's for sure! I should probably tell you ahead of time that instead of reserving a designated campsite, we the boys decided to go off on our own and find our own spot to camp in the forest. After driving in the middle of nowhere for a while, we turned down a random dirt road to find a spot to camp.

About a mile and a half up the dirt road, we got stuck, really stuck. At this point, Jonathan's friend's truck had already gotten stuck and we were actually turning around to find a spot where the road wasn't so hard to drive through. The boys spent about 2 hours trying to dig Jonathan's back tire out of the sand.



Off to a great start!



After calling a few different towing companies, we finally found someone who was willing and able to drive the 45 minutes to tow us out. The tow truck driver asked us to meet him back at the main road since we couldn't give him a very good idea of where we were. Doing what any good girlfriend would do, I joined Jonathan for the 1+ mile walk to the main road so he wouldn't have to go alone.

I will tell you one thing...I definitely underestimated how far we had driven. It was hot. I had to pee. It was all a little unfortunate, but Jonathan and I held hands and chatted the whole way, stopping to take pictures and whatnot. It was nice to see that even when the situation isn't ideal, he can still enjoy himself and not let it ruin his day.

We sat by the side of the road long enough to snap a few pictures before I had to give in and pee in the woods. I knew I would have to do it sooner or later, so I ran into the woods while Jonathan waited for the tow truck. Of course, it's just my luck that mid-pee, he would start yelling at me telling me the tow truck was there!

$250 dollars and a few hours later, we were finally settled at our campsite and ready to relax! The best part of this is that everyone was still in such good spirits by the time we got settled. I know a lot of people in my life who would let an inconvenience like getting stuck ruin their fun. Not this group. Don't get me wrong, we were all so very glad to be done with that part of our adventure, but everyone was still psyched to be there and we were all able to laugh about it. I'm really glad Jonathan's friends are like this.

We spent the afternoon drinking, chatting, shooting guns and we even flew a kite. The kite...let me tell you about that. It must've been our 2nd or 3rd date that I mentioned to Jonathan that I've been wanting to fly a kite...I don't think I've brought it up since. It was the sweetest thing when we were setting up our campsite and he handed me a Barbie kite he bought for me. I don't know how I didn't notice it when we were packing up the truck, but he is always surprising me in a smallest and most thoughtful ways.

I think my man was pretty impressed with my shooting skills. The boys had set up a few targets (beer bottles and a few cans) in a tree and I shot both bottles!

Needless to say, we had a blast! I handled the outdoors pretty well, if I do say so myself. Jonathan even commented on this the next night saying "You didn't complain once!" Don't get me wrong, you can bet that as soon as we got back to his place, I hit the shower and we spent the afternoon/evening cuddled in his bed, only leaving long enough to go to his parents' for dinner. I had a blast roughing it for a night, but it was good to be home!

Tell me...

Do you enjoy camping? What's your ideal camping trip like?

Weekend Recap with a side of Ice Cream

Happy Tuesday!

I don't know what is with me but I can't stop thinking about ice cream. I had an ice cream sundae last night before heading to the gym...that was a big mistake. Now I'm sitting at my desk really wanting frozen yogurt or one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches. Why can't I have a celery obsession this week? Why does it have to be ice cream?

Anyway, I hope you all had a great weekend. We spent the weekend at Jonathan's house and after waking up for an early morning run, we threw an impromptu barbeque on Saturday. I can always count on my Pinterest board for a last minute recipe and whipped up these babies with plenty of time to spare before anyone showed up:

Funfetti Cake Batter Cookies

These were super easy to make and were a big hit! We had a blast playing horseshoes, day drinking and hanging around with Jonathan's friends and family. Unfortunately for me, day drinking makes for an early bedtime. We were in bed by 10:30 and I didn't mind it at all.

With no plans on Sunday, we stayed in bed until about noon. Normally I would feel a little guilty about this, but it was absolutely glorious. It feels like we always have plans or a reason to get up at a certain hour when we are together, so it was nice to just lay around together. By the time we finally got up, we were able to squeeze in some bowling and a few games of pool before I headed home.

I should probably add that my boyfriend who is in a bowling league and is so legit with his own bowling ball and whatnot learned that I do not bowl well. I think after the first game his score was somewhere in the 180s and mine was 35. Yep. I also managed to throw a bowling backward on one of my turns. Luckily, no one was injured and Jonathan got to see just how bad I really am at bowling.

With Jonathan and I living about 40 minutes apart, I love spending our weekends together. It's nice to have the uninterrupted time together without driving back and forth to see each other and I love waking up with him in the morning. It's been interesting to see our relationship evolve as we spend our weekends together. I actually want to write a separate post on it because it's all so new for me.

Anyway, I'm already counting down for this weekend. We're waking up early on Saturday to head to the Ocala National Forest to go camping. We'll be roughing it with some of Jonathan's friends and my roomie for the night. I'm not super outdoorsy, but I've been dying to go camping for a while. I absolutely can't wait!

Hope your week is off to a happy start!