So you may know that my husband and I have moved 5 times in the last 9 years for his job.  I actually transferred colleges (We met at Miami of Ohio) to Westminster College out in Salt Lake City for my last two years of undergrad studies.  Jon is two years old than me.  We started dating when I was a freshman at the ripe age of 19 and he was a junior and 21, the age we wanted our boyfriends to be so they could buy us beer. 😉

During Jon’s senior year, he got an offer for a position with the same company he works for now and the position was either in Salt Lake City, UT or Minneapolis… both of which we knew nothing about.  We both like the West so decided Salt Lake City was the best spot for us.  We packed up our cars, moms, and my grandma and headed west to our first apartment – a small one bedroom.  Thankfully we have only gone up from there.

After spending two great (and very eye opening) years and graduating College in Salt Lake City, Jon got a promotion in Cincinnati, OH so off we went on another across the county road trip.  We lived in Cincinnati the longest (3 years) because Jon was actually able to get another promotion while in that office.  Cincinnati was also the place where we bought our first house together and where we lived when we got engaged) and we had our sweet Parker puppy pass away followed by my grandma two weeks later.  After those events, I was more than ready to get the heck out of there.  I needed a new fresh start.  Well about a month later we got a call for Jon to get another promotion to Dallas, TX.  We were excited!! Especially because I would finally get to live near my sister again!  We spent two hot years in Dallas, but thankfully our boat made the heat very bearable.  We loved our house there because it was right next to restaurants and bars and Trader Joes!!  I can still remember the day Jon got the call about a new job in Nashville, TN.  There was not much discussion needed… we were going.  But only under one circumstance… and it was that if the right opportunity came about to move again that I would be open to it.  Jon has always known my dream is to be close to family and friends in Nashville so he knows how hard leaving that would be for me.  As hard as it was to admit, I agreed because I also made a commitment to our family that we would always do what is best for us.  It’s not easy leaving family, but in order for our little family (Jon, me and our pups) to have the life we want and to reach our goals, we sometimes have to take leaps of faith and trust that everything will work out.  And here we are now.  We loved our short time in Nashville, but know that San Antonio is going to be amazing as well.  We also know that it will not be the end of our road.

Today I want to share some of my favorite things about moving and some of the worst parts about moving.

While moving is always stressful and hard at times, moving across the county (and state lines) brings a WHOLE new level of stress to the mix.

1. New driver’s license. I hate the DMV.
2. New car registration, tags, and plates. DMV and $$$
3. We have had to switch banks numerous times because they aren’t located in our new city, which is just always such a process.
4. Changing addresses on delivery services (Amazon, Rodan & Fields, credit card bills, etc.) and getting mail forwarded (I’m convinced only about half of it ever makes it to the new address.
5. Setting up new accounts for electricity, gas, water, internet… you know, all the stuff we need.  This comes with hours of being on hold and trying to figure out which payment option is best and what day they can come (usually like 3 or 4 weeks out).
6. Packing.  Now I can’t complain about this one because our relocation package is very good and includes packers who package up every last item in the house (they will not let you help).  But this kind of stresses me out because I am OCD and like to know where everything is going and I have to make sure I have everything I need to keep in a location they can’t find and accidentally package up.
7. Moving day.  Okay, this day is actually not stressful for me at all because our relocation company has movers come and take all the boxes so we don’t have to do any lifting.  We just have to make sure they don’t break anything, destroy and railings or walls and that they can actually get some of the bigger items out the door. LOL

 

I like to end on a positive note so here are my favorite parts about moving!

1. Exploring a new city.
2. Making new friends.
3. Trying new restaurants.
4. Finding fun, derivable weekend trips.
5. Finding a new walking route with the pups!  In each city we have lived in, we have “our route” that is out go-to when walking the pups.  We also love exploring new parks and hiking trails too!
6. New jobs.  As stressful as this can be (my company was only in Nashville so I am currently on the hunt for a new job… I have had a few promising leads so I’ll be sure to share more when something gets finalized), I like learning a new job, a new office, new coworkers and new responsibilities.  I don’t love the application process, but I don’t mind starting a new job!

That is all I can think of for now!!!  

Questions:

1. If you work, how long have you been in your current role?
2. What is the best part of moving to a new place/city?
3. What is the most stressful part of moving for you?

Hi!!! Yall, I have plans to post a few times per week and I am slacking big time.  I swear when I cross off one thing on my to-do list, 10 more things get added to it.  It is seriously out of control.  Thankfully I am home right now and have more time to complete all these tasks, but it just seems never ending right now.  

This weekend was really great, but very busy per usual.  I try to save my “paperwork” stuff like emails, job apps, and blog posts for the week while my husband is at work so I can soak up the weekend with him.  But we still had a packed weekend.  And I will soon get to that recap, but this weekend recap is from the previous weekend… because I am that behind.  Eeek.  The A type personality in me is having a small panic attack thinking how behind I am on everything, not just the blog.  It will all get done so really, I’m just doing my best and making a schedule to tackle all this fun stuff.  

For my birthday dinner all I wanted was seafood so we settled on Bourbon Street Seafood Kitchen.  

Yall, it was phenomenal.  Like so so so good.  We can’t wait to go back. 

Afterwards we walked to the rooftop bar across the street called Paramour.  

It has a really cool vibe, but be ready to shell out some cash for a couple cocktails. 🙂

Such a great night out on the town with my man! 

Saturday night we had plans to meet our friend for dinner in Austin (he was there for work).  Austin is just over an hour away from our house so it was a super easy drive.  

We got a table for dinner outside at Stella!

We had fun catching up with our friend and listening to some live music before heading back to San Antonio.  

This was such a relaxing and fun weekend!  A lot more so than this last one, which I will share with you very soon!! I hope you guys had a great weekend and are having a great week so far! 

 

Hey friends!!! Hope you week is going well.  Mine has been pretty good… just full of cleaning, organizing, applying to jobs, and trying to figure out who we are going to use for our couple renovations we are doing to the house.  

I’m sure everyone thinks I am crazy for trying to do these upgrades to our house so soon after we moved in, but my thought is that we tend to move every few years and if I am going to upgrade something, I would rather do it sooner than later so that we actually get to enjoy the renovation.  And it helps that I am funemployed right now so I am available to meet contractors/designers etc.  🙂  I took pictures this week of the things we want to change in the house so I am working on a post to show you guys.  I need help yall.. designing is not my calling.  

Forgive me if I have shown you guys these two pictures before, I don’t even know what day it is.  When you are working it is hard to keep track of the days… they all just start to blend together.  Anyway… before we left Nashville, we were staying at my dad’s house once we moved out of our Nashville house.  My husband came home to find me napping and Riley just hanging out on my head.  

He literally has no care in the world and thinks it is completely acceptable to just lounge on my head.  Clearly I was not bothered by this either so maybe we are both weird. 😉 

My mom and I drove to San Antonio (from Dallas) on a Thursday morning bright and early (she woke me up at 4 am to leave…) and got started painting the whole house… well everything but the bedrooms which had already been painted almost the same grey not too long ago (I will probably repaint them eventually…).  I put the blue tape on the trim and my momma started working on the top trim.  We had Thursday and Friday to paint the house before the movers arrived with our stuff on Saturday morning.  

This is the color grey we decided to use.  I think it is in my dad’s house and that’s why I had it.  It is actually a contractor mix, but they were able to recreate it without any issues.  

Little Riley loves being able to see out the window at our new house.  He barks and growls at everyone that walks or drives by. 🙂

As my mother reminded me 50 times, I should have packed a dog bed in the car with us.  They dogs couldn’t lay on the carpet in the bedrooms because we were getting new carpet installed so they both ended up on the curtains that we had taken down while we were painting.  

At different times, ofcourse.  Our two pups are not exactly friends…. they don’t fight or anything, but they do not play or lay next to each other often. 

Our new house does not have a garage… the one thing both Jon and I said was a must.  It’s funny how things work out.  The new house does have outdoor closets but it took a while to get them organized so in the meantime, our backyard looked like this… It wasn’t pretty, but Riley didn’t seem to mind.  He loves lounging in the sun.  

On Thursday and Friday (before our furniture arrived), we stayed at a hotel… and snuck the dogs in.  Shhhhh…. I thought my husband was just taking a picture of the dogs and I… when I went to upload the photos I saw that Callie was holding the beer. 🙂

We made lots of salads in our new house.  I even brought a butternut squash I hadn’t used yet from Nashville and roasted it for our salads. 🙂  

We did go out to dinner one night for Mexican.  Our new house is very walkable so we just walked down the road which was fun! My two favorites!

I got veggie fajitas and they were sooo good!

My bestie, Rachael, sent me flowers for my birthday!  

And they messed up the order somehow so I got two!! I just love fresh flowers!  

Have a great day, friends!! Ill be back soon! xoxo

Questions:

1. What is your go-to order at a Mexican restaurant? 
2. What is your favorite type of flower?
3. Tell me something that is going on in your world this week! 

Hey guys!! I hope your week is off to a good start!  I have been busy getting the house organized, meeting with contractors (more on that later… our one bathroom renovation has multipled and now I have about 5 projects I would like done on the new house), and applying to jobs.  Since I worked for a small company in Nashville I had to leave the company when we decided to relocate.  I have a couple leads, but I like to apply to as many jobs as I can because it usually takes quite a few apps before you actually get a job.  It has been nice having the extra time to get organized and settled in San Antonio rather than have to rush back into working right away.  But I will admit, I am ready to get back to work.  I am one of those people who actually enjoys working and the routine it brings.  I also like the feeling that I am contributing to our family income.  More on the house projects and job prospects later!

I think Jon and I have already fallen in love with San Antonio for the weather alone.  It has been in the 80s the last week and it is November!  I am a Southern girl at heart and I love my warm weather.  Jon and I both agreed if we were to ever leave Nashville it would only be to go farther south or west (our dream is to live in San Diego…but I would live in Arizona or Colorado in a heartbeat).  

When we were moving into our new house my mom realized that we had two huge pecan trees in our backyard so she collected a huge bag of them and I have been shelling them ever since. 

Yall, I totally get why pecans are 5 million dollars at the store… shelling them takes a LOT of time and work.  But it is worth it.  I’m always down to save some money!

If you took a look at our last house in Nashville, you would have noticed that we were coming from a 4 story new construction house.  We have always lived in a 3+ story house and our new house in San Antonio is a one story house.  I wouldn’t call it a ranch because it is not long and skinny so it is kinda hard to explain.  The neighborhood we live in is absolutely beautiful, but the houses were built in the 40s and 50s and have been renovated.  My favorite part about our new house is that everything is so accessible… like my holiday decorations which makes it super simple to get to everything I need.  So thanks to my momma organizing all of our decor, it was easy pull out all things fall!  I love decorating for the the holidays, but with decor being on 4 different floors, it made it quite difficult.  I have never minded lots of stairs in my house, but wow, everything being on one floor makes everything so easy and simple.  

This year Thanksgiving is with my family, but since we just moved, we decided to stay in San Antonio and my dad, little brother, sister, and her boyfriend are coming to San Antonio for the holiday.  I love hosting so I am excited to have visitors in just a couple weeks! 

I didn’t go over the top with decorations, but pulled out a few fall decorations to spruce up our new house! 

I got this fall leaf decor back when we were living in Cincinnati and love throwing it on a table with some candles for a little festive flare. 

I’m obsessed with these fun colored pumpkins to add a some fall fun to our coffee table.  

A little pop of orange for fall!

This table runner I bought from Home Goods is my favorite.  

I threw the gold spray painted pine cones on a gold leaf tray for an extra fall inspired piece on one of our entry tables.  

We didn’t get any pumpkins this year, but we did have a LOT of trick or treaters, which was so fun!!  All of our previous houses have been a little more urban so we have never had any trick or treaters so this year was extra special.  We bought about 8 bags of candy and actually ended up running out!  

I have a few more fun posts coming your way this week.  I will show yall some pictures of the new house and show you some of the projects we are working on to get the house how we want it.  Although I am more of a move-in-ready type girl, you all know my husband LOVES a good project so this house is actually a really good mix between the two.  Our house has been renovated, but there are a few things we want to change so we have been meeting with contractors to see our options.  I will show you guys the before pictures and maybe you all will have some good ideas on how to “upgrade” the different spaces to make it a little more modern aka our style.  

That is all I’ve got for today!  Have a great day friends!!!

Questions:

1. What have the temperatures been lately where you live?
2. Do you decorate for the holidays?
3. Are you traveling for the holidays this year?

Hey friends!! Long time no talk!  So sorry for my absence these last couple weeks… between the long car ride to Dallas then onto San Antonio, then painting and getting all of our stuff moved into our new house…. needless to say… it has been quite crazy over here!  I am definitely not complaining as I am so grateful for this life and this new opportunity, but let’s face it, moving is hard.  It is stressful.  It is exhausting.  

I have so much to share with you guys, but have a few contractors coming over today (we are renovating our master bathroom and adding a nice carport to the back of our house) so I have to get a couple things ready before then.  We have already met with 3-4 people for this job… I swear my husband will have us meeting with 20 different people before we even decide who is going to do the job.  We just want to make sure we hire the right people and since we designed the remodels ourselves, we are trying to cut out the middle man and just hire the guys who will actually be doing the physical work.  More on this later.  

About two weeks ago we loaded up the car in Nashville (pups included) and my mom and I began the 10 hour drive to Dallas to visit my sister and her boyfriend for a couple days before heading to our new house in San Antonio. 

This little bug wanted to sit in my lap the entire ride.  It worked out because my mom refuses to let me drive (I have never been in an accident fyi).  I just put him in my sweater on our longggg ride.   Callie is in the back hiding somewhere.

My momma reluctantly driving us south.  

We finally made it to my sister and her boyfriend’s apartment and we were all more than ready to get out of the car.  Riley was loving all of their dogs’ toys.  Why is it that doggies love other dogs toys so much better than their own?

Mom and Murphy, the wild man. 

Both nights we were in Dallas we decided to just pick up food and eat at home because we were all tired.  My sister is working long hours at the corporate law firm she works at …. BTW she found out she passed the bar… with flying colors!  We all couldn’t be more proud.  She got the smart genes in the family… at least I can cook. 😉

We got one of my favorites called pok and it was sooo yummy.  The bowl had kale, kelp noodles, mango, edamame, tuna, cabbage, carrots and so yummy sauces.  My sister and I may or may not have gotten it two nights in a row.  

My momma opted for a burger and fries!!

Lots and lots of fries.  She and my sister’s boyfriend got pizza the other night that looked amazing.

My mom, sister, and I did make it to the gym one day so that felt good to move after sitting in the car for so long.  

The pups have been such troopers through this whole moving process.  They really are the best. 

I’ll share more pictures in my next post, but once we got to Dallas I got a call from my husband from San Antonio as he did the final walk through of the new house saying the entire thing needed to be painted….. so naturally my mom and I went to the store in Dallas to get all the supplies (ours were packed in the moving truck) and the paint so we could paint the house before the movers arrived two days later.  

My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom surprised me with an early birthday celebration while we were in Dallas (my birthday was on November 1st), which was so fun!  

My sister got me some much needed new workout clothes!!!

And my mom, dad, and stepdad got me a new kitchenaid mixer!! I was beyond surprised and so excited!!

I am not much of a baker, but truly that stems from having to mix ingredients by hand… which can be quite tedious so I am excited to try out some new recipes!! 

That’s all for today, friends!!! Lots to do in the new house, but I promise I will be back very soon to share more!!!  Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!! xoxo