Author: Stephanie

Our 4th Anniversary

Every anniversary makes me a little nostalgic.  I mean, in reality, a commercial for a phone company could probably make me nostalgic, but that’s not my point here.

This year has been especially eventful for us a a couple.  Not only did we (finally, I know) get engaged, we dealt with a lot of bumps in the road; my mother’s cancer diagnosis and my school closing being the most notable and life-altering of them.

And we’re still here; strong as ever.

I’m not trying to make this sound easy…it’s really not sometimes.  I know I haven’t been the easiest person to live, especially in the past couple months, when my anxiety is through the roof with uncertainty of where my life was going in terms of my career.  I’ve been moody and despondent and just not someone you really want to be around.  We’ve had a lot to deal with with my mother’s cancer diagnosis and working out her schedules and everything else.  And none of this touches on just normal daily life and random annoyances and things that you deal with as a couple.

It’s not always easy and this year has been a huge display of that; but the point at the end of the day is: I wouldn’t do this life with anyone else.

At this point, Devon and I have known each other for almost 14 years and we’ve changed so much in those years.  When we met in college, we were 18 (he might have just turned 19 or was getting ready to turn 19, I don’t remember) and I thought he was a jackass.  An egotistical, pompous, jackass.  Yeah,  I said it.

And he still is.

But, he’s also protective, loving, caring, attentive, funny, smart, and supportive.

So, it all kind of balances itself out….most of the time.  When it doesn’t I have no issues telling him about himself and making him balance it all back out.

Read More

FabFitFun Summer 2017 Unboxing!

I am officially obsessed with this FabFitFun subscription box.  It’s AMAZING!  It’s constantly filled with great quality products that I actually use, or have wanted to try out anyway, and this Summer box is no exception.

This is the third box I’ve received since subscribing this past winter, and it’s easily my favorite box to date.  Every unboxing I’ve done, thus far, there’s always been one or two things in the box that I like but either I didn’t think would work for me or I wasn’t super interested in but that might be good to keep as a gift for someone else.  That’s not the case with this box.  I want all of it and am excited to give every product a try.

One of the aspects of this box that I love so much is that each box supports an amazing female-run non-profit organization.  Each season part of the proceeds goes to their selected organization to help their cause, so you get great products and you get to help people in need at the same time.

This season’s box is supporting the Joyful Heart foundation, founded by Mariska Hargitay, which works with sexual assault survivors to help them heal and reclaim their lives after these events.  I’ve heard of this organization before, so I’m pretty familiar with it and I love that FabFitFun partnered with them to give even more aid and help to these women.

If you’ve never received this box and are interested in beginning a subscription, just check out what was in this season’s box and I’ll give you a link to sign up which will also get you $10 off your first box.  I will also give the retail value for each of the products I received to give you an even better idea of the value you receive in these boxes.

Read More

Shorts

*First and foremost……on Thursday, I accepted an offer for a new job for the next school year!  I haven’t signed the contract yet just because the president of the school is on vacation for a week, but I’ve already got an email address, I’ve met most of the people I’ll be working with and everything.  You guys, I am so excited.  It feels like a 1,000 lb weight was just lifted from my shoulders; it’s so amazing to know I have a new school to start with in the fall.  It’s a private, all-girls, Catholic school again which wasn’t really the goal honestly, but it’s an amazing school; very prestigious, it’s celebrating it’s 150th year this coming school year.  It’s down in Rockville, MD (so the drive will suck a little, but I can live with it); extremely well established, high enrollment, very well supported by the district and the families/community.  To make it even better, the counseling department is also very well established, respected, and supported by the administration.  I will be one of 5 counselors, which is new for me, but really exciting; and the department is a well-oiled machine, so it’ll be nice to not feel like I have to go in and re-invent the wheel like I’ve had to do in the past.  Plus, I’ll be the sole counselor of all their students with learning disabilities, so while I have a smaller caseload than the rest, my students typically require more time, so it’s balancing out.  Guys….I’m just so excited.  I’ll talk more about it later, but I just had to share the amazing news really quickly because I’m just giddy.  🙂

Read More

Lavender Essential Oil

*Please note: This post is not-sponsored, nor have I been compensated in any way, nor am I a —distributor of any kind of essential oils.  This whole post is based on personal experiences. 

I think I was about 16 years old when I got my first anxiety attack.  I seriously thought I was dying.  I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt tight, I was dizzy/light-headed; definitely not one of my favorite teenage moments.

Most unfortunately, that was just the first of so many attacks I’ve had over the past 15 years.  The first one is always the scariest because you truly don’t know what’s wrong, so the possibility that you’re dying is pretty real to you.  Once you’ve had about 400 like I’ve had, you know better.

Read More

Shorts

*Why yes, I am alive.  I promise.

*I was kind of throwing myself a pity party last week.  You know those times where you just feel completely “blah” about all things? That was pretty much my life last week.  I visited my school for the final time the day it closed, which I don’t think really helped things, but it was something I felt like I had to do.  Having the reality of school closing, still in process for another school, hopefully, for next year, and a bunch of other things just really made me kind of down.  So, I had a little pity party for myself and I just went quiet in most areas.  I don’t think I really posted on Instagram either until Friday, I just wasn’t really feeling a lot of human contact.  I can’t say that I’m a ton better, but I’m not in full pity party mode at the moment, so there’s progress.

*One “perk”, I suppose, is that I was able to keep my work laptop, which is nice because I was debating a new one at Christmas since my old one died awhile ago.  Having this laptop makes blogging here easier because, I can sit on the couch and watch TV while blogging.  Normally, if I wanted to do that, I’d do some on my iPad, which really isn’t the best device for typing and editing and whatnot; and while I have my desktop computer in the office, it sometimes makes me feel locked away, so I like having the laptop.  It was still networked into my school’s domain, so it took a little bit to get it all unhooked and set up just for my personal use at home.  But it’s up and running and I can now work on a lot more blogging stuff that I’ve been wanting to get done.

*Speaking of blogging, I might be doing a small re-design here.  Not so much layout/background, but just in terms of navigation.  I’ve been wanting to re-purpose some pages and tabs that aren’t used as frequently and make some of my most popular content easier to get to.  Now that I have my shiny new laptop functioning, I’ll be able to get that done comfortably.

*I have a whole list of blog posts to get written up.  My goal is to get all the photos edited and everything written up this week so they can just be scheduled out for the next few weeks.  This way if I feel the need for another pity party, I won’t leave everyone hanging.

*In other news…..my birthday is in (almost) exactly one month!  One month from yesterday anyway.  I will be 31 this year.  I have no clue what I want to do and I know Devon’s going to ask eventually, but no clue.  Suggestions are welcomed, so much.

*Also, our anniversary is coming up in about a week and a half.  On July 20th, it will be 4 years that we’ve been together.  That seems crazy to me and in two completely different ways.  It seems weird that it’s only been four years considering we’ve known each other for 13 years at this point and it also seems weird that it’s been 4 years ALREADY.  We’ve been through so much and done so much in four years that it feels like these years have just flown by.  It’s a weird little dichotomy in my head.

Hope everyone had a great week!