welcome

what a year! with a fabulous celebration to end a wonderful 2013, it is time to set my goals for 2014. I decided on 14, it just seemed appropriate. so here it goes, my 14 for '14

1.take more (real) photos. with a camera. and print them out. 

 2.save photos from facebook. my entire college career is documented on facebook and with the hopes of deleting it one day soon (way too much TMI and drama for my liking) I want to save these memories. one of my biggest fears in life is facebook going away and me losing all of my precious things. remember when you were a kid and youd sit on the floor digging through your moms trunk of all of her old stuff? what are we going to do with our kids one day? flip through with the click of a mouse? no thanks. 

 3.be more patient. with everything in my life! i am constantly rushing things: engagements, marriage, babies, promotions, birthdays, etc. Charles will agree with me when i say i need to take a chill pill and enjoy this time in my life. there will be a day that i wont be someones girlfriend anymore. i will be a wife, mother, grandmother and i will never have the privilidge of just dating someone. likewise, one day i will be a big boss with lots of responsibilities, why am i rushing to get to that point? i need to just slow down and take advantage of the fact that its not all under me quite yet. 

 4.save money. with 5 weddings in 2014 (4 being in october) I have a lot of saving to do. not to mention, i am a bridesmaid in 3 of the 5. damnit. im starting to use the envelope system, we'll see how well this works. my goal is to be able to save enough money to not have to charge any expenses. my credit cards are so close to being paid off, and i dont want to build them back up! 

 5.speaking of being a bridesmaid: i'm determined to get what i like to call "bridesmaid arms". you know, the ones that people are envious of. the ones that dont wave goodbye while your hand waves goodbye. the ones that look great in all of those strapless dresses while everyone stares at your arms by your side as you walk down an aisle. yep, those. 

 6.organize/downsize. there is no need for the amount of clothes that i have. especially when i havent worn 35% of them in over 2 years. its time to get rid of them, and hopefully by selling them i will contribute to #4 

 7.spend more time praying. in the good as well as the bad. i am notorious for talking to God only when i need something. If one of my friends treated me this way I would have already written a blog post about how crappy of a friend she was. whats the difference in my friendship with God? nothing. 

 8.do more myself. sounds weird, but in an age where you can buy any/everything on the internet or in a specialized store i rarely make things anymore. why am i spending $4.99 on a card from target when i could make one myself and it be cuter than a store bought one anyhow? why do i continue to buy things for my house that i can make on my own, or birthday presents that would mean more if they were handmade? why am i eating out so much when i am perfectly capable of making myself a meal. albeit, it may not be a great meal, but it would be sufficient enough to allow me not to starve to death. 

9.on that note, i want to learn to cook. for real. santa brought me a kitchenaid stand mixer and i am beyond thrilled. i originally wanted it because it looks gorgeous on a kitchen counter (as seen on every kitchen pinterest pin ever); now that i have it, though, i want to learn to use it! and not just for baking box cake mixes, but for real life meals. homemade pastas, from scratch cookies, and some of my grandmothers famous cakes. i also just bought a cast iron skillet, and i will master the art of homemade cornbread soon. 

 10.keep a journal. specifically a travel journal. I want to document the trips Charles and I take, big or small, day trips or weekend, i want to be able to reflect on those times when we're old and grey. i want one that has pockets for ticket stubs and pictures, pages for writing about our visit and of course looks cute. ive been searching for the perfect one on etsy, but maybe i should get started on #8 and make one myself! 

 11.learn to say no. not to be mean or for no reason, but i dont HAVE to go out to dinner for every person in atlanta's birthday. i dont have to go on every trip that im extended an offer. i dont have to take on every responsiblity at work. i dont have to over-commit my time with ADPi. i dont have to accept every invitation to be a bridesmaid. I don't have to attend every wedding that i'm invited to, or every shower or every bachelorette party. if someone asks a favor of me, i dont have to go out of my way, bend over backwards and rearrange my schedule to do it. don't get me wrong, i love being a generous person and a good friend but sometimes its too much. i need to do things for me, including spending time alone and saving money. 

 12.call my grandparents more. those people, they are two of the greatest. i need to make it a point to call them more often and tell them how much i love them. i hope they know, but i guarantee it wouldn't hurt to verbalize it. there will come a day that they aren't here for me to tell, and i will forever regret not repeating it over and over and over. 

 13.travel! with my parent's recent move to London complete (just waiting on them to settle in) i WILL go and see them this year. i have never been to Europe, and I can't wait to visit. but not just London, i want to see the states more too. there are so many places, even in just the south east, that i haven't visited. i cant wait to see where 2014 brings Charles and I on our weekend trips. i'll be sure to take photos (#1) and write it all down (#10). 

 14.find my purpose. my biggest goal in 2013 was to find passion in my life. i'd like to say i succeeded on some level; i learned to be passionate about a job that i dreaded, i found passion in my love life by (finally) committing to be with my very best friend, i started enjoying interior design and making it a paying hobby, i became even more involved with ADPi, and many other things. But in 2014 i want to continue that quest, only take it one step further and find my purpose in life. I want to know why God put me on this earth. was it to be a master chef? ( i highly doubt it). Was it to be a big time successful banker? (i really hope thats not it). To be a wife? (possibly, but i think there is more to me than just being someones companion). So what is it? That's what i want to figure out. 

and hopefully 2014 will be the year that i do so. 

 so cheers to 2013, a really great year in my life. and hellllo 2014, i hope you are 10x more amazing.

youll understand when youre older

remember when you were a kid and your mom said 

"youll understand when youre older"

remember how much you hated it?

remember how many times you told yourself 

"ill never tell my kids that"

remember that time we grew up and became the elusive "older" 

that your mom spoke about?

yea? me too.

remember when that same mom wouldnt let you 

do something you just had to do?

remember that time you laid on the floor pitching a fit 

screaming "you dont understand!!!!!!" 

(no? just me? ok. cool)

remember the moment you realized your mom did understand, 

and you apologized to her? 

(this probably didnt happen until at least the age of 23) 

(you may not have ever verbalized the apology) 

(mom, here i am finally apologizing)

heres my point. i dont care if youre older, in a position of power, out of work, 

pregnant, a mom of 5, dealing with infertility,

married, divorced, in a relationship or single; 

none of these life stages gave you a key to a whole new book of knowledge 

that no one else in the world has besides those who have 

been through exactly what you have.  

One of my least favorite things is when 

someone tells me i dont understand, 

or i'll understand when (insert specific stage of life here). 

no, i do understand. i am capable of understanding, 

we just have a difference in opinions. 

which is OK, because we're older. remember?

so lets all do our fellow-equally as human-beings a favor 

lets toss this sentence from our vocab. 

because lets get real here, we all understand. 

thats the beauty of the human mind, it is capable of "getting it".

there is an exception to this rule, however!

men will never understand women's emotions

women will never understand men's desire to hunt.

(no? just me again? ok cool.)

side note: if your new life stage did come with a know-it-all-key, 

please share the wealth, because im still trying to figure out this quarter life crisis.

finding it

finding passion is something that i've been struggling with since, well, probably college.

i love a lot of things: family, friends

my boyfriend, my puppies, violet, ADPi

clothes/shoes/designer handbags/jewelry, interior design, writing, helping people,etc

but what am i truly passionate about? If i knew that, i'd be able to sleep a lot better at night.

what is passion? noun \ˈpa-shən\: a strong feeling of enthusiasm for something or about doing something

who has passion? if you know someone, point them in my direction; i'd love to ask how they found it!

do i have to have passion to live happily? i believe so, which is why its so important to me to find it

is passion developed or is it an instant feeling? TBD

without passion, will i still succeed? TBD again.

i recently (as in this week) accepted a promotion at work, and to be honest had a hard time.

i've been thinking/talking about this potential position for a long time,

but never really considered it.

When it was finally offered to me, a million questions popped in to my head.

do i love what i do? does anyone really LOVE banking?

do i want to do this forever? do i really want to do any job forever?

do i get any personal reward from this job? isn't my paycheck enough?

would i be happier doing something else? what is that something else?

in the end, what it comes down to is that this is my job.

its just a job.

i have placed so much pressure on myself to find the perfect career path.

the one that i feel good about doing, the one that pays well

the one that advances quickly,

the one that "never feels like you're working a day in your life"

(thanks, dad, for the advice. it ultimately put an unreasonably high expectation on my future career goals).

So what i've concluded is that i really should be putting pressure on myself
to find the passion outside of my career.
My job can be just that, a job.
my life, however, needs to be filled with love and passion and committment.
I'm determined to find passion in everything that i do from now on.

twenty six.

I thought that things were supposed to slow down as you got older?
No more running around like crazy,
parties and overscheduling is a thing of the past.
well not this old lady.
26 has kept me on my toes so far!

This past month has been a very exciting one!
If the rest of my late twenties continues this way,
it will be a very exciting 1/2 of a decade.

One of my closest friends here in Atlanta and I
decided to put our talents/passions/excellent teamwork to use
and start our very own interior design/decorating company.
Along with this has come a couple of long nights
a whole lot of hours spent shopping
money forked out up front
1 almost completed project and hopefully very soon
1 very happy first official "W.A. Interiors" client!
We will soon be launching an online product store
filled with vintage and repurposed finds
(Don't worry, i'll be posting it everywhere for you to see when it happens).

This, of course, is a side job/free lance/spend all of our spare time venture for now.
But who knows later on down the road?
I am learning to rely on God's perfect plan and not worry too much about the future.
This is a very hard lesson to learn, in case you were wondering.

On to the next very exciting thing--
just a few days short of my 26th birthday
I woke up to the most amazing text message I've ever received.
For once, I didnt care that my phone beeped 3 mins before my alarm was set to go off!
My best friend and her husband set out on a journey to expand their family a couple of years ago.
After a lot of trials and tribulations,
a perfect baby boy was born and papers were signed.
This 7lb7oz 5-fingered 5-toed baby was adopted into the most wonderful family.
I fell instantly in love the second I found out about him,
and fell even harder the first time I got to hold him.
I have prayed (along with a lot of other people) for this baby for a long time.
I am ecstatic that the newest love of my life is here,
and perfect as can be.

I spent 26 celebrating in a completely different way than I did 25.
25 left me with a hangover so intense that it was hard to imagine living the next day.
26 was spent calmly gathered with a couple of friends at my house,
and then continued with my favorite mountain man,
in a mountain house located in the middle of Georgia
(where we thought there was a mountain.)
(there was no mountain. only foothills.)

We ate at restaurants, filled with traditions and locals and amazing southern food.
We slept in a gorgeous log cabin,
with nothing surrounding us but trees and gorgeous views.
We enjoyed a high school football game, where we know noone who attends high school.
I made Charles' favorite breakfast, captn crunch french toast.

It was an all around perfect birthday.
i was reminded all day long of how blessed I am to see 26
and have so many friends and family to celebrate with me.

This weekend I will be traveling back to the big town of Sumter,
where i will reunite with so many hometown friends
to celebrate one of our very favorite friends who passed away last year.
I am excited to see everyone,
and have a great time remembering such a sweet guy
I miss Keith tremendously,
and I am reminded of it everytime i see my high school friends.
There is a very important part of us missing,
and this weekend we will do our best to celebrate that piece of the puzzle.

In other exciting (aka exhausting) news,
i'm in the process of (hopefully!) buying a car.
Car shopping should be fun.
I am quickly learning that it is not.
Not at all.
I hate banks (even though I work for one).
I hate dealerships (even though they have what I want).
I hate carfaxes and VIN numbers. Emissions tests and gas mileage.
I hate it all.
My 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Buck, said we'd have flying cars by now.
Ms. Buck was a liar.

where's my magic 8 ball?

growing up I was taught:
"you can be anything we wanted to be!"
"the world is your oyster!"
"the sky is the limit!"
but now the time has come,
where I am supposed to know exactly
what that thing is that I want to be.
and I dont.

at first, I thought I was probably the only one.
but the more and more I have researched and looked in to this
phenomenon of millennials who are displaced, underemployed and unhappy;
the more I realize that im not alone in this mess.
turns out, that "sky is the limit" philosophy really did us 20-somethings a disservice!
too much opportunity can be a bad thing, or so im learning!

so what do you do when you have no idea what you want to do?
do you stick it out in a place that you know you dont want to be long term,
for the stability and comfort that comes along with the mundaneness?
do you drop everything and reinvent you life on a whim and pray that it works out?
or do you do like me, and try just about everything you can think of to put off growing up?

im afraid that the longer i take to figure this out, the worse off i'll be. 
3 years ago, I moved to atlanta on a leap of faith.
I lived with a friend/sorority sister, Natalie, who spent the year really soul searching.
she went from having an English degree and a less than mediocre job, to contemplating law school
(yes, Law & Order SVU may or may not have had something to do with this.)
in the end, Natalie left Atlanta after a year to get her masters degree and now has her dream job.
All the while, I am in the exact same place that I was when she left me 2 years ago.
Same job, same roommate, same town, same salary, same car.
I am no more ahead in my career than I was when she moved away.
I am no younger than I was then,
I am no more wealthy than I was then,
I am definitely no closer to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up than I was then.

how do people figure out what they want to be?

Do you all have a little magic 8 ball that tells you?
Did you hear it straight from God's voice?
Did your parents force you to be teachers, doctors, digital marketing agents? Did that epic game of M*A*S*H really pan out for you?
And if so, where is my damn magic 8 ball and calling from God? with my 26th birthday quickly approaching, I am realizing that I am not getting any younger
the longer I sit around and wait for my life's calling to fall in my lap.
So I take a chance, right?  And if all else fails, I move in with my parents and
live out of their fridge for a while until I figure it out. Right?
My mom has always told me "you'll never be homeless". So why not do this now?
because I'm too comfortable, thats why. Someone please fire me so that I don't have a choice but to take a chance.

viva!

I spent this past weekend on a super short trip to vegas with my family! being that my dad, stepmom and younger brother live in japan it is difficult for us to get together often. in fact, its impossible. so we do it about once a year.  this little reunion normally takes place in hawaii (one of my very favorite spots) but this year, due to scheduling conflicts and the realities of a big girl job, we had to settle for vegas. which is fine with me, because i am a HUGE fan of vegas. 

growing up in Las Vegas had its perks- amazing amusement parks/water parks/attractions, always something to do and it was so fun to climb to the top of the hill at the park and watch all of the lights turn on downtown from my Sunrise Mountain house. My mom was a blackjack dealer at the Golden Nugget, so i'm partial to "old vegas" (freemont street area) and i reccommend that anyone to hang out around there if you're visiting. its where the locals are, so much culture, where all of the movies/tv shows are filmed and its my childhood.  i could spend hours under the freemont street experience, watching the light shows and more importantly watching the people. 

This trip was spent in "new vegas". right in the middle of the Strip.  my brother and cousin flew in from LA and we all met up at the hotel.  we gambled, ate nice dinners, walked, hung around the pool party, gambled more, walked even more, attempted to see a ke$ha concert, went to the pool again, ate a lot more and then the last day was spent enjoying my favorite past time- shopping with my step mom!  that woman can spend hours in a mall, as can I.

                                     

i loved every second of my weekend, even if that meant leaving on a red eye flight, not returning to atlanta until 6:30 am and driving straight from the airport to my office for a full work day! it was totally worth the jetlag, the exhaustion, the aching feet, the money, the awkward step-mom-is-trying-to-give-me-the-sex-talk converstaion and yes, even the extra pounds (all you can eat buffets. woof)

it was the first visit with Courtney since 2009 spring break, my younger brother grows a foot taller every year that passes, and my dad gets funnier and funnier each time i see him.  i am so blessed to finally have found the relationship with my dad that i always wanted growing up.  i would give anything for them to live closer (the US would be great!) but until then, i will settle for summer vacations.

a very valuable lesson

i learned a very valuable lesson this past weekend.

since we found our new house I have had severe anxiety about the closet space (or lack thereof).

its a 3 bedroom house, built in the 1950s

when people apparently didnt have the amount of clothes as we do now.

so i made a deal with Megan. we can move into this house,

but i need the closet in my room,

the spare bedroom,

and i also need to install a closet system on an empty wall

(i have a lot of clothes, purses and shoes. so sue me).

i was on the lookout for the most perfect system to satisfy all of my wardrobe needs.

the kind of system that pinterest closets were made from.

i searched and searched, read all kinds of reviews and looked at millions of pictures.

when one fine day, amazon e-mailed me with my dream closet system on sale!

this was "simple to install!" and every customer review said it took less than 1 hour!

sounded perfect to me, so of course i immediately purchased in, and had it rush shipped,

just waiting for charles to get to Atlanta to install it.



before the move. he loves me.



Friday night, Charles got in and we immediately went to work moving my bed.

*Side note, EVERYTHING FIT!! ( just barely) praise Jesus!*

we get the 2 mattresses in the back of the truck and my first comment was "is this going to stay?"

charles ASSURED me that the mattreses were heavy enough to keep from flying out.

so off we go, driving down the highway in rush hour (and a holiday weekend) traffic.

what happens next? the mattress flies out of the back of the truck.

imagine my embarrassment anger

so i get out of my jeep, run to help charles and throw it back in the truck.

at this point we are at a gas station, and i said "charles, we should really tie this down."

his response? "itll stay, just drive slower" (as if thats possible in Atlanta!!)

so about 2 miles up the road we get and it happens YET AGAIN.

only this time i am too far to get out to help.

so from my rearview mirror i watch him grab the mattress and throw it in the back of the truck,

all while 4 pedestrians stood less than 10 feet from him and stared. jerk offs.

this time i INSISTED that we tie it down.

and by insisted, i mean turned bright red and yelled at the top of my lungs.

thankfully he obliged and we had no more mishaps of this sort.

we get my bed put together and situated and spend the remainder of the evening resting.

much needed, after all of that mattress loading.

saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to finish the move.

all of the furniture fit, and nothing was thrown out of the back of the truck again.

*Praise Jesus, again!*

Once all of the furniture was situated and the boxes were in the house it was time to get started on the....

YEP YOU GUESSED IT!

closet system! (Charles was less than thrilled, obviously.)

I asked Charles to bring his power drill and stud finder, and whaddaya know? he forgot one of them.

thankfully, it was the stud finder and the cable man was there so he graciously let us use his.

A lot of things happened during this closet installation:

Charles yelled at me for having too many clothes.

Charles yelled at the wall for not having sufficient studs.

Charles yelled at the screws for not going in the wall all the way.

Charles yelled at the brackets for not fitting properly.

Charles never once looked at a set of directions.

Charles swore up and down that he would never do this for me again. ever. till we die. ever.

This installation should have taken about an hour (remember those trusty customer reviews?).

Well apparently the customers reviewing have expert carpenters for husbands,

because it took us 5 hours.

It is up, I love it and it was totally worth it to me,

but at the time this dumb closet system was almost the demise of the Charles & Whitney love story.

after the move. he loves me not.



So what is the valuable lesson, you ask? Well, there are 2 of them.

1. Couples are not meant to do home improvement projects together. Ever.

(Unless you are looking for an easy way out of your coupledom)

2. Always listen to me. It will save you a lot of trouble in the long run if you go ahead and assume that I am right and know what's best.

Somehow, only by the grace of God did we make it through the weekend without murdering each other.

He even took me to a movie that night. Guess he really does love me.

see the little pants organizer in the bottom center? so dreamy.

It will be a while before we get to spend time together again,

and until then I will be enjoying my new closet space/house.