Adult-Life Update

I tried to come up with a catchy and clever name for this post, but this is all I could come up with. At least it's short and to the point. (:

At the beginning of June, Andrew and I had our first adultish freakout...we were late paying our rent! Because we had been out of town, we missed the deadline and had to pay an extra fee. Now we have a reminder on our calendar to pay it each month so we don't forget. You live and you learn...and we weren't evicted, so that's a win!

Other than the rent situation, Andrew and I have enjoyed life outside of school. Even though we are working and are gone most of the day, we are finding we are sleeping better, have more mental space, more time to spend with each other, and more time to devote to family and friends. We love it.

One thing that has been really important to us since moving is creating a fun, nourishing, and enjoyable home...not just for ourselves, but for anyone who visits. We want our place to be not just for us, but for anyone who needs a sanctuary or just a place to laugh. We LOVE having people over and have done so several times so far! Because Andrew loves board games, we decided to start a game night every week and we have about ten people or so that come! So fun! And, what's even crazier (at least to me) is that hospitality and sharing my space has not always been easy for me...and sometimes, it still isn't. But God has been working on my heart (especially through Andrew) and I am far more comfortable and excited to have people share my space, food, time, and energy than I ever have in my life--and I still have a lifetime to learn!

We both started working full-time this past month, Andrew at a local church as a resident, and me teaching piano lessons, working on a flower farm, and at Chick-Fil-A. We both have Fridays off, so we have made an effort to get out and do something fun each week. We've gone to a local walking trail a couple times and have gone out to eat, too. We even found a Strawberry Festival and enjoyed homemade strawberry shortcakes!! SO GOOD.

Random trip to Wal-Mart for peanut butter ice cream. The best kind, obviously.

We went to Olive Garden for our 11 month anniversary and I got this salmon piccata. Oh..my..word. You need it in your life if you like salmon.

We walked to the Japanese restaurant from our apartment! It's so nice to have restaurants close by.

Because of our separate work schedules, it was becoming difficult to only have one vehicle. I realize that we could have made it work but ultimately, our decision was out of convenience. We also realize that our Honda Accord is over ten years old and may only have about five more years of life (sadness), so we decided to spend a little more for a vehicle that could last us and our future family (not anytime soon) for the next ten years or more....soo...

We bought a Honda Fit! It's Andrew's dream car. He has loved driving it around and being able to call it ours. haha He also points out all the other Honda Fits and says that they're family now. Ok.

As I mentioned previously, I am working on a flower farm and have the opportunity to learn so much about the flower farming business and all that goes into it. IT'S CRAZY the amount of work you have to put in to produce even ten flowers. But it is so worth it to see the beautiful blooms and be able to say HECK YEAH I didn't kill it! I deliver flowers to local Krogers every Thursday and my car looks pretty amazing.

Fifty bouquets.

We are going to be making around 250 bouquets each week. The process takes around 4 hours from start to finish, but it so cool to see people buy them at the store!

We picked these beautiful Zinnias today!

For the Fourth of July, Andrew and I hung out with my family and ate an amazing meal and then had strawberry shortcake for dessert. I love, love, love strawberry shortcake...if you can't tell.

Especially with homemade ice cream.

In between dinner and dessert, I took some pictures in my dad's garden because I am now obsessed with flowers.

On a completely separate note, I found out that Andrew makes amazing french toast. I thought I didn't like french toast because most of the time it's just soggy bread, but not Andrew's french toast. It's crispy and perfect. It's my new favorite thing...especially with his homemade wheat bread.

Now I'm sad I missed out on this for the past 11 months, but also happy that it only took me 11 months to figure out instead of 11 years.

That's our adult-life right now...just paying bills, being upset when we have to pay for things, and then being happy when we get paid. And then starting all over again. Ah, love it.

P.S. I got my haircut and I feel amazing.