In case I haven’t said this a lot lately, I’m super excited to be graduating with my bachelor’s degree in WEEKS. Well, to celebrate, we’ve been talking/planning/deciding/not deciding on taking a graduation vacation :) And what I mean by that is we have had ideas of where we would love to vacation and then haven’t been sure about them, so we put it on hold until the next idea comes along.

I love Dr. Seuss. And not just because we have the same birthday :) When he says things, it has a way of making you think differently. My perspectives change and sometimes it results with a smack to the forehead like I should have known it all along, haha. Well this quote is one of those moments for me. Appearances can be deceiving A lot of times we look at a complex question and think that finding the answer is also complex.

I’m so glad we happened to get a blooper photo of me actually picking my husband up because it worked perfectly for this ;) Mondays can be hard, huh? It’s beginning another week of the daily grind, wishing you could go back to Friday :) What helps us get by on these days where we are lagging? Sometimes it’s a funny video on youtube. Other times it’s a diet coke or brownie.

We all know that being kind can change someone’s entire day around, or maybe someone’s act of kindness has changed YOUR entire day. Kindness is so powerful, if you didn’t know that already! Throughout my marriage I’ve definitely been shown and taught how powerful it can be. When Trevor and I first experienced tiffs with each other, our process of being upset and also working through it was something new to me.

I love love love this thought because it’s a great reminder to me that it takes an effort to make things great, and even when it’s achieved, it has to be maintained! It also attacks that old saying: “The grass is greener on the other side,” and I have a few ways I like to relate this to marriage… It’s easy to look at all the other marriages around you and wish your relationship could be as wonderful as there’s.

This week’s lesson: you have to know the misery to know joy! The past six weeks have been kinda overwhelming for us. School has consumed much of my daily life and my weekends. And I think it took me two weeks to finally get motivated to do my homework and be a part of school because I was just feeling so burned out– burned out from doing 4 semesters in a row and only having a week break before starting the fifth and FINAL one.

I’m excited to say that this guy is starting a new job at DOMO tomorrow and I’m pretty proud of him! Getting this job is kind of a bittersweet story for us, and I want to share it because I think it’s something every marriage will face on some level. “There is so much more of happiness to be had when we can rejoice in another’s successes and not just in our own.

It was exactly one year ago today that we broke our bodies moving into our house! haha jk but seriously, we didn’t move from the couch and unpack anything for two straight days because we were so sore. The time and effort was all worth it though because we have a beautiful, put together home to show for it :) And to think, it only took: 3 months to get a shower curtain in the guest bathroom 4 months to get actual blinds instead of the brown banner paper we had in every window… tacky I know, it’s fine.

You may not have needed me to tell you that but there are 39 million people in the world and I’m sure millions more, who needed to be told that this week. I’m always thinking about how current events are affecting marriages, so of course I have been thinking about this whole Ashley Madison hack recently. Call me naive but I didn’t really know there were website services for cheating until a few years ago, when I saw a billboard advertisement for one.

I know we are all used to seeing celebrity couples splitting up, but gosh has anybody else noticed it’s been like one or two every week?! This happens all the time, sadly so I didn’t expect myself to post on this. However, I saw a headline that got me thinking about it more. The headline said, “First Ben and Jennifer, now Blake and Miranda? Is anyone else losing faith in marriage, too?

Soooo I used to be apart of “Bachelor nation” like 6 years ago. It was entertaining to watch and then I got annoyed at how unrealistic it all was to actual healthy relationships so I stopped watching it…. Until this season. It was all my classmates would talk about before class and then I read this awesome article on it and decided to give it a try again. Who doesn’t like judging other people’s relationships?

*This blog post contains affiliate links. Hi. Wedding shower fun here! Last weekend I threw my SIL a bridal shower and it was great! I literally spent two months planning and getting excited to do it because I had a fun idea that was unique to her and unique to bridal showers in general. She LOVES hunting, fishing, that outdoorsy stuff, AND perfectly enough — her fiance loves all of that too!

I have been thinking about the little milestones in marriage a lot lately. The anniversaries and growing families are great – super awesome milestones! But I think it’s nice to honor those little things we do in marriage… The “little victories” if you will! The little victory I had when I wrote this was making a meal I have never made before, and slam dunkin’ the “HONEY THIS TASTES SO GOOD!

Remember how I was so frustrated/annoyed/intimidated/scared of my iron? hahaha yeah so this started the very beginning of our marriage. It was actually my very first post, too! Basically, ironing was a stressful ordeal for me and became so much more difficult than it should have been. I was even more bugged about it because I felt like I NEEDED to ironing my husband’s dress shirts all the time, in order to be a good wife.

Marriage has gone down in history this week with the legalization of same-sex marriages throughout the nation. The past few days I’ve been thinking about two things: 1) We are all human and we all have rights, despite our sexual orientation or religious beliefs. 2) How this is an opportune moment for us to increase our appreciation for marriage in general (traditional or non-traditional). Recognizing the responsibilities Marriage is a big deal to me.

This week my Associate in Science degree finally came in the mail! I practically earned it last summer, and then had to wait to apply for it in the fall, and then it got sent to the wrong address, haha. So I have had these proud feelings for 9 months, but finally got the paperwork to show for it ;) Believe it or not, my college career began in Fall 2009… Over the past six years, I made important life decisions that took me all over Utah, and to three different universities… haha.

We celebrated our second anniversary this weekend, and it was just lovely. We stayed one night at the Anniversary Inn, enjoying the same room we spent our wedding night in. It was magical to have memories flood me from two years ago, and was just so relaxing to get away from the world for a little bit. On the way there we ate at Happy Sumo and it was just really chill, I loved it.

Found this quote the other day and I really liked it. Yeah it’s cheesy and cutesy, as well as simple and thought-provoking. Bittersweet decisions Throughout the past years I’ve come to know what’s most important in life. (Maybe it’s the selflessness I had to learn going into marriage, or maybe it’s just maturity? haha) It’s a bittersweet answer for me when I ask myself questions about the things I’m currently doing in my life.

A few weeks ago Trevor went to a conference in San Francisco for work. For many couples this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Some spouses are away on business trips often. Well, for Trevor and I, this was a big deal because it was the first time we have ever spent a night apart… YEP. The last time we slept in separate beds on our own was the night before we got married.

*This post contains affiliate links. On our first date, Trevor and I started talking about some things we like to do, and we found most of them we had in common (of course!) Since he had recently come home from serving an Latter-Day Saint mission, I started suggesting some of the movies he should watch and music to listen to that came out while he was gone. It started as that, and then somehow it turned into things that we were possibly going to do together… :) So being the list people that we are, Trevor pulled out his phone and created a google doc, listing these things to do.