Fall is coming. Hallelujah!

Good Evening ladies and gents! It's a wonderful night for a blog!

Yes, I know, it's been forever. I don't know how I've survived the past few weeks without one single blog!

Sooooo here is what I have been up to lately!

• My new dog, Neeko.... Well... She thinks her cage is a bathroom. So it never fails for us to have to clean her cage. Every. Single. Day. It's terrible, really.
• I have been a crafty lady these past few weeks! Crafts for days!
• Started college for the semester. It stinks as usual.
• Started thinking about my 1 year anniversary and things to do for that special day! (suggestions are accepted as always!)
• Newwwwwwwww furniture! Well, new to me. But I LOVE it! It completely changed the look of my living room! 
• Work is great! I love the people I work with and I wouldn't trade a single one of them! 
• Starting a new workout schedule with one of my best buddies! (She's gonna kick my butt at this.) #outofshape
• New delicious recipes! (seriously, try them. You'll be glad you did.)
• In short, life is good, God is good, and food is good. 

Okay, so lets start with this dog of mine. She's rowdy, she's rough, (she lost a tooth yesterday.. I didn't even know dogs did that?!?), and she eats all of my socks. She has literally swallowed like 6 of my socks. WHOLE. 

Shes's pretty darn cute, but whoever said that Huskies were different types of dogs were ABSOLUTELY correct! She has a different attitude from any other dog I have ever had. But here's a picture of her from last week watching the TV. (She loves Boy Meets World... But who am I kidding, everyone loves a little Cory and Topanga.) 

I complain about her a lot, but I love this pup. She's definitely made her way into our hearts and is a member of the family. :) 

I have also been a crafting fool lately! (No really, it's foolish how much money I've spent on crafting stuff this past week. -See what I did there?) :) 

I decided to do something with the extra 50 pounds of burlap that is left over from my wedding, and I made a cute little wreath! I got the wicker part at a yard sale for 50cents, so really, this project wasn't all that expensive. And it's pretty darn cute if I do say so myself! 

I looked up pinterest ideas (of course) and they had a few tutorials for how to make a burlap wreath. Here's what I found! 

This was a good tutorial to make burlap bows! I did mine a little different though. I just cut two different strips of burlap and laid them on top of each other. Then, I pulled the middle together and wrapped the thin strip around the middle and then sewed it all together in the back. I thought it turned out pretty good, and it was fast and easy! 

Then I made THESE!

Obviously, these are not mine. But that's what they looked like! I took a strip of burlap, folded it in half, and coiled it like the picture about. Then I glued down the edge and VOILA! Coiled, burlap flowers! I made 3 of them in different sizes, sewed them together and attached them to my wicker wreath! 

After that, I took my burlap bow and attached it to the wreath as well. It looked a little empty to me so I added a strip of burlap and just wrapped it around the empty side a couple of times, sewed it in the back, and there ya go! A cute, fall, burlap wreath! ( I completely forgot to take a picture of this for my blog, so I'll try to remember to post it soon)

I love fall. Like LOVE LOVE LOVE fall. It's great for tons of reasons! The leaves are changing, it's my birthday, my allergies get better, it's my birthday, it gets cool enough for scarves, jeans, hoodies, and boots, it's my birthday, annnnnnnd it's my birthday. Did I mention it's my birthday? 

Just kidding, that sounded quite conceited. 

But I am excited! I will be a whopping 20 years old! No more teen years for this chickie. Because that's a huge deal if you guys didn't already know! LOL!

I'm pretty excited about these fall months to come. Pictures always pick up in the fall! Everyone loves pictures with the leaves changing and it's cool enough that the kiddos aren't too cranky. It's a beautiful time of year and an excellent opportunity to snap some awesome photos! I'm pretty excited for October! (Because it's my birthday...) :)

In other news, I'M PREGNANT. Just kidding. I'm totally not. And no, I don't plan on getting preggo anytime soon. That seems to be the question of the year with everyone. I think after you get married people think you're gonna get pregnant like the next day. I'd like to get through some college junk first. But thank you all for being concerned with my empty womb. It's pretty content for the moment. :) Plus, I can't even keep a plant alive so..... Maybe babies should wait. ;)

P.S. that was not meant to sound snotty, that's just me trying to lighten the mood and make a joke. Bahahah! (You're laughing, right? Okay, good.)

Thayer and I have been looking at buying our first home! It's pretty exciting, ya know, besides the whole going thousands of dollars into debt thing. That bites. The thing I'm looking forward to the most is being able to PAINT. My apartment has white walls. White EVERYWHERE. I hate white walls. So the first thing I will do when we move out of here is paint my new little home! And maybe try round two on the whole plant thing. (It really didn't work out this year.. Dead plants everywhere. It was a massacre.)

I have been having SO much fun planning my 1 year anniversary with the coolest husband ever! I can't believe we've almost been married a year! I have to agree when people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. We had to get used to living together, doing everything on our own, paying the bills and budgeting, and we have to compromise on everything. It's a pretty big change when you're used to getting your own way on everything. But I'm learning! And I'm pretty lucky to have this guy that has stood by me through everything! 

So, since my anniversary is two days before Thayer's 21st birthday, I have been trying to think of cool things to do for him! Thayer and I have never spent a weekend alone at a hotel or bed and breakfast or anything like that. So I'm thinking that we might have a weekend getaway! A nice romantic weekend with my hubby sounds like a wonderful plan to me! So if you know of any awesome places we should go, please let me know! Like I said, we've never went anywhere so I want to do something special! :) 

I've also been looking for 1 year anniversary gifts and birthday gifts for my honey. I can't say what I have in mind because Mr. Thayer will read this blog and know exactly what I'm gonna do! But I can tell you that Etsy has some wonderful ideas! Tons of custom, vintage, super sweet, keepsakes! It's so cool! And they have things that every guy would love. Definitely check it out. I'll post what I did for his as soon as our weekend is over! :) 

My house has definitely seen some changes lately! Thayer and I got some super cute furniture last week and it COMPLETELY changed the look of my house! It took a little rearranging, but I think it turned out pretty cute. I'll have to get some pictures to show you on my next blog! We took our old furniture upstairs into our extra room and it made for a super cute office and sitting area. LOVE it! 

Work is going great! I work with an AMAZING group of ladies! I was feeling pretty sick these past few days and today they really showed me how much they care. It made me feel so at home! I love each and every one of them and I am so glad I get to work with them at Mercy! It's a fabulous place to work. :) 

Tomorrow, my friend Miss Chasiti Baker and myself are going to start working out together! We were going to start on Monday, but I was feeling sickly, so hopefully tomorrow we will start a routine! I'm not gonna lie, she's probably gonna kick my butt at this. She is extremely strong and I think she will be a wonderful motivator! I can't wait! I think we will have a fun time suffering together. :)

I think I'm going to start back on my weight watchers stuff. I really did lose weight on that program and I think it's time I get back on the weight loss train. So wish me luck! :)

Okay, let's talk Jesus. My favorite part of every blog! :)

I have been working on building a stronger relationship with God. I looked on Pinterest for some fun things to do for Bible study and how to make reading the Bible more fun. I found these examples and thought it was an awesome idea! 

I thought these were pretty cool! You could start a journal and include fun colors, your own thoughts, and little doodles to help you remember scripture. Pretty nifty if you ask me! 

I'm not gonna lie, sometimes reading the Bible is hard for me. I have a hard time keeping my train of thought when I first start reading. So I thought these would be some cool ways to make it more fun and interesting. Definitely gonna give this a try! 

So here's a Bible verse that really spoke to me lately! 

Colossians 3:23 (NLT)

"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."

What does this say to me:

Sometimes when you get in a routine at work, or in anything you do, you feel like your doing it just to keep everyone happy. (You're being a people pleaser... My biggest weakness.) You start to develop a bad attitude and begin to hate what you do. But lately I just think of it this way: What if God was my boss, and what if I was doing this to please Him. Would my attitude be different? Would I work harder? The answer is absolutely. Who doesn't want to please God?! Of course we would do the very best we can and we would do it with a happy heart. So my goal lately has been to be happy in my work. Because God watches everything we do. He knows when we are doing things with a good attitude, and when we do things just because we have to. 

So here is my challenge to you, go into everything you do, for the next few days, and see if you can get through it with a better attitude and a happier outlook. I think you'll find that your days go better and everyone around you will benefit too. :)

Well, I've got to get some sleep. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Love, Steph. :)