5 On Friday: We Made It A Full Year, Y'all.

What a WEEK! There has been a lot of working and cooking and loving and working and singing and kissing and hugging and acting and general being.

1. Most importantly, Sunday was our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I would be remiss to not make it my first point of praise. :) There were lots of treats (including PUMPKIN SODA that he bought me!) and lots of gooey Facebook posts and lots of staying in bed having a Breaking Bad marathon... Which brings me to my next point.

 2. I know we're late but we just started watching this beautifully stressfully intensely wonderful show. And... oh. my. GOD.

3. I sang at a benefit this week for the Winter Park Playhouse. It was a lovely little way to catch up with old friends and have an excuse to get gussied up and sing for the people. :)

4. Sometimes, I forget I have the best job in the world. I get paid to play with clowns as well as curl my hair. Doesn't get much better than that! And yes, I am a giant. Case in point? See above photo.

5. Pentatonix finally covered my favorite song of the summer. Enjoy.

How was your week?

Linking Up With:

5 On Friday | High Five For Friday | Back That Azz Up

It's Our 1 Year Anniversary, see...

So, I was thinking this...

Happy First Anniversary, sweet one. :) I love you.

Our Wedding: The Honeymoon

Our honeymoon was absolutely perfect. And it was FREE. 

My parents own a glorious little cabin tucked away on a mountainside in Warrensville, NC. What better way to celebrate our Fall wedding than a blissful, captivating Autumnal getaway? So, mom and dad handed us the keys and we drove ourselves on a foggy trip to beautiful Appalachia. 

When you live in work in Orlando, FL at the most magical place on Earth, the last thing you want to do on your vacation is anything tourist-y. Get us away from heat, crowds, Starbucks, and Mickey ears. Stat.

Prior to the wedding, I literally chose our wedding date based on the peak of the leaves changing color. Nailed it.

The adjacent town to the cabin is West Jefferson, NC. It's an adorable little one-stoplight town with local shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, sweet people, and buckets of charm. One of the larges draws to this tiny place is the Ashe County Cheese Store. Cheese is my jam. And what's even more of my jam? Cheese curds. Give me cheese curds all day long.

We have a fire pit next to the cabin. But, fire pits are rendered useless when you've got damp fire wood. It took a solid three days of failed attempts before Timothy could get a unwavering flame. At long last, s'mores time it was!

We spent the rest of the week tending to activities completely specific to what we're all about: antiquing, thrifting, eating totally awesome barbecue, playing UNO, making sausage balls (recipe to be posted soon!), being silly. We even had a little birdy fly into the cabin window (we thought FOR SURE he was dead). But, turns out he just had a few birdies of his own flying around his head. We fed him, nursed him back to health, and he flew away as though it had never happened. Magic? Yes.

The honeymoon was everything we needed: cost effective, laid back, chilly, filled with good food and most importantly, completely us. :) 

Our Wedding: Window Shutter Guest Book

I fell in love with the window shutters guestbook idea in the early months of planning our wedding. If fate wanted to have a hand, it surely did. One Saturday afternoon, we learned there was a yard sale happening next door to Timothy's folks' house. Low and behold, what shoudl we see but a closet door lying haphazardly on their lawn. "How much?" After a simple shrug, the neighbor responds, "A buck?" SOLD!

What you should know about me is that I'm a freebie whore. I use the term, "whore" lightly because you should also know that I am not a prostitute. To put it simply, I'm an avid advocate of signing up for samples online. You should try it. It's awesome. So, when I received a coupon for free paint at Ace Hardware, I immediately ran to our local store and grabbed our seafoamy little wedding color. And if that wasn't enough freeby-ing, I also order a bucket load of free customized Vistaprint cards in our wedding color for guests to write their messages upon.

This was a great, simple project for us to work on together and it looked beautiful at the reception. We had such a blast reading our sweet little notes the night of the wedding over chocolate-dipped strawberries in the hotel room. Perfecto.

Total cost of our guestbook? One dolla. Nailed it.

The Little Things

I fully realize that my husband and I are still within the first year of our marriage and that the amount of gush and yuck is still at about 75%. We have not yet reached that "you have your side of the bed, I have mine and there is a distant heat-blocking barrier between us" stage, nor have we stopped holding hands everywhere we go. We text each 12 times other a day to say, "I miss you" or "I love you." We are totally that couple although we've never been much for the highly uncomfortable amount of PDA that you get from so many pre-teens nowadays.

I was thinking about all of the fine touches we put on our days even when our schedules don't line up. Sometimes, they go less noticed but are never taken for granted.

When my grandpa counseled us before our marriage, he told us not to forget that even a squeeze on the shoulder can speak millions about your love.

So, here are few little things we do as tacit I-Love-You reminders. Feel free to steal!

1. If he leaves for work before I do, he'll always set my toothbrush out, paste included.

2. We always pack each other lunch and no lunch is complete without a little love note.

3. If I'm home from work before he is, I lay out his "comfy clothes."