"You pick me up and take me home again."

Title: 400 Lux - Lorde

Moving

card board boxes, disarray, chaos, packing, trucks, labeling…

Packing and moving have turned into things I have no desire to ever do again.  A few times, Vito & I said "We're moving once more (back north) and this is it. We'll never move again."

Maybe moving is not hell for everyone. Perhaps it's exciting with a promise of fresh beginnings.  Or perhaps you had an experience, like us, where the moving process was one big, terrible, no good time. Over & over again.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? It's a very good place to start.

Friday

• Vito's car started having problems.  Our mechanic was already finished for the day.  The dealer could not fit him into the schedule. The car was nearly un-drivable. Thankfully we have a friends who works on cars and was able to fix his car. 
• We had plans to meet with friends for Vito to say goodbye and they were canceled at the last minute.
• We had a last date, which was dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and the service was terrible.  Vito's "medium rare" steak wasn't even pink on the inside and the manager asked him if he was sure he knew what he wanted.  I finished my entire meal before Vito even received his.  A complete mess.
• Went to pick up the moving truck at 6pm and it was not ready.  The person who rented it before us was 4 hours late bringing it back and still wasn't there. It took 1.5 hours to get a truck, which they gave us a different truck than the one we reserved.

Saturday

• I barely slept, less than 4 hours.
• It rained while we packed the truck up.
• The 10 hours drive turned into a 13.5 hour drive because of traffic
• We arrived at our house in Clemson at 1am to find that the rental property did not leave the house key under the mat, as promised.  Vito tried to break into the house but was unsuccessful.  So we checked into the last room available at a hotel at 1:30am. We had to sneak the cat in because they had a no animal rule.  Vito then had to run out and buy a pad lock and take it to the moving truck.  When he returned to the room after 2 and we found a huge bug on the wall.  I made vito flip over every piece of furniture in the room to make sure there were no more bugs in the room or I'd be sleeping in the car.

Sunday

• After 5 hours of broken sleep, we stayed awake at 8 and called the rental property number.  The guy couldn't help us and told us we had to wait for a call back, which could take up to 24 hours.  Mind you we had Vito's cousin and boyfriend driving 2.5 hours to come to Clemson to help us move in so we needed to know whether to stop them from making the drive.  Luckily someone called back within the hour and said the key was under the mat at the rental property building, not the house.
• Vito drove to the rental property building and searched every mat and none of them had keys under them.  So he had to wait 30 mins for someone to show up and give him the key.
• The couch wouldn't fit in the living room and the box spring wouldn't fit up the stairs.
• I saw my first live cockroach in the kitchen. (there have been none sighted since.)
• The internet was promised to be hooked up.  And then when we called, because it was not hooked up when we arrived, they said it would be another 2 weeks.

Monday

• This was the day I was to travel home.  Tuesday I had an appt for my stomach that took 6 weeks to get in and when I asked to reschedule, they said it would be another 6 weeks.  
• I tried to leave Sunday night but when I went to take a shower, the hot water heater was not turned on.  I desperately needed a shower from all the moving and to help keep myself awake. So instead I decided to lay down for 3 hours for a nap, would wake up for a shower, and leave.  This would have been a great plan if I had set my alarm for 12am instead of 12pm so I woke up at 6:00am with no way to make it to my 2pm appt.
• I left and drove my overly emotional self back 10 hours all by my lonesome.

It was the longest weekend ever and has convinced me that we are cursed with moving. Silver lining, we were reminded how blessed we are to be surrounded by helpful friends and family who woke up early or made long drives to move around our heavy stuff.

So that's our horrific moving story.  I hope to start some wedding recaps soon as I expect to receive our wedding pics this week! 

So moving: horrible or we just had a really bad experience?

And just like that...

I drop off the face of the earth.

But on the bright side, some things have happened since we last saw each other.

Let's look at some snippets.

May

I turned 26 & I got a penguin balloon animal. It was the highlight of my otherwise second worst birthday ever.

June

I ended up with food poisoning.  That was made worse by previously mentioned stomach problems. Which turned into dehydration and messed my body up so bad I spent my first night in the hospital since birth instead of at my bridal shower.

July

I was showered with love by many of my favorite ladies.

Vito & I also spent a week at the beach.  Which was our first vacation in 4 years.

August

We moved out of our first home.

I helped move Vito into Clemson (which was the absolute worst nightmare of a moving story ever.) & I moved in with my sister & niece.

September

Vito & I rendezvoused in Virginia for the weekend.  We ate, watched football, and slept.  It was nice.

October

We had the best day ever.

The good, the bad, the terrible, and the best  

All rolled into one post.

Let's do this again soon, shall we?

8)

"By With a Little Help from My Friends."

Title: The Beatles - "With a Little Help from My Friends"

Thank you all for all the support for prayers lately.  Since coming back to blogging, it's been a bit heavy around here.  & that's been a big part of my life, but there are also good and amazing things going on in my life.

Since I posted about wedding things, I created a little DIY project and asked my favorite ladies to stand beside me on our big day.  I thought about just asking them but I wanted to do something different and fun. 

Enter Pinterest with all the fun ideas.  So I adapted what I saw and made something of my own!

Enter the boxes.  

I had 6 lovely ladies to ask, plus a flower girl.  

Every girl had their own box with their initial on the tag.

 On the second tag, I put this little quote I found online:

On the day that I am to be a bride,

it would mean the world to me

to have you by my side.

All the girls found the same picture on the inside but each had their name and the "Will you be my bridesmaid/maid of honor/flower girl?"

& of course, a ring pop.  Because they deserved to have the question popped too!

As for how I made them, I bought the white boxes at a craft store and filled them with easter grass.  I bought the initial sticks and ribbon at the craft store as well.  I created the wording/tags/picture using Picmonkey & printed everything with my computer.

I am happy to say, after a lot of screaming and hugging and some tears, every girl agreed!

 I may be bias but my girls are BEAUTIFUL

And of course, my littlest love.

When she opened the box she yelled "YES!"

Even though she'll be 10, she wants nothing else than to still be a flower girl.

What this princess wants, she gets.

It was fun to see all their faces and I couldn't be more excited to have these loves in my life!

Have you asked your ladies/have you been asked any special ways?

"I just want to know today, know today, know today know that maybe I will be ok"

Title:  Ingrid Michaelson - "Be Ok"

Me? I'm a planner.  Not that I mind change so much.  With going to so many new and different schools in my life, I learned that change is essential.  And sometimes I can feel it in my soul if things get stagnant.  That I need change.  Something new.  Something to keep life exciting.

Things I don't handle well? Knowing change is coming but yet I don't know in what way.  I need to plan.  I'm a worrier.  If I don't know what to worry about, I can't start planning.  And if I can't start planning, my worrying can get out of control.  

That all being said, I'm dealing with big changes coming my way at the moment.  

Marrying my love in about 5 months.

Dealing with whatever is going on with my health.

Working on living a healthier lifestyle.

Moving over 600 miles from the only home I've ever know.

Talk about major changes right?

Talk about worrying.

And planning.

And worrying some more.

Stress.

Tears.

And more worrying.

You see, Vito missed math and decided he wanted to go back and pursue his education.  I support him whole heartedly. So the process began of taking the GREs, which he kicked ass, taking the subject test, which he did okay at, and applying to 18 different colleges.  

So began the waiting game.  Our lives were about to go through some major changes but we didn't know where or what that would mean.  Seeing as I stated before about needing to plan, you can already piece together how well that went.  Out of the 18 colleges, Vito was accepted to 6 of them but only 3 of them offered financial aid.  Those 3 were listed at my least favorite colleges on the list solely because they were so far away from home.  

I've lived here for 22 years.  My family and friends and work and church are all here.  The thought of moving far gives me anxiety.  So began listing the pros and cons.  There were lots of tears.  Lots of anger.  Even more prayers.  Eventually we came to a decision.  We will be heading down to Clemson SC this fall.

I won't pretend this is easy.  Or even a happy time for me yet.  I know in my heart this is what we need to do.  I support Vito with everything I have and I know this is what he needs.  But I am going to miss everyone and everything else in my life I will be leaving behind temporarily.  It's a 5 year program which feels like eternity on this side of things.  But I know once we are finished down there, it will feel like no time at all.

If y'all have some extra prayers, please send them our way.  I know there are good things coming our way, everything is just very overwhelming right now. 8)

Me vs My Body

Me to the blogging world: I'm coming back (again)!

My Body to me: Hahahahaha. So you think.

Warning: this is a long post that's not real exciting.

So much for posting on the regular huh? I made the last weekend post and I was ready to go.

And then the next day my body had something else in mind.

So let's rewind.  I've been having stomach issues for awhile now.  & I've just been sucking it up and dealing with it.  Slowly, it started to get worse so I brought it to my GP Doctor's attention.  

First possible diagnosis?

Lactose Intolerance.

I almost laughed in his face.  Me? Girl who could live on cheese and froyo alone? Nope, Doc. You can't be right.  And so I ignored it longer and it got worse.  So I thought I'd give it a try.  I gave up all dairy products. Which was my own form of hell. Do you know dairy is in about everything? Because it is.  I was told to give up all dairy for 2 weeks.  Then slowly reintroduce it back in to see which things bothered me and which did not.  Long story short, those 2 weeks were terrible.  I cried a lot.  I was hormonal.  Poor Vito deserved a medal for dealing with me.  I made it two weeks & slowly started reintegrating.  I thought it might have made a small difference but not really noticeable on a whole.

April 2nd was a Tuesday and I was hit again and I was miserable.  More miserable than ever.  Nauseous and in pain.  I hadn't eaten any dairy that day so I started to think this can't be right.  Went to the doctor on Thursday and told him all my symptoms.

Next possible diagnosis?

Gallstones.

Gallbladder problems run in my family so this made sense.  Scheduled an ultrasound for the next morning.  Made it to that & waited for results.  It was a long and miserable weekend.  Monday morning I received a call to say that my ultrasound was normal so they were sending me for blood work.

Me. Girl who is afraid of needles. Who has never had her blood drawn before.  Who doesn't even know her own blood type.

Cue freak out.  Thankfully for Vito again (Medal winner, I'm telling you.), he took off work to take me to get my blood drawn.  I survived and didn't have a full blown panic attack.  Luckily my nurse was quick and I apparently have big veins.  So my blood work came back normal as well.  By this point I'm overly frustrated and just want them to find out what's going on.  Back to the doctor I went.  Feeling worse and worse.  

Next possible diagnosis?

Stomach ulcer.

So now I have to wait until May 9th to do a stomach scope.  Which I'm terrified.  The thought of something going down my throat like that makes want to panic.  I hate needles & I'll be getting an IV.  & I haven't been put under since I was 6.  Right now I'm on meds to help keep me functioning.  They are terrible.  I have to take them 30-60 minutes before I eat and I have to take them on an empty stomach so I can't have eaten for at least 2-3 hours.  As someone who likes to snack, it has been a trial.  Thankfully they seem to be helping.  I have only had one major set back since starting them.  

I hope when they do the scope they can find something.  Because I am ready to do treatment, not just maintain.  Because of all this mess, my life has been otherwise boring.  We've spent a lot of nights and weekends in the house.  So I guess the bright side is we are saving money! Sad side is I'm missing a lot of fun things we had planned and we had to cancel.  Like our annual dateversary dinner at The Melting Pot.  Like a weekend away.  Like going to a registry event.  

So here's hoping my body stops acting like I'm 80 and I can get back to having fun and planning a wedding. 8)

This Weekend I . . .

April Fools day, one of my least favorite days of the entire year.

This girl is about as gullible as it gets.  So to make this day better, I decided to do a link up at Syndal's bloggy blog!

This Weekend I...

Enjoyed the last day of touring wineries on the wine trail we took part in.  We visited two wineries, did tours, and tasted a lot few wines.  

We really enjoy learning about wine and love drinking wine.  Plus it is fun to do something different and get out and about.  It was such a beautiful day, we enjoyed a glass outside at the one winery with this view.  I often do not appreciate the beauty of my state.

This weekend I...

Toured some of the Gettysburg Battles once we were done touring the wineries.  

We've done the entire tour before so we decided to stop at a few of our favorite locations and enjoy more of the beautiful weather.

First we stopped at Vito's favorite spot which is a giant tour that overlooks the Battlefields.  It has 10 flights of stairs and I must really love him for doing it.  Because here I am two days later and my calves still hurt every time I move.

Then we headed over to my favorite spot, Little Round Top, which is a big hill that overlooks a lot of the Battlefield.  It also had a ton of huge rocks for children (and Vito) to climb on. 

This Weekend I...

Watched the long awaited return of Doctor Who.

Then over the past few days since, have been theorizing with Vito and friends through tweets and emails and texts.

This show always leaves me with so many more questions than answers.

And I CAN NOT get enough of it!

This Weekend I... 

 

Had a busy day celebrating Easter

We enjoyed an uplifting church service with friends.

Celebrated how great is our God

Made delicious lemon bars that Vito's family devoured.

Spent lunch with my family and dinner at Vito's Grandparents.

We ate candy out of our Easter "Basket" (tupperware container) from my mommy.

 Took goofy pictures in bunny ears.

And received sweet notes from my Princess.  

Being an aunt is really the biggest blessing in my life.

My heart is bursting.

Overall, it was a busy and exhausting, but amazing weekend!

Now back to reality.

And how was your weekend?

"We Run Circles, No Direction Do I See"

Title: Blue October - "Kangaroo Cry"

My, oh my, where has time gone?

Hi Bloggers, it's me, Vanessa.

Do you remember me? 

I'm just that girl who blogs a few times and then goes on hiatus more often than she doesn't.

I love blogging. 

But when I am blogging, I feel like I am constantly running out of things to say.

And when I'm not blogging, I miss it terribly.

This little space on the internet is my safe haven.  

I always see posts of bloggers expressing how they feel they can't truly express themselves for this, that, or the other reason.

Me? I've never felt that here.  

& that's what I love most.

My life right now, for many reasons that I hope to slowly get into, is chaotic to say the least.

Everything is changing and the feeling of being overwhelmed is a constant.

Unfortunately I think a lot of the chaos has been hanging out in my head.

So I'm coming back to blogging, because I think I need it.

I need my little space to purge all my thoughts and feelings.

About life. About the small event happening in under 200 days (!!!). About a song I am really loving or a book I lived in temporarily but can't seem to get over. About happiness and sadness.

About me.

The girl with the out of control curls, who is often seen in plain clothes, who wears glasses but hates them so she often takes them off in pictures.

Here I am, making my umpteenth return.

I've miss y'all dearly.