365 days

One year ago today I was anxious, nervous and excited to become your wife. I was sure that when those big barn doors opened up I was probably going to be sick. But as the doors opened and I saw you standing there my nerves disappeared, an extreme calm washed through me, and there was no one but you and me.

You and me. There's no one else in this world that I'd want to do life with. This past year has been the best year of my life. Each day I love you more. It's even become common for me to tell you, "I'm not sure why but I totally love you more today. It's like my love grew."

As life tends to be, this past year has put choices and challenges in our lives but I'd say that cliche phrase, "The first year's the hardest" didn't apply to us. And if it was hard, I didn't notice.

I realize how much I truly love you when I find myself over the top bragging about how wonderful you are to complete strangers. I know you totally hate when I brag on you but I'm so incredibly proud of the man that you are that I have a very hard time not letting the world know.

I STILL get butterflies calling you my husband. I hope that never becomes something I don't get excited about.

I'm truly enjoying every minute of this time in our lives. I wish I could slow it down sometimes. The nights and weekends go by too fast and work just gets in the way. There's no one else in this world I'd want to spend each day with. I feel like my life was nothing special until I met you and this 1st year of marriage is just the beginning.

Thank you for being loving. caring. strong. determined. grateful. and completely perfect for me.

It's been nothing short of happily ever after...

I love you Daniel Chase. 

A Quick Recap

What have we been up to? Giving our new home lots of love!

Our house has lots of things for us to put our own touch on.

So we spend at least one night a weekend at the good ole Home Depot.

It's now common to walk out with a full buggy or two and in this case below, a wheelbarrow full of home goodness.

It's also not uncommon to come home and find renovations started without me. Like the one below.

Daniel decided while I was at work to start ripping up the concrete porch. (In his defense, it needed to be done.) But it's always a nice surprise when I pull in the drive to see what he's been up to.

Then there are great finds like this one that make up for it. Daniel found this antique dresser at First Monday a few weeks back and we loved it! It's now the new home for our TV in the living room. For half off, we couldn't resist! (Excuse the paint mess, this will be a given for a while)

Just a little sneak peak at the living room colors. I'm using all the colors in this fabric. I'm in the process of making our roman shades out of this now. I have four out of five made for the living room and can't wait to do a big reveal post when we finish with the living room which I hope is in the next week. :)

So how do be stay energized with all these home renovations? Smoothies! I used to make them all the time but I fell off the wagon a while back. But I think I now have a fool proof system to having an awesome smoothie in the mornings.

On Sundays, I cut up all of our fruits lately that's been about 7 bananas, 2 cartons of strawberries (I think I'll be getting 3 this next week), 1 whole pineapple, and fresh spinach.

I wish I had a better recipe for our smoothies but I pretty much just wing it.

A handful of strawberries

one banana or handful of pineapple chunks

(Daniel doesn't eat bananas, but I prefer them)

a handful of spinach

a handful of oatmeal

I put all but the oatmeal in individual freezer bags.

I put the bags in the freezer.

This normally makes 14 smoothies, a weeks worth for both of us.

In the mornings I grab two bags out of the freezer.

I add in some milk. I'm not sure how much. I just eyeball it.

I'm sorry this recipe isn't very precise.

Anyway, I'm now a smoothie-aholic! I seriously get UPSET if I think I might not get a smoothie in the morning. The smoothies have now taken the place of coffee for me. This is probably a good thing since these pack a lot more nutrition.

So that's the short/jumbled version of what we've been up to. I hope to post about the redone living room within  the next week. It feels so nice to be close to having our first room almost done!