Packing woes.

Packing is such a pain.

I actually have a love-hate relationship with it. When I pack just to home for a week or so, I get to plan out my outfits and what I'll take and make a nice little list to reference. Oh, I love that part. But then when it comes time to get to the airport and weigh that sucker, well, I'm sweatin' bullets. No, I probably don't really need those 6 pairs of shoes for the week, or enough clothes for 3 outfit changes a day, but what if I come across the situation where I just needed that outfit???? A girl has got to be prepared!

This time around, I don't have to choose what to pack because we are moving. So it really includes everything. We have weeded quite a bit of stuff out of course because we had to realize if we loved it enough to pay the money to ship it or deal with packing it into our tiny car. Here's the thing... I love all of my clothes. I have a disgusting amount from loving shopping before I worked in retail, and then shopping an obscene amount since I've worked in retail for over a year now. You collect a lot of clothes that way. So I have my HUGE red suitcase stuffed to the brim with most of my clothes, but it also overflows into 3 other boxes. I don't know if you knew, but clothes are kinda heavy when they're all piled into one place. Whoops. I'm not looking forward to the damage when Nick takes them to the Post Office to ship them today. Not one bit :/ Now, the clothes I can handle shipping, but my shoes are another story. I have a duffle bag stuffed with sandals and flats and a few pairs of heels, and then a plastic storage tub filled with shoes as well. Don't worry, I have about 8 more pairs I still need to pack. I can ship the clothes I don't need right when we get home, but my shoes?? Heck no. Those babies are staying in the car with me. I love them too much to risk it. Sad, I know. I just have to be OK with shipping other things and paying a crap-ton for it. We just don't have a choice. It's either throw it away, ship it, or rent a small U-haul and fit everything we want comfortably but then pay about $1500 to drive it across country. Uh, thanks, I'll pass.

Another thing about packing? My apartment looks like a hot mess. Stuff is everywhere. It's also kind of dirty, because I haven't cleaned in a couple weeks because I knew that after I'd clean it we'd just start packing up crap and moving furniture out and there was just no point. It's not terrible, but to my standards we are living in filth hahaha. It just needs a good vacuum, and the bathroom sink especially needs cleaned. I am not even going to talk about the fridge. Here are a few pictures to give you the idea of life this past week:

Yikes. It stresses me out just posting this. Which is probably why I woke up at 6 am and had trouble going back to sleep, and then just decided to get up at 7 after some restless dreaming. There still feels like there is so much to do, but a lot of that is because we haven't moved our furniture out yet. Someone is buying our bed tomorrow, and Nick found people to take our couches and tables and probably some of our other furniture. He has assured me that today, when I come home, all the trash that needs to be taken out that's lying byt he door will be gone, and that all of the furniture will also be gone. I sure hope so. Thankfully there are guys around still that are taking the furniture and are willing to help move it, because I definitely did not want to do it. I just need to trust that things will get taken care of, and I can just focus on cleaning up the rest of the apartment. That seems like a fair deal, right? Yeah, I thought so too.

I just really can't even believe this time has finally come. We kept counting downt he days and our moving day felt like it would never come, but it's here. We leave Decatur for good tomorrow and that's crazy to think about. I have loved our little apartment - it really became home for us here. Even though our first apartment together was in Decatur, it will still hold a special place in my heart. Decatur will in general! I don't even want to think about saying goodbye to the rest of The Limited girls later today, and it is going to be a little strange to finally be living this little town that we went to school in. Whatever people say about Decatur, I have made some amazing memories in this place, both in school and out, and I will actually really miss it. I think it will be a little bittersweet when we pack up the car tomorrow and hit the road...

Surprise bridal shower.

As I said in my last post, my Limited ladies threw me a surprise bridal shower/going away party. Thank goodness we could focus more on the bridal shower part than the going away thing, because otherwise it would have been really sad! Instead it was a nice, low-key dinner with my lovely co-workers and friends, complete with some of the first gifts from my registry (yay!) and delicious cupcakes from Lana's Cakewalk. I was definitely surprised that friend and bridesmaid, Michelle, was there! The whole evening left me feeling very loved and I will miss these ladies so so much! With only 7 days of work left (counting my shift later today) it's slowly starting to hit me that I won't be going to my little Hickory Point store almost every day anymore, and that's pretty sad :( We've all told each other how going to "work" doesn't actually feel like going to work, more like going to hang out with your friends and play with clothes all day :) I've been so blessed to have been given this great opportunity with a great company like The Limited, but also to have lucked out with a great team of girls who are all super sweet and lovely. First they were my co-workers, but it didn't take long for me to consider them my friends.

A few photos, here, taken by myself and from Shannon's Instagram. I wish I had taken more of everyone together at the table just because it was dark by the time we took some outside, but that's ok. More photos are on my Facebook page!

[Miss Michelle]

[Kayla, Chelsea, and Alyx]

[Delicious strawberry cream and orange dreamsicle cupcakes from Lana's]

[So excited!! I had no idea that it was 2-in-1 haha]

[Cute undies with a veil on the butt from Michelle]

[The Limited girls]

[The sorority lean is a must... representing Tri-Delta, Pi-Phi, and Tri-Sig]

[The best boss ever!]

[All of my lovely presents]

Thanks again to all of you!

(For those who are interested, my dress is French Connection. I bought it last fall on super sale and it's the first chance I got to wear it!)

Weekend fun.

Sorry it's been a little quiet over here. I can't really focus much on anything else lately other than going HOME. Which, my friends, is in less than 2 weeks. What? Where did the time go? Have Nick and I really been living in our little apartment for almost a year?? Yikes. We'll reflect more on that later....

This past weekend was one of those weekends where you kind of have plans, but not really, and it actually turned out to be even better that way. I was planning on working at the restaurant Saturday night, but there was a miscommunication with which days I needed off and I ended up not having to. The extra money would have been nice, but instead, I got to go to a winery and partake in day-drinking, which is something I'm a fan of, especially in the summer ;) Our friends Niki and Matt (one of our groomsmen) were in town for Millikin's graduation and they invited us out to a local vineyard for some blues and lots and lots of wine. The weather was amazing and the wine and BBQ were delicious. It was really a perfect afternoon. We ended the evening with friends at Donnie's Homespun Pizza for a show put on by our friends' bands. It was great seeing those who are graduating this year and those who have graduated but came back to watch friends walk across the stage. I really have met some wonderful people from living in this little town!

I thought the fun was over, but little did I know my Limited girls had planned a surprise bridal shower/going away party for me at Beach House Sunday night! I knew Shannon and I had planned on going to dinner, and I kind of assumed she would invite the other managers, but I was not expecting the other ladies (my friend/bridesmaid, Michelle, came into town for the occasion!) and the gifts and the cupcakes! It was spectacular. I haven't gotten all of the photos from the girls so I will post more on that later!

Here are a few photos from Saturday:

Whoa. It's May.

[The Limited dress, necklace (last year), and earrings // Forever 21 belt // Target sandals (recent) and sunglasses]

Mother Nature decided to show off this week and give us some amazingly delicious weather. Like, 70s and low 80s. Yes, please! I think She is trying to apologize for that snow crap at the end of March and the flurries a couple weeks ago. Somehow the apology is easily accepted when I get to wear a maxi dress and no jacket and I'm still comfortable outdoors at 8 pm at night in shorts and a tee.... Even though it's supposed to storm here later today and tomorrow, I don't care, because the high is 75. That's allllll I need :)

Sorry I have been absent of late for those of you who read this. I've been overwhelming myself with thoughts of moving, wedding stuff, and finishing work and what the heck Nick and I are going to do with our lives after we get married. In the past, oh, probably month since I last wrote on here, we found out about Nick's financial aid, but it wasn't quite enough :( With no assistantships available, combined with Illinois apparently being too broke to supply grants to any graduate students (way to go, IL), we decided that it's just not worth it to go into crippling debt. We're pretty lucky to not have a whole lot of school loans to worry about, since Nick only had to take out a couple small ones and mine are miraculously paid off, and we'd like to keep it that way. It seems like they told him that he would get the assistantship if it were available, so he'll just try again next year.... and I will be applying places too! Woohoo!

And that brings me to next year. I know the next 2 months of our lives for sure. We go to Oregon (in a month!!!) and finish planning our wedding and then get married at the end of July. After that, I've got nothin'. I would love to just move to Chicago, but it seems like it would be a bit expensive with no job lined up for sure and him not being in school to go just for a year, only to possibly move somewhere else in the country the very next year. As I said, I am applying this time around and I am really leaning towards getting a double degree in performance AND vocal pedagogy, which leaves my school options a little more limited. We're talking anywhere from Colorado, to Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to North Carolina..... they're all over the place. If I were to get a great scholarship, we'd probably head wherever that led us. So, it's with allll of that in mind that we've pretty much decided just to move back to Oregon for the year. We haven't been able to see family a whole lot in the past few years, and if we have the chance to get to spend some time with ours, well, we figure we should take it. Because, as I said, we could be even further than Illinois the year after! I'm still keeping my options open because there could possibly be opportunities with The Limited in Chicago or St. Louis, but so far nothing is concrete with that and I wouldn't be able to go do that til after the wedding anyway, so we decided home base is a good idea for a bit. Plus, we miss Oregon soooo so much, and I kinda feel like we've been wanting an excuse lately to go back for a bit, so, here it is! But now apparently come the nightmares about moving, one of which I woke up to this morning, and I still feel anxious about what will happen after the wedding and what we'll do. Yes, we'll probably live with my parents temporarily, but we'll figure something out.

It's kinda funny, we feel so old and like we are just wasting time, but I've heard from many that feeling this way right about now is completely normal, and in a few years, we'll know a little better and wonder why we were so stressed out about this crap in our early 20s. And then we'll wish we were that age again....

So there ya have it, folks. We've got one month left in the Dirty D and we are Oregon-bound semi-permanently :) I'm not mad about it. In fact, I'm quite ecstatic at the thought. And thankfully, I have 3 different options for voice teachers in 3 different cities to keep my singing chops in shape, so I think I'll be good on that end ;) It's weird. For someone like me who is such a planner and a little OCD about it, there is something to be said about getting to fly by the seat of your pants, because you don't always get to do that, especially if kids are in the mix! So I should be grateful, and I will deal with the occasional panic attack for the next month or so. At least I know that I have Nick beside me everyday, even through the uncertainty and somehow that makes everything seem so much easier :)