{spring, i'm calling your name}

I don't know about y'all but  I'm o v e r winter! I'm tired of this cold, snowy, rainy, depressing weather, I'm so ready for spring. I'm ready for warmer weather, green grass, flowers & white wine. 

I'm dreaming of wearing shorts and bright colors! 

{via}

{spring wedding attire}

One of my husband's friends is getting married in Dallas in early March. 

What does one wear to a day time, formal, early spring wedding?

After searching and searching I fell in L O V E with this dress. It's fairly expensive but I could justify the purchase. I have many, many wedding showers and weddings to attend this season. I could definitely wear it more than once {if the same people wouldn't be there lol}

{nordstrom}

Then I had an idea to look on J. Crew factory and came across this beaut of a dress!

Snagged up this gem after using the coupon code: MOREPLEASE for $28 !!

{j.crew factory}

What do you think? Is it perfect to wear a to a day time wedding in March? 

{tanning}

>>Forgive me as I step on my soapbox for a moment<<

This time last year, you may find me lying in a tanning bed for exactly 15 minutes every other day at least. When it came time for spring break, it wouldn't be impossible to spot me at the tanning bed every day for approximately two weeks leading up to beach time. I wanted to be t.a.n. I didn't care how many freckles or moles I had or how big my pores got on my face. I didn't care that I could see my chest getting more freckles by the session. I wanted to be tan! 

In April of 2012 I was diagnosed with stage 1 melanoma. These words stopped me in my tracks. I did this to myself. This was a cancer that I could've prevented. I chose not to listen to the countless times my parents told me it was a bad idea to tan. I did this to myself. 

I made an appointment to see the dermatologist to get a funny looking mole checked. She took it off 'just in case'. The dermatologist called me and told me "they found something abnormal" about my mole and that I needed to return to the office. The proceeded to tell me that this abnormality was stage 1 melanoma-- skin cancer? Seriously, at age 23? How can this happen to me? 

Post surgery. Figured the stitches would be too gory. 

I now have to return to the dermatologist once every three months to have my whole body checked from head to toe and check all of my lymph nodes. Every time I go in to that office, I have at least 2-3 other moles removed (which have been nothing, thank god). But this has left me with spots all over my back and legs. I wear a 3 inch scar on my left leg that still remains purple/red to this day. 

About two weeks ago ago, I noticed a bubble looking bump ON my eye ball. Apparently this thing is called a pinguecula. This bump is caused by UV rays. It is not skin cancer on my eye ball and apparently will not grow in size, and it is not irritating. Read {this} article for more info.  However, I can see it and I am reminded every single day that the tanning bed has caused a lot of chaos and anxiety in my life!

Not only do I have a hideous scar on my left leg, but this shit is expensive. Having skin cancer, or moles that could possibly be skin cancer is not cheap. I am constantly getting bills from the dermatologist! So if I haven't scared you enough with the hideous markings--wrinkles, moles, or scars--maybe I can scare you with price. I could afford probably two Louis Vuittons if I would have saved all of the money that I have spent at the dermatologist. Look at it that way!

Now, I am embracing the pale and am perfectly fine saying that my 'tan' came from a bottle.

If this post gets one person to quit tanning, I will be happy!

>>Stepping off my soapbox<<

{what i'm loving wednesday}

I'm linking up with Jamie again for WILW!

I'm loving my new jazzercise class

I wish my friends and I wore outfits like this

This class is a.ma.zing! I pictured it kind of like old women jumping around, but no! I was very wrong! We sweat. A lot! such a great workout and good girl time twice a week! 

i'm loving this song:

{Bom Bom}

It was in our jazzercise routine last week and I cannot stop listening to it. pumps. me. up! 

i'm loving girl time when the hubbies are studying

walks.dinners.working out. painting our nails. watching movies. talking. you name it, we do it!

I'm thankful for good girlfriends to spend time with while my husband cuddles with the books. 

i'm loving spending time with my fur baby

I'd show you a video but I have NO clue how to upload it to blogger. 

We danced to "Who Let the Dogs Out" on Monday. 

I laughed so hard my abs hurt. 

I love him

We always laugh together. 

Yes, my dog laughs. 

i'm NOT loving the hubs studying all week long. I'm ready for next week to be over with. hey med school, i'd like my husband back. that will happen for like 4 days and then he will be back to hitting the books hard again. 

Images via {google}

{serious talk}

Listen here mom. Let's have a serious discussion for a minute. You WILL give me another piece of that turkey bacon, or else....

{master bedroom}

 I have really been wanting to paint our master bedroom. Although we are renting this house I just need some paint in my life! I think I may be able to convince our landlord of my wish. I can't deal with white walls the rest of the time we will live here. 

Below are some inspirations I found on pintrest. Help me decide on the perfect color!

I'm am dying for the perfect, pretty white, calming colors bedroom.

I'm also d y i n g to paint our bedroom furniture. I am making myself wait until I fully decide on the perfect paint color.

Here is our bedroom now:

I cannot wait to paint this furniture. What color do you think would look best?
Brown or the same cream as the "nightstand"?

Here are my inspiration pictures:

{via}

What do you think? Cream/tan or light blue walls?

{bell training}

Every time I hear of someone bringing home a new furry bundle of joy I want to share my best piece of advice for them-- BELL TRAIN YOUR PUP. 

This was the best thing we could have ever done for Polo. He was potty trained by 13 weeks. Since the day we bell trained him, he has not had one accident in the house. 

How do you go about bell training your furball?

Start by purchasing a quality bell. We have this one from an outdoor store. 

Attach some twine or yarn to your bell and adjust it to your puppy's height. Make sure he can reach the bell with his nose. Gather some treats. 

Take your fur over to the bell, physically take his head and make him touch the bell, making a sound. Immediately give him a treat, then open the door, take him outside directly to the grass. Give him another treat. Do this in about 5-10 min increments repeating dinging the bell over and over. Gradually move away from physical prompts to just holding a treat by the bell so his nose will go toward the treat and it will ring the bell. Don't give the treat yet, open the door, take him to the grass, then give him the treat. 

Your fur may be a bit apprehensive at first because the bell noise may scare him, but they learn so quickly that dinging the bell gives them access to the outdoors! 

Polo loves his bell and he knows that it also gets our attention. During dinner, some nights, we have to remove the bell because he realizes he doesn't have our full attention and will stand at the door and constantly ding the bell.

{here} is a silly youtube video on bell training your pup. We started by training him to give a high five but quickly realized how big he was going to get and didn't want him tearing up our doors with his paws. We then decided we would teach him to use his nose to ding the bell.

Good luck! Cheers to no more accidents in the house!

{Polo's Birthday List}

You know it's bad when you want to spend more money on your dog's first birthday than you ever have on your husband's birthday. This is bad. Really, really bad! Would you say I'm obsessed? Probably. Am I? Definitely. I love to spoil my doggy rotten even though he has no clue that he's getting new presents or what his birthday even means. Even though his birthday is two months away, we have already started planning. 

When Polo was diagnosed with all of this food allergies the one thing that came to mind was, how am I supposed to by him a birthday cake? Sad thing is, I probably won't because of his allergies :( 

Maybe I will make him some treats instead. 

Anyway, here is a list of stuff Polo himself has complied for his 1st birthday. 

1. A new leash. Since we go on walks all.the.time my old one got dirty. Silly mom put it in the washing machine and filled it with bleach. Bad idea mom. My cute leash went from lime green polka dots to yellow polka dots. Therefore, I need a new leash. I think my new favorite color is blue. 

{via}

 2. Raised dog bowls. Ok, so I'm tall. It's hard for me to bend all the way down just to take a drink of water. This is the coolest thing ever invented. Please mom, pleeaasseee??

{via}

{via}

3. A new dog bed. Ok so I know I don't have the best history with dog beds. I've managed to chew up THREE dog beds. But I PROMISE now that I am more mature {7 in people years} I won't destroy my new bed. 

{via}

{confession}

I have a confession to make. I have an obsession with tattoos. 

I have three.

Husband has four.

I think they are sexy. 

Especially if they are hidden.

You cannot see mine unless I have on sandals 

The most meaningful one we have, is our wedding date. 

VI.XVII.MMXI

Now I'm done. No more for me

I am constantly pinning tattoos on pintrest, so I figured I'd share my favorites.

{gluten free pizza}

This is super easy, healthy, and absolutely delicious!

First, set your oven to 425. 

Follow all directions on the side of the pizza crust bag. 

After I cooked the pizza crust for the first 12 min, I place an orange bell pepper on a baking sheet and 'roasted' it for 30 minutes. This will soften your bell pepper. 

be careful when you are chopping it, it will be hot!

The toppings I added were:

purple onion

mushroom

turkey bacon

roasted orange bell pepper

garlic

artichoke hearts

pizza seasoning

cheese

After adding all toppings, continue to follow directions from the bag. 

This is the best crust I've ever had! I didn't tell my husband it was gluten free and he didn't say a word about it other than it was DELICIOUS. 

{first snowman, second snow}

01.17.2013 one of the most beautiful days I have experienced. 

Polo's first snowman! He had a blast making it {and eating the snow}

camera shy

{accent nails}

This past year I have been a sucker for the accent nail! Today, since I had another day off, I decided to paint my nails. 

Sand Tropez with Turquoise&Caicos accent nail

Here are some more accent nail inspirations

{via Pintrest}

{all you need is love}

This year I am O B S E S S S E D with Valentines day for some reason. I am not normally like this. Typically, I don't even want to celebrate Valentine's day, refuse gifts or a nice dinner. This year, I am going all out on decorating for V-day. I texted one of my friends at the beginning of January and said, "Is it too early to decorate for Valentines Day?" She responds, "Umm, you do that?" Haha. I'm a little bit obsessive when it comes to holidays!

Is it crazy to plan a valentines party at my house? I think not! Especially if I use some inspo. from LoveSparklePretty

v-day chalkboard. a must have for ever holiday/reason to celebrate! 

deco mesh vday wreath i made last year

{what i'm loving wednesday}

Happy Hump Day!!
I'm linking up with Jamie for the first time for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

What I love most about these posts are that they force you to search for the positive aspects of your week.

What I'm loving MOST about today is that we had the E N T I R E day off of school today! I am a teacher and these cancelled school days are like gold! I got the "all call" last night at 8 p.m. and may or may not have screamed a few profanities (in a good way) when they told us we had the day off due to "inclement" weather! I'm not even sure what this means exactly, but I'll take it! I'm enjoying my whole morning in my pjs, drinking coffee, watching the today show, and blogging, of course.

I'm loving my new blog header! I have been searching for the perfect font for a while and I think I finally found it. I wanted something simple and cute! What do you think?

All of my Valentine's decorations. I don't know what makes this year different because I usually dislike v-day. Like to the point where we never trade gifts and all we did last year was have a "romantic" meal at Qdoba. This year, I am going all out with the decorations! I think part of it was that I was ready to get my Christmas decorations down and do something new. My husband told his friend the other day that I had decorated for Valentine's day. Friend says, "What? You all decorate for Valentine's Day?" Dale says, "Yeah, we don't even have regular decorations, we just decorate for every holiday." haha Which is so NOT true, but funny! 

Another thing I'm loving about this week is getting to be at home today with my sweet, cuddly furball! This week I discovered I cannot do a n y t h i n g without him right by my side. I was doing Jillian 30 Day Shred and got down to do some crunches and this fur laid right on my stomach like "nuh-uh you aren't lying down and not petting me!" It was too funny to not take a picture!

{yes, I have on a greatful dead t shirt...it's from halloween haha}

{These} Cake Batter "Blondies" I made from scratch last night. Talk about a sugar coma. I could have eaten the whole pan!

{Liebster}

I guess the theme for this weekend is "procrastination". I was nominated for this awesome award over a month ago from two of my favorite blogs Lindsay from Lady B and Sarah from Misadventures of the Critically Blonde . I guess I've been putting it off because I didn't think people would think that I am "interesting" or a "favorite" {Liebster}. This award is given to blogs who have less than 200 followers. Let's give it a go--

1. What’s your favorite time of day? Monday through Friday my favorite time of day is 3:30 when I get home to see my precious fur ball. If it's nice outside, we meet up with friends and their puppies and go on a 5 mile walk! It's always so nice and refreshing to get outside and chat with friends all while getting some exercise.

2. Out of the four seasons, winter, spring, summer, fall, which one is your favorite  Why? SUMMER! Because I'm a teacher and I still get summer breaks! I love the warm weather, summer clothes, and "playing" outside! I can't say that I enjoy basking in the sun as much as I used to since now you can catch me at the pool with 50+ SPF and a huge hat to cover my face. Oh well, guess I'll have less wrinkles? Gotta look at the bright side!

3. If you could dye your hair any color for one day, what would it be? I've been coloring my hair since like middle school that I don't even know what my "natural" color is. If I had to guess I'd say ASH. I'm pretty sure I've already tried every color under the sun. you see, in high school I wanted to BE Mary Kate Olsen. When she dyed her hair, I dyed mine. She went black, so I went black. She went red, so red I went. These days I keep it a "normal" brown. But, if I had to choose I'd say I'd be a bright blond for a day just to see if blonds really do have more fun!

4. Name one thing you’d love to try. I would love to try gardening. That's actually on my 2013 goal list this year. As a child the closest thing my family had to a garden was a tomato plant that grew like 1 tomato.  I would love to learn about growing my own veggies and turning that dream in to a reality.

5. What type of shoes would you wear at your dream job? {heels, flats, runners, boot, bare feet, slippers haha!} If I had it my way, I'd wake up to the Today Show, spend my morning sipping coffee, watching the news in my pjs. So, slippers it is! 

6. What is your one thing that you do in life that is just for you? I try to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle. I try to eat healthy and exercise for ME. 

7. How many kids do you want? I want a house FULL of kids running around, making messes, bringing friends over for dinner! If I had it my way, we will have a soccer team. But let's be realistic... maybe 3 or 4! 

8. What would you say is the one meal you have perfected over the years? I'm going to go with ethnic group rather than one "meal" and change the question around a little bit. If I had to choose one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, I think it would be mexican! I could eat chips and queso for days! 

9. How did you meet your husband? Dale and I met in the 7th grade when he first moved to Louisville, KY! I can remember seeing him in the office registering for his first day and going back to tell my friend "There is a HOT guy in the office. I hope he's in our grade!" Little did I know I'd marry that "hot" guy in the office! 

10. Where is your all time favorite place to shop? If i could afford it--J. Crew! I typically shop at Loft, TJ Maxx (yes, I'm a maxxanista haha). I like to buy clothes that I can make versatile. I buy stuff that I can wear to work or during a casual Saturday. 

11. How did you come up with your blog name? I've always been a sucker for alliteration. Silly, I know. I wanted my blog to have a "ring" to it. I knew I wanted our last name in it, since it is a journey of our lives as newlyweds. Serendipity just made sense because things happen every single day that we never expect that turn out better than we could've dreamed! 

Now it's my turn to nominate some of my favorite blogs

http://thebechtholts.blogspot.com/ -- Jenna from The Bechtholts, one of my new favorites. This girl takes amazing pictures!  I could look at her blog all day! 

http://nateandmaryclaire.blogspot.com/ -- Mary Claire from Les Cuisiniers  another one of my new favorites. Blogging about her life as a newlywed and shares amazing recipes! 

http://www.happylittlesouthernnest.com/ Aileen from Happy Little Southern Nest. SO fun to keep up with a sorority sister through our blogs! Join her on her journey through travels, amazing eats, and new life in North Carolina! 

http://thebrandonandamandastory.blogspot.com/ -- Amanda from The Brandon and Amanda Story. Follow her life as a precious newlywed with two sweet pups and an awesome new job in the fitness field! 

{2013 goals}

It's thirteen days in to January and I'm just now posting this? Maybe end procrastination should be on my 2013 goal list? Does it count that I drafted this post on January 1st? No probably not.

Last year, my husband and I started a "tradition" of creating a goal list on New Year's Day. This time last year we were sitting on the beach dreaming of what 2012 held for us. Now, 2012 is a thing of the past and we accomplished EVERY goal on our list. I wanted to blog about out list this year to hold myself accountable.

{via}

2013 goals

• live in the moment
• travel to Europe 
• read at least 10 books
• eat healthier (just like everyone else on the planet)--more whole foods
• have a positive attitude at work and try not to stress...which leads to my next goal...
• start yoga/ pilates
• grow a garden

{via}

{Polo's First Snow}

Polo was in doggie heaven on December 21st when we got a few inches of snow! He refused to come inside for the longest time! He absolutely loved it!

The view from our back porch

"Don't make me come in yet, I'm not done!"

YUMMY!!

{happy new year 2013}

Living in a small town means no where to go on New Years Eve except to celebrate in the comfort of your own home. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love a low key affair, which was also cheaper and much more safe! We rung in the new year with our dear friends, Ashlin and Josh! 

On the menu was too many appetizers for a group of four, chili, and cornbread. 

After dinner we played three rounds of Catch Phrase. We played husband and wife team, girls against boys, and then we switched couples. Have you ever played this game? So much fun! 

I taught everyone one of my New Years traditions--banging pots and pans. Ok, am I the only one who celebrated like this as a child? Maybe it's because I'm from Kentucky? Who knows, but regardless of what they tell you, everyone loved it!

After watching the ball drop, we walked down to another friend's house to watch fireworks and play with sparklers!

These pups were the life of the party!

We had an absolute blast ringing in 2013!! 

{taking a look back on 2012}

2012 has been filled with many new beginnings! We have been blessed by every experience in 2012 and hope 2013 is just as great!

January:

Went to Florida with my family and celebrated our first new year as a married couple
Started teaching barre classes 

February:

Celebrated our first married Valentine's day {super romantic-- I taught a class at Neighborhood Barre and then we kissed at Qdoba to get a free meal}

March: 

Took an amazing trip to Northern California with the Sharpe's
{Pt 1 }
{Pt 2}

Turned 23

April:

Found out I had melanoma

Had melanoma removed and was cleared!

May:

Dale was accepted in to medical school
Moved out of our first apartment
Dale graduated with a degree in Biomedical Engineering 

We got the greatest puppy ever--Polo

June:

Celebrated our ONE YEAR wedding anniversary
Dale attended the US Open with his dad 

July:
Bought my first brand new car--first major purchase 
My best friend, Ana married the man of her dreams 

Moved to a new small town

Met some awesome friends!
Went on a lot of hikes up here in the mountains 

Dale started medical school

August:

Got a new job closer to home

September:

Celebrated labor day at the lake with friends

October:

Celebrated Dale's 24th birthday

Went to William and Jennifer's Halloween party---dressed at Garth and Wayne

November:

Finally got an answer to Polo's puppy allergies!
Celebrated Thanksgiving in Knoxville 

December: 

Dale completed first semester of medical school

Celebrated our second married Christmas
Traveled to Louisville, Knoxville, and Nashville