Weekend Update!

Oh how full our weekend was! Full of life, love, friends, family, and fun. :)   Friday I worked all day and ended up leaving early because no one was here.  Plus, I got here super early, so I wasn't ready to stay over.  Jackson had to work until 7, so I went to hang out with my dad. He had dental surgery last week, so I was glad to go and just keep him company.  Friday night, Jackson and I went to dinner with plans of going grocery shopping afterward.  During dinner, I could not remember if I had turned off the coffee pot at the end of work.  It was driving me insane; I lost my apetite and got really really nervous.  So, we drove all the way to my office so I could turn it off, then went to the grocery.  #littlehineyadventures   Saturday We woke up early to go to breakfast with his best man, Byron, and Byron's new girlfriend, Maggie.  We went for breakfast at the Pfunky Griddle. You get to make your own pancakes with fun toppings! Your table is a griddle!! It was so much fun and we loved getting to know Maggie!

Then, we went to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens to see the Big Bug exhibit and the Andy Warhol art they have going on right now.  It was hot but so much fun!

 

After we saw the Big Bugs, we went to lunch with them!! They are such a great couple!!

 

That evening, we went with my parents and Nana to see Jersey Boys!! We're huge fans of the play, so it only made sense to go see the movie.

It is incredible.  It's the exact story of my BFF Frankie Valli, and I loved every minute of it.  I may or may not have been caught singing in the theater. oops.

 

Sunday

We got up and went to church and heard a wonderful message from the Nashville Inner City Ministries.  I am so on fire for this ministry and can't wait to get involved!!

We did lunch with Jackson's parents and came home to cleancleanclean!! I didn't get much done last week becakse of VBS, so we were playing catch up!!

We went to Heath&LouEllen's last night and went out for pizza in Five Points! We love that area of town!!

We came home, crashed, and had to wake up early this morning because we're sharing the truck until my car is fixed. 

Sigh.

 

I hope you all had wonderful weekends, and I can't wait to read about them!!

Friday!

Happy Friday!! I am on the struggle bus as always! This has been a long, busy week.   1. We spent all week at Vacation Bible School.  Jackson acted, I taught, we had a blast. 

 

  2. My best friend got her wedding photos back. I love so many of them! I will do a photo dump next week, but here are a handful of my favorites! (Credit: Emily Lester Photography)

 

 

 

 

 (please note her daddy in the window ^^)

 (totally my idea ^^!)

   3. I have finally framed and laid out my gallery wall!! I will definitely be hanging it sometime next week!

    4. Good news, we found out what's wrong with my car. Bad news, it's not good. I have a cracked head in my engine. Now we are weighing our options: Fix it and wait for something else to come up, or buy a new car. I feel like we can't win, either way, it's money we don't have.  sigh.   5.  Jackson has been my rock through all of the car nonsense, sneaky spending whatnot, and through the 10000 times I've been sick since February (like now!) My sweet man keeps life fun, Godly, and light.  I'm so thankful for that during stressful, hard times! For example:

Respect Him; Love Her

I get a lot of crap about my views on being a submissive wife. (Whoa, cannon ball right into today's post, why dontcha)    I really hesitated to write and publish this post because people I know who are the reason for this post may be reading. But hey, it's my corner of the internet.   Ephesians 5:22-23 says, "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.    Boom. I have evidence, facts, and reason behind my actions.  Do I bow down at my husband's feet and let him walk all over me? no.  Do I understand that he is meant to be the leader of our family? yes.   What does this mean for my role as wife? It means that I get to uplift and encourage my husband daily. It means that I get to help him make decisions for our home and family.  It means that I know my family and home and future are secure.   What doesn't it mean for me as a wife (aka: what do most people think I'm talking about when I talk about being a submissive wife?)? It doesn't mean that I get no say in anything - I get a lot of say, actually.  It means I get to trust Jackson to make the final call, but if there's any dispute along the way, we get to talk it out.  It doesn't mean that all of my thoughts and wants are dismissed.  They are considered more because Jackson knows he is the one making decisions for our entire family.  It doesn't mean that I don't matter.   Ephesians 5:28-30says, "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church - for we are members of His body."   Jackson is just as restricted as I am in the way a Christian household is to function.   For Jackson, this means that he is to love me as Christ loves the church - unconditionally and wholeheartedly; he is to feed my faith and respect my body.   I understand that not every wife observes and embraces the two verses that describe our role, and I understand that not every husband embraces the three verses that spell out love.  In our home, we do. I don't ask for everyone to believe like I do, but for respect.  Nothing more, nothing less.   #endrant

Confessions

I confess....   ... I am really dreading working this coming Monday. I know I get 4th of July Friday off, but still.   ... If my car has one more problem, I swear, I'm driving it into a lake.  It overheated and I was on the side of the highway Monday; the check engine light started flashing as I went to leave this morning.  I cannot win with this stupid thing. DONT buy a Suzuki.  

 

... We didn't go grocery shopping this week because we knew we'd be eating at VBS.  We have zero food. Well, we have ice cream sandwiches and waffles and some string cheese, but nothing good.    ...My best friend's wedding pictures are up; I look huge.  Hey there blow to the self esteem! They're beautiful pictures, but I ruined a bunch of them... like this! What was I doing?! Sorry Taylor!

  ... I am over these headaches that I know are brought on by the light in my office. I have a 7'x10' office with three fluorescent lights in it, no natural light.  It's the actual worst.  I slept from 9pm to 5am this morning and really could have slept until noon.

  ...I am so over this week, but I know this weekend will be just as hectic and chaotic.  I just need a weekend that Jackson and I can sit at home and do nothing. Just one.  

Lily & Wes - Review!

When I was presented with the opportunity to review a product with Lily & Wes, I was thrilled!!   Kayla is so sweet, and her products are seriously adorable.  It made me want to get married and graduate and move and have a baby to be able to order all of the paperie from Lily & Wes!   How cute are these graduation announcements?

  and these save the dates?!!

  and these baby shower invitations??!!

  I have been on the hunt for some adorable return address labels since February to sport my new address and last name! I loved these and Kayla totally personalized them beautifully!

  And how sweet was she to include a thank you note!!? Thank you so much, Kayla, for asking to work with me!! I love everything about your sweet little shop, right down to your packaging!! 

  If you have a big event coming up, definitely go visit Lily & Wes!

Friday!

Fridays have become the day to dread at work because I have to substitute for the secretary. Not only do I have untouched piles of work on my own desk that can't come to the front desk, but it's too quiet and the day drags.   But hey, I get Monday off, so here's to the (almost) weekend!   1. Monday, I went and spent the day with my parents and my sister, and this furball. I could spend all day playing with him, walking him, and snuggling with him. 

  2. I've been in the serious need for shirts lately.  I wear the same few shirts and dresses to work every week, and it's so boring.  I saved 40% off (use code JU40 on all first time orders) of my ThredUP order this week which saved me $40. Win! These are some of my absolute favorites!

(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)   3. We are working on planning our 4th of July weekend, and we're torn between a staycation which would include seeing the fireworks in downtown Nashville and going camping or on another honey trip.  For the last few years we've done honey trips on that weekend, so I'm excited to finally be planning something.   4. Jersey Boys comes out today!!! Tickets to this movie ended up being my gift to Dad for Father's Day.  We're old souls in the Morgan family, and we really enjoy belting "Who Loves You" and "Walk Like A Man".  We're going to wait for the crowd to die down a tad so we can be in a smaller audience in case we accidentally start singing!

  5. I got this beautiful monogrammed bracelet! I've been looking everywhere for one that didn't cost an arm and a leg!! Thanks Jane.com

(via)

   

Coupon Queen!

Since last Friday, I've gotten a lot of questions about how I saved a whopping $42.31 in one grocery shopping trip, and even how I have managed to save $471.56 this year!

 

Getting married and learning to grocery shop on a budget has been hard.  Jackson grew up with a lot of name brand food stuff, so he is a snob when it comes to certain items (cheese, cream cheese, and the list goes on and on.). Once, I bought off brand cheerios and put them straight in the canister to see if he would notice. Sure enough, he called me at work to ask if I bought offbrand cheerios. WHO DOES THAT!??

 

That's not a bad thing, shopping all name brand all the time just wasn't really what I was used to.  Don't get me wrong, I grew up with awesome food.  My daddy was a great cook, but didn't see the point in spending oodles and kaboodles of money on food that was the same in the Kroger packaging that it was in the Kraft and Kellog's packages.

 

That being said, for the things we buy name brand, we coupon!!

 

 

I'm not quite as advanced as Mama June, but I do save quite a lot of money. 

 

Our grocery budget per week is $100. Some weeks we don't spend anywhere near that, but we leave what's left in the budget in there for the weeks that we need medicine or are having a special, expensive meal, or accidentally grab one too many bags of Goldfish.  If we have extra money in our budget and something is on super sale, I go ahead and use the extra money to stock up. It evens out because the normal price won't be coming out of our weekly grocery budget.

 

I don't go to any sites to obtain coupons.  I rely solely on my apps and my Sunday paper.

 

Here are the steps I follow on a weekly basis to get prepared for grocery shopping:

What you'll need: paper, a pen, a few highlighters, ads, the coupons in the Sunday paper, a little knowledge about what coupons you can combine (you can usually do a store and manufacturer coupon in the same transaction).

 ** I have found it is possible to use both a print and electronic coupon at Kroger - don't scan your plus card until after your coupons have been scanned. When they're done scanning, hit the "Go Back" on the self checkout and scan your coupons. **

 

Step One: Check your ads and mean plan around what's on sale.   If Kroger has porkchops and chicken on sale, we usually have Honey Garlic Porkchops or Apple Sage Porkchops and chicken and dumplings, Chicken stuffed shells, teriyaki chicken kabobs, etc. If they have green peppers on sale, we'll probably do stuffed bell peppers one night.

 

Step Two: Make your list writing down each thing you need for each meal.  If it helps you, break it down by meal.  I write mine down in order of the store.  Type A? Is that even a question at this point? I make different lists for different stores.  If cheerios are BOGO at Publix, I don't write them on my Kroger list, too because that gets confusing.

 

Step Three: Clip Clip Clip! I clip for everything we use and for things we'd like to try. That way I have it if I want it, but I'm not forced to use it if the price is still just too high.

 

Step Four: Download the Kroger, Food Lion, and Publix apps (for your Nashvillians) or whatever grocery apps you have available to you.  I think there may be some other good coupon apps out there, but I only use these three.  I color code my highlighters: Blue - coupons on my Kroger app (or if I'm on my Publix grocery list, it's for coupons in my publix app), green - coupons I've clipped, yellow - BOGO. Make a mark by each item noting which type of coupon you have.  If it's a print coupon and I have different coupons for different brands, I write something like "$0.25 off Charmin" and "$0.75 off Quilted Northern" so I don't have to take them out and look over and over.  Just because the coupon is worth less money doesn't mean it won't save you more.  If Charmin is $5.99 and QN is $7.99, obviously you'll buy Charmin and use your $0.25 coupon. Every little bit helps!

 

Step Five: The notebook I use has a zipper pouch in the front. I got it at Target for $4.99 and it's the best for groceries!! I put all of my unused coupons at the bottom of the pouch and all of the ones I'm going to use are folded together at the top (obviously not right now because I haven't clipped for this week yet). 

 

Step Six: Shop, Checkout, Scan your coupons, viola!!  

What's been your best shopping trip savings? Is there anything you do differently?

Choose Love

I got an interesting e-mail question the other day, and knew it'd be a great post. Believe it or not, I answer this question more often than "how did you meet?" :   You've known your husband since you were twelve??! How have you not grown tired of eachother after all the years?   The answer is simple - we choose each other daily.   After years in a relationship, we graduated and went to college.  Our relationship had been emotion filled and lovey dovey because we were able to see each other as often as we wanted to. We didn't know what it was to miss one another, and our relationship was very superficial (as in it wasn't very deep). Being 90 miles apart for college didn't make it as easy, so we had to grow and learn.  That growth came in the form of a big fat breakup! (the story gets better, obviously!)  

    We didn't know what it was to love each other past the kissing and dates and "I love you"s.  It took us some time apart to realize that love is a choice that we make daily.  Some days, it's as easy as a whole bunch of kisses and some lovey dovey time, but some days it's not.  Some days, he's a grouch because he's had a long day at work; some days, I'm unmanageable because I'm so high maintenance.  I still choose to serve and love him by making him dinner and encouraging him to push through; he still chooses to serve me and love me by helping with laundry and dishes and encouraging me that tomorrow will be better.   Long lasting love comes from the choice to love each other despite the downfalls, the imperfections, the negative aspects.  We are still in the honeymoon aspect of our marriage, and I love it.  Our spark is burning bright.  However, there are still days that love is a choice for both of us because we are hard to get along with, we're still learning, and emotion is hanging out on the back burner. Some days, it's harder than others, but it's worth it every day.    The easiest reminder is that God chose to love me and send His Son for me no matter how unlovable, unmanageable, and hard headed I am. When I am mad at Jackson and feeling anything but adoration toward my husband, I remember that there are times I am not worthy of God's adoration, but He loves and adores me anyway.    Learning to love like Christ - unconditionally, unrelentingly, and unselfishly - that's the goal.

Linking up with What You Wish Wednesday