College

Ten Years of Blogging

On October 12th, 2010 I started this blog. My first post was a recap of my weekend and also embarrassing, haha. I was 18-years-old and just having fun sharing my days as a freshman in college, what I ate, what Jimmy and I did, and things that were on my mind. 

I was swimming competitively, working at Penn State’s athletic center, Jimmy was my boyfriend, and Lola was a young dog.

While in college, I got into running and did everything from 5ks to marathon training, struggled with an h.pylori infection, and Jimmy and I were engaged. I graduated from Penn State in 2014 with a degree in journalism. 

Jimmy and I got married, bought a house, I worked as a household manager and pet sat, began working for my family’s real estate brokerage, and were blessed with our daughter, Sadie!

We’ve gardened our little hearts out and served alongside our church family.

Throughout the years we’ve had quite a few pets: Lola, Ford and Scout, Malcolm, Mavis, and Niva. We did a lot of therapy dog training with Mavis, which was an experience I really enjoyed.

Animals have been such a huge part of my life and blog and I’m continually trying to convince Jimmy to allow me to have a bunch more cats and dogs 🙂

Husky and toddler laying on bed

I have shared about my faith in God, my favorite recipes, books I’ve read, my journey as a new mom, and my everyday life here in Pittsburgh.

The landscape of blogging has changed so much over the past ten years. A lot of people may say blogging is old-school and defunct in the age of Instagram and Facebook, but I don’t care. I love this space.

I have made some incredible friends from around the world over the past ten years and I owe that to this little corner of the internet. The little blogging community here is so special to me. There have been fun posts, happy posts, hard posts, and everything in-between.

Family picture of mom and dad and toddler taking a selfie

Whether you’ve been connecting with me for the past ten years or this is your first time visiting my blog, thank you for reading! I’m looking forward to the future here at Living My Full Life!

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More life stuff

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post about stress. It seems like the consensus is that many people actually don’t miss their college days, and especially the stress that went with along that time in their lives!

I have definitely felt pressure from people saying things to me like “You must be having the time of your life!” and “Your college years are the best years of your life!” and I’m like “Ehhhh, it’s been okay,” haha. I do enjoy school, and I’m extremely grateful to be receiving an education, but I am also excited to move on with my life soon.

A random photo from a walk with Lola and Moses!

A random photo from a walk with Lola and Moses!

One thing that has been contributing to the school-related stress is figuring out where Jimmy and I will live once we’re married.

We’re tying the knot in June, and I will be headed back to school in the fall for my last semester. The issue is that Jimmy works about an hour and 20 minutes away from where I attend school.

Another picture with Lola! She tries to sit in the front of my truck when Jimmy drives us to the park.

Another picture with Lola! She tries to sit in the front of my truck when Jimmy drives us to the park. I guess Jimmy wasn’t too excited about Lola trying to sit up front 😉

So, we’re kind of struggling with figuring out where to live during my last semester. We don’t want to live super close to his workplace, because that would force me to commute two hours and 40 minutes per day, and vice versa with us living right by my school. We’ve exhausted every different scenario, too–like me taking classes online, or getting classes on campus only a few days per week, etc. We’re both just unsure, and we’ve been doing a lot of praying and asking God for wisdom.

Decisions, decisions! We will likely settle somewhere in between my school and his workplace for 6-12 months. We would both love to buy a house right away, but it seems like renting is probably the best option until I’m done with school. We’ll see! I will make sure to keep everyone updated on this issue as we sort it out and trust God to guide us. No matter where we live–apartment, home, by his workplace, by my school, whatever–I am so excited to marry him and begin our life together!

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I feel like I keep posting about such serious topics and decisions lately, but that’s just where my life is at right now! I’m sure I’ll be back with my usual silliness very soon 🙂

Have you ever struggled with figuring out where to live?!