marriage

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!

Reunited + Things That May Surprise You

Our little family was reunited on Saturday evening after Jimmy’s trip

Family laying on porch swing

My sister and brother-in-law dropped him off, so we hung out with them for a bit. Sadie and Caroline snuggled under a blanket at it was the sweetest thing.

I just adore watching their relationship develop as they grow ❤

Toddler snuggling under blanket

That evening, I crashed. The 3:30 am wakeup finally got to me and I fell asleep outside while reading this book after Sadie went to bed. 

It has been so nice to have Jimmy back at home! He wasn’t even gone for a week, but I missed sharing smiles with him during everyday moments of joy with Sadie, rolling our eyes together at the antics of the pets, and having coffee with each other in the morning. Marriage is such a huge blessing. 

We spent Saturday catching up around the house and just hanging out. It was a sweet weekend 🙂

Onto things that may surprise you. Or maybe they won’t. 

I heard a great sermon about how it’s important to examine why we believe what we believe. With things that are faith-related, is what we believe based off of a religious group, a religious leader, a book, what your parents believe, a tradition, or something else? 

I can remember when I first realized that my faith in God was my own faith in God, if that makes sense. My parents raised my siblings and I in a non-denominational christian church and we were required to attend church if we lived under their roof. What was being taught at our church lined up with the Bible and it really clicked into place for me when I was in high school. The Bible, which is God’s Word, is what I base my life and beliefs on. 

This kind of got me thinking about things that are practiced in some religions that claim to follow the Bible, but the practices don’t line up with scripture. I will never claim to be an expert on the Bible, but you won’t find these things in God’s Word:

  • Infant baptism
  • Lent and Ash Wednesday
  • The Sinner’s Prayer
  • Baptism that involves sprinkling of water
  • Confessing sins to a pope
  • Salvation through belief in Jesus only

Were you surprised by any of these things?

What’s your favorite part about being reunited with a loved one?