Day 5: Avenue Lou GIVEAWAY

Have you ever had one of those days when you come home after what seems like the longest day and all you want is to curl up into a ball and cry? Well, I had one of those the other day. Things have been really stressful over here. I try not to voice these things to other people, because I tend to get really uncomfortable when talking about personal things. But my mind has been going crazy lately, thinking about jobs, and money, and school, and marriage, and blogging, and life in general. And then on top of all that, I had the craziest, longest day at work, and I was just done. I felt so overwhelmed with life and all I wanted to do was get home, take my clothes off, lay on the bed and cry. And that's exactly what I did.

I know I've said this before, but for those of you who don't know my husband, he is literally the sweetest man I have ever known. He puts my needs and wants before his own 100% of the time. And that sweet man of mine, well he just held me while I cried. He spooned me and he smooched me and he let me know, over and over again, how much he loved me. He helped me make dinner, and then he cuddled me while we watched TV. And it was the most wonderful, perfect, peaceful night. I know I've talked a lot about marriage and how hard it can be, but lately I feel like it's just been so... easy. I'm not saying everything is perfect--obviously we have our moments of frustration and contention, but that's all they are. Moments. I feel like we've both learned what makes the other happy and what makes the other laugh, and we both try to focus on those things, because they're the important ones.

The best marriage advice we've ever gotten was this: Always show appreciation for what the other does for you. Voice that appreciation constantly. Make that your focus. If you don't, you will start having expectations, and eventually you will start having demands.

H and I have made this an every day effort and constantly try to voice our appreciation for one another, and it has made all the difference. Because when I'm telling him how grateful I am that he takes my pictures every morning, or always opens the car doors for me, or goes with me everywhere because I'm such a scaredy cat, suddenly I don't even care that he was playing Xbox instead of doing the dishes. ;] When you focus on the things you love about your spouse, it just makes everything so much easier. And I'm a huge fan of that.

[Sorry for my rant, but make sure you scroll down to enter the Avenue Lou giveaway!!]

Top: J. Crew Factory [similar] // Dress: Sugar Love Boutique c/o // Shoes: J. Crew Factory // Sunnies: Forever 21 [old] // Sunnies Case: Avenue Lou c/o // Purse/Camera Bag: Theit
Today I am so excited to bring you a giveaway by Avenue Lou! They have the cutest sunglasses cases, and I'm convinced I need one in every color! Today they are giving one lucky FF reader any case of their choice! Be sure to complete all of the entries to be entered into the giveaway! Avenue Lou has also been so gracious as to give all FF readers 30% off any purchase by using code flirt.

[Giveaway is open to US readers only and will end at 12 am on Friday, July 26th.]

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to follow along with me on Bloglovin, Facebook, Instagram, and Poshmark! Thanks so much for stopping by!

xoxo,

Changing How You Think

This was definitely my favorite talk and quote from this past week's LDS General Conference.

I know that I talk about marriage in practically every single post, but hey, what else am I supposed to talk about? Plus, marriage is still very new to me and so I like sharing the things that I learn along the way, and getting advice from those of you who are more experienced. 

Living with someone is definitely an adjustment. Even if you think the two of you are so similar and get along so well, it's definitely still a shock. The first couple of months that H and I were married were hard. Like I said in this post, we were arguing all the time about things that didn't even matter. Obviously we are two different people, and so we respond to situations differently. Which is fine. Except it's not. Because I want him to agree with me or respond how I want him to. [Which is so wrong on my part.] So learning how to handle each situation and keeping your love and your marriage alive and happy is something that will always take work.

The things that have been the hardest for me since we got married are these:

First, H is someone who is very calm and reserved when it comes to how he feels. When we were dating, whenever we would disagree on something, he would just back down and let me have my way. [Which I didn't mind! ;] But now that we're married, I get so mad at him when he does that. Because if I say something that he doesn't agree with, I can see it on his face that he wants to argue, but then he just holds it back. But I know him so well that I already know by the look on his face what he's going to say, so it annoys me that he's not just saying it! You know? And in his mind, he thinks he's being the bigger person by not trying to start a fight. But in my crazy girl mind, he's starting the fight by not saying anything. And then when I start getting mad, he just shuts off and won't talk. Which gets me even more upset! [I know that right now I am making it seem like I'm a crazy wife; but to my single friends: just you wait. You'll understand what I mean one day. Or maybe you won't. Maybe I am just crazy!] 

And when it comes to housework, H comes from a family where his mom did everything for him. Literally everything. Made his lunch and dinner every day, did his laundry, cleaned his room [even though he won't admit it.] And I came from a family with 3 brothers, and my sweet daddy would always make the boys do everything. [No, I'm not spoiled... ;] So I would clean and cook when I wanted to, but when I didn't want to, usually I didn't have to. And one isn't better than the other, they were just different lifestyles. So when H and I got married, we kind of went through a little phase of "uhmm the bathroom is dirty, who's going to clean it?" And admittedly, we still sometimes struggle with this. I feel like as the wife, I should do most of the housework, but my days are longer than H's so then I also feel like he should do some of the work when he's home alone. So most days the dishes are piled up in the sink and there are baskets of laundry needing to get done, and we both want the other to do it. It's honestly a weird feeling. [But don't worry--I told H that as soon as he lets me have a baby and be a stay at home mom, I have no problem spending all day cooking and cleaning.]

Anyway, the point of this blog post is to let you all know that marriage is really hard. But it's meant to be hard. It's something that you both have to constantly work on and try to improve in order for the two of you to grow closer to God. And as long as you always remember why you fell in love and try to nurture your marriage [even if at times it seems like your spouse isn't trying], the small things won't even matter. Another one of my favorite quotes from Elder Clayton's talk was this: "Humility recognizes that no one can change someone else. But with faith, effort, and the help of God, we can undergo our own mighty change of heart." And I know from experience that trying to change your husband's habits or decisions does no one any good and most of the time it doesn't work. But what I have been working on doing is changing my reaction to his choices and habits. Because your reaction and attitude is truly what will make or break every situation. Whenever H says or does something that upsets me, I try to sit there and think before I say anything. Because there are always two choices: get upset and say something back that I will later regret, or let it go and think about all of the reasons why I'm in love with him. And I'll tell you this--every time that I choose the second option, our night goes a heck of a lot better than it would have if I had gotten upset and started a fight.

I'd love to hear what has/hasn't worked with you and your marriages! All advice and thoughts are welcome! 

xoxo,

Dating vs. Marriage

Sometimes I miss the dating world.

Now don't get me wrong--I absolutely love being married. Especially to H. But sometimes I miss the secrecy of it all. The unknown. Trying to figure out if he likes you or when he's going to kiss you. Wondering if he's ever going to text you back. And even when you're dating, wondering where it's going. If you're going to marry them. With marriage there are no "what ifs." You already know that he likes you and he has to text you back because he's your husband. And you just kiss and cuddle and hold hands because that's what you do when you're married. And I love it, but I hate it. You know? It's so weird. When you're married, everything is just so monogamous. But in a good way.

Sometimes I get jealous of my single friends.

I talk to some of my single friends and everything is just so up in the air. They don't know if they're gonna stay here or move away. They don't know if they are going to marry their current boyfriend. With marriage you already know what's going to happen--at least for the most part. You get married, you have kids, you buy a house, you have more kids, etc. And even on a day to day basis, everything is basically planned out. You go to work, come home and eat ramen or rice a roni, cuddle on the couch while you watch tv, do some lovin, and go to bed. And it's great. But it's just the same thing every day. You know? It's never like, "oh who am I gonna hang out with tonight?" or "what party am I gonna hit up this weekend?" And sometimes I wish I could just travel whenever and wherever I wanted to. That I didn't have to worry about a husband saying "no, we need to save money." Sometimes I miss just being able to get crazy with my girlfriends, and have girls nights where we stay up all night talking about boys. Or going to dance parties and meeting new people. When you're single you have a certain sense of freedom. And sometimes I miss that. Because you can't really do any of that anymore. And even when I'm in my car, jamming out to the songs on the radio, I can't really relate to them anymore. Like, I'm married now T-Swift, write some songs about that!

But then again, I'm sure there are girls out there who are jealous of me and wish that they were married. So I don't mean to sound rude or like I'm not happy in my marriage. Because it's the exact opposite. I love marriage. When you're married you have a different sense of freedom, and you can do things that you couldn't when you were single. And you have your best friend by your side every single day. And you don't have to be embarrassed to say something stupid or when you aren't wearing any makeup, because you already know that they love you forever. And you can make them spoon you to sleep, even when they don't want to, because guess what? He's your husband. He has to. And you always have someone to love you, to comfort you, to check the apartment for murderers before he leaves you alone, to carry your bags up and down the stairs [or at Disneyland], and to open the doors for you. Marriage really is the best thing. Ever.

And contradicting what I said above, one of my favorite things about being married is not having to wonder. Throughout my entire relationship with H, I always wondered where we stood. We broke up and got back together so many times, that I wasn't even sure if he wanted to be with me. But now that we are married, I don't ever have to wonder again. Because he tells me and shows me how much he loves me every single day. And I can just kiss him and squeeze him and tell him how sexy he is whenever I want to. Because we're married.

So yeah, I swear that I'm not a marriage hater. I just think that there are a lot of good things to be said about both marriage and single life. So if you're single right now, don't be down on yourself. Enjoy that lifestyle while you can and get it all out of your system. Because you might just miss it. But don't let that lifestyle cause you to miss out on marriage, because to this day, marrying H is the one decision that I will never regret.

What do YOU think?

Marriage

Sometimes marriage is kind of hard.

Right before I got married, I had a dear [married] friend tell me "Victoria, you and Heath are going to fight a lot when you first get married. And that's okay. You are both adjusting to living with someone else and trying to figure things out and if you fight a lot, it doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten married. It's normal."

And I remember thinking to myself, No, we have known each other for a long time and we have seen each other at our worst. We are going to be so happy and never fight! 

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Okay I don't know what I was thinking... Seriously. Not that H and I fight 24/7, and not that we aren't happy..... But yeah. We fight. A lot more than I originally thought. And most of the time, it isn't ever anything big. Most of the time it's little disagreements where we get mad at each other and then 5 seconds later we are apologizing and making up.

I guess I forgot to put into account that 1. I am extremely sensitive and emotional, and 2. He's a boy. Seriously--most of the time when we're "fighting" I'll say something like "I'm mad that we're fighting again" and H will be like, "Wait, we're fighting?" Boys, I swear...

Like I said earlier, most of our fights are because I'm overly sensitive and H isn't. Take last night for instance.... We are sitting in bed, and I am eating top ramen while H is trying to figure out how to log into our Verizon account. He doesn't know our zip code.

V: How do you not know our zip code?
H: I don't know... What is it?
V: Wow, for someone so smart, you can be kind of stupid sometimes. [Yes, I admit... I probably shouldn't have said that. But he seriously always knows everything. And really, it baffles me that someone wouldn't know their own zip code!]
*Silence*
And then I proceeded to drop my brand new iPhone 5 into my bowl of ramen. And H rolled his eyes and I picked it up, and all the juice was dripping off of it... and then I dropped it in the bowl of ramen... again. At which point H says, "Oh, and you're calling me stupid?" [Totally deserved that one.]
And then I stormed out of the room mad and washed off my phone. And when I came back, I faced the wall [instead of him] and sighed angrily every 5 seconds until I fell asleep. WHICH YOU SHOULD NEVER DO.

And then about 20 minutes later, I wake up to H snuggling up behind me and kissing me, saying he's sorry. And then I apologized, and everything was magically all better.

So yeah... H and I have little fights all the time. And sometimes it makes me sad and sometimes I look at other married couples and think Oh, I bet they never fight! and guess what? I'm wrong. It's normal. And it doesn't mean you don't love each other or that you have a bad marriage. Because I know for a fact that H and I have an amazing marriage. I just happen to be extremely sensitive about everything!

I don't think it matters if you and your spouse/significant other fight, or how often you fight... I think what's really important is what happens after the fight. I think that in any relationship, it's important for you to be able to let go of your pride and admit you are wrong. Before I met H, I had a hard time admitting I was wrong. I was prideful. But when H and I were dating and engaged, I had to learn to apologize first. [Because most of the time, what we were fighting about was my fault. Or because he didn't even know we were fighting...haha]

One of my favorite quotes is this:

This is something that I have to remember every day in my marriage. Yeah, H and I will probably argue about little things for the rest of our lives, but it doesn't mean that we don't love each other. And if we can learn to forgive and forget easily, our lives will be so much happier.

Anyway.

I'm no expert on marriage, but this is something that I feel very strongly about, so I thought I'd share!



Oh, and PS--

I need to talk about my amazing new blog design! Rylee Blake spruced up my blog and I am so excited about it! [Now some of you may judge me for paying someone to do this for me, but HEY. I seriously tried for so long and watched/read so many tutorials, but I could never get it exactly the way I wanted it! So I felt totally justified in paying someone to make it perfect. And I personally felt like it was affordable, too!] Her services and pricing are listed here. [And she even has some awesome tutorials!]

Thanks so much Rylee! :)