Happy Wedding Anniversary: One Year!

Photo by Lucy Hewett

On August 19th, Ian and I celebrated our one year anniversary.

We made it! (Unlike our August celebrity spotlight stealer Kim Kardashian.) 

I can't believe this wonderful day happened one year ago. In some ways this year has flown, but in some ways it's hard to believe it's only been a year because we have done so much!

Photo by Lucy Hewett

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was in wedding obsessed  mode, decorating candy jars and candy bags, planning the table settings, and tying ribbons around...everything...

Photo by Lucy Hewett

Photo by Lucy Hewett

Photo by Lucy Hewett

Is it just me, or did my wedding cake taste better after being frozen for a year?

(before)

Photo by Lucy Hewett

(after - I squished the top layer in a Pyrex container for our anniversary! PS - why did we keep the ribbon on it?!)

One year of marriage is really something to celebrate! Whoo hoo! We have heard it's the hardest year... boy if that's true, then I don't think it was so bad! It was actually pretty good. Sure, we have really really gotten to know each other better.... the good and the almost good.

On an almost good note, kudos to me for keeping my OCD tendencies under wraps for over five years of knowing Ian. (high five) Recently, and very innocently (and calmly), Ian mentioned that I might have OCD.... (after I asked him to wash his hands for probably the 50th time that week. Ya, think Ian? In my defense, it revolved around raw meat prep and camping!) 

And I have learned to make room, and have patience for his spicy condiment addiction... this is almost all of them... 

But it's true, the really good completely outweighs the almost good. It's so fun and such a special thing to be able to share my life with my best friend. Here are some photos to recap some of the events of this amazing year (not completely in order):

 We had five weddings between our wedding and our anniversary! 

Our friends Emily and Aaron Reddington had their first child, a son, Quinn!  I have his photos below. This year was full of first born babies including: Matt and Jaaci Carr had a little girl, Raymi. Kevin and Julie McCann had a little girl, Ava. Ryan and Krista Robinson had a little boy, Briggs. Jason and Kristin Henney had a little boy, Jackson.

from Emily's blog http://thereddingtonfamily.blogspot.com

from Emily's blog http://thereddingtonfamily.blogspot.com

Ian and I got our own little baby, but furry. Piper.

We hosted Christmas in Defiance for both sides of our immediate family.

New Year's Eve in Chicago (with my brother Sean & cousin Sammie and our significant others)

Ian was there too, you heard that story here.

I joined a community choir in the spring.

Went to my first Michigan game with Ian. (Go IU!)

Weekends in Indy with friends!

And let's not forget about a cruise, and lots of house stuff. 

And a whole summer of events I still need to recap, but I'll save that for next week... 
the closing ceremony of summer.

Cheers to love and memories!

xo

In Memory of Marcella

Just a little over a year ago, on August 14th, 2011, I lost a very important woman in my life. My grandma. 

My mémère.

It was 5 days before my wedding, Ian and I made a last minute trip to Indianapolis so I could help my little sister Sydney get ready for her middle school cheerleading tryouts. I spent Saturday practicing with Sydney, and then on Sunday morning we visited my grandma. At this point in her illness, we had already determined she wouldn't be traveling to the wedding, but she was very tuned into the the whole event and we were planning on sharing the video footage with her. 

That sunday after we said goodbye, she passed away a few hours later. Looking back on our conversations, I didn't realize it at the time, but she knew. She was saying goodbye, for now. 

Although she had told us she was grateful for her full life, selfishly, I wanted more time with her. Her last months were filled with pain medicine and pain due to lung cancer. In our last conversation, she was telling us passionately that we needed to get another family member to stop smoking. She didn't want anyone else to bear the pain she had endured in her last days and months. Not to mention the burden of having her daughters take turns taking care of her 24 hours a day for the last couple months.

If you are thinking about quitting smoking, I fully and completely understand it will be one of the hardest things you will do in your entire life. please do it. quit.

I smoked for a little over a year. I hate to admit it. A stressful year... the start of my career and a move out of state...I was weak.... and I took social smoking my last year of college and it turned into a bad habit. Even though I only smoked for a year, quitting was much more difficult than I had ever thought it could be. I weaned myself off, starting with one a day, to one a week, to one a month. 

It's been 4 years and I still get cravings on stressful days. Can you believe that? I smoked for ONE year. It is FOUR years later and I still get cravings a few times a year.

But the cravings can kiss it. After watching my grandma go through that, and also losing a great Aunt to lung cancer, it's not worth it. 

I didn't want this to turn into a non-smoking ad. I'm sorry. But while I'm at it, just remember addiction is a very selfish disease. It affects you and the ones you love. I understand the information available to us today, was not available once upon a time. So, be thankful for our information and try to do something about it, please.

Marcella Harper - November 6, 1939 - August 14, 2011

She was beautiful inside and out.

She was fashionable.

...and full of sass.

She was a wonderful mother to my mom.

She was a fabulous grandmother. (that's me on the far left with my cousin Lindsay)

did I mention fashionable?

This was about 6 months before she passed. (My sisters and I with her.)

I miss you Mémère.

Love always, Savanna

my new job

If you have been following my less-than-descriptive Facebook posts, you might be under the impression that:

A) I am not commuting 100 miles a day any longer
B) I have a new job
C) All of the above

C is correct!

It was bittersweet to say goodbye to the industry that I began my career. (The retail industry and career that I explained here.) Naturally, I already miss it a little bit... mostly the creating-amazing-hats part. I also miss my wonderful co-workers and my fantastic food options in Findlay, OH (Greek Garden, Main Street Deli, Bistro on Main, Jimmy Johns, Chipotle).

But, I am excited about my new job!

In complete small-town-style, I got my new job through Ian's cousin's husband. Got that? 

It all began with casual conversations and an opportunity surfaced. The company is Exceptional Motorcars and over 95% of their business is wholesaling cars, buying and selling at auctions. They have a great facility in Defiance that is perfect for increased retail operations, and they have the buying power to increase their retail sales.

They created a position for me to do marketing, social media, and e-commerce (online sales). I also will be analyzing the inventory and pricing.

Since I began blogging last spring, I have become intrigued and followed lots of media and research surrounding how online marketing, search engine optimization and social media can be marketing and sales tools for businesses.

Now, I get the opportunity to take what I learned about retail sales over the last 5 years and combine it with my marketing education, and interest in what the weber-net has to offer in the form of marketing and sales.

This is truly the raw form of retail... it's fresh. No politics like the big box retailers, and what's left is simply -  how do we sell more cars? what inventory will sell the best on the weber-net and how can we get more traffic online and to our facility?

This week I have been working on:

...and some other things... but I can't give away all my trade secrets! 

I'm excited about the job and also saying goodbye to a lot of stress caused by my long commute. (My new job is only 4 miles away!)

goodbye detours, goodbye obsessing over weather, goodbye gas stations twice a week, goodbye trains

And, I don't have to worry about being in the middle of nowhere when a 90-mile wind storm picks up and causes fences to fly towards me and trees to fall down near me... 

I hadn't shared this yet, but I was stuck in a terrible storm in July. There was a lot of damage to homes in the area, as well as cars. Semi trucks were flipped over and huge trees were down everywhere. Three quarters the way through the storm, I found a home that looked like someone was there to let me in. I pulled up to a house with the garage door open and I was going to try and run in... but I wasn't strong enough to get my car door open. It was terrible. I'm hoping that was the first and last time I have to experience something like that! A few days later I took some photos of the aftermath. Here, a barn fell down on a car:

hello breakfast at home, hello more Piper time, hello more husband time, hello more working out time.....and sewing time? (I made living room curtains last week! Hoping to do a "how to" post one of these days!) hello, time!

hello, new adventure.

XO,
Savanna

PS: if you are interested in car related news, follow me on twitter @defiancecars

my dirty secret: folding fail

In an effort to keep this blog real. for real, real. I would like to maintain a series of blog posts regarding topics that should remain behind closed doors. aka, my dirty laundry.

Here it goes.

Here is something I keep behind closed doors.

I know, you already saw these pillows here.

However, what you didn't see in that photo was this...

OK, here is all of it:

These are all of our socks that don't have a match. I refuse to throw them away. They have a match somewhere, right? 

They live in the guest bedroom. When we have friends and family over to our house, this door stays shut!

We don't get that many overnight guests, so we use the guest bed to house our unmatched socks as well as clean clothes that we are to lazy to fold. This photo is actually representing a good day. 

On a typical day, I have about 3-5 loads of clean clothes piled up on this bed. Ian and I pull the clean clothes off the bed we need during the week. About once a month, I do all the laundry and fold all the clothes. But 3 weeks out of the month, sadly, you could mistake the guest room for our laundry room.

Worried about wrinkly clothes? For the clothing we wear that could possibly get wrinkly, I do pull it out of the pile, shake it out a little and lay it flat on the bed.

Pathetic, I know. The time I take to pull it out of the pile, and lay it out flat, I could probably hang it up.

But, Ian's 100% on my team regarding this topic. Why waste the time to put it away when we will probably just be wearing it again soon? Love that guy.

We are lucky enough to have our laundry room (closet) on the second floor. It is a walk-in closet turned laundry room off of the third and smallest bedroom. Then the next room over is the guest bedroom, and few more steps is our bedroom. You might even cringe further when I tell you that that door you see in the photo above is actually Ian's closet. His closet and dresser are in the guest room.

Pure laziness.

Laundry, check. Folding, fail.

What do you keep hidden behind closed doors?

XO

landscaping: green envy

Yes, you read that right. I am not green with envy, I have green envy.

I miss our old grass.

Grass, that just a couple months ago was as green as green can be.
Greener than romaine lettuce and dollar bills.

Now, our grass is brown, straw-like and spiky.

Piper (who is finally potty trained) is confused by this crunchy mess that once was a luscious-comfy medium for rolling, peeing and playing.

And, our investment in perennial plants this year might be loss. #deadforever

This realization that our approx. $200 investment in perennials this year might be a complete waste, reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom early in the spring. a foot-in-mouth realization. 


My mom spent an entire afternoon digging up her hostas, splitting them and replanting them. I think my comment was something along the lines of..."Mom, why are you wasting your time? Just go buy some more hostas to plant." (Savanna, why don't you put your foot in your mouth and shut up.) 


Plants are not cheap! Why not be resourceful and split overgrown hostas? That's a great idea to save money!

Let's reminisce on this green wonderfulness, and all of our hard work this spring...

Ian and I spent the first beautiful March day adding stones around our landscaping. (photo was taken after new mulch and added perennials)

Then, on a another nice spring day, we went to a local florist and picked out a car full of perennials.

We bought an assortment of hosta, stonecrop and succulent (hen and chicks) plants.

We I went around the house and placed the plants where we I thought they would look best and began digging.

Ok...Ian began digging. Piper helped him and I took the pictures. I'm not kidding you, by the time I got done taking the "before" pictures, Ian was done planting. He is Mr. speedy-planter-extroardinaire. (or I'm a slow picture taker?)

Ian was going so fast, Piper couldn't even keep up.

I received some hesitation about choosing hen and chicks for our landscaping because they really do well in more "desert" like environments, in rock gardens and in the sun.

Well let me tell you, it couldn't of been a more perfect year for my hens. They are growing their little chicks like crazy!

I love these things! Next year I would love to plant them in pots or planters like this:

via

The stonecrop also looks great still, but our hostas are toasted.

In fact, our stonecrop plants are doing so well that I decided to trim and few stems and bring them inside. I did a little experiment that I can currently report as a success. I put the stems in a apothecary jar with some water on Saturday, and they haven't died yet!

After our planting was complete, Ian decided we needed new mulch. The next open weekend, Ian got some mulch and started mulching!

(yes, Ian is wearing the same outfit as the above photos, but it is a different weekend!)

Before

After

Mulch does make a big difference:

Our yard looked great until mid-July. It's a little depressing to think that all of our hard work has dried up, but there is always next spring to try again!

Please rain.

XO!