Logan

We live in a studio apartment. A tiny little thing about a five minute walk from campus. Its wall-to-wall carpeting dyes our feet dark dark blue. The bathroom, also carpeted, has a light that makes a buzzing sound after about 30 seconds that could drive a deaf man insane. Two of the four walls are made of painted cinder block. Our microwave balances perfectly in the middle of a bookshelf, because we don't have any counter space. Not true. We have about 10 inches of counter space. We don't use the A/C because it smells funny and we don't want to pay the high utilities. Our nightstand is a TV stand with an old rose table cloth on top. And our car usually starts on the second try.

I don't think I could possibly be more grateful for my life. This life. This tiny apartment, breaking car, and wonderful wonderful, well, everything. I feel like I'm in a movie! One of those girls with big dreams and a small living space. Only, I get an amazing man too! I feel awesome.

 I'm so grateful for this working computer that my sister sold to us at a discounted price! I'm grateful for the groceries my grandma surprised us with as a parting gift. I'm grateful for the July girl "days" out with my Mother-in-law. I'm grateful for my guitar, that I don't play nearly often enough. I'm grateful for my friends that I don't see nearly enough.  I'm grateful for my husband and his hard-working attitude. I'm grateful for this tiny apartment. It's adorable and it's perfect. 

In five days, we will have been married for one year. Children are in the far future, and we are living in what I think is the best marriage around. Of course, I'm a little biased. We didn't come from secure, or even "normal," families, but who cares? We are so lucky to be loved and to love both of our families, happily! Even those that would rather be contentious, we don't have any ill will towards. It feels good to know how lucky we are. In-law trouble is not in our book! 

But I'm grateful that, for the most part, we're doing this on our own. I'm grateful for our ability, and the necessity, to stretch a dollar. Even if it's taken us a while to really get it down. I'm incredibly grateful that we can happily live somewhere that others would never even consider stepping into. I'm so thankful that we have been blessed with the perspective of life that we have. 

I'm not an allstar blogger. I don't always get back to people quickly, I don't post every week, and I am not a good button swapper. (I blog like I text. Forgetfully.) I've been blogging for over a year and I don't have a gazillion followers. But I'm proud of the ones I do have. And I wish I could meet them all in real life. (The few I have met are pretty amazing!) I, like many of us, don't want to be the blogger that conforms with this made-up blogger mentality. Some of us forget that not all blogs are crafting, or fashion, or lifestyle, or cooking blogs. Some blogs are just...blogs. Places to record or share ideas. You don't have to be pretty, or have a sidebar with a million buttons, or pay to gain followers. There are blogs out there where people just share ideas. They just type up their beliefs. Many don't use made-up words, or weird phrases and excessive exclamation points/font changes. But many do. And it doesn't matter if they do or don't. They're expressing themselves. Their real selves. Because they don't care if that the number on their sidebar stays at "3" or "15" or "125" or "1,000," they just write. I'm not that blogger. Or at least I wasn't. And although I would say, as many of us have, that I hate the number game and I don't want to care about my follower count anymore... I still did. 

But now?

I asked myself why I wanted that number to grow. Do I want to get paid to blog? No. I don't want to write reviews, and put ads up, and write when I don't want to so that I can get a tiny paycheck or a free tote bag. Do I want blogger friends? Yes...I guess. But I don't want my 1,000 closest friends to be people without faces. Do I want to see myself as popular? Not when more than half my "followers" just followed me for exposure or a free..whatever. I guess I want followers so that I feel validated. So that I can feel like what I do or write or think is...cool? But when I look back on my blog, it's not even me that wrote most of these posts. It's some girl that probably wrote a post on fitness using exclamation points and smiley faces when she was thinking about how scary school is to her and frowning the whole time. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that I wanna live like no one else. I like my corner of the internet. I probably really like yours! But if I wanna be like every other blog in this blogging world I planted myself in, then I should probably do everything they do. Remind me what's so great about being just like everyone else? If I wanna be like everyone else after I graduate (debt...and nice things), then I should live like them now! But I don't want that.

If you want to live like no one else, then you have to live like no one else. 

It's weird that this post turned into a post about blogging.

..and that I wrote it at 2am. 

I like it.  

Here We Go

In 16 days, we will be Aggies! In 10 days, Taylor starts his job. And in 5 days, we move up to our little bitty apartment in Logan!

There's carpet in the bathroom. You guys. THE BATHROOM! But hey, I'll only ever need to vacuum! 

We will be Loganite Aggies! All that's left is to get me a job! We're pretty strapped until the day after our anniversary, but that's okay. I'm excited to be grounded somewhere, and to have a ward that we can work with the Bishop consistently and get us in that pretty Logan temple :) Once we move up to Logan, we will have moved 4 times in 4 months. Provo to California to Oregon to Provo to Logan.
We're currently sleeping on two twin air mattresses squished together in my grandmother's "playroom." It's quite the cramped living space. But it's nice to spend time with family.

 My Okie mom came home yesterday! She wears cowboy boots now and she says "y'all" a lot. I haven't seen her since November! She's also very small and tan, she used to be not as small and very very white. In the past year, she's done a lot of crazy Oklahoma'ey/red necky things. And last night, my mom went to bed in her boyfriend's shirt... Am I weird for being uncomfortable, yet very interested in this boyfriend of my 45-year-old mother that I have never met?

We've also been able to spend time with some friends! Preggo friends! Two of my good friends are expecting. It's so exciting! Although, I'm not at all baby hungry, just excited for their babies!

My grandma is redoing her entire kitchen while we stay here. I just told her I was going to blog about her kitchen remodeling, and she said "What kitchen?"

It's pretty gutted.

In conclusion, my life got a little crazy, but I couldn't be more grateful for it. :)