My Life is Average

Lately, I've struggled a bit with the normalcy of my life - always having to remind myself to "live simply" and unfortunately having to consistently remind myself of all of the blessings in my life. A big part of my dreaming for bigger and better things really stems from my job - as much as I love it, I'm often surrounded by people who are in a completely different class than I am, and who therefore live a completely different lifestyle that I'm sometimes honestly jealous of. I work with girls who are insanely nice... but who are also wearing insanely expensive shoes and carrying insanely expensive purses and eating out at insanely expensive restaurants on the weekend. I can often look down at my entire outfit and be able to rattle off under-$20 prices from each piece right down to my shoes. During the day I work with clients who have ridiculously huge budgets for little tiny projects, and that same evening I may go home and head to PADS to serve chili to 40 homeless people. Dan works tirelessly for months with his teens to raise $40,000 for a service trip so they can go and build homes for people with a greater need... and while he's out fundraising I'm working on a 3x3 ad in a throwaway circular that costs double their fundraising efforts. The work that I'm doing day after day is fun and exciting... but is so drastically different than the actual real life that I'm living... and I'm trying to learn to begin to separate the two better. I'm learning to better appreciate the little things, and trying to get better about documenting them so I can look back and remember those little moments... so that whenever I feel like I'm lacking something that other people around me have, I can remember that isn't the case at all.

Perhaps contradictory to everything I've just said above, we've honestly kind of been living the life since the wedding. Thanks to amazingly generous friends and family, literally everything in my kitchen and dining room is brand new, and really nice, and I am LOVING it. We also ended up with a pretty nice chunk of cash, which you'll see below we put some of to good use...

Here's some little things I've been appreciating lately.

Shots with Dan to celebrate our 3 year house-iversary! (Which also means it's been 3 years since I started this little blog!) 

Homemade ice cream in my a.ma.zing. Kitchenaid mixer. The amount of use I have already gotten out of this thing since the wedding is a little embarrassing as it is a clear indication of the amount of food I have been consuming. 

Apple desserts galore with Manda and Bridget. (And wine for those of us over 21).

Bedroom updates. I finally talked Dan into the West Elm duvet cover I've been coveting all year, and we finally hung one of my favorite engagement shots over the bed! The picture will be moved to another wall once I get around to the DIY headboard, but for now it looks pretty perfect right where it is. The photo was printed at work ages ago and we wrapped it around an existing Ikea frame, making this project my favorite price - F.R.E.E.

Cuddle time with Louie Louie. Dan and I have learned that if we bend our knees, all 3 of us can (barely) fit on the couch together - which makes our sleepy puppy very happy.

Aaaaaaaand... the "glacier blue" luxury we put some of our wedding money towards... our new (to us) car!!! We've been talking about a Honda CR-V for ages, and we finally bit the bullet last week and drove this guy home. I am definitely not able to park it in the garage just yet, but I'll get there :)