Long time coming...

Most of you probably saw my Instagram post on Tuesday... If you missed it, here it is...

And you're probably wondering why in the world he would shave off his beard. 

Fact: He hasn't been fully shaven since before we got engaged... that's over 3 years ago...

Well... Stuart is officially in the military.

Yep, you read that right. The military. He joined the Army National Guard Tuesday. This has really been a long time coming.

He has been working on this since February but this was not the first time he has tried. 

So you're probably asking what does this mean?

Well, he is in the Army Band unit of the Army National Guard. He will have to go to Basic Training and AIT in the spring. Other than that, he will still be teaching.

How do I feel about it?

We decided not to pursue this until we were both on the same page about it. So I was at peace with this from the beginning but I do have to admit that when the official papers were signed, I had a flood of emotions. I honestly cried more over him shaving his beard than joining the military haha. I know that there are hard times ahead but I know that this is a great opportunity for us.

How can you be praying for us?

Pray for peace. We are both at peace right now but as the spring rolls around, I know that we will struggle with it in some way. 

Pray for safety. Basic Training and AIT are not a risk but any time someone is going to be away from home for an extended period of time, you start to worry.

Pray for Sadie and me. It sounds silly but my biggest concern aside from Stuart being away from home for so long is that Sadie will not get the attention she needs. I know that it is going to be a hard thing to adjust to but pray that it will be easy and that the time will fly by!

For those of you who have gotten funny reactions from us when talking about the future, please know that we are sorry that we couldn't be honest and tell you what was going on. We have had to be careful about committing to things knowing that at some point, he would probably have to leave. We just didn't want to tell a bunch of people before it was a sure thing.

Anxiety

I promised an anxiety post a while back so here it is. Please excuse me if I go off on a tangent because this is something that I am passionate about.

First off, generalized anxiety disorder is an invisible illness. There's been a lot of things circulating lately on Facebook trying to raise awareness for invisible illnesses and that makes me super excited. The word needs to get out that you never know what the person beside you is dealing with and what their inner struggle is like.

generalized anxiety disorder is defined by Webster as "an anxiety disorder marked by chronic excessive anxiety and worry that is difficult to control, causes distress or impairment in daily functioning, and is accompanied by three or more associated symptoms (as restlessness, irritability, poor concentration, and sleep disturbances)"

For the people who have asked me "well what happens if you try to do things that make you freak out?" I feel like that definition alone should explain it all but I know that it doesn't because my anxiety cannot be bundled into a single definition.

Looking back, I know that I have had this disorder for almost my entire life. I was the child who worried about everything. My mom says that teaching me to read and write was torture. I do remember how upset I was every night when we were learning cursive because I was left-handed and we watched videos of right-handed people writing the letters.

I didn't like to talk to people. I still have issues with calling people I don't know or having to have normal conversations.

I wasn't truly diagnosed with anxiety until I was 18 years old. I started having panic attacks in crowds or when I had a huge task to perform. 

Anxiety is a hard thing to live with. It is something I work on every single day from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night and it will be that way for the rest of my life. 

When we got married, my anxiety was the hardest thing for Stuart to adjust to. For someone who has never experienced it or been close to someone who has it, it is a very hard thing to comprehend. I tend to come off as rude or I just don't want to do something. That's the hardest part for me. I would never be rude intentionally; That's just my anxiety.

Anxiety has a way of driving a wedge in relationships. Stuart and I have gone round and round over this. I don't want to come out and say "Hi my name's Meghan and I have anxiety" every time I meet someone but at what point does it get so much in the way that you have to say something?

I hope this gives some insight into anxiety and hopefully people will think twice before judging people and assuming that we're all just rude and standoffish :)

Encourage

I try very hard to be encouraging to my husband. It is hard sometimes though! I struggle with trying to be the "fixer" instead of just giving him words of encouragement and letting him figure it out. Although I'm still working on that, I have decided that I can at least put a smile on his face every day at lunch.
Yesterday was his first day back with students. This is only his third year teaching so it is still filled with nervousness and anxiety on his part. We've made a few changes in the past couple weeks and so I have decided to get up with him every morning so that we can eat breakfast together and actually see each other before 5pm! Since I teach preschool 5 days a week now and we don't start until after Labor Day, I was not so excited about this first week and a half of getting up because I don't always have places to be and things to do in the mornings. But I have successfully done it two days so far and it isn't really that bad!
One of the ways I've started trying to encourage him is by fixing breakfast and packing his lunch for him. He says that it helps him because he will actually eat those two meals if he doesn't have to think about them so I am happy to help. :) I was just trying to be funny when I did this...

I was just trying to be cute but it became a challenge to me when people on Facebook started commenting on other things I should have drawn. So now I have challenged myself to see if I can do 180 days of lunch bag designs. I should probably draw them a few in advance because this morning I was struggling for ideas but that probably had something to do with waking up at 5:30...

Life isn't complete without at least one Star Wars themed lunch bag!

Please excuse my apple that definitely looks like a pumpkin! It was 6:15 and I wasn't awake yet!

So keep an eye out on the blog for updates each week on the designs of the week and keep the ideas coming!

Absent

I know that I have been absent from the blog for a little while but it has been for good reason! I've been super busy and that is a good thing! We have so many July birthdays in our families (6 to be exact!) So we have been busy celebrating!

Last week I went on an awesome trip to Student Life for Kids Camp in Toccoa, GA. This was my second year going and it did not disappoint. Kids Camp is so much fun because they are little sponges! They are so into the games at recreation, the songs at worship, and the bible study activities. Not to mention the canteen with 16 flavors of homemade ice cream! (that was one of my favorite parts, too!) As soon as I got home, I was headed for the rehearsal and dinner of the wedding I was co-directing. Our pastor's youngest daughter got married and it was a gorgeous wedding. Today is my first day in about 2 weeks that I've actually been able to breathe! So this will be a short post but do not fret! Tuesday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and I have a blog in the works for the coolest gift for your guy! I have been wanting to write about it earlier since I've been working on it for about a month but I can't trust that he won't read about it so we will wait until Tuesday!

Thief

I have anxiety. (that post is up next on my list) When I am anxious, I get stressed. When I am stressed, I tend to fall into a depression sometimes. When I am anxious for longer periods of times, it leads to weeks like this week. I don't have a reason or certain thing that has made me anxious but I have been in a funk all week!

I have been a bookworm lately. I am on my third book for the month of July. These books are ones that I haven't been able to put down.
(side note: if you are looking for some good novels that are Christian-based but aren't about a bunch of goody-goodies, you NEED to check out Karen Kingsbury! I recommend starting with the Redemption series) 

In the book I'm reading right now (Book #3 of the Redemption series), there is one verse that keeps appearing in the book and every single time it comes up, it's like a slap in my face! (the good kind!)

 A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. John 10:10

My anxiety has been such a "thief" in my life. I can name multiple situations where I haven't experienced something or been able to do something because of it. But I have to remember that because of God's goodness and grace, I have a life aside from my anxiety. A life that anxiety can't steal from me. 

I get butterflies in my stomach when I think that I have a new body waiting for me in heaven! A body free of this thief that so often steals my joy, kills my spirit, and destroys my confidence. 

God is so good. His timing is so perfect! And I now have a new view of this "funk" I'm in

And the winners are...

Are you ready to know who won the vinyl monograms?!

Drum roll please...

The winners are:

Kelly, Alyssa, and Roxanne

Congrats Ladies!

Email me [meghansray(at)gmail(dot)com] and give me your address, your color choices(1 per monogram), and the initials you would like (please put the initials in monogram order. for example, mine would be mRs) All of the monograms will be in the style pictured in the last post.

Here are your color choices:

Garnet

Red

Light Purple

Dark Purple

Green

Lime Green

Yellow

Dark Blue

Light Blue

Gold

Silver

Grey

Brown

Black

Orange

Light Pink

If you didn't win this time, that's ok! I can still get you a monogram for a great price! Email me and we will work something out!

Keep Calm

And monogram EVERYTHING!

Well, that's at least my motto ;)

I got a Cricut a while back and although I've done a few paper projects with it, it is mainly here for cutting vinyl!

I don't have all the time in the world so my personal projects are kinda on the back burner for the moment but I have enjoyed making monograms and personalizing a few gifts for friends!

 Some of the car monograms I've made!

Love the teal and white combo!

These chairs are such a neat gift and they don't break the bank!

If you're looking for some vinyl work, please feel free to contact me and we will see what we can do!

 

In the meantime, I'll be giving away some vinyl goodies to 3 lucky winners! All you have to do is comment on this post and tell me what you would do with a few vinyl monograms! I will use randomresult.com to draw three names at random. The winners will receive 2 monograms each! (each monogram will be 2.5inches tall) You have until Sunday night at midnight and I will announce the winner first thing Monday morning!

 

Good luck!

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day! Some of my favorite people in life are the people we get to honor on Mother's Day! We had some big things happening at SVBC for Mother's day so I was so excited when my mom said that we were eating at her house! We always eat Sunday lunch at Mimi and Papa's with the whole family (there are at least 16 of us when everyone is there!) but there's something exciting about having everyone over at Mom's. 

All 16 of us! 

 The progression of the next few pictures is why I love the continuous shutter on my camera and I appreciate that my husband knows how to use it!

All the Dorton women!

I seriously LOVE family! We have been through a rough year but I am so inspired by the strength that everyone has shown, especially the women! They are showing me how to be a true woman of God and how to face disaster and devastation with perseverance and the knowledge that it's never goodbye, it's only a see you later...

Budget

I hate money! I know that hate is a strong word and I really do try to not use it but I do hate money. I would totally be okay with a world where we bought everything thing with hugs and smiles! I don't really know where my disdain for money stemmed from but it stresses me out to the MAX!

When Stuart went to talk to my parents about proposing to me, their one stipulation was that we take Financial Peace before we get married. I'm not gonna lie, I was NOT excited about it. Luckily, the class grew on me. I quickly learned that my love for math would make me a lover of budgets. I would geek out over calculating everything down to the last penny but my follow-through was not so enthusiastic.

We entered our marriage with all of the knowledge we needed to be financially responsible but we just didn't have the will power. I wasn't working at the time so I spent a lot of time at home alone with nothing to do. I was always stressed out that we never had money... I mean we were always counting down the days until pay day and then going and doing all the things we had wanted to do before pay day and then we'd be back to square one. It was a vicious cycle that made me physically sick. I decided to look into couponing. Now, you could not have told me at 20 that I would have been clipping coupons and scouring sales circulars by 22 but I did it because I was desperate.

I quickly learned that the things we were buying, specifically at the grocery store, were things that we didn't ever have to pay full price for! It was like an addiction. But we still weren't spending wisely and we honestly still couldn't tell you where most of Stuart's paychecks were going.

I still kept finding ways to cut costs around the house but it wasn't making a huge difference. I started making my own laundry detergent and added "CVSing" to my weekly couponing adventures.

Fast forward to recently and we are honestly still not where we want to be. It is not nearly as bad as it was before because I now work two jobs but we stink at budgeting! So this week, I tightened my belt and sat down and created these

Yes that is a Lilly Pulitzer print and yes I did spend the time to make my own budget sheets. When we decided to put a "family budget meeting" on the calendar, I decided that it needed to be something that we would keep up and that meant that I needed a binder. We needed to be able to refer to other months for certain things and we needed to have places to save receipts and bills. I scoured Pinterest for budget binder printables but I just didn't find any free ones that I liked and frankly I think its completely backwards to have to PAY for the forms to put together a BUDGET binder. Ever since I've gotten my Mac, I have loved playing around with Pages so this was actually really fun to design.

I plan to create a binder that we can put each month's budget in and keep it handy so that we can refer to it every pay day when we have to pay bills. I'm also adding a calendar of every month so that we can schedule things like what bills need to be payed when and special things like our alotted one date night a month. I also created a sheet that is a "checkbook register" for each of our accounts so we can start receipt tracking. It looks a little like this

The budgeting process for us is going to be long and slow process. It's probably going to be painful at some points and we are guaranteed to bicker over things like how much "fun" money each of us gets and "yes we do need to buy groceries every week"(we seriously have that conversation EVERY TIME I get my grocery store "stuff" together! We would live off Ramen and OJ if it was his choice!) But the thing that counts is that we're both committed to buckling down and working through it together.

Do you struggle with monthly household budgeting? What are some easy ways that you handle spending, saving, and giving?

Lately...

We've been busy! I mean, it's like you blink and three weeks have flown by! Holy Week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday) is always super busy for us in the church office and Stuart's band went to Concert Festival to compete that Tuesday. The next week was spring break and I had taken the whole week off to spend time with Hubs. This week I have no excuses for not blogging!

Here's an update on the past three weeks of life!

Seriously, how can you not love that man?!

Our 15 pizzas for Stuart's band kids... My car smelled like Dominos for a week!

I decided to purchase this at home gel manicure kit to save on getting my nails done. The jury is still out on this one...

We got to go to a Carolina game!

This sweet girl seriously has the best smile!

Bird's Nest cookies for my preschoolers on Easter Sunday!

Grilled Chick-fil-A nuggets are my new obsession!

Men's Spanx?! Or shall we say Manx!

Beautiful Fripp Island!

This is in the doll making section of Hobby Lobby... super creepy!

Our set up for the fellowship we put together at church!

I put this post together on Monday and since then we've been to another Carolina game and the Carrie Underwood concert! Has anyone else been super busy lately?!

Favor

Please do me a favor. If you find yourself reading my blog regularly, would you please follow me. I'd love to know who the readers are! And of course, if you follow me I'll gladly follow your blog as well!

Following is really easy to do! Just scroll down this side of this blog until you see the "Join This Site" button and follow the directions from there! 

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading (even though I don't know who you are all yet!) I wouldn't continue this if I didn't know that people were at least visiting my blog to read the updates.

25 Things

I was given this idea by a friend that I just met recently. ML and her sister grew up with Stuart and her sister and husband are in our Sunday school class. She recommended that I do this as a follow up to the favorites post. This will definitely expand on some of the things I mentioned in the ABC's of Me.

1. I have an anxiety disorder. It gets so bad that there are certain social situation I can't be in and simple tasks that people do everyday like making phone calls can be hard for me.

2.  I am TERRIFIED of snakes. I have panic attacks when I even see a picture of them.

3. When I was 4, I had Histiocytosis X which is a disorder where there are extra immune cells in your body and they cause tumors. Mine was on my cheekbone. We had been through testing, a spinal tap, and a biopsy and we're talking next steps when they discovered that the tumor was gone! This is the reason I am such a firm believer in miracles and God's work. Prayer was such a huge part of my journey and now I'm 24 and never had another issue with this disorder. Praise God!

4. Besides one year in a college dorm, I never lived outside of my parents house until I married Stuart.

5. In high school, I wanted to be a marine biologist and work at Sea World.

6. I love to sing Gospel music but especially Southern Gospel! We used to sing as a family so I perfected that southern drawl!

7. I am OCD about the weirdest things. I do not care as much about clothes all over the place but if you move something in my kitchen, prepare for the wrath!

8. I never graduated college or completed a program. I don't know exactly what I want to do at this point so I don't know if I want to finish college yet although I am doing a certification program for Wedding and Event Planning.

9. I got dumped the day after my Senior prom for a freshman. No lie. And now that guy and his wife and kid go to our church... awkward... (at least his wife isn't the freshman he dumped me for though)

10. I know a whole lot more about Nascar than you would think. All through high school, my dad's company had a Nascar sponsorship so we went to a lot of the southeast races. My graduation weekend was spent at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I got a picture with Kyle Busch and was on cloud nine...

11. I hate when people pick their teeth with their fingers... please do that in private with something other than your hand!

12. I really like trash TV. Toddlers and Tiaras, Dance Moms, Teen Mom, Real Housewives, you name it, I have probably watched it and liked it.

13. I've had two eardrum repair surgeries on the same ear. One of the ruptures came from swimming with water behind my eardrum but the other came from a severe sinus infection. I knew the exact moment that it ruptured.

14. Baking relaxes me. I will usually bake and then never even eat it. The relaxation is truly in the making of the sweets, not the partaking.

15. I hate chocolate. I gag at the smell of it.

16. I hate to pay full price for anything. Even though I may a really nice things, I NEVER pay full price for them.

17. I like cheesy teen novels. I read all four Twilight books in less than a month. 

18. My husband says that I'm very, very generous. I tend to spend a lot of my money on things for other people.

19. I get overly obsessed with ideas until I make them a reality. If i decide that I want to sew something or make something, I have to go out and get everything and do it right then!

20. I have enough kids names picked out that I could easily have 12 kids and NOT run out of names! (but no worries, I really only want 4 at the most!)

21. I already have gray hairs on my head. It apparently runs in the family to get them at an early age...

22. I love going to the zoo.

23. I hate war movies and any movie with excessive gore in it. Although I really want to see Zero Dark Thirty.

24. I hate horror films but I love the Paranormal Activity movies and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

25. I usually snort when I laugh.

What are your 25 things?

Over a year...

Over a year ago, we went on our Honeymoon (December 2011 to be exact!) and the pictures are finally uploaded to a computer. They have been sadly living in my camera that long!

In my defense, I had been using Stuart's computer and hated it so I was never really into using it for uploading pictures. So when I finally got my new computer this weekend, I decided to finally buckle down and sort through the thousands of pictures on my camera. I'm happy to say that they are all sitting happily in properly labeled folders on my computer!

When I was looking through these pictures, I kept thinking "I took that so we could share it with friends and family back home!" So please brace yourselves for what could be a ton of pictures.

Our honeymoon was originally a cruise scheduled to leave out of Charleston the Monday after our wedding but about 2 months before our wedding, Stuart accepted his job with the school district so we had to quickly switch our plans. We ended up spending a few extra days in Charleston and moving the cruise to Christmas Break. Since the cruise was going to be 5 days leaving on Christmas Eve, we decided to add 3 days before that and head to Universal Studios! Best vacation ever!

The tower at the entrance of Islands of Adventure

This is the funniest thing when people pose in front of it and then it roars really loud! 

Coming into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Seeing the snow-capped buildings messed with my mind the whole time we were there! It was in the mid-60's and sunny the whole time but I kept feeling like there should be snow falling.

Butterbeer--Fabulous!

 We quickly became huge fans of the Butterbeer. They had the regular kind and then they had the frozen ones. We were a house divided on these--I loved the regular with extra foam and Stuart loved the frozen ones!

Hogwarts Express

Entrance to Hogsmeade

Beautiful

Hogwarts!

 They did an awesome job with the scale of Hogwarts! It was huge and a little terrifying honestly! We didn't, however, enjoy the ride inside Hogwarts... I cried during it. Not lying. Like a big baby. I was scared.

Stu with Wolverine

I just love all of the detail that they put into their attractions! 

Hogsmeade at night. So beautiful!

The wand shop

 Obviously, our trip to Universal was mainly for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter since my husband is a huge fan but we also Universal Studios which is right next to Islands of Adventure. I have always loved this park, not only for the attractions, but for the design and detail in everything they do!

Me in front of the I Love Lucy Tribute Museum (I tried to stay BEHIND the camera but Stuart got ahold of it a few times)

Any theme park that has a real Starbucks store inside is a hit in our book! (Isn't he just the cutest?!)

Awesome giant Christmas tree. I think I tried to convince Stuart to let me have one this big lol

 During the holiday season, they have their own Macy's Christmas Parade. It was so neat!

"Rockettes"

Hanging out at the back of the boat before we left port!

ready to explore Key West

Cute thang ready to see the Key West sights!

Always a character

Carnvial Ecstasy- our ship. (If you know my husband, you can only guess the bad jokes that stemmed from the name of our ship)

Mile 0!

Real Key West Key Lime Pie!

This was the cutest toy store in the visitor center near the port.

Formal night... Can't believe I let him have the camera.

Photoshoot anyone?!

Here's to hoping I get better at this uploading pictures thing!