Let's fight a good fight, train our eyes to find the light, and make this year the best one yet!
December 12, 2018 - January 2, 2019
The Facts
People love bourbon down here. I associated Kentucky with two things before moving down here-- horses and alcohol-- and man, I was not wrong. The amount of times bourbon comes up in conversation is crazy to us!
I threw away my most recent pair of favorite sneakers. Joey got them for my birthday a few years ago and I wore them to death. Vans aren't super comfortable to begin with so once they start to get worn out they quickly go from kind of comfortable to completely uncomfortable remarkably fast... BUT THEY ARE SO CUTE I HAD A VERY HARD TIME PARTING WITH THEM. I'm getting to the point where comfort is outweighing style. I should have thrown them away ages ago. After a few weeks of care-giving (i.e. being on my feet all day doing way more physical labor than I did as a teacher), coming home and changing into terrible shoes wasn't worth it -- even though the print was unbeatable.
Eight members of my family (the eight I know best and would normally be experiencing Christmas festivities with if I still lived in Joliet) came for approximately 24 hours the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with us. Just the fact that they traveled 5+ hours to spend one night visiting us was the best possible gift they could give. And they still brought actual gifts with them.
A staple of any Schmidttogether (this is what we affectionately call any of our family's gatherings-- even though most of us in the group don't currently have the Schmidt name...and others never did) is food. When it comes to eating, we don't play around. They brought food with them, I made pizzelles, and we ate Louisville food on two separate occasions. Let me remind you they came for one night.
My sister, Lauren, and best cousin, Courtney, stayed with Joey and me at our apartment and the rest of the family stayed around the corner at a hotel. Now I realize this is going to sound childish coming from a 28 year old, but I was so excited for an excuse to use the hotel swimming pool! I drive by it every day, see it sitting there devoid of swimmers, and reminisce about being a kid and begging to swim in the hotel pools when we went on vacations. Lauren and Courtney were good sports and brought their swimsuits so DREAM COME TRUE FOR ME. It wasn't even as underwhelming as I anticipated. It also gave me a chance to break out the ole prescription goggles I haven't used since I was a camp counselor.
We squeezed in eating, taking pictures wearing a ridiculous Santa head (that isn't even meant to be worn on heads! It's a tree topper!), opening Christmas presents, walking around downtown, visiting a candy shop, perusing the Slugger museum gift shop, and watching the timeless Christmas classic, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. 😂
I spent Christmas day at work, but Joey dropped me off in the morning so he could meet some of the residents when he came to pick me up. I think seeing him was a treat for them because young, good looking men don't come by often. We weren't really sure what to do for Christmas dinner since a lot of restaurants would be closed and we didn't plan on making a special Christmas feast for just the two of us. Conveniently, Joey's parents sent us a package from Omaha Steaks as a Christmas gift so Joey made us steak and potatoes for dinner. How great of a gift idea is that, by the way? Everyone has to eat and I can't think of anyone I know that enjoys grocery shopping so... receiving nice food in the mail was a real treat (and providential in this scenario).
We entered 2019 in Cleveland with Joey's family. His cousin got married on New Year's Eve. A few years ago, I was in my bosom friend, Brittany's (hey boo), NYE wedding and wore a flashy, lovely, floor length, gold sequin dress and I was excited for an opportunity to wear it again. Because seriously, where else can you wear a flashy, lovely, floor length, gold sequin dress besides a party on New Year's Eve?
The Feelings
I am totally delighting in having less material things. It's so much easier to stay organized. And straightening up our entire abode takes like two seconds. I was aware that we had too much before, but I didn't realize what an impact having less would have. For example, we went from a giant kitchen with more cupboards than we could ever fill to three usable cupboards and a few drawers. And you know what, even though I wish we had room for a few more essentials, it's been better than the giant kitchen with all the space. Instead of an endless supply of bowls and cups, we actually run out and are forced to wash them. The dirty dishes literally cannot pile up into mountains because there aren't enough dishes to make a mountain in the first place. I know this seems like an obvious observation but I'm still shocked at how having less is changing the way we live. We also downsized our clothing. Before, we each had a dresser, shared a decent sized closet, and always had piles of clothes on the floor. Now, we share one dresser, a slightly smaller closest, and have no piles. Putting away laundry is so much less stressful because I know there's a place for everything (and I only brought things I was sure I would wear). Purging our belongings before moving was so satisfying and I'm only feeling a minuscule amount of dread thinking about what's waiting for us to sort in the storage unit in Michigan. I apologize if I said this already in a previous post, but I'm constantly blown away by how little we actually need.
What I remember most about our wedding day was feeling loved. I'm not even talking about romantic love-- Joey and I aren't particularly mushy. I'm talking about the feeling I got seeing nearly all of my favorite people in one space knowing they gave up a Friday night doing whatever they wanted to eat and dance and cheer us on. A lot of people gave up the whole weekend because they had to travel. Other people gave up many months to help us prepare-- and somehow in between the shopping and flower folding and bridesmaid dress hunting and hot gluing and invitation ordering and photography itinerary planning, and all the other wedding-related tasks, they managed to choreograph a flash mob (which Joey's parents learned basically overnight). "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley still makes me cry when I hear it, not because it's a particularly sappy song (it totally isn't), but because when I hear it, I remember that feeling and thinking I can't believe they did all this for us. Those people are the same people that made a quick trip to Louisville right before Christmas. And those people made me feel Crazy again.
I don't really care much about New Year's resolutions. I honestly think people put too much stock in them and I'm of the opinion that if you want to change something about your life, just start. However, I do love reflecting and last year I set a goal for myself to determine the root of why I was feeling whatever I was feeling when I was feeling something. This was sparked by disagreements with Joey and social situations where I felt the opposite of what any average person should have felt. Being around fantastic people made me uncomfortable and pessimistic. Joey suggesting to do something nice for someone would made me mad. Trying to get to the root of this lead to my discovery of The Enneagram. I'm not qualified to explain it succinctly, but the link takes you directly to a description of my personality type if you're curious. Long story sort of short, it helped me understand myself and gave me language to better communicate my feelings. In the examples I previously mentioned, I was dealing with envy and didn't realize it. I wanted to be as fantastic as the people I was with and convinced myself I never could be. I wanted to be the one to come up with a nice idea and was disappointed that I didn't think of it first. I'm incredibly thankful for the Enneagram and haven't lost interest in it since first learning about it early last year.
The Requests
Joey enjoyed having a holiday break and some time to rest. Things are continuing to get more and more hectic for him and having a chance to spend the days however he wanted was nice.
We're both still enjoying life right now and I'm thankful for it. I want to continue to be thankful for it for as long as it's still going swell. And even when it's not.
P.S. The title of this post comes from the song "This Year" by JJ Heller. She's one of my favorite artists and if we're friends on Facebook, you've probably seen me post this at least three times before. It's a lovely song and especially appropriate this time of year.
P.S. #2 Thank you to Ashley for recording that video from our wedding. I'm so glad I have it!
A word from Joey: "I got my wife a video game and a LEGO set for Christmas. She got me cereal and a scented candle."
The Facts
People love bourbon down here. I associated Kentucky with two things before moving down here-- horses and alcohol-- and man, I was not wrong. The amount of times bourbon comes up in conversation is crazy to us!
I threw away my most recent pair of favorite sneakers. Joey got them for my birthday a few years ago and I wore them to death. Vans aren't super comfortable to begin with so once they start to get worn out they quickly go from kind of comfortable to completely uncomfortable remarkably fast... BUT THEY ARE SO CUTE I HAD A VERY HARD TIME PARTING WITH THEM. I'm getting to the point where comfort is outweighing style. I should have thrown them away ages ago. After a few weeks of care-giving (i.e. being on my feet all day doing way more physical labor than I did as a teacher), coming home and changing into terrible shoes wasn't worth it -- even though the print was unbeatable.
 |
| Enjoy my pathetic face. |
A staple of any Schmidttogether (this is what we affectionately call any of our family's gatherings-- even though most of us in the group don't currently have the Schmidt name...and others never did) is food. When it comes to eating, we don't play around. They brought food with them, I made pizzelles, and we ate Louisville food on two separate occasions. Let me remind you they came for one night.
My sister, Lauren, and best cousin, Courtney, stayed with Joey and me at our apartment and the rest of the family stayed around the corner at a hotel. Now I realize this is going to sound childish coming from a 28 year old, but I was so excited for an excuse to use the hotel swimming pool! I drive by it every day, see it sitting there devoid of swimmers, and reminisce about being a kid and begging to swim in the hotel pools when we went on vacations. Lauren and Courtney were good sports and brought their swimsuits so DREAM COME TRUE FOR ME. It wasn't even as underwhelming as I anticipated. It also gave me a chance to break out the ole prescription goggles I haven't used since I was a camp counselor.
 |
| Why do I love hotel pools so much? Sorry I didn't include a picture of the sexy goggles. |
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| There are lots of pictures like this one. |
I spent Christmas day at work, but Joey dropped me off in the morning so he could meet some of the residents when he came to pick me up. I think seeing him was a treat for them because young, good looking men don't come by often. We weren't really sure what to do for Christmas dinner since a lot of restaurants would be closed and we didn't plan on making a special Christmas feast for just the two of us. Conveniently, Joey's parents sent us a package from Omaha Steaks as a Christmas gift so Joey made us steak and potatoes for dinner. How great of a gift idea is that, by the way? Everyone has to eat and I can't think of anyone I know that enjoys grocery shopping so... receiving nice food in the mail was a real treat (and providential in this scenario).
We entered 2019 in Cleveland with Joey's family. His cousin got married on New Year's Eve. A few years ago, I was in my bosom friend, Brittany's (hey boo), NYE wedding and wore a flashy, lovely, floor length, gold sequin dress and I was excited for an opportunity to wear it again. Because seriously, where else can you wear a flashy, lovely, floor length, gold sequin dress besides a party on New Year's Eve?
 |
| Who knew we could be so gorgeous? |
We're discovering which restaurants are becoming our favorites, but some new places we tried are Burger Boy and Harvest. Burger Boy reminded us of Zenith in River Rouge, but nothing can truly compare to that gem of a restaurant. We were scared Harvest would be too fancy for us, but we were pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was fancier than our typical choices for eating out, but it was still pretty casual and the expensive, homegrown food was totally worth it.
The Feelings
I am totally delighting in having less material things. It's so much easier to stay organized. And straightening up our entire abode takes like two seconds. I was aware that we had too much before, but I didn't realize what an impact having less would have. For example, we went from a giant kitchen with more cupboards than we could ever fill to three usable cupboards and a few drawers. And you know what, even though I wish we had room for a few more essentials, it's been better than the giant kitchen with all the space. Instead of an endless supply of bowls and cups, we actually run out and are forced to wash them. The dirty dishes literally cannot pile up into mountains because there aren't enough dishes to make a mountain in the first place. I know this seems like an obvious observation but I'm still shocked at how having less is changing the way we live. We also downsized our clothing. Before, we each had a dresser, shared a decent sized closet, and always had piles of clothes on the floor. Now, we share one dresser, a slightly smaller closest, and have no piles. Putting away laundry is so much less stressful because I know there's a place for everything (and I only brought things I was sure I would wear). Purging our belongings before moving was so satisfying and I'm only feeling a minuscule amount of dread thinking about what's waiting for us to sort in the storage unit in Michigan. I apologize if I said this already in a previous post, but I'm constantly blown away by how little we actually need.
What I remember most about our wedding day was feeling loved. I'm not even talking about romantic love-- Joey and I aren't particularly mushy. I'm talking about the feeling I got seeing nearly all of my favorite people in one space knowing they gave up a Friday night doing whatever they wanted to eat and dance and cheer us on. A lot of people gave up the whole weekend because they had to travel. Other people gave up many months to help us prepare-- and somehow in between the shopping and flower folding and bridesmaid dress hunting and hot gluing and invitation ordering and photography itinerary planning, and all the other wedding-related tasks, they managed to choreograph a flash mob (which Joey's parents learned basically overnight). "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley still makes me cry when I hear it, not because it's a particularly sappy song (it totally isn't), but because when I hear it, I remember that feeling and thinking I can't believe they did all this for us. Those people are the same people that made a quick trip to Louisville right before Christmas. And those people made me feel Crazy again.
 |
| I am who I am because of these weirdos. Surprisingly, everyone looks totally normal in this photo. |
The Requests
Joey enjoyed having a holiday break and some time to rest. Things are continuing to get more and more hectic for him and having a chance to spend the days however he wanted was nice.
We're both still enjoying life right now and I'm thankful for it. I want to continue to be thankful for it for as long as it's still going swell. And even when it's not.
 |
| Thanks for the cards so far! |
P.S. #2 Thank you to Ashley for recording that video from our wedding. I'm so glad I have it!
A word from Joey: "I got my wife a video game and a LEGO set for Christmas. She got me cereal and a scented candle."
I love the Enneagram! It's so helpful. I also love getting rid of things I don't use. It's also very helpful. Happy New Year!
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