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Thursday Three

March 7, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

What a strange week. I almost completely missed the Thursday Three! Considering the sun has not yet risen for Friday, let’s just pretend it’s still Thursday, okay? That would be oh-so-kind of you. I’ve struggled to fall asleep most of this week so it’s been hard to keep track of what day is what.

1. I am married to a musician. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. But really, for real, that man can play. His best friend is out here visiting for the week to record some tunes, which means my house is practically exploding with music. You can hardly walk in a straight line without stepping on a violin or guitar or banjolin (that’s a thing, check it). So not only do we have the music room right now, but also the spare bedroom is packed to the brim with instruments, too. We’re all loving it though. A friend of mine came over and the four of us even did a little four-part harmony for one of the tracks.The guys are both so musically talented, but together they are simply amazing. (Maybe by next week I’ll actually have a picture of them playing music together).

2. Let’s do this. This week (and month) have a bit of a schedule that I have to stick to. Every day I feel like I’m running from thing to thing (otherwise known as hustlin’), trying to fit it all in. Between work, school, side projects, friends and family, I feel a bit packed. But I also feel like most of these things are moving in the right direction, and I’m glad for the extra work I’ve put in.

3. Weekend weather has been awesome. Seriously, I know we’ve had rain and freezing rain all week but last weekend it was in the high 60s and this weekend should be the same. Last weekend was so much fun. I hosted a small brunch while the hubby and guys went disc golfing, the two of us checked out a nearby winery, had dinner with friends and we squeezed in a few Oscar-nominated movies before the awards on Sunday. Whew. Busy but so awesome.

Oh yeah, did I mention the weather was beautiful this weekend? I took the liberty of reading a book outside in a tank top and ugly sunglasses. Glorious.

Thursday Three

February 28, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

Ready. Set. Go.

1. Baby showers can never occur with at least one strange game. Gotta love them for it. Saturday I attended a baby shower for a friend from church and everyone oohhed and ahhhed over the cute baby boy clothes. We had two games. The first involved plastic babies frozen in ice cubes, whoever “breaks their water” first wins. The second game involved never saying the word “baby” and collecting safety pins from the people who do say it. In case you were wondering, I totally dominated in the second game and no one even saw it coming.

2. Oscar season is in full-swing. With the official awards ceremony on Sunday, we are watching a few movies so we can feel cultured and opinionated when they announce the winners. Last night we watched Captain Phillips which equated to two hours of hugging the pillow and trying to pretend it wasn’t totally stressful.

3. Let me just go ahead and put you in a box since we all love that so much. Tonight I joined a friend for some sort of networking event that revolved around a personality test. As someone who has an unhealthy obsession with personality tests, I can easily say it was the most ridiculous one I’ve done. But the “presentation” of someone reading straight from a book likely added to my thoughts on it. Ready for the test? Pick the card that you most relate to. Yep, that’s it. Now you understand about your color and know everything there is to know about you. Unfortunately, if you don’t relate to mimes, I don’t really know what to tell you.

Thursday Three

February 21, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

It feels like last week was forever ago. I couldn’t even tell you why. So many things seem to be happening right now. Lots of exciting possibilities coming up but they all require some work on my part. I’m hoping I can keep up!

1. We do love each other. We celebrated Valentine’s Day with dinner and drinks at what the hubby says might be his new-found favorite restaurant. The steak was great, we had bit of wine and tried to remember what the heck we did for Valentine’s Day last year. Also, we demolished this nutella bread from our favorite bakery.

2. The OLYMPICS have taken over. So much emotion and passion and determination and athleticism. Oh yeah and commercials. They’ve been great to watch, but I think we’re both ready to have our nights and weekends back to normal and commercial-free.

3. Late nights bring about all the thoughts. So many ideas and revelations occur late at night for me. Saturday night I took full advantage and wrote some of it out and was so glad I did. I can’t help but wonder, is it that nights we are more naturally inclined for those bright idea moments? Or is it just the first time of the day we have more than two minutes of silence? Is it the first time we really allow ourselves to clear our heads and let our minds wander?

Thursday Three

February 14, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

Whoops. Planned on writing this all day and here I am, down to the wire. Here we go with the Thursday Three!

1. I’m sorry I doubted. After a few “snowstorms” that left a little to be desired over the past month, I didn’t take this one seriously. It was real this time. The state that cried snow caught me off-guard, and we got 6 inches. The hubby got stuck in crazy amounts of traffic for 2.5 hours (for what’s usually a 20 minute drive) and we built a snow creature at midnight like old times. I also had the pleasure of helping our little next door neighbor girl build her very first snowman.

2. The OLYMPICS. Need I say more? I’m smitten/enthralled/addicted. Go USA! It’s the time of year that I become quite patriotic. I also don’t understand how anyone could ever say “the OLYMPICS aren’t my thing”…what?!

3. Comfy clothes for the win! Between a weekend of heavy OLYMPIC viewing with some family to a snow day, we are quite cozy over here. I can’t deny that it’s been pretty nice. But when we did don real clothes, we had quite a bit of fun with our little niece and nephew at the kids museum.

Thursday Three

February 7, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here!! The OLYMPICS! (Bet you thought I was going to say Thursday). Yes, the opening ceremonies are tomorrow, but some of the events are already playing on TV tonight! I’m so excited! Tomorrow I might even wear red, white and blue. This week has been a lot of highs and lows and not much in between, but I’m excited to end it on a high note.

1. Date night is a vital part of any relationship. I wish we were better about setting a night aside for date night because whenever we do, it really helps to have conversations that never seem to get brought up in the day-to-day at home. We hit up the art museum for the Porsche exhibit and ended the night with an entire pie from the pie place down the road (if you’re going to spend that much for two slices, you might as well go for the whole thing).

2. How does one talk about stress, struggles and insecurities gracefully on a blog? I’m not sure that I’ve figured that out yet. I sometimes consider never mentioning the dark days that I just feel kinda worthless and wonder what I’m good at. There’s days that someone gets mad at you and you don’t know how to handle it but to go home and cry it out. Days when you feel alone even when you know that’s far from the truth. This week has had included days like that. I hesitate to talk about it for several reasons—I don’t necessarily want to keep talking about, I don’t need a pity party and don’t really want to whine about it. That said, I decided to share anyway because often our social media culture is conducive to posting only the glory moments. We post the pretty pictures of parties and traveling as if our life is nothing but celebrations and fun. The problem is, it’s just not reality. We all have good moments and bad. Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not the only one whose life isn’t always picture perfect.

3. We celebrated Groundhog Eve for the first time ever. Then on Groundhog day we met a real live Groundhog and witnessed the official winter prediction. Honestly, this should be an entire blog post in itself but clearly I’ve been a little behind with my blogging. Let me just tell you that it was awesome. We threw a party and dozens of people brought brown food to join in the festivities. We love hosting this party for so many reasons, but the main one being that it’s really fun for us to introduce our friends to our other friends.

Thursday Three

January 31, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

What is it about Thursdays? You look back at the week and think it was ages since the weekend. What did you even do last weekend? Gosh. Yet it’s marks the beginning of an end (or vice versa I suppose) to the week that has something great about it. Besides, who knew I could start so many blog posts just talking about Thursday? I sure didn’t.

1. We said YES. This past week, friends of ours asked us to be in their wedding this September. Friends we met here, in North Carolina. Something about that is crazy to me. We were both really honored to be chosen for these roles and especially after only knowing them for the past year or so. When we moved we really hoped and prayed we could both make close friends and be close friends. While being in someone’s wedding is far from the deciding factor on your friendship status (please, don’t even get me started about how weddings weirdly make you rank your friends), we are really excited to be a part of their big day and their lives.

2. Shut the front door, there’s snow outside. I know I went on a mini-rant/lecture on what is and is not cold last week. This time, it actually is. I wouldn’t say all of the snow days the kids got away with were totally justified but hope they had a good mini-vacay anyway. I decided to embrace a new-to-me Southern recipe by putting a bowl out on the porch to catch some flakes for snow cream. It tastes about as exciting as it sounds: milky sugar snow. As long as there’s sugar involved, it’s a bona fide Southern dish. And alright already. There’s something really pretty and even kinda fun about snow. I said it.

3. There’s a lot of people in the world. Yep, I’m going big with this last one. But it’s true. People are everywhere and I keep being reminded we have to work at things together. People can challenge you and frustrate you but they also strengthen you. It’s worthwhile to come together, even if it’s sorta inconvenient or outside your comfort zone. They’ll rub you the wrong way and sometimes you want to say, “I can do it all without them!” But there will always be someone else that will annoy you in almost the same way. Might as well figure out how to bring out each other’s strengths and work as a team.

Thursday Three

January 24, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

It’s been a long week. Nothing particularly bad or big, just lots of little things happening and stress from all those things. Work has been a little hectic lately for everybody here and sometimes it’s hard to know what will be more relaxing: tackling all the things looming over your head or blowing it all off completely. So let me bring you a super short Thursday Three that consists of the most bizarre and unrelated items possible.

1. Something about being tired brings a strange mix of emotions to the surface. You fight easier or spill over too soon. It can also bring out your comfort creativity. When you’re energized that creativity can ooze out in all sorts of wonderful ways but when you’re weary there’s something raw there. It can either sting or soothe to expose that fatigue. Somehow we keep forgetting that our comfort creativity takes very different forms. He plays music and I ~~eat chocolate~~ write. Even though we’ve been married for a few years now we’re constantly seeking and remembering what are strengths and joys are. The trick is figuring out both how to make them work together and when it’s okay for them to simply stand alone.

2. I don’t want a dog right now. I was going through some sort of major puppy fever not so long ago but now that desire is buried deep once more. It’s nice to know that at least. I’d rather plan a trip and save up money. Whew. Glad that discussion’s finally over.

3. Senior photos are the best. We have a nice camera, and I decided it was time to have a decent “casual” headshot. You know, for my work email or the blog or that frame on my husband’s desk I’ll be buying this weekend. So the hubby was given the title of art director, and we spent a few minutes awkwardly walking around the neighborhood. Got a few decent ones…

Then we got this gem.

I channeled all of my inner high school senior meets glamour shots.

Feel free to vote for your favorite.

Thursday Three

January 17, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

Hello Thursday, my day of the week. The day that I’m tired and ready for the weekend but sometimes stay up too late anyway just because. Getting home when it’s dark outside makes me feel like I never even had a chance at the day, so I try to stay up late out of defiance but usually don’t accomplish much in those hours anyway. So it goes.

1. Sore muscles are the best worst feeling. After months without formal exercise I decided to try the gym that’s much closer to where we live last night. It was good to get back there and fake some confidence while I lifted baby weights next to hulking men as they grunted. Glorious. Okay, not that part. But I tried to do the machines for the first time since the big injury this summer and didn’t end up on crutches. Success.

2. Learning is fun. I’m taking not one but two graduate level classes this semester at a nearby university. So far so good, but the homework hasn’t really piled up yet. I’m really glad for the opportunity though to learn some new things and hopefully open up some interesting opportunities down the line. The classes are in the nonprofit management program, which in no way relates to what I’m doing in my day job. Sometimes I think doing things like this is really great and interesting and other times I wonder what the purpose is or what I’m doing with my life. But in a good way.

3. February might be my favorite month of 2014. I know that sounds a little presumptuous and not totally fair to the rest of the months. But seriously, so many of my favorite things are happening this February that I can hardly wait! First of all, my favorite holiday (Groundhog Day) is on February 2nd, as always. We might even try to throw another party this year for it. Too soon to say officially, but it’s a good possibility. Second, the Olympics are coming! It will be like a party every day for 17 straight days! I LOVE the Olympics! So, even though that has no direct relation to this week, I’m pretty pumped about February.

Thursday Three

January 10, 2014July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

And we’re back! Back from a cold and snowy state we love, back from all the holidays and back from a month of very little blogging. I can’t say I have listed out my resolutions for 2014 yet (partly because I am still searching for last year’s list to see how I fared), but I will say that I hope to blog more. It’s a wonderful part of my life and sometimes people even tell me it inspires them. What’s not to love about that?

So we continue with the Thursday Three. Something about it is just a little charming to me. Clearly it’s been a while so let’s just make this three a wrap-up from where we left off instead of only about the past week, shall we?

1. Christmas is a wonderful thing. Some people get all crazy about it and I’m not to that level. There’s not months of Christmas music or much talk of Santa here. It usually is a busy time of work for the hubby and even a little bit of stress as we squeeze too many things in a packed month. But it’s still good. It’s a celebration of a Savior, a time to gather with family and share time and food with others. Maybe I’m all sentimental because it’s already over and our tree is lying cold and lonely on the curb. But let me say it anyway—it’s good. We got our first ever real tree and decorated it in simplicity. We went caroling, sang songs and smiled for the Christmas card. We talked to some kids about what Christmas means for a video we worked on together. We hosted each of our sisters and their families which included several dogs and small children. We exchanged gifts, watched Netflix and found ourselves in a Nerf war.

2. Snow and cold are not our friends. We moved away from that stuff but managed to visit right in the middle of winter. To Iowa we went to visit friends and family and celebrate a wedding of dear friends. We hit some of the town’s finest establishments, rang in the new year (and the hubby jammed along for a song on stage), visited my grandparents and watched two people say “I do.” It was fun and freezing, but we’re glad we got to go to all of it. And bonus—our trip got extended due to days of cancelled flights. Yay cold.

3. Being a grown-up is a funny thing. Sometimes I feel like I’m running around trying to chase down my life. Trying to check off all the lists, go after my dreams and be good at whatever role I fill. Some days I think maybe I’ve made it and I wish I could just walk away with a trophy. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s a constant process of learning and growing. So tonight I’ll sort through weeks of mail while eating cereal for supper at 11 p.m. and just be okay with it. Here’s to another year of who knows what!

This is the only photo we have from last weekend’s wedding, and I’m wearing a baby fur hood from the photo booth. The hubby was super excited about it and insisted we take this photo but somehow managed to avoid donning any sort of accessory.

Thursday Three

November 22, 2013July 22, 2014Samantha Gratton

It’s back and better than ever. Welcome to Thursday! I’m not sure anybody else celebrates Thursday quite as much as I do, but it’s nice to spread some love around the whole week, not just Friday. I used to go all out nuts on Fridays at 5:00 p.m. and practically run out of the building, only to realize I still had an hour and a half (or more) before my commute home was over. It was still this desperate moment of celebration after a week of longing to escape. Not really a way to live, so I am grateful to have a mile long commute now.

1. My dad visited the big NC this weekend. We made sure to show him around town (mostly by eating everywhere) and hiked at Hanging Rock State Park a few hours away. It was crazy foggy but still quite scenic. All in all, a good time.

2. A home theater now resides in our living room. The hubby had been wanting something that didn’t weigh 100 pounds and make a high-pitched noise every time you turned it on. So when a friend of a friend was moving and needed sell a TV for cheap, we came in to save the day. What I didn’t realize at the time of said agreement was how huge it was. Movies have been an entirely new experience. The first movie to hit the screen in our house?

3. I am content. On a drive home from dinner with a friend, I couldn’t help but think of all I had. I have so many good things to be grateful for. A loving husband, good friends, a decent job, an adorable little house, overall good health and plenty more. We live in a more, more, more society, but today I am declaring contentedness. Obviously it’s still good to work towards goals and by no means do I have a pair of shoes to match every outfit in my closet, but I am happy where I am right now with what I’ve got.