life currently.

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where does time go? how have i been married for almost a year? how is luna this big? did i really just make a salmon fettuccine alfredo? why is stopping to get gas so annoying? why can't i get a day to myself? why is my master bedroom still unfinished even though i've been working on it for close to two weeks? okay fine, four weeks?
why do i never have time to do anything anymore? 
lee and i celebrated the fourth of july at high rock lake like we usually do, and i don't think i took one photo. whoops. i've taught luna how to BARK when i say SPEAK. we went through quite a few treats for that one. my mom had a pretty scary surgery recently and is doing great. praise the Lord for that. we booked a trip to destin, florida for a 5 nights at the end of august. praise the Lord for that as well. 
no, we're still not pregnant. and news flash! we don't want to be. why is it that you get married and the first thing people ask is when are you having a baby? what do you mean "when?" i have a 115 lb 1 year old with four legs. that's my baby. i'm good with that for now. lee and i both are 100% on the same page with waiting to have kids. luna is enough to chase around the house. 

especially after she's had her wine.
kidding people. i don't give my dog wine so don't freak out. unless she licks up from my wine glass that i accidentally left on the side table. 
as i'm coming up on my 28th birthday in september, i feel time is flying. and i feel like i'm in a rush. a rush to paint the house. a rush to buy all the furniture. a rush to beat 5 o'clock traffic. a rush to get home and start dinner. a rush to check the next project off of my to-do list. a rush to check my work phone. a rush to do anything. 
i need to slow down. it need it all to slow down. i need time to slow down. 

why i suck and should not post goals.

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the title of this is everything. so is the photo. i am not a blogger who can post goals and make them come true. i failed. hence the dead flower. 
you can check out my APRIL goals -  original post here. it's june. 2 months later. let's talk about an epic failure. here's a recap for you guys because i know you want to know how that went. (insert sarcasm)
finish the master bathroom. nope. granted i have made so much progress and our master bath is large with many crevices, so finishing that by april was a joke. the last thing i have left to do is the ceiling trim on one wall. yay.
get my oil changed. holy cow, thanks for the reminder. still haven't done that. the "maintenance" light went off today, so i'm gonna go ahead and say yeah, that will be taken care of in the month of june. sorry honda. 
change my freakin' last name. dang it. no. still amanda crute. lee is starting to think i don't want to take his last name!! he says this jokingly, of course. i've changed it on facebook and work email so that has got to count for something. clearly i thought so back in april too. i've had too many work flights booked under crute before, but my license expires on my birthday this year in september, so by then, i will 100% be amanda crute walker - legally.
bathe luna. CHECKKKK. i did this. and a couple times since then. :)
paint a canvas with 08.29.15. haha. i did a handwritten thing with our dates within a frame and it sits in our kitchen so, maybe this is a win. sort of.

find spring clothes. i did this. many times. no one expected i wouldn't. 
i'm tired of typing. goodnight! (or good morning depending on when i decided to schedule this post.)

because i had a moment.

for the life of me, i cannot decide if i want to stop blogging or not. there are times when it just seems too scripted or "forced" for me. there are times when it feels like if i don't blog today i won't continue to have "a mediocre" following. there are times when i come home from work and work some more so i don't have time to do anything else. but then, there are times i go back and read things that lee and i did together and i love to reminisce. 
currently lee and drew are watching game seven of whatever team lebron plays for versus whatever team steph curry plays for and i could not be less interested. i hate the nba. there's no defense. and i personally think they are extremely overpaid. 
anyway, rant over. 
today was/is father's day (depending on when you read this) and lee got up to make breakfast. this is not unusual; he usually makes breakfast on the weekend days because cuddling with my cloud of a bed >>>>> cooking egg sandwhiches. 

luna did this cute thing where she made a card for dad. turns out she's really good at penmanship. who would have thought a great dane with no thumbs could be so creative and write so clearly? not me. that's for sure. i'm pretty sure 55% of lee thought this was corny/cheesy and it totally was, but there was 45% of him that loved it, so i'll just take that as a win. i think.
lee gets up with luna every single morning between 5-6 am to take her out. i'll be completely honest & say that i cannot remember the last time i did that (unless he isn't here, of course). so, luna just had the urge to do the following:

i know, that's either really cute or really annoying. i can't decide which. i'll take a poll, maybe.
i bought those "spider flowers" from lowes food earlier this week which is why they're making an appearance in 50% of this posts' photos. i call them spider flowers because i think that's what they're called. not 100% sure. i don't buy flowers for blog photos to make "shit pretty" because that's not my style. i had flowers and they ended up being pretty in my photos. you're welcome.
i'm actually very thankful today. we had dinner with lee's family and his dad is one of the best storytellers. he's one of my favorite people. speaking of favorite people, i got to talk to my dad for over an hour on the phone today as well. i didn't get to visit him because we live 3 hours away and a 6 hour day trip isn't the easiest when you work the next day. regardless, we got to catch up and it was awesome. happy father's day to mine.  

i ended today with a glass of red wine and a sunset.

and a nba basketball game that i cared nothing about but was on my tv because my husband and brother in law are obsessed with lebron. i also ended it with a blog post. high five amanda. you'll look forward to re-reading this someday (hopefully really) soon.

why running is hard.

i'm not really that great at it. 
that's probably reason number 1 why it's hard. i've never been a size 2 kinda girl, except for when i was in like ninth grade or something crazy. that time, & the time i dropped a lot of weight due to not eating & running 3 miles a day. i was 22 at the time with the metabolism of a 22 year old. i also didn't have college claseses on monday, wednesday, or friday so sleeping in until 10am & then going for a later morning jog was easy. 
no stress for work. no exhaustion from work. no full time job. no house to clean. no dog to chase. just me, headphones, and the latest rap song for me to rock out to. 
fast forward until 27 and that's all changed. 
coming home yesterday, i knew i wanted to go for a run. i got home & thought of at least 10 reasons why i didn't need want to. i had a salad for lunch. i took the steps up to the 4th floor of the parking deck versus the elevator. lee was searching for a movie & it looked good to watch. it was too hot. it was too cold. i need new running shoes. luna needs a bath & i didn't do it like i said i would. i have a bottle of wine. 
i went & put on my running shoes and went anyway. i desperately need new shoes. 

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i ran 2.5 miles around our neighborhood & it felt amazing. an actual smile was on my face at the start of mile 2. why is it that i always dread it, but after i finish it's so satisfying? sure, my legs are still shaking today & i can barely move my arms to type, but that means it's working. i think i'll do it again tonight. 
one of my far, far fetched goals is/was to run a half marathon. it's something about those people who can run that kind of distance that is so empowering to me. i used to live around 13 miles from work and the fact that i would running that distance blew my mind. here's a secret though - i've never even ran a 5K. 
sure, i've ran 3.1 miles plenty of times before, but i've never signed up for one. that's all changing as i'm pretty certain i'm doing the panthers keep pounding 5k on may 14. what's better than running through the stadium?! hey chesson, you doing this one? 
here's an excerpt from the website: "the course begins on east morehead st. outside of levine cancer Institute. runner will proceed west on morehead to the south Gate of bank of america stadium and will head into the stadium. once inside, runners will ascend to the 500 level (using the ramps), run approximately a lap around the concourse, and then descend into the player's tunnel - where runners will feel like a panther emerging on game day! the finish line will be set up at the 50 yard line. friends and family will have the opportunity to cheer for participants from the stands. 
so there we have it. my first 5K is soon. and i'm scared. running up those ramps is NO joke. any fellow panther fan who has sat up high in the nosebleeds knows this all too well. but i've had practice before being late to my seats & refusing to miss kickoff. running up those ramps with panther adrenaline in your veins will kick your butt in gear. 
as far as that 13.1... maybe one day i'll be that crazy.                                                                         

april goals: 11 days late edition.

via i haven't ever posted about goals on the blog. 
well, i'm lying. 12 words into this post and i'm lying. oops? i did post about goals once. haha. looking back at those, i was such a clown. let's quickly recap, shall we?  become a better blogger & "the occasional style post." okay, amanda. let's jump off the typical blog bandwagon and make your blog your own, kay? i did learn to say no to making my blog what i thought others wanted to see, so CHECK that off the list. i'll give my gym routine 50%. i could do more; i could have done less. my house still isn't perfect, so i realized that. go me. and i did crafts for the wedding considering i got married, so i should receive a solid B+ on 2015 goals.
basically what i'm saying is i've never posted realistic goals that i wanted to achieve nor did i hold myself accountable until about a year and 3 months later when i realized that one time i blogged that. 
so for april, here we go:
- finish the master bathroom. i'm currently about 32% complete. i just completely made up that percentage because i have no idea what i'm doing. i'll decorate a space and completely change it the next day because i'm bored with it. i'm attempting vertical stripes this time, unlike the horizontal stripes in the half bath, so we'll see how that goes. and good Lord, i'm going to lowes to get a laser level.
- get my oil changed. that's the lamest goal if i ever had one. i just hate doing anything car maintenance. i wish we had an app for that.
- change my freakin' last name. yep, legally i'm still amanda gail crute. lee asks me all the time when i'm changing my name. it has nothing at all to do with me not wanting to. i want to. i just don't have the time. like, at all. i have walls to paint remember? kidding. honestly, since i received my promotion at work, i'm either a. too busy to take a day off or b. traveling & have a future work flight booked under Crute. can you even change an flight ticket name? my work email is under Walker & so is my facebook account, so why can't legal matters be that easy? 
- bathe luna. the chick needs a bath. i'll do that tomorrow, so check.
- paint a canvas featuring 08.29.15. i saw this cute idea and love the simplicity. canvas like this are super cheap at places like hobby lobby, and so are stencils. my creative side has exponentially grown since i got into wedding crafting. i actually started an etsy and then closed it down 2 days later because i knew my life was too crazy busy for that ish. plus "Crute's Crafts" didn't really sound as awesome as i thought it did the night i made the account after 3 glasses of wine. true story.
- find spring clothes. this is where i need y'all's help. tell me boutiques or hidden online stores where one shirt isn't $89.99. that bothers me. it's clothes. i'll wear it once, twice maybe, and never again. $89.99 can buy me that oil change & then the laser level. i maybe even could still stop by taco bell on the way home.
                                                                                             

striped walls are jerks.

i really wasn't expecting to blog about the bathroom this soon, but sometimes life gives you lemons, so you put them in the fridge, grab a glass of wine instead, and write. 
plus snapping these pics with my iphone took 30 seconds. 
i always used to say i'm not a diy person. i was really weird about diy with the wedding actually. some things i didn't mind doing myself and others i was like nope - i'll pay someone. for example, any calligraphy i handled, but when it came time to spray paint something, i refused. who the heck knows why; i'm a complicated person. 
anyway, about a month or so ago, i went to a wine and design party thing. people, they teach you how to paint while you drink wine. it's literally the best idea/concept i've ever heard of and i constantly kick myself every tuesday for not thinking of it first. something snapped in me after that class. give me some wine and i'll paint the whole town red. i mean gray. i love everything in gray.
i went home and decided it was time to redo to half bath downstairs. i chose this room strategically though, because what if halfway through i did something crazy like decided painting was stupid or... God forbid.. run out of wine? this room was small and finish-able. 
i went to a lowes home improvement store, which i never go to for fun, and grabbed some paint. i didn't get samples; i just went for it. i bought a gallon of the lighter gray and a smaller size of the darker gray just to see what happened. it turns out i was off work on that friday, so i poured some wine and went to town on my first "for real" painting attempt ever. 

i poured the paint into the metal pan thing and went to work. it was shortly after that when i realized - oh damn. i forgot to tape the molding. like RULE NUMBER 1 is to tape your molding. so i went back to square one, taped it all (including the ceiling molding as i was also painting the ceiling), and then it was back to rolling. 
painting the walls one color was easy, really. it gave me a good arm workout too, so double win? we have pretty high ceilings in the house. they're close to 10 or 11 feet, so a dining chair was my only chance at getting those high reaches. let me tell you - getting up and down on a high dining chair to get more paint repetitively is a butt workout. 
sounds like i should paint more often if you know what i mean.
funny side story - i painted the entire bathroom the lighter gray and hated it. i mean i was "went to bed mad for not buying a sample, disappointed in my lack of home decor skills" angry. i woke up the next morning and loved the color. clearly, i'm paint bi-polar.
so then i had the stripes to do. my first mistake was not realizing there was this nifty contraption called a laser level. they sell them probably at any hardware store, but i didn't realize this under after i hand measured each line with an old school level to ensure it wasn't crooked.
this means i had to cut my tape measurements in 2 feet increments to keep consistency. this took way longer than it should have, but whatever. 

the white frames i actually got at target on clearance for $2.49 a piece. i seriously saw that sale and bought 15 of them on spot. how do you beat a skinny 8x10 frame for $2.49?! i found those printables online for free actually. originally, the "good day gorgeous" said "good morning gorgeous." it kind of bothered me as i knew we would have these in the downstairs bath, which is what a lot of our guests use when they come over for parties or to hang out.
i'm not a morning person, so the likelihood of a guest using the downstairs half bath during the AM is not high. they can use any of the other 2 guest upstairs full bathrooms, right?? so i took this printable to the computer paint program and somehow made it say "good day." don't ask me, because i don't even know how i worked the magic. the whole frame & printable thing cost me $5.00 total. win.
so for now, the half bath is done. lee likes to say "welcome! let me show you the half bath, the prettiest room in the house." 
little does he know, i'm on a mission. currently, i'm working on our master bath (have been for 2 weeks) and plan to share that soon. it's about 7 or 8 times the size of the mini half bath so the timeline to complete the painting, decorate it, and then actually blog about it is ........................................................

                                                              

am i back?

i don't know. 

i mean i updated my blog title font. that has to count for something, right? i made most of the blog design "white" because that's the trendy thing to do now, i think. i even updated my picture to a bridal portrait with some sort of corny description about how i enjoy cooking, wine, my husband, and my dog. 

i just realized that simple sentence just summed me up and i'm sure if that means i'm growing up or if i'm some lame wife who wants to stay in all the time now. it's fine, i'm cool with it.

so, how's married life been, you ask? married life is awesome. i get to come home and immediately wash my face from makeup, throw my hair in a non-cute messy bun, and put on sweatpants. the cool part about it is there's still some great guy, already in sweats himself, waiting to give me a kiss and hang out. we're that couple that binge watches the food network for my liking, and watches game of thrones for his liking. (ps: by "watching game of thrones," i really i mean i just play on my phone because i can't get into game of thrones. any show where someone's name could be thor and it's acceptable is just not my kind of show. sorry GOT fans.)

anyway, now here's a sappy photo of us from the past 3 months (or however long it's been since i've blogged) because marrying this goofball is still the best thing i've ever done. for better, for worse. 

I've developed this love (hate?) for painting. in the past few months, i completely redid our half bathroom downstairs. i don't have the time or patience to take professional looking photos of the final product, so i'll leave you with this. just know painting stripes on a wall is a complete asshole project. 

maybe i'll post the whole story one day.
i also really like cooking. i used to get so pissed at my parents, growing up as a child, when they had me in the kitchen. rolling of eyes and under the breath comments were way too frequent, but now it's became my therapy. 
i started a insta for my food creations. @wineisafoodgroup - shocker? nah. i figured if i spent at least 5 minutes plating my stupid dinners for lee and myself, i may as well document it happened, right? right.

and how's miss luna? she's good. she's huge. she had surgery to get spayed and a procedure called gastropexy, and i lost my shit, but she's good. giant breed dogs often have an issue with "bloat," which can cause death, so the gastropexy procedure helps to avoid that. don't ask me any more questions because the words "death" and "luna" in the same paragraph doesn't sit well with me.
to distract myself, here's her sitting all nicely posing with me only because lee is holding a pepperoni to get her to focus.

i hope i'm back this time. work is more manageable now, but the rest of the walls in our 4 bedroom house are calling my name, so it will be a struggle between blogging and painting. we will see.
crap. i just realized i didn't "upgrade" my signature with the rest of the "blog uplift." eh, one thing at a time. 

orlando and cancun.

i had to leave luna for the first time since our honeymoon. what kinda of person starts off their blog about orlando and cancun with that statement? a dog obsessed mom - that's who. it was heartbreaking, but we had to do it. 

i stood in front of this stupid world to get this picture for at least 10 minutes. either someone would walk in front of me, or i wouldn't time it right - but here we have it. in all it's glory.

last summer, lee made me ever so proud by passing all these crazy tests and obtaining his senior title for his job. senior at age 28? okay, hubs, i see you. anyway, he got an incentive trip to orlando for a weekend in january. i love orlando as much as the next 5 year old, so book me on all the rides!!! 

...enter in my own job promotion at the beginning of september, and i found out that we had an all manager's meeting which overlapped the same dates. so i flew from charlotte on a saturday to spend two days in orlando with lee, then left on that monday to fly to cancun for my own work function. 

rough life, right? no, i'm not lucky, i'm blessed. yes.

we ended up buying park to park tickets to islands of adventure and universal studios - which included both of the harry potter parks. 

ok, don't freak out.

i don't know much about harry potter. i know he's a wizard and there's a lightning bolt and they have brooms and there's this dude with a weird nose who i'm pretty sure is bad and there's butter beer. there's a train and a talking hat thing and a three headed dog. but even so, the parks down in orlando are amazing even if you don't know jack squat about what's going on. 

and if you want to go on the scariest ride known to man, go on the simulator ride in the castle.

i freakin' love adrenaline rides or roller coasters, but this thing scared the absolute crap out of me. i went on this ride about 4 or so years ago for the first time, and i remember telling lee - this ride is no joke. i spent 3/4 of the thing with my hand over my eyes. they had spiders jumping out at you and i do. not. do. spiders.

anyway, go on it, don't listen to me you harry potter fans. what do i know?

the second day, we bought express passes. i'll be the first to admit - those things are outrageously priced. tickets ALONE are outrageously priced, but hey, you pay for convenience, right? so we did. i honestly felt bad walking past all those people who had to wait in line for 45+ minutes for the ride when lee and i waited no more than like 8-10 minutes. it was so worth it. we got to do multiple rides back to back and bounce from one park to another to catch rides we didn't get to the day prior due to wait times.

the express pass really came in handy for this coaster.

i know, i know. that's a sick pic. i took it and was like yessssssss. anyway, this is one of the coolest coasters i've ever been on. first of all, it's a 90 degree vertical climb to the top which is insane from the get go, but the reason this was so unique had nothing to do with that. 

when you sat down, your lap bar came across & had a touchscreen. it asked you to select your favorite genre of music ranging from country to rap to rock to alternative. you picked your favorite and then it auto populated specific well known songs from that genre & you were to select one. at the top of that first drop, your selected song started playing through out the entire ride due to speakers embedded in your headrest. so. cool.

then at the end you get to see yourself filmed throughout the ride. they didn't tell you this - and oh my gosh it's freakin' hilarious.

then i jetted off to cancun.

i do not have nearly the amount of pictures or stories that i do in orlando since i was on business, but the resort pool was all kinds of heart emojis. 

and so were the sunrises.

plus i was in dang cancun, so who can really complain? there were palm trees, good drinks, good convos, and good people. luna wouldn't leave me alone for a solid 20 minutes when i finally returned home the next day, so i'm trying to figure out if that was the best part of this whole thing or not. 
kidding.
can you believe i blogged last friday and today? me either, but holla! that's my life recap in my whirlwind trip down south and out of the country. until next time's adventures...

BAKED onion rings.

aw yeah,  you read that right. BAKED, baby. 

here in the past year i have really developed a love for cooking. i've always, i guess, enjoyed it, but lately it's become my thing. my stress reliever. my creative outlet. i like to find inspiration for recipes and then make them my own. nevermind the fact that i usually have to "make them my own" because i don't have half of what a certain recipe calls for in my fridge or pantry, so i just substitute for what i think would work & go from there. 

tomatoes. to-MA-toes, right? 

we don't own a fryer. does anyone remember fry daddy's? that big, black, deep, scary looking contraption that my parents always used when i was a kid to make hush puppies or whatever. i never liked that thing. it popped hot grease that hurt when it hit me, so that resulted in me never cooking bacon until about 2 years ago. hot grease is scary. actually the oven in general is scary and i've burned myself more times than i wanna admit, but now i'm just rambling. 

so enter all the baked version of "fried" food. i made homemade chinese-ish chicken the other night using this method, but that's another story for another day. 

tonight, i was home alone with luna because lee went to a concert with his brother and onion rings just entered my mind. i had an extremely busy & stressful work day, so why not turn on some music and dance it out in the kitchen? 

sounds good to me. 

baked onion rings.

ingredients: 

1 medium white onion

1/3 cup of flour

heaping tablespoon of chili powder

heaping tablespoon of garlic powder

1 egg

1 cup of panko

non stick spray

1. preheat oven to 450 & slice your onion long ways so it makes rings & place into a bowl of water. if you don't know how to do that, then abort this recipe. you're doomed.

2. start by combining the flour, chili powder, and garlic powder (plus a little salt to taste) in a bowl.

3. add the egg in a separate bowl.

4. panko in a third bowl.

5. you know the drill. onion to flour to egg to panko.

6. place on a heavily greased baking sheet (i used non stick spray) & bake for about 11 minutes. 

7. serve with your favorite sauce. 

boom. 

08.29.15 - the ceremony

we left off with our wedding party pictures and how thankful i was to my peeps for sweating in the august sun for us. alexander homestead had this gazebo & loosely strung lights that i fell in love with from the moment i saw them. it was where i wanted to be married and nothing else mattered.

after the family shots, us girls went into the female bridal suite which overlooked the ceremony location. since we had that first look, i was very calm - which i didn't think i would be honestly. standing in front of all these people can make a woman nervous! we popped our mini champagne bottles, danielle said a quick toast & prayer, & before i knew it, we were lining up to head out. 
one thing that i didn't think about was that since i was tucked away, i wouldn't see the seating of the parents, grandparents, lee's entrance or anything! i mean duh, right? the bride comes down last so that kind of logical, amanda, but when you have a million things going on in your head, you tend to have bride brain that makes you do stupid stuff. 
like the song my bridesmaids and i sang inside the suite because i was about to bawl my eyes out from emotion/nervousness/catching a quick glimpse of my adorable 84 year old granddaddy going down the aisle. 
we sang "heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes." literally while everyone was staring at us waiting, like the guys below, we were singing a dang barney song and no one knew.

i'm pretty certain it was my idea to sing it and why on earth barney popped into my head, i have no idea. i think that's a barney song right? regardless, it made us die laughing and helped out my goal of not ugly crying down the aisle. score.
so what did i walk down the aisle to? this may seem stupid to a lot of you, but i really don't care. the first time i heard the instrumental cover by the piano guys of taylor swift's begin again - i knew that was it. i love the way it opened into the song. my dad came from behind the building down a brick path & waited for me to meet him at the bottom of the stairs in front of the bridal suite. i had this planned, literally, down to the second so i would arrive at lee when the instrumental ended at the chorus. numerous morning commutes to work were spent listening that song over and over and over.
so why that song? well, it's no secret i'm a taylor fanatic and have been for years, but 'begin again' is literally our love story. our first date was on a wednesday in a (sort of) cafe. the lyrics of that song hit home to me in so many ways. from the first time i went on a date with lee, i watched my entire life, and love, begin again. i wouldn't change this for the world.

it's funny how ceremonies go. you plan them for 30 minutes (or at least we did. we wanted short & sweet) and you feel like you're up there for 3 minutes. you say your vows, you exchange rings, and boom the show is over. we did decide to have a lantern lighting ceremony. lee gave my mom a white rose & i gave lee's mom a white rose as well. this was a surprise to them and i think they loved it. my photographer did a great job at capturing so many different angles of our ceremony. 
like the below. i don't even think garrett knows it's one of my favorite pictures because of how unique it is. plus i love those lights.

my grandma passed away on april 2, 2008. she was one of my best friends so i got this picture blown up and it sat in a chair beside of my granddaddy in the front row.  i hand wrote the following lyrics beside her picture...
and what would you think of me now? so lucky. so strong. so proud.
one of my bridesmaids, taylor, contact my florist without me knowing so she could send in my new monogram stitched in blue & attached a charm of the bible verse luke 22:43 to my bridal bouquet. she has no clue how much this meant to me. 
i miss you everyday grandma.

and in the blink of an eye, the ceremony was over & we were headed back down the aisle. i had a "lavender shower" planned for our guests to toss dried lavender into the air as we walked by. it was really fun and unique. 

and just like that, we were married. a big shout out to our closest people below who made this day possible and a dream for us. without your unconditional love, shoulders to lean on, and a million text messages that i sent & you helped me - our wedding day wouldn't have been the same. 

we were blessed beyond words for an absolute perfect wedding day. 
all photos by carolina portrait designs.

i like blogging. at least i think.

happy 2016 from my blurry photo from nye. i kid you not - i took like 12 pictures that night. but most were fuzzy or me giving a weird look. so really there was only like 3. this was 1 of them so you know - #doitfortheblog.
i do like blogging, i promise. i like blogging because i like that i can do it on my own time. hell, i haven't posted in a month and a handful of days, but i sat down tonight and just said ok, i have a free minute. i don't think i could ever be a blogger that blogs because they felt the had to.  i tried that once and quickly realized that wasn't me at all. if you look back, those two posts followed each other. amanda can't be fake to herself for too long, ya know.
so what have we been up to? heck, i don't know. we had Christmas. it was our first married Christmas and it still kinda felt like the ones before it. not that that's at all a bad thing or not to take anything away from first married Christmas sentimental-ness, but every Christmas with lee has been special - we just have wedding rings this time. thank God for those rings.
it was luna's first one and we spoiled her with this fancy huge bone from harris teeter. you know those big bones that are like $15 or something ridiculous and you think why in the crap are these bones so expensive? $15 can get me a nice laundry detergent.... but you know, it was Christmas and she needed something in her stocking. 
she threw it up later that next morning. no more $15 throw up bones for luna. 

we spent christmas eve with my parents in roxboro, as usual, and headed back to charlotte for the walker christmas night ritual. below is my horrible attempt at cropping the two photos together. 

lee doesn't have eyes in the bottom photo & andy's girlfriend, alli, doesn't have a face. i don't have a smile in the top photo and lee's dad doesn't have a forehead, but whatever. you make it work.

for new year's eve, we did this really amazing thing that we never do anymore called going out. yes, we picked a bar and actually went there. no, you can't wear sweatpants, and yes, you probably should wear makeup. but we decided to shake up usual traditions and head over to maverick rock taco on montford. 

before you ask, no i don't have a group shot. but we were 5 couples people deep and it was a blast. and sparkly.

i have a funny story when we were trying to order tickets actually. their debit card spot wasn't working & of course, know me, i escalate everything. i got in touch with the marketing director, who was really nice actually, & she said something would be "waiting on arrival" for me. i walked up & "upon arrival" i had nada. after speaking to the manager they "figured it out" and this girl got a free bottle of champs when i carried around all night of course. 
i won't use any more quotes in this blog post i swear.
and then this cool thing happened.

15-1 baby. 15-1. thanks for all the people who texted me after the panthers loss to atlanta, but it didn't stop us against the bucs. i actually had zero plans to go to the game until allyson called me frantically that sunday morning saying she found tickets. 

so to a tailgate i went. and it was the best way to end the regular season.

i've also been cooking up a storm & instagramming them, but not posting recipes.

oops. i suck. this will (should?) come soon. especially those tacos. oh my god, those tacos. check back soon (hopefully).

maybe this why i'm not good at "normal" blogging. because i do this data dump and then chill in my sweatpants playing grand theft auto in my spare time. yes, i asked for a playstation 4 for christmas and my wonderful husband provided. i've been hooked on GTA5 and "until dawn" since they arrived. i'm a gamer y'all- let it be known. am i real girl?
yeah, i am. i still listen to taylor swift every time i blog because it's tradition and i'm still rocking christmas pjs on january 8th as i'm writing this post. it won't post until january 11th so that may not make sense but whatever. we're going to orlando this weekend (last weekend by the time you read this?) to do universal studios and islands of adventure. lee has never been and that's really weird. i head to cancun on monday (when you're reading this) for work so i'll try and do better with pics than i did on nye. cancun reminds me - i still need to blog about our honeymoon. damnit.
anyway, i'll try to do better when work chills out. i love looking back on these posts actually to see what silly/stupid thing i posted so i'll try. i'll try as hard as we did to get a good "lee, amanda, luna" christmas picture. see below. it wasn't easy.