Marriage: Top Three Challenges

Crawford and I had the pleasure of attending the Art of Marriage (AOM) Live conference on Valentine's weekend at The Bridge in Goldsboro, NC.  We started the AOM during our wedding counseling but with the busyness of wedding planning and the fact we were not living together before the wedding, it was a bit hard to do separately. I cannot say enough positive things about attending an AOM conference live.  What a difference it made for us as opposed to being by ourselves and watching the videos and studying the lessons.

While our first year of marriage is still fresh on my mind, I want to write about some of the top 3 challenges that we faced as newlyweds.

1.  How to live with a person of the opposite sex.

Girls and boy are different. Plain and simple.  I had never lived with a male (other than my dad) before we got married.  Learning that we both say/do things differently was a real challenge at first.  I would not say that either one of us are neat freaks but we are not sloths either...at least we DID have that going for us.  However, I have my pet peeves and he has his.  For example, Craw has a bad habit of leaving dresser drawers open and not closing them and I. CANT. STAND. IT!!! However, I have a bad habit of leaving my towels on the floor and not hanging them up and HE. CANT. STAND. IT!!!  It's quite comical...


2.  We both handle issues very differently.


I feel like this may be a given for most newlywed couples.  Most relationships have one person that likes to talk things out right then and then the other person needs to be left alone.  This definitely applies to Craw and I .  He is the one that likes to talk and hash it out right as soon as we disagree/argue...and I'm like...DON'T TOUCH ME!  He's definitely a person that likes to touch and thinks that he has to put his hand on mine or on my knee while we work through a disagreement...#nope! I will quickly spazz out on him. Thankfully, we learned this about each other while we were dating and again during marriage counseling but it seems to be a much bigger deal when you're living under one roof.  It took some time but I can happily say he knows he needs to give me about 5 minutes and then we can talk and I guess I learned that he can at least touch my knee...


3. Juggling two very different, yet busy, schedules


This one was tough.  Craw and I are go-go-go people.  Even when we try not to plan anything and stay home, we end up going somewhere and doing something.  We both have jobs with different hours, we are both involved in different church activities, his family lives out of town, he plays softball during the spring/summer, and we both love to travel. One thing our pastor told us during counseling was that we would need to learn to say NO during our first year of marriage.  I don't like saying no but Craw has no issues telling a person no so that really worked well for us.  One thing that really helped us was communicating with each other.  This allowed us to let each other know when one of us was burned out and it also helped us keep our busy schedules straight.  Also, Craw is not good at remembering things so he knows that all plans need to be ran by me, otherwise, there is a chance he is not going to remember.
#imtheplanner


Marriage is definitely not easy but it is so worth it.

New Year, New Beginnings

I have so many drafts that are just sitting waiting to be published.  So much has happened within the last year and it has take me away from this little space for quite a while.  A new year calls for a chance of new beginnings and I am certainly thankful for a fresh new year. 

Here are my top 5 highlights from 2015:

(good and bad)

1.  I was officially diagnosed with Crohns Disease in September. 

After many sick months and a few changes in doctors, I received my diagnosis and it's safe to say it changed my life. I started infusions of Remicade immediately upon my diagnosis and have been responding well to treatment.

2.  I experienced not ONE but TWO hospital stays triggered by my Crohns.

This was definitely the lowest point of the year for me.  The picture below was taken from the first stay.  I plan to write more about this later on but for now, just know it was not a fun time.

Making the best out of a miserable situation.

3.  Crawford and I travelled back to our favorite city and got to cheer on our Panthers! 

This is one of my favorite trips of the year and it also helps that the Panthers ended the regular season 15-1.  I wasn't sure if I would be well enough to go on this trip but the Lord blessed me tremendously and I was thankfully able to get away with the hubby.

4.  I received a promotion at work at the very end of the year.

Self explanatory...

5.  Last but certainly not least, my love and I celebrated ONE

 BLISSFUL YEAR of marriage!

It really was a year filled with ups and downs but at the end of the day, I am so thankful to be where I am today.  I finally have a diagnosis, I'm feeling better with each day that passes, I love my new job, and I am so in love with my husband.  

One Blissful Year

One whole year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes.

Crawford,

My vows still ring true every single day.  You are my light, my love, and my life.  Thank you for your unconditional love and support over this past year and for always being my person.  Cheers to many, many more. 

xoxo

six months

SIX MONTHS!!

Today makes six months of marriage.  I am not sure how that is even possible but somehow, we are six months in.  Marriage is wonderful.  It is definitely not always perfect, but it is truly wonderful.  I feel like I have learned a lot in these past six months...and I am not referring to just cooking (I see you, mom).

So much has happened in the last six months.  Crawford and I did not live together before we got married so  the last six months have been spent moving my loads of clothes and miscellaneous crap stuff to our house.  What that really means is we threw everything in to our guest bedroom and office and have slowly begun sifting through the boxes.  Its a work in progress.  I feel like as soon as I get the room empty and clean, mom calls me and says she has found more of my stuff. 

The day we closed on our house.  I did not move in until 7 months later.

In the last six months, Crawford and I have worked on a lot of house projects together. 

The first big task was assembling our upholstered bed.  Sounds like an easy first task, right?  WRONG.  It took us 4.5 hours in between him telling me numerous times to "leave the room and go sit on the couch."

We also hung curtains in 3 different rooms of the house and made it through that just fine as well.  While curtains are not hard to assemble, I am a perfectionist so I made him re-do them a couple of times to get it just right.

We went on a weekend trip to Charlotte for my birthday and discovered our new passion for the Panthers.  Crawford has been loving the Panthers but I have never cared for football.  However, I fell in love with Charlotte and we already have tickets for a game in the fall and a longggg weekend getaway. 

Our first married Thanksgiving. 

We spent our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, as well as birthdays together.  It was nice not having to split up and go our separate ways.

First Married Christmas 

First Christmas Tree in our new house. 

We took Christmas pictures on our wedding day.

We have started spending more time with the youth at church and volunteer every other Sunday in the nursery together during Sunday School.  I must say, this is one of the biggest highlights.  I love doing ministry with my husband...even if we are starting out small.

We had our first big disagreement or fight (whatever you want to call it) and had to figure out the proper way to handle it.  Getting in a big disagreement with your husband is wayyyy different when you are married than when you were dating.  While we were dating, I would just go off by myself or go home.  I can't do that now.  It took some adjusting but we figured out what worked for us and I can already tell we will be just fine at handling whatever comes our way.

So as you can see, the first 6 months of marriage has been filled with immeasurable amounts of bliss.  That is the reason I named this blog Blissfully Bolton.

Crawford, I cannot even describe the amount of joy that you bring in to my life.  This new adventure that I get to share with you has been the greatest of my life.  These past six months have flown by and I cannot wait to do 566549879413 x infinity more with you.  Thank you for your patience and love shown to me.  I love you times infinity plus one. 

Our First Married Valentines Day

To be honest, I really don't care much for Valentine's Day. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it, just could care less about it. I will say that this was probably the BEST Valentine's Day I have ever had. We started the day by waking up and going to a Couples Panel session sponsored by The Well. My friend Madison started The Well back in October and it is a gathering for young women that are intently wanting to focus on having a Godly marriage and how to be a Godly wife. They meet once a month but this month, they decided to switch it up and invite the spouses. Madison found 4 couples that have been married for 15+ years and had us submit questions for them to answer in relation to their own marriage. For two hours, we got to listen to couples share their experiences and what they have learned throughout their marriage. They covered all types of questions newly married couples may have regarding finances, communication, intimacy, and how to center our marriage on God. Crawford and I gained so much from that panel and it was an awesome way to start our Valentine's Day.

The rest of the day, we spent just being together. We did a little shopping, took a nap, ordered take out, rented a movie and came home and watched it by the fire. It was pure bliss and I told Craw I was a cheap date. I loved just spending time with my husband. While I try to show my love to him everyday in random ways, it was nice to have a day that was just for us. Maybe I am starting to like Valentine's Day a little more now that I'm married.

**For those interested in more information on The Well, comment below or email me.**

Weekend Recap

I loveeee long weekends.  Working for a bank, you do not get a lot of time off so I embrace those long weekends when they come around and have already started counting down to the next one.  We had an amazing weekend filled with a whole lot of nothing.  The best kind, right?

We dog sat our best friends lab for the whole weekend and that was quite the adventure.  Hank is only 10 pounds and is a complete lap dog.  Nala is an 80-ish pound lab that is one big ball of energy.  Hank and Nala are literally like boyfriend and girlfriend.  All we have to do is say her name or Na-Na and he goes ballistic.  

Friday night we took both dogs over to Kevin's house.  Kevin has a HUGE bloodhound and Nala loves playing with Charlie.  We basically just chilled the entire night and let the dogs do their thing while Hank remained permanently glued to my lap.  We are still working on him liking Charlie but right now, he just sees Charlie as a HUGE beast even though he is the friendliest dog in the world.

Sorry for the blurriness but these two don't stay still long.

Saturday we slept in which was glorious and then Crawford and I cooked breakfast together.  Hank also got a haircut. We didn't really do anything else during the day but we went to the movies that night with some of our friends and Crawfords brother.  We saw American Sniper and it was amazing.  The best part of the movie was the fact that the theather remained silent while the credits started rolling and no one said anything as they walked out.  Sort of like a moment of silence to a fallen hero.  It gave me the chills.  God bless the fallen heroes and God bless our troops.

Hank with his fresh cut

Sunday was awesome.  We went to church that morning and our youth pastor preached and did an amazing job.  After church, Crawford called a few of his buddies from church and we ended up asking people to come over for an impromptu football party.  What started as a few ended up with about 12 adults and 5 children.  Oh yeah, and this happened.  All of the kids crawled in our bed and watched tv together.  So cute!!

Monday we slept in and decided to get up and clean out our cars.  They were long over-due for a cleaning.  Kat and Andrew came and picked up Nala and we decided to end our long weekend with a trip to Smithfield for a little bit of shopping at the outlets.  It seriously was the best weekend and I enjoyed every single moment with my husband.  I love going and doing but the best weekends are the ones in which we have zero plans and can just do whatever comes up.  I was sick last week so that is the reason for such little posting but I am feeling back to normal and I am looking forward to a new week.

{Five on Friday}

{ONE} Is it just me or has it been tough getting back in to the groove of things after the holidays. Working for a bank, we only got Christmas day and New Years day off but I took a couple extra ones. Even with very little time off, I got used to sleeping in and being lazy. It was nice. Now I am struggling. 

{TWO}  Crawford surprised me with tickets to see Wicked for Christmas. It's in my top 3 favorite Broadway shows and I am ecstatic. Crawford has never seen a Broadway show at all so it's going to be wicked fun-no pun intended.

{THREE} One of goals for January is to clean and organize our house. We bought our house last April but I didn't move in until November. Trying to move my things in the midst of the holidays as well as piles and piles of wedding decorations/presents is difficult. We started on the office last week. It's slowly getting there. This was the room we "junked" so we at least have a walk way in to the room now. YES! 

{FOUR}  Hank has been extra cuddly this week and I love it! We are scared he may be getting sick because he has not had any energy at all but I do enjoy the cuddles from that fluff ball. He is getting his annual shots today and then a majorly over due hair cut next week.

This picture was taken about 2 weeks ago so his hair is now covering his eyes.

{FIVE}   We got our wedding pictures back from our photographer about 2 weeks ago.  I have been enjoying sifting through all of the pictures.  Yesterday made 2 months of marriage.  At times, it feels like it has absolutely flown by and at other times, it feels like we have been married for years.  I am enjoying every single minute of being married.  There are moments that are challenging but that was to be expected.  I would say our biggest challenge thus far has been coordinating our busy schedules.  We are definitely the type that love going and doing but have found that it is important to sometimes scale back and just be home together. 

Today, I am linking up with 

{darci, april, christina + natasha}

First Married Christmas

Can you believe Christmas has already come and gone? I feel like it should still be Thanksgiving. Our pastor that married us told us that one of the biggest challenges for newly weds was deciding what to do for the holidays. Therefore, he asked us to come up with a plan for Thanksgiving and Christmas prior to getting married.  I can honestly say that was one piece of advice that I was very thankful for and it made our holiday travels much easier and stress free.

I have to work every Christmas Eve but my employer lets everyone leave at 2:00 pm (very grateful). Once I got home, Crawford and I loaded the car and headed for Pinetops.  Every year, my entire family which includes 6 aunts/uncles, 7 cousins + spouses, 10 great grandchildren, pack into my grandmas house on Christmas Eve.  We lost my grandma to cancer last year but decided to keep the tradition alive by continuing to have Christmas at her house. I have a feeling that this may change in the future for the fact that we have completely outgrown her house. One thing I will say, my fondest Christmas memories were spent in that house and they will always hold a special place in my heart.

Grandmas children: Uncle John, Aunt Debbie, Aunt Terry, and dad.

This was the first year Crawford has been able to attend Christmas Eve at grandmas and it was so special. Grandma always had a white tree and we still use her white tree and ornaments each year.

Some of my cousins.

Spouses of the grandkids.

After we left grandmas, we went and picked up Hank and went to mom and dads house. We decided we would celebrate Christmas with them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Craws family. The most important Christmas tradition for me is sitting by the tree on Christmas Eve with a cup of hot chocolate and listening to dad read the story of Christs birth. We have done it every year and afterwards we will share some of the happy/sad/funny/growth moments of the year.

After the Christmas story, we spent the rest of the night opening presents. We even went with mom and dad to pick out a new car for mom. I love my family and enjoyed every moment with them.

Christmas morning felt odd, yet exciting. It was the first time in 25 years I have not woken up in my parents house. Due to the hectic schedule of my birthday, Crawfords moms birthday, and working the week of Christmas, I forgot to buy groceries for breakfast. Nothing was open on Christmas so we literally had nothing for breakfast. FAIL on my part. I promise to do better next year. Crawford and I decided not to do Christmas to each other this year since we just got married, honeymooned in St. Lucia, and bought an iPad. He did surprise me with tickets to see Wicked and I am stoked!! Around 11, we left for Louisburg to spend Christmas with his family.

Here we are with both of his brothers and his grandma.  

This picture was actually taken two weeks prior in Edenton.

This was the first Christmas in which I have been able to see Craws family on Christmas. It was nice being able to experience other traditions. Their Christmas tradition involves eating homemade tacos for Christmas lunch.

Hank even joined us for our little trip to Louisburg. He loves his Lu-Lu (Craws mom) and she absolutely loves him.

I put up this photo on Insta but isn't it crazy the difference one year makes? My second Christmas with Hankers!

We truly had a wonderful Christmas. I have a feeling we will be making a few changes next year- like having groceries on hand for breakfast- but we will forever cherish our first MARRIED Christmas!!

2014 Christmas Card

My Matron of Honor/BESTFRIEND told me that for one of my wedding gifts, she would be buying my Christmas cards for me. She had it all planned out like everything else she does in life. On the day of the wedding, she brought Craw a santa hat and me some reindeer antlers. We were going to take a funny picture for our Christmas cards. 

Rebekah had our photographer email her these pictures while we were on the honeymoon so she could go ahead and order them. Again, she thinks of everything.

These were the two pictures we received. I thought they were both great but Craw loved the first one the best. When it came time to order, I was so indecisive. I couldn't decide if I liked the funny one or if I wanted to use a regular wedding picture. In the end, we went with a regular picture and they turned out great! Craw was a little sad that we didn't use the funny santa hat picture but he still loved the cards.

 Giving and receiving Christmas cards is probably one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I find myself running to the mailbox to see what new cards we receive everyday.

Our 2014 Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from our little family to yours.

Birthday Weekend Recap

Friday was the McLamb Tacky Christmas Shindig. We had a blast and enjoyed spending time with our precious friends.

Check out Sara and Matthews tree. The picture does not do it justice. I told her I was hiring her to come help with mine next year.

Some of my favorite girls.

Yes, my husband has the cheesiest smile.

Saturday we woke up and took our time packing for our much anticipate road trip. I gave Crawford tickets to see the Panthers play Cleveland as a wedding present. I also booked us a room in downtown Charlotte and gave him a Cam Newton jersey. 

**Major brownie points**

We left for Charlotte around 1 on Sarurday but we had to stop for Starbucks first. Rebekah introduced me to a Caramel Apple Spice and it is out of this world amazing!!

I just love Charlotte.

For dinner, we went to the Carolina Ale House since it was a block away from our hotel. We then went to the EpiCentre and spent the rest of the night at the Tin Roof listening to a band from Nashville, TN. It was the perfect way to kick off my birthday.

Sunday was the best day ever. We woke up and checked out of the hotel and went to Panera Bread for lunch. My FAVE! We then headed to the Panthers game versus the Cleveland Browns. It was our first NFL game and we had a blast!!

We decided that the Panthers would be the one team we both pull for since we can't agree on NCAA teams. I was not a football fan before Crawford. I just didn't understand it. One thing about dating a Bolton- you will learn to like football. Actually, you will learn to like ALL sports because that is what they live and breathe. Being in that stadium was amazing and completely different than watching a game on TV!

Something tells me we will be taking many trips to Charlotte in our lifetime. We hope to make it to at least one game a season. I truly had the best birthday weekend. Every day is a new adventure with the man I love and I have never been happier.