Our Summer Shenanigans

Hey y'all! 

It has been almost four months to the day since I my last post on my little piece of the WWW. Thanks to IG I have been able to keep up with most of you and vice versa, but I have truly missed this space. What has brought me back was sharing San Fransisco recommendations with a friend and I decided that I needed to blog about our trip before I forgot it all. I wanted to give you a preview of our Summer shenanigans with you and I look forward to divulging all of the good details with you later! 

:: Memorial Day in Helen & The Lake :: San Francisco :: We bought our HOUSE! ::

:: Camping Adventures :: Our best friend opened a restaurant :: 1st UGA GAME :: 

 :: Celebrating 1 year as a REALTOR ::

Knocking Off the Dust

Is this mic on??

I had a little bit of free time this afternoon, and while I should be crafting a clever email for next week's sphere of influence campaign, I decided to come here instead. This space has been at the bottom of the list for quite sometime now and perhaps I can move it up a few notches! So what has happened since my last post in January??? 

Tara and Josh are Married!!! Presenting Mr and Mrs Hall:

Both of my listings have sold! YAY:

We've been to the lake twice! Once while it was cold, and once to get some sun: 

We celebrated the wedding of a close family friend and Easter: 

  
This past weekend we headed down to St Simons for a nice three day getaway:

Yesterday - April 25th - was exactly 365 days since my first real estate pre-licensing course. So on that anniversary I got to tell my clients that we're officially UNDER CONTRACT! We've been working together since December so it was such a pleasure to say those words.

Tomorrow I've got Books for Brews for Junior League at Southern Brewing Company, a local brewery! I'm chairman of book distribution project in May, so its always fun to reach out into the community for an event. Local Brewery + Local Non Profit = WIN WIN.

Saturday is my 31st birthday. YIKES, thirty-one. Still not sure how I feel about it, but Steven will always be older than me so I guess there is a silver lining to that haha!!! 

Tah Tah for now friends! I will (hopefully) be back here very soon! At least with a birthday and junior league project re-cap!

Thursday Thoughts

Just a few thoughts to leave you with today....

-- I bought spanx for the FIRST and LAST time in my life yesterday. Let's be honest here ladies, unless you are Gisele, its hard to look flawless in a fully sequined dress! However, when you're in a wedding that is 13 days after New Years and 20 days after Christmas, unless you starve yourself, you're not shedding those holiday pounds. I did make an honest effort to cut the carbs last week and watch the calories this week, but I still need my wine. I plan to wear this dress again in March for a black tie event we are attending, so my goal is to NOT have to wear the spanx with it then. #mustworkmycoremore #stopeatingthecarbsfatty #onedayilllooklikegisele

via Suburban Stylista

-- The 100 has taken over our lives. We started the series on New Years Day, there are 3 seasons with the 1st season having 12 episodes and the next two season having 16. We're on episode 5 of the 3rd season. Basically this means we are watching Netflix every night. We've only taken down 1 Christmas tree and the gym has been practically non existent because we're addicted. Click here to watch the season 4 trailer. Don't say that I didn't warn you if you start watching this ;)

-- $9.98 Target flats for the win! Yes, I did just share that our 2017 goal was to pay off our credit card debt, and we will begin doing so in February. In between my medical bills (hello mri's) and our yearly car insurance falling in January along with my yearly REALTOR dues this month was too hard to start the envelope method. I ran in Target yesterday to pick up a card/gift wrap and I couldn't help but do a little window shopping. I mean c'mon y'all its Target! When I saw these babies on clearance, I snagged them up. Steven said had they been $1 more, I would have been "in trouble" haha.

 
-- I'm about to head out of here to kick off Tara's wedding weekend!! First things first, nails then champs! I'm quite excited about getting a mani+pedi, it'll be the first "professional" nail job that I will have gotten since my birthday. When you're good at doing them yourself, its so hard to justify dropping the $$$ on it. I always tell myself though that my rings look way more sparkly on my hands when my nails are done. Its the little things right??

Pictured below were my wedding day accessories. The handkerchief was my grandmothers. She passed away in 1990, just a few months before my Aunt Dawn got married. Since her passing, every Millians woman has carried this handkerchief down the isle and Tara will carry it this Saturday.

I am so honored to stand by her side as Matron on Honor on Saturday. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara! I love you Tara!

Hey 2017!

Let me start this post off by saying that I have had this written for like a week, and I am just now getting around to finishing it. Blogger fail!

 New year! New posts! New goals! 

So what do the Caudells have on their 2017 goal list? 

Pay off our credit card debt in the first 6 months

Pay off the motorcycle in the last 6 months

Sell 22 houses 
Learn to cook spaghetti squash
Use less exclamation marks
 Be together

There are other things on our lists, like working out more and being diligent about bringing our lunches to work. We also want to be purposeful with the money we spend that isn't going toward the above mentioned things. I would also like to get in to a weekly routine. Steven has a very standard routine, he has to be at the office at THIS time or at a bank at THIS time, with every other Friday off. Me on the other hand, most of my days resemble the artistic renderings of a 2 year old who has just been given a giant sheet of white paper and a box of crayons....chaotic and colorful!

Cornflake is up to being her usual self. I asked her if she had any goals for the year and she told me that she wants to eat better food and that I cannot take away her new soft sofa blanket. I told her that that blanket does not match year round decor (its more Christmas/Wintery) and then she promptly reminded me who makes the decisions in this household by clawing the sofa. Said blanket will stay. 

The world of Real Estate is keeping me busy these days! I also have a big Junior League project  going on right now, so while I hope to come back to this space more often in 2017, I cannot make any solid promises.

Also, I only used TWO exclamation marks in this post after I stated that using less was on of this years goals. This may or may not be a new record for me. My friend Beth will be oh, so proud.

Thursday Mixed Bag

So I've felt the urge to come back here and write today, but I honestly don't have anything to write about. Well I do have something to talk about, and I feel weird talking about my medical diagnosis at what is supposed to be such a "cheery" time of year, but it's been acting up the past few days so its at the forefront of my mind.

Remember this post? Thankfully the quivering subsided and I made through Georgia-Florida without any incidents! Until I woke up Sunday morning on SSI and couldn't open my mouth. Long story short, two rounds of blood work and two MRI's later I have been diagnosed with a neurological disorder called Dystonia. Basically it causes the muscles in my face and neck to spasm so hard that I cannot open my mouth and I have pain that radiates in my neck. #awesome. Unfortunately there is no cure for Dystonia, but it can be treated with 3 things, muscle relaxers, Botox and acupuncture. Its a rare diagnosis and most people (unless you're in the medical field) have never heard of it. Thankfully the neurologist that I saw was finally able to prescribe a muscle relaxer that worked! It was the 4th one I had tried....

The jaw tightness subsided around November 20th (I'd reached the 4 week mark of suffering at this point in time), however accompanying the tightness, there is also a metallic taste in my mouth and numbness on the right upper side of face (think cheek/eye socket/into my hair line). Those symptoms haven't gone away. In fact I got a massage and she did a little bit of reflexology on my feet and it made my face go TOTALLY numb. I won't be going back for that.

The course of doctors went like this - dentist --> oral surgeon --> neurologist. Each one kept asking me if I was stressed, and it kept getting very old being asked this question. In my mind I felt like I wasn't stressed, but now I think that it has to be related to stress because, I'm about to list my FIRST HOUSE!!! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after having worked the real estate game since September, I am getting ready to stick a FOR SALE sign on a property Monday afternoon!!!!!! So while this is an exciting time, I am also nervous because condos require special stips and add'l HOA information in the contract. Now if only I could keep telling myself to believe in my own real estate motto...

Lastly..... Christmas cards have started coming in the mail!!! Cards are one of my favorite things about Christmas and right now it's KILLING me that we don't have a good picture for this year's card. You see, when your card from last year is SO.FREAKING.AWESOME and since then your husband has grown a beard and is even hotter than before (in my opinion haha!) what is one to do?

 

I guess that you pray that you get a good picture taken over the holidays and can send out a fabulous  Happy New Year card! The only downfall to this is that Cornflake had already picked out what she wanted to say on the back of the card.... "May there be catnip, not coal, in your stocking!" She is such a little jokester! There is always next year I guess!!

Thanks for reading my Thursday Mixed Bag post!! My goal is to bring you a few holiday posts next week! I'll be sharing our house decor, the menu I've planned for Steven's family brunch and re-cap of my company Christmas party! If you need me between now and then, I'll be blairing Christmas music and drinking eggnog like I'm getting paid too ;)

A Brief Catch Up!!

Is there anyone out there? I'm still here but I don't know if anyone else is haha!! My last post was almost a month ago and it was really boring with a few pictures. This one promises to be just as boring!

Here we go:

The Georgia vs Auburn game was our last tailgate of the year. In between our trip to Nashville and Thanksgiving we were just too tired to turn it out for Georgia Tech. But irregardless of that, we had a blast and this was the only picture that I took.

Our one year anniversary fell on a Monday. We took a trip back in October to Asheville (which I have yet to re-cap) so we'd already "celebrated" but Steven took me out to Last Resort and we enjoyed a red velvet cake from Cecilias (where our wedding cake came from). Having cake in your house for a solid week is dangerous....just saying ;)

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas....except I can't figure out my tree. I have some glitter sprigs to add to it, but it just doesn't look like its decorated, but it is! There's tons of ornaments on there, but I just can't figure out what it's missing. Taking any and all suggestions!

Our dining room has finally gotten the facelift it deserves! This has been the most neglected room in our house since we moved in. In the past week we've gotten a new rug, new curtains and blue Christmas salad plates on loan from my mom ;) We're hosting Steven's Mom's side of the family for Christmas, so needless to say I'm in "decorate and finish everything" mode!!! Other than parsons chair slip covers, this room is ready to host guests!! I cannot get over how much BETTER this room looks!

Before:

After:

Lastly, I can't have a post without a picture of my girl!! You can follow all her shenanigans on Instgram (@cornflakecaudell)! 

I'm off to pick up the keys to a condo from a (potential!) client that I'm doing a listing presentation for this week! Keep your fingers crossed peeps, this could be my FIRST LISTING! 

XO 

                            

My Last 10 Photos

Hey Girl Hey! I feel like I start every post with "I'm going to do a better job of blogging" but let's get real here, life is nuts right now, and I come here to post when I can!! I REALLY need to write the re-cap of our anniversary trip, the re-cap of our Georgia-Florida trip and I need to update everyone as to what is going on with my mouth. But instead of all that, you're getting the last 10 pictures on my iphone....

I'm a Georgia Voter! Vote YES to Amendment 2!
Cornflake likes to hang out in my makeup cabinet
She also doesn't do Mondays
Ginger jar Christmas ornaments? YES PLEASE!
12 Days of a Beachy Christmas.....This year's Christmas Card inspiration.
I'm going to attempt to make one of these rolls for Thanksgiving.
Selfie from our anniversary trip!
Selfie on Frat Beach at Georgia-Florida
Bus ride to the actual Georgia-Florida game
UGA Barn Sign and Dairylane on the way home from Georgia-Florida