the breakup

If any of you have been anywhere near the blog world for awhile and know what the initials YHL stand for, then you most likely are aware of what I'm referring to with my post title. I began reading Young House Love blog when they first began over five years ago and it has been a daily/weekly routine of mine. There were odd jobs I had in college where I would watch the clock tick away and hit the refresh button on the screen waiting for their latest post just to get me through my shift. In this weird way, I felt like I knew them. My sisters used to joke about how I talked about them as if we were best buds. Okay, that makes me sound crazy but they were really inspiring and great writers.

My friend and former roommate, Ashley feels the same way. We started chatting about it via text today. I couldn't help but go down memory lane.

Fact: we met the bloggers/book author at a book tour and made one of their blog posts.

So ALLLLLLLL that to say, after talking to her I realized I haven't really blogged in a long time. YHL always inspired me to blog but I've grown out of it myself so I don't blame them. But with so many friends in so many different places, I do like to check in every now and then and give folks a life update so here she blows.

House Stuff

We are pretty much settled in and ready for an open house soon. We are still loving our home decision even when both garage doors break (yup, that happened). We have sweet neighbors, two that are are friends so we are enjoying that. I feel like I do more cleaning than ever since it is a bigger space than anything we have ever had but I'm not complaining. We feel incredibly blessed to have purchased such a beautiful home. We are proud. We still have many little things we want to do but I'm at the point now where it is time to sit back and let them evolve slowly. I'll do a blog reader picture tour soon for all those that are too far to visit.

Personal Stuff

Our jobs are going great. Now that I'm in my third year at my job, I feel much more at ease. I've come a long way in the how to balance job/marriage/friends category. I'm thankful for the amazing people I get to work with and the opportunities I have to make a small difference in the life of children. Todd is loving his part in the ministry. He was made to do what he does and to see him fulfilled makes me happy. I'm clearly way more invested in his job than he is mine which is totally fine because my first passion is certainly seeing people far from God raised to life in Christ. Again, we feel so blessed with the community of friends we have developed here in Charlotte and the outreach we are able to be a part of.

This is us these days in case you forgot what we look like.

Photography by: http://www.brianschindler.co

Hope to be back soon with more updates! Love to all!

Progress

We moved in last Tuesday night. It POURED down rain just as we were getting started. I thought I was going to throw up but instead took a deep breath and prayed of course. The rain paused for about an hour and we were able to get everything moved thanks to our awesome friends. Praise The Lord!

That night our living room looked like this:

Beautiful, right? Slowly over this past week we have been unpacking and the hardwood installation began today. I'm very pleased with the option we chose!

Can't wait for that to all be finished tomorrow so I can unpack our downstairs. I'll post more pictures of each room soon. Every room is a work in progress but it's so much fun!

Come back again soon!

-Sara

Sneak Peek

While Todd and I were away this past week, we had the main areas of our new home painted. Here is a sneak peek!

Before:

After:

The color is Accessible Beige by Sherwin Williams and I love it! It makes the room so much brighter and I absolutely cannot wait to get new flooring. It's amazing what such an easy update can do!

I'll be back with more in the next few weeks. Lots to do but we are so excited! 

-Sara Davis 

Happy Homeownership Day!

Today was the big day. The day we officially became homeowners. I had no clue what to truly expect at the closing but it was a very smooth and easy process. When we arrived, we were greeted by the sellers and their realtor. We obviously knew very little about the homeowners other than they were older than us and have a strong faith. You may remember me telling you in earlier blog posts about when I first viewed this home back on May 28th. From the moment I walked in, I felt a strong sense of peace.

After giving our hellos and handshakes at the office, the sellers presented us with a small gift of a prayer cloth and cross. How incredibly thoughtful is that? I will cherish this forever.

Later during our closing, the seller continued to tell us that as they were putting their house on the market, they prayed for the right buyer. While we do know they had several offers the day we presented ours and we will never know what those were, she did say that our personal letter and video by our realtor was the reason that she knew we were to be the new owners. In our letter we expressed the peace we felt in the home and how we wanted to be good stewards of the home they had so very much loved. Their backyard (excuse me…our backyard…that sounds so strange to say) looks like something that should be in Better Homes & Garden.  During these past few weeks, I've kept thinking about how great it will be to enjoy the beauty and stillness of the backyard. I almost teared up when I heard the seller say that she had many great devotionals on the patio.   

All this to say, the process was even better than I expected. Thankfully, paperwork was light and the atmosphere was just as exciting as I've always imagined it to be. We exchanged numbers with the sellers to have them over to explain more about odds and ends of the house in these next few days. Not only will we need to learn some practical information but I love hearing the stories of their life in the house. We heard a few today and I can't wait to make memories there as well.

So what do you do as soon as you get keys to a new place? Well, we were hungry. We did call our parents and had my mother-in-love, Carol, meet us at our favorite breakfast place to celebrate. We then took her on a tour of our place. She claims to not be much of a lover of yard work but if you saw her yard you would say differently (I lovvve her yard). It was helpful to have her tell me more about the plants and even gave me a few ideas in order to make the yard less work but keep the beauty of it all.

So there's all that. The day we bought a home. I wanted to write most of this so that we will never forget this day. We are so grateful for the Lord's provision in so many ways of our marriage. I'm looking forward to this new chapter in our lives. 

Special shout out and thank you to our realtor, Sami McDonald, with Savvy & Co. Sami, we cannot thank you enough for all your hard work on helping us not only find a house but making our dreams come true in finding a home. We very much appreciate you always being quick to respond to our needs and walking us through the process step by step. You were easy to work with and we are thankful for the new friendship we have formed with you! May the Lord bless you greatly in your career! 

Now…if only I could decide on a paint color!

-Sara

HBD Maggie!

Sidenote: tomorrow is our closing day. Everything is scheduled as planned but I don't think I'll actually breathe until the keys are in my hand. We are very excited but I'm ready for the process to all be over. I'm even ready to move in so that my brain can move on in life. Still not sure when we will actually move because we want to get new floors and paint first. I'll make sure to take lots of before photos so that I can keep all you dear far away friends updated on our home ownership  journey. 

But let's back up a few weeks to when we celebrated Maggie's birthday. She turned 2 years old and you know we spoiled her with some yummy puppy pie. Are we cruel dog parents for making her earn her pie on her birthday by doing tricks? Maybe.

We love, love, LOVE her. I can't imagine life without her. Todd had work to do Sunday uptown and we decided to take her with us. Maybe not the best decision when you are trying to work but she was so chill and would just lay down most of the time. I fell in love with her even more that day and so did lots of strangers in the city. The only thing she barked at was the horse carriages. She did NOT like them. 

We hope to have many more years with this sweet pup of ours!

-Sara

Home Stretch?

Wow! When people say the home buying experience is stressful, they aren't joking! Once we got word that our offer was accepted I thought that as long as inspections go well that we would be good to go considering we were already pre approved. 

Um, wrong. 

Inspections did go well for the most part but what I didn't expect was for the appraisal to be our hang up. Long story short, the appraisal came in less than what we were willing to pay for it. In that case the bank says "we can only help with the loan of the house at it's appraised value, not a penny more." We had some options but all involved us paying more out of pocket and we just couldn't do that. It was a hard stressful few days while we waited to see what the sellers wanted to do and us as well. Just as we were thinking we had lost it, the sellers decided to lower our offer to the appraised price. Cue the hallelujah chorus my friends! We were and still are ecstatic. However, I refuse to actually sing that chorus until the keys are in my hand which should be July 2nd. I'm certainly learning how crazy this process is! Everyone keeps asking when are we moving. We are in no rush since we have our townhome until August 31st so it will be a slow move but we hope to be mostly in and catching our zzz's there by late mid July. Any moving into a home advice? I've heard go ahead and paint or do big projects like flooring before you move in which makes sense. 

Before I go, let's all stare at this gorgeous open family room. I've been dreaming about it since the day I laid eyes on it. Thoughts?! Any favorite paint colors? We aren't sure what or if we will do anything just yet but I'm soaking in all my options. It's fun to dream!

Have a great weekend!!!

PS: I'm blogging more from my phone these days so please excuse any typos or errors! 

Breaking News

This past weekend we went to the beach with some friends of ours that also have a goldendoodle. The weekend getaway was glorious but I'll have more details on that later this week! On the way to the beach (literally as we were driving down in the car) we were making this happen…

Yup…we pulled the trigger folks! After over a year of searching, we found a beautiful house that we are ready to say home sweet home to. Long story short, my realtor took me to view it Wednesday (our 3 year anniversary), we put an offer in on Thursday and by late Friday afternoon we were settling on a price with the sellers. It blows my mind that you can sign paperwork now from your iPhone but we are very thankful because that meant we could continue our weekend getaway to the beach uninterupted. Big shout out to our realtor, Sami MacDonald with Savvy + Co. for all her work! Once we found the right house, the process happened so fast and we are very excited! We plan to close on July 2nd as long as all goes well between now and then. I'm usually the type to not get too excited over something in case things don't work out but ultimately that is fear/disappointment and I don't want that to control my true emotions. We shall see…but for now I feel it is safe to let you all in on what we have done this far and our status in this home buying journey.

Any advice for moving into a home? This entire process is so exciting but scares me at the same time. I've been a renter for 7 years so it's all foreign to me. And the possibilities of actually getting to choose a paint color or doing some DIY thrills me! Praying everything goes smoothly between now and July 2nd!


Holding my breath…and my motto all along this journey has been "Lord, let it be your will because I certainly don't want something that is not!"
-Sara

Gluten Free Snack

Many of you saw this picture yesterday from my Instagram and wanted the recipe...

This was one of those recipes I found on Pinterest and like any recipe I find on Pinterest, I'm usually a little hesitate as to how it is really going to taste. Thankfully this one was a keeper and the result looked true to the recipe picture too which is always a good sign. Below is a screenshot of the recipe I followed and if you click on the picture it will direct you to the original website that contains this recipe.

Even Todd liked these which surprised me since he usually dislikes gluten free foods. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do! Just don't eat them all at one time!

Enjoy!

-Sara 

Spring Break or Winter Break?

I'm on spring break and it is oh so glorious. However, the weather could be much warmer if I had it my way but it is what it is. Since the break is the week before Easter this year, I decided not to fly south to warmer territories but rather just stay in town which has been nice. I've been able to get things done that during a normal work week I'm either to tired to do or simply forget.

For those of you that don't see me on a daily basis, you have missed out on my hair crisis. To me it felt heavy and hopeless but others just said the color was fading and really red. It would not curl and had terrible split ends. It was time for a new do. So during this break, I got a solid color done plus more layers and added a little bang action. I'm loving it!

I'll be back soon with some great books I'm reading and one yummy recipe snack for all you gluten free fans! 

Happy hump day!

-Sara

Week in Review

Last week was another busy week. This time it was so busy, we never even ate dinner at home which is not like us during  the week.

I hosted my third Book Fair at my school. PTO helps out greatly and they do an awesome job. It was a fun week and I love seeing kiddos excited over new books. However after packing it up on Friday, I was exhausted! 

But I didn't have much time to rest Friday and I was okay with that because of a special event at church that I got to be a part of: Girls Night Out. I had been looking forward to it ever since I helped last year. At this event, the leading ladies of Elevation host a night of fun for girls from three organizations in Charlotte (One7, Right Moves for Youth and Safe Journey). Along with my friend Emily, I was able to mentor 3 young girls. Several activities were planned including time in a photo booth.

My favorite part of the night was hearing our Pastor's wife, Holly, share a message with us about how often we look to "things" to fill a void in our life. We were all born with that void feeling because it is meant to filled only in Christ. We must learn to depend on him as our source for joy and help. It was such a clear message and I'm so thankful these sweet girls were able to hear about Jesus and an opportunity to surrender their lives. Afterwards, we ended the night with a big dance party (my second favorite part) and then sent the girls back on their way in a large party bus. How cool is that?! What a great night! I'll be thinking and praying for "my" girls for a long time. When I worked at a camp during my college years I mentored teenagers a lot and I didn't realize until Friday how much I miss investing in teenage girls. I want to start doing that again more often.

Saturday was a nice day of rest. We slept in but then had a crazy idea to spruce up our backyard. We worked all afternoon and even had to make two trips to Lowes. I wish I had taken more before pictures but this is all I have:

It was bad y'all! So bad that I hated even going out there. Even though we are just renting, we still love to host people often so we knew we might as well tackle it. We didn't want to spend much money so we had to get creative. This is what we ended with: 

We bought some cheap mulch, trimmed all the bushes back, cut the grass, added pea gravel rocks and flowers. I spray painted the flower boxes red and I love the way it turned out!

After the hard working day, we grilled some burgers and enjoyed the night outside.

Today (Sunday) has been a day of rest too and I'm very thankful. Five more days until I'm off work for a week with Spring Break. I CANT WAIT! Excuse my enthusianm. I love my job but it sure is time for a little taste of summer and R&R.

Can I get an amen from any other teacher friends? ;)

That's a wrap folks!

-Sara 

Happy Birthday!

This past week we celebrated Todd's 27th birthday! He felt lots of love from his coworkers during the day and later in the night a few of us went out for dinner at Firebirds. I'm so so SO thankful for him! 

Happy Birthday babe! I love you! 

                                  

To end this post, I'll leave you with a series of ridiculously cute sleepy puppy pics just for fun! 

-Sara

Weekend Photo Dump

This weekend we were home and had basically zero plans. Weekends like that are far and few so we took advantage of it. Friday night we went to the mall to shop at the new H&M. This is how we shop together: we split up, do our own shopping (quickly), text a photo of what we find and meet back up. We can be in and out of the mall in an hour. Here is one I sent to Todd which is very librarian of me. All I need is a bun and I'd be set!

Saturday was a beautiful day so we took Maggie to the dog park. Unfortunately she doesn't do much playing. Instead she decided to take a mud bath. Grrrrrr. 

Which led to us having to give her a bath. We have a local DIY place that allows you to bathe your pet ($15) which was well worth it because there was no way I was letting her in our house like that!

But she really can be a sweet girl. Just look at the way I found her sleeping in our bedroom on the floor. Adorable! 

Even though the Spring temperatures aren't really here to stay just yet, I decided that it was time for a Jamicure on my toes anyways. I love this pattern and I love even more that I don't have to worry about them chipping. If you want some yourself, visit my website by clicking here.

Thanks for following along! Hope you had a great weekend too!

-Sara

Race Weekend Year 3

3 years?! Feels like just yesterday Todd and his brother Matt ran their first half marathon together. The race at Wrightsville beach has become a tradition each year. Matt lives in Wilmington so we make a full weekend out of it and get to spend time with his family. I look forward to this weekend each March.

We left after work on Friday and the drive was gorgeous.

On Saturday we took our nieces to the aquarium at Fort Fisher then to a lunch date at Chick-Fil-A. It was so much fun to spend time with them. They are the sweetest and we spoiled them greatly that day! 

Sunday was the big race and the guys left crazy early to get there. I slept in but still went to see them cross the finish line. I tried to take a selfie with the girls but P was not quite thrilled for it to be so early. My hair looks super red in this picture with the way the sun is hitting it. P makes me want to get bangs again!

What a great weekend! I'll leave you with one of my favorites from the weekend. Doesn't this look like Maggie is cheesin' for the camera too? Too much cuteness in one photo!

-Sara

Jamberry

If any of you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, then you know I am now an Independent Consultant for Jamberry Nails. No worries, I have not quit my day job. This is just a really fun hobby and it certainly helps that I can make some extra income.

Say whhhat?: Jamberry is a company that sells over 300 designs of nail wraps. The wraps are activated by heat and you simply place them on your nail. No more painting nails and these are non-toxic.

How I got started: A co-worker of mine had a set on and I loved the way they looked. They looked as if she had painted the design on herself. I was very interested and brought me a sample to try. I couldn't believe how long the sample stayed on (9 days) so I got online and ordered a set immediately. Once my set arrived, I put them on and LOVED them.  I was a new fan and knew I wanted to share this discovery with others so I signed up to be a consultant.

Does it take a lot of work to be a consultant? Not really. You get as much into it as you put into it. When I first started I just sent out a ton of samples. Many people responded and liked the product too. I've held a few parties since then (all online parties) and they have been very successful. I'm anxious to do my first in house party soon. I think it will be great! I truly love though the idea that people can just do an online party. This helps me target friendships that live out of town. 

Are they expensive? Not at all! That is the best part! One sheet is $15 but you can get 2 sets out of one sheet. The best deal is buy 3, get 1 FREE! The nails last up to two weeks and you never have to worry about paint chipping. Jamberry also sells other hand products and nail polishes so check out their website for more info/prices.

If you are interested or have questions, email me at saraberrynails@gmail.com and I can send you a sample OR just try a set for yourself. Shop my website by clicking here or like my Facebook page by clicking here.

Let me know what you think!

-Sara 

Fear

God is teaching me so much right now. I'm constantly absorbing his goodness around me. I know it has always been there but I'm more alert than ever before. I'm so thankful for all the relationships that are placed in my life in this current season. Without going into details, I have really wrestled this past year with fear and anxiety. Why? Tough to say. It's really strange. The mind does weird things. I have a good life so why fear? I'm very grateful for my husband, my job, my health, my family and friends.

At church we just started a message series based on Pastor Steven's newest book Crash the Chatterbox and tons of scripture. Such perfect timing for me. The concept behind this book is hearing God's voice above all others. The book is so SO great and I recommend you pick up a copy and listen to the messages as well. Something that gave me a new perspective today during the message was the fact that the chatterbox will always be around. I can't stop the chatter…you know…those negative voices in your head, but I can change the channel. I must learn to redirect that chatter towards truth and not engage in the conversation. I don't live by what I feel or by my exhaustion, I live by God's promise. Praise the Lord for that truth of freedom!

-Sara

Life Together

All of the below truly need their own blog posts. Truth is…I just haven't been passionate about writing lately. I used to love to blog so I'm not sure what happened. I hate uploading pictures too. But I thought I owe it to you all to pop in every once in awhile and give you a Davis update.

Highlights from the past month:

-traveled to NYC

-traveled to Boone

-redesigned bedroom

-back to house hunting

-im selling Jamberry Nails now 

What a jumbled mess that list is but maybe I'll get around to blogging about them one day. We have been very fortunate to not be sick (knock on wood). Winter is my least favorite season so I'm just trying to survive. I really don't know how I made it 6 years living in Boone but I will say that if it is going to be crazy cold, it may as well snow so maybe that is why I loved Boone so much. 

The end. I'll probably be back sometime next month. Seriously.

:)

Sara