family blogger – WamiesWorld

13 things to do unplugged with your spouse

Published on March 4, 2019July 17, 2019 by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

Is your love language quality time? Is your spouse’s love language quality time? Do you hate how much time we spend staring at our phones instead of being present with one another and fully invested in the moment? Friend, I am here for you!

But first thing’s first—if you want to follow along with our adventures of newlywed life, turning a house into a home, and all of the highs and lows of everyday life, click the subscribe button on the right (or at the bottom if you’re on mobile). It doesn’t send you crazy stuff or give your information to anyone—it just sends blog updates directly to you!

Friend, today I have 13 fun and unique things to do together with your spouse that do not involve social media, computers, or screen time of any kind. Put those phones away and stare into each others eyeballs for a sec, okay?

Let’s get started.

#1. Make something together. Whether you just picked up a new piece of furniture that has much assembly required or you want to repaint a dresser you picked up at a garage sale, get to work together!

#2. Have a picnic in your backyard. Spring is springing, the grass is greening, and the sun is shining. Break out your biggest floppy hat, spread a quilt on the driest patch of grass you can find, and have no fear of drinking wine outdoors. It’s your private property, after all! And no one has to drive! Don’t forget the sunscreen, though. Winter has left you pale and vulnerable.

#3. Break out the instruments and have your own concert. Will and I play piano, guitar, and all manner of brass instruments. I love having worship nights together. Print those chord charts or piano music ahead of time and put those phones away. This is time for just you two.

#4. Bake something! Make banana bread, cheesecake, or all manner of unhealthy treats. You can share them with friends, or be greedy and enjoy the whole thing together. Bonus points if you enjoy the fruits of you labor by candlelight.

#5. Prayer time. Write a list of prayer requests and pray over them together. Pray over your marriage, your spouse, your family, your house, your dog, your cat, your jobs, etc.

#6. Create a vision board for your marriage. This is about your vision, your goals, your mission statement, and your desires that you create together for your marriage. Like I desire regular date nights with each other, no matter what season of life we are in. Side note: if you are NOT crafty—like me—you can just create a fancy list or excel spreadsheet. It’s basically the same, right?

#7. Go on a leisurely walk (don’t forget to bring the dog). Whether around your neighborhood or a nice nearby park, pick a sunny day and take a long walk together. If you’re on the east coast, don’t forget that bug spray. The mosquitoes are coming!

#8. Have a double date and go try a new local restaurant or ask your friends where their favorite place in town is. Don’t forget to splurge on dessert. It’s the little things.

#9. Have a bonfire, roast s’mores, and tell ghost stories. Bonus points if you camp out in the backyard afterwards.

#10. Game night! Whether you play Nertz, Monopoly (not suggested for sensitive/competitive souls such as myself), or some crazy deck building game, make sure there’s a prize for the winner.

#11. Couples who work out together stay together. If you’re both active, create a workout plan that combines both of your favorite moves and techniques that you can do at home. You could go on a run, or complete a squat and pushups pyramid challenge. Will and I enjoy showing off our best ab moves to each other.

#12. Go out to the ball game. Eat a hot dog and cheer on your local team. Make sure to dress in team colors but watch out for the kiss cam.

#13. Have a coffee date on your front porch. Watch the world go by and just enjoy the moment with each other.

The world is so busy and fast! We sometimes forget to just slow the heck down and enjoy the little things. Even if you literally need to schedule a block of time to be with each other and enjoy each other, DO IT. It is so very important.

Do you have any ideas that I didn’t mention? Leave them in the comments below! If you enjoyed this post, please give it a like and don’t forget to join the family and subscribe if you haven’t already.

Until next time,
Jamie out

#everydaymoments

Published on December 17, 2018 by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

A Thursday in December.

Breakfast. The last time I went grocery shopping I was hungry and therefore couldn’t resist the two for four Poptarts. I always eat them without frosting.
My wakeup has been around six am now that we have a puppy. It’s kind of nice. I get to see the frost on the grass and the sun rise on my house. I enjoy not being in a huge rush every morning.
I work part time as a digital marketing manager, and the rest of the time as a photographer. This day I took photos of a house for a real estate agent.
Blue was very excited when I got home.
She wasn’t very interested in going potty. Mostly she just wanted to play.
Reality. Sometimes we don’t get to the dishes for a couple days and things pile up. There’s just two of us, but in a tiny kitchen it can get out of hand pretty quickly.
Blue doesn’t understand chores.
A lot of her non nap time is spent playing, or her asking to play. It’s pretty cute.
She loves rough housing and we try to teach her to chew on toys, not on people. Clearly it’s working well.
I spent over four hours editing photos and watching Grey’s Anatomy in the afternoon. So much so that I forgot to feed and take care of myself (even though I remembered to take care of my pup) and got super sick and nauseous by evening time.
Which was great because Will’s work had an ugly sweater Christmas shindig downtown that evening.
After eating some food and spending the evening with good people, I felt much better and we snapped a cute pic in the chilly weather on the walk back to our car.

Until next time,
Jamie out.

We got a puppy!

Published on November 28, 2018September 16, 2019 by Jamie Shugart6 Comments

Friend, meet Blue. Blue, meet friend!

She is a pure bred Golden Retriever with so much spunk and sass, I’m not certain what we have gotten ourselves into.

This is Blue at six weeks old. We started looking for her in October, deciding that getting a puppy around the holidays would be easier with our work schedules being a little more open than normal. We had known for a long time that we wanted to get a puppy to grow our family, and while she came a few weeks sooner than we had planned, we couldn’t pass up on this beauty.

We drove up to Virginia when all of the puppies were six weeks old. Blue’s mom had ten puppies, six of which were girls. We already had our eye on Blue from all of the photos and videos we had seen, but we really wanted to meet all of them in person before deciding.

Blue was always in the thick of the playtime. She would run and leap into the doggy pile. If there was a tug of war over a water bowl happening, she was definitely going to be involved. She was also sweet and loved sitting on our laps being snuggled and giving sweet puppy kisses. We knew she was our girl almost right away.

Two weeks later we got to bring her home. She did great on the car ride back, even though being removed from her mom and siblings was hard at first. She slept most of the drive and we got to enjoy lots of puppy snuggles before we encountered potty training, puppy nips, and lots of trips outside at night.

I will have a lot of updates coming your way—Blue’s blogs will be two Wednesdays a month while she is young. There is just so much growing and learning going on at this age! She gained over a pound in the first week we had her and has learned to sit. Until that next blog post, here’s a mini photoshoot we had on her eight week birthday.

Have you ever had a puppy? I need ALL of the advice! From crate training, potty training, training her to thrive while being alone, EVERYTHING. Please leave it in the comments! If you think my pup is adorable, give this post a like and don’t forget to subscribe and join our family if you haven’t already!

Until next time,
Jamie out

we lost it all in Hurricane Florence

Published on November 26, 2018 by Jamie Shugart5 Comments

If you watched the news in September, you know that Hurricane Florence hit the east coast and caused a lot of damage. Most of the severe losses were in coastal towns, but places inland were affected as well. The Cape Fear River that runs through Fayetteville and the surrounding towns crested around 60 feet, majorly surpassing the 35 foot flood stage and causing families along the river and other water ways that run off it to be evacuated.

While we were in Arizona, most of our worldly possessions were in a storage unit in Fayetteville. We, luckily, decided to opt into the insurance the facility offered well before the storm. While I do not believe the storage unit was within a mandatory flood evacuation zone, we were informed by management that our unit had flooded.

We returned home at the end of October and took a peek at the damage. Initially we thought it wasn’t so bad—only a few boxes had been on the ground and it was mostly furniture that took the brunt of the water. We assumed we would be able to clean them off and be on our merry way.

After closing on our home, the next day we got a U-Haul and invited friends and family to help us empty our unit. We went out and bought gloves and masks for everyone, as long as a lot of white vinegar and cleaning supplies.

It was not just a little bit of damage. A whole box of picture albums was on the ground. Most of our furniture is wood or fabric, so the material held onto the moisture and mold grew rampant. Even boxes that weren’t soaked with water allowed moisture and eventually mold inside and we had to go through everything carefully.

Luckily, we were able to save money while we were in Arizona and we deliberately put some away for purchasing things we would need—like a washer and dryer. Luckily, like I said above, we put insurance on our unit and its contents. Luckily, we had the support of our loved ones as we unpacked, cleaned, and photographed the damage. Luckily, we serve a great God who has been gracious in providing, even through the troubled times.

I know people who lost everything in Hurricane Matthew. People who lost their homes and all of their possessions. In the hurricanes that have hit the Carolinas recently, many people have lost their lives.

We lost some furniture. Financially and emotionally that is certainly not the easiest thing to go through. But we have our lives, and we have each other.

On the plus side, we get new stuff. We get to pick the things that are to our taste. We get to design our house from the ground up, so to speak. And while it may be tough and draining and arduous, especially during the waiting (we are still working through the insurance claims process and have not been reimbursed for our losses yet), we know that now is not forever and that now will always change.

After over three weeks, we have been able to almost fully furnish our home with what we NEED, with either the money we saved or the generosity of others. We are grateful and happy for what we have, and we know that having each other is much more important than having a mattress, although it is much easier to sleep at night with one. For real.

Until next time,
Jamie out.