first house – WamiesWorld

oasis

Published on March 25, 2019July 17, 2019 by Jamie Shugart2 Comments

Our backyard oasis begins! At least that’s what Blue thinks.

Our little five month old golden retriever can’t get enough of being outside. For the first several months we had her, we didn’t have a fence. Literally every time we took her out to go potty (which is A LOT with a puppy), we had to put her on a leash and go out with her.

Related post: The Pitfalls of Potty Training

Luckily, in late January, we had a fence installed.

Before I get ahead of myself, 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 emails or give your information to anyone—it just sends blog updates directly to you!

A few weeks after we installed the fence and began enjoying the blissful life of dog parents and home owners with a little more privacy, we had gutters installed.

We learned while house hunting that a lot of homes in the area do not have gutters. This was super weird to me. As someone who basically grew up in the pacific northwest, as well as someone who has a lot of experience with southern rain storms, the fact that our house had no system to divert water away from the foundation of the home (that rests on sand, might I add) was insane to me.

I am happy to report that these first time home owners continue to fall in love with our home a little more every day. Especially now that our yard is fully fenced and now that we can rest easy every time it rains.

Until next time,
Jamie out

it didn’t feel like Christmas

Published on December 28, 2018 by Jamie ShugartLeave a comment

This Christmas hardly felt like Christmas, at least not in the traditional way my Christmases have always felt. There was always time to clean and decorate and make everything just so. And while Will and I were able to attend every party, donned our ugly Christmas sweaters, and decked the Christmas tree with all of the ornaments, it was a different kind of Christmas this year.

We wrapped presents just two days before Christmas (which is extremely abnormal for me), we barely decorated even our living room, and the only photos I have of our tree were taken with my iPhone. Despite all of this, I recognize how much progress we have made in replacing furniture after losing everything. I recognize how much more our house feels like a home. I recognize how far our puppy has come in the month we have had her. And I recognize that we had my whole family over for Christmas Eve and it was great—and hosting people is one of the things we really want for our home.

Home Life

This month we almost finished furnishing our house. We feel pretty excellent about this, considering we still have not received the insurance money for all of our losses. Our friends gifted us a mattress so we were able to assemble our bed, and the rest of our bedroom set arrived the week after Thanksgiving. Our home is definitely coming together!

Our kitchen faucet was very leaky, so we decided to upgrade to a beautiful Moen piece. Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of the finished product, but Will and I still talk about how much we love it.

Our biggest project this month was installing shelves in our laundry room to make a pantry space off the kitchen. Will was able to complete it right before Christmas and it has made everything so much cleaner and more organized! I am in love!

Next up in our home improvement saga is painting all of the things! Can you guess what color scheme we are going with?

#everydaymoments

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Full of coffee, working from home, and the inevitable indulgence of delivery pizza (our favorite). We were also gifted these end tables from a sweet woman I used to work with!

Every Sunday we have dinner with my family and my nephew James is a riot. He can’t speak words yet, but that doesn’t stop him from talking and gesturing. He loves music, drumming, and the piano. Clapping is also pretty cool, and he has basically mastered walking now that he is almost 11 months old.

I am still trying to make it through Eragon! We love reading before bed, but these days it has been time to crash by the time we crawl under the covers. Also, shoutout to North Carolina for having gorgeous sunsets, and to my RAV4 for hitting 44,444 miles. Too bad it wasn’t also 44 degrees outside.

Christmas

Christmas is absolutely my favorite time of the year. From apple cider and Christmas cookies, to parties and productions, I love everything about it. Our Taco Tuesday crew had a great “Friendsmas” and gift exchange this year, complete with the traditional gift of something Jeff Goldblum related given to our friend Nick.

2018 is the year of the table top tree. When we assembled it, our puppy Blue was still very young and didn’t have a lot of self control when it came to chewing on things. Instead of teaching her not to chew on my tree, I opted to put it on a table this year to make our lives slightly easier. It was kind of funny, and I never really want to do it again, but at the time I would take anything to make fur-mama life a little easier.

Early this month we were super grateful to be able to get out of the house and see The Singing Christmas Tree with our family. It is a traditional choral production that a local church does every year (and perhaps several other southern churches do the same thing).

I attended a grand total of four ugly Christmas sweater parties this year. I’d say the fad is still going strong. We borrowed some sweater vests from our friends and put them to very good use.

Christmas Tree and Tea. We wrapped our presents just two days before Christmas and enjoyed the view while we had it. I will blog about Christmas day in another post!

Blue’s December

Blue had a pretty great December. You can read her most recent update here. She met some great puppy friends, some aunts and uncles and cousins, and lots and lots of friends. She does not like the vet, but is getting used to the car, and is growing faster than I thought possible.

Along with all of the growing comes a lot of napping. I read somewhere that puppies can sleep up to twenty hours a day. That’s crazy! But after I have seen how much she has grown the past couple weeks, I absolutely believe it. Her legs are starting to get long and a little gangly. Her ears are the size of her head. And her paws are getting a little ahead of themselves.

One of Blue’s favorite things is rough housing with her dad. Will is very good with her. He is super passionate about training her and is completely smitten. She is going to be super spoiled, but also hopefully super fit and well trained. She is getting really good at only chewing on her own toys as well! Seeing how much she has grown since we brought her home at eight weeks has been insane. She has gained over ten pounds and there is nothing stopping her!

Here’s to hoping you had a great December! That you got to create memories and take a minute to slow down and enjoy life.

Thank you for everything this year, with the first few months of Wamies World and the great adventures we have already been on. Here’s to 2019 and the new year!

Until next time,
Jamie out

everything is new

Published on November 30, 2018 by Jamie ShugartLeave a comment

Adventures come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it is camping, hiking and exploring the great state of Arizona every weekend. Usually it is more of an everyday moment that turns into a great story. For us, our November was exciting and eventful, sad and overwhelming, and definitely a period of growth.

We closed on our house, refurnished almost our entire house due to our storage unit flood, replaced my totaled car, and got a puppy. We also sprinkled in some babysitting of my nephew, my getting back on the worship team at our church, and starting new jobs.

Home Life

We closed on our new house at the beginning of the month and were super grateful to get the keys the same day. (You can read all about buying our first house here) The very next day, our family and friends came out to help us move items from our storage unit to our house. Unfortunately our unit flooded in Hurricane Florence and we lost almost all of our furniture due to water damage and mold. We are still working through the insurance claims process. That blog post is linked here.

Within a couple days of moving in, the microwave handle broke off, which was not surprising since it had been glued back together. Despite all of the stress from no furniture, chaos in boxes strewn throughout the house, starting back at work, and replacing everything that had been irreparably damaged, we were still very grateful to be in our own home with a roof over our heads. The first few nights felt like a dream. An air mattress padded dream.

New Stuff

A few days after we closed on the house we bought a new (to us) car. If you haven’t read about my car being totaled on our move out to North Carolina, that is linked here.

If you didn’t know, you canNOT finance a car while you are under contract for a house because it will seriously mess up your mortgage process and you could lose the whole thing. Thankfully we were scheduled to close very shortly after returning home so we only had to wait about a week before we could replace my car.

My dream car is a 1996 4Runner, and while financially that is attainable for us, I wasn’t excited for the upkeep of an older vehicle with a lot of miles. While I may be drooling over the new 4Runners, we decided to be more financially responsible and get an all wheel drive RAV4 four our adventuring. I am super pumped! I love all of the bells and whistles that my little Mazda2 was lacking. Cruise control, bluetooth, and a sunroof? This girl is a happy camper.

While we had to replace a lot of things that were damaged, we also got to indulge a little on things we didn’t have before. We have a bonus room over our garage and our intent is to turn it into a cozy and fun movie room with a game corner and space for me to work out. We got this super beautiful sectional from Ashley Furniture and we are in love. It is so nice to unwind at the end of a long work day by watching some Brooklyn Nine-Nine in our nice little get away.

We ALSO got a washer and dryer and I am over the moon, even though I am doing laundry almost every day. I have never had my own washer and dryer and having them in my house feels like such a luxury. What do you mean, I can do laundry whenever I want?!

#everydaymoments

Our new dish set survived the #GreatFlood of 2018. We love them! We got them as wedding gifts and they are from the Ellen collection. I personally think that pizza looks very good on them, but I suppose all of the other healthy meals we have been having look just as good.

I also began reading Eragon (not for the first time, don’t worry) but it has been hard to find time to read while we are SO very busy.

My family lives in Fayetteville and every Sunday we all get together for dinner and quality family time. My nine month old nephew has grown six teeth since we saw him in June and is basically walking. He also ADORES music and he plays the piano with just one finger and gets frustrated when he can’t play as well as me or my mom.

I don’t think I have ever mentioned EyeBuyDirect on here but I LOVE them. You can get prescription glasses for a fraction of the price that you would spend somewhere else. You can also invest in more trendy frames if you’re feeling it. I spent less than $50 on these two pairs! Click here for $10 off your own pair.

Being back at church is amazing. We love all of our friends, the culture, and the events that Manna has. We arrived back in Fayetteville just in time for their yearly missions event called The ROC. Last year I played with the band through the event, which ended up being a huge time commitment but I had a blast. It was nice to just be an attender this year and not commit to serving. I did hop back on the worship band the Sunday before Thanksgiving, though, and I sure have missed it.

Holidays

We celebrated both Halloween and Thanksgiving since my last monthly round up. We had just arrived in North Carolina when Halloween rolled around so we were very “chill” with our costumes and dressed up as “Netflix and Chill.” You have my permission to steal this costume idea, because we sure did.

My nephew was an adorable lumberjack and at this point he was still pretty unsure about us. A couple weeks later he was giving me hugs and sloppy kisses though, so I’d say he has warmed up to us.

I got to eat three glorious Thanksgiving meals this year. Everyone brought their A game. Our Friendsgiving was probably the best ever, with our traditional southern fried turkey, sweet potato casserole, and my huge bowl of mashed potatoes. The spread at my mom’s was just as delicious and I made two dishes I have never made before. They both turned out great! I am so glad that we live here so that I don’t have to brave making my own turkey yet.

Adventures

Fayetteville had a fantastic Harry Potter themed event downtown the weekend before Thanksgiving. There was a horcrux scavenger hunt that involved riddles and we explored all of downtown while freezing our buns off. We stopped in at The Coffee Cup for some delicious Harry Potter inspired drinks (mine was a golden snitch coffee).

What would have qualified as an adventure in Arizona came in short number this month, but we have a LOT going on! Hopefully in the new year we will be able to get out of town a little and explore more of the east coast. For now we are content to work on the house and play with our puppy.

Yep, we got a puppy. Also on the weekend before Thanksgiving we drove up to Virginia to pick up our girl Blue (read her blog post here).

Blue’s November

We brought her home when she was 8 weeks old and weighing in at a little over 10 pounds. She was unsure and timid the first couple days but we worked hard to help her feel safe and loved with her new forever family. She is a Golden Retriever (my favorite dog breed in the world) and is super sassy, but also super snuggly.

Her first night here was the one and only night that she could fit under this couch. She almost immediately grew too big and if she tries to jam herself under there now, she just gets stuck. It’s super adorable.

We are making sure to have her meet a lot of people, men, kids, and other dogs while she is this age to get her nicely socialized. My nephew loved her when they first met and my sister’s dog got super excited! We were careful about those two meeting. Our friend also just got a puppy who is a month older than her and they had a great play date.

These were taken on her first few days with us. She is already so much bigger! I can’t wait to compare photos of her side by side. We think she is super adorable, a LOT of work, and are excited to help her become a good girl with great manners who loves hiking and exploring with us!

I hope you enjoyed this monthly round up! My goal is to do this on the last Friday of every month, so stay tuned for some glorious iPhone photos from December in a few weeks.

Hoping you all had an amazing month. Share your top three favorite things from your November in the comments below! If you enjoyed this post, please give it a like and don’t forget to subscribe and join our family if you haven’t already.

Until next time,
Jamie out

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Last month

We bought a house!

Published on November 21, 2018 by Jamie Shugart3 Comments

We are first time home owners! And we did it all from over two thousand miles away.

What a rollercoaster this process was. I was super surprised that the part I thought I would love—the actual house hunting—was the worst aspect for me. When it got down to the nitty gritty though, we had some amazing professionals on our team who worked super hard behind the scenes to pull it all together in less than 30 days.

Our realtor was a good friend of mine who has been building me up and encouraging me for almost four years now. She is a rockstar. When we told her we wanted to buy a house in North Carolina, but do basically all of it while we were in Arizona, she didn’t bat an eye. She was down for the challenge.

My parents, who coincidentally LOVE “window shopping” for houses were game to go look at houses for us. They looked at neighborhoods, the condition of the property, the drainage of the lot—all of the things you can’t change and all of the things you can’t see in the photos.

Our realtor took us on video walkthroughs so that we could get a feel for the place as well. We talked over all of the positives and negatives. We searched for over a month and we fell in love with multiple homes. We were so ready!

Finally we found The One and we got an accepted offer. It was smooth sailing from then out (for us, not so sure about everyone else on our team, haha!) and we were so excited to close and get our keys just four days after we arrived in North Carolina.

Since leaving Arizona, everything has been a little crazy for us. We got in a car accident and my car was totaled, but because we were under contract on a house, we could not buy a car until we closed, otherwise it could mess up our mortgage. Luckily we were able to close just a week after the accident and our insurance was understanding so they let us keep our rental car a little longer than normal.

We were also super lucky because we closed on our house on a Friday and got our keys the same day, which doesn’t always happen in North Carolina because of the legal process here.

Even though we had no furniture, food, or toilet paper, we booked it to the house as soon as we got the call. Just thirty minutes before the courts closed, our realtor called us to tell us that the house was officially ours! We drove through the rain and pulled up outside just after five. Will even insisted on carrying me over the threshold. It was amazing.

We spent the evening at the grocery store buying toilet paper and frozen lasagna, and then back in our house to just soak in every foot of its perfections.

We are so excited to make it our own. To fill it, and decorate it, and host in it. It is our favorite investment, and we are so very happy.

Until next time,
Jamie out.