newlywed – WamiesWorld

mucinex

Published on March 18, 2019July 17, 2019 by Jamie ShugartLeave a comment

Sickness has struck the Shugart household.

Well, mostly it has struck me. Will had a cute little cough and then was over and done with it. I, on the other hand, self-diagnosed from the first spike of fever that a sinus infection had taken me down, post-migraine.

I write to you now from the comfort of my bonus room couch, with my steaming mug of chamomile tea and my chick flicks and Grey’s Anatomy on repeat, having missed publishing my first Monday blog post since launching Wamie’s World last July. And while I have no photos to share today, from a typically photography focused blog, I feel that sharing using the written word can just as powerfully convey the clouded vision of a sickly blogger.

I was conveniently taken down by a virus passed on by my loving family on the busiest work week I have seen since the Christmas holiday family photo session explosion of 2018. I curled up in an armchair for two days straight, editing my days away while clutching my box of tissues. I spent the nights clutching my eyeballs for fear they might pop out of my head due to the pressure building up behind them. And I coughed my way through work, popping cough drops like they were candy and huddling in my corner so as not to breathe on anyone.

Conveniently, all of the websites say that you might have a sinus infection if your symptoms persist for more than two weeks.

As a woman who has had far more than her fair share of sinus infections in her life, I would have to disagree with whomever invented them. More than two weeks is far too long to put up with this nonsense. Can I please just return to my normal programming?

Should you be happy and healthy today, enjoying the full use of your vocal cords, please appreciate your pressure free sinuses, your vertigo free days, and how little you require tissues on a minute by minute basis. I will be here, attempting to live a normal life while contemplating removing my sinuses from my body.

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

#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.

Mini House Tour (Before)

Published on December 6, 2018 by Jamie ShugartLeave a comment

We bought a house! Our very first home purchase. It is a big deal and we are excited and nervous. But mostly excited.

So excited that we are bringing you along on the adventure of home ownership. From the $300 microwave that needs replacing within the first month, to the fun paint colors and new furniture, we are bringing you along for the ride!

First up are our “before” photos. I took these literally the day we moved in, and as moving days go we were running behind so my photos have some of our stuff in them, despite my best efforts. Oh well!

Our living room! It has an electric fireplace and is the central hub of the whole house. Right now our intention is to not have a television in our living room and make it a place of conversation, reading, and quality time.

Here is our little kitchen, with not quite enough cabinet space and no pantry whatsoever. That door leads to our tiny laundry room, which we will be creating additional storage space in to use as a pantry.

It is a three bedroom, two bathroom house. As a couple with no kids but a good amount of friends who will likely come over, the second bathroom is ideal for guests. Eventually it will be great for kids too, but for now it is just a luxury to have two bathrooms and we LOVE it.

The master bedroom is just the right size for us and gets great natural light throughout the day. There is a perfect amount of space for me, Will and Blue and once we got our furniture it became a lot easier to keep it pretty clean. Also, I never knew that a jetted tub is what my life was missing, but that thing is a dream.

The bonus room is our favorite room. We are going to create a great relaxing hang out space. We are going to have movie marathons and game nights and plenty of room for my at home work outs. We literally get so excited to go upstairs and watch a show or just relax together as a family.

Last but not least is our beautiful, roomy two car garage. I never knew that I as a grownup could get so excited about a garage. I love that our cars get to live inside. That I don’t have to go out in the cold or the rain to get in my vehicle at home. That we have a place to store our lawnmower (that we will eventually purchase). I feel like such an adult, but honestly. Pulling into our garage every day is so cool.

Stay tuned for updates and decor throughout our time in this home. We are so excited to share!

Until next time,
Jamie out