die hard popcorn bar

This past weekend we celebrated my husband's 26th birthday with two of his favorite things: movies and sweets! We transformed the back porch into an outdoor movie theater, complete with a fully stocked concession stand.

The weather is perfect right now, mid 80s during the day and low 70s in the evening. Arizona has a short but very delightful spring. We wanted a genuine summer blockbuster feel, with every movie candy you could possibly think of as well as an extreme popcorn bar. We had plain, kettle and homemade caramel popcorns to choose from, as well as a plethora of seasonings and toppings for a truly versatile popcorn experience. We also had a friend bring a ton of old school boxes of candy, including Raisinets, Sugar Babies, Junior Mints, Red Hots, etc. We finished off the buffet with a giant container of cheese puffs (because obviously) and a few bags of chips. We were pretty lucky that Easter was the next morning because we had a LOT of candy left over. We're not too mad about it, though. I currently have a whole sheath of Almond Snickers in my purse and I may have had peanut M&Ms for breakfast.

After everyone arrived and swarmed our concession stand, we lit the fire pit, gathered in our chairs and underneath our throw blankets, and got ready for a lively viewing of Die Hard. 

On Instagram

Popcorn seasonings: Popcorn salt, Butter, Garlic Parmesan,
Nacho Cheddar, White Cheddar, Spicy Jalapeno

I absolutely love birthdays. I think the worst part about getting older is having people care less and less about your birthday, and having to resign to only celebrating every other decade or so for the big milestone events. There's this point in your twenties where it feels like you have to pass the torch to the younger generations because their birthdays are more important and should be more memorable. I mean, that's true...and I understand the necessity of it...but it's still painful to let go. I'm no Elsa. I'm a birthday month kind of gal and I try to take advantage of celebrating as long as humanly possible. I'm glad that my husband feels the same way, so that we can hopefully continue to throw these silly and fantastic themed birthday parties every year. Especially when it involves vintage Bruce Willis and strings of twinkle lights.

luck of the irish

2011: Dublin, Ireland | 2012: Lynchburg, Virginia | 2013: Paris, France | 2014: Rome, Italy

Happy, happy St. Patrick's Day.

This day is stirring up some mighty lucky and lovely memories of my marriage. Travels and parties and smiles fill my mind like shamrock confetti. This day has been very good to us. I have always adored St. Patrick's Day, because growing up as an O'Neil it was a rather fun and celebratory part of my heritage. My dad would always capitalize on our surname, and we'd all eat corned beef and cabbage and wear way too much green. It was the best.

Dusty came into my life in high school, and he was brought into the Irish fold. He would come over and enjoy our over-the-top celebrations. One year we had Irish soda bread, Irish cream coffee, Scottish eggs, Guinness stew... we made the Dublin population jealous with our enthusiasm.

2009: home sweet Arizona.

I find myself feeling incredibly nostalgic today. Every St. Patrick's Day so far in our 4 years of marriage has been a magical mystery tour of new places and experiences. 2015 has been a year of change and heartache and adjustment, reacquainting ourselves with adulthood and life in Arizona. So it's fitting that we're here, calmly celebrating with family. It's a great time to wear green and look forward, to cherish each other and share confetti-filled dreams.

P.S. Some Irish music/bands to listen to today: 

New: Bear's Den | Kodaline | Needtobreathe

Favorites: P.S. I Love You soundtrack | The Corrs | Enya | Flogging Molly

Or you can go full Celtic and listen to songs like I'll Tell My Ma, Black Is The Colour, Drunken Sailor, Scarborough Fair, Molly Malone (Cockles and Muscles).

lean, mean, 2015

Some early thoughts on the new year:

New years have a bit of magic to them. What is it about January 1st that propels people to do things they've been wanting to do for a long time? To make promises and decisions and resolutions. I'm not quite sure, but there's something to it.

I've written about new year's resolutions before - I don't really put much stock into them. But I do know that this new year's day was special to us. For one, it was our fourth anniversary - and it brought with it a lot of decisions. Decisions about our marriage, about the future, about who we want to be and what we want to do. Decisions about love. It was like we had been butting our heads against a wall for the past six months, and somehow crossing over into 2015 led us straight to the doorway.

I don't quite understand that. I suppose the head-butting is necessary for growth, and the doorway was invisible for so long for a good reason. In any case, it feels great to be here. Of course we still have a lot more to go - we still have monumental decisions that aren't made, promises to fulfill, disappointments to deal with and a lot of waiting, waiting, waiting. In fact, I think anyone else on the outside could look and say, literally nothing has changed, you guys. But something within us has shifted. Our level of contentment, commitment, and resolve has changed. We finally talked things out and said things out loud that had been splintering us. It hurt a lot, but it also healed so much faster afterward.

Last night we sat together and just wrote out some goals. Financial, physical, and personal. Nothing insane or out-of-reach, but very basic goals that we're hoping to conquer this year. It was a time for us to sit and reflect and try to put into the words the things that we want as our priorities. To get our goals on the same page, and high-five, and give ourselves an extra boost of inspiration and teamwork.

I'm proud of us, and I'm really excited for the lean, mean, fighting machine that is 2015.
It's going to be a great year.

law wife life

After three incredible years in law school, my husband is (right at this very moment) finishing his BAR EXAM today! 

I feel a very strange mixture of emotions and thoughts, not least of which is where did the time go!?

I am incredibly proud of all that he has done. It is the end of this particular journey we've been on, the end of an era.  

It feels so exciting and full of promise. I will still be a law wife in many ways, but it won't be the same.

We are now, finally, for sure, out of the college-y time of our marriage. 

We no longer enjoy all-nighters (or even just late nighters). We get excited about real-life things, like nice candles and amazing salads. We can't pick at our face anymore or eat whatever we want, our bodies are against us. Our metabolism is brought up in friendly conversation. Often. We think about owning a home all the day long. Everyone is having kids. Indulging means staying home and cuddling. I have regular panic attacks at work, looking at the files of school children born in 2009. A true delight would be to get a real massage. My back hurts. We have to look up bizarre internet slang. We don't understand youths. I complain almost every day about how lame kids TV shows are nowadays (because the 90's were awesome). I sit on my bum all day long at work, but when I get home I just need to relax. 

It has been such an honor to live with and grow up with my husband. I adore him. He is funny and sweet and so hard working. I feel so lucky to have been able to travel beside him in law school, letting him push me to make new friends and love a new place. He is the extrovert, the one who invigorates me and challenges me. I couldn't be more proud of him! I feel jittery as I write this, knowing he's sitting there, filling in multiple choice bubbles. His mind is such a wonderful thing. I am privileged to know it. 

I love our life and am thankful every day for the adventure. Tonight we will celebrate the enormous accomplishment of my husband's hard work, graduating law school and finishing the bar exam. It will be the beginning of a new life for him (after he spends a few days sleeping). Up ahead is a lot of mystery and more hard work and new learning and rich experience. I have no doubt in my mind that he's ready and able.

Congratulations Dustin, you magnificent man, you.

i'm ready

This has been quite a powerful week for me.

Mostly because I've had a sort of epiphany of change, taking the steps that are necessary to be what I want to be.

Fit, healthy, long-nailed.

I stopped biting my nails towards the end of 2013. It just happened, like suddenly I realized that if I wanted to stop biting my nails, I should just stop biting them. What a crazy world. I've been biting and tearing my nails for my entire life (well, I don't know about little baby Caitlin, but most likely she was biting everything she could get her hands on, including her own hands). Why?

Here's the truth: Dusty bought me some amazing super-glitter OPI nail polishes for Christmas. So I started painting my nails pretty much every night, completely enamored with them, wanting to try different patterns and colors. And I stopped biting my nails because they were so pretty. 

I suddenly had the will and the reason to allow myself long, strong, beautiful nails. 

I'm never doubting the power of glitter again.

The other part of my epiphany is that I've started working out almost every day.

Why haven't I always been doing this?

The epiphany part is that I actually enjoy it. I enjoy it because I grabbed a friend to do it with me, and it's a game changer when you start looking forward to meeting up every night -- to laughing while you do jumping jacks to a cheesy workout video, to having awkwardly great conversations while running outside, wheezing and so out of breath, so cold that your tears are freezing to your cheeks.

Then you celebrate and feel amazing and grab your water bottle and say, "see you tomorrow!"

All the while knowing that your body is changing and getting stronger and is so sore the next day because of a job well done. What's more straight forward than that?

Dusty and I started doing Herbalife last year and have really been enjoying it, and it has helped us lose some weight and feel so great. It has also inspired us to eat better and eat out much less (I also have to thank eMeals for that, which I'm so happy with that I would gladly do a million commercials for it. It's on Groupon right now, go buy it ASAP! It'll change your life. You can thank me later.)

But being healthy and fit is more than that, it's intentional and it's active. 

I'm not gonna lie, I have fallen into the typical marriage weight gain category. Both Dusty and I have slowly but surely gotten further and further away from our little high school selves, when we first fell in love and we were just babies, petite and darling.

I think part of it stemmed from moving away from Arizona so soon after marriage, and being really homesick out here in Virginia -- there were a lot of Taco Bell nights, trying to cling on to something comforting and homey (and fatty). 

We look back to pictures of our first year or so out here in Virginia, and we just giggle in embarrassment. 

I'm not truly ashamed, though, nor do I regret those inevitable pounds.

Because they were well-earned. By date nights, cuddling, sleeping in on Saturdays. By happiness, contentedness, (alright, and definitely laziness). By TV-show marathons and pajama nights. 

By a time when all we had was each other and some cheese. 

What a glorious time it was, my friends. I remember, and I won't forget.

But now I'm ready -- I'm ready to be an adult, to give up Taco Bell, to be healthy, for myself and for my husband and for my future children. To keep up with things and go on those hikes and run around the park and be at my very best. To finally decide that all of it is worth it, and anything that used to keep me back was just silly. To find that glitter that inspires me to action. 

I'm ready.

the law wife

I remember when we first moved to Virginia two years ago for my husband to begin law school, and I was introduced to the concept of "The Law Wives". 

I was contacted shortly after we were settled into the little fort we called home by a woman identifying herself as my "mentor". She was an older law student who wanted to meet up with me and encourage me in this new experience.

I was overjoyed. 

I had my first friend!

Granted, it was a friendly assignment which isn't quite the same, but going downtown to that quirky coffee shop was exciting and nerve-wracking and she gave me some of the greatest advice:

God doesn't call one spouse without calling the other. 

Dress: Anthropologie, Belt: LOFT, Necklace: Francesca's

This statement struck me as very profound, and I instantaneously felt the shift in my heart and mind.
We're a team. I was committed, I was in it to win it, I was ready.
I am a law wife. 

Over the next few weeks and months, I fell in love with the ministry that was The Law Wives.
I mean, how often do you get the opportunity to be a part of a community that strengthens, nourishes, and encourages you while you all travel the same rocky roads of change and transition together?
How often do you walk into a room of strangers and hear, We've been waiting for you! and We're so glad you're here! and Here, have some baked goods!
Strangers that are so happy to have you there, and are so supportive of you and your marriage and this journey, that they are active and intentional, and plan monthly events. Like going apple picking in the Fall. Like marriage retreats. And oh, my favorite, having a fancy Christmas Tea each December.

I remember my friends making fun of me at first, because I always sounded so snooty.
"Oh, I'm going out with the Law Wives tonight."
It sounds strange, like some bizarre club, but it has been one of the biggest blessings (if not the biggest, for me) of being here for law school.

I realized after a while that the reason it sounded so strange was because it was special.

This was my outfit for Monday night's law school event, the first of the year!
The Dean's Reception is day 1 of orientation for all of the new 1L students, so we got to go as mentors and mingle and enjoy dressing up and preparing ourselves for our very last year.

So cheers to the Law Wives, past, present, and future.
And cheers to being stronger now than we ever were before, and to being on this adventure together.