At the end of June, we celebrated my 28th birthday. For some reason this birthday has made me reflect a lot on where I’m at in life. Probably because it’s a little to close for comfort to 30! I’m not scared of getting older or anything like that, but I can’t help feeling like I haven’t accomplished as much as I wanted to by this age. I’m very driven and goal oriented so when I don’t feel like I’m achieving enough I start to get down on myself. A couple of the big goals I was hoping to have by now were getting married, buying a house, starting a family… Ever since I was a little girl, I couldn’t wait to be a mom and start my own family one day. I have always been obsessed with babies and children, ask anyone who knows me lol! When I was growing up my family was in foster care and we took care of dozens of children during that time, babies, toddlers, and older kids too. I loved taking care of those babies! I was bullied a lot in school but these kids really made me forget about everything else going on in my life.

Schyler and I met on a double date 7 years ago and we have been together ever since! After 2 years of dating, we had planned to get married but due to differences/difficulties with my parents and what they expected for our wedding we decided to cancel and planned on saving up for a wedding ourselves. This caused a huge strain in our relationship and in my family. Ever since then we’ve been in college, paying for college, moving, losing jobs, career changes… All of those things life throws in your way! So we’ve never had enough saved to make it happen. I’m not going to lie it has definitely been hard over the years having to constantly answer people’s questions about “why we aren’t married yet” among others.

I made a major career change when I was let go from my job in interior design unexpectedly in 2017. At the time my blog and other social media channels were just a hobby/dream of mine, but Schyler encouraged me and helped me make it my full-time job. Being my own boss with a job that allows me to work from home was the perfect scenario in my mind for raising kids one day! Starting my own brand has been the biggest accomplishment of my 20’s. But these past 4 years have been hard! Starting a business, managing it, and keeping it afloat isn’t always easy and it’s certainly not cheap. I was so proud of the numbers I was making and then Covid hit! The pandemic definitely affected my work and in turn how much I made this past year, so we weren’t able to save as much as I had hoped to.

During the pandemic, enough money had already been saved for a down payment on a home. Long story short, while in the process of closing on the house, I was given bad advice by the lender who mis-managed the account during the entire process, causing everything to fall through last-minute and the money invested was lost. This was devastating for me because it was a big milestone I had been wanted to reach for so long. I was really depressed about it for a long time. In my perfect world, I would love to get married, then buy a house, then start a family. I know that’s super traditional and silly but it’s just what I’ve always planned in my head lol. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I was raised Catholic!

We just signed another lease so we plan on staying in our Pittsburgh loft for another year! After our big move across the country in January 2020 and starting over from scratch, our apartment is finally starting to look the way I want it too and feel more like home. Schyler proposed to me (for the third time lol) in New York last Christmas! After years of deliberating what kind of wedding I wanted, we finally decided on a destination wedding. Our goal is to get married in 2023, after all the postponed Covid weddings are over lol. We aren’t sure where this will be yet, but will start researching towards the end of the year. After that, hopefully everything else will fall in place! The more life I live the more I realize, life rarely goes as planned and that’s ok! Everyone has a different timeline in life and this is mine. I know that when I finally have those things lined up AND have the successful business I was able to establish in my 20’s, it will be so rewarding.

XOXO