Updates and Changes

We've been doing really well in the McCausland home. It's been a minute since I posted an update(Like 6 months, sorry).

For those who didn't know, we moved to Draper. We love it here, it's leaps and bounds better than our crappy apartment in Midvale. I'm grateful that we had a place to start out, though, even if it was disgusting and stressful. ;)

In January, our sweet dog had two strokes. Thankfully, he's made it through, but he's lost a lot of energy and he seems to have lost his a little of his memory(like how to not use our floor as the bathroom, the little stinker). Aside from that, he's doing great.

I know that me posting on my blog is a rarity, but I promise that that is changing right now. I'm going to be posting regularly, and that's a promise. The nature of this blog is going to shift a bit, geared more towards lifestyle.

I probably won't be posting links to these posts on my facebook anymore, so pretty please make sure that you follow my blog, so you can get regular updates of when I post.

The biggest reason for this shift? If you don't follow me on instagram, go ahead and head over there, because I've been doing a lot on my insta. I'm wanting to expand those posts here on my blog.

Another big reason to keeps tabs on our life here on the blog? We have a lot of exciting stuff planned this summer, and you guys are going to be green with travel envy. I promise you won't want to miss a single post, so please please follow along!

We love you all! :)

Once Upon a Winter...

Last winter was mild. Which I'm grateful for. I hate the winter. I type this as snow falls heavily outside my window, adding to the foot high snow already covering everything.

I don't hate winter because of the snow. I hate it because it's hard to travel, and it makes being outside uncomfortable. It's so so beautiful. But it makes my anxiety go through the roof.

But I digress. I was talking about last year.

Seth and I started dating last September. And as our relationship blossomed and continued, we entered the winter months. Being long distance, I was worried. We were both worried. Driving to see each other might not be an option anymore. So, we prayed and hoped a lot. Hoping that the roads would stay clear, that the snow and bad weather would be minimal.

And it was. We were really blessed with a mild winter. Looking back, I'm honestly amazed.

The first time it really snowed, was right after Christmas. I was in St. George, visiting him. We drove back to Orem in the snow(which was miserable), because I was moving a few days later. My car broke down, everything was falling apart, but we made it to my new apartment with all of my stuff safely. Even though it was now snowing, AND my car was broken down. We were essentially stranded.

But we made the best of it. We built a fort in my living room, and cuddled day in and day out. We had plans to go out for NYE, but our situation made it impossible. He knew that I'd bought a dress, so he told me to still get all dolled up, he had a plan. We walked down the snowy street to the grocery store(we later found out that there was one closer). Then, while I showered and got ready, he made dinner.

I walked out in my dress, and his face lit up. It was similar to his face when he saw me on our wedding day(but not quite as great). He kissed me, telling me how beautiful I was, and wow, he couldn't believe it. We ate chicken enchiladas on the kitchen floor, and then danced until midnight in our socks.

And it was the perfect holiday.

This year will be so different. Making snow angels in the foot of snow while our dog runs around, jumping up at the falling flakes. Sledding(it's a must), and all of the cute, instagram worthy pictures(can you tell we're millenials?). I hate ice skating, but for him, I'd go.

And I want to take him to the Midway ice castles. They are breathtakingly beautiful. And they are so close to my grandmas house, we can stop by there afterwards for nachos and hot cocoa. Plus, it'll be a good excuse to visit the place we got married.

And of course, the temple square lights. We went last year, on the way home from visiting my family for Thanksgiving, and we went last night, with my family. But I don't anticipate it being our last visit there.

And Christmas. Man, am I excited for Christmas with Seth. We're going to visit my family for Christmas(we can't pass up Christmas bingo with my siblings). But when we get back, we both have a day off, and we're going to spend that day having Christmas, just us and the dog.

I hate winter for so many reasons. But I'll find a million reasons to love it this season, because I love the people I get to spend it with.

Inspired by this LDR Blogs Writing prompt: Winterwishes

Stop asking me how I lost weight

Like basically every female out there, I can testify that the "Freshman Fifteen" is very real.

When I moved away from home, I weighed 124 pounds. I was generally pretty fit, working out multiple times a week, eating pretty healthy.

Within the first semester in college, I had blown up, considering how small I had been before. My mother kept telling me that it was me just "filling out". My boyfriend(now ex :) ) made comments on how I was "getting chubby".

That summer, I went to Paris. And I definitely let myself indulge in all the croissants I could get my hands on.

When I came back from Paris, I weighed about 170 pounds.

That's a lot of weight to gain in a very short amount of time. I don't want to hear any "You're tall, it's okay", "You still looked good!" "That's still small" "Your mom is right, you were just filling out.".

Any or all of those could be accurate. But the means that that weight was gained was unhealthy, and the rate at which it was gained was also not healthy.

When I got back from Paris, I started dating Seth. And by the time we got married, I'd managed to lose basically all of that weight, now fluctuating between 125 and 130 pounds.

A lot of people, specifically people that met me around August-November of last year, have made comments about my weight. And I've dodged that same question, so many times. "How did you lose all that weight?!" They say it like it's so amazing, that someone can lose weight.

First of all, if you want to lose weight, there are healthy ways to do so. You eat right, and you exercise. There are no shortcuts.

However, I didn't take that healthy route.

For about three years, I've struggled with an eating disorder. I've talked about this before, and the reasons behind it isn't something that I really want to get into at the moment. When it started getting really bad was roughly two months into my freshman year in college, two years ago. I wasn't used to my body acting this way when I ate food, and so I fought back, in the most unhealthy way possible. I stopped eating. I would not eat for days, and then binge. So, obviously, I didn't lose weight. In fact, I gained weight.

That continued for about a year.

When I came home from France, I started to feel really sick. I lost my appetite, I found almost no desire to eat. And about a month after that started, I started throwing up. I wasn't physically able to keep anything down.

Because my body was so sick, and rejecting any sort of food, I slowly started to lose weight. I got sick enough that a year ago, over Thanksgiving break, my mother and I dragged my poor boyfriend along with me to 7 different doctors appointments over the course of just 2 days. Acupuncturists, blood work, my primary doctor, MRIs, the works. It was kind of a stressful few days.

And the stupidest part, is that I did it to myself. I literally did it to myself. Shortly after this "hell week", I was diagnosed with Panic disorder. My anxiety levels had reached such a high point that it was causing me to be physically ill.

Once I learned to manage my body and emotions better, a lot of the sickness went away. It was now just an occasional sickness. And I had dealt with it long enough that I was, for the most part, able to handle it and appear to be functioning at a normal level.

Because I was able to eat, again, I started gaining weight again. Which is absolutely natural.

So what did I do?

I stopped eating. And I started throwing up.

Seth was gone from January-March earlier this year.

The first thing he said when he saw me again?

"Wow, you're tiny."

I'd starved myself to reach this sickly ideal. Literally, sickly.

It's something I deal with, I'm learning to cope with.

I've received, and continue to receive, help. I've gained some weight since I got married, and most of me is okay with that fact. I'm being healthy.

I'm not writing this to have people more worried about me.

I'm writing this to say that being skinny isn't, and shouldn't, be a desirable goal. I may be skinny, but that doesn't mean that I'm healthy.

For some people, it is.

I just want people to stop looking at me in awe, "wow, tell me your secrets!" The secret is to hate yourself and your body and push yourself past the limits.

So don't follow in my footsteps. I'm not a good role model.

Stop asking me how I lost weight. Stop asking me how I manage to be so skinny.

Sunrises and amazing views

It was dark as we drove up to the La Verkin overlook on Saturday morning. Our headlights cut through the dark in front of us, startling a couple making out. Within a few minutes of us being there, they had driven off, annoyed that we'd interrupted them. Sorry, not sorry.

We climbed out of the car, wrapped in a blanket, only to be pushed back into the car by the wind. My mood wasn't deflated, and we simply wrapped ourselves up in the back seat instead, waiting, as the sky gradually got lighter.

We talked and laughed and cuddled, his cold toes pressed against my legs. We both wore our fuzziest pajamas, his blue with stars, mine black with polka dots.

I didn't want to forget a single moment.

As the sun rose over the horizon, and the sky exploded into hues of pink and orange, Seth looked down at me and smiled. "So..." he started, diverting my attention from the marvelous sky to the marvelous guy I'd been dating for the past month. "We've had a lot of fun in the last month. I really enjoy spending time with you. And I think I'd like to only date you...and we don't have to put a label on it, we don't have to call it anything, if you don't want to. But I want to know that you're only with me." He looked down at me tentatively, not sure how I'd respond. A smile slowly spread across my face as I responded, "Does this mean I get to call you my boyfriend?" He laughed and kissed me, in response.

"Yes, you can call me your boyfriend."

My teeth touched his lips as he kissed me, my smile too big for me to kiss him back properly.

That was a year ago, October 11, 2014. We'd spent the previous month testing the waters, seeing if we wanted to make this a real thing. I remember getting jealous every time he mentioned another girl, whenever he hung out with another girl, and I know that he reciprocated those feelings towards me and other young men.

We drove down that hill later, as the sun shone, warming everything up, and I held his hand, an impossibly large smile on my face. Ha. He was mine.

That was a year ago. Exactly a year ago. Today, it's October 11, 2015. This morning we woke up and drove to the Sandy Amphitheater park, overlooking the city we live in, as we watched the sunrise. Coincidentally, this is the same place that he proposed to me.

I reflect over the last year I've had with this man, a year of adventures, a year of love,, and a year of many "yes"s.

Yes, I'll go on a date with you.

Yes, I'll be your girlfriend.

Yes, I'll wait for you on your mission.

Yes, I still want to date you.

Yes, I'll marry you.

Yes, I do.

I am so in love with this man, this man that is mine.

Our future is full of other yes's, other sunrises, other adventures.

I couldn't be more grateful for the experiences we've had, and I'm excited for all the experiences in our future.

When I Find Myself at a Loss of Words...

I often find myself looking at my husband, and I have a loss of words. I, someone who prides herself on being very good with words, can't think of a single word to describe how I feel.

There have been times that I've tried to explain to him these thoughts, these word-less thoughts. But I'm met with somewhat blank stares as the words struggle to leave my tongue.

I so badly want to be able to express the way I feel.

There had been so many times while I was a teenager, that I was ready to give up. There were times that I did give up. There were times that I thought my life was over, and that was how I intended it to be. I had my heart broken, by friends, situations, boys. I felt lonely. I felt the weight of so many things a young 13 year old girl shouldn't have to deal with. Or a 16 year old girl. Or an 18 year old girl.

And he makes all of that worth it.

I've always understood that we experience everything for a reason. Everything is put in our path to help us learn lessons. I've had nights where I sobbed in my bed, paced my kitchen screaming my feelings, and drowned my feelings in a bath, as I wished that I'd never had to learn these lessons. Getting mad at God for teaching me lessons is such painful ways. I knew I was supposed to learn these things. But I didn't want to learn them.

But as these experiences are in my past, and as I look at my husband sitting next to me as we eat breakfast on a Sunday morning, I'm grateful that I learned these lessons. And I'm grateful that he learned painful lessons as well. Because they shaped us into the people that we are now, and they prepared us to be with each other.

Getting to roll over every morning and feel his arms pull me closer to him, it makes me glad I never gave up.

At work about a month ago or so, a handful of my coworkers got into a conversation about "settlers and reachers" in a relationship. By their theory, in every relationship there is one individual that settles, and one that has to reach to meet the other. I mentioned it to Seth and we kinda laughed about it. The thing is, we each feel like we're the reacher. I look at Seth, and I think he is so handsome. I think he is a beautiful person, inside and out. I see the most tender and sweet man I've ever met. I've never had someone treat me as well as he does. And I ask myself daily how I got to be so lucky to get to have him as my eternal companion. But I know that Seth feels the same. Which makes me feel even more loved, even more valuable.

I've been having horrible nightmares over the past few months, waking me up with panic attacks and a cold sweat. Seth is always so patient with them, always waking up and coming to my side to comfort me. Just a few nights ago, I was dreading going to sleep because of a particularly bad nightmare I'd had a few nights before. So he held me in bed, and sang to me until I fell asleep. I felt so blessed to have someone who cared so much about me.

I can't imagine that I'm an easy person to be married to. I love cooking but hate doing dishes, folding laundry is the bane of my existence, and I never replace the roll of toilet paper. I have anxiety and depression, and Seth leaves me every morning worried that I'll be safe throughout that day. Not just "I hope the roads are safe on her way to work", but he worries about my mental and emotional state, because what isn't keeping me safe is myself. He worries about me every single time I'm not with him. Because he wants to protect me and he wants me to be safe. But he knows that I'm a big girl and I can keep myself safe. It doesn't stop him from worrying, though.

Seth accepts every single issue I bring forth, and doesn't even blink an eye. He loves me, and all of my injuries, issues, and insecurities, and he does it all unconditionally.

I look over at my husband every morning as he's still sleeping, and my eyes look over his cheekbones, crooked nose, and messy hair, and I love every inch of it. I think he's breathtaking in those soft moments.

I looked over at him while we sat in a theater a few months back, and watched his face as he took in the music and dancing in front of us. I watched his reaction, witnessed the love that he had for the art, the desire within him, and felt his hand on mine. And I swear I'd never seen a more attractive being.

I looked at him on May 15th as I held his hands and felt tears come to my eyes, as we promised ourselves to each other. I looked at him and felt my whole body fill with so much love that I thought I wouldn't be able to stand. I thought I could never feel so much of an emotion as I did on that day.

But I prove myself wrong every day. Every day when I look at his beautiful face, my heart leaps forward, propelling me to him. I lose my breath as I am reminded of how much I love him.

I am finding myself, again, at a loss of words to try to describe the way he makes me feel. I guess this is what love is supposed to feel like. I can very confidently say that I never felt this kind of love before I met this man I am lucky enough to call my husband. I laugh when I remember the boys I once thought I "loved".

I don't think I'll ever be able to articulate my thoughts coherently enough to explain how in love I am with Seth. But for now, it is enough to just know he feels the same way.

McCausland Family Update

First of all, Seth and I are alive and well.

Look how happy and married we are!!

So many things have happened over the last few months that we've been married.

We got a dog. He is the sweetest dog, and a wonderful addition to our little family. I'm grateful for him everyday. He keeps us company when only one of us is home, he keeps us safe(we live in a pretty ghetto neighboorhood...), and he loves us so much that it makes us feel like a family. He's a rescue, and he's about 8 years old. So, he's a grumpy old man, but we still adore him.

This picture is SUPPOSED to make you scared of our dog. 

Seth and I both got new jobs. Or rather, I got a new job, and Seth got a promotion. We both enjoy where we work, and we're happy.

I'm sorry..

We got bed bugs. This was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. We'd been getting bitten since we first moved into the apartment earlier in the summer. But, we had a huge spider problem in the apartment, and we assumed it was that. Once the spiders went away, and we were still getting bitten, we started exploring all the other options. We didn't even consider it being bed bugs, until one day we went to go wash our sheets, and the bed bugs had gotten bad enough that we could see them. I'll spare you the details, just know it was disgusting. I was also sick that day, so we had to spend that day switching back and forth from me throwing up, and us hauling the infested mattress out to the dump. It was kinda a miserable week. Thank heavens, we are now bed bug free. We are able to sleep through the night without waking up to itch the myriad of bites covering our bodies. So, we're happy.

This is our "we're exhausted because of bed bugs" face.

I went back to school. It's just been part time(nothing like the 17 credits I was taking last year). It's been a struggle, trying to juggle part time school with a full time job, but now that the semester is almost half over, haha, I'm getting the hang of it. I changed my major to English/Writing with a minor in French. I am loving it.

I started writing more. I know I haven't been writing HERE very much, but I really have been writing. I started writing for LDR Blogs, which is a website based on Long Distance Relationships. Because my LDR has ended(since Seth and I are now married), I don't write here a ton. However, I also got hired on at Unwritten, where I write about 2 articles a week. It has been such a wonderful creative outlet, and it's wonderful knowing that I'm a published author. And it's been a wonderful starting point. I just recently got offered to write basically the same type of articles, but to get paid for it(!!!) at a similar website. So, I'm just beginning to dip my toes into that. We'll see how well it works out. I'm excited for this new adventure, though.

This is how smart I look when I'm writing stuff.

I lost weight, and Seth gained weight. Since Seth and I started dating(which is when I stopped blogging so much) I was about 40 pounds heavier than I am now. So, I lost quite a bit of weight. Most of it was before we got married. I am very pleased, though, that instead of gaining marriage weight, I've lost about 5 pounds since we got married. And Seth has been putting on some weight(I've been trying to feed him more caloricly dense food) and he's pretty pleased with that.

There have been other milestones and things that we've accomplished since getting married, that don't really seem like things that we'd share with he public. But Seth has gotten cast in Forever Plaid at a theater in Magna, I've gotten a better handle on my anxiety(which has been huge for me), and we have grown together SO much.

We are so happy, and I am so blessed every single day for the wonderful man I get to call my husband.

We are so blessed. I am so happy to have a wonderful partner who I have the opportunity to spend forever with.

We love you all!!

I Would Walk 500 Miles...

When you start dating someone, two separate worlds are being combined, forced to mesh in places, while other aspects join together flawlessly.

Every relationship is different, and there are different "deal breakers" in every couples view.

Being Long Distance, a lot of those things don't come out until you get the opportunity to spend more time with someone in person, which sometimes means that you've been dating for a significant amount of time already.

By the time Seth realized that I had a problem, we'd already been dating for a few months, he was head over heels for me, and he was way too invested in our relationship for him to end it.

I have a horrible taste in music.

Well, at least, according to HIM.

I think my taste in music is fine.

Seth likes Indie/Hipster/very obscure music.

Which I also enjoy, don't get me wrong.

But I am definitely a "I know every Taylor Swift song ever by heart" kind of girl. Pop music is my love. More often than not, Seth ends up rolling his eyes and listening to my music somewhat begrudgingly.

Seth may disagree on these songs, but these are ten songs that I feel like perfectly describe Seth's and my relationship.

Lucky (Jason Mraz)

Little Things (One Direction)

I'm Gonna Be(500 Miles) (Sleeping At Last)

Perfect For Me (Ron Pope)

The Girl (City and Colour)

Can't Stop Thinking About You (Steve Moakler)

Come to Me (Goo Goo Dolls)

The Quiz (Hello Saferide)

Kiss You (One Direction)

Trumpets (Jason Derulo)


Inspired by this ldr blog prompt: Top Ten.