FOOTBALL Friday!

I am so excited to kick off football season with this post! 


CT, my hubby, is a college football coach at our alma-mater Friends University. He was a receiver in college and is now the head receivers coach at FU, and he loves every second of it! His ultimate goal is to one day be an offensive coordinator at a big D1 school {hopefully KU}, and I will be here every step of the way supporting him. 

I was quite the football groupie {aka great girl friend} in college and I still am now as a coaches wife! 

Let me take you back in time a little bit. 

{Freshman year of college}

{Sophomore year of college}

Junior year of college CT tore his ACL one of the first practices, so he had to medical red shirt this year. 

{Senior year of college}

It's crazy seeing how much we grew up in those few short years of college!


Check out how creative I was with my fashion during our college football days. 

Sometimes I wish I could still wear these, because they are so cool.
 I love that my dad passed on the creative gene to me. 

I have the shirts saved away for the day when we have a man cave basement. I have already consented to it being decorated with all our sports memorabilia, so these will hopefully one day be framed on a wall. 


Now to present day football! 


I am looking forward to Saturday evenings under the bright lights, watching CT walk up and down those sidelines in his headset. 

I am anxiously awaiting Sept. 15th when we are going to our annual Cowboys game. Yes ya'll, we are die hard Dallas fans! 
{Don't you know, it's America's team. They even have a hole in their roof so God can watch His team. =)) } 

I can't wait to break out the skinnies and boots, for some fun fall football fashion. 

 {This is definitely not the type of football fashion I'm talking about!}



Can't you tell how excited I was about kicking off football season. 
SO excited - that I didn't have a clue where I was going with this post. 
EEKK! 
Happy football season! 


PS - I hope you link up with us to showcase your football Friday posts! 

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FML. Student Loans

A few weeks ago I got mail stating that it was time for us to send in our last years proof on income so they could decide how much they were going to charge us monthly for our student loans.

Man, did that get me super depressed and in a slump.

Student loans SUCK! 

CT and I could afford a nice house for the amount we have in student loans. 

 It really is so depressing.

CT and I went to a private school, where we were both student-athletes and paying 24 thousand dollars a year.

 

CT went 4.5 years and I went 4 years. 

We had a few scholarships but not near enough to cover full tuition. 

You can do the math. It's not pretty.

 

Good ole Friends University. 

It really was a great school: nice facilities, small class sizes, attention needed from teachers. Looking back I did love it, but if hind sight was 20/20 I definitely should have went to Juco for two years getting all my prerequisites out of the way before going to Friends. 

After really looking into what all we owed, and seeing what our monthly payments were going to be, I came to the conclusion that we really need to start budgeting.

And adding to it, I figured out how much we spend on eating out each month. For the past 5 months - anywhere from $300-$600. 

How awful and eye opening that was.

It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about all that money we wasted. 

I have heard good things about the Dave Ramsey debt reduction program. 

Anyone had an experience using it? 

I don't know much about it other then it's kind of like a cash envelope system. When the money is gone you don't get any more until next month. 

We are going to start doing that for entertainment, eating out, and lunch money for work. 

Other things we are going to start doing to help us save some money:

1. Start shopping for Christmas and Birthday in the off months and start doing DIY gifts.

 I have a gift section started hidden in my new buffet table. I recently hit up the semi-annual bath and body works sale. 

Most everything was 75% off. 

You can't beat that! 

I got a bunch of goodies and saved lots of money. 

2. Use coupons.

 For any and everything.

3. Meal plan so I don't make frequent stops at the grocery store. 

 I have gotten a lot better at this but there is still room for improvement.

4. Plan better/cheaper date nights 

 Picnics, farmers market/flee market trips, batting cages.

Those a just a few ideas of mine. 

What do you do to save money? 

I haven't quite been able to talk the husband into down grading our cable package . =/ 

I doubt that will ever happen.  

 

For the LOVE of: T-A-T-T-O-O-S

I remember when I went in to get my first tattoo and the artist had asked me if that was my first experience getting a tattoo and I so quickly said 'yep, first and last'. He 100% assured me that it wasn't going to be my last and that I would be hooked.

As I sit here researching and 'pinning' to my permanent ink board, I'd say he was correct! 

I currently have 2 tattoos that I love and am so happy about.

This was my first tat I got in 2009 with some girls from my college volleyball team.

If you are having a hard time telling what this is - it's a tribal wolf with a paw inside. 

 My maiden name is Wolf and I played around with a couple of ideas before I came across something similar to this!

This one is self explanatory!

I love my boo and I love being married.

Obviously, I'm into the smaller, simple lined tattoos that can be easily covered. 

The next tattoo I  get, I want it to be a cross.

1. Finger tattoos are sexy.
2. Feet tattoos are super girly.
3. I love the position of the last picture but I would want it about an inch long. 

As I was on pinterest tonight I heard "What are you doing?? We are going to have a hard time parenting when you have 17 tattoos and I have 1."

Here's to trying to talk CT into getting one with me! =) 

Home - It's What You Make It

  I came across a pretty cool link up that Erin at Love, Fun, & Football is co-hosting, discussing first homes and apartments. Here is to a day of firsts!

First apartment or house on your own (away from you parents!)

First room you decorated or would like to decorate

First thing you bought for it, or would like to buy

 

First apartment or house on your own (away from you parents!)

After moving out of my parents house I moved into a dorm with 4 other girls and CT. Technically he wasn't really my roommate, but since the first day we hung out we stayed together every night. Out of the 9 months I lived there, we only got caught on 2 different occasions, so I'd say we were pretty successful!

Some of my volleyball teammates/roommates!
(Boy would I love to have my hair like this again)

Let me tell you a story about the first time we stayed together. CT and I were up all night talking and when we eventually fell asleep we ended up sleeping on top of the covers, not touching each other, and CT had his shoes on. Thinking back on it makes me laugh so hard. We were so young and so awkward!

After the dorms, I moved into a house on campus with 4 other girls and eventually my first pet Bentley. Luckily, after drawing straws, I got the massive bedroom that was converted from a garage, and it was away from all 4 of the other rooms. This room was ginormous with a huge closet and just enough space to get a puppy! 

(Man - I'm such the rule breaker - having boys stay over in the dorms and getting an animal on campus!)    

My roommates and I trying out our hand at painting!

 

 

 

I loved this closet! When we end up purchasing a home- I won't settle for anything less than this! 

  

After the house on campus, I lived with another girl for 8 months and then moved into the apartment I'm in now. CT and I currently live above my uncles business, so we get the family discount. We have a 2 bedroom 1.5 bathroom apartment downtown and pay a whopping $300 a month in rent. We are so very blessed!

 After we got married and purchased new cars, we had the itch to move somewhere with a garage and more storage. We ended up checking out some places to rent and quickly realized how fortunate we are for how much we have for so little the cost.

  
First room you decorated or would like to decorate?I really enjoy decorating! I wish I had a home where I could make more permanent decisions, but I think I'm doing an okay job at working with what I have. 

 

My current problem is the lack of storage space in our apartment. After our wedding I wanted to move so badly that I kept all of our wedding gifts piled in a corner, unopened and unused. After we figured out we were going to be in this apartment a little more long term, I started getting things out, decorating, ect. 

 

This was my most recent organizing/decorating accomplishment. I switched our dining room and 'hobby room'. You now walk into our apartment to the top picture, which is way more inviting than what it use to be. 

Our new hobby room is much more put together and organized than the before picture, but I still need to find a solution to organizing fabric and some cute storage for all my little nick-nacks. 

Any ideas or recommendations of what works for you?

First thing you bought for it, or would like to buy?

The first major thing we bought as a couple for our apartment was our set of couches. We used our first tax return as a married couple and splurged on a nice couch and love seat.

What I am currently keeping my eye out for is the perfect buffet table. Something with some closed storage so I can hide a few things and preferably red. 

Anyways, I made my first batch of no bake cookies today and they are so good, so addicting, and so not healthy!

I also went to re-activate our YMCA membership today. We officially don't qualify for reduced membership pricing because we made to much last year. That's a first! I can't decide if I'm happy about that or disappointed. =)