• Life

    Florida Vacation Recap

    April 17, 2017

    I’m so excited to be back and recapping my vacation with you guys! I had such a great time, and can’t wait to share all about it. If you don’t regularly read my blog or you just don’t know, last week my family and I took a trip down to Florida. We drove down from New Jersey, which was about an 18-20 hour drive. Today I’m going to be recapping each day and what we did while we were down there.

    Saturday

    We left Friday, April 7th around 3 pm and didn’t get to my grandparents house (where we were staying for the week) until 12 noon on Saturday. We drove through the night and didn’t get much sleep at all so we didn’t do much of anything on Saturday. We just caught up and spent time with my grandparents.

    Sunday

    On Sunday we were ready to start exploring and my brother heard about a place called Blue Springs where you can see manatees and it happened to be just 10 mins from my grandparents house. So on Sunday we all went to the Blue Springs State Park and got to actually go boating with the manatees, which was crazy when you think about it because these animals are known as Sea Cows because of how big they are. Since they are also known as the Gentle Giant, it was safe to be near them as well, which was so cool.

    It was so cool how close you could get to them.
    It was so beautiful there. The landscape was so different from what we were used to seeing.

    This was most of our’s favorite day. It was really unexpected too because we didn’t plan this day until we got down there and didn’t know we could boat with the manatees either. It was super fun.

    Monday

    On Monday we went to New Smyrna Beach. It wasn’t quite as warm as I hoped that it was going to be because once we got down by the ocean it was about 10 degrees colder (around 70) than back at my grandparent’s house. It still was fun though. We got to sunbathe and just see how different the Florida beaches were from New Jersey beaches. My favorite part is the palm trees. It just gives the area such a different feel to it.

    My camera was dead this day so I didn’t pictures. I took this one from my iPhone.

    Tuesday

    On Tuesday we went to the Central Florida Zoo that was about 15 mins from my grandparents house. Tommy loves animals and I was so excited to go with him because he makes it so much more fun. We got so many good animal shots.

    Driving into the zoo!
    Baby goat
    Puma the Warthog!
    Funny picture Tommy snapped of my brother, mom, and cousin
    American Alligator (one of my favorite animals to see)
    Crocodile!
    Bald Eagles
    Black Panther sleeping on it’s back like a dog haha!
    Fossa, only Native to Madagascar
    Me at the zoo!
    Sleeping Cheetah
    Scary!

    Wednesday

    On Wednesday we went to another spring named DeLeon Springs about 45 mins from my grandparents house. There was a pancake house that had a griddle in the middle of each table where you got to cook your own pancakes. The place was just awesome looking and so historic. We got to swim in the spring and also go boating again!

    It used to be an Old Sugar Mill, inside is where you make the pancakes.
    More Willow Trees (They were everywhere at this spring.)

       

    After we came back from this we at dinner together, like we did every night (which was really special). Then my grandma showed me how to make the cookies that she made all my life. It was really cool because Tommy and his grandma also made them as he was growing up too. They’re called Pizzelles and are so delish.

    It was really special to me to learn how to make these from my grandma.

    Thursday

    On Thursday we traveled to Orlando (about an hour from my grandparents) and visited an aquarium! We wanted to go to Disney but since it was so many other’s Spring Break too the prices were a bit steep so we decided to wait on that. It would have cost us $150 per person just for the tickets for one day! So we settled on an aquarium instead and it was really fun too. It was really hard to get pictures of the animals here since they were swimming the whole time, haha.

    They had these little pop-up bubbles which were really fun.
    Me in the pop-up bubble
    Jellyfish!
    Shark
    Another Shark
    Sea Turtle!
    Tommy was messing around and got this semi-candid shot of my mom, brother, and me.

    After the aquarium we headed back to my grandparents and took them out to eat for dinner for their 57th Anniversary!

    Friday

    On Friday we woke up at 4 am and drove all the way back to New Jersey (1100 miles!) and got home around 11 pm. It was rough but totally worth it for such a great trip. I can’t wait to go back already!

     

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  • Coffee Dates,  Life

    Let’s Have Coffee | Vol. 8

    April 11, 2017

    Hey friends, it feels so good to be back blogging today. It hasn’t even been that long and I already have missed it. Although the break and being on vacation has been nice of course! I was debating on writing a blog post this week or not because I kind of wanted to take the week off and just relax but then I realized that I love writing and pretending I’m on a coffee date with all of my blogging friends. So here I am, in the middle of vacation having a coffee date with you. 🙂 I also have a guest post on Thursday so be on the lookout for that. I’m really excited about it!

    If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am really enjoying the aspect of being on vacation and not having to worry about cooking and cleaning. This is the first time I have been on a long vacation since being married and moving out and let me tell you, not having to worry about those things is a luxury in itself. 🙂

    If we were having coffee, I would ask if you liked beach vacations or if you preferred to take a trip to a city or maybe the lake? My husband and I are definitely beach people, but I’m learning that it’s really fun to break from the mold as well. This week we went boating with manatees and it was so much fun. I can’t wait to share all about it.

    If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this month (when I come back from vacation) is going to be hard. We are most likely moving out of our apartment this month and I am not looking forward to it. I really love our little apartment and we have already made so many memories there and I don’t want to say goodbye.

    If were having coffee, I’d say how nice it is to have a break in everyday life to spend time with family. I’m really loving being in Florida with a lot of my family and am having such a great time. Being on vacation and being so far from home makes me also excited to go back to regular life too because I realize how much I really appreciate it.

    If we were having coffee, I would share that I am hosting Easter at my apartment this year! It’s only a few people coming but I’ve never hosted a holiday before and I’m really excited about it. Do you usually host holidays? Do you love it or would you prefer to go to someone else’s house to celebrate?

    If we were having coffee, I’d just thank you for spending time with me. There’s nothing sweeter than having a friend to sit down with and really talk about how you are doing with (even if that is over the computer).

    Today I am linking up with Erin Salmon, where we have coffee every second Monday (or Tuesday) of every month. Come join in with us, we’d love to have you!

     

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  • Life

    New Posting Schedule + Info For The Online Bible Study

    April 4, 2017

    Hey friends! I just wanted to stop by really quickly today to update you guys on a new posting schedule for my blog. I usually get upset when one of the bloggers I follow disappears without explanation because I somehow feel as though we’re friends and I don’t want to leave you guys hanging like that. (Because we are friends, right?! 🙂 )

    New Posting Schedule + Explanation

    I’m only going to be posting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at least for the next month or so. I will reevaluate after May or June and see where I am at that point. I just have started to go in different directions and would like to have more time to work on starting my Etsy shop and even just working on the technical side of my blog. I also don’t want to write a post that isn’t well put together just to write a post.

    I am also still focusing on the direction I want my blog to go in and need more time to work that out too. It will always be a blog about Jesus and his love for us, but I want to work on making sure that that is the main focus and that it is obvious. I am going to be spending time praying and working through what that means for me and what I should be writing about.

    And finally, I also have a passion for marriage and want that to be another main focus of this blog, but am not sure how that fits in with my main focus. I want to work through all of this so that I can be the most helpful to you. I want to have a clear vision from God so that I can be used best. And to do this I need to have some more free time. It may be temporary and I may be back to posting every day in a couple of months or I may stay posting a few times a week permanently. It all depends, but I hope that you understand.

    Online Bible Study Info

    I am still working through how exactly this is going to pan out but I am so very excited to work through a study with you girls who signed up. Also, it is not too late to sign up! If you are interested, click over to this post, and read a little bit more about what the study will consist of and leave a comment that you are interested to sign up!

    Later on today I am also going to be putting up a poll on Facebook for which book we should read through. If you have a suggestion, please leave it below! 🙂 The poll will be up for about a week and a half. I am going to be on vacation from this Friday (4/7) until the following Saturday (4/15). I will probably not be posting from now until then. (Maybe one or two, we’ll see.) But visit my Facebook page to stay in touch and to vote on the book we will be reading!

    Another way to stay in touch over the course of the next couple weeks is Instagram! I will posting about my trip on there as well. 🙂

     

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  • Life

    Monthly Goals: April

    April 3, 2017

    March Goals Recap

    • Consistently blog Monday-Friday
    • Read 2 books
    • Plan Florida vacation
    • Finish crocheting another blanket
    • Write 4 Lifetree posts
    • Write post for Young Wives Club
    • Workout 2-3x’s per week
    • Spend more time outside
    • Pray for Tommy every day

    Well you guys, as you can see I did TERRIBLE at my March goals, haha. I honestly kind of forgot about all of them besides the working out one. I did end up working out 2-3x’s for half of the month and then we always just slack off at the end of the month. It’s so strange. Also, we ended up not being able to spend more time outside because it got cold again (and even snowed!) so that wasn’t even a realistic goal.

    April Goals

    This month we are traveling to Florida to visit my grandparents so that should be super exciting. Also, we are moving out this month!!! (Insert all the crying emojis here!) I am heartbroken over this just because this was our first apartment we ever lived together in. But oh well, I will make the best of it. Onto my April goals! Let’s see if I can actually remember them throughout the month. 😉

    • Have the best time in Florida with family
    • Start hosting the online book club
    • Pack up all of our things well
    • Move out! 🙁
    • Make 2 more Etsy products
    • Meal plan through the craziness of packing

     

    What are your goals this month? I’m linking up with Autumn for #MonthlyGold. Come join us! 🙂

     

    Also, check back tomorrow for updates on the Online Bible Study and a change in my posting schedule for the next few months!

     

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  • Life

    My Cleaning + Laundry Schedule

    March 31, 2017

    This feels like a silly post to write but I really enjoy reading these types of posts from others. I’m telling myself that you guys might enjoy reading this then, haha. Actually, let me know which types of posts are your favorite! Do you enjoy faith-based ones, marriage ones, or ones that are just updates of my life (like Friday Favorites or What’s Up Wednesday ones)?

    Over the past few weeks I have created a cleaning schedule that I’m hoping will be a good fit for the home that we live in now. Great timing on that too because we move out the end of April! We actually know where we are moving after this though and this cleaning schedule should work there as well. (Fingers crossed!)

    Four Hours Of Cleaning? Yuck

    Up until a few weeks ago I would clean our apartment all in one big sweep. I would wait until I felt like it needed to be cleaned, then would spend all day cleaning. Our apartment is roughly 1000 square feet, so it’s not big by any means. It would take me about 4 hours to do a really good deep-clean from start to finish. I really didn’t mind doing this but I wanted a system where I didn’t have to stop basically everything for the day to do it. Because let’s be real here, I wasn’t going to get much more done after cleaning for 4 hours. I was exhausted. So I decided to try to figure out a system where I would be able to do a little bit every day.

    Cleaning A Little Every Day? I Don’t Know…

    I didn’t set up a system like this before because I hated the idea of only cleaning a few rooms every day. I felt like I would never have a completely clean house. I love the feeling that you get after sitting down on your couch, after cleaning for 4 hours, knowing that everything is clean. Do you know that feeling I’m talking about? I just felt very accomplished and happy that everything in my house was sparkly clean.

    The system that I put into place still has me feeling like that without cleaning for 4 straight hours. It’s truly a great thing, haha! 😉 There are two days of the week where I am actually cleaning the house (rather than doing things like laundry), and I try to do those back-to-back so that there aren’t days in between when I cleaned two different rooms. I say try because a lot of the time this doesn’t happen – I’ll clean two rooms on Monday, and then the other rooms on Wednesday or Thursday. But if this is a concern of yours you can make sure that you clean them back-to-back.

    The other thing that helps with making sure that the house feels completely clean is I try (again) to clean each room once a week. Before I probably was cleaning them anywhere from every 2-3 weeks. Cleaning them every week keeps the dust from really building up and everything just constantly feels clean all the time. What a great thing! (Well besides the floors, because hardwood floors are the worst to keep clean!)

    My Cleaning + Laundry Schedule

    Day 1: Clean bathroom + bedroom

    Day 2: Clean kitchen + living room + dining area

    Day 3: Laundry: Clothes

    Day 4: Laundry: Bed Sheets, Towels, or Tommy’s Work Clothes

    I love how this schedule is written out. I didn’t use days like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. because I know myself and I won’t want to clean the bathroom and the bedroom every Monday. Some days I have a lot of blog stuff to do or I got a bad night of sleep and won’t want to be that active. With this schedule I can choose to not clean at all that day (since there are only 4 days to clean) or I can choose to do an easier task – like towels. This system works great for me because then I don’t have the guilty of “I was supposed to clean the bedroom today, but didn’t”.

    I also love how the laundry days are super easy. I used to let the laundry pile up too and the have to do 2-3 loads of it every other week or so. With this system it’s great though because it’s just a little bit to do every week. Smaller loads of laundry make me happy. Especially since our washer and dryer are not in our apartment!

    The reason why the fourth day has multiple types of laundry is because we don’t need to wash our towels, sheets, or Tommy’s work clothes every week. We can get away with doing these every 2-3 weeks.

    \\So I’d actually love to know, what is your cleaning/laundry schedule? Do you wait and do everything in one day or do you try to break tasks up into bite size chunks?

     

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  • Life

    What’s Up Wednesday: March 2017 Edition

    March 29, 2017

    Happy Wednesday friends! Today I’m linking up with Shay, Shaeffer, and Mel for What’s Up Wednesday. Come join us!

     

    What We’re Eating This Week

    We splurged and went to Shake Shack after church this Sunday and it was so. good.

    We’ve been eating lots of fun things this week, including these homemade Starbucks chocolatey chip frapps! Also so delish!

    I also made homemade fried rice this week! We just picked up a quart of chicken and broccoli to eat with it and it was such a great meal.

     

    What I’m Reminiscing About

    Our wedding! The weather’s just starting to break and remind me of Spring around here, which brings me back to the time we were planning vigorously and then to the actual wedding day. In just a month and a half we’ll have been married for one whole year. I really can’t believe it.

     

    What I’m Loving

    I may have just mentioned it already. 😉 That the weather is starting to break. It’s still only in the 50-60’s here in New Jersey but I’m hoping that the temperatures start hitting the 70’s really soon and we can once again go outside and enjoy the sun!

     

    What We’ve Been Up To

    Nothing too much to be honest. I’ve been working hard at getting my Etsy shop up and running. I went to JoAnn’s this month and bought all of this yarn and am so excited to reveal what I’m working on soon! (If you’re interested, follow along on Instagram, where I’ve been giving updates! 🙂 (@ashleyzincrochets).

    We’ve also seen a lot of our family this month, which was nice. We had my mom, brother, and his girlfriend over for dinner one night, and my cousin came over another night. We also went and visited Tommy’s family too.

     

    What I’m Dreading

    Nothing! (Which I am soo thankful for!) 🙂

     

    What I’m Working On

    Well, I kind of already answered this one in the what I’ve been up to section. But I am also working on trying to put together an online bible study. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out this post! We only have a few people so far so I’m really hoping more people will sign up!

     

    What I’m Excited About

    A week from Friday, my family and I are driving down to Florida to spend the week with my grandparents! We are also going to be hitting up the beach a few days, and I am so beyond excited to go. Warmer weather. Grandparents. Florida. The Beach. Yes.

     

    What I’m Watching/Reading

    I have been so, so bad about reading this year. I honestly haven’t read much. I really want to start again though.

    Tommy and I blew through Season 3 of How To Get Away With Murder in about 3 days. OMG you guys, that show. It is so well written. If you haven’t watched it, I would highly recommend it. But be warned, there is a lot of killing and it does really freak me out at the same time, so if you aren’t into shows like that, then nevermind. 😉

    Also, if you have any Netflix suggestions, please send them my way! Tommy and I really don’t know what to watch anymore.

     

    What I’m Listening To

    I actually have an answer to this one! I’ve never yet had a real answer because I never really “listened” to anything consistently. But! I started listening to Jeff and Alyssa Bethke’s podcast even though they don’t update it anymore, and I am loving it. It’s super encouraging. And I actually heard on Jeff’s Instagram story yesterday that they are starting it up again! What a great time to have started listening.

     

    What I’m Wearing

    Lots and lots of sweats. 😉 I actually have a Target gift card that I really need to go use and buy new clothes, haha. I’ve mentioned this before but ever since quitting my corporate job, I don’t have much nicer type lounge clothes (is that even a thing?). And I am not about to wear my corporate clothes around the house!

     

    What I’m Doing This Weekend

    I’m going to a bridal shower for my cousin’s fiance on Saturday! I’m actually really excited about it. My aunt asked if I could come up on Friday and help set up too. Should be a ton of fun.

     

    What I’m Looking Forward To Next Month

    Well since technically that’s when we’re going on the Florida trip, that’d be the same answer for this one too. Also, the weather warming up even more should be great.

     

    What Else Is New

    Tommy has actually been actively looking for jobs in Florida and we’ve been talking very seriously about moving there, which is so exciting! I would just love being in warmer weather all year round!

     

    Bonus question for the month…

    What Is Your Favorite Spring Thing To Wear

    via target.com

    I’d have to say floral maxi dresses. I absolutely love this one. I might have to buy it when I head to Target!

    \\What’s Up With Your Wednesday?

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