Gambrill State Park.

New area. New places to explore. Starting this Monday, Brandon will both be going back to work, so we decided to take the five days that we had of no work to get the apartment in order and to explore Frederick before our crazy work schedules take over. 

Gambrill State Park is about ten minutes away from our apartment and offers so much more than Lake Norman Sate Park did back in North Carolina. We've already decided that once it starts getting warm again that we will be spending a lot of time up there. 

Frederick Outlook

Middletown Outlook

My battle with depression.

In October 2015, Brandon and I got married. It was the best day of my life. It was everything I could have dreamed about. The month leading up to the wedding I remember feeling down. I was never really stressed, just down. During the day I was fine, but the nights were hard. I would end up in tears 95% of the time. The last few days leading up to our wedding and for about three weeks afterwards, I was fine. I felt like myself.

Starting around November, I felt myself slipping. I would stay in bed all day. I would never go out. It was hard for me to even take a shower every day. And just like in September,  I wold start out fine, but as the day would progress, I would get worse and worse to the point where I was crying EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT in the bathroom. It was like clockwork.

The feeling of sadness was always there, it was persistent so I had learn to put on my happy face when I was out in public.(Only Brandon, knew about my battle for the first three months.) Yet, the further the month of November went along, the harder it was to pretend; the worse my sadness got (Brandon once told me that, there were a few times that he thought he was gonna have to hospitalize me from how scary I had gotten).

It was until the beginning of December did I finally come out to my family. After three months of hiding it, I came out. With the help from my family, I finally found the courage to go get help because I wasn't going to get better on my own. (I ended up being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, and that the case was from the birth control I was on.)

Every month after my diagnosis, there was always hope that I would be able to stop my antidepressant and my battle with depression would go away. I hated taking the pill; it was always a chore to remember to take it. I was thought that once I started taking my medicine I would be better within a few months; yet I wasn't. It was until until, July, seven months after I started taken the pill, I was able to come off it. Once the side effects from coming off the antidepressant wore off, I have been fine ever since. I still have a bad day every now and then, but compared to what it was like before, it's nothing.

I can definitely say that the first year of marriage was hard. I never knew I would be the kind of person who would get depression from just taking birth control. Who would have thought that I would have been diagnosed with depression within three months of being married? Or that for the next six months it would be a constant battle with my disorder. And yet, though it all, Brandon was amazing. He never once gave up on me, even when I had given up on myself.

I am obviously not a professional on the subject... but this is simply my story and I tried to explain it the best I could in hopes that if anyone else is struggling with this or anything of the sort, that you can find the help you need in the midst of your battle.

New Beginnings.

The closer it gets to moving day, the more real it feels. Tomorrow is my last day at Food Lion. We send our first load of stuff up north tomorrow. And our two rooms are getting filled with more and more boxes. 

I have been so excited to move; to have our own place. Yet, I never knew that saying goodbye to my job at Food Lion would be so hard. After tomorrow I would have only worked there for two months. Yet, having to say goodbye to everyone has been hard. I have grown to love the people that I worked with (except for a few people that I never really liked, haha), in a way they become my second family. Goodbyes started yesterday; and it was hard. Today was harder. And tomorrow will be the hardest. 

However, even though I am leaving this Food Lion, I am thankful that I am able to transfer to another Food Lion about eight miles from our new place, so I will be able to stay with this company. I keep telling everyone, that they need to just transfer up north with me, so we can stay together, but all I can do is hope that the new store I am going to has the same atmosphere that I feel in love with at the Troutman store.

Here's to new beginnings... 

First Meet Anniversary: Two years ago

Having an anniversary of when you met is a thing, right? Two years ago today, I met Brandon for the first time on a blind date. A mutual friend had set us up. I had only agreed to the date because I hadn't been on a date in over year at the time. I remember I was nervous beforehand. I was worried that it would be awkward; yet I was confident that it would be the only date we would go on, that if it went well, the most we would ever be was friends.

Yet, Brandon came and picked me up, 20 minutes late none the less, and off we went. And it was the complete opposite of what I expected. I wasn't nervous. It wasn't awkward. I felt so comfortable with him. And I can never forget how cute Brandon was; he was so nervous. However, after our date was over, I felt like he wouldn't have asked me out again; but obviously I was wrong, because he was over at my dorm two days later fixing my laptop, which lead to the start of us being inseparable for three weeks before he left me to move back to the east coast, which is a whole other story for later. ;) 

First picture together from our fourth date at the 2014 Institute dance at Snow College.