It Takes Two

Over Easter this past weekend I was home for a couple of days enjoying the break with my family. My Grandpa, who lives 3 hours away, had recently been released from the hospital after having a stroke. No worries, he's doing just fine, but with this hospital visit also came concerned family wanting to see their recovering family member.

Since most of my family lives up north it's quite a trek for them to make it down to North Carolina just to see someone for a day or two, so most of my family makes a trip out of it. With my immediate family living the closest out of all my relatives to my grandparents we often get to see the rest of the family when they are in town visiting them.

This past weekend my Uncle came down to visit along with his new fiancee. They visited my Grandpa for a day and then spent the night at our house and celebrated Easter with us in the morning. This was the first time I had ever met his fiancee and it felt a little weird at first. Don't get me wrong, she was a very nice lady (and she could keep up with our jokes, which is always a huge plus), but there was something about her that just didn't sit right with me.

I tend to think of myself as a very naive and optimistic person. I like to see the good in others and often am disappointed or shocked when they prove me otherwise; I guess I just want to believe, deep down, that people are innately good. This also affects my views on marriage. With the divorce rate now being over 50% in this country, the realist would just assume that marriage is doomed to fail. Well, Casey being the optimist, is shocked whenever I hear that a marriage is failing. I could write and entire post about how I reacted when I heard my ex-boyfriend's parents were splitting up, but that is a story for another day.

My whole life growing up I always referred to my Aunt's and Uncle's together. This was also a memory tactic since my mom and dad were both 1 of 7 children. We had Aunt Peggy and Uncle Sean, Uncle Paul and Aunt Rhonda, and Uncle Matt and Aunt Faith. Now, Matt being the uncle who stayed with us this past weekend, I had always associated him with Aunt Faith. It was my memory tactic and also probably my way of validating their relationship. But what happens when that couple gets divorced? Then what?

I am so fortunate to have two loving parents who have now been married for 27 years. They have shown me in so many ways how to make a marriage work and what it truly means to love another person. I think that is why my idea if marriage is so skewed. I thought process is, 'If my parents can do it, why can't everyone else?'. But I guess life doesn't work that way. Not all couples are meant to be like my parents are.

And I think that relates directly back to my earlier post about soul mates. I like to assume, again being naive, that you only marry a person you are meant to be with. But I think that's why most marriages fail. They don't marry the person they are 'meant' to be with. They settle for something that feels good in the moment, but don't think about the future. They go for a feeling, not an instinct. When did people stop using their heads and only follow their hearts? 

To make things work in this world there needs to be an even mix of both. You obviously have to love one another to start, but it takes more than that. You both have to be completely sure this is the person you want to clean up after when one of you can't hold your bladder any longer. You may laugh, but does this really cross your mind when you say "I do"?

I obviously have no experience on the matter, but my theory has always been this: You can marry just about anyone, as long as you are determined to make it work. And I mean, really determined. You obviously have to love the person, but when the times get tough those are the times you must stick by your spouse. They don't just pull 'for better or for worse' out of their asses, they mean it.

So sorry new lady for initially not liking you. I just have a hard time accepting that people actually get divorced. I also have a hard time coming to accept that this time will be different. Because if it were really 'different' this time, why couldn't you have made it work the first time?

Alright, I'm off my soap box. This was a darker post that really ended up going right into the deep end and practically drowned in it. Ha, sorry for the depressing post. I'm just a little jaded right now. No worries though, happy posts with be sure to come in the future!

Until next time,

Casey Rose

"Loving You Is Easy"

Man, has this Saturday post thing been a bust. I think I had what, like one post in total? #lame. Let's start it back up again, shall we?

So as you all know my music choice is very diverse. However, there is one genre I always like to go back to and that's 'Pop Rock'. This includes various artists such as Parachute and Mat Kearney. Normally I listen to Mat Kearney radio on Pandora and I find a lot of my new favorite Pop/Rock artists from that channel. One of the artists that I have fallen in love with is Ben Rector. Now I have always loved a few of his songs including 'White Dress' and 'When A Heart Breaks' but it wasn't until last week when I really fell head over heels in love with him.

Every spring NC State puts on a free concert for their students. My first semester at state it was Chiddy Bang. This semester was Mat Kearney (my love), but Ben Rector opened for him. Let me just say by the time he was done I was hoping he would just play for the entire time and Mat would never come on (which is saying a lot because I am obsessed with Mr. Kearney). He was so charismatic and funny that even if he were just to stand up on stage and speak for an hour, I still would have loved it just as much.

Since the concert I have been constantly playing his music on Spotify whenever I get the chance. I would absolutely recommend every single song he has ever written, but the song I will show you guys is going to be 'When I'm With You'. It's been the song I've pretty much been obsessed with lately and I play it over and over again.

Enjoy Mr. Rector. And no ladies, he is not single (unfortunate, right?)

Until next time,

Casey Rose

A Night to Remember

I know you all are tired of hearing my apologies, but I am sincerely sorry. Blogging has been put off to the side for a little while simply because as school is coming to an end that means finals! I have been very busy studying for those as well as completing final projects and whatnot in all of my classes. But I promise to blog more during the summer when I have more free time!

I haven't done a Fashion Friday post in a while, but since school is coming to an end I figured I would finally post about my sororities formal that we had a couple of weeks ago!

The Dress

Let me tell you, finding this formal dress was a job in itself. I searched for the longest time to find a dress that was just right. I had been eyeing this one dress on Lulu's for a while but it was almost $200, which I simply could not justify spending for one event. So the search continued. It wasn't until my friend and I were shopping at one of my favorite malls in the area when we came across this prom store. Obviously being in college we had no need for a prom dress, but just for old times sake we decided to go in and look at the extravagant dresses. It wasn't until I wandered over to the sale rack and saw a couple gorgeous bridesmaid dresses. I just couldn't believe how simple and pretty they all were and most for under $100! So, being that the price was definitely right, I had to try them on. I liked them all but there was one that stole my heart. It was a long grey strapless number with a fake sash around the waist that tied in the back. It was beautiful and I couldn't have been happier with my choice, especially since it was only $75 (more than 1/2 of what my 'dream' dress would have cost). Also the color being a beautiful grey really complimented my pale skin tone.

The Accessories

This was probably the toughest part of my entire search after finding the perfect dress. What shoes and jewelry to wear. Given that my date was only slightly taller than me, I didn't feel completely comfortable wearing heels and towering over him. So I opted for my gold jacks. They were comfortable and you couldn't even see them under my dress anyways.

I wasn't sure at first on which jewelry I wanted to go with, given that the neckline of my dress definitely would have worked with a necklace. I decided to just go ahead and stick with earrings so that my dress could be the main attraction and nothing would distract from it. The earrings were difficult to decide on, but I ended up finding the perfect pair. They were a double teardrop mint color with gold hardware. Overall, I think it complimented the grey color very nicely and were perfect for a spring time formal!

(they are the earrings on the left from Francesca's)

The Night

Overall, I had a fabulous time with my date and my friends. It was the perfect ending to a great semester. Enjoy the following pictures from the evening!

 Until next time,

Casey Rose