Earthly Love

If you read my post yesterday you saw that Josh and I were starting a new devotional together for dating couples. I've always been a little nervous to post about my faith on here because I didn't want to turn people away but because of the wonderful Elise over at Cheers Y'all, I've been inspired to post about my faith today in hopes that it will inspire somebody else. 

Josh and I have been dating long distance over four years now and I honestly don't know if we would have gotten through some of our loneliest times apart without our relationship being centered around Christ. While I've been blessed with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel this year, Josh has started divinity school with the dream of becoming a youth pastor. I am so blessed by the love he shows me on a daily bases and I am thankful that I have someone in my life who pushes me to grow stronger in my faith. 

Last night we started our new devotional together, "Devotions for Dating Couples", and it's a 9 week devotion that will focus on a different aspect of our spiritual lives each week. This first week is love, and last night was powerful. 

Last night focused on the true love that God has for us. His love comes without any strings attached and is more perfect than the earthly love we share with our special someone. The one thing that stuck out to me last night was that our passionate earthly love is just a tiny, tiny, tiny pinch of how much God loves us. Just when we don't think we could love any more, well, God loves us unlimited times that. 

I'm not going to be posting about this devotional daily on here but if you would like to follow along I highly encourage you to follow me on Instagram @SouthernAbundanceBlog where I will post daily scripture like the one above! So if your dating or engaged to a special someone and are looking for a wonderful devotional to do together, I highly recommend this one! Happy Tuesday beautiful's! :-)

Amazon 

Monday Coffee Talk

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about a consistent blog post that I wanted to do on a weekly basis and this weekend it finally hit me..."Coffee Talk" on Mondays! This will be my one rambling post a week to share with you just about anything I'm enjoying over a cup of coffee! 

Lilly Pulitzer Sale: Did anyone else have their alarm set early this morning to wake up in time for the big Lilly sale? I made sure to log on last night and be sure everything in my account was correct so that this morning I could just shop away! Did y'all get any good deals? If you have not already headed on over to the sale check it out via the link below:

New Year Cheer Sale

The Bachelor: Y'all, Juan Pablo is back tonight aka I can sit and swoon  watch as he finds his dream woman! I know, if you're like my parents you are probably thinking A) that show has so much drama and B) the track record of people finding love on that show is slim to nothing. However, I just can't get enough of it! Please tell me some of y'all out there are just as obsessed with this show as I am? It is literally marked down on my planner every single week...yep, Monday nights at 8:00pm I'm free for you Juan!

Current Dog Obsession: My current dog obsession is with English Bulldogs. Josh has always loved them and wanted one but I didn't fall in love with the breed until the past month. A pet store back home has had an English Bulldog puppy in the store for a few weeks and we've played with him twice. Needless to say, I'm hooked and want to buy one ASAP when I get off the road.

Devotional Book: Josh and I are starting a new devotional together today and I am so excited! This book is one we picked up a few years ago but have just never gotten around to going through it together. We decided before I left to come back on the road that we would start this today to make us feel close to one another since we are hundreds of miles apart. I'm excited to spend time with God these next 8 weeks learning how to love him more and support Josh in his faith walk!

Via 

I hope y'all have the best Monday possible! For those of you who are getting this nasty winter weather right now, stay save and warm. I'll try and send you some warmth from good ole South Carolina. Don't forget you still have a little over a week to enter my giveaway for your own copy of Blog, Inc!

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Five on Friday: Travel Essentials

Happy Friday Sweet Friends!

I'm sorry for such a late night post, but I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off today! You see, tomorrow I head back out for my final five months on the road with my job as a traveling leadership consultant. I had a dreaded doctors appointment today then ran to grab a few last minute things before I finished packing. Packing for five months at a time can be somewhat difficult but something I get better at doing every time I fly to another school. With today's Five on Friday link-up (A. Liz Adventures), I decided to have a little fun and post the five items I have labeled my top  travel essentials.

[ONE]- Mini Travel Steamer

$19.99: Bed Bath and Beyond 

There is no way I could travel without this. My mini steamer heats up in 20 seconds and is ready to steam away and make my clothes crisp and wrinkle free. The biggest plus is that it only weighs 14 ounces so it doesn't take up much space in my bag. I will seriously never travel anywhere without this little friend of mine!

[TWO]- Erin Condren Life Planner

$50: Erin Condren

A year ago I was lucky enough to stumble across the Erin Condren Life Planner and I don't think I'll ever use anything else. I love how each day is divided into Morning/Day/Night and I'm given a large square space to write down all my meetings. I also love the vast array of cover choices that you can select from. 

[THREE]- Lands End Tote Bag

$17: Lands End

This tote bag saves my life on a daily basis. Flying every week requires a strong and durable bag that I can use as my "personal carry on item" and this bag holds so much. I also use it on a daily bases as my book bag to carry notebooks and my laptop to campus for meetings. I also love that you can get your monogram on it! 

[FOUR]- Clarisonic Mia 

$125: Clarisonic

There are not enough words to describe how this little gadget has changed my life. I've only been using my Clarisonic Mia since September but I'll be the first to tell you I'm hooked. Being exposed to different types of water every few days on the road was really starting to make my acne flair back up in the beginning. However, since starting to use this little gadget my face had been more clear. I've also noticed a major decrease this winter in the amount of dry skin I have. 

[FIVE]- Blog, INC. Book

My Blog, INC. book will be the most well loved thing on the road this semester. I still have one more chapter to read in my copy but I'm excited that there is still 12 days to go in my giveaway for one of you to win your very own copy. Don't forget to enter via the rafflecopter below as the winner will be picked on January 15th!

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I hope you all have a beautiful weekend! Tomorrow I'm off to my first school of the semester in South Carolina and look forward to brining you all on the journey! Make sure you're following me via Instagram and Twitter to be a part of my day to day travels!

Hottest Deals in Fashion

Yesterday I may have dragged the boyfriend with me to go do a little new year's day shopping! I was told a few months ago by a sweet friend in Georgia that on January 1st every year, Dillard's department store puts their entire store on sale for 50% off. She informed me that this was not really an advertised sale but that I had to try it. So with my heart set on this "huge sale", Josh and I ventured to the mall this morning. Well, to make the correction, the entire store is not on sale, just the clearance items. However, the catch was around 80% of their store had been placed on clearance so aka almost the entire store really was on sale!!! (My heart was smiling!!) Everything that was marked as clearance was an additional 50% off the lowest price. If you follow my instagram account, you saw that I scored a beautiful $149 dress for just $26.07! Is that a deal or what? Since I am fixing to hit the road traveling again on Saturday and won't be able to shop much anymore, I decided to create for y'all a list of some of the biggest online sales that I'm loving right now. Let me know what you think! 

Jcrew.com is having 40% off final sale items through January 7th with the code SHOPHAPPY.

Factory.jcrew.com is also having 40% off clearance items through January 7th with the code SALE40.

Anthropologie.com has 25% off their sale clothing and accessories with 50% off their home sale. Use code WARMUP.

Nordstrom.com is having another semi annual sale with up to 50% off online purchases! 

Bananarepublic.com has 30% off sale items with the code BRGOOD30 till January 6th!

I also decided to link-up with Showered with Design and Happiness is Not a Destination for the month of January to do their Inspire Me 2014 Blog Challenge! They've listed great ideas for almost every day of the month so hop on over to find a prompt you would like to write about! 

Today's prompt for January 2nd was: What did you do for New Years?

My answer to that is not a whole lot and I was perfectly fine with that! Josh came over to my family's house and we all spent the evening together eating a wonderful home cooked meal, playing games together, and watching Modern Family till our stomachs hurt so much from laughing. At 11:50pm we turned the channels to watch the ball drop and then I was able to share a little new year's kiss with my favorite boy! Originally Josh and I were going to attempt to go to Charleston for NYE but with my work having me go back out on the road this Saturday, I decided to spend NYE right at home and soak in every minute I could get with my loved ones!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a copy of Blog, Inc!

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Happy New Year + First Blog Giveaway!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!

I can just already feel that God is going to bless us with a great 2014! How did y'all spend your New Year's Eve? Hopefully it was surrounded by those that you love. Any one make it up to New York City to see the ball drop in person? I have to say, being in Times Square to celebrate a new year is on my life bucket list!

The family and I hung out at our home like we do every year and I was thankful that Josh was able to join us once again. Originally, Josh and I were going to attempt to spend NYE in Charleston, SC but my work schedule has me going back out this weekend for the next 5 months so I'm trying to soak up all the time I can with my family. Instead we played games, ate lots of my mom's yummy food, and counted down the last few moments of 2013. No matter how you brought in the new year, I hope you loved every second!

Now on to my BIG and EXCITING news! If you read my post yesterday, you learned that today I was making an announcement that I could not wait to tell you all. Well, here it is: I'm hosting my first giveaway! A few days ago I finished reading the wonderful book by Joy Cho titled "Blog, INC." and knew right away I had to give a copy to one of my wonderful readers. The book description goes as follows:

via

"With roughly 95,000 blogs launched worldwide every 24 hours (BlogPulse), making a fledgling site stand out isn't easy. This authoritative handbook gives creative hopefuls a leg up. Joy Cho, of the award-winning Oh Joy!, offers expert advice on starting and growing a blog, from design and finance to overcoming blogger's block, attracting readers, and more. With a foreword from Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge plus expert interviews, this book will fine-tune what the next generation of bloggers shares with the world.

Learn how to: - Design your site
- Choose the right platform
- Attract a fan base
- Finance your blog
- Maintain work/life balance
- Manage comments
- Find content inspiration
- Overcome blogger's block
- Choose the right ads
- Develop a voice
- Protect your work
- Create a media kit
- Leverage your social network
- Take better photographs
- Set up an affiliate program
- Partner with sponsors
- Build community
- Go full-time with your blog
- And more!"

I could not put this book down and took so many notes which have made me all the more excited about Southern Abundance and the direction it will go in 2014! So here's the time frame, the giveaway is open now and will run through 11:59pm on Wednesday, January 15...aka you have 2 weeks to enter! Note that tweeting daily about the giveaway will allow you to enter you name in it even more so feel free to do so! 

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I'll leave you all with a few not-so-high-quality pictures that I found via New Year's Eve family video circa 1999. You know the year right before Y2K came and the entire world was supposed to crash? Well, I guess my 9 year old self wanted the fam to wear hats that year! And from the second picture I guess we survived into the year 2000! HaHa Enjoy :-)