Hi, friends! HAPPY 2020, and thank you for stopping by. I wanted to kick off my first post with a little Q & A so that you can get to know me a little better. 26 years old = 26 random questions. I am so excited for this new project, and I hope you continue to follow along! If you have any suggestions on what you’d like to see from me in the future, send me a message here!
- What is your full name? Katie Elizabeth Snyder. Katie is actually what’s on my birth certificate (it’s not short for anything). Elizabeth is from my mom’s side of the family. And fun fact: my younger brothers still give me low key flak about not changing my middle name to my maiden name when I got married. So here I am starting a blog with a URL that includes my maiden name initial – H.
- What do you do for a living? I am a Talent Acquisition Partner (Recruiter) for Eastman, a local chemical company in Kingsport, TN. My job entails recruiting for our intern and co-op program as well as our entry-level engineering roles. This definitely was not my planned career path! But regardless of how I got here, I am so thankful for my current job and I truly love what I do.
- Are you a morning or a night person? The answer to this question has changed over the past year. I used to DESPISE waking up in the mornings (as in I’d hit snooze 5-10 times each day). 5 extra minutes was like a little piece of heaven to me. But over the past year I (slowly) switched my workouts from after work to before work, and it has made ALL the difference. I love my morning routine, and waking up is so much easier now. With that said, I now get tired around 6 PM every night.
- What’s your favorite candle scent? I pretty much only buy Bath and Body Works candles (basic, I know), and my favorite scents change with the seasons. But my go-to year round scent is Leaves! (Honorable Mentions: Pumpkin Pecan Waffles, Endless Weekend, and Fresh Balsam)
- What’s your favorite thing about marriage? This is another one that I could write a whole post about. Marriage is the best. It really, truly is. It is both challenging and rewarding. There are SO many reasons I love being married to Kendall, but my favorite is the concept of truly living out our vows. In our short 3 years of marriage, we’ve experienced some pretty incredible highs and also some tough lows. During the seasons of celebration as well as the seasons of sorrow, it’s a pretty cool thing to apply “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part” to our marriage day in and day out. In only 3 years, we’ve gotten to experience each and every one of those peaks and valleys. Through it all, I choose Kendall (and I know he chooses me) daily – and that’s a pretty cool blessing.
- What movie could you watch over and over again? Before meeting Kendall, I would have never said this. But I could watch the Harry Potter series every single day for the rest of my life.
- What is the name of your favorite restaurant? Kendall and I lived in Nashville, TN for a couple of years after I graduated college, and one of our favorite things about living there was how many restaurant options there are. My favorite, by far, is Whiskey Kitchen. Their food, drinks, and ambiance can’t be beat IMO! My favorite restaurant local to East TN is Label (because sushi is life).
- What’s your favorite beverage besides water? Prosecco. All. Day. Every. Day.
- What is one food that you used to hate but now you love? Okay, don’t knock ‘em before you try ‘em, but Brussels sprouts are in my top five favorite foods of all time.
- What is your favorite bible verse? The years before and after our wedding (which was in 2016), my favorite verse was 1 Corinthians 13 – “Love is patient, love is kind…” but as of late I’ve really been loving Philippians 4:6 – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
- What is one of your biggest pet peeves? Nail biting. Kendall, I’m looking at you.
- What’s your favorite song? The two songs that I could listen to on repeat recently are “Yes I Will” by Vertical Worship and “Fighting for Me” by Riley Clemmons.
- What’s your favorite social media platform? Instagram. Okay no, Youtube. No, Instagram. Eh, Youtube.
- What is your favorite beauty item? My face is the actual Sahara Desert unless I use a damp sponge. So, yeah. Gotta be that.
- What is one item on your bucket list? Kendall and I love traveling. Our biggest bucket list trips outside of the US are Europe and Greece (dream big, right?). Within the US, we still want to go to Seattle (my SIL lives there now, yay!), Denver, and Kendall is dying to go to Jackson, Wyoming! LA has always been high up on my list, but Kendall is (so) uninterested.
- What is your biggest goal of 2020? To be transparent, my biggest goal is to grow our family. But that’s not something that is totally in our control. So from what I can control, my biggest goal is to be intentional with our family budgeting and continue to grow a savings for our future family.
- What is your all-time favorite TV series? All these “favorite” questions are irritating me because I struggle narrowing down my favorites. So here’s my top 3 in no particular order – One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, and Friday Night Lights. (Fun Fact: I’ve never watched The Office OR Friends other than random episodes here and there)
- What’s your favorite sport to watch? Basketball is really the only sport that I thoroughly enjoy watching from start to finish.
- Are you more like your mother or father? First of all, my parents are THE absolute best humans on this planet. But honestly, neither. I am organized like my dad, and I love HARD like my mom. But my youngest brother Brad and I may or may not have been adopted. We are extremely similar and have a lot of characteristics that don’t come from either of our parents. We are flamboyant, daring, and have semi-intense personalities while my parents are both more reserved.
- What habit do you currently have that you wish you started much earlier in life? Ooo, that’s easy. Health and fitness. I used to have the mindset that since I played sports I didn’t have to worry about nutrition or exercise. Then college happened, and I quickly realized how wrong I was. Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about macros and proper nutrition/fitness and it’s become a big passion of mine!
- On a scale of 1-10, how funny would you say you are? I would say a solid 2-3. 3 might be too generous. I can’t tell stories to save my life, and I feel like the funniest people I know are good storytellers (AKA my husband).
- Do you take leftovers home when you eat out? Yes, and I usually eat them within 30 minutes of walking in the door to our house.
- What is the most important thing in your life? Family. Everything in my life involves my family in some way, and I would never change that. When I was younger, my number one thing I looked for in a significant other was someone who could fit in with my family (and vice versa) and someone who valued family in the same way I do. That’s one of the things that drew me to Kendall so strongly back in 2011!
- What is your junk food guilty pleasure? Hot Cheetos, white chocolate covered Oreos, momma Halvorsen’s oatmeal cookies, Sour Patch Kids, and really anything fried… I love it all.
- What is one thing you’d rather pay someone to do than do yourself? Okay, this answer is embarrassing. But grocery shop. Kendall and I started getting our groceries delivered a few months ago, and as boujee as it sounds, it has been a lifesaver. It saves us 1-2 hours every Sunday, and we already spend so much time meal-prepping each week so this gives us back a big portion of our day! We also end up saving money (and calories) because we don’t grab random snacks that we don’t need. INSTACART ALL THE WAY. (Message me for $10 off your first delivery!)
- What is the last movie you watched? Kendall and I used to be movie buffs. Over the years, we’ve watched less and less movies, so we recently implemented movie nights every Wednesday night to try and get back in our groove! The most recent one we watched was Creed 2, and it was SO good. Definitely worth watching if you’ve seen the first Creed. Also, Michael B. Jordan is a smokeshow, so that’s an added bonus.
I love it and I am super proud of you. ❤️❤️