Guest Post: A Day In Annaliese’s Life

Meet our Day In The Life guest writer, Annaliese! She’s engaged, works in the hospitality industry (and also has a career background in radio!), is a longtime blogger, and a cat mom, living in Virginia Beach.

A Little About Annaliese

Hi Carolina Charm readers!

What an honor to be guest posting today on one of my favorite blogs.

My name is Annaliese, and I’ve written the lifestyle blog Southern Belle in Training since 2012. I started blogging as a hobby during my freshman year of college! My blog’s name comes from the fact that I’m originally from Maine, but went to school in North Carolina. I stayed in Charlotte for another year following college graduation, and one of the main reasons that I love Christina’s blog so much is that I feel like it gives me glimpses of what my life could’ve looked like someday had I stayed in the Queen City long term! I will always love Charlotte so much, and am so thankful it was my “college town.” 

I moved away from Charlotte due to my radio career! I studied journalism in college, and knew from the time I was a little girl that I wanted to try to be on the radio or TV news growing up. My radio career took me to Burlington Vermont (2017-18), Charlottesville VA (2018-2021) and Virginia Beach, VA (2021-present). I have continued blogging all of these years as a side hustle, but poured the majority of my career energy into being a morning radio show. Unfortunately, I lost my most recent radio job here in Virginia Beach very unexpectedly in April 2024 (two months ago of the time that I’m writing this). 

Job loss is never easy, but to lose my job in such a monumental year for me has made it even worse and more intense. I turn 30 in 2024… and even more importantly than that, I’m getting married later this year! I thought this year would be full of nothing but celebrations, but instead it has brought the loss of a career that I loved and gave so much of myself to for seven years.

Last month I started a very entry level job in the hospitality industry (thanks to the connection of a good friend). I’m working at a local hotel now. It is so different from my professional career in radio! But also just what I needed right now… a total change of pace. I am thankful for the opportunity to try something new. I was extra excited at the chance to document this Day in the Life on Christina’s blog, since my life is really in a unique place right now! It is kind of cool in a way to document such an interesting season of life.

Anyways, enough about my career woes! As I mentioned above, I am getting married later this year! I matched with my fiance Ryan on the dating app Hinge in February 2022. Both of us had many years of bad and awkward dates from dating apps… but we’re so glad that we stuck with it year after year, because it lead us to each other! (Read the full story of how we met here!) We got engaged in November 2023, and we will be getting married this November… 362 days after Ryan proposed! We live in Virginia Beach, VA and love it here so much. (We have no interest in moving to a new city or state to continue my radio career, hence me starting work in a new field!). I am a proud cat mom to my kitty Delilah! I adopted her from a cat rescue in 2018. I think that Ryan and I will eventually want to start a family, but we are looking forward to at least a couple years (maybe more) of married life for just the two of us first. 

A few things I love besides for blogging: reading, travel, golf, the beach, dressing colorfully (especially in Lilly Pulitzer), cooking and baking, drinking tea, eating dessert first, doing my nails myself (I am very passionate about press-on nails and nail wraps!), and my Christian faith! 

Anyways, let’s get to it!

A Day in Annaliese’s Life

Here’s a random Tuesday in my life in June 2024: 

4:50am – I wake myself up 10 minutes before my workday alarm goes off, thanks to a very weird and vivid dream (Where of course I forget what the dream was about as soon as I am awake! Does that happen to anyone else?). Most mornings lately my cat Delilah has been waking me at 4:15. I think she’s still schedule confused from my old morning radio job. But weirdly today she is sleeping in, and I’m the one who wakes myself up before my alarm!

5:30am – I am normally up and out of bed by 5:15, but today I am bad and get very distracted by TikTok and Instagram as I slowly wake up. I stay in bed until 5:30!! The first thing I do is make my bed. Some days I do my hair and makeup for work first before making the bed, but today I jumped right into this first. 

(Note: Ryan and I have lived together since last summer, but we have separate bedrooms in the apartment! I was someone who was always hesitant to live with a significant other before engagement/marriage with my faith views, but I felt better about moving in together last year knowing that we’d have separate bedrooms. The plan was always to start sharing the master bedroom ever night when we get married… but with my new job I wake up for work about an hour and a half earlier than Ryan still, so honestly we might keep the separate rooms on some work nights even after we are married! Haha.) 

5:35am – I start on my skincare and makeup for work! I am someone who always needs to get fully “ready” for the workday in this way. I have three day old hair today, so I throw in a bunch of dray shampoo in it and style it with a headband to hide how unwashed it is. We have a pretty strict employee dress code at my new hospitality job, but it does make getting dressed for work each morning very easy! (I do miss the fun and flexibility I had putting together outfits for my radio jobs though.)

6:00 – I eat breakfast, and I have been trying to knock out a computer related task while I eat before work. I had a new blog post go up bright and early that morning, so my task of the day is making sure that it published on time, and then sharing it on my blog’s Facebook page. For breakfast this morning I have cornflakes and a few pieces of turkey bacon. I also make a mug of hot black tea to take with me to work. Fun fact: I despise hot coffee but love hot tea!

6:25 – I get in the car to drive to work! This year I’ve been reading the bible in a year, and following The Bible Recap podcast. Some days I listen to that day’s episode while doing my makeup, and some days it’s in the car on the way to work. Today it’s a car listening day! I then switch to my SiriusXM radio after the episode ends. 

6:50 – Arrive at the hotel that I work at. Time for work!

7-3 – Working at my new hospitality job for an 8 hour shift. Sometimes I have to stay a little late if we are very busy or the people working the next shift are late to arrive. Luckily on this day I get out on time! It has been an adjustment to go from being a radio host who sat most of the day, to now be running around on my feet all day at work. I had to invest in a good new pair of sneakers after just a few days at the new job! 

3:30 – I get home from work, and it’s a whirlwind next 15 minutes. I eat a Bomb Pop for a quick snack (it’s a hot day and an ice pop sounds great!), change out of my work clothes and into my workout clothes, and quickly fold a load of laundry from the dryer and start a new load in the washer. 

3:50 – Normally I leave for my Tuesday fitness class around 4:30, but I leave a good bit early today for a fun errand before my class. I had been at Home Sense a few days prior, and I saw a giant ginger jar on sale that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about! I think it would go perfectly on the shelf under my TV stand in my bedroom. Ryan and I were gifted a Home Sense gift card at our engagement party last month, and I think this is the perfect time to use it. 

4:15 – I run into Home Sense and find the ginger jar, it’s still there! Success! 

5:00 – Time for my Tuesday workout class! I enjoy a variety of ways of staying active, but my favorite fitness classes are Jazzercise! I first tried Jazzercise classes when I lived in Charlottesville in 2019, and quickly became obsessed. I took a two year break after moving to Virginia Beach, but re-joined a local studio here last fall and I don’t think I’ll ever take a break again! It’s so fun and such a good workout. (Also- Jazzercise is super modern now, and not the 80s VHS workouts that your mom might have done!) 

6:15 – I get home from Jazzercise and start on dinner. In an average week, I cook two nights, Ryan cooks one night, and we do leftovers or eat out the other nights. With the expense of our upcoming wedding and the financial hit we took from my radio job loss, we have been trying to be better than ever about cooking more at home. Tonight I’m making an easy recipe from my very favorite cookbook, A Month of Dinner by Larson Folkerts! (@larsonfolkerts is a must-follow on Instagram for her easy yet delicious recipes!). Tonight’s recipe is Fajita Quesadillas with copycat Taco Bell sauce. I know this will be quick to make, which is a good fit for an evening that I worked out. I usually try to make more time-intensive dinner recipes on days that I’m off work or didn’t go to an evening workout class. 

7:00 – I feed my cat Delilah her dinner (she’s been meowing for it for an hour, she’s very food motivated!), and then Ryan and I eat our quesadillas. Several nights a week we eat together at the dinner table (with the Frank Sinatra SiriusXM radio station playing on our TV!), but tonight we eat while doing our own things. Ryan is eating while watching a TV show, and I eat while starting on some blog work. 

7:30 – I answer some blog emails, and post to LTK and my Instagram! 

8:00 – This part of the night varies night to night. Sometimes we are watching a show or doing something together! Sometimes I’m working on wedding planning. Sometimes I get in bed early and read. Sometimes I Facetime a long distance friend! Tonight I did something that actually isn’t the norm- I watched a free finance webinar hosted from a financial influencer who I love following on Instagram (Amanda from @shewolfeofwallstreet). I’ve followed her for years and have always wanted to attend one of her webinars, but this is the first time I have! With my recent decrease in income and spending a lot on our wedding this year, it feels more important than ever to have really strong financial habits, so I was really looking forward to this webinar. I fold laundry while watching.

9:15 – I shut off the webinar and spend a few minutes hanging out with Ryan. We love both lying in bed and watching videos on our own phones (Reels for Ryan, TikTok for me!). We also chat about our days and the rest of the week ahead.

9:30 – Shower time! I always shower at night instead of the morning.

9:45 – After saying goodnight to Ryan, it is time for the first part of my bedtime routine: doing my daily French lesson on Duolingo! I was a French minor in college, but never kept up with it post-grad. I got into Duolingo as a pandemic hobby in 2020…and it has stuck! I still do it every single night. After Duolingo, I do my final Instagram scroll of the night. 

10:05 – I do my daily bible reading for The Bible Recap reading plan. Delilah settles herself on the end of my bed and falls asleep.

10:15 – Lights out and time for bed!

Thank you so much Christina for allowing me to share a day in my life! If you’d like to connect with me, please check out my blog Southern Belle in Training, and you can also follow me on Instagram, TikTok and LTK! (I’m @miss_alk on all of those apps!)