Sunday Dress

Dress, Cardigan & Shoes: Target, Earrings: F21, Belt: DownEast Outfitters

Chad brought me home a little surprise last week, this super fun leaf belt. I couldn't wait to wear it. I thought it might jazz up my plain, (somewhat) shapeless dress. Especially when wearing a cardigan over top, this dress needed some help, bad.

Purple Leaf Belt to the rescue! Why hello there Mr, Belt. Where have you been all my life?! Am I the last person on earth to realize that belts are really my best friend? Not only are they functional but they really can change up the entire look of an outfit. I'm so glad we've found each other.

Linking up with ModernModestBeauty and WatchOutForTheWoestmans

Five {Holiday} Things Friday

It's almost October, which I can officially let out all of my holiday crazy!!! Singing Christmas carols in July all of a sudden makes planning out a Christmas bucket list in (almost) October seem very much acceptable. Clearly I'm overly excited for all of them! Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, Talk like a Pirate Day... What? You didn't Talk like a Pirate on September 19th? Ok, so maybe my Dr. was more into that one than me.

I am compiling lists of things to do for each and every holiday so that I can milk each and every one for all of it's goodness and glory! Thanks Pinterest for all of your ridiculously wonderful ideas and feeding my crazy!

Here's some things I'm digging for the upcoming Holiday Season:

1. Scarecrow Treats. There's candy corn, a cake mix and peanut butter involved. Sounds like a good time to me! Now I just need to make friends who also like candy corn so I don't have to eat them all by myself.

2. I think I'm gonna have to set aside some time to decorate sugar cookies. I love decorating cakes and cookies! Ridiculously cute and tasty? It's a win, win.

 3. Face Paint.  F-r-e-a-k-y. Now we just need to find a Halloween party to go to.

4. I made a Countdown to Christmas for Chad the first year we were married and it was a lot of fun. Last year we were in the middle of moving and it was crazy. This year we'll either countdown again or do this: The 12 Dates of Christmas. Or a combination of the two! Either idea is a nice way to sneak in as much celebrating as possible!

5. A Thankful Tree. What a cute way to bring in the spirit of Thankfulness all November long! Plus it's cheap, and when I say cheap, I mean pretty much free. woot.

What are you most excited for this Holiday Season? Crafts? Food? Shopping?

Share any fun ideas you have and let us all in on the action ;)

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Awkward: Sweat Dresses. Although I'm pretty sure it would be perfect to wear in the nursery on Sundays. I'm thinking that a sweat dress would definitely be a step down from scrubs though.

Awkward:

• Trying to send out mail from the office without stamps. Great job genius.
• Changing into my "pajamas" next to our car in the parking lot while camping. I was changing my pants, just chillin' in my underwear when Nikki yelled to me that people were coming back to the parking lot from the trail. Yup, just putting on a show for the hiking teenage boys. Your very welcome. At least I bothered to check when I changed into my sports bra :) What's camping without a little peep show?
• Trying to throw something out of the car window only to discover that the window was rolled up as my hand smashed into it.
• Attempting to cook dinner in a foil pouch on top of the car's engine. Not super effective.
• Peeing outside. Enough said.
• The smell of our car driving back to St. George. 4 dirty campers and a filthy dog. Throw in some wet dog food and you've got yourself a winner!
• Sleeping in a 2 man tent with 2 backpacks and 2 camera bags. Oh, and a giant dog. While she really isn't giant, she is giant in a tiny tent. Little tip? 2 man tent was really only made to accommodate 2 people.

Awesome:

• Arches National Park!
• Watching sheep being herded across a highway. Taking pictures of the "cowboy" herding them and then him asking us to send him the picture! Chad makes friends everywhere he goes!
• Trampoline Land! We almost killed ourselves but we had a ball!
• Not having to workout due to our "sneaky" workouts. Hiking and jumping on a trampoline for an hour definitely count as working out! And they are also major fun.
• Chad was a champ and drove the whole way to Arches and all the way back home.
• Seeing the fall colors in Dixie National Forest. While it's still summer down here, it is most definitely fall at that elevation. The colors were gorgeous!
• Sno Cones and Frozen Yogurt!
• Potato chips from Kneaders. OMG. They are thick, kettle style and are dusted with Parmesan cheese. Holy yumminess. I could eat these forever.

What was Awkward or Awesome about your week?

We're the girls from Beverly Hills, shopping is our greatest thrill!

Friday morning we packed up all our camping gear, food, clothes, and camera gear. We then all stood outside our tiny little ford focus, with our dog, and contemplated how it was all going to fit in there. I was fairly confident that Nikki and Matt didn't want to drive for 5 hours with a giant dog on their laps. Did I mention the A/C in our car bit the dust for real? Yeah.... good times.

It was a loooooong, HOT drive.

Once we got to the Visitor's Center we had to go over the rules for back country camping. My favorites?

• Do not walk on/disturb the dirt. Set your tent up on the large rocks.
• No pets allowed
• Bury your human waste at least 4 inches deep. Better yet?! Carry it out with you!

Chad cheerfully agreed, "Oh yes, of course!". When the lady mentioned carrying out our waste he replied with "Sure, we've brought bags for that". We love sleeping on rocks and carrying around our own poo! If you think I was going to carry my poo out in a plastic grocery bag you've lost you mind. There weren't any garbages in the whole park except the visitors center, so we would have had to drive a half hour with that stuff. Nope. Not going to happen. In fact, let's just be real here, there wasn't going to be any poo-ing outside for any of us. We happily drove to the pit toilets every morning. Too much potty talk? Yeah, I agree.

Friday night we hiked up to Delicate Arch to take some night shots. Not researching anything before hand, we're super prepared like that, we thought it would be more of a walk. Not a strenuous hike up mountains and along mountain ledges with our puppy in the middle of the night. We made it though and were "pooped" (ha) by the time we finished.

Trying to find our tent in the middle of the night was super fun. There was no moon so that was also super helpful. There were however, lots of cactuses. Cacti? Whatever they are technically called there were lots. We basically had to tiptoe through a field of cactuses to make it to our tent. We had little to no faith in Rukia's ability to avoid the cactuses, so I ended up carrying her the last stretch. Overprotective much?

So we were supposed to sleep on the rock. We all know that didn't happen. Rock or sand? What would you choose? Add in to that decision making process the fact that we forgot pillows. Pretty much the easiest choice of our lives.

One of us ::cough::Matt::cough::  might have been afraid that they were going to get eaten in the night. The visitor's center had all kids of pelts and skulls of animals from the area. That didn't really help the situation. Chad might have pointed out animal tracks on the way to our camping area as well. Again, not super helpful. He may or may not have thought that Rukia's breathing was a wild animal waiting outside their tent to eat his face. Once he survived the first night the paranoia seemed to fade a bit. Just a bit.

That morning we were t-i-r-e-d from our midnight hike, so we thought we would do the other most strenuous hike in the park! Woot. It was blazing hot! 4 hours later we had walked 6 miles and seen a handful of arches. The views were amazing!

We weren't about to eat peanut butter and jelly after that afternoon so we went into town and ate pizza until we couldn't eat anymore. We also stopped at a general store to pick up "pillows". Our cheap selves weren't about to buy new pillows so Matt, Chad and I bought packs of napkins to use. Nikki already had her pack of toilet paper, which explained why she slept like a baby compared to the rest of us the night before :)  FYI jeans don't make a good pillow no matter how they're folded.

Sunday morning was chilly! It also looked like it was going to rain, so we packed up fast and took some pictures by "our" arch on the hike out. This was the arch that we camped by. If you look really close you can see Matt and Chad on top of the arch on the right.

We decided to take the scenic route home and hit up Bryce Canyon and Zion's National Park. All we had to do was take one road south. That was it. Just follow the road south. Done. Easy Peasy. After a gas stop we managed to somehow start heading west instead. BAH! We figured this out after driving for 45 minutes. Bryce Canyon was all of a sudden over an hour east. We reluctantly let that dream die and just enjoyed Dixie National Forest. We also were able to stop at Cedar Breaks National Monument.

After a terrifying drive down a horrific mountain we were back on an interstate and back on track. Our car is now in desperate need of new breaks. We decided to save Zion's for another day and instead high tailed it home so we could eat ridiculous amounts of Mexican food. Mmmmm. Cafe Rio, no better way to end a camping trip.

We couldn't quite get the timing down. I've now decided that jumping photos are mandatory. They are fantastic! Even more fantastic when they fail!

Meatless Monday: Camping & Parmesean Tilapia

 
Phew! It was a whirlwind of a weekend! We headed out on the five hour drive to Arches National Park on Friday morning, after gorging ourselves on Kneaders French toast of course. The drive was long and hot and windy in our car without any A/C but we made it!

The weekend was full of destroying precious dirt, flashing teenage boys, cooking on the car's engine, and getting lost on the way home (on the one road that goes south). We survived despite forgetting pillows, very cold nights, and the threat of being eaten by wolves, cougars, and bears (oh my!). There are many stories and pictures on the way!

There were a few challenges on our meatless camping trip:

1. No meat, duh! I don't know about you but when I camp I eat hot dogs. If we decide to get really fancy we eat hamburgers. There is also a lot of beef jerky involved.
2. While the fire ban has been lifted around here it is still in full force up north. No fire makes it slightly difficult to cook anything.

We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, trail mix, cliff bars, and lots of these wonderful little fruit packs. We brought boca burgers to have for dinner one night but the no fire thing squashed those dreams real fast. The first night we made nachos. Chips, cheese and refried beans. Spread it all out in some tin foil and through it on top of the fire. We had to improvise and use the car engine. A fire would probably work better and a whole lot faster. And when I say probably, I mean definitley. As for dinner the second night. After a 4 hour hike in the desert sun a peanut butter and jelly wasn't going to cut it. We drove into town and pigged out on pizza! :)

First camping trip without our beloved hot dogs and jerky was a success!

For this Meatless Monday I thought I would share Chad's new favorite dinner with you! We definitley go through eating spurts and get stuck on one food for a while, and this is the latest. Now before anyone decides to lecture me on what a vegetarian is let me explain ourselves :)

Obviously if you've been following along you know that we do eat fish. So I guess technically we are called pescatarians. Thanks Tay! ;) Fish are full of healthiness so we add them into our diet.

Ok, ok, on to the recipe! I found this on pinterest a while ago and we've loved it ever since. I bought the frozen tilapia fillets at Costco and thought I would try new recipes on all of them. Wrooong. We found this recipe and haven't tried anything since! Ha!

So give it a try, it's cheesy and delicious and goes great with a side of pasta, twice baked potato, salad, or garlicy green beans. We've tried it with the Walmart frozen tilapia fillets but found those to be smaller and much more fishy. So if "fishy" isn't your thing, is it really anyones?, try the frozen tilapia from Costco!

Tilapia Parmesan

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs tilapia fillets (orange roughy, cod or red snapper can be substituted)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped green onion
• 1/4 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• black pepper
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce
• Panko bread crumbs

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a sheet pan with foil (hello easy cleanup!). Lie your fillets down flat and brush the top with lemon juice.

2. Bake the fish for 15 minutes. 

3. Meanwhile mix together the remaining ingredients, except Panko. Spread this cheese mixture on top. Sprinkle top with as much panko as you like and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.  Turn your oven on broil for the last minute just to get the breadcrumbs toasty and crunchy! Keep an eye on them so they don't burn though!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Last night we took our absolute favorite drive, and went down to Vegas to pick up Nikki and Matt from the airport. The drive is awful people. For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to drive down 1-15 and into the wonderful city of Las Vegas let me paint you a picture. Imagine a road that goes on forever in the middle of the desert. No towns, no people, no cell phone reception. It's a blast.

Also the Las Vegas airport is always on time. Always. Which is normally a really good thing. Unless you have Chad and I picking you up. In which case you will be waiting for us. Always. People probably think we secretly hate them and wish they wouldn't have come, that's how late we were last night. Whoops. In fact our not so secret plan is to trick Nikki and Matt into living with us forever! HA! So if you do come out to visit us and we are 40 minutes late picking you up, I'm sorry, we really do love you, we just have poor planning skills. We are working on it. You should probably just send us a fake itinerary just to be safe ;)

You can't beat the sunsets on the drive to Vegas

Awkward:

• As we were standing in the line at the gas station we overhear an exchange between an older gentleman outside and the gas station worker. After a few hello's back and forth to confirm that both parties could in fact hear each other the man finally asks his question:

"I'd like to pay inside please"

 

Without missing a beat the woman says, "Well come in then sir", "Oh... Ok, I guess." It was fantastic. The face she made as she realized that was what all that work was for was even more fantastic.

• Chad accidently threw our debit card away after we were done eating at Cafe Rio. Even more devastating, he also threw away the punch card. NOOOO! So when we realized what had happened we turned back around, made sure they hadn't emptied "our" garbage, threw on some gloves and got to diggin'. It was super fun guys! Nothing better on a Saturday night then getting down and dirty in a mexican resteraunts trash can. A nice worker even helped us dig. Fortunantley we were able to find the punch card! Oh, and our debit card too ;)
• Chad's partner in his rock climbing class trying to drop him. Yup, not cool lady. Luckily the teacher was there to help her get a hold of the rope. Chad said he was coming down and he was coming down fast! Apparently she's getting better. fingers crossed
• Chad letting me know he needed to bring a side dish for their Wednesday night activity. He was asked to bring jello. LOL. Oh Utah, you and all your jello makes me laugh. I was tempted to make something with tuna fish or carrots in it, yum...

Awesome:

• We got invited over to a couple's house last Sunday for dinner! What?! Look at us being social and everything. While I may be trapped in the nursery, Chad is out there making friends for us. They were way nice and we had a great time!
• Chad found out he did even better on one of his tests than he though, and he though he did good. Love surprises like that!
• Since we are having guests we now have a clean house. Nothing like people staying with you to motivate you to clean!
• I have tomorrow off, today is my Friday!!!
• Giving my Dr. a Pirate "Outfit" from the dollar store for "Talk like a Pirate Day" yesterday and watching him run around the office in it. Nothing better than a Dr. with an eye patch and hook hand. Then watching our office manager prance around in it as well!
• Hmmm...what else... NIKKI AND MATT ARE HERE!!! It's gonna be a good week!

 

What was Awesome or Awkward about your week?

I want to reward you with five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact

Pardon my sweatiness glistening. It was hot. I was wearing pants. Clearly I had lost my mind. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shirt & Jeans: Thrifted, Sandals: Target, Necklace: F21, Belt: H&M

 

 

"So are you and Chad planning on going to the Rodeo?"

"Oh... Um... We're from Detroit." 

 

So while we had absolutley no plans on attending said rodeo, we actually managed to stumble our way into it on Saturday night. Ha! Look at us being all western and cowboy-ish.

 

We wandered around gawking at all the horses, bulls, and cowgirl princesses. Rodeo princesses? I don't know what they are called but their outfits are awesome. Who doesn't want a pair of hot pink fringe pants with a jacket and cowboy hat to match? Somebody sign me up for the next rodeo!



Meatless Monday: Game Changers

 I've got two extremely important announcements for today:

#1. Your workout wedgie woes have been solved. (What?! You don't have this problem?)

#2. I'm pregnant!

Ha! No I'm not, but didn't it seem like I was going there? Around here important announcements are about underwear and food. Soooo: #2. I've found the best and easiest peanut butter cookie recipe e-v-e-r. Your welcome.

Let's start with a little story about a girl who gets a wedgie every single freaking time she runs. Every time. There is nothing classier than a girl huffing and puffing, jogging down the road with a bright red face, dripping in sweat, attempting to casually unpick her wedgie. This underwear though, has grippy strips along the backside keeping everything in place. OMG it is fantastic. Now I can focus on my burning calves, racing pulse and gasping for air.

My awesome new underwear courtesy of the sale section of Target. I found these 2 packs on sale for $3.88 a pair and I scooped up a few. So for all you other girls who are plagued with wedgies when you work out run over to Target and pick up a pair, it'll change your life!

We rocked it out, running this week! We ran 3 times, a 3 miler, 3 miler, and 6 miles Sunday night. High Five to us!!! I owe it all to the magical wedgie free undies :)

On Thursday I was having a no good, awful, very bad day. A slam your head against your desk, get so mad your face turns burning red, need a punching bag day. So I came home, made a giant pot of spicy tortilla soup and found this little gem of a recipe online.

It's for peanut butter cookies. It has 4 ingredients. What?! With only 4 ingredients it barely even qualifies as a recipe. I had little to no faith in these cookies turning out. Really, I thought they would be gross. But I figured if they were mildly decent it would be worth it just because they were so easy, if they were horrible, well at least it took no time and no ingredients really.

Now based on the ranting and raving I did about our favorite Mac and Cheese you may be thinking I just like to oversell these recipes I share with you, but I swear that I am just sharing our favorites and they really are that good. Mind blowingly, deliciously tasty!

If you are in need of something sweet and love peanut butter these are for you. They stay super soft and moist on the inside and get a nice crust on the outside. Perfect really. And without the flour you really get all that peanut buttery flavor! Trust me when I say that you need to try these.

Easiest PB Cookies Ever!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Smooth Peanut Butter
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 t baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix everything up!
3. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Flatten the mounds with a fork, making a criss cross pattern on the cookies.
4. Bake until golden brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.

Mix it Up: Try mixing in chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, rolling them in sugar or sprinkling with some sea salt

Sunday Dress

Shirt: TJMaxx,  Skirt: H&M,  Shoes: Target

Sunday is the one day of the week that I get an opportunity to dress up. Not just dress in my "dressy" jeans, but actually pull out a dress and some heels and look good. Heels and I aren't exactly BFF's so they are definitely a Sunday Only item. I can get through about three hours of wearing them, especially if I'm sitting down, but that's about it.

"Danielle, your young, your newly married, you have no kids! You can dress up and go out anytime you like!"

And go to Chuck-o-rama? Applebees? Ooooh, I know, Target! Our options are pretty limited in a small town of where to go once you actually get dressed up. So for now I'll focus on turning up the volume on Sundays and really knocking the socks of those nursery kids!

I've linked up with ModernModestBeauty and Marionberry

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

It's almost Friday!!!

Awkward:

• Chad messing with some camera equipment and getting a giant chunk of plastic in his eye. I ran over to help him and thought I would have to fish around to find it. Yeah, no. It was huge, and black and right there. I tried to get it out but finally just told him he'd have to do it. I swore he was going to poke his eye out going after it with a pair of tweezers but he got it!

• The awesome nursing home lady who has fake puppies she carries around in her basket on her walker. Best part, one of them has a cone around it's head. Those crazy puppies, always hurting themselves.
• Being on a first name basis with the people at the surronding gas stations. Only 2 really. But isn't that 2 too many? I won't even tell you why.
• Dropping my phone in the parking lot while grocery shopping last night. The pixels are all weird now so it looks like there is a fetus on my phone. I used to drop my iphone on a freaking daily basis on the way into my old job. Never bothered it. Not a scratch, not a dent, nothing. That phone was a champ. I drop this thing once and now I've got an alien baby looking back at me.
• The grumpy old couple at the Nursing Home we visit. They are the grouchiest, angriest couple ever but they crack me up. They never let the Dr. work on them and it's a riot to listen to them grumble and gossip about people. Last month they were sitting outside, enjoying the 90 degree heat of the morning, soaking up the sunshine, all in their giant winter coats. LOL. I was a sweaty mess and here they were sitting out in the sun in their down coats that came down to their knees. Love it.

Awesome:

• Desert Industries. It's our Salvation Army. And while really, it sucks, no colored tag sale of the day, no specials ever really, and everything seems to be overpriced, it's all we got! I have become a DI champ. I go into the dressing room with arms of (mostly) crap and usually manage to find a few cheap gems.
• Pawn Stores. While I love the DI Chad loves all the Pawn Shops around here. He's been able to get some killer deals as of late. Like, quick run out of the store before they realized what just happened, killer deals.

Chad's latest loot from the Pawn Shop

• Chad's pictures from his photo shoot last week. While he hasn't been able to edit many yet (too many tests) he's got some killer shots and I can't wait to see how they turn out once he edits them.
• Nikki and Matt come NEXT WEEK! AHHH! We are SOOOOOOO excited!
• Cookie Dough. I made cookie dough over the Labor Day weekend and ran out of regular flour, so I used some cake flour to make up the difference. Note to self: cake flour is not the same as regular flour. They were the flattest cookies ever made, and didn't really taste that good. Upside? I now have a cookie dough just chillin in the freezer for me to munch on. A spoonful of cookie dough is the perfect way to end a long day.

The Crazies

Yesterday was a doozy.

Chad had school all day, it's his long day, and 3 tests to take. One was taken in class, which was nice, the other 2 had to be taken in the testing center.

I get out of work at 4, but he doesn't get out of his lab until 5. So I wandered around KMart (KMart is the worst, and ours is filthy). Then I walked back to work and he picked me up. I dropped him off at class and ran home to let out Rukia. Then back up to campus to bring a very loopy Chad some dinner.

You know how you start to go crazy after so many hours of class/studying/testing in one day? Yeah, he was there, and it was his first time experiencing the fun of it. After he ate I dropped him off at the Testing Center to tackle his last 2 tests and I went grocery shopping. Then I just wandered around stores until he was done. While not super stressful on my part I was definitely tired from being gone all day. If he didn't have the crazy before he definitely had them after 2 tests.

While I don't have pictures of Chad looking crazy while studying I have a plenty of me

After killing his tests we headed home around 10pm. Blah. We were welcomed home by a certain cat who didn't feel like using the litter box. Excellent. She really manages to have perfect timing. When we first got her she would jump up on the bed and start purring. I would wake up, look up at her and then wonder why my feet were getting so warm. Yup, she peed on me. This happened multiple times. What a sweetheart. Luckily we have moved past that. And while she cops an attitude at times at least she stopped peeing on me. I don't know how this turned into me talking about cat pee for so long....

Chad continued to be a champ taking out the trash, picking up, throwing in laundry from said cat incident, and taking out the dog. I crashed. Yup, the one who was in school all day, taking tests until his brain turned to mush was the one who kept on going at home while I promptly died. And I mean died. Like, fall asleep while your husband is talking to you, died. And that is reason #89237 why I love my husband.

Work it Out

I haven't been in school in September in a couple years now. I would be lying if I said that I miss the tests and homework, studying and papers, boring lectures that would drag on forever, and the stress of it all.

I do however miss the fresh start that the school year would bring. The newness of it all. The clean planners and new notebooks, shiny pens and organizational materials up the wazoo. Well, I may not be starting school it's still a great chance for a fresh start. I've already got my shiny new calendar up in our kitchen and now it's goal time peeps. Why wait until January? There's nothing better than new goals to kick your butt into gear and start fresh! And it's a good chance to review the resolutions that I made at the beginning of the year. Some are going awesome, some have died, and some just need to be revamped.

Fall Goals:

• Wake up at a reasonable hour to get ready for the day, eat breakfast, and relax before the crazy starts. Are you sick of hearing about how we can't wake up in the morning? We'll see if we can't fix that. I wouldn't hold your breathe though.

• Take more pictures! Chad's all over this but I want to get better at photography as well.

• RUN! I looked into some half marathons around here, there are plenty. Problem, they all cost around 50 bucks a pop. That's $100 for the two of us, aren't you glad I'm here to do the math for you. That just ain't gonna happen. Having a race to run is a great motivating factor but I guess we'll just have to run to run.

The Color Me Rad run takes place in a month and I wish I could run in it, doesn't it look like a blast?

• Keep the kitchen CLEAN. Evey night, clean it up girl! Because there's no way I'm making dinner the next night in a dirty kitchen. And since our "grocery budget" doesn't allow us to eat at Cafe Rio every night I need to keep this goal. 

• Look cute on the weekend. I'm hoping this will get easier as we ease out of the 100 degree weather. It's impossible to look cute when you are drenched in sweat. I pull my hair into a high ponytail, ditch the makeup, and wear as little clothing as I can. And I don't care what the heck that looks like. I'm gonna attempt to channel my inner style blogger and see if I can't jazz up my weekend look a bit.

So basically.... I want to become a early rising, well dressed, put together photographer who runs marathons and keeps a spotless house. That shouldn't be too hard right? HA.


Yesterday I managed to be sleepy, late, scrub wearing runner with a spotless kitchen with dinner on the table. And while there were no pictures of said events I think 2 outta 5 really ain't too bad for a Monday. Plus, I only said I was going to look cute on the weekends :)

Do you have any goals? Are any as ridiculous as my goal to get dressed on the weekend?

Meatless Monday: Blueberry Muffins

While we didn't go out night shooting this past weekend Chad had his first photo shoot! First photo shoot with someone other than family that is ;)  I was his lovely assistant and he rocked it. Now he's editing photos while studying for tests. Hopefully he'll have some pictures to share soon!

In other news Chad is being social and making friends in our ward, finally. I am still struggling to survive the nursery. Another lady is now working in the nursery, so there are three of us. She is super excited about it though and loves it! Which works out well since me and the other girl have exactly the opposite attitude.

Sunday afternoon was spent watching the best Peter Pan made for TV special ever. Neverland. Chad found it on Netflix. Seriously, this was good stuff. Now, it was long, it literally took up our whole Sunday. But only because we took a nap during it, make a donut run, and just took our dear sweat time in general. If you don't have 3 hours to kill it's worth it to at least watch the part where Peter "flies". Pure Awesomeness. The boy looks like he's having a seizure in the air. Chad and I reenacted it after the movie until I was in tears and Chad was convulsing on the ground yelling in a british accent.

Here are my favorite Blueberry Muffins! My mom would always make us these for Christmas morning, who wants to sit and eat a big breakfast when there are presents to open? I was lazy last Sunday and didn't make muffins, which required us to get up earlier to make our own breakfast, which means that we didn't eat breakfast last week :(  Lol.

So yesterday I whipped up a double batch of Panera's Mac and Cheese for Chad's lunches and a batch of these awesome Blueberry Muffins! I forgot that I halved the recipe last time so we now have muffins coming out of our ears. They are so good though that we'll blow right through them in no time. If anyone lived close I'd bring some over to you but sadly no one does so we will sacrifice and scarf them all down ourselves!

Mom's Christmas Blueberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 c sugar
• 1 c vegetable oil
• 1 t vanilla
• 4 c flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 1 t baking soda
• 2 c sour cream (I used plain greek yogurt)
• 2 c blueberries

Directions:

1. Beat eggs and gradually add in sugar.
2. Add oil and vanilla.
3. Combine dry ingredients.
4. Add dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream.
5. Gently fold in berries
6. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes

Oooh, I almost forgot, this is really the best part! Combine 1/2 cup of well chopped nuts, 1/4c brown sugar, and 1/2 t cinnamon to make a topping for your muffins! I didn't feel like chopping up nuts so I just mixed together brown sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on top before baking them. Mmmmm.

Confessions

1. I am an NPR girl. After years of listening to music at work it was sooooo nice to work in a lab where our professsor choose to listen to NPR. I had never listened to it but it quickly grew on me. My coworkers hated it. It would drive them crazy. I l-o-v-e-d it. Still do. Half the time I'm learning something cool and the other half of the time I just sort of zone out to it and have it as background noise. Chad will often make comments on whatever was just said and I'll have no idea what's going on.

2. I'm addicted to fashion blogs. You wouldn't ever know it considering I'm usually found in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, or workout clothes. Chad's family all knows I'm generally wearing a crappy old white shirt with a picture of me and Jared ironed on the front. I like to keep it classy like that. After a long day in scrubs it's hard to come home and put on clothes that actually fit, workout clothes and extremely old (and slightly holey) t-shirts are much more comfy. Maybe someday I'll learn to put my clothes together to look like all the fabulous girls on these blogs I read, or at least on the weekends.



The Day Book

3. After being a complete girl and buying shoes all the time and getting quite the collection (well quite the collection for a college girl on a budget) I can't remember the last pair of shoes I bought that weren't for running, or to replace my cheap-o sandals. While I am strangely proud of this it also makes me a little sad.

4. I haven't played the piano since December. I've got the key to the church so I can go up there if I want but I've been lame and I haven't. Long term goal: buy a nice electronic keyboard.

5. I have a love/hate relationship with my retainer. I hate it because it's a retainer, come on. I love it because it keeps my teeth looking nice and my head from throbbing due to shifting teeth. After abadoning it a month (or so) ago I started getting these headaches everyday. I thought they were from my last wisdom tooth slowly starting to invade my face but I'm hoping part of it was just the massive shifting my teeth were doing without my handy dandy retainer.

The past two nights have been ridiculously painful. I just jammed my retainer into place and swallowed a handful of advil before trying to sleep so I didn't have to deal with the pain. It kinda worked. My teeth are getting back into place and I will hopefully remember to wear my gosh darn retainer a couple of times a week!

6. My wisdom tooth is in fact invading my face though and I need to find a dentist that will remove this thing asap for next to nothing without permanantley damaging my face. I don't think they exist.