Thursday, October 31, 2013

October Foodie Penpals

The Lean Green Bean

I was excited to find out that my partner this month was Andrea over at The Layover Life.

 
It was my birthday this past Sunday and I told her my birthday was coming up. She sent me a lovely card with my foodie gifts!

When I opened my box, I found:
  • Russel Stover S'mores: I jumped right into this. It was delicious, as expected. I hadn't had one before! The graham cracker part was a little crumbly, but it still tasted amazing!
  • Pumpkin Scented Candle: She said that she knew this wasn't edible, but that you can't have fall without pumpkin. I lit this the same evening I got it and it made my house smell so good!!!
  • Milky Way Smooth Caramel: I'd actually had one of these before, but it was awhile ago. I'm not a huge fan of regular Milky Way bars, but these caramel bars are yummy!
  • Country Time Half Lemonade & Half Tea: I love drinking my tea this way! I normally make plain tea and plain lemonade and mix them together. This saved a step and is delicious!
  • Sugar Babies Caramel Apple: I wasn't sure if I would like these or not, but I was pleasantly surprised. They were really yummy!
  • Pure Clover Creamed Honey: I'd never even heard of creamed honey before and had to ask my family and friends how to eat it. The consensus was on biscuits or English muffins. I ate it on biscuits and thought it was really super tasty! I can't wait to have some more.
THANK YOU, ANDREA!

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Happy Birthday to ME!!!


Today marks my 29th birthday. Happy birthday to me! :)

I thought I'd share some (read: a lot) totally adorable pictures of me through the years. I ended up creating a slideshow because it was super-hard to organize all the photos I wanted to include in this post. I hope you enjoy the short spin through my life... 
 
Happy 29 Years of Life! on PhotoPeach

My mom is a quilter. Last year for Christmas, she gave me, my brother, and my sister all quilts as our big present. They were quilts that we were supposed to put on our beds and use. This year for our birthdays, she made us all memory quilts. My sister's birthday is in February and my brother's in March, so I've had to wait the longest to see my quilt! I've waited patiently all year, but I've finally received my memory quilt! I love it! My mom knows me well (I should hope) and used my favorite colors and yeah... It's an awesome keepsake. Now I just need to get a quilt rack so I can hang it up and proudly display it! :)






Friday, October 18, 2013

My Weekend To-Do List

I have some vacation time to use at work. Since my mother is the fill-in person at work, she advised me to take my remaining time off (two days) before December. Last year she ended up working almost all of December because my coworker and I saved up all of our days until then. She didn't want that to happen again.

I was going to go get a manicure and pedicure with my best friend today, but our nail lady couldn't fit us in so we postponed it until next weekend. Our mutual friend Sarah will be going with us now. Sarah and I are in charge of throwing Pam's baby shower. (She's having a BOY by the way! Just found out Wednesday!) So we're all three meeting up to talk about what Pam wants in a baby shower...

Here's what's on the schedule for this weekend:

Saturday: Coworker's Halloween Party - starts at 6 pm
Sunday: making apple butter with my parents - starts at 10 am

Both activities, I have no idea when I'll be home so I'm planning all of my tasks before they begin.

I have a lot of work to do around my house. I entered a contest to win a premiere party from ABC Family. I actually won which I'm really surprised! I shouldn't say won because 800 people were chosen, but I was one of them chosen. Here's an excerpt from the email I received:
Hello and congratulations ABC Family fan!

We’re so excited to tell you that you’ve been selected to host an exclusive ABC Family
Pretty Little Liars and Ravenswood LIVE Viewing party for you and nine of your closest friends!

The party date is set for Tuesday, October 22, which gives you plenty of time to plan your event! Inside each kit you will find fun games with special Pretty Little Liars and Ravenswood clues, cool party decorations and fun gifts for everyone!

Start organizing your party now for October 22nd so that you and your friends can enjoy the all of the goodies and watch the Pretty Little Liars Halloween Special and the World Premiere of Ravenswood together. This is an event that cannot be done A-lone!

Have lots of fun at your party and don’t forget to share your photos on our official ABC Family Facebook pages for Pretty Little Liars and Ravenswood.  We love twitter and Instagram too, so be sure to post your pictures on Twitter and Instagram and include this – #PLLRavenswoodparty – in each post – we’ll be sharing our favorites!!

And finally, keep an eye out for your box of goodies!

-          Your Friends at ABC Family
I'm super excited to throw this party even though none of my friends watch PLL. I posted something on Facebook and I am going to have people over.  We're going to eat snacky foods and party while we watch the PLL Halloween special and the Ravenswood premiere. It should be good times even though no one watches them but me. I did buy all three seasons of PLL with money I won from a DietBet. I got in seasons one and two so I can let my mom borrow them. Hopefully she can watch those and then at least then she'd somewhat know what's going on. Haha. I got my package today and I'm pretty psyched with what's in it. Here's a little preview... Check out these sweet double-sided cloth bags:


Anyway, because of this party I have a lot to do around my house this weekend. Here's my to-do list (mostly for myself) for tomorrow and Sunday:

Clean House:
  • Kitchen
    • clean and put away all dishes
    • clean out refrigerator
    • sweep and mop
  • Living Room
    • pick up
    • dust
    • vacuum (including furniture)
    • fix pillows (requires sewing holes)
    • clean throw blankets
  • Bedroom
    • straighten closet area
    • dust
    • vacuum
    • make bed
    • clean bedding
  • Bathroom
    • scour tub
    • clean sink
    • clean toilet
    • straighten shelves
    • sweep and mop
  • Laundry Room/Back Porch
    • do all laundry
    • put away all laundry
    • straighten porch
    • sweep and mop
Grocery Shop:
  • Regular Groceries
    • make list
  • Party Groceries
    • List:
      • Little Smokies in BBQ Sauce
      • soup - Chili?
      • chips and dip 
      • meat and cheese tray?
    • Someone is bringing: veggie tray and cookies
Other Stuff:
  • Blog
    • come up with some ideas for blog entries
    • prepare a few blog ideas I already have and schedule them to post
  • Supernatural Website
    • update site front page
    • go through submissions for Winchester Photo and Fan Creation contests
Unfortunately, I was extremely lazy today... All that I got accomplished was working on my sister's laptop and cleaning off my kitchen counter. Both may not sound very difficult, but my sister's laptop was giving me huge problems and the counter was full of crap. I threw away a lot of old magazines that I had sitting on the counter that I never got around to using. I should have taken before and after pictures. There's a huge difference. LOL

Now I'm sitting on the couch watching some television before bed. I'm thinking I'll go to bed early. My eyes are bothering me quite a bit. I've felt slightly off all day because I had a spinning episode around 4 am and didn't sleep well after that. Ugh. I haven't had one in so long. I don't know what brought it on other than there's a lot of pressure in my head due to my allergies.

Alright, I'm off. G'night!

Friday, October 11, 2013

Goals: Revised

I'll be the first to admit that I am a planner. In some ways (read: party planning) this can be a great attribute, but in others (read: diet and exercise) it can be detrimental to me. I make all of these grandiose plans and then don't follow through. This is usually because what I have planned seems too tedious and I give up. So, I 've decided to start setting my goals a little smaller.


I'm going to start listing my weekly goals on Thursdays and doing my weigh ins on Wednesdays. Seems like a good plan. I don't wait to wait until next Thursday to start this so I'm going to post my goals now... these goals are for today until next Wednesday.

Goals:
  • Log all of my calories each day
  • Try to stay at or below calorie goal each day
  • Drink at least 64 ounces of water each day
  • Walk for 20-30 minutes three times
  • Weigh myself each day
  • Write at least three blog entries
I think these are all obtainable goals. I need to get back in the habit of logging my food each day. MyFitnessPal is such a great app, and I know that if I actually used it the way it's supposed to be, I would actually see some amazing results. I also need to start weighing myself every day again. This is because when I see my weight every day, the losses make me more determined to stick with my plan and the gains make me work a little harder.


I also really want to get in the habit of writing again. I'd eventually like to get back into the habit of writing daily, but going from not writing to writing daily seems to be too big of a task. So between now and next Thursday, I want to write three blog entries. Doable, I think.

I don't know that I'll write again this weekend as I have a very busy weekend planned. Tonight when I get off of work, I'm picking up my friend Megan and then we're going to a little town about 15-20 minutes away. I'm meeting a girl who wants to buy my old cell phone from me. She's paying me more for going to her. After that, we're meeting up with a girl I went to high school with, Abby, to have dinner. Abby is such an inspiration. She's lost almost 70 pounds and taken up running. I hope to talk to her about this during dinner.

Tomorrow a girl I know is coming by to pick up some clothes I wanted to sell. She's getting $40 of stuff for sure and perhaps another $20 on top of that... She wants to look at a couple of things. Later on in the afternoon I'm going to a surprise birthday party. That should be fun!

Sunday we're having a quad-person birthday party at my parents' house. The party is for my mom (10/08), my best friend (10/10) my brother's girlfriend (10/12), and myself (10/27). We're eating my favorite food in the entire world - my mom's chicken tetrazini - with green beans and fresh bread. Then we're having strawberry shortcake cake for dessert. Delicious! I should be at my parents' house most of the day. I'm hoping to take my laptop with me and write some of my novel in my free time. I should also write a couple of posts that I can schedule, if I have time. I have a few ideas in mind. :)

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!