Happy Hump Day

It's Wednesday, which means tomorrow is my Friday!

Let's catch up from the weekend: Sunday morning I woke up surprising early and was browsing my Pinterest to find something yummy for breakfast. Brandy called and said she was at the grocery store, so I invited her to join me for some cinnamon roll pancakes.

                                               I got the recipe from here, originally from here.

My cinnamon filling was a lot more runny than it should have been, so it wasn't really pretty to look at, but it sure tasted awesome!

With the "icing"

They were delicious. A good alternative to regular pancakes or when you want cinnamon rolls but don't have the time.

Next up, my toe nails! I lurve the way they came out from my pedi last week, so obviously they must be shown. Sky blue with white zebra and sparkles. 

Don't make fun of my fat toes. That's one bad thing I inherited from my mom :)

Yesterday I forgot my phone at home. It was so hard to not be able to text Will throughout the day. He's in Virginia right now at a conference and will go back to Houston for next week before finally joining me at home for the semester.

I did finally make it to the gym after work with all the needed essentials: running shorts, t-shirts, sports bra, socks, tennis shoes, and headphones. I did leave my water bottle in the car, but that doesn't count ;) I did 50 minutes on the elliptical on a new program that was super hard (I had to adjust the levels several times), and then did about 30 minutes of upper-body strength. I know I'm probably in the minority of women, but I soooo prefer strength over cardio... I feel like I could lift at least twice as long as doing any kind of cardio.  Maybe I'll take a day a week where I just lift instead of trying to fit it all in.

While I was on the elliptical and watching TV I saw someone on another TV station making pizza casserole. It looked awesome, so after I was done at the gym I went to Walmart and got the ingredients: whole wheat pasta, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese for the top, and marinara sauce. I made it when I got home and after I took a shower, and you guys, it was delish. I had it for lunch and dinner today as leftovers, it was so good. I didn't use a recipe, I just estimated: 3 cups uncooked pasta, a little more than half the bottle of marinara, and about half the small container of ricotta cheese, sprinkled with mozzarella. After cooking the pasta, mix it all up and put in a 9x13 pan, bake at 350 degrees from 20 minutes, add salad, and done!
Funny thing though, I saw on Pinterest today that my SIL Megan pinned a pizza casserole! I commented that I made it last night, and from there we had a conversation about how we hate buying stuff for new recipes that will just get wasted if the recipe doesn't turn out. Here's picture of the one she pinned:



This recipe calls for about twice the amount of stuff I used, plus fancy things like oregano and onions. And meat. But I didn't need any of those things to make it just as tasty.


Annnd I came home today to find this:

Fish food. On the floor.

She was not like this when I came. So not necessarily the guilty one.

The cats must have heard me talking about how some people give their cats the shrimp fish food for treats since it's much cheaper than cat treats.

One more thing.
I grew up only eating ranch dressing on salads (not that we ever ate a lot of salads). But when I got older and started eating healthier, I quit eating it because I learned it was bad for you. So I ate salads with no dressing. (Still, not like I ate a whole lot or anything). In high school, a  friend introduced me to Italian dressing. I'm a pretty cautious/ non- adventurous eater, so it took a bit of convincing me to try it. But I liked it, so Italian dressing has been my go-to since then. Whenever I order salad at a restaurant, I get a Caesar salad with Italian dressing on the side. Yes, I got a ton of crazy looks. Then one day, I forgot to specify the "with Italian dressing on the side" part, so I got a normal Caesar salad. Holy. YUM.
So then I started getting regular Caesar salads, but I hardly ever order salad when we go out to eat, and I still did Italian dressing at home. But yesterday while I was at Walmart, this jumped in my cart:

And I want to eat a huge salad just so I can have it. Like, every couple of hours. WHY does it have to be so good?! My game plan is to actually measure out 1 or 1.5 T of it for each salad I make. The actual serving is 2 T, but I find that is general way too much for me. That way I don't have to worry about the butt-ton of calories in it. Plus, during the school year when I typically take salads for lunch this will help up the calories so it will keep me fuller longer, since I'm not putting chicken in them anymore. See, win-win.

***Side note: You guys. I just had to stop and think about how you spell "during". 'Cause in my head when I say it, I pronounce it "dueering". Oh em gee. I promise I'm not that big of a hick. ******

So that's the ridiculously long saga of how my new love is Caesar salad dressing.

Time Flies

I really need to get better about updated more frequently so that I don't have to catch up on weeks at a time.

So basically, last week was pretty busy. I went back to work and my co-peer-advisor and I basically planned out the fall semester. We are still without a boss for another few weeks, so either we had to plan it or our events were going down the drain, and, I fear, our program not too long afterwards. It's a little scary being the one in charge and making all the decisions. I'm used to planning the details and making things happen, not setting the date and time.

Fast-forward to Thursday. I made some hot-pink zebra-striped peanut butter cookies for my friend Kathlyn's bachelorette party on Friday.

This one was named "Boob"

Unfortunately, this one had to be eaten.

My friend Brandy came to help. She didn't believe that the pink die would stain her tongue. Guess who won that bet?

Kathlyn and I have been friends since 2nd or 3rd grade. She is my longest-surviving friend (morbid?) and we have so many good memories together. She was with me through my mom's second and third marriages, so she understands and knows parts of me that only people who were there can understand. I always considered her mom to be my second mom, and I looked up to Kathlyn for her sense of style and worldly knowledge that was largely thanks to her older sisters :). In junior high we were legends. Really. We would write notes to each other every few classes, but these were not just regular notes, no. They were 2-3 page long notes. Written in high-lighters or awesome non-black/blue pens, decorated with doodles only as 13 year old girls can do. People oo-ed and aww-ed over them, amazed at how we could write so much so often. But we just had so much to talk about! We both talk about those notes. Somewhere, we both saved almost all them. It would be fun to go through them someday and see what we thought was so important. We were doubles partners in tennis- her dad coached us from time to time. We had so much fun making fun of the ditzy girls who were just in it because it looked "cool".

In high school, she helped me through my first and only "break-up" with the boy I had been "going out with" for 4 months. I broke up with the poor boy on the phone, but the next day (and for several days after that) he continued to sit at our lunch table. Like, WTF dude? We broke up. You can't sit here. But of course I didn't say anything out of niceness so we spent several super-awkward days in silence at lunch. Until finally when he began to sit down one day Kathlyn said "dude, you can't sit here anymore." So he moved over to the next table :) True friendship, my dears.

After our freshman year she transferred to a private high school nearby, but we managed to keep our friendship alive somehow. So much has changed since those days of note-writing, but she is still the same beautiful, fun-loving girl I grew up with. I was honored to stand by her side on one of the biggest nights of her life, just as she did for me last year.

Friday morning the other bridesmaids and some family members and I met at the church to help set up for Kathlyn's wedding. We worked at the church from about 10 am until 2:45 pm, but it looked great!

Aisle hangers: Mason jars with black ribbon wrapped around the mouth with a white feather sticking out in the back, filled with top soil, rock,and tea lights. 

 

 

Older sister and niece of the bride

After decorating we all went to the salon for manis and pedis. Fun Fact: This was my second pedicure EVER. My first one was for my wedding last summer. I just can't justify spending $$ on something I can do fairly well myself. One day, after college, I will splurge on them more often :)

7 Pedis and 8 Manis

The Beautiful Bride

I ran home afterwards and literally had 5 minutes to throw on a dress for the rehearsal and grab a change of clothes for the bachelorette party afterwards. The rehearsal went pretty well, and then it was time for lingerie and bowling!

 The party was at her sister's house and she did a great job on the decorations. The bra and panty bunting in the living room coordinated with the pom-pom and lingerie hanging above the dessert table.

 I wish we hadn't just eaten at the rehearsal dinner- all the desserts were AWESOME but we were all pretty full from dinner. See my cookies? They turned out more red than pink, but they tasted great! Her sister made cheesecake cupcakes and ordered the zebra cupcakes.

 Time for Bachelorette Bowling!

 Her sister found a "bachelorette bowling" guide on the internet where every round you had to do something different. This one was the "birthing bowl" round lol.

All of us.

After bowling we were all super exhausted so we went home to catch a little sleep before getting up early Saturday to decorate. I brought the bride some Starbucks to help wake her up, and the rest of the day was a blur of steaming, moving, decorating, getting hair done, and waiting.

I wish now that I had taken pictures of the cake and food tables, but oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
Then it was TIME...

The bride got a little hot while waiting. I love this pic!

The bride's mom with her first grandson. How sweet!

And at the reception, look who I found:

Mom and little bro no. 2, Daniel.

Me, a horrible pic, but me, none-the-less.

It was a beautiful candle-lit ceremony that was uniquely their style. The girls walked bare-footed down the aisle (Kathlyn could never keep shoes on and frequently wore flip-flops in the winter while we were growing up). The boys were flip flops and the groom rolled up his sleeves. They cut the cake together, but there were no toasts, speeches, dances, or anything else "formal". When they were ready to leave, they left :)

A few more pictures from the night (don't judge on the awful pics, it was late when I got home but I really wanted to document how awesome my hair looked!)

 They started off by curling my hair with the straightener. I think they underestimated how long and thick my hair actually is; it took over an hour. By the time I was done I could have been the Rodeo Queen with all my poofy curls. Should've asked someone to take a picture. Boo.

 This was after everything was over, so it had fallen out a bit. But this was probably my second favorite hair-do of all times (my wedding hair was my favorite). But this one actually stayed up better than my wedding hair. You can see a few bobby pins sticking out at the top lol. My hair is a beast that does not like to be tamed. Rawr.

Since we were bare-footed for the ceremony they gave us house-shoe slippers for the reception. I believe it's a tradition that both her sister did as well.

The rest of the weekend will have to be for another post. It's time for bed!

Home at Last

I'm home! Oh how I have missed this little town over the summer. Our summers are usually pretty hot, but this one has been a real scorcher. All the fields that are usually covered in wheat, cotton, and corn are empty. Some farmers just didn't plant and those who did couldn't keep the crops alive. I wonder how that will affect food and clothing prices in a few months....

This little beauty was waiting for me in the bedroom

My MIL and I drove home on Sunday. I stayed up until 3 a.m. the morning before with Will and his friend that was visiting for the weekend before going back to school in Florida. I thought I was going to die, but I was able to drive the first 8 hours of the trip without any issues. Unless you count this as an issue:

Almost as hot as hell. So I thought. Yesterday when I got in my car after work it said 113. I didn't know that could actually happen here. We had some rain clouds this evening and were under a thunderstorm watch for a few hours, but I don't think we got a single drop.

After arriving on Sunday around 8:30 p.m. we unloaded the car and I unpacked just enough so that I could shower and get dressed in the morning without stressing too badly. Yesterday I got up and did my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD, went to work, then came home and watched some E! on tv. I finally got motivated to run into town (that means drive to Amarillo, for those of you not familiar with our West-Texan-Lingo) for a few things for my friend's bachelorette party this Friday. I am SO excited about this weekend: my best friend since like, 2nd grade is gettin married!

I did manage to get home in time to go on a run. I took Boomer with me, which turned out not to be the best idea. He wanted to sprint for the first mile but as soon as we hit the second part of the loop that was uphill I had to practically drag him behind me. You know he had to have been going pretty slow if I felt like I could go faster without him.

Today finally made it to the gym after visiting with another friend for an hour. I packed my bag before work, talked myself up and into actually going to the gym and finally got there only to discover I had forgotten to pack my shoes. Eff. So I went home for a while, visited my friend, and went back to the gym with all needed accessories. I did about 45 min on the elliptical while watching Cupcake Wars (why have I never seen this show before?!) and did some lower body weights for another 20 minutes or so.

After the gym I went to my mom's house to see how everyone is doing. Turns out they're just peachy.

I've made it my goal to be in bed by 10 pm every night. I've been IN bed, but I got suckered into reading July's issue of Cosmo last night and tonight I had to get on my laptop to send a complaint email to Otterbox for their crap-tastic case that disintegrated on me:

Um, yeah. You can't really tell from this picture, but the whole bottom of the hard case is in pieces inside the soft case.

Annnd I miss the babies. I look at their pictures throughout the day just for a smile. Their parents don't know, but I took some pictures of them my last day. Here's a preview, I'm going to send them a jump drive with all the final ones when I'm done editing.

I think it's time to actually go to sleep now...

Blessed

Wednesday evening Will and I went to his cousin's son's birthday party at Chuck-E- Cheese's. Neither of us had been to one in at least 12 years, so it was fun to see how much they have and haven't changed. I had to steal some cheese pizza from the kid's table since all the adult pizza had meat on it :) It was so great to see how many family members came; I don't remember there ever being that many family members at our birthday parties. That's one thing about Will's family that I love- they all make a big effort to support each other and be there for the kids, even when the adults may not be getting along the best.

Afterwards we met Megan for dinner at BJ's since she hadn't eaten all day.

It has been so much fun hanging out with her all summer. I am going to miss her when I go back home on Sunday.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. I took the twins to meet their mom for lunch so I had a few hours to kill around noon. Will met me at the restaurant and we went to get ice cream for lunch since neither of us were too hungry. After Will went back to work I went to a Goodwill in the area to see if I could find any treasures. Alas, there were none. Afterwards I wondered into Hobby Lobby since I haven't been in one for months (O, the horror!) I took a few pictures of awesome things:

Will wasn't too thrilled about the sun-burst mirror, but he liked the other things.

Annnd my MIL flew in Thursday morning so we went over to see her and the rest of the family in the evening. I showed her how to use Pinterest and I hope she gets as addicted as I am, that way I can share all my pins with someone :)

Today was my last day to watch the girls. It's quite bittersweet- I'm ready to get back into the routine of school and work, but I've really grown fond of them over the summer. They were pretty good all day- even let me make some 'smores treats for their mom's party tonight.

Will came home a little before noon, to my surprise. I was taking pictures of the girls (I thought it would be fun to see the comparison to the ones I took the week I got here and the ones the week I leave) so he helped me for a few minutes before explaining that he came home since it was my last day and when I left he wouldn't see me for about three weeks, PLUS he was now an official employee of NASA Johnson Space Center, so he wanted to celebrate.

Wait. What????!!

Yep. He got a call from the Co-Op office this morning with three different offers. He accepted the one he had been hoping for and starts June 4, 2012.

Hip hip, hooray!

My Big Toe

This post is dedicated to my big toe. The one on my right foot, specifically. Probably way TMI, but whatevs.
Last night on the way over to Will's Mimi's house it was bothering me a little, like it was the beginning of an ingrown toenail. It wasn't too bad, so I ignored it until after our run, when it started hurting quite a bit more. We on the car ride home I took off my shoe and tried feeling around the edge to see if the corner of my toe nail was growing into my skin, but I couldn't feel what I would normally feel if it was an ingrown toenail.

By the time we got home and took showers, it was hurting really badly. I got out my clippers and an orange stick to try and dig out whatever was bothering me, but again I realized the pain wasn't coming from my toenail. I put some tea tree oil around the area and got in bed. Not thirty minutes later I got up because it was throbbing and I just knew there was an infection. There was so much pressure I thought that I would see a white-head type thing when I turned on the light, but when I did it was just red. At that point I poured some hydrogen peroxide on it and took an Aleve to help with the pain. I wanted ibuprofen but we were out. I got back in bed and propped my foot up on two pillows, hoping the elevation would help. It did for a little while, but at 12:30 I woke up again and it was throbbing even more. On a pain scale of 1-10, I would say it was an 8.5 and it was making me sick to my stomach. Simply touching the top of my toe made me curse. I needed sleep or else I wouldn't be able to function today, which is not an option with 4-month old twins, so I put more tea tree oil on it (hoping all the anti-bacterial stuff would kill something) and popped one of Will's leftover hydro-codon. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have done that since it wasn't my prescription and I knew it was really powerful stuff, but at that point I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop so I could sleep. I kept thinking I was going to have to wake Will up to take me to the emergency room so they could cut off my toe, which didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time since it hurt that badly. Which led to an entirely different worry about my medical insurance. If I had to have a procedure done I would have to pay out of pocket for any medications I was prescribed since I got screwed over on my health insurance. Oh the joys of being a student. I went back to bed and once I fell asleep I was out until Will left for work at 6:45, at which point the pain was still at a zero.

I've been careful not to walk on it all day, and the pain has stayed at a 1 or lower. Not sure what's going on but for now I'm just going to keep it clean and try not to aggravate it. A picture of my awesome toe:

Don't make fun of how ugly it is. I inherited my mom's feet, ok?

Definitely more red and swollen on the left side. And maybe I should get a pedicure when all this clears up...
The pain reminds me of the things I used to get on my fingers around my nail beds when I was on Accutane. I looked up the technical name for it: Paronychia. 
It was like getting white-head pimples around your cuticles that hurt like h-e-double hockey sticks. 


And that is the end of the tail of my stupid toenail. More information than anyone ever wanted to know, really. 


Oh, and today looked at lot like this:

Cryings, screaming fits, that is.
Off to a cousin's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheeses!