Guess What We Bought?

 

So a lot has gone down in the last few weeks. Actually scratch that. A lot has gone down in the year since I last posted. Time sure does fly. I really need to write a year in review….it will be good!

Sooo….I graduated nursing school last week, it happened, it really really happened. The past two years have been brutal and right up until graduation day I was waking up in the middle of the night from night horrors that I had done something to fail nursing school, something ridiculous, like wearing socks that didn’t cover my ankles. Hey, I wouldn’t have been surprised!

Anyhoo, Allen and I are moving out together in less than a month! Let me re-phrase that, the renters that are currently living in our soon to be home are moving out in less than a  month so we can finally get in there and get to work. It’s going to be gross. But with our fingers crossed, donning our hazmat suits with sledge hammers in hand we are hoping to be in by mid-July.eek!

So I have a little eye candy to share this morning before I push play on my study videos and the full fledged state board studying commences. I can’t get a job until I pass state boards and get a nursing license so I’m going to jump on that!

Onto the real reason for this post. I called Allen on Monday and asked him if he would want to meet me at a local furniture store to look at potential living room furniture. I had stopped in this same store a few months back and there was a sofa there that caught my eye. So on his lunch break Allen met me and we browsed around, we were just looking! I showed him the sofa that I liked and he really liked it too. He laid on it and held the invisible remote while he watched his invisible 96” LCD TV, you know he really tried to get the feel of it.

It was comfy, it was our style. It would be perfect in our future living room and the price wasn’t horrible. We were just getting ready to head for the door when the salesman came by to give us his card and told us that the entire store was 20% off and the sale ended today. He also told us that 20% is the highest discount the store offers unless a piece goes on clearance. So that made us think. The sofa would be $100 off and the sofa and loveseat together would cost less than my mom paid for her sofa alone. We thought about it but didn’t want to make a fast decision that we may later regret. Allen went back to work and I looked around at a few more furniture stores in town and found nothing that was comparable. So Allen got off work and we did it! That sounded bad. We bought the sofa and the loveseat! And we are so excited to put them in our house that other people are still living in and we won’t get to lay eyes on it until June! Ahhhhh!

So behold.

Meet our new sofa and loveseat!

And I am really loving this rug. And I need to talk Allen into buying it.

Doesn’t this guy look good against those dark floors. Imagine it paired with the ivory sofa and loveseat, maybe a large ottoman or coffee table and some light grey on the walls with pops of color for the accent. In love.

I know I am going to be hoarding throw pillows so I can change them out whenever the mood strikes. And I just love throw pillows, so now I have and excuse to buy lots of them.

I can’t wait to see this living room come together. It looks really good in my head!

For the Credits:

The Sofa and Loveseat are from here, and comes in more colors. We got ivory.

And the rug I’m loving is from here. And it’s on sale, and did I mention that I want it? It comes it lots of different colors too.

I have successfully procrastinated long enough. I’m going to study while dreaming about our living room. And that rug.

xoxo,

s

Let’s Set the Bar High

 

It’s reveal day for the Pinterest Challenge- a little motivation to move away from the computer and roll up your sleeves, this fun little challenge was dreamed up by Sherry of YHL  and Katie of BowerPower. LOVE THEM! I think they are my real life BFF’s and talk about them to Allen like I had lunch with them yesterday.

 

I break my neck looking to see what is sitting on the Goodwill sidewalk every time I drive by, and last Sunday something caught my eye, check out this little guy

I turned my car around, wheeled into Goodwill and it was love at first sight! This cabinet was originally priced $19.99, but with a Sunday Funday discount this baby was all mine for $10.69. Hollla!

I’ve been passively looking for a little cabinet or bookshelf to turn into a mini bar, and I knew this was the one at the very moment I saw it. About and hour and a half of sanding and taping, and four cans of Krylon Paint and Primer in One spray paint…..

I fell in love all over again!

Meet our new mini bar! I didn’t bother taking the hardware off before I spray painted it and I really like the look of it! The cabinet even has a little light in the top- I was doubtful that it would work but this cabinet just keeps impressing me!

(please excuse my leg in the mirror and the jumble of cords).

And for a little side by side, there’s nothing I love more than a good before and after

Viola! Ain’t it cute?!

 

Happy Pinteresting!

-s

Call it a Reunion

 

Look who fell off the bandwagon, seriously!? My last post was March 28th!  Well I am alive and well and have kissed my first year of nursing school goodbye. Eeek, I turned 21 somewhere in between too!

Summer. Here’s what's been going on, sleeping ( a lot of it, I tell ya’). Reading, the 50 Shades series, oh my love Christian Grey. Beaching. Catching up on missed boyfriend time and catering to my Pinterest addiction.

Oh yea, I made a massive wedding cake, graduation cake, and a racy boob birthday cake too. In short, I never want to look at another cake ever again.

Here’s a quick look.

Lucy was totally and completely over me studying for finals. Studying=Lucy not getting the attention that she DEMANDS!

Finally!

Making up for lost time.

Beach trip with the best friend.

Proclaiming my love for my backpack beach chair (Target).

Lucy’s first boat ride on Memorial Day weekend.

A 2 ton wedding cake. Almost the nail in my coffin.

  

        I’m not going to try to explain.

Destin waves!

Happy Monday, ya’ll.

-s

Double Dip

 

Back for round 2 today.

I had a pretty exciting weekend, it wasn’t planned, it just happened. I like weekends like that that.

The weekend started out horrible, I missed my lab on Friday because I wrote on my calendar that lab started at 9:30, no mam, it started at 9:00, fantastic. So now I have to make that up, the weekend before finals. PERFECT!

But it got better. We to the beach with my Mamacita on Saturday and finally got that tan that I was supposed to get on the cruise. Allen and I decided that we wanted to go to the Brantley Gilbert and Eric Church concert….we decided on going at about 5:30 and the concert started at 7:30. I got online and tickets that had been everywhere on Stubhub that morning were gone. I was sad/slightly devastated for a second, but then called the box office and got FLOOR SEATS FOR $43.00. It was so much fun.

Sunday I went to celebrate my BFF’s 21st birthday at her family get together. I made her those Key Lime cupcakes that I was talking about. You know the ones that I got from my favorite cupcake shop and I bit into them and was like oh em gee I have this recipe.

They were delish and everyone loved them. I also tried out a vanilla bean buttercream that I iced the cupcakes with. 1) those little seeds inside the vanilla bean that you have to scrape out are microscopic and sticky 2) the recipe wasn’t what I expected, it was good but it was pretty basic and I want to find a recipe that I can eat like it is vanilla bean ice cream. So the search continues.

Oh yea, on more thing happened on Sunday at Anna’s….ummm she asked me to be her Maid of Honor, Her MOH, the girl that walks down the aisle right before her and holds her bouqet, and cries while she chokes her way through a toast….I almost peed in my pants of little and I had to blink really quick because I could feel the tears. I am so freaking excited for all of the showers and wedding festivities.

Anna and I have been the best of friends forever! And this girl as be through it. More than any 21 year old should have ever been through…more than a lot of 50 year old have been through. And I just feel so honored that she would ask me to be her Maid of Honor on her big day.

Enough of the sappy happy. Here’s that Key Lime Cupcake Recipe!

Key Lime pound Cake Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened 
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 1/4 cup fresh Key lime juice
• Key Lime Glaze:
• 1/4 cup key lime juice
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Mix ingredients in a small bowl
• Spoon glaze over cake or cupcakes after cool

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Beat butter and shortening at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.
2. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla, lime zest, and lime juice. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch (12-cup) tube pan.
3. Bake at 325° Cake: 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes Cupcakes: 25-30 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean . Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack.
4. Prepare Key Lime Glaze, and immediately brush over top and sides of cake. Cool completely (about 1 hour).

My Notes:

I have made this recipe as a pound cake and cupcakes. It’s a win-win, the cupcakes are dense but they are tasty.

My oven is wacked so if you are baking cupcakes you might want to set the timer for 20 mins and check them every few minutes after that.

If you’re making cupcakes I suggest using jumbo muffin liners instead of cupcake cups. The cupcake cups work but the tops get very muffin toppy.

Cupcakes or pound cake….serve it up with some whipped cream. Heaven in your mouth.

Recipe from : Kathleen Blackman, Ponce Inlet, Florida, Southern Living
MARCH 2011

 

Enjoy. Let me know what ya’ think.

xoxo,

s

Tuesday Trivia on Wednesday

 

So, I have been studying for a Mental Health test on week, and reading about antipsychotics and such, nothing that I feel that would serve as helpful info for the general population.

I stumbled upon my Tuesday trivia tidbit on accident. I was grocery shopping yester day when these cute little fellas caught my eye.

Special Edition Lilly Pulitzer for Barnum’s Animal crackers. I’m a Lilly fan and couldn’t pass these up, I like those crackers too. I think that the animal cracker box should permanently stay like this. It looks like those Jungle creatures are having more fun.

Anyway, I got home and read the back of the box to find out that Lilly Pulitzer and Nabisco Barnum’s Animal Crackers are teaming up to raise funds for Operation Smile.

Operation Smile in an international children’s medical charity that has funded over 200,000 surgeries for children with cleft lips, cleft palates, and other deformities.

It just so happens that we went over cleft lips and palates in class last week, and it can happen to anyone, and sometimes there is no warning that a child is going to have a cleft lip or palate until birth. The new 4D ultrasounds make it easier to identify but it’s still not 100%.

These kids have to go through a series of surgeries, the earliest usually at six months. The lip and palate repairs have a good outcome, but it is devastating at birth and requires some extra adjustment and an already overwhelming milestone.

Anyway, the surgeries are expensive and Operation Smile is a good thing. Go buy some Lilly animal Cracker’s and give yourself something to smile about, and help give a smile to someone else while your at it.

xoxo,

-s

Just Rambling

 

I’m feeling emotional, sappy, negative today. Nice combo. I love it. NOT! I have so much to look forward to over the next few months, heck even the next year which should be one of the biggest years of my life. But, I’m just kind of stuck.

Allen and I spent about 80% of our free time together before last summer when he went to work with his Dad in soflo (South Florida). Then I started nursing school and he started a new job and our schedules collide, I study all the time, he gets home late and goes to the gym for freakin’ ever. So basically we see each other on the weekends and maybe one day during the week, if we are lucky. We don’t live together yet but we only live about 10 minutes apart….still we just haven’t been us since nursing school. But I guess that’s life, I don’t really feel like me since nursing school because I stay stressed the freak out about 89% of the time and all I think about is failing and higher education after nursing school and when am I going to have time to get married and have kids and get a doctorates degree.

I know I need to take it one day at a time and things will fall into place as they should with some direction from the man upstairs. Which I am heavily counting on these days, direction. Because I feel like I have none.

I saw on Dr. Oz today that omega 3’s (which I do not get enough of in my diet) make you feel happier and of course they make you healthier, duh. I’m considering hopping in the car now and driving to wal mart.

On a happier note. I am obsessed beyond obsessed with cupcakes and baking and pretty much anything sweet. Today, I went to my favorite cupcakery in town and grabbed two cupcakes, I got a cookies and cream cupcake (a staple) and a key lime pound cake cupcake. Well guess what?! I KNOW I HAVE THE EXACT RECIPE FOR THE KEY LIME POUND CAKE!!!!  It was in Southern Living last spring/summer and I have made it 3 times and love it.

The second I bit into that little cup of heavenly cake, I knew. So I immediately texted my BFF, Anna another cupcake obsessor and connoisseur. It just gets me giddy that I know I have a recipe that’s being used in a cupcake shop…and these cupcakers are no joke. They were on cupcake wars, came in 2nd. I have a cupcake recipe they use. Who’s all that and bag of chips? Me!

I’ll share that very recipe here soon. As soon as I dig it out of the recipe box. Which will; be before this weekend. I am going to make them for Anna’s birthday gathering on Sunday.

I’m also going to try out a vanilla bean cake recipe along with vanilla bean buttercream. I shall be back to share if it’s worth sharing that is.

 

This my friends, is a picture from the good ole days. Footloose and fancy free. Growing up really does suck.

love,

-s

Tuesday Trivia: the debut

 

Okay, so maybe this should be named Tuesday night trivia because I realize that it is almost 11pm and I'm just getting on this thaang. I am currently studying pediatrics and maternity in school. So, this sets the stage for the first Tuesday trivia bit.

Vomiting: it’s gross but it’s the topic. never said this was going to be glamorous.

- Ginger helps relieve vomiting, this is why people suggest ginger ale to help alleviate nausea/vommiting. However, most ginger-ale today is not made with real ginger. so check that out. Candied ginger could possibly help or hey if you can eat a piece of fresh ginger there ya go!

-Morning sickness in pregnancy: there’s really no cure but a couple tricks that will help with the queasy feelings. Eat small and frequent meals, but do not drink with meals, drink in between meals.Lay down after meals if you are able.and avoid strong odors(duh!) Maybe even try some ginger. I bet whole foods a real GINGER-ale!

Just a few things I have learned this week that I thought could help the general population. Don’t hold me accountable. I am not a genius or a doctor. These quick tips may or may not help you out. If they do, glad I could help!

love,

-s