Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday!

It's Wednesday again! Today was crazy. Ryan and I went to his parents house to have Thanksgiving a day early with his family. Instead of turkey, his brother smoked a brisket, which was AMAZEBALLS! Loved it! We also got to meet Ryan's nephew for the first time :)! Alright, on to wonky and woot-tastic

Wonky (things that are weird or that I just don't like):
- I don't know if anyone else has this problem but... when I go to bed, I get all tucked in with Rebel and George in bed next to me, turn off the light and start to relax... then my eyes pop open because I have to pee! It drives me nuts! I get all comfy and cozy in my bed then I have to drag myself out of bed, disturbing the animals(God forbid) and go to the bathroom. So annoying!

- Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1... ugh, don't get me started. So yes, the books were GREAT and I loved them but seriously, the movies are TERRIBLE! They are beyond cheesy. The acting is terrible which I have decided is, in part, due to poor directing. The whole series has been HORRIBLE! And yet... I will still go see part 2... shoot me now.

- Saturday night I laid down in bed(then got up because I realized I had to pee...) and made sure my alarm was set for 8:45am, that way I could be up in time to go to work in the morning. I promise you it was set, but it didn't go off. Thankfully my internal clock is only slightly off and I woke up at 9:15. I was late to work but I still made it so that's good.

Woot-tastic (things that make me go WOOT!):
- THANKSGIVING! Who doesn't like Thanksgiving? It is an amazing holiday. Food, family, friends... it doesn't get much better! I walked into my house this evening and, already, it smells like Thanksgiving. I can't wait until tomorrow!

- Our new ceiling! We had a leak in our roof and it messed up our ceiling in the living room and we finally got around to fixing it! It still needs to be textured and painted but it looks much better than it did! Thank you dad and Andrew (my sisters hubby)

- My Pumpkin Pie Bites! I am so in love with those things! They are YUMM. Going to have some tomorrow!

- Lol, so I wasn't sure whether or not this belongs in woot-tastic or wonky but it made me laugh really hard so here it goes.... I ran into my door. HARD. face first. I had gone to the bathroom (after having gotten all comfy in my bed -.-) and it was dark... my door is usually open but apparently it closed behind me when I went to the bathroom so when I went to walk through the door way, my face was greeted by the door. I laughed SO HARD. It was hilarious! I'm glad I can laugh at myself lol.

Well that's my Southern Soapbox for Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble Gobble!

Pumpkin Pie Bites

Here we go! I told y'all I would take pictures of every step so here it is! I made these today and took pictures as I went. (This recipe is for 24 pumpkin pie bites)

Here are your ingredients (the Monster was for me, not the bites lol)

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts (these are found by the cookie dough at Kroger)

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1.5 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
3 3/4 inch cookie cutter 

1. Grease your muffin pan!

                                 2. Unroll your pie crust  

3. Cut your circles out! I also rolled the circles out a little flatter after I had cut them out.

4. Put your pie crust in the muffin pans. Make sure to put the crusts in every other spot so they don't stick together.

 Don't worry too much about all the excess, just stuff it down in there. Make sure the crust isn't too thin, you don't want any breaks!

It doesn't have to look pretty (I know what you're thinking "YES IT DOES!".. but really, it doesn't). Just shove it down there!

5. Take one of your eggs and separate the whites from the yolk. Take your finger and spread the whites on the edges of your pie crust.

6. Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350. Then mix your sugar, cream cheese, 2 eggs, vanilla, pumpkin and pumpkin spice together.  (make sure you soften the cream cheese. and by soften i mean SOFTTTTTT! otherwise it will be all lumpy and ewww. and if it is lumpy and ew, just stick your whole mix in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time until it's not lumpy)

this one is actually a little low on filling

7. Scoop the filling into the crusts. I used a cookie dough scoop and it worked perfectly! Scoop enough to fill the crust.

8. Pop them into the oven. The site I got this from, Bakerella, says to bake them for 12-15 minutes but I ended up doing it for about 20. I suggest starting with 12 minutes and add more as you go along. To check for "doneness" take a toothpick and stick it in the middle of one of your bites. If it comes out clean, it's finished, if not, add another 5 minutes.

When you first take them out of the oven they will be all puffed up. I wish they would have stayed that way, but sadly, they flattened out.

You can either serve them hot, or refrigerate them and serve them cold. Personally, my family thought they were better cold. Let me know what you think!

That's my Southern Soapbox for the day! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Gobble Gobble!

It's Crunch Month!

You know that month? The last month of the semester, students, you know what I'm talking about. That time of year where your professors ALL decide to give you the most extensive complicated, long essays and projects of the entire year. Not only do they give you projects and papers, they also give you tests, quizzes and expect you to still study for your final exam. CRAZY! So that is what I have been doing, papers, papers, project. It's CRAZY!

On a brighter note, I am officially on Thanksgiving break (not that it means anything because I have 3 papers to write, a speech to do, a project and some research I have to do)! I am really excited thought because I made Pumpkin Pie Bites for dessert the other night and they were GREAT! Everyone liked them and my brother in law, Andrew, said they're even better cold! I am going to be taking them to Ryan's parents house on Wednesday. Run down of the week: baking and cleaning tomorrow, Wednesday Ryan and I are having lunch with his family and then Thursday we are having lunch with my family then dinner with a friend of ours :). It's going to be a CRAZY week!

George, helping me read -.-

This past week I finally finished reading the new The Vampire Diaries book, The Hunter: Phantom! It took me a couple of days which, for me, is pretty long. It was pretty good and I am looking forward to the next book! I have to start reading the latest House Of Night book too, Destined. I have to hurry up and get all caught up because my new Stephanie Plum book come out TODAY! (I just Googled to check the date, didn't realize it was TODAY... crap...) Oh well, I might have to read it first lol. BTW if you have never read The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evonovich GO READ THEM NOW!




Well, that's my Southern Soapbox for the day. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I am going to post a picture of what I am wearing to Ryan's parents house on Wednesday and will also post more details about my Pumpkin Pie Bites, as I will be baking them tomorrow :). Have a good night!

Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday!

It's time for our second Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday! So, here we go!

Wonky (things that are weird, awkward or that I just don't like in general lol)
- the picture posted above.... Mom and I did a "photo shoot" today because my outfit was cute and we decided to do "action shots" of me jumping. Mostly I just looked like.... well like I was jumping. Supposedly there is a way to jump gracefully in pictures. I tried, I can't.

- so I walked into the bathroom at Macaroni Grill. i went to the bathroom and was going to wash my hands when I saw a sign that said "mens" on the back of the door. I TOTALLY freaked out and ran out of the bathroom. Then I remembered that they do that on purpose to screw with poor innocent women's minds... so uncool.
- haha so I was walking through WalMart(ugh walmart) with my mother and suddenly decided to start speaking with a British accent. By British I mean British/Australian/Scottish. It was pretty funny. I started t get a lot better at it the more I did it. The lady at the check out counter asked if I was practicing for a play or something.... nope, I'm not that normal.
- I know a lot of game lingo, and it disturbs me. Ryan will be talking about some weird thing about his online game and I will know exactly what he is talking about. I can't really think of an example but when I think of one, I'll be sure to share it with you lol
- the cold... ugh I hate it! It makes my joints hurt



Woot-tastic (thanks that make me go WOOT!)

- getting 2 new books to read. I'm always looking for something good to read. I prefer series because I like the development of the characters and to see what happens next. I'm always REALLY sad when I finish a series. Like I'm loosing friends (I know, I'm weird)
- a book that is so well written that you feel like you are there. I love it when I can loose myself in a book and it become, for a short time, my reality. Does anyone else do this or am I a freak? lol (well, I know I'm a freak.. you know what I mean)
- ONE WEEK TO THANKSGIVING! And after that only 2 weeks until the end of the semester! I'm really excited but am surprisingly sad that my Communications class is coming to an end :(.
- Seeing my friend Chris. He has been in Afghanistan for nine months. A lot of things happened to him over there but I am really glad that he is home, safe with his wifey :).

A random weekend (LOTS of pictures!)

I love random weekends! They're so much fun and keep me on my toes. So Friday my mom made a random Christmas decoration. They are Christmas tree balls with magnets stuck to the back, "hanging" on the refrigerator. Random, right? And then we have a picture of my hair! I finally went and got it cut and colored by my all time FAVORITE hair stylist EVER, Preston. He's awesome and I love him lol.

Saturday was fun! Mom and I woke up and went to Mom's church to do crafts with a great friend of ours, Melanie (she's also mentioned in the post about the pink, paper hat). Well, they did crafts, I talked. It was nice spending some time with the ladies! At about 1:30 Ryan came and picked me up and we went and had lunch with Meagan and her hubby (also one of Ryan's good friends), Chris. We went to Red Robin (yumm). It was, indeed, YUMM, although I didn't eat lol. So we went back to Ryan's apartment after that and hung out. The guys, of course, played video games, because what else do guys do?? It was a nice quiet day with great friends.

Sunday was BUSY and productive! I woke up and went to work, where I got to hold the most precious little baby girl EVER! She was SO sweet! After that I had to go over to a group meeting for a group project we are doing in my communications class. We got A LOT done so I am really excited. Our topic is awesome. We are doing miss-communication between men and women, which I find really fascinating. The picture of the book with all the tabs is one of the books my group member bought and let me borrow. I haven't even gotten half way through it and I already have all of those tabs LOL! And the ADORABLE puppy is Sammy! She is my other group members Great Dane (there are 4 people in my group, including myself). Isn't she (to dog) pretty?! I thought so. I spent a good deal of time playing tug of war. I'm pretty sure I lost, considering she was dragging me across the floor lol.

Sunday, before heading to my second job and after my group meeting, I decided to go for a walk with Rebel. We walked two miles, which is usually about how far I normally walk (by normally, I mean once every few months lol). Anywho, I saw this tree and loved the mixture of red and green leaves so I stopped and took a picture... or two. There was also a duck crossing sign which I thought was cute, so I took a picture of that too lol.

Quack Quack!

CAUTION POSSIBLE HARRY POTTER SPOILERS!

Oh, the last thing I did for the weekend was family movie night! We FINALLY watched the last Harry Potter movie!!! It was really good! So sad that it's all over though. I wonder if they are considering doing something with the kids of the people that survived? Not sure? I think it would be interesting. I want to know who the headmaster is now.... Any thoughts?

A random picture of my mother. She "decorated" for Christmas by putting Christmas tree balls on her glasses. She's weird, I know, it's genetic...

We were walking through WalMart(ugh) and I pointed out that she had her glasses neutered.

 Today, Monday, Mom and I went to Macaroni Grill and split their Chicken Marsala. It was SO good! While we were there we talked about how we want to organize her craft room. If you've ever been to Mac. Grill, you know that they have paper on the tables and you draw on them, so I took advantage of this. The little "sketch" to the far left is a bookshelf, I know, you already knew that didn't you? I bet you can't guess what you call the crazy girl in the middle. It's CLOTHES HANGER GIRL! And to the right we have a desk with a bookshelf above it. I know, I'm a fantastic artist.... *rolls eyes*.. stop laughing at my drawings please.

Now for the end of my day today. We had loaded potatoes for supper (yum!). I ate in my bed with a book :). I am reading The Vampire Diaries The Hunters Vol 1: Phantom. Yup, I am a Vampire Diaries fanatic, sue me.... or point and laugh.. whatever.

Well, that's my Southern Soapbox for the night. Going back to my book :) I have lots of homework to do tomorrow :(. Night y'all!

Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday

So I have decided to start doing Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday. What is that you ask? Well I am so glad that you did! Basically, every Wednesday (or at least, I hope, every Wednesday) I will post somethings that were wonky (or weird, or awkward) that have happened in the past week, as well as a few things that were woot-tastic (things that make me say "Woot!" credit for the creation of this word goes to my sister, Maegan. Thank you saster.) I kind of stole this idea from one of my new favorite blogs The Daybook. She does awkward/awesome Thursday, so it's basically the same thing just on a different day and I am using alliteration, because I'm just that much of a dork lol. So let's begin our first Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday!

Wonky:
- sitting at a red light with the windows down singing "Do you wanna touch, do you wanna touch me now" As loud as I can and then realizing that the people in the car next to me were also enjoying the nice weather, with their windows down..... and certainly did not look like they wanted to touch me. The seemed more like I had the plague. I can't help it, I'm addicted to the Glee soundtrack and sing along to ALL of their songs! Close your mouths people

- when there are two red lights right in front of the other, and the one further from you turns green and you, too busy singing to Glee and DESPERATE to get away from the people that are staring at you, don't realize that it wasn't you light that turned, and you go... thankfully there were no cars coming and there were no cops.

- burning your moms butt while trying to burn of an unraveling string from her pants. Although, I might also argue that this one is also woot-tastic....

- the fact that people are selling the bed that Michael Jackson slept AND died in. Seriously, people would buy that bed? Are THEY going to sleep in it? EWW...

- when I posted on Facebook that my life would never be the same without adoption and people started thinking I was adopted... guess I should have clarified.. opps

Woot-tastic:
- National Adoption Month! I am so grateful for people that adopt. Adoption has brought so many wonderful people into my life, my cousin being one of them. I love you Mollie!

- just chilling with Ryan at his apartment. Sitting on the couch watching movies, and not needing to go out and spend money to be happy.

- my Aunt Kathy getting to go home Friday! She has been truly blessed by a lot of people through her liver transplant. God has really provided for her!

- when I reached my hand into A.J.'s car seat and he wouldn't let go of my finger. It so made my heart melt! I love my nephew so much!! I can't imagine how much I'm going to love my own kids some day, kind of scary to think of.

- hard boiled eggs! I don't know why, but I have been really into hard boiled eggs lately! Add a little bit of salt and pepper and they are the perfect snack!


Well that's it for Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday! What were some of your wonky and woot- tastic moments of the week?

That's it for my Southern Soapbox for the night! Have a good night!

Father Son Bonding...

 Ryan came over and was messing with his laptop. Jixer and Rebel wanted to help and got right in the middle of everything to help their daddy. Well, they thought they were helping anyways (it's the thought that counts right?) Of course when Jixer started getting attention my giant grey beast, Rebel had to get involved too. So there they sat, Jixer, Rebel and Ryan on the floor playing with a laptop. My three little nerds. Oh and the top right
picture you can see George, my cat, licking himself. It's a lovely family photo, isn't it? (say yes.... thank you.) So that was fun lol.

Before the family bonding my mom cooked a REALLY yummy meal! Pork chops (which my dad burned lol) lemon butter asparagus, butter glazed carrots, and green bean casserole(one of my FAVORITES!). It was so yummy!






Well, that's my Southern Soapbox of the day. Have a good night! Oh, and I worked out tonight! Go me! Good night.

Sweet baby

Oh Monday, how I hate you! I really do hate Mondays. One good thing that came out of yesterday was I got to see my sweet AJ. He is teething so he was a little bit whiny. I put my hand over in his car seat and he grabbed my finger. My poor little man didn't feel good at all :( every time I would try to take my hand away he would cry and reach out to me so I would give it gave to him and he would go back to sleep. So sweet :).

Me, Mom, Maegan and AJ ran some errands. We went to gymboree and michaels and then came back to mine and Mom's house for supper. Originally, we were going to pork chops and asparagus but then we decided we should have Panda Express instead and do the pork chops the next day (which is today). 

I am still trying to eat healthy. My "healthy food diet" (which isn't really a diet... just eating healthy) got interrupted by our Murphy's Law Weekend so I am trying to get back on track. I did my workout last night and then had a little snack. Ryan and I are going walking tonight. Wish me luck :)

Random picture of my cat George. Apparently we need to get him more toys because he is playing with a pink feather boa. Poor kitty.

Well, that is my Southern Soapbox for now. I will be posting pictures of our meal tonight. We are planning to cook some new stuff :). Have a good Tuesday!

Our Murphy's Law Weekend

Anything that could go wrong, did. It was completely ridiculous. Me, my mom, my sister and my adorable nephew went to Canton for the weekend for First Monday. We booked out hotel through Expedia.com about 2 months ago, and believe me, we will NEVER use them again! We got to our hotel in Terrell at about 2:30pm and went to check out our room. It was a smoking room! We specifically asked for non smoking because we had my 10 month old nephew with us, and smoking rooms are EW! The hotel couldn't refund our money because we had booked the room through expedia, so we called expedia. They put us on hold, and hung up on us THREE TIMES! We spend three hours on the phone with them trying to get a new room! They were determined to keep us in that smoking room, it wasn't going to happen. We ended up talking to someone in the corporate office[finally, someone that actually speaks english!] and she said they had hotels in Mabank, about 45 minutes south of Terrell. So we started heading that direction and got a call that there were no openings in Mabank so they were going to try Gun Barrel City. SURPRISE, no openings there. Did I mention that we had a 10 month old that has been in a car for 6.5 hours? He had been SO good but his patience were wearing thin, and so were ours. They finally found us a room in Athens at the Quality Inn. Quality my butt! There was nothing Quality about this place. We got there and there was a lobby FULL of people, all there to complain. One lady went in her room and the door knob fell off in her hand and her room looked like it had been stripped bare. Another man was there because his room was dirty. It was crazy. So we checked in and the ended up giving us someone elses room that hadn't checked in yet, but it wasn't actually ready! We had to go to Applebees [AHH to torture :P] to wait for our room to be cleaned. Then when we got into the room the sink was dirty and so was the bathtub, but we decided we would deal. BUT WAIT!! There's more.

Not only was getting a hotel probably the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, EATING at the shops in Canton was proving to be just as difficult. If you have never been to Canton, I suggest you go. BUT take LOTS of cash with you. We had been shopping around and used all of our cash. Come lunch time we started noticing that none of the food vendors took cards. Who doesn't accept plastic?! RIDICULOUS! So we went in search of an ATM. Mom found one by the food, but it was broken, so Maegan and I went to one all the way across the grounds and waited in an unmoving line for 10 minutes. Finally, we decided to see what was going on, why wasn't the line moving? That machine was broken too! So, we gave up. We got some boiled peanuts and headed back to our craptastical hotel and picked up McAlister's on the way.

Seriously, I am so glad to be home! It was fun getting to spend time with my mom and sister though! And I did get a little paper hat, the money went to breast cancer research, and I bought it for a sweet lady I know that just finished Chemo :) I also got my future, future Mother In Law her Christmas present! Here are some pictures!

Excited to go on girls trip! (this was before everything went to hell)

Hope and Glory Hats benefits Breast Cancer Research.
Here's to you Miss Melanie!

On our way home. AJ and I took a nap together.

To the left is my Future, Future Mother In Laws present. It's a bible cover.
And the pink thing is the top view of the hat!

Breast Cancer Hat! I thought it was fun!

Ok, well that is my Southern Soapbox. I might be back to post stuff later. Maybe? I don't know yet. I am headed over to Ryan's to chill. We are going to be lazy! Yay for lazy!!!! Have a lazy Sunday y'all!

Healthy Eating!

I am so excited! I am going to try to start eating more healthy foods, instead of crap. No, I am not going on a diet, I am simply going to make more healthy choices. That doesn't mean I won't eat a cookie, or some chips. That just means that I won't eat them all the time. To start off my new habit I had a fruit salad on the go for breakfast this morning. I cut up pineapple and apples, put it in a to go container and ate it on my way to class around 7:30am. I had a little baggie of Honey Nut Cheerios for a snack around 10am in my speech class. At 12pm I made a ham/turkey sandwich "pocket" for lunch. I'll have to take a picture of one tomorrow and post it on here. I don't remember if I had a snack between lunch and supper, although, I'm sure I did. I just can't remember what it was. I spent most of the day cleaning my bathroom and vacuuming my room, the hall and the kitchen.

At about 5pm my mother and I went over to my sister's house to make cake balls!!!! My mom got a new cake ball machine and we wanted to try it out. It didn't turn out so well lol. The machine made perfect round little balls but the cake was so light and fluffy that when I would put the stick on them and then roll them in the icing, the stick would pierce through the cake balls. They didn't turn out very well, at all. They were so terrible that I didn't even bother with a picture, but the machine is in the picture above :). Oh and I had leftover Vegetable Beef Soup for supper at Maegan's house.

At about 10:30pm I got hungry, and yes, I know, you aren't supposed to eat after 8pm but... oh well. I MADE HARD BOILED EGGS! Yes, this is exciting. I have never made them before! I screwed up the first batch because I didn't cook them long enough but then LOOK!

Don't they look delish? I just sprinkled some black pepper on top and BAM! There ya go, perfection! Haha. I am wondering if some raspberry balsamic or something would be good on these? They're a little dry for my taste so I want to add something, just not sure what. Thoughts?

Ok, well that is my Southern Soapbox for the night. Have a good one!

Cute!

So, today I woke up and decided I needed to look cute. So I went through my closet and pulled out this top that I have never worn before and made an outfit around it. It turned out really cute, I think. I'm really proud of myself lol, I wouldn't normally wear something like this.

This is the first time I have EVER worn Jeggings! I thought it looked pretty cute, and the black booties, I LOVE!!! I got them from Charming Charlie for $30! The only sad thing is, I was walking through the mall and saw a picture of Kim Kardashian.... I kinda thought this was something she might wear, which made me a little sad. But I look cute so oh well.

Next exciting news.... I GOT MY NEW BOOTS!

They're cute! And they make me happy lol. I'm excited to wear them tomorrow. I'll take a picture of my outfit tomorrow. Pinterest has given me some really cute ideas for new outfits :).

I started working out more consistently. The first night, last Thursday, I did 400 Jumping Jacks, 200 Knee Highs, 300 bicycle crunches, 28 squats, 30 push ups. I thought I would die so this last time I cut everything in half, except the squats and push ups lol. Going to do another work out tonight. Tomorrow I think I'll go walking after class.

Well, that's my Southern Soapbox of the night!