Puzzles & Parks - My Summer Bucket List!

Apparently the thing to do around blog-world this summer is make a summer bucket list. So of course, y'all know I just had to jump on that bandwagon! I mean, hello? Summer is my absolute favorite season. (Thanks Florida for basically an 8-month summer!) And obviously I'm a sucker for a good list or two, or three, or forty-five... And so the two together? Summer and a list? I just had to! And now without any further ado or rambling, I introduce you to my...

2013 Summer Bucket List!

1. Go tubing at Bear Paw

2. Go to a country concert - preferably outdoors!

3. Visit a new beach in Florida with Jeff

4. Buy fruits and veggies from the farmer's market

5. Go antique shopping and to the flea market

6. Ride 75 miles on my bike

7. Go on a picnic in a park

8. Complete another thing from my 30 Before 30 list

9. Eat at 3 new restaurants that have outdoor seating

10. Clean out under my bed

11. Actually start training for the 5K, with the C25K app

12. Find a place for Jeff and I to live! (and move in!)

13. Clean out under my bathroom sink

14. Take the boys to a water park

15. Plan, decorate & cook for family dinner one week

16. Keep learning the ukulele

17. Create a giant pot of succulents (once in my new house)

18. Purge & donate some of my clothes and shoes

19. Complete a 1,000 piece puzzle

20. Do some more Pinterest crafts

21. Make a really awesome summer playlist

22. Try Geo-Caching, finally!

23. Make something cute for Megan and Bo's new house

24. Build a sandcastle at the beach with the boys

The "time-frame" for this will officially be starting this weekend, for Memorial Day Weekend. And even though summer is usually considered to be over by Labor Day, I'm extending this through the end of September, because summer weather in Florida can really last through Thanksgiving sometimes... So I might as well take advantage of that. So I'm starting this weekend, and I'll get to cross things off all the way through September!

Between all of these activities and things to do, and also planning a wedding for October, we're sure going to be super busy! But I'm just excited about going out and doing more things! Life is so much more fun when you make a real effort to do fun things and enjoy your time. So that's exactly what I plan on doing over the next few months :)

Did you make a summer bucket list? Do you want to? I think we all should! Doesn't it just sound like so much fun?!

Pinterest Cupcake Success

Thursday is finally here, which means that thankfully, tomorrow is Friday! This has been a long week, and I have been exhausted pretty much the whole time. I need some rest and a break. Not sure much "rest" will happen this weekend, but I'm gonna try at least! Today however, I'm excited to be linking up with Katie at Keep Calm & Carry On and her blog-bestie Stephanie at A Beautiful Mess for "Saw it. Pinned it. Did it!"

This is actually something I did a loooong time ago, but never shared it on my blog, so I think it's still acceptable to share it today :) I made some amazing cupcakes as part of a birthday present for my dear friend Sara! I love making homemade cupcakes, so I had her look through my cupcake board on Pinterest, and pick out which ones she thought sounded best. She made an excellent choice, because they were so yummy and I loved them too!

Dulce de Leche filled Banana Cupcakes with Browned-Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

pin found *here* on my boards

 Banana Cupcakes
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup mashed, ripe bananas
1/4 milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients on high until well blended, about 2 minutes. Line standard muffin tin with cupcake liners, and fill mixture into liners. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. After they're done, but while still warm, scoop out a little hole in the top of each one, in order to fill them with the Dulce de Leche. (Don't get rid of the part you scooped out, because you'll put it back on top!)

Apparently, you can make your own Dulce de Leche at home, but I chose to buy it in a jar at the store. Easy peasy. It's usually found in the Latin or Ethnic section! Anyways, all you do is fill those little holes with some of the cream, and then place the scooped-out-part back on top, pressing down a little to make sure it stays in place.

Browned-Butter Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
8 oz. package of cream cheese, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

In a small sauce-pan, over medium heat, melt butter and salt until browned. Place cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl, and pour the browned-butter on top of it, then mix on high for about 1 minute. It will get light and fluffy! Add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing well between each cup, until all sugar is added and mixed smoothly. This will make about 5 cups of frosting! Too much for just 12 cupcakes, but you can freeze the rest and use it again later ;)

I then cleaned out and washed an old salad dressing bottle with a wide circle hole in the top, to use to frost them. (I used Kraft brand, because the hole is a good size for the frosting. Just make sure it's really super clean!) Stuff your frosting down into the bottle, and you can then squeeze it on top of the cupcakes super easily! I started the ring on the very edge of the cupcake, and then circled in smaller and smaller until reaching the center at the top of the cupcake.You can then top each one off with a caramel cream chew - which I highly suggest because they're my favorite candy - for an added treat and a little surprise!

It's been a long time since I've made these, but they were really, really good. And everyone who had one also liked them a lot too. If you don't like banana though (or can't eat it like Jeff), you could just make vanilla or even chocolate cupcakes - or find a recipe for something else that would mesh well with the dulce de leche - and do them that way, just sans banana!

I haven't made cupcakes in quite some time, but I'm thinking that needs to change this upcoming weekend! Maybe I'll have Jeff choose his favorite cupcake pin, and I'll make those for us and our friends for his birthday gathering on Saturday! Sounds like a good plan to me :)

Oh, and I have my very first blate ever today for lunch! (That's a "blogger date" for my real life friends.) I'm meeting my fellow Tally-girl and bride-to-be Angie for lunch downtown, close to where we both work. (This is her first blate too.) I'm both super excited and a tiny bit nervous, but mainly just excited! Yay for blates!

Pinterest Tutorial - Written by Me!

Most of you've probably read by now, but my little sister is getting married in mid-May, and I'm her Maid of Honor. And as such, one of my goals was to throw her a beautiful wedding shower. And last Saturday that happened! I shared some about the shower and some pictures back on Monday, but today I want to talk about the centerpieces that my Mama and I made for it. And I am also linking up today with Stephanie at A Beautiful Mess for Saw it. Pinned it. Did it.

Megan's colors are yellow and gray, and I definitely knew I wanted to use yellow in the centerpieces somehow. I had seen a great pin on Pinterest with lemons lining a mason jar, and I loved it. We knew pretty much right away that's what we wanted to try . The problem however was there was no instructions or a tutorial anywhere on how to do it! The pin I found led to basically nowhere. And so we had to just wing it, and figure it out on our own! Well, it was a bit tricky, lemme yell ya. So I decided I was going to write my own little tutorial, and pin that to Pinterest for others!

Found HERE on Pinterest

So first of all, I want to say that I loved this idea because it's relatively inexpensive. I already had six mason jars just sitting around at home, so those were "free" for us to use for the shower. And the lemons really aren't too pricey either. We got three two-pound bags, which were about $3 a bag. Then we went to Publix to buy our fresh flowers, and got six bouquets, which were on sale, 3 for $12. (We then added one more $4 bouquet after they were all done.) So total, we spent only $37 to make six centerpieces. Obviously, if you don't need that many, it can be even way cheaper.

All you need is: mason jars, lemons, flowers and water. Easy. Oh, and a long-handled wooden spoon and some kitchen shears to trim your flower stems.

Start by slicing your lemons. I did kind of thicker-ish slices, because I figured if they were too thin and wilty-like, they wouldn't stand up as well against the jar. Also, don't slice too far to the end of it, as you want to leave the ends (or "butts" as I was calling them) to use as well. I was able to get about four slices per lemon, with leaving a good size butt from each end still.

Then begin by dropping in your first lemon slice down the inside of the jar, right up next to the glass. You can get about three of them down in there before they start falling over. Then, use one of the butts and place it flat side down on the bottom, between the standing slices. Then you can add in your fourth slice, which should form a little square and just about encircle the whole jar. Now comes the trickier part...

From here on out, you have to just kind of roll with it, and figure out the best way for you and your lemons... Begin wedging the butt pieces up against that center butt and the other slices, in order to keep the slices pressed up against the outside of the jar. I found that you could place the sliced side facing outwards, and the butt end facing the center, and it worked well and still looked nice. I used on long-handled spoon to push the lemons around and get them in place, and to help hold them steady. (It's hard to fit your hand way down in there!)

Once you think you have those bottom four firmly in place, you can begin adding the next "level" on top of them. Continue using more and more butt pieces to wedge in the center of the jar so that the jar is basically completely full of lemons. You can even leave some of the smaller lemons whole and put them in the center as well. (You will be cutting the flower stems super short, so don't worry about leaving space to fit the flowers down to the bottom of the jar.)

Once you reach the mouth of the jar, you should probably just go ahead and wedge in another butt piece, in order to keep everything good and pressed against the glass, just in case. Then you can pour in the water. Pour it almost completely up to the top of the jar! Then begin trimming your flowers. We wanted ours to be just poking out of the jar, with not much stem, so we cut them pretty short. Also, we kept the leaves and greenery to a bare minimum and ripped off some of the leaves too. Then just arrange your flowers how you like them in the jar! We used a mix of hydrangea, alstroemeria and dasies, all of which were white.

And now you should have one cute jar completely done! Continue on with however many more you want to do. You can do about two and half jars with about one bag of lemons, so keep that in mind. And the amount of flowers you need is really your preference, but we used seven small-ish bouquets from Publix for our six mason jars.

And just for convenience, here's a quicker run down of the instructions:
1. Gather jars, lemons, flowers, water, long-handled spoon, kitchen shears.
2. Slice lemons thickly, leaving ends or "butts" of lemons as well
3. Place lemons in bottom of jar, using long-handled spoon to push around and hold in place
4. Use butts of lemons to wedge between so that the slices stand up against the jar
5. Continue layering lemons up the jar, placing more butt pieces as often as needed to hold in place
6. Fill jar with water
7. Trim flower stems relatively short, and arrange in the jar
8. Enjoy your precious little centerpieces!

I hope that those instructions made sense to y'all! I tried my best at least to describe things, even without step-by-step photographs that would have probably been helpful! I had the idea to write this tutorial after I had already completed the project, so I didn't think about it in time to take additional pictures of each part of the process. Oh well. Hopefully this made sense anyways, and you guys can try this out on your own!

Another variation of this that I think would be super cute as well would be to use limes instead of lemons, and use blue and/or purple hydrangea's and whatever else, in order to mix up the color scheme! (And that matches my wedding color scheme, so maybe I'll use that idea for something for my own wedding sometime!!) My centerpieces didn't turn out absolutely perfect or anything, but they turned out great to me, and I loved them! And so did my sister, which was important! And so did all of the shower guests. :) So I'd say it was a successful Pinterest project! And now I get to move another thing to my "Already Accomplished via Pinterest" board! Yay me! 

Pantene, Pandora & Pinterest - First Things First

Happy Tuesday lovies! Today is of course one of my favorite blogging days, because it's my weekly First Things First link-up! And today as usual we have some great new co-hosts for the week as well! Today's co-hosts are Rachel at Postcards from Rachel and Tasha at A Lott to Love. Rachel is one of my good blog-friends, and I feel like we bonded over our love for books and reading. (Hopefully she feels the same ;) Haha) And Tasha is a relatively new blogger, but she's really starting to get the hang of it, and she's a pretty cool chick too :)

And today's (slightly random) first topics are:

First Pinterest project or recipe you attempted (failure or success!)

First random song that pops up on your iTunes or Pandora

First product you use in the shower

First Pinterest project or recipe I attempted

Well, technically the first thing I accomplished via Pinterest was purchasing a ring on Etsy, that I first pinned and then loved enough to buy. It was perfect, and I wore it every day for about a year and a half until I recently replaced it with my beautiful engagement ring!! But the first thing I actually did from Pinterest was make some amazingly delicious Dulce de Leche filled Banana cupcakes with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting for my friend Sara's birthday! I let her look through my cupcake board (I love making completely homemade cupcakes!), and pick which ones sounded the best, and then I made them as part of her 25th birthday present! (Actually, since then I've done a lot of other stuff from Pinterest. In fact, I have a board dedicated to stuff that I've Already Accomplished via Pinterest, that pins get moved to once I've tried them!) Below is the process of making those cupcakes, for my first attempt from Pinterest!

The whole process of the fancy cupcakes! Maybe I should make a recipe post sometime soon!?!

First random song that pops up on my iTunes

"To Whom it May Concern" by the Civil Wars. This was the song that was playing on my iTunes, when I first opened it up just now! And that's not surprising to me, because I absolutely love them, and listen to them quite often. And it makes me so sad they they're kind of broken up right now. (No one will really say what's going on...) They were even supposed to come here to do a concert here in Tally, and I even wrote a post about it I was so excited! But then they cancelled, and that stunk big time. I hope they can get themselves put back together, because I want more music from them!!

First product I use in the shower

That would be my Pantene Pro-V shampoo, for curly hair! My hair isn't technically "curly," it's probably considered more "wavey," but this shampoo gives it a little extra pizzazz in the curl department! And of course it smells delicious and takes great care of my locks. :) And not that this was a part of the question, but I'm going to share my routine, because I'm a bit OCD about it, and it basically never varies. Put shampoo in, wash my face, rinse my face off, rinse shampoo out. Put conditioner in, wash my body, rinse my body, rinse the conditioner out. Shaving my legs is always last, but definitely not an everyday occurrence. In the summer, it might be every other day, but in the winter, it's more like once or twice a week... I just hate doing it guys. Don't judge me.

If you'd like to join in on this fun link up, check out the super simple 'rules' below, and get to writing! Can't wait to see all the new link ups this week, meet new friends, and read y'all's posts!

1. Write your own post about this week's topics

2. Please follow me, as well as this week's co-hosts, Rachel & Tasha.

3. Put the new button on your post or somewhere on your blog

4. Link up with us! (Link will appear on all three blogs.)

5. Visit some of the other links, and share the love with them on their posts!

6. Spread the word on Twitter and/or Facebook

Tweet

And if you'd like to prepare and get ready for next week's First Things First link up, start by checking out next week's awesome co-hosts, Emily at Be Blessed, Y'all and Breanna at Counting Blessings.
1. First movie you went to see without your parents
2. First sport you played (either little league style or otherwise)
3. First major injury

Positivity on a Monday

Good morning and Happy Monday my loves! One of my friends on Facebook today posed an interesting theory, and I'm going to try it out. She said, what if we were as excited about Monday as we are Friday, would we have a better day today? If we have a positive attitude, maybe the whole day will be more positive! So I'm going to give that a try and we'll see how it goes! :) I mean, I did after all have a pretty great weekend, so I should at least be thankful for that, right?!

Friday I was off at noon, and I spent a couple of hours hanging out with Jeff and the boys at Target, and then his house, before they had to leave to head back home. They were so sweet and loving with me before they left, and it was definitely sad to see them go. But we had a great week together, and had lots of fun, and we'll definitely be looking forward to their longer visits during the summer! After they left, I did some much-needed bra shopping, and lucked out with three new ones, after trying on what seemed like a billion.

After that, I picked up my Mama and we did a bit of shopping, then we met my fam for dinner at Beef O'Brady's. Then we all went to my mom's office, to use their big conference room and table for a giant invitation-stuffing-party for my sister's wedding invitations. It was a loooong night, but we did end up getting it almost completely finished. She just has about 20-30 more to do, once she gets their correct addresses. But at least we had fun all together!

Saturday morning my Mama and I started our day early, and ran around town doing all sorts of errands. Once we were finally done, we came home, and started making the centerpieces for my sister's wedding shower! We had seen them on Pinterest, and we wanted to recreate them, but there was no tutorial or instructions or anything, anywhere, so it was kind of tricky trying to figure it out. But eventually we got it, and I think they turned out great! Not perfect of course, but I still loved them. (And later this week I'll be writing my own tutorial for my blog, and pinning that!) We all got dressed and ready, and headed down to the Florida State campus, because her shower was at the University Center Club. (Which is the fancy part of the FSU football stadium.)

We did our little bit of set-up real quick, and then before we knew it, guests were arriving! We ended up with a great turnout of people, and the shower itself was beautiful. She also got a ton of really awesome gifts, of course! (I can't wait for my turn for showers!!) I was very pleased with everything, and was soo glad I chose to do it there, and have them make the food, rather than deal with the stress and headache of that myself! And I know my sister loved getting to have the shower at "her school," as she always refers to it! (She's graduating from FSU just two weeks before her wedding!)

My beautiful "little" sister, the Bride, and myself, the Maid of Honor!

The hostesses (myself and my Grandmother) with the Bride

L to R: Megan, me, Meagan & Lauren. Friends of both of ours from high school & cheerleading days!

Amanda (long-time family friend), Megan, me.

The ladies in our family. L to R: Me, Grandmother, Megan, Mama, Aunt Suzanne.

Three generations. L to R: Grandmother, Megan, Mama, me.

After the shower, we again loaded everything up, and took it directly to their new house to unpack everything directly where it belongs. After hanging out a bit there, Mama and I left to grab some Chick-fil-A for us and my dad, then we headed home. I later went over to Jeff's house, and we watched the new "Red Dawn" remake, which was really good!

Sunday morning I went to church with my parents, then my mom, sister and I went to Moe's for lunch. And then we went wedding dress shopping for the first time for me!! I tried on about seven or eight or so, but don't think I found "The One." I did actually find a really great option, but I think I can find something better somewhere. So I'll continue to search around and go to a couple other stores, and see what I can find out there! But I am still keeping that one in mind from yesterday. (And even though I do have pictures from yesterday, I can't share them because Jeff reads my blog all the time!) It was just so much fun finally getting to try on that very first wedding dress!! And now I'm so excited to do some real planning and making some more decisions. Bring on the wedding planning!

After a bit more shopping with them, I headed to Jeff's house. We eventually went over to our friend Lacey's house for a cookout and some hangout time! We had a great time sitting in the back yard, watching some of the kids play around and just all chatting with each other. By the time we got back to his house though, I was completely exhausted from the weekend! We put on an old episode of 'How I Met Your Mother,' and I barely made it through it before I finally went home for some much-needed sleep! Oh, and I also spent about six hours texting back and forth with my wedding twin, Kayla, and continue to find out that we have soooo much in common, it's kind of scary. So glad to have found each other in this giant blog-world, and to have made a great new friend!

It was another great weekend spent with family, friends and my fiance. The weather here in Florida should be staying warm from here on out, and hopefully we're done with these stupid cold snaps that keep creeping back in. I really do hope so - because I'm ready for sunshine and summertime! Hopefully we'll make it to the beach this coming weekend, because I could really go for some sand and salty air :)

How were y'all's weekends? Hopefully you enjoyed yours as much as I enjoyed mine! And remember - let's try to have a more positive outlook about Monday, and see if it helps us have a better day today! Happy Monday ladies!

Linking up today with Covered in Grace, Sami's Shenanigans and Synfully Delicious.

Pizza: My Skinnier Recipe Options

First of all, we all know by now that I'm on a weight loss journey to become more fit and more healthy. And I'm really loving how hard I've been pushing myself and all that I've accomplished so far. (In case you're new around here, you can read my entire weight loss story up 'til January HERE, and read all my weight loss posts in general HERE.)

But despite all of that, and how healthy I try to eat about 85% of the time, there are most definitely still times where I crave my "fat-girl" food. Things like pasta (duh), bread of any kind, sweets, chocolate and of course pizza. So I've been trying to find ways to satisfy some of these cravings, without loading myself up with tons of carbs, sodium and fat. I definitely can't order a pizza, or buy a frozen one, because those are never healthy. So I need to handle it myself, and I've found two great ways to satisfy my pizza cravings, and still eat healthy-ish! :)

The first option, is a pizza quesadilla! We made these last Friday night for our dinner, and I absolutely looooved it. And so did Jeff. And it was super simple, of course. Because that's really the only way I like to cook...You may or may not remember way back last fall sometime, I shared our special recipe for Popeye's Pizza? Well, I used those same ingredients (minus the mushrooms because Jeff can't eat them), but put it in a quesadilla instead of on a pizza crust. So here's the run down of the ingredients, and the calorie count, based on MyFitnessPal:

And guys, this is soo easy to make. Start by heating a large skillet, and when it's hot, add in about a tablespoon of olive oil to coat the pan. Throw in all the sun dried tomatoes first (we used about half of the bag they come in), let them sit for a minute or so, then add in a handful of spinach. Stir while sauteing, until spinach is completely wilted, then add in another big handful. (This will be enough to fill two large quesadilla's, for two people. That's why the MFP says only 1 cup of spinach per serving.) Once all the spinach is wilted, put aside in a bowl.

Lay out two tortillas, and spread a generous helping of the sauce on each one. (We used about 1/4 cup on each one, since that was the serving size on the jar.) Then divide up your spinach and sun dried tomato mix between the two tortillas, spreading it all out. Lay as many pepperoni's on each one as you would like! (Again we did the serving size.) Then top each one with 1/4 cup of shredded, fat free mozzarella cheese!

Spray your same skillet with some cooking spray, and then very carefully transfer one of the loaded-up tortillas to your skillet, then throw another plain tortilla on top of it to finish it up! Let it hang out in the skillet for about 4-5 minutes, then flip the entire thing. (We found the best method for flipping it was to hold a lid on top of the skillet, flipping the whole thing over so that the pizza is transferred to the lid, then sliding it back down into the skillet on the other side. Thanks to Jeff's mama for that tip!)

Leave it in there for another 3-4 minutes (the second side takes a little less time), then slide the whole thing back onto your plate. Use a pizza cutter to slice it into four triangles, and then gobble it up!

We each had our own quesadilla pizza, and we had actually made a third (with just sauce, cheese and pepperoni), to split in case we were still hungry. But these were super filling. In fact, I probably should have stopped after three pieces of mine and could have been pretty full, but I liked it so much I ate the whole thing. But at just 575 calories for the entire quesadilla, it was a super filling meal, that tasted great! We never ate the extra one, but I'm thinking I should for my lunch today...

With this kind of quesadilla pizza, you can change it up to make it your own, and put whatever you want inside of it. If think you don't like spinach though - I still say you should try it. It doesn't have too much flavor on it's own this way, but it's good for you, so give it a chance. What kind of stuff would you fill your quesadilla pizza with? We definitely want to try out some more options with this, so give me some new ideas!

And then the second pizza option I found, is even easier than the first, and tastes just as yummy. I just use one Arnold Sandwich Thin to make two mini pizzas! Start by putting the bread in the toaster just long enough to get it a little crispy, and turn your oven on broil. Line a small baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil (this just makes for super easy "clean up"), and then place the bread on that. Spread about a tablespoon or so of the sauce on each piece of bread, then lay out the pepperoni's, and top with cheese. Put baking sheet in the oven under the broiler for about 5 minutes, just so everything gets warm and the cheese gets melty!

The MFP screen shot and the pizzas above are with the same sauce we used for the quesadilla pizzas from last week, and it's delicious. But I made these mini pizzas again last night for my dinner, and I used just regular spaghetti/marinara sauce, and that was super yummy too, and a few less calories as well. The pictures above were from my lunch the other day, and with one tiny cutie clementine and a fat free light yogurt, it was a grand total of 415 calories. And I was full for hours. And it tasted delicious!

So these are two options I've come up with so far that satisfy my cravings for the wonderfulness of pizza that is bread, cheese and sauciness. But these options don't overload me with unhealthiness and tons of calories. Definitely glad I figured out these options! :)

What are some of your favorite "skinny" recipes? Either for pizza, or something completely different!? I'm constantly pinning new Healthy Yummies, and of course I've love some more to check out, especially if they have been tested and approved by y'all! I'd love to hear some of your favorites!

And since I got the ideas for these from Pinterest, I'm linking up with Katie and Stephanie for "Saw it. Pinned it. Did it."

Pinterest Re-Pin it Party & Link Up!

Your Host:

Agape Love Designs

Co-Hosts:

 A Royal Daughter

A Proverbs 31 Wife

Penguins, Pasta & Polka Dots

We all know what a wonderful and helpful tool Pinterest can be to bring traffic to our blogs! So today Agape Love Designs, myself and several other awesome ladies have come together to host a Spread the LOVE Pinterest re-pin it party! If you have a fabulous blog post or item from your shop pinned to Pinterest that you would like re-pinned for more traffic and exposure, then you definitely want to get in on this link up! Each host will be re-pinning from those who link up, to help spread the love. :-)

Hey in case you're wondering, MY pin is number four down there in the link up, and it's some super yummy pizza! Seriously, this pizza is the jam, and it's not your usual run-of-the-mill cheese or pepperoni. There's some surprises! So check out my pizza recipe, as well as the amazing pins from the other co-hosts as well!

Before you link up, please abide the following rules:

RULES

1. Re-Pin Each of the Hosts' pins.
(They will be the first 4 link-ups)

2. Link up the PINTEREST url of what you would like to have re-pinned! (limit 2)
(URL of Pin Example: http://pinterest.com/pin/5066618303100852/)

3. Re-pin the 4 link-ups before you!
(You are more than welcome to re-pin more if you would like to spread more love!
Leave a comment on the pin, that you're re-pinning from the party, & I'm sure they'll return the love!)

Post-Pledge: The Final Recap

As of this morning, I'm considering my 25 Before 25 Pledge list officially over. Tomorrow I will be 25 years old, and it's time to move on! I have created a new list of 30 Before 30, which is full of all sorts of things. Some are small, some are quite huge, but I'm excited about them all. (Those will be posted later this week.) But for this post, I want to do a recap of how things went for my 25 Before 25 goals!

Pinteresting Choices

Today will be my first link up with Michelle from The Vintage Apple, for "Oh, How Pinteresting!" Today, and yesterday as well for that matter, I'm feeling completely inspired by delicious food and recipes!

I have about a bajillion food pins on my Pinterest, and it's sometimes overwhelming knowing which one I actually feel like making. For one thing, I don't even keep it all on one central food board (the way some others, like my Mama do), I separate it all into a couple of categorized boards so it's easier to find a specific kind of thing later. For example, some of my food boards are: Pasta Is My Favorite, Breakfast at Halie's, Crockpot Craze, Yummies To Try, Healthy Yummies, Sweet Tooth and Cupcakes. And each of them have tons of pins. But at least I know I'll never be lacking in recipe inspiration!

So tomorrow night (Thursday) I'm cooking dinner for just my Mama, sister and myself, and so I'm looking for something relatively easy (well, that's kind of always my motto), and something that's not intended for an entire army. Here are a few of the things I'm considering, and I want your opinions - what do you think sounds/looks the best, and which one should I make?! Let me know below, and then I'll share later this week how it all turns out!

P.S. - I'm really feeling a crockpot meal, so that's what most of these are.

Crockpot Swiss Chicken Casserole

Originally from These Four No More, found on Pinterest here

Crockpot Cheesy Chicken

Originally from Food.com, found on Pinterest here

Buffalo Chicken Chili

Originally from ClosetCooking.com, found on Pinterest here

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

Originally from Heather's Bytes, found on Pinterest here

Crockpot "Gourmet" Angel Chicken

Originally from Loved & Lovely, on Pinterest here

So I'm thinking five recipes is plenty to choose from. We love chicken in our family (well I mean, who doesn't love chicken?!), so that's why there are so many chicken options here. I think each one of these sounds absolutely amazingly delicious, and I'll be excited to try whichever one of these I end up choosing. It's just such a hard choice! What do y'all think? Ever had any of these before, or made something similar yourselves? How did it turn out? Was it a repeater? Should I try it too?! Was that too many questions? ;)

For more Pinteresting blog posts, of all shapes, sizes and varieties, head over to The Vintage Apple to check out tons more links! And don't forget to tell me which option you think I should make for our little girls night dinner!

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Beans & Potatoes

Last night was another Pinterest recipe kind of night. I went over to Jeff's house, and made us this yummy meal! It was super easy, didn't include many ingredients, and tasted pretty good. (I will make changes next time, so look for those tips/suggestions at the end of the post...) So, HERE is the link to the original recipe from Real Simple, and I'm also going to lay it all on here too...

Picture via the Real Simple recipe link

Ingredients
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Lemon (1/2 sliced, 1/2 for juicing) {Recipe said 2, and that's what I used, but it was a bit too much}
Head of garlic (3 cloves diced, others whole)
6 tbsp. of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
Small onion, chopped (wasn't in recipe, but I added it in there)
Green beans (I used canned, but fresh would have been better)
Red potatoes (Quartered)
Salt and Pepper (S&P)

Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Coat baking dish with 1 tbsp. of EVOO.
Line bottom of dish with sliced lemons
Throw in a couple whole cloves of garlic
Combine: 5 tbsp. EVOO, 3 diced garlic cloves, lemon juice, and S&P
Add beans to oil mixture to coat, remove with tongs or slotted spoon and place over sliced lemons
Add potatoes to oil mixture to coat, remove with tongs or slotted spoon (I just grabbed with my hand)
Line outside rim of dish with potatoes, leaving center open for chicken
Throw in chopped onions
Add chicken to oil mixture to coat, place over beans
(Our chicken breasts were very thick, so we cut a long slit in the top of each of them, in order to cook better)
Pour any remaining oil mixture into the dish, and squeeze more lemon juice on top
Bake entire dish for 45-50 minutes
Serve!

OK - here's the deal with this recipe... Then beans and potatoes ended up soaking up most of the lemon flavor, and I thought the veggies were really yummy. (Jeff said they were "too lemon-y.") The chicken however remained a little bit too bland. We both used extra S&P after serving, and that helped a bit, but the chicken could still have used a bit more of something. 

Turns out other people thought so too, because when I went back and read the reviews this morning, that's pretty much what everyone had said. Too bad I didn't read them beforehand so I could have corrected the problem before I even knew there would be one! Oh well, I will definitely make some of these improvements next time. It was super easy to make, and tasty enough, so I'm sure I will make it again. I will just kick it up a notch in the future!

Suggestions
Easiest tip would be just sprinkle the whole dish with extra seasoning, i.e. oregano, basil, or an Italian blend
Marinate the chicken in oil mixture - I would have cut tiny slits in the chicken before marinating so it could absorb
Add some lemon pepper seasoning on top of the chicken
Spice it up a bit with some red pepper flakes on top of the chicken
Use a mix of dried thyme, rosemary and basil to add in the oil mixture

Basically - just use less lemon, and more herbs and spices, and I think that should do it!

Again, overall it was a good meal, and soo easy to make. It just needs a little bit of extra jazzing-up from the original recipe, and it would be a knockout one-pan-meal! Let me know if you try this, or what you might add to the dish to make it your own! I would love some extra suggestions for my next attempt :)

Plum Polish, Pinterest Recipes & More!

Guys. It's OCTOBER! That kind of snuck up on us and came out of nowhere! Am I right?! At least I ended the month of September with a pretty great weekend. :) So here's a few of the things that made up my weekend.... although it seems like the only things I took pictures of was food, so that kind of stinks :( But I assure you - I did actually do more than just eat all weekend, even though that's exactly what it looks like I did...

Anyways, last Thursday, (even though that wasn't quite the weekend yet but I didn't blog about it last week...) I painted my nails, and this is absolutely my most favoritest mani I've given myself yet! I absolutely love the purple-y color, called Plum Seduction by Revlon. I actually just found this sitting on the bar in our dining room, and no one even knew who's it was! So I called dibs, obviously. And apparently this color is "all the rage" this fall, and everyone is all excited about this shade they're calling "ox blood." I'm more fashionable than I knew I guess... ;) But I also love the gray and the stripes (turned out way better than my first attempt at striping!). And just look at that little heart! It's so precious and I'm in love with it, and literally can't stop looking at it every ten minutes or so...

Then Friday night, Jeff's parents and Granny took us out to eat for dinner, and treated us to a fancy meal at Outback! They had a coupon for a free bloomin' onion, so of course we got that to share. Then for our meals, we did this awesome deal of a 4-course meal for only $15, and it truly was a great deal. I could NOT eat it all, and what a great price! I got a small cup of clam chowder with a wedge salad (this salad was so super amazingly delicious!) to start with. Then a 6 oz. steak with garlic mashed potatoes - that I scarfed up once again before remembering to take a picture, of course. And we got cheesecake to-go, with raspberry and chocolate sauces for topping - which I also forgot to photograph. It was all so yummy, and we had a nice time with them, and it was such a special treat!

Then after dinner, Jeff and I had planned on going bowling, but we were way too stuffed and didn't think we could stand, much less do the tiniest bit of "physical activity" at the bowling alley, so we just went back to his house and watched about six episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" instead! Such a funny show :)

So Saturday morning, we had to make up for our giant dinner from Friday night, so we went out to the St. Mark's Trail for a bike ride! We had planned on doing about 10 miles, but we decided while we were out there that we were going to push it a whole lot more. So we ended up riding 16.75 miles Saturday morning, and it felt great! (Click HERE to check it out on my RunKeeper profile.) It took us about an hour and 15 minutes, which was a pretty great pace. So close to my goal of "Ride the entire 16 mile trail at St. Mark's" by my birthday! So next time, we'll take two cars to park at both ends (because I'm quite sure I can't ride the whole thing there and back...), and I'll ride the whole trail from one end to the other! Then I'll get to mark through another goal :)

The Saturday afternoon we got some Chick-fil-A nuggets and chocolate milk for some protein recovery, and wandered around Target picking up a few things each of us needed. That afternoon I made THREE Pinterest recipes (although one was a definite fail) for our FSU football game watching party (which I will share the recipes for 2 of them later, maybe), and stayed home with my family watching the game in our Garnet & Gold. And we killed USF! We are now 5-0, and holding strong. Go Noles! :) Also, Saturday was my Mama's birthday, so we gave her presents and my sister made a cake, and we enjoyed celebrating another year of her life!

Cowboy Caviar. So yummy and relatively "healthy" as well, since it's mainly veggies!

Pepperoni Pizza Cupcakes. Delish. I mean, it's just a mini pizza, so what's not to love?!

Then afterwards we met up with my friend Sara at a Mexican restaurant for her to eat dinner, but there was a birthday party or something happening, so we kind of got booted out. Luckily by the time the party started she was done eating, so then we hung out at her house for a while, just watching shows and laughing and having fun!

Sunday morning was a big celebration day at my church and we had a good time all together. We had one church service instead of two, and it was fun having everyone together. Then we had a giant dinner-on-the-grounds kind of event for lunch time, which was yummy and fun. My family sat with another family we've been friends with forever, The Clemen-fields (mixture of Clements & Whitfield), and we had so much fun together! Sunday afternoon I did some errands with Jeff, and came home to make dessert for my my Mama's big family birthday party out at my Grandparent's house. So this makes Pinterest recipe #4 for the weekend! These also turned out great, but I baked them a little too long, so next time I'll need to take them out of the oven earlier. Oh well! 

"Slutty Brownies" - sorry for the blurry picture...

Then we went back over to Sara's house, because she unexpectedly got a new dog yesterday (Fo' free!), so of course we had to go over and see her! She got a two-year-old pit bull/boxer mix, and she's the sweetest dog! She saved her from some idiots who were tired of her and going to hurt her, so it's a great situation for both her and the doggie!

So see, a great and fun and busy weekend to round off September, and welcome in October. Hopefully Florida weather will realize what month it is, and chill out with all this humidity and heat nonsense. I'm ready to enjoy the crisp, cooler weather again, but it's kind of difficult right now! Hope you're all having a good Monday, and a great start to your week, and your month!

And today, I'm linking up with my usual bloggy ladies for our weekend recaps, and Mani Monday! Those ladies are: Sami's Shenanigan's, Covered in Grace, Synfully Delicious, Life on Leroy and Glitter & Gloss.