Dr Oz...You better not be messing with me

I came across this swimsuit slimdown tip and thought, now THAT sounds easy.  All you have to do is pour a couple of ingredients into a cup and drink it before each meal. 

Here is what you will need:

-1 cup grapefruit juice
-2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
-1 tablespoon honey if the first two ingredients prove to be too tart for you, which they will be.

I found that if you put a bunch of ice cubes in your drink and let them melt for a little bit, it's not so bad.  This is a line from the website..."Drink Dr. Oz’s secret slimdown drink before every meal and you’ll literally burn away your fat while enjoying a citrusy delight."  That my friends, is a crock of shit.  It may burn away your fat but it is not a citrusy DELIGHT.  No maam.  I will say it gets easier every time you drink it though.

Happy fat burning!

Highs and Lows of the Week

Highs and Lows of the Week:

• Received some heart wrenching news about a dear, inspiring woman.
• Cut out of work early on Friday and went on a weekend trip to Duluth with friends.
• Celebrated my joyful nephew’s 7^th birthday.  Kid you not, the kid would get excited about new underwear.  He is so sweet.
• Hung wall décor
• Said farewell to work computer number 2.  If my new one decides to go to computer heaven I will start to feel offended. 
• Had my former roommates (two of my greatest friends) over for a roomie reunion and dinner (baked ziti recipe below)
• Got to see my former roommate’s growing baby belly.  I cannot wait to meet my newest niece/nephew. Eeeeeek!
• Watched Ellen which is the highlight of my day and it always makes me laugh AND cry (Um, did anyone watch it yesterday? Lordy, waterworks over here) Check out the emotional meeting here!
• Had great seats at the Wild game last night, thanks to our friend Mike.

While looking back at the highlights/low points of the past week I’m reminded to never take life for granted.  I laughed my ass off in the past week, cried my eyes out, thanked God, and the next day found myself asking Him why terrible things happen to good (the best) people.  Some things I will just never understand but  I’ll continue to be thankful for the people I have in my life and for the life He has blessed me with. 

And now for the dinner I fed my roomies, everyone always loves it...

Baked Ziti

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. (box) dry ziti
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 lb. lean ground beef (we've also done Italian sausage and ground turkey)
• 2 jars spaghetti sauce-24 oz each
• 1 package provolone cheese slices
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• 6 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 tbs. grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Butter 9x13 baking dish, set aside
• Cook pasta, drain
• In large skillet brown onion and ground beef over medium heat
• Add spaghetti sauce

To assemble, layer as follows:

• Half of ziti noodles
• All provolone cheese
• All sour cream
• Half of meat sauce
• Remaining ziti
• All mozzarella cheese
• Remaining meat sauce
• Top with parmesan cheese

Bake for 30 minutes or until cheeses are melted, let stand for 10 min. 

Enjoy!

I have the best friends and family in the world. Period.

As I mentioned a few posts back, we moved over Christmas break.  We were still wrapping things up and getting things ready at the town home for renters to move in on my birthday which was the 29th.  I had had ENOUGH and was at my wits end.  I was over keeping my happy face on and the last thing I wanted to be doing on my birthday was scrubbing floors and windows.  I was basically on the verge of tears all day and just pissed off.  

Birthday Story

Part 1: We had to make a stop at my parent's house to drop some things off when my mom asked if we were going to at least go to dinner that night for my birthday.  Kyle's response:  "I don't even know if we'll have time"  Excuse me? To which I replied "Well I'm going out to celebrate with or without you"  Kyle then broke into laughter and what did I do?  Stared at him, why the hell are you laughing?  I'm. Not. Kidding. 

Part 2: We head to our new place to start unpacking things.  It's about 6:30 and I mention that if we're going to dinner we better check availability at places since it is a Saturday night.  Kyle "calls" one of our favorite Italian restaurants near by us and magically they have availability at 7:15.  How convenient.  I hussle to look presentable and we head out.   Kyle tells the host that we have a reservation under Kyle, that's strange?  When he called he made the reservation under his last name. Oh well. I'm starving, give me food.  We have an amazing dinner and start our walk to a nearby bar where my sister and one of my friends are meeting us.  I stopped telling people to come out because they all were saying they already had plans. My thoughts? You all suck.

Part 3:  Walk into the bar, Kyle leads me to the bar where I look to my left and see everyone. I mean EVERYONE.  All my closest friends, and my family.  What the eff?  Ah yes, my friend's who I thought all sucked earlier in the evening and my sneaky boyfriend who didn't think we would have time for dinner had planned a surprise party for me.  Alright, you guys don't suck so bad anymore.  SNEAKY LITTLE DEVILS, I TELL YA!  That would explain why Kyle thought it was funny that I said I was going out with or without him and also the reason behind our restaurant magically having a reservation available last minute.  He totally faked that call. Below are the pictures I snapped. Obviously wasn't planning on this being a huge event so I didn't bring my actual camera...

I'm missing some people that were there. FRIENDS-If you have photos, send to me!

My cake-According to the candles I just turned 18 ;)

I'm so very thankful for Kyle, my friends, and my family.  I actually felt embarrassed and silly that that was all for ME, I am one lucky girl.  Love you all!

Rewind: Christmas 2012

I absolutely hate the feeling of not being caught up on my blog right now.  So many fun and big events happened in the last 2 weeks and I want to make sure I document them, if not for your reading then for my own documentation. This blog has become a major extension of my calendar that I keep in my purse.  I put upcoming appointments, dates with friends, and other upcoming events in my phone but in my purse calendar I write down what I do every day/night.  It sounds nuts but I've been doing it since high school and I don't think I can stop now.  It actually has come in handy when we can't remember what the great new restaurant was called that we tried and I'm able to pull out my handy calendar to see what I wrote down.  Boom! With that being said, Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday and I'd kick myself if I never documented it, even if it is weeks later:)

We had Christmas Eve brunch with Kyle's family and it was the perfect day.  We left mid afternoon to go to church and it was amazing.  We didn't have huge plans for the evening besides making dinner, opening the gifts we got each other, and having some Bailey's on the rocks...Check out one of the gifts Kyle got for me...some people may call it nerdy but I love the idea of collecting these over the years and being able to share with my future bambinos the story behind each one.

The PERFECT one to start with, a wine and spirits store.  What can I say, we're young, don't have children yet and like to enjoy a glass of wine every night once in awhile.

On Christmas Day we went to my parent's house.  We ate too much, drank peppermint martinis, opened gifts, and played my mom's new Wii

Some of our nephews and our one niece on Christmas

                                      
I'm now realizing I'm a terrible daughter and sister.  No Christmas pics of my parents or siblings.  Swear I love yas!  Goal #1 of 2013: Carry my actual camera with me more often and stop using iPhone camera.

Up Next...My Surprise Birthday Party!

Easy Monkey Bread

I made this recipe for Christmas Eve brunch and it was so easy, so good, and so addicting.  This is definitely going to stay in the recipe book and be my go to for future brunch get togethers or just random Saturday mornings.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans buttermilk biscuits
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 stick of butter

(I was going to insert picture here of ingredients and finished product but lets just say blogger is on my shit list)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Cut each biscuit into fourths(uncooked)
• Shake biscuits in a bag with cinnamon and sugar
• Layer biscuits in a greased 9x13 pan
• Melt butter and brown sugar and boil for 1 minute
• Pour over biscuits
• Bake for 22 minutes
• Let cool for 5 minutes 

Enjoy!

Holiday party, good food, and the cutest picture ever

First I'll start by addressing the post I made a couple of weeks back about the amazing scents going on in our house. Wild rice soup and beer bread, and the fact that it was the easiest meal ever makes it that much better.  I recently went to a Tastefully Simple party where we were able to try a lot of their products, all of which I can honestly say tasted great.  I ended up ordering the beer bread, wild rice soup, and jalapeno jam.  Kyle and I had the soup and bread for dinner PLUS I had the soup twice as leftovers and ate the leftover bread all week.  It tastes just as good as leftovers and it clearly makes quite a few servings.  Then there's the jalapeno jam.  Oh. My. Word.  I spread some over a block of cream cheese for a party appetizer and dipped Wheat Thins in that.  I also snacked on just crackers dipped in the jam all week and it was equally as good.  Such an easy (addicting), snack.  I'm going to order more of the jam and some other dips they have to just keep on hand for company that comes over or to bring to parties.  



Any carbonated beverage will work for the bread if you don't have beer

 


So easy and so good

 

I decided I'm going to have three parts to this post because I need to do some major catch-up.

This was the first year we didn't have our holiday party (tear) but I'm so glad now that I decided to skip this year.  With Christmas, a month full of birthdays, and moving (oh yeah, we've moved, more to come on that later:))  it would have been damn near impossible.  Needless to say, I'm glad other people hosted holiday parties this year and we were able to just show up with an appetizer in hand and have a good time!  Here are a few pictures from a holiday party we went to before Christmas...



Oh yeah, you better believe we have a full bin of holiday dress-up. I chose reindeer for this night.





The host





Santa must have had a rough year...





Ladies love Santa, who knew?






Santa and our lovely hostess

 




Me with the hostess



And for the grand finale of this post...our sweet girl meditating.  

       

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!