Crazy Promposal

My sister's boyfriend is a very talented musician. Last year, before he was her boyfriend, he planned and carried out a very sweet "promposal" to my sister for their junior prom. This year, for senior prom, it had to be bigger and better. He gathered a large group of his musical friends and had them fill out surveys to ensure they were truly committed to the project. From October to March, he held 25 practice sessions (at his house; his parents are saints). He had teachers and administrators involved to ensure that nothing was going to mess it up since he was doing it during a class. And here it is:

Recipe: Chicken Cordon Bleu...evolved

It's been awhile. I actually have two other drafts sitting here that I never finished/published. My bad.

I am not really big on cooking. Josh is a way better cook than I am, so I prefer that he do the cooking. However, he does it for a living, so he doesn't really want to come home and do it some more.

My favorite thing to make is Chicken Cordon Bleu. It is so, so simple to make and it is absolutely delicious. But I also like to change things up a bit. I have made all kinds of changes to my trusty Chicken Cordon  Bleu recipe, and here's the latest evolution.

Sorry for the crappy picture. I should have used my camera, not my phone. I am ashamed to say those mashed potatoes came from a box, also.

For each person/serving you will need:

1 Chicken Breast

2 Pieces of Turkey Bacon (you can use pork if you want)

2 Slices of Provolone Cheese (or Swiss, or whatever kind of cheese you prefer)

Salt

Pepper

2 Toothpicks

First you'll want to preheat your oven to 350F. Next, take each of your chicken breasts and pound them so they are an even thickness. The thinner the better. I usually shoot for about 1/4 inch. Salt and pepper both sides. Place two pieces of cheese on top of the chicken breast. You'll want to put them next to each other. They can be overlapping; you just don't want them perfectly on top of one another. Place a piece of bacon on top of the cheese. Now take the whole thing and roll it up like a sleeping bag. You'll probably have to hold the cheese and bacon in place while you roll. Stick one toothpick in to help hold it together while you wrap the other piece of bacon around the outside. Stick the other toothpick in through the bacon to hold it in place. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the chicken reaches 165F. You can also throw another slice of cheese on top for the last few minutes if you like it extra cheesy. :)

New hair for a new season?

I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I did something pretty drastic to my hair. Well, for me, it isn't drastic at all. When I was in high school, I had a mohawk. I had my hair half black and half white like Cruella de Vil. It was blue, green, purple and pink. I've had it blonde with a layer of blue and a layer of purple. At this point, it would be difficult for me to do anything drastic. But compared to my current, almost-natural state, it would be a big change.

It looked similar to this:

I didn't have dark roots, and the purple was much, much lighter. But this was the closest thing I could find. The cut is spot on to what I had in my dream, but I will not be cutting my hair again any time soon. The only real difference is the bangs. My "bangs" are actually the longest part of my hair right now and are chin-length.

As much as I would love to do a darker purple like this, for the sake of my job, I think I need to be a lot more subtle about it. More like this:

To the point where if you're not in the right light, you can't be sure you're seeing what you think you're seeing. To be honest, I'm not positive my boss would even appreciate something this subtle. but it would be super easy to get rid of if it was a problem.

We'll see. I want to give it a lot more thought than I gave the pixie cut because that did not make me a happy lady. Lol. I had told myself I wasn't going to dye my hair anymore for a couple of reasons. And this look would be super hard to keep up with. I have done platinum before, and let me tell you, I did not keep it long.

It's also semi-difficult to keep it actually platinum and not yellow. It wasn't quite platinum in this picture, but it's the only one I could find.

So, like I said...I'll be thinking about it. It's better for a spring/summer look anyway!

A South Carolina Ice Storm

Toward the end of last week and over the weekend, the weather reporters were telling us that we were going to get a nice snow storm. Then the report turned into "more snow than ice." Then it turned into just ice. And finally, it turned into rain.

Well, it wasn't rain. And it definitely wasn't snow. It was a nasty ice storm. In the 18 years I lived in PA, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. Maybe it's one of those special things about the South. :X

It looks like snow, doesn't it? Well, it's not. It is ice. A bunch of little balls of ice fell from the sky and piled up everywhere. Then it did, in fact, turn to rain, which froze almost immediately upon hitting the ground. Solid ice. Everywhere. You should have seen my poor dog trying to go out to go potty!

The trees sure did look pretty the next day, though.

And I didn't have to go to work until 12:30, which is always nice!!

A New Home for Our Shoes...

While we don't have a strict "no shoes in the house" rule, we do try to take our shoes off when we come in the door. If it rains even a little, our whole yard turns into a giant mud puddle because we're at the bottom of the hill. So we just try to make a habit of it. Our guests typically see our shoes by the door and follow suit by kicking theirs off too. But we aren't going to yell at you if you don't, unlike some other people *cough* my mother-in-law.

Right now, we just have a little rug by the door. It is little, and you can only fit maybe three pairs of shoes on it. Josh and I both like to keep a pair of moccasins by the door for those times when you just want to run out to check the mail or get something out of your car. So there's really no room for the shoes we need to take off when we come in. Plus the rug always gets all bunched up, and it doesn't look nice.

I've been eyeing entryway benches like these:

What I do not love about them is their price tags!! It seems like all of the ones I really love are $200+, and I just can't justify that. The ones that are more reasonably priced ($50-$60) are all made of compressed wood, and I won't even bother with that for furniture that's likely going to get abused. I'll stick with my ugly little rug, thank you very much.

It seems like an easy enough thing to DIY, but I just cannot seem to find a plan that I really like! It should be simple enough to make my own plan, honestly, but I just really don't have those skills. I am determined to find one, though!

you're gonna grin and bear it, your new-found popularity

A No 'Poo Update

Day 6: I made it through the day. I don't think it really looked bad, but I was super self-conscious about it. I washed it when I got home from work and felt a whole lot better.

Day 7: I wanted to quit so bad. It's Friday. It's the weekend. I just wanted to take a nice relaxing shower and wash my hair with shampoo. I wasn't even supposed to wash my hair again until tomorrow morning, so instead of letting myself cheat with shampoo, I let myself cheat by washing my hair (with baking soda and vinegar) on what was supposed to be an off day. Once again, I let it dry naturally, and it was dried out and frizzy later.

Day 8: Didn't wash. I think I finally got the water:vinegar ratio right because it didn't feel at all greasy. Still very weird, but not weird/greasy. (I know; I'm super descriptive!)

Day 9: I could have made it to 48 hours but I had to leave to go to Wicked, so it was about 42 hours. It was just about at the point of needing to be washed, but not quite. I blow dried it. It was still a lot flatter than I'm used to, but again, not a problem for me. I think for the first time since I started the no 'poo, it looked shiny and...normal? (aside from the flatness)

Day 10: It probably would have been fine until the next morning, but I caved and washed it after a little more than 24 hours. I just can't get past this weird texture, and the only time it doesn't feel weird is the first few hours after I wash it.

Day 11: I washed it again. It looks weird. Not greasy, but not the way I'm used to it looking. It reminds me very much of straw in both looks and texture. Dry, but kind of soft. Shiny but not greasy. I was warned that this might happen. I was warned that it could take days or even weeks to complete the transition and be normal. At day 11, it doesn't seem to be any closer to normal, and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it. While I'm all about a chemical-free lifestyle, the bigger appeal to me was having to wash my hair less frequently. I already mentioned how it's super thick. It takes forever to dry. That's a big part of the reason I got it cut so short, but that didn't even help that much. If I'm having to wash my hair just as much only now I'm super self-conscious between washes, is it worth it?

Day 12: I washed.....with shampoo.

A lot of people suggested wearing your hair pulled back for the first couple of weeks while you go through the transition. This way if your hair does get greasy, or if it doesn't look quite the way you're used to, no one will really notice. My hair is still very much in recovery from the pixie cut that I got in October. I've got a ways to go before I can even think about pulling my hair back. Maybe in six months I'll give it another go. Maybe I won't.

Josh wasn't on board to begin with, but after a few days he realized it wasn't so bad. When I got out of the shower, I told him what I'd done. At first he pretended to be disappointed with me, but then he said, "I'm kind of glad because your hair felt pretty disgusting this morning." I had washed it the night before at around 7, and it already felt disgusting by 6 the next morning. It wasn't just me. It really was disgusting. Nobody wants that.

don't ever forget all the sleepless nights where we stayed up late until the sun would rise

So, what's been going on in my life since November?!

Let's see...

We went to Clemson's Military Appreciation football game:

There was Thanksgiving and Black Friday:

I finally bought myself a stand mixer, and I am in love with it:

Josh and I visited the Biltmore Estate:

As well as the Grove Park Inn:

And there was Christmas:

My sister and I celebrated together 700 miles apart in our matching pajamas:

Ella pretty much lived under the tree:

And then it was New Years Eve, and we got to celebrate together:

I got this really awesome tattoo for Christmas. All I knew (and asked for) was that it was going to be Little Mermaid. Josh went and talked to the tattoo artist and I didn't see it until it was time to get tattooed! It is so perfect, and I love it.

And this past Sunday, I got to go see Wicked with my mom...the last of my Christmas presents.

Exciting stuff!

kiss me goodbye; i'm defying gravity

Wow. Almost three months.

I made a New Years resolution to get back to blogging regularly. January came and went. Seriously, where did it go?! The groundhog has seen his shadow, and we're in for six more weeks of winter. Of course, here in upstate South Carolina, we haven't had much of a winter. It's been in the 50's lately, and it's even supposed to get up to 64 on Sunday. I'm not a fan of this weather in January/February, but what can you do?

So I've been curious about this whole "no 'poo" thing that's been going on for awhile now. I never had any interest in trying it. I like my shampoo. I like the way my hair smells after I wash it with shampoo. I also had a very difficult time believing that my hair wouldn't smell like vinegar if I rinsed it with vinegar. Then a couple of weeks ago, someone posted all the benefits of just doing a regular apple cider vinegar rinse - not in relation to no 'poo. One of them was that it gets rid of dandruff. I don't like to use dandruff shampoo often, and I find that if I don't use it every day, it doesn't control my dandruff to my satisfaction. So I thought I'd give it a try. I washed my hair with shampoo and rinsed with the acv. Lo and behold, my scalp was a whole lot less flaky than it was before. And my hair didn't smell like vinegar, either.

I decided to give no 'poo a try. Just for a month. Let me clarify - I'm not going the no washing your hair at all route. I'm going the wash with baking soda, condition with acv route. Everything I've read said that it makes your hair healthier and happier, you'll need to wash it less, etc, etc, benefits, benefits, benefits. My hair doesn't seem to fit any kind of common mold. I read that people with thick hair generally have to wash it less often because it just doesn't get greasy. I don't know anyone who has thicker hair than I do, and I cannot go more than 36 hours without washing it. Beyond 36 hours, it looks like it hasn't been washed in months. So just to err on the side of caution, I wash it every day, which you aren't supposed to do.

I am hoping that going no 'poo will allow me to wash it less often. Everyone claims this will be the case, but again, my hair doesn't seem to be "normal." I've switched to washing it every 36 hours instead of every 24, in hopes that that will help as well. Here's how it's gone so far.

Day 1: Washed in the evening. I let it dry on its own, and afterwards it felt very dry. (As in, not moisturized.)
Day 2: Did not wash. My hair was already greasy when I woke up, but it was Sunday and I had no plans, so I let it be.
Day 3: Washed in the morning. Blow dried it. By the time I went to bed, it had started to feel greasy.
Day 4: When I woke up, it felt greasy but didn't look like it? Washed in the evening. Let it dry on its own.
Day 5: Did not wash. My hair felt greasy but did not look like it.

I'm wondering if on days 3-5, I was just feeling a texture that is new and different to me. It feels greasy, but not the way it normally feels when it's greasy? It's strange and difficult to explain. It looks dry (again, in the sense of opposite of moisturized, not the opposite of wet). My hair has also been extremely flat. To be honest, this isn't a problem for me because I am always struggling with my excessive volume.

I've already added more water to my water/vinegar solution. I think I will try diluting the vinegar even more, and if that doesn't help, I'll switch to white vinegar. So far, I'm not liking this at all, but everyone says the first few days or weeks can be a rough transition. We'll see!

Today is day 6, and I intended to wash it this morning. However, it looked okay to me.

It's not a great picture of my actual hair, but it's the best I could do. So I decided to push it to tonight. Hopefully I don't regret that decision!

Ipsy: Month 3

I've really been sucking big time with this blog. I just really haven't had anything worth blogging about lately!

So yesterday, I got my Ipsy glam bag. This is my third Ipsy bag, and so far, I am not impressed. Don't get me wrong; I am getting to try new products that I might not try on my own, cheaper than I would pay in a store. But I'm also getting products that I'll never use. If you don't know anything about Ipsy (or subscription services in general) the first thing they make you do is take a quiz about your interests. They ask you what types of makeup you like (eyeshadow, eyeliner, foundation, etc); what your style is like (classic, professional, edgy, etc.); what kind of beauty products you like (moisturizers, hair products, bath products, etc.) Then each month, they (Ipsy) send you 5 products based on your answers.

Except they aren't. I said that I'm not interested in eyeliner. (I have a ton already.) I've gotten eyeliner in 2/3 bags. I chose classic, professional, and natural for my styles. (I want makeup I can wear to work.) Last month they sent me dark purple lipstick; this month they sent me a deep purplish red lipstick. I said I am not interested in hair products. (Ever since I chopped my mop, I have been very picky about hair products. I've found the ones that allow me to style my hair in such a way that I don't want to cry every time I look in the mirror, and I am not interested in experimenting.) The first month I got a hair mask (my hair isn't damaged), the second month I got BB cream (wtf is hair BB cream?!) and this month I got hair spray (I don't need that).

They say that reviewing your products helps a lot, so I have been doing that. I'll give it a few more months, but if it doesn't improve, I'm not going to waste any more money on it. So here is this month's bag:

Look at my parents being creepers, peeking out from behind the bag.

I really like the bag itself. It's my favorite one yet. And the bags are something I will definitely use. So in the front, we have the Starlooks Gem Eye Pencil. I've never heard of Starlooks, but I can say that I tried it on the top of my hand this morning, and there is not a trace of it left this afternoon. Still, I really like it. It's glittery purple, so probably not something I would wear to work, but I am excited to try it out.

On the left is Marc Anthony Oil of Morocco Argan Oil Volume Shine Hairspray. Despite the excellent reviews it's been getting on Ipsy, I will probably pass this on to my sister without even trying it.

Next is the Temptu S/B Highlighter. I've never used a highlighter before, so I am excited but nervous to try it. Also, that bottle is so tiny, I'm afraid I'll lose it after using it once. Talk about sample. Dang.

Then there's the Be a Bombshell Eye Base. I had never heard of Be a Bombshell until my first Ipsy bag when I got the Smooth Criminal Powder. I'm not gonna lie; I don't 100% get the point of finishing powder, but I use it anyway, and I like it. Anyway, back to the eye base. Again, not 100% sure I understand it. I don't quite get if it's meant to be used instead of primer, or if you should still use primer or what. (Can you tell I suck at makeup? I watch Youtube tutorials when I want to see how to do a specific thing, but for the most part, I don't experiment, and I don't know or follow the popular beauty gurus.) Nonetheless, I used it instead of primer this morning (with my Naked Basics) and it seems to have worked well.

And finally, we have the J. Cat Beauty Wonder Lip Paint in "Red Potion." I have never heard of/used a lip paint before, and I made the mistake on squeezing it (slowly) out of the tube right onto my lips last night. In less than a second, my lips, my teeth, and my fingers were red. Turns out, you're supposed to use a brush or some sort of applicator. Whoops. The color isn't terrible, and I might wear it out somewhere if I can get the hang of it, but it just isn't something I'd feel comfortable wearing to work.

So that's my November Glam Bag - "Girl Meets Glitter." Here's hoping the next one suits me better!

adelaide, adelaide! you really had me goin' this time

I kept holding off on posting, thinking that I'd have something exciting to post, and it just hasn't happened! Dang!

Today I'm going to show you my dresser re-do. This dresser belonged to my grandfather before he married my grandmother. I'm guessing 1940s, maybe 50s...I don't know anything about furniture, so I couldn't say. It's solid wood and well-built, but it has laminate covering it. (It seems like they might not have made laminate furniture in the 40s and 50s, but I can only go by what my grandmother says.) Since it is possibly 70+ years old, it had a lot of blemishes. Scratches, dents, dings. The front of one of the drawers had a huge crack in it. This is not my area of expertise. I did the best I could in fixing all of these things, but the front of the drawer looks a little shoddy. Anyway. Here is the before.

I forgot to take a picture before I started messing with the crack in the drawer. :X

Here it is with the drawer pulls removed and holes filled in.

Look how grimy it is! That was after I cleaned it, too. I really had no idea it was that bad until I saw this picture!! So I started painting it and got some new knobs for it.

That one drawer is missing a knob because I forgot to drill the hole before I primed it, and then I forgot to do it after each coat dried. Haha. I wanted to make sure it was really dry so I didn't get any sawdust stuck in the paint. I also need to paint the base. I just didn't have time last night; I needed to get my clothes back in the drawers before I went to bed. And finally, I need to figure out a way to get the paint in all those crevices! It wouldn't be a big deal if it hadn't gone in any of them, but of course it went in some. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to go on the rest. Must have been force fields or something. So, not quite done, but almost there! It's still pretty ugly, but it's way better than before, for sure. This is just step one in my bedroom re-do project!

anniversary trip: part three

Day three - the last and best day of my trip. It was Magic Kingdom day. Magic Kingdom has always been my favorite of the Disney parks, and it's kind of embarrassing how excited I get over it.

Have you ever seen Kristen Bell's sloth meltdown? If not, you should.

This is me with Disney World. I am not kidding when I tell you that I started crying (although not hysterically like she did) when the characters showed up on the train before the gates opened.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's backup.

I wasn't able to order our park tickets until about 45 days out from our trip. With the new FastPass+ system, people who are staying in Disney resorts can reserve their fastpasses 60 days in advance. Everyone who had already bought their tickets had 15 days on me, and by the time I booked our FastPasses, there were no more for the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

Josh and I knew that if we didn't want to wait 80+ minutes in line (and we didn't) we had to be on the first bus to Magic Kingdom. They're supposed to start running one hour before the park opens. So we were in line for the bus at 7:30 when the park opened at 9. 

There were about 5 people ahead of us, but because we were wearing our anniversary buttons, they let us on first! How sweet! There were a bunch of people at the park before we were, but I'd say we were definitely in the first 100.

When we got in, A LOT of people had the same idea we did. I think probably 80% of the people who were there were headed to the Mine Train. Luckily, we were pretty dang close to the front of the line, and we waited less than 15 minutes, even with the technical difficulties they were experiencing when we got in line. Somehow this is the only picture we got haha.

Next we had a FastPass for Peter Pan's Flight. Somehow I have never been on this ride, and we both loved it!! Then we went to Enchanted Tales with Belle. This is definitely for little kids, but we had to see the enchanted mirror. Sadly, it wasn't as cool in real life as it was on the internet. But I'm still glad we did it.

We didn't get an invitation for a FastPass for lunch at Be Our Guest, but we decided to get in line early before they opened. I'm glad we did because hundreds of people got in line behind us, and I don't even want to think about how long they waited.

It was very cool. The food was amazing, and I am glad we got to experience it. But it's not necessarily something I feel like I need to do again, you know?

After lunch, we did Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Thunder Mountain, and Space Mountain. We tried really hard to stick to a route that made sense, but between FPs and wait times on the rides we didn't have them for, it just didn't work out that way.

When we got off Space Mountain, we decided to ride the train back over to Frontierland to get a good spot for the Festival of Fantasy parade. We got a really great spot, and then it started pouring. We waited anyway, and after sitting in the rain for 45 minutes, when it was time for the parade to start, they told us it was canceled. We were soaked and at that point annoyed. We'd already gotten pretty lucky with riding the rides we wanted, and we had Extra Magic Hours until 1am, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a bit to get dried off.

When we got back, we were able to check out all the fall/Halloween decorations on Main Street USA that we had missed in the morning due to the fact that we were focused on getting to Fantasyland as quickly as possible.

We decided to go take a nice ride on the steamboat, the Liberty Belle.

When we got done with that, we had enough time to head over to Buzz Lightyear before our dinner reservation.

It took less time than we expected, so we jumped on the People Mover.

We had reservations at the Plaza Restaurant on Main Street. So we went there, sat down, ordered drinks, ordered our food. We were sitting there having a nice conversation and enjoying the atmosphere, when the manager came out of the kitchen and said, "Everyone needs to get out of the dining room now." Everyone sort of stopped and looked at her, wondering if they'd really heard what they thought they heard. "Out! Get out! Now! Everyone out!" she yelled. Finally everyone realized that we were, in fact, being evacuated, so we all got up and walked outside. As soon as we got out, a bunch of security personnel ran in. We thought one of the cooks had killed someone or something, but then they came back outside, and they were all looking at the roof. We never figured out what happened, but they did write us a voucher for a free meal at a quick serve restaurant. We grabbed a bite at Cosmic Ray's. We even got free "cake" out of it!

Doesn't that thing look like it came out of an Easy Bake Oven or something?! It was pretty gross. When we were done there, we headed over to find a spot for Wishes.

I tried really hard to just watch the fireworks and not spend the whole time taking pictures, but I still took a lot. When the fireworks were over, we saw that Jungle Cruise had a 5 minute wait time. It was one of the few rides we hadn't gotten on that we wanted to, so we headed over there. Obviously everyone looked at the app after the fireworks and saw the 5 minute wait because by the time we got there, it was 45 minutes. Haha. We got in line anyway because we had the extra magic hours, and the only other thing we had missed was Splash Mountain. I'm not sure if it was even still open, but there was no way we were getting on it because it was starting to get chilly.

I've never been on Jungle Cruise at night/in the dark, and it was a totally different experience. It's almost less cheesy! Haha. We wandered over to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to check the wait one last time. It was still over an hour, and we didn't feel like waiting for it. We went and got our souvenirs and then headed to the bus.

And that's it! We went home the next morning. I'm already counting down the days until we go back to Orlando for our family reunion next July! Haha.