Everything Is Bigger In Texas: Part 2

Okay folks, lets dive in to May, shall we?

Several things happened in this month and a couple of them were life changing. Here we go. May 6th is my brother, Hunter's birthday so we celebrated by going to a Cubs game. Not just any Cubs Game.. A Cubs vs Braves game. Whoa. And we didn't sit in the stadium, we went to a rooftop bar by the stadium and it was honestly the coolest thing ever.

This picture was from before the game started but it shows the view that we had. I took a picture as the sun was setting but I can't find it anywhere. It was pretty though, trust.

My brother will always be more photogenic than I am and I will always hate him for it.

Then, my oldest brother, Brandon, graduated from Ole Miss.Colin had to work so Hunter, Nicole (Hunter's girlfriend) and I made the trip to MS for the big event.

While I was in MS, Colin called me and said he had been promoted and that we were moving to an extremely small town in West Texas. I think I died a thousand deaths. Then, he told me we were leaving Chicago in exactly a week. I didn't even get back to Chicago to start packing for another four days. I died another thousand deaths. And then I bought that pink purse that I am holding in the picture above. Retail. Therapy.

So I had a heart to heart with my 3 year old sister and I think she told me to get over myself and go with the flow. After she set me straight, I enjoyed the rest of my visit with my family and then went back to Chicago late Monday night, followed by work and packing on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Friday, at 8am, Colin, Mowgli, and I left Chicago. More on the move in the next post, part three.

Everything Is Bigger In Texas: Part 1

Okay. I am going to skip that whole introduction where I say "Wow, it has been so long since I have blogged, where has the time gone, blah blag blah."

I moved to Texas.

I know... WHAT?!

Hold your horses, I will get to that. Let's start back in March. First, I went to a wedding.

From Left to Right- Caleb (Colin's brother), Kayla (Caleb's Girlfriend), Me, and Colin(Making his supermodel face,)

That picture was taken at Brittany and Jason's wedding and I honestly don't think I have ever been happier to see two people get married. They are perfect for each other and I am so glad that Brittany is now part of the family. Like the Godfather. Except not.

Then... There was the cruise. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion celebrating the wedding but things never go exactly as planned, do they?

If you can't pick me out in this picture, I will thank my lucky stars. If you can, you're probably thinking "Man, she looks like death warmed over!". Well, that is because I FELT like death warmed over. Thursday before the cruise I went into the hospital for dehydration. Let me tell you, getting several IV bags of fluids is much more expensive than drinking a bottle of water. I reccommend the bottled water. That will spare you from a hospital gown and your husband taking an extremely unflattering picture of you in said gown and posting it on FB. Yes, that happened.

 Friday, Colin and I left Chicago and drive to St Louis, where his parents live. Saturday morning Colin, his parents, his brother, and I all loaded up and made the 18 hour drive to MS. The cruise left from New Orleans on Monday so we wanted to spend some time with our friends in MS before we headed out to sea.

That is where everything went wrong. See, on the drive to MS where we were all packed in a rental car, Colin's Dad had the flu. He was a trooper about it and even managed to help drive. But alas, Monday morninng, the morning of the cruise, Colin and I woke up with the very same flu. Yep, the entire cruise, Colin and I were laid up in our room praying for the ship to sink and put us out of our misery. We tried to enjoy it, going to port when we could and going to dinner every night. That is about all we could maage.

This picture was on formal night. You can't tell from the picture but I am holding on to Colin for dear life because I thought I was going to fall out any second and he is holding on to the rail so we both wouldn't fall.

 

Okay, That covers March. Nothing special happened in April so in the next post, we will skip straight to May and trust, that is where the interesting stuff happene. Stick around kids, this is a story for the ages, a tale as old as time, and other things like that. K? K.

Day 4- Update

Hellllooo,

In my last post I told you guys that I was going to try a vegan lifestyle for at least 30 days and that my biggest fear was lack of options when eating out. Since then, I have eaten out several times and haven't had a problem finding something delicious to eat.

Subway- Veggie Delight Sub on italian bread. I also used the Sweet Onion Sauce as my only condiment.
Noodles & Company- Whole Grain Tuscan Linguine- No cream or cheese and still delicious! I could eat this every day.
Buffalo Wild Wings- Black Bean Burger- No cheese. I was assured this didn't have animal products in it by the waitress.

Today, I am cooking at home so I can control the ingredients that go into my food.
All in all, so far so good. I haven't had a lot of trouble resisting Colin's food even though his Mac and Cheese from Noodles was pretty tempting. :)

The Kind Diet

For real, let's talk about this book. The Kind Diet was written by Alecia Silverstone and it is all about a vegan lifestyle. I read this book in one night. I was in a trance. Some of the things that she said about eating animal products really resonated with me and I have decided to try to eliminate most if no all animal products from my diet for at least 30 days.

I mean, I wouldn't eat this little guy... So why do I feel okay eating other animals? I have no idea but for the next 30 days I'm going to try to figure it out.

If I slip up every now and then, I am not going to beat myself up about it. This lifestyle is all about being kind to yourself, your body, the planet, and animals.

I have been interested in trying the vegan lifestyle for awhile now and I'm glad I am finally willing to take the plunge. The biggest challenge for me will definitely be the lack of options when I am eating out but most restaurants have vegan options now. Right now seems like the right time to jump so I am jumping, mmk?

I'll keep you posted!

Dr Suess Cake

Last month I hosted a baby shower for my amazing friend Erika who I have written about before. Just so you know, it is hard to host a baby shower in Mississippi when you live in Chicago... Just sayin'. I flew into MS on Thursday afternoon and the baby shower was on Saturday afternoon.. Stressful! In the end, it turned out just fine but I am not going to lie and tell you I was super calm in the days leading up to it. I wasn't. It was bad.

My friend Jamie and I finished this cake at 3:30am on Saturday morning. Thing 1 and Thing 2 and The Cat in The Hat are hand drawn onto the fondant and yes, that is a real goldfish. In a real fish bowl. We put the fish bowl on the cake right before the shower and took it off right before we cut the cake.

This is hands down my favorite cake that I have made. I love making cakes, it is definitely my passion but I can't do it without Jamie. She keeps me calm and brings me down to earth when I decide I want to put fireworks on a topsy-turvy cake or something else that is WAY past my experience level.

One day I am going to talk her into opening a bakery with me :)

I have more pictures of the shower itself that I will upload as soon as I can convince my Mom to send them to me since she took them on her camera.

Also, Happy Birthday to Erika's twins, Jaxon and James. They will make their grand entrance into the world in just a few hours!! I can't wait to meet them!

A Product Review, Acne, A Trip To Target, and Dry Hair.

Hello, Hello,

You can probably tell by the title of this post that it has nothing to do with baking. I mean, I am just as excited about baking everything pumpkin as the next girl but this girl has been busy. The past two days I have been super super deep cleaning my house. Honestly, I want my house so clean that I could eat off of the floor if I wanted to. Not that I would ever want to.

Colin worked today so of course I took a break from cleaning for my normal walk to Target and let me tell you, the weather could not have been more perfect. It was the kind of weather that makes me think that moving to Chicago was completely worth it. It as the kind of weather that we would have for 3 days in Mississippi. Sweater weather = Perfection.

Okay, since I promised a lot of things in the title, let's get started. A product review:

I feel pretty strongly about not buying cheap nail polish. In fact, if you look at my nail polish collection you will only find OPI and Essie... And this bottle. I'm not a snob, I am just willing to spend $8 on a bottle of polish because the quality is so superior. I only bought this brand because OPI and Essie were pretty cleared out at my Target for some reason and I desperately wanted a bright red nail polish. I have been wearing this a lot recently. Of course, you get what you pay for and since I only paid $3 for this polish it only lasts about 3 days before it starts chipping. However, I do like the color and I also like the brush. I didn't take a picture of the brush but the corners/ edges of it are rounded, making application easier.

I also promised that we would talk about acne so I guess we can dive into that now. I have been breaking out for the last few months and it is really getting on my nerves. I thought my face was to get better when I grew out of my teenage years. Instead, it is steadily getting worse. I have tried a few face cleansers but none of them are really delivering like I need them too. I know that I am going to have to break down and buy Purity by Philosophy again but I really want a drug store product to work. It is so much more convenient and inexpensive. I guess I should take my own advice from the paragraph above "you get what you pay for" huh?

This is what I bought tonight at Target. I have had my eye on the blending sponge ever since I saw it in a youtube beauty guru's video. I want to try it out and see if I waste half of my make up in the process. I also got Cover Girl TruBlend make up. I have never tried their foundation before so I hope it is pretty good quality. I am also going to give Neutrogena's Acne Stress Control Cleanser a try. I know several people that use this cleanser and like it so it is definitely my last resort before I go back to Purity or even Proactive. The container all of the way to the left is a Pantene hair treatment. My hair has been really dry lately so I am trying to kick that dryness to the curb!

Speaking of hair, I am going on a trip home next month and get to visit my genius of a hair stylist who I miss so so much.

Okay, I think that about wraps up this already really long post. I promise that I am going to bake soon but I hope you don't mind these types of posts either. I enjoy writing blog posts just to write blog posts and ever since my revelation, I feel like I can do it a lot more. :)

An Adventure: Learning to Cut/Use Coupons

I have been interested in couponing for awhile now but it always felt so overwhelming. Like, what stores accept what coupons and which coupons can be used together? The list of questions went on and on. Last Tuesday my boss and I somehow got on the subject of budgets. Now, my boss is a whiz when it comes to saving money and his wife cuts coupons every week- something I have always been jealous of. I was telling him how much money Colin and I have saved since we limited the amount of times that we eat out every week.

I am going to be very honest with you guys here... Thanks to Mint.com (if you don't have that app on your phone, GET IT, seriously) we realized that in 30 days we had spent just under a thousand dollars on fast food and eating out. I know, I know, that is ridiculous, I could feed a third world country for that amount, I have heard it all.

When I told my boss that, his mouth dropped and he called me names that aren't appropriate for my mother to read :) Just kidding, but he did say that was ridiculous and dumb. Agreed boss man, agreed.

When he told me that he feeds his family of four (Wife, Daughter (3) and Son (12 weeks) for about $50 every two weeks, I thought I had misheard him. That is impossible... right? I couldn't fathom how they could get diapers and formula for their son, pull ups for their daughter, and enough food to feed two adults and a toddler for two weeks for only $50.

His answer was simple: Coupons.

Now, I'm not looking for miracles and I know that it will probably take a lot of time to build up enough coupons to start seeing huge savings but if I can save even ten dollars, I should do it.. Right?

Today, I read tons of articles about how to coupon and they all pretty much say that same thing: Save your manufactures coupons until you can find a store coupon to go with it- or until it is about to expire. So basically all I was looking for today was a store coupon and a manufactures coupon that I could use together.

Here is what I found:

Jack's Pizza (Colin loves these for some reason)
Jewel-Osco- Save $2 when you buy 5
Manufactures- Save $1 when you buy 3
- Hoping that I can use the two together to get $3 off of 5 pizzas.

AquaFresh Toothpaste:
J-O- Save $1.30
Manufacture - $1.00 off any AF toothpaste
-Using the two together to get $2.30 off of 1 toothpaste.

Poise Feminine Pads:
J-O- $3.00 off 27-72 count Poise product
M- $1.00 off any Poise product
-Using the two together to get $4.00 off of one pack of Poise pads.

Tidy Cats Cat Litter:
J-O- $6.00 off of 27 lb box of cat litter
M- Save $1.00 on any Tidy Cats Litter purchase.
-Giving these to a friend who should be able to use the two together to get $7.00 off of a 27 lb box of cat litter.

Huggies Diapers
J-O- $1.50 off Huggies Big Pack Diapers, Pull ups, or Goodnights
M- $1.50 off of one package Huggies Diapers.
- I am giving these to my boss and his wife but they should be able to get $3.00 off of diapers when they use both of them.

Drugstore Deals: Walgreens


Colgate Optic White Toothpaste:
On sale for $3.99
$2.00 Register rewards good towards next purchase.
$1.50 Manufacture coupon
Like paying: $0.49

Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner Starter Kit
On sale for $8.99
$2.00 register rewards good on next purchase
$4.00 Manufacture coupon
Like paying: $2.99

I wonder if I split this into two transactions and used my $2 register rewards from the toothpaste for the Scrubbing Bubbles Kit, if it would be like paying $0.99... Hmmmm.. I may try that.

If you have any coupon advice or found some awesome deals lately, let me know in the comments!