Preserving Memories

Remember a couple of weeks ago (like almost a month ago now actually...) when I went to St. Augustine to hang out with my bestest girlfriends? Well I was finally able to get a hold of Jenni's amazing photographs, and so I finally get to share them with you lovelies!

So, my friend Jenni and her awesome roomie/bestie, Alyssa, own their own photography business (Studio No. 9), so if you're in the Orlando area, check them out and hire them. Because not only do they take great pictures, but they're also super awesome and nice and you'll love meeting them. HERE is their website, just in case ;)

I think pictures are probably the very best way of Preserving Memories. We can only remember so much on our own, but the photographs never forget, and so that's just one reason why I love pictures so much. We took over 300 pictures that weekend, and Jenni gave me just over 100 of the best ones. I chose 11 of my favorites of our group shots, made a collage of our portraits, and then made the whole thing into a video slideshow! So the video is down at the very end of the pictures... Enjoy!

Popeye's Pizza

Last night, Jeff and I went over to my friend Lacey's house for some dinner and games and hang out time. Lacey made up this pizza recipe about a year ago, and we make it what seems like once a month or so, because we just love it and it's so stinking good. So good in fact, I decided I needed to blog it so you lovelies can try it out! (Seems like I'm becoming quite the foodie blogger lately, huh?!) Also, I've named it "Popeye's Pizza" all on my own, simply because it has spinach on it. And we all know Popeye loves spinach, right?!

Ingredients
Fresh Publix Pizza dough
Turkey pepperoni
Shredded mozzarella cheese
1 bag of fresh baby spinach leaves
2 cups fresh sliced mushrooms
1 bag sun-dried tomatoes, julienne cut
1 jar of Classico sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Saute mushrooms, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes all together in skillet, with some cooking spray or olive oil
(Add the mushrooms and tomatoes first, and add in the spinach in handfuls, adding more as it cooks down)
Once it's all sauteed, set it aside
Spread your pizza dough out (using cooking spray or oil to help the stickiness) onto a tray
Spread a generous layer of the alfredo sauce on top of the dough (about half the jar)
Top the sauce with the sauteed veggies
Add shredded cheese on top of that, and pepperoni's on last
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or just watch it to see when it's done, which is how we usually do it!
Cut it up and serve it piping hot! Yum!

 

After you finish eating your delicious pizza, find a giant, super sweet German Shepherd to cuddle up with for a while. They're actually pretty snuggly pups :)

This pizza is totally different that anything you'll find at Domino's or Papa John's, and that's why we love it so much. I like eating "different" things that are just a bit more special than a plain ol' pepperoni all the time...

Here are some things to note as well though... Jeff doesn't like mushrooms (well, his tummy doesn't like them...), so we saute some spinach and sun-dried tomatoes just for his end of the pizza, sans mushrooms. So that's an option if necessary - or leave them out all together if no one you're making it for likes them! Also, don't be afraid of the spinach if it's not something you normally eat. It really isn't that flavorful on it's own, and kind of takes on others flavors of the things it's cooked with. So don't be afraid to try something new!

I am really interested to hear if any of you give this pizza recipe a try! I sure do hope so! So let me know if you do, and happy eating to y'all!

Puppets On Our Fingers

Happy Monday Morning all my bloggy friends and real life friends and family! I'm surprisingly chipper right now, even though I'm actually quite exhausted and also real hungry because I didn't eat breakfast today. But, I'm chipper because I had such a great weekend, it so still makes me happy!

I went down to Orlando for my friend Jenni's housewarming party! Three of our friends from St. Augustine came too, and we just all had such a good time together! So good in fact, that I barely even had time to take pictures, which is why I have hardly any... :( Oh well, a few pictures are better than none and at least I have a good memory! We played games, made waffles, warmed Jenni's new house, visited IKEA, went country line dancing, helped her set up and prepare stuff for the party, met new friends, talked until 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning, drank a lot of coffee, and just had such a great time with each other!

So, here are the few pictures that I actually have...

Thank you, stranger, for taking a blurry picture for us...

Mmmmmm IKEA Swedish meatballs are sooo tasty and yummy.

Needed an iced PSL at 6 pm, after shopping at IKEA for 3+ hours!

Dani and sweet little Katie dancing at the housewarming party :)

The theme was "Won't You Be My Neighbor," from Mr. Rogers, and so we all wore cardigans :)

Found these as a 10-pack at IKEA for $4.99, and we couldn't resist them!
Also, Scuba and Baby felt haunted whilst enjoying their Sunday morning coffee...

The sky was so pretty during my drive home on Sunday afternoon.

Oh, and last Thursday I painted my nails in honor of breast cancer awareness month, so this is what I'm rockin' right now! :) Although it is starting to look a bit shabby, so I'm looking forward to doing my nails again in the next day or so! (I might have an obsession...)

I hope y'all are having an OK Monday so far, and that your weekends were all enjoyable as well! I guess now I will read some of your blogs should attempt to get some work done, and try to warm up a bit because I'm freezing right now! And I'm linking up with my usual Monday link-ups at: Sami's Shenanigans, Glitter & Gloss, Synfully Delicious, Life on Leroy, and Covered in Grace! Did y'all do anything fun and exciting this weekend?!

Much Love :)

Porridge, & Other Stuff's

Friday's Letters -- Round 2 -- here we go!!

Dear Boyfriend: You are in Alabama camping and mountain bike riding for the whole weekend, and I really miss you already! Please have fun up there, but also please be safe! And try to come back home all in one piece, with only minor scrapes, bumps and bruises.

Dear I-10/I-75/I-4: Please don't be too crazy and congested with tons of traffic today as I drive to Orlando for the weekend to meet up with some of my favorite girls!

Dear Some of My Favorite Girls: I am so stinking excited to spend the weekend with y'all! This is going to be the best, and I can hardly contain my excitement until I see y'all around 8:30 p.m. tonight!!

Dear iPhone: let's play the bestest music ever for our drive, so I can sing at the top of my lungs for 4 hours straight, mmmK?

Dear Work Day: You kind of stink, so let's get this over with as quickly as possible. OK? Thanks. At least I look cute though, right? And also, Dear New Jeans: You fit great and are oh so comfy. Loving you, new jeans. (And who doesn't love a cheesy bathroom pic or two, or three?)

Dear Pinterest: Thanks for another great recipe last night! This was my second time making soup, ever, and I think I did a pretty good job. My family all enjoyed the Creamy Tortellini Soup ("porridge" as my future BIL kept calling it..) & grilled cheese sammies for dinner last night! (Even though my boyfriend said the food in the picture looks gross, I'm sharing my picture anyways...oh well. What do y'all think? I mean yes, the Pinterest one obviously looks prettier, but mine still tasted yummy!! Oh, and a dash of hot sauce definitely kicked it up a notch.)

Dear Soup Leftovers: I'm pretty excited to eat you for lunch today at work. So please try to be just as yummy the second time around as well!

And I think that's enough letters for today! I'm linking up with Adventures of Newlyweds for Friday's Letters, AunieSauce for Just Because, as well the usual Friday Chaos hop at Oh So Amelia!

And Dear Family, Friends and Readers: Thank you so so so much for faithfully reading my little bloggy-blog! Less than two short weeks ago, I was excited to reach 50 followers, and now I have 70! I'm growing and it makes me so happy and so excited! Can't wait to keep growing and meeting new friends and bloggers out there!

I wish everyone a happy Friday, and an even happier weekend! Much love to all :)

Presence

"Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his presence continually!" --1 Chronicles 16:11

Seek his presence continually.... sounds like kind of a hard thing to do right? It does to me at least. I mean sometimes I don't want to, or I don't know how, or I don't know where to begin... I think though, that the easiest way to seek his presence, is to spend time with him in prayer and reading his Word. Simple as that, right? Right. So today, I simply want to encourage you seek the presence of God. It's not always that difficult to find it, but it's always worth it. Seek to be in his presence, and for it to be apparent to you.

Think about how different each day would be if we spent the day in the presence of our Lord! I think maybe we should try it out, and just see how it changes our day and our perspective.

And on a completely unrelated, and not-so-thoughtful note, I'm guest posting over at my friend Tiffany's blog today, with a tutorial for my Halloween mani I'm rockin' right now! So check that out HERE.

{Blogger friends: link up your more thoughtful posts from the last week, and share my Thoughtful Thursdays button on your page!}

Parmesan-Crusted Date Night

Last night my sweet boyfriend Jeff took me on a mystery date! He picked me up at my house, and when we got in the car, he told me, "We're going on a little trip!" How exciting! I love little surprise road trips! But who doesn't, am I right?! We sat in traffic for a tiny bit, and a chance to snap a quick picture of course :)

I apologize for the quality of the front-facing iPhone camera self-portrait...

So we drove an hour north to the cute little town of Thomasville, Georgia, where we ate a delicious dinner at Jonah's Fish & Grits. It's this precious, tiny little restaurant with a great atmosphere, in a family environment. Everyone there is so sweet and nice, and it's so great and cozy inside.  Here are some pictures of the outside, since I was too embarrassed (which is silly, I know), to take pictures of the tiny inside with everyone staring at me...

And the food was so super yummy. We started off with Cyclone Shrimp for our appetizer, which rivals the Bang Bang Shrimp from Bonefish Grill. Apparently the chef here used to work there, and so he made his own copy-cat version, which I think is actually better! We both got the specials for the night, so I had Parmesan-crusted Grouper with white cheddar grits and veggies, and Jeff had a salmon filet stuffed with a homemade crab cake with mashed potatoes and veggies. Both were delicious, but the salmon definitely won the taste contest, of the year probably. (It was a ton of food though, and couldn't eat all mine so I brought about half of it home for later.) And then we shared pumpkin cheesecake for dessert!

After dinner, we tried to walk around the cute little town a bit, but everything was closed, so there's not much we could do or see. We did however happen upon a lovely yarn-bombing project I've been hearing so much about lately! Also, since everything was closed, we had to quickly make our way back to the restaurant again for some restroom facilities, because I have a bladder the size of a four-year-old... (TMI maybe?) We tried to take another picture of ourselves, but it was almost dark, and there wasn't good lighting, so this is the best we could manage. Oh well - at least it's a small way to remember our night there! However, that "test shot" of Jeff turned out great! :)

All-in-all, it was a lovely surprise, and such a great date night. I always love spending time with this man, and he just makes me so happy! :) Thank you again so much for a great date night! Love you.

And Happy Hump Day everyone!

Pinning My Workout

The last week or so of September, I really started thinking about my eating and exercise habits from the past couple of months. And it wasn't pretty. I was still being active and exercising at least once a week, but it's not like that one workout could make up for all the crap I was still eating. So things were getting a bit out of control. I then decided that this month was going to "Healthy October," and I've been trying to stick to that. I didn't set any real limits or boundaries, I'm just trying to make healthier decisions in regards to what I eat and how often I exercise.

You know I had to make a cute little PicMonkey inspiration, right?!

So I've been doing Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred again. And this time I. Am. Determined. I AM going to make it through this thing, without quitting 11 days into the program again. It's not fun getting up earlier in the morning. And it's certainly not an easy workout, but it's worth it. I know it is. I'm a little sore, and definitely tired - but I know that means it's working! As Jillian says, I'm "well on my way to being shredded."

Also, in addition to the 30-Day Shred that I do every morning, I've created a little night-time routine for myself as well. My night-time workout though is specifically geared to one target area - my HIPS and love handles. I've noticed in the past that no matter how much weight I lose, it never comes out of my hips. I lose it in my thighs, boobs, arms and waist. But the hips and love handles remain. Always. So I scoured Pinterest for about an hour or so and found some moves that were specific to this area. I have now started doing these moves at night right before I go to bed.

Click on the following exercies from my "Gotta Git Fit" board on Pinterest, to be taken to the link to explain the moves. It's some good stuff, and I can't wait to see it start working! I forgot to take measurements yesterday morning, but I have some from last week that should be pretty accurate. Hopefully I'll be able to share some inches-lost-progress in the next few weeks!

Basic Plank

Oblique V-Up

Saxon Side-Bend

 Speed Rotation

 Side Plank with Arm Sweep

Kelly Rowland's Love handle crunch

Then I'll finish it all up with some pre-bedtime yoga poses, found at THIS link. Anyone want to commit to doing this with me? Could make it more fun to be able to talk about it with others, and keep us motivated and accountable!?! Let me know, and we can encourage one another during Healthy October! :)