Thursday, February 11, 2010

Peace & Love


Happy early Valentines everyone!
I actually like Valentines. And the older I get, the more I like it. I have decided this year its not about just being with a significant other, its just about sharin' the love with everyone. Corny I know, but I mean it.
So with no further ado, Ecko and I would love to wish everyone a very Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day, whether you have a special someone in your life or not, you are definitely loved.
Well, I cant believe it, but the time has come.
I fly out tomorrow morning for Thailand! 28 blissful hours of travel and I will arrive. I cant wait.
I wont be able to use my cell phone over there, so I am going to leave it at home. Can you imagine 17 days without a cell phone?! Its going to be great.
So while I am frolicking with the elephants on Valentines day, I will still be thinking of the people I love back home.

See ya/talk to you March 1st!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Lil' of this lil' of that..

Warning...this post may be a little random.

As I said earlier this year, this year I am going to live my life with "no regret". One of my biggest regrets ever, is not writing in a journal. I would start for like a week and give it up. Reading through some of my Grams journals I was so sad I dont have a journal of my life. And then I thought...hey! Your still young. Get going! And then I also realized that this blog, in a lot of ways, is like a journal.
Earlier today my friends and I were laughing SO hard at an old post I did about the "worlds fugliest haircut". If you want a laugh for your day, or want to feel good about yourself go ahead and check that one out again ;)

As I also said in my New Years post, one of my New Years resolutions was to organize a service project for my friends once a month.
For January, I organized a blood drive. I was a little nervous when I sent out the invite to about 20 people thinking I would be super lucky if I got at least 5 people to come. Needles are scary, and I understand that. But, I was really lucky and had 12people sign up and show up! Thank you everyone. I couldnt have been more proud. There were a ton of first timers (including myself) and I thought it was really brave of them to face their fears to do something nice for someone. Did you know one persons donation can save 3 lives?! I thought that was great. So...if you havent given blood before, I would highly recommend it. It did not hurt, and it only took me 5 min and 23 seconds :) And I dont even drink a lot of fluids.
Here are a few pictures from the blood drive

If you were part of the "Chelsea Group" you got a free pin!
These 2 little kiddos were scared out of their minds to donate. So I really felt like a proud mama to them! haha. They marched right in and did GREAT.

Making ourselves at home

Quick & easy!

And...they give you free cookies and drinks after!

Thanks everyone! You did great! Give blood-save a life! ;)

My New House-
For those of you who asked for pictures of my house Ive taken a couple. I am still moving in and have a lot to do, but I thought Id still share, and also throw it out there that I will be looking for a roommate when I get back from Thailand.
Here are a few pictures
Living room


I got this entertainment center for $25 on KSL- woot woot!

I chose most of the colors of my walls based on this painting. Sorry bad pictures.

I got this table and chairs also online from a lady that bought them at an antique shop in Texas. I love the vintageness of it!


I havent bought a bedroom set yet, so there is basically nothing in my room, except my bed. Not even anything on my walls.
But thank you Ty Pennington for having all your bedding on sale during Christmas!

Tiny little bathroom, but my favorite color in the house for sure.


I didnt take a picture of the spare bedroom or the down stairs because its still a disaster. But if any of you, or anyone you know is looking for a place, I would love to have a NO DRAMA gal move in sometime in March. :) Must love dogs...or at least Ecko.

Sugar Cookies Gone Bad:
I was craving sugar cookies for the longest time. So yesterday I decided I would make them. I jumped online and found a sugar cookie recipe that had like 3 thousand comments saying how delicious and easy they were, so I was thinking...my kind of cookies. I hadnt baked yet (or cooked really) since I moved back into my house.
The recipe said to have the dough chill in the fridge for an hour before baking. I got home from work and started making the dough so it could chill as I met a friend for dinner. I started making the dough when I realized I had 2 things of Baking Soda, no baking powder. I called my next door neighbor because they are awesome (a cute little couple in their late 60's) and asked if I could borrow some baking powder if I brought them cookies later.
Long story short...I make the dough, put it in the fridge to chill, and headed out for sushi.
When I got back my friend came over to help me make them. When we got the dough out of the fridge it was SO dry and crumbly. We spent a ton time trying to get the dough to pack in a ball hard enough to roll out and cut.
We cut a ton of cookies out and started to bake. First batch, disgusting, dry and tasteless.
Second batch...wouldnt cook. Why? Because I accidentally turned the oven off while I was dinking around with the timer and didnt realize it.
Then, they still were awful. We started investigating and realized I took a few of my grams cooking ingredients when we were cleaning out her things. She had items that expired in 1975 and I am not kidding!!!!
So we smelled the vanilla I used and it smelled SO gross! haha.
We thought we would keep trying anyway and went ahead with the frosting. I went to use the food coloring (also from Gram) and went to dump it in the frosting. It was all clear and all the dye was dried up in the lid. So now, we had cookies that were AWFUL that tasted like play dough and watery gross frosting.
Needless to say, they were non edible, we through away most of them, and I dont have a dishwasher, so we ended up spending just as much time cleaning up the mess then we did cooking...and had nothing to show for it :(
I think I will stick with Snickerdoodles. I make a mean snickerdoodle, plus they are better anyway.
At least they kind of looked cute...right?
He was a good sport...he could have given me a super hard time, but mostly he only gave me crap about turning off the oven without knowing- fair enough!

Cute...but disgusting.

If it looks like I am not proud of my cookies..thats because Im not.

Now the best story for last.
The most amazing thing happened to me this week.
Like I posted in my last post, we got to go through my Grams things and pick a few things we wanted. I loved her wallet. It was simple and so her.
I was at work switching everything over into my "new" wallet...

When I found a little zipper part. I opened it up to put my moms business cards in the compartment when I found a coin. I pulled it out and it completely took my breath away. This is what I found


I have a Guardian Angel :) And her name is Gram.