Weekending

This weekend was super productive - I feel accomplished and ready to take on the week! We thought Stephen was going to have to work Saturday but Friday night, he was called off which was great having the whole weekend together.

Friday night, our church hosted a ladies painting night which was so much fun! Since we just moved to this area and I work an hour away, it's been hard meeting new people so this was a fantastic way to meet ladies who go to our church and live around the area. We all had a great time painting Mermaids.

 

Totally forgot to get a picture of the finished painting at the event

Saturday, I mowed the grass for the first time ever! I mean, I've hustled on the Hustler but this was the first time using a push mower and actually doing the full yard. It wasn't horrible, but I won't be begging to do it every week ;) I will need to get some better socks though; I don't think the pink tube socks will cut it every week...

After mowing, I ran over to the mall to get a few things and check out Old Navy's sale. I found this striped dress for $15 and couldn't pass it up. I think it's flattering and is the perfect transition piece for fall. Can't wait to pair it with a jean jacket and booties. 

I was also looking for some placemats and napkins to spruce up our table for my family's visit this weekend. I found some adorable placemats and matching napkins from Homegoods (can't find a link) and I can't wait to break them in this weekend!

I'll add the plates to the other place settings this weekend

After my mall visit, I finally finished Giuliana Rancic's book! I thought it was really good and I loved learning more about her life and reasons behind her decisions. It does have a lot of profanity, but it's still a great book.

Thankfully, I was able to get Stephen on board with planting some fall flowers for the front porch. I decided on one pot of yellow mums and one pot of orange mums. I can't wait for the buds to bloom and hopefully I won't kill them. We decided to only get one planter to make sure I don't kill the flowers, but I'd like to get another one for the other side of our front door. I'll definitely have to keep adding to my "fall" front porch when everything goes on sale.

Stephen actually found this planter - we thought it was neat and is perfect for fall (and was also $15!)

After church and the grocery store on Sunday, we worked on some things around the house which also consisted of me finally filling some picture frames and hanging pictures in my office. Having pictures finally hung in the office makes a huge difference!

I got 1 picture frame filled in our living room... I wanted 2 more but the way they had to be cropped wouldn't work

Obsessed with my sister's paintings!

*Please ignore the messy room and the awful lighting. It's been raining since Saturday afternoon.

Threw this plaque up in our closet - we actually met over a pair of shoes ;)

I was also able to squeeze in making a garland tassel project for the first time as well. I'm really happy with how it turned out! Come back tomorrow for a tutorial!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! PS that "hurricane" dissipated and ended up on the west coast of Florida - nothing exciting happening over here except some rain.

Linking up with Biana.

Weekending

I can't believe another weekend has come and gone and now we're in the double digits for August!! It's so crazy how time is moving so quickly.

After work on Friday, I came home to my birthday present from my sister. She got me an adorable dainty necklace and framed some paintings she did for me. She is super talented when it comes to drawing and painting - I wanted something unique for my office so I asked her to do some paintings for me. I am so impressed with what she did and can't wait to hang them up! I also got Giuliana Rancic's new biography Going off Script and I can't wait to read it.

Necklace

On Saturday, we had Stephen's parents over to have dinner and see the house so that meant I cleaned and baked all night Friday after work. This was actually my first time cooking for his parents so I wanted to go all out with an appetizer, entree and dessert. I decided to make Christina's Caprese garlic bread for the appetizer and it was a HIT. She was not kidding when she said everyone will go back for seconds. It was delicious and everyone was raving about it! Oh, and it was super easy to make - definitely the perfect appetizer.

Caprese Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

One loaf of gourmet bread (I used Publix's fresh Italian bread)

Salted butter

Garlic power

Fresh mozzarella slices

Balsamic vinegar

Tomatoes

Basil

Directions: (I did mine slightly different than the original recipe)

1. Spread butter on the bread and then sprinkle garlic power on top

2. Place the mozzarella cheese on top and bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 min

3. Top with tomato and basil immediately after removing from the oven

4. Drizzle the balsamic on top

The bread was perfectly crispy and the ingredients meshed perfectly together! Stephen's already requesting a redo soon.

For the main course, I made creamy spinach pasta and balsamic roasted brussels sprouts. Both were a huge hit and everyone seemed to gobble it right up. For dessert, I tried a new recipe - Toll House chocolate chip pie with vanilla frozen yogurt. It turned out delicious but is a little rich (I'll post this recipe in a little bit). 

Sunday we went to church and did the usual - grocery shopping, laundry, working on the house, etc. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Linking up with Biana.

Five on Friday

I am just so excited for this weekend! I think it is because of a mix of the events happening today, our relaxing day planned tomorrow and the fact that we're finally at home this weekend and aren't traveling anywhere.

One
This afternoon I'm picking up my new phone! I know getting new phones aren't super exciting to some people but I still get so excited every 2 years when it's time for an upgrade. I'm getting the new Galaxy S6 which is supposed to be a HUGE upgrade from the S3 which is what I have. I've been having some issues with my current phone and it's super outdated so I'm really looking forward to a new one. Sure it'll be the latest and greatest for a short period of time but whatever. Also, the camera is supposed to be amazeballs so (hopefully) I'll have better photos on here soon :) I've ordered a Kate Spade case which I think will look super cute with a white phone.

via

Two

The other exciting thing happening today is a friend and I are hosting a baby shower for one of our friends at work! All the women in our group are invited and we're going to play a game, have some cake and enjoy a break from work ;) Can't wait to celebrate the mom-to-be today!

This is from Jessica's personal shower a few weeks ago

Three

Tomorrow Stephen and I are going to a pool to hang out and relax at for the first time this spring. I'm not sure why exactly but I'm REALLY looking forward to doing this. I cannot wait to be back in a swim suit relaxing poolside with the hubby!

Four

So (if you remember at all) it took me forever to finish my marriage book, Team Us. Wow this is super embarrassing because I just realized I talked about getting the book in January... what!? How in the world did it take me so long to read the book? Here's my thing, take it as an excuse or whatever, I would either forget to read or decide to watch TV at night instead of doing productive things like reading. It was a little hard for me to get into mainly due to the fact that Ashleigh and Ted are a lot different than Stephen and I so it was a little hard to relate. They are a liberal arts couple (100% nothing wrong with that) and they seem to have more emotion in some things whereas, Stephen and I are an engineering couple so everything is very literal and black and white for us (I do bring some emotion into things sometimes which makes things worse - curse you hormones). 

Some of the main topics Ashleigh talks about are expectations of getting married, becoming a team, forgiving each other, dealing with conflict, having fun together, dealing with times of distance (literally and emotionally), dealing with loss, being parents and the types of friends you have. Some of the things she talked about, we thankfully haven't had to experience yet so I will definitely keep this book as a reminder when those times come (because they will come). One of the last chapters, Ashley talks about your friendships and that you need to make sure the girlfriends you're very close with and go to for relationship advice try to build up your marriage. She also points out that those friends need to point out the things you're doing that could be hurting your marriage (believe it or not, your spouse isn't always at fault). 

Overall, I thought it was a good book, a little slow at first but the last few chapters were a quick read for me. I will definitely keep this book on my bookshelf as a reference in the future. 

Five

I feel like since it took me so long to read the other book, I don't need to have a huge list of books I want to read but whatever - I have a big list (for me) of books I want to start reading soon. 

1. Killing Kennedy - I'm going to start Killing Kennedy this weekend because my sister read the book a while ago and gave it to me to read but I kept forgetting about it. She really enjoyed it and I've heard good things about it.

2. Going Off Script - I just love Giuliana Rancic and her new biography seems to be super good. During her press tours, I've been getting a few glimpses into what she talks about and it seems super interesting!

3. For the Right Reasons - The same reason I want to read this book is pretty much the same for Giuliana's book. I really like Sean Lowe and I'd really like to get a deeper look into his life. It also helps that I love his sister Shay.

4. The Girl on the Train - All of the books I've been wanting to read are biographies or marriage books so this fiction book seems like a fun break. Everyone's been reading it left and right and said that it's great. 

5. The Meaning of Marriage - I've seen a few different people saying they HIGHLY recommend this book. I'm really looking forward to reading this and getting some great things out of it.

I'd love to hear of any other book recommendations you have!

New Year, New Reads

Two of my goals for 2015 were 1. crack down on my daily devotions 2. read books to help better Stephen and I's relationship. So far, I've been doing good with working on these 2 items (only after 3 weeks... such a great feat).

For my daily devotionals, I went to my local Family Christian store to browse the isles. I decided to go with Live Faithfully: A Study in the Book on James by Lenya Heitzig & Penny Rose. In high school, I did a few of their other devotionals and really enjoyed them. I decided to grab this one to really study James and strengthen my faith. These devotional books are broken out into weeks (this particular book is a 12 week study) with 5 days of devotionals. This is really nice because if you miss a day, you have 2 extra days to catch up - or you can power through the weeks and not utilize the 2 days off. Since James is a smaller book, each day covers 1-2 verses which really delves into the book and breaks each verse down. So far, I'm really enjoying this study and can't wait to see what the Lord teaches me!

The other book I decided to pick up was Team Us by Ashleigh Slater. I haven't gotten too far yet, but it's great so far! Ashleigh talks about how in marriage, we need to set ourselves aside and focus on becoming a team. She writes stories about her marriage (her hubby interjects with things from his point of view too), other friend's marriage stories as well as stories from the Bible. I'm really excited to continue this book and focus on putting myself aside and focusing on US. Once I finish it, I'll write a review of it.

*I was not compensated for this post. All reviews are my own opinion.