recipes.

lately i've been on a bit of a cooking/baking kick ... or imagining that i'm on one. sometimes i have ideas of whipping something up in the kitchen, but then realize i don't have the right ingredients on hand -- and we all know how i just love running errands after i'm already home. so maybe i think i've been on a cooking kick and it's really just all been in my head. but i digress.

the main reason for my post is because i need some ideas from you, dear readers. my mom got me subscriptions to food and wine, southern living, and the food network magazines. these were some of the christmas presents that excited me most.

i've also been finding recipes on the internet. the help i need from you? an idea for keeping all of the ideas i like in one handy, dandy place. i like the pictures i get from ideas online and in magazines, so i considered keeping a three-ring binder filled with page protectors to keep these ideas easily accessible. the only problem? the pages from the magazines are not a standard 8.5 x 11 size. i love the abnormal size of the magazines, but they don't store easily. ideas from the internet, print on regular sheets of paper. so what do i do? how do i keep all of thse ideas in one place, where i can find them quickly and easily and make them for many years to come?

any ideas?

a trip to muskogee.

tuesdays are travis's days off, and they are also one of the nights he has class at TU -- did i mention he's going to TU now? i can't remember if i have or not. he's in a program that will give him two federal certifications for computer/information security. very cool. -- anyway, he usually has a lot of reading to do during the day. this past week his laptop crashed, however, and he needed some of the information from it. the only problem? the hardware he needed to get the information off the computer was still at my parents' in muskogee.

i got ready for the day and headed out around noon -- after our late night movie on monday night we both slept in. i have got to stop doing that. -- conor and i headed to muskogee, my first time since leaving magnolia. the drive there wasn't too bad, but on the way home i told travis i was so grateful to not have to make that drive each morning.

i was going to meet up with my sister, but she was with my mom enrolling in school. she's been very sick lately. i picked her up from incredible pizza the weekend before last when she was here with her friends. she was running a fever, had a really bad headache, was "so cold it hurts" while the temperature was 100+, had horrible back and neck aches, and had a really sore throat. my parents picked her up from here and took her to st. francis emergency room. they gave her a full iv drip and a z-pack and then sent her on her way. she was still running a fever on monday, so my mom scheduled an appointment for tuesday with the doctor. the doctor tested her for mono. when that test came back negative, they scheduled her for an MRI and a CT. they still aren't sure what's wrong with her, but she's finally feeling a little better and will start school today.

while i was waiting for them to finish up the enrollment, i headed to the lears'. i visited with dee for a little bit, picked up our mail, and borrowed the carpet shampooer from her. i also ate delicious homemade southwest eggrolls. yum! conor hasn't been going outside because of the stupid flea problem here at the apartment {we've treated him and the apartment, and i think we've kicked the fleas!}. i put him in the backyard and he had the biggest smile on his face! he ran around the yard the entire time! and i mean ran. normally when i open the patio door to go back inside, he runs over to me and wants to go inside. if i refuse, he usually sits there and scratches and barks. this time he just looked up at me and then went back to playing. "i'm good mom!"

after he had his fun and dee and i had loaded everything in the car, conor and i headed to my parents'. they had a new red door {they're trying to sell their house} so my keys didn't work anymore, but my dad was there so i was able to get in. i grabbed a few things that we had left upstairs in the office {and i still have a few more things to grab sometime ... moving stinks}, the hardware travis needed from his old room there, and our vacuum cleaner. so i guess you can see what i'll be up to this afternoon ...

we hung out and visited with the family for a bit before heading back to tulsa. we wanted to beat the rain. i had hoped to make it back before travis left for class, but he was leaving for class as i was leaving for tulsa. when he got home, he immediately hopped onto his laptop and became incredibly ingrossed in it. annoying. i gave him a hard time about it, so he put it away for a bit and we just sat on the couch together, visiting, laughing, and halfway watching television. he had more work to do, so we determined that it was reading time. he went back to his work and i wrapped up my girls' guide to kicking your career into gear. i thought about starting a new book that had come in the mail for me, but when i began the ggtkycig i started using my personal blog to answer the questions and document the goals the book encourages me to answer. i hadn't kept that up throughout the entire book, opting to read through it first instead. i started going back through the chapters and picked up where i left off. it has only been a week or so, but it was already fun to go back and read the answers i had written. i think it will be good for me.

amelia and kate both want to read the book now. amelia is having a hard time finding it in dallas. it's completely sold-out at all of the bookstores in the area and it was checked out at the library. i was a little surprised to hear that because it's not a new release or anything.

anyway, we were both up late working on our own projects and finally went to bed at almost 1:00 ... this is not a good habit i'm falling into ... which means we both slept in this morning. again. tonight, i'll head to bed on time. hopefully. travis has to work until 10:00 p.m. so i don't know if i'll really go to bed on time or if i'll try to stay up and spend time with him tonight.

children's books.

"children's books?" you say. i love them. i always have, and i'm pretty sure i always will. i was reminded of this a couple of times this week. once while i was doing research for a new event and the second time while we were at the bookstore yesterday. i spent most of my time in the children's section of the store. i originally walked back there to continue my research ... but got so distracted by all of the wonderful books i had loved as a child and new books i felt sure i would love that i didn't really leave the section until travis was ready to head home.

here are a few i remember really popping out from the displays yesterday:

there were so many more, but i'm kind of drawing a blank right now. i just know i could have spent hours and hours reminiscing.

Twilight: Eclipse!

Sorry to keep putting off my Hawaii post. The day after I got back from Hawaii, I started a new job as the Marketing Director for Magnolia Gardens. Notably Noted is still doing really well; I just need something to supplement my income while the store orders go back into the business to support itself. Just after starting, my regional manager decided that I needed to fly to St. Louis for training. So ... all that to say ... I don't have my pictures from the wedding and a Hawaiian blog post without pictures just won't be right.
Instead, I'll continue to talk about my obsessions.

TWILIGHT! TWILIGHT! TWILIGHT! It is ABSOLUTELY a major obsession of mine. I'm not sure how this happened. When I look at myself, I feel a little ridiculous {okay, a lot ridiculous} but I just can't help myself. I can't make myself stop!

It took me a while, but once I hopped on the Twilight bandwagon, I. was. hooked! Travis and I never watched Twilight while it was in theaters but decided to pick up the DVD one night at the rental store. We both really enjoyed it, so when Twilight: New Moon opened, we headed out to the theater.

I love to read and considered reading the books several times, but just never got around to purchasing them. Kate had been telling me about the books for some time, and at her birthday party {Twilight-themed of course}, I was so intrigued by all of the added details she had to share. I finally asked for the books for my birthday and my sweet fiance gifted me with the entire set ... and I could hardly put them down from the moment I opened them. I'm so silly but I feel a kindredship with the characters. It made me so sad to finish the series because I feel as if I'm missing actual friends in my life, as if people I care about have moved away.

I am so weird.

So now, I've been watching the movies back to back. Stuck here in St. Louis without a car, I'm actually watching New Moon over and over each day when I finish with work making sure it's the last thing I see before I close my eyes.

Have I mentioned that I'm weird?

Tonight while working on blog posts for Notably Noted, I signed into my Twitter account and discovered that Jimmy Kimmel was having an Eclipse special! I never watch JK, but immediately jumped up to change the channel. I only got to see the last 15 minutes, but I sat with a huge grin on my face the entire time.

Now I can't wait for Eclipse to hit theatres. Kate has tickets for us opening night ... but I'm thinking of purchasing the Cinemark package that shows all three movies back-to-back-to-back. Can. Not. Wait!!

{I'm about to decide not to post this at all because it's rather embarrassing. I better hit "publish" quickly before this is lost forever to the world of blogging. }

fourteen days of love. 13.

13. dave ramsey

you may wonder why i've not posted a lot of "things" i'm lusting over and ready to purchase. perhaps i should have started my fourteen days of love with this particular post.

for christmas this year, travis and i received dave ramsey's total money makeover from one of his aunts. dave talks a lot about the freedom that comes with being debt free. he's not against having and spending money and even coaches on wealth building, but his biggest lesson is that you don't need credit to do so.

we have made a committment to get rid of any debt we have so that we may experience that freedom. we are utilizing the debt snowball tool to get ahead of the curve on our payments and pay things off much faster than if we continued to only pay the minimum payment.

it's so funny. since getting the book, i have heard several exceedingly "wealthy" people who would like to experience this freedom ... and they weren't part of the dave ramsey program. one person was a very famous country singer who was more exited about getting debt free than he was about his latest single being at the top of the charts. the other was a husband on the real desperate housewives of orange county. (don't judge. i only saw about fifteen minutes of the program while waiting for the deep end). my point is that everyone wants to escape the clutches of debt, regardless of socioeconomical status.

so, while we're working toward this, i try not to spend a lot of time looking at the lovely new things i could add to my life. it just tempts me to buy it. =)

fourteen days of love. day 04.

04. jane austen

so i'm not quite sure how this happened, but i had never read any of jane austen's books. it's really quite surprising, especially with all the reading i used to do.

when we got our iphones, i immediately started checking out all the apps available and came across books. i rarely get to read {i think the last time i read an actual book was when travis and i went on vacation to tennessee last summer and i read the little lady agency books!}; i thought it might be fun to download a book to read whenever i'm sitting around waiting {because that happens so often} instead of incessantly blogstalking waiting for the authors to update {now that really does happen often. pathetic. i know}.

the first book i downloaded was pride & prejudice. i. loved. it. again, surprising that i had never read it before. i had watched the miniseries several years ago and liked it okay. and then more recently i had seen the movie a few times. i loved the movie. in this instance, i'm actually a little glad that i had seen the movie before reading the book {usually i do it the other way around}. i was able to better visualize the story {sometimes the reading is a little different from novels written today}. i was able to keep up with who was speaking. funny enough, however, i did not picture any of the actors as i was reading the book.

i finished pride and prejudice in a few days and have now started on sense and sensibility. i've not had the opportunity to read through this one as quickly, but am still enjoying it.

i think after i read it i will check out the movie that came out a few years ago. i never did see it and am looking forward to it.

fourteen days of love. day 03.

03. magazines

i don't often get to read magazines these days, but when i do, two of my favorites are southern living & real simple.
they inspire me to be suzy-homemaker. i especially love the recipes and meal-planning in southern living. the recipes change with the season {as do most magazines, i suppose}. they remind me of my mom and her southern hospitality and meals she made when we were growing up.

real simple is just all around wonderful. home decor. entertaining. meal planning. organization. fashion. everything a girl could need.

definitely guilty pleasures ... and i love every moment of them.

ha! i just thought of a funny trait about me ... i can't read a magazine out of order. even if there is an article i am particularly interested in. nope. i have to start from the beginning and read from cover to cover. weird, i know.

fourteen days of love. day 01.

each year my dear, dear friend jen does "fourteen days of love" in february. i've decided to take a page out of her book {a screen out of her blog??} and do the same. i'm supposed to do one post each day for fourteen of my favorite things that i'm just loving right now. i think it will be a lot of fun and i encourage you to do the same.

01. iPhone
to start 2010, travis and i both got iPhones. i am surprised how much i really do love mine. i was never part of the iPhone craze, but when christopher {our boss at sixbyte} offered to buy them for us and do away with additional work cell phones, we said yes, please!



these are a few of the features i love the most:

email on my phone again. surfing the internet as if i were on a laptopdesktop. a phone camera that actually takes decent pictures. the loseit app that tracks my caloric intake and exercise. downloading books like pride & prejudice and sense & sensibility. (i had never read either). checking out the upcoming weather with the push of a button.

harry potter and the deathly hallows.

i have finished the harry potter series {again}. for the past few weeks my free time has been spent with my nose in a book, reading each installment one right after the other. i have read the books before, but it has been some time since i last did so. i also had read each of the earlier installments several times more than books five, six, and seven. {i think this happened because i used to read each of the books leading up to the release of the most recent movies}. as time went on, life of course grew busier, and i've not found the time to read all of the books before the release of the last few movies. it was a lot of fun reading books six and seven because i remembered very little about them. book seven was a treat because i didn't remember anything about it. i even started crying last night! {ridiculous, i know}. i didn't cry in the sixth one when dumbledore dies, but i did find myself crying in book seven when harry has to be so brave! since i had read the books before i really didn't think they would make me cry.

as i was blowing through the last book {i started reading it sunday night when we got home from travis's parents' and finished it monday night after work} travis kept asking me, "what are you going to do when you finish these books? you don't have your shopaholic books, and you've already read the little lady agency books." what shall i do, indeed?