The French Market: A Creperie

So over the weekend we took a little tiny trip to Knoxville which is about 2 hours away. Sometimes you just have to not be at home, ya know? My friend Paige and I went down Saturday morning and then our men met us after they got off work. We ate some tasty Mexican food, saw a movie (Underworld=boring and dumb), and stayed overnight. But the best part was this amazing crepe place we ate brunch at on Sunday morning.

Totally adorable with a zillion different crepes and the sweetest people.

We got three crepes. The hub got a crepe with potatoes, bacon, peppers, and onions. I got one with eggs, cheese, tomatoes, and spinach. And then we got a nutella and strawberry crepe to share. Ah-mazing.

Super excited for his crepe. And looking super French right? Ha. I think he called this his rock star outfit. Since he uses the word "outfit" and stuff. Oh wait...

The best crepe ever.

Friends, if you are ever in Knoxville, get yourself to the French Market. Thank me later.

Oh, here is my outfit for Saturday. It was raining and I thought I was being super cute and clever. Then it stopped raining and I looking a little silly. Oh well.

Yay for weekends and crepes and rain boots!

DIY Sugar Scrub

I have something magical to share on this rainy Saturday morning. It's called sugar scrub. Between nasty hospital dry air, cold winter, and drying heaters, my skin gets kinda gross in the winter. So I googled "sugar scrub" and came across this link for homemade sugar scrub.

Here's what I did: took 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of olive oil, put them in a mason jar, and shook it up really well. That's it. I keep it in the shower and exfoliate a few times a week. The original recipe calls for massage oil to scent it, but I don't have any and I don't care about scent anyway. The olive oil moisturizes your skin and the sugar makes it nice and smooth. I wash off after with my normal body wash so I don't smell like the kitchen.

It hangs out next to my hub's Axe body wash and the clearance shampoo. Keep it classy.

I give it a good shake every time I use it.

I don't use it on my face/neck/chest since I'm a little sensitive. But its amazing for arms, legs, and feet!

Get your sugar scrub on, people!


PS. Happy birthday to my sweet momma! I love you!

Well hey 2012! How bout some taco soup?

Happy New Year! Yep, I realize this blog was a little MIA over the last couple weeks. But no fears, the Tennessee documentation has not ceased! We had a fun New Year's celebration with some friends, some sushi, and some fireworks. It was a good time. The best  part though, was that we both had the whole weekend off and got to spend some good time together. (FYI: don't got see Mission Impossible 4 in the IMAX if you are afraid of heights and you want to keep your Twizzlers down.)

But now its January. I literally just got done taking down Christmas decorations. I like to hold onto the holidays as long as possible. The best part of January is the fact that you can make some resolutions/goals/lists. And I do love a good list. I think resolutions are a tiny bit silly but making a list and a plan is super appealing to me. So I do it. 

So here are my 2012 resolutions, in list form. There is a theme. See if you can guess it.

1. Lose 5 lbs in the month of January. And every month after that until I reach my goal weight. Which shall not be disclosed at this time.

2. Give up all soda during the week. 

3. Go to the gym on all my days off. 

4. Eat at least 2 fruits and 2 vegetables every day.

5. Food journal it up!

6. Scrapbook and organize all my wedding and honeymoon things. Since I've been married for two years now and I'm not moving a bin full of that stuff anywhere else.

Yeah, these are super simple. But they need to be. Or else I won't do them at all. I was further motivated in my health driven resolution theme after I had the following exchange with the housekeeper at the hospital the other day:

Me: "Good morning!"

Housekeeper: "Hey, how are you?"

Me: "Good!"

Housekeeper: "Girl, you are really putting on some weight, aren't you?"

Me: "Umm...yeah...I guess so??" (walking away quickly)

HA. Don't worry, my feelings are unscathed. But honestly, who points that out? Thanks, housekeeper!

I have still been going to the personal trainer (who swears he can tell I'm losing weight...) and he has been attempting to help me with my basic food choices. Which include eating breakfast, not drinking soda, and not eating carbs and dairy at night. Which is super hard for me. Because when I get home from work around 8pm, all I want to eat is a bowl of cereal. Or three. But this taco soup recipe fits the bill, is delicious, and so easy! It's a Weight Watcher recipe that I got from my sweet coworker, Lynn. And it is only 2 points per cup. Amazing! And I maybe lie to my husband and say it's chili. And forget to tell him that it's kinda healthy. Oops. Get your taco soup on, New Year's resolutioners.

Taco Soup

1 lb ground beef

1 onion, chopped

3 cans beans (any beans you want...drain kidney beans but leave all other undrained)

1 can corn, undrained

1 can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can chopped mild green chilies, undrained

1 small (8oz) can tomato sauce

1 pkg taco seasoning mix, dry

1 pkg Hidden Valley Ranch buttermilk dressing mix, dry

Brown beef and onion, drain. Combine all ingredients in crock pot. Cook on low all day. (I start that crock pot at 6am and don't even worry about it till 8pm, works great!)

This time I used 2 cans chili beans and 1 can black beans. I mixed in a cornbread muffin and put a dollop of plain Greek yogurt on top. Yum.

Oh, and I'm getting my scrapbook on. Starting right now. As soon as I fold the laundry.

Happy New Year!

State of the House: 2011 New Year's Resolution Recap

Here it is friends, a recap of my 2011 New Year's resolution. To maintain a cleaner and neater household. I would give myself a C+ on this project. I did not excel by any means. I did reorganize our closet, guest room, and office area. The guest room has since un organized itself. I make more attempts on my days off to at least do some cleaning and organizing, even if its only pick things up.

I thought I was doing pretty awesome until sometime in November when I was at work and had a text convo with the hubs about how messy the house was and how he was going to put all my stuff in a pile. (I was going to include the convo in this post but it had a few too many choice words. From both parties.) Then I came home from work and all my stuff that he thought was not in its proper place was actually in a pile in the middle of the living room. And I was super pissed. For reals. Here is the thing. I am messy. It's just who I am. I like things to be clean and sanitary, hello, I'm a nurse. Caleb does not see the dirt. He sees the junk everywhere. So if the junk is picked up, he thinks things are clean. Magical. For the record, he said he gives me a B on my housewife efforts. At least I passed!

I did make an honest effort this year to step up my game. Here is a line up of my fave products that I discovered or rediscovered in 2011!

From left to right:

1. Swiffer dust and shine: perfect for cleaning the coffee table that we use for all our meals and put our feet on and everything else. It smells fresh and the wood looks so pretty.
2.Ajax dish soap in grapefruit scent: Makes the water all pink and happy and costs like 97 cents. And cleans dishes like a rock star.
3. Baking soda: It's cheap and scrubs things better than any expensive cleaner. And deodorizes. I keep one in the fridge, pour it down the disposal, in the trash can, ect.
4. Method Daily Shower Cleaner: spray this stuff on right after you shower and it stays clean and delightful. And Method makes great natural cleaning products.
5. Dyson Ball Vacuum: we bought this with wedding money and it just makes vacuuming easy and not totally horrible. (Fun fact: I lost the school spelling bee in the 5th grade with the word "vacuum." I was one of the last two standing. This is probably where my hatred for cleaning started.)
6. Plink disposal cleaner: throw one down once a week and your disposal smells like lemon fresh goodness.
7. Method Lil' Bowl Blue toilet cleaner: makes your toilets white and bright and makes your bathroom smell heavenly. Toilet cleaning is def my favorite chore.
8. Clorax wipes: Because cleaning my counters with the same gross sponge just grosses me out. They clean and sanitize everything.
9. Glamorous rubber gloves: because these just make cleaning so much better. I got them in Charleston at a kitchen store, but you can get them at lots of different places.

My absolute favorite cleaning tip of the year: cleaning my flat top stove.

I have a flat top stove. As a messy person, I make a mess when I cook and I don't wipe it up immediately. So food gets dried on, burnt on, stuck on. And is difficult to get up. I don't even know who to give credit to, but I found this tip on the intraweb, and it is magical.

Sprinkle the stove liberally with baking soda. Put a bunch of rags in hot, soapy water, wring them out slightly and then cover the baking soda. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.

Scrub all that nasty grime off! It comes right up. Unless your stove is super dirty like mine and you have to do it a second time. But then it's really all gone! Shiny happy stove top! (Then you should wipe it off with a Clorax wipe or something to get all the residue off, unlike me.)

2011, you were a great year. I tried to keep you clean and tidy. The most important lesson I learned was that as long as things look neat, they don't really need to be that clean. And that with every new organizational project comes a trip to Target. I will remember this in my future cleaning endeavors. Here's to you, State of the House. May you live on.

Previous State of the House posts that may humor or inspire you:

The Closet Clean Out
Office Space
Guest Bedroom
Kitchen Clean Up

Holiday Food Goodness: drinks, cookies, general yum

Ok, I did a fair amount of cooking/baking around the holidays. Not quite as much as last year, since being in Kansas for over a week took out a chunk of December. But I still got some done!

I did three kinds of cookies this year:

1. Peppermint chocolate cookies (aka Thin Mints!) I did these last year and they were delish. I never took any pics of the final product! But I did last year, so check it.

2. Pecan Pie Bars (recipe HERE): Caleb and I both thought these were ok, but they were the favorite of all his coworkers.

3. Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles (recipe HERE): These were our favorite by far. We kept most of them for ourselves.

I also made these yummy little turtles the other day. I went ahead and finished them off today because they were haunting me and my weight loss. So eating them was the only rational thing to do. They are so darn good! And super easy.

I learned to make these from a kid I babysat. Here's what you need:
1. A bag of rolo candy
2. A bag of mini pretzels
3. Pecan halves (I got the small bag from the baking section)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Throw the pecans on a cookie sheet and roast for about 6-7 minutes. While they are roasting, lay out the pretzels on a different cookie sheet. Place an unwrapped rolo candy on each pretzel. Bake in the oven for about 4 minutes or until just melted. Immediately squish a pecan half into each rolo/pretzel combo. Let cool. (If you can!) Give them away so you don't eat them all yourself.

Next up, Cranberry Sangria. We had this on Christmas Eve. Really light and refreshing with all the heavy food.

What you need:
1 bottle white wine (I used a really cheap Chablis Blanc)
25 oz sparkling cranberry juice (I used 3 8 oz cans since my Target didn't have any bottles)
1 apple, chopped or sliced
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
1 sprig rosemary

Mix it all up, let it sit for a hour or so in the fridge, enjoy! Pretty sure this would be good with just the wine and cranberry juice.

(Recipe from HERE This blog has much prettier pictures!)

I also made the Pioneer Woman's Cornbread dressing with sausage and apples for Christmas Eve. It was yummy but time consuming.

And I made Simply Recipes' Cranberry glazed turkey meatballs for our work potluck on Christmas Day. Pretty delicious as well, but I would recommend serving immediately as opposed to reheating the next day.

In the spirit of food and Sandra Lee, here is my Christmas tablescape:

Yes, my wedding photo is in it. It just seemed to look good, ok? I am kind of in love with the plaid tablecloth I got at Target. I saw them on sale for 50% off today, so you should go pick one up!

I love holiday food. Which is why the personal trainer killed me with a walking lunge/arm curl combo today. Thanks, Chris.

Christmas Eve festivities

Do you ever have a day that you think is never going to end? I did. Yesterday. I got floated to the ER to help with overflow and I was wayyyyy out of my element. Around 10:30, I was like wow, this day is never going to end, I'm going to be down here forever, I'll probably get so old that I'll become a patient here and then die down here in the ER because the hospital is so full that they will never find a room for me. How sad. Sometimes I'm a little dramatic. Fortunately, I had the awesome new nurse I'm training to help me. (Thanks Chelsea!) Oh, and the day ended. And I went home and had wine and Chex mix for dinner while watching Boy Meets World with my hubby. Ah, the good life.

Anyway, I wanted to share our Christmas Eve. Because it was wonderfully fun this year. I had to work on Christmas Day, so we celebrated a day early. And it helped that we celebrated with our families a couple weeks ago...I think both Caleb and I had a much easier time with being away from home this year.

We woke up and opened stockings and gifts. Did your mom ever make you take a picture displaying all your gifts? Mine did. I thought the pics were dumb, but now whenever I see them they are hilarious.

I got massively spoiled this year by my honey. Also note my trendy new hairstyle.

Caleb's main gift is missing from this pic. He is getting a gun. (So crazy, I know. Tennessee, what have you done to us?) It is currently being shipped.

We spent the day hanging out, watching Christmas movies, and cooking. Then we went to dinner at Stephanie and Logan's, where they had some ugly Christmas sweaters waiting for us.

Logan was carving the roast and cut his thumb. Right after making a joke about cutting his thumb. Classic.

The food was amazing. I believe the roast is blood free.

Group photo shoot with the Christmas tree.

And we played a few rousing rounds of Settlers of Catan. Probably one of the best ways to spend a Christmas Eve.

One last great photo of Logan with one of his stocking stuffers, straw goggles!

Thanks Slogans, for a super fun Christmas eve! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!


For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
(Isaiah 9:6)

Christmas in Kansas City

I made it through work this week! That means two days off before and after Christmas. Except I get to work Christmas Day. Aren't you jealous? Now I'm just waiting for the sweet hubs to get home and thought I would share some highlights from our Christmas trip to the 913. We celebrated a little early since Kiewit was flying us back to KC for par-tays. I mean...meetings.

I had a really great seat on the first plane and a really crappy seat on the second one.

We did a little Crown Center ice skating and general Christmas merriment with Caleb's family. We also enjoyed some Jack Stack. I love you, bbq. And here's something honest: I love to ice skate. Everyone was ready to go and I was like "but I just warmed up!"

We had "Christmas" with both sides of the family, since we will be hanging out here in Tennessee for the actual holiday. The most fun was watching George. We seriously love that guy. Caleb's dad got some KU tickets and gear for Christmas. We force our love of the Jayhawks on everyone around us! Baby June, guess where you are going to college?

My dad got a grill for Christmas. He was super pumped. I also made him grill our Christmas dinner but he didn't seem to mind!

I love my parent's Christmas tree, it always looks exactly the same as I remember it from when I was a kid.

We also babysat for George and June one night. Caleb was a jungle gym and his keys were the best toy ever.

June cried most of the time. So we just snuggled her and kept her out of bed. Oops. Sorry to mess up the sleep training...

We had SUCH a good time with our families! It's always hard to leave. Hopefully someday soon we'll be back for good!

Last sip of Boulevard Wheat in the airport before catching our flight back...

I got an early Christmas present from the hubs...a macro lens. So expect so close up pics soon...