ModCloth

There is this website that I am crazy about. Find it here. I love way too much about it and wish I had the type of job/bank account figures to support my obsession with everything modcloth. I especially love the dresses and will find myself dream shopping for events I have in the future (weddings, parties, Sundays) or just for my own happiness.
I thought I'd share a bit of the love with you. So here are a few of my favorite dresses so that you can love them also.

This one is great for a day wedding:

This for a night wedding (or date night):

This one I love for my own wedding:

(because it's just gorgeous)

And here's one for fun:

I would wear this one to work (if I had a dress-nice job) or happy hour:

And this just because I love it and no other reason:

Finally, this is just to feel glam:

(cause every girl should)

And those are just a few. I could dream shop for hours on this site. Did I mention that I also did my taxes, my Fafsa and had happy hour with my friendy Hannah today? It was a productive day. 

Also, donations are now being accepted for my modcloth happiness fund. Thank you.

January Grilling

Last night we finally had a night alone to relax, make dinner, and watch a movie after a crazy hectic long week. So here's what happened:

First I made this:

Pretty proud of myself, had no help at all, just decided I wanted to make a badass fire. This may be something that I have to repeat. Many times over.

Then we had some of this:

Which is probably one of my favorite beverages ever. Always goes excellently with the above.

Cole and Phillip enjoyed their wine while reading some blogs:

 After plenty of relaxing we decided to finally start making dinner (at 9pm, our usual). I chopped up some eggplant, green pepper and added whole mushrooms in a bowl. Drizzled them all with EVOO, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and minced garlic. Into the fridge for about 30 minutes. Then we took chicken breast, pineapple chunks, peach chunks and the marinated goodies and made skewers!

They were gorgeous before they hit the grill:

 And of course after my master grilling guy cooked them all up they were even more amazing! We enjoyed them with some mac salad and another glass of vino. There were TONS of leftovers which I will happily enjoy today and it was awesome to have this yummy summer-tasty meal on the last day of January. We will be repeating this! 

This (a blast from our past) was fun to cuddle up to: 

If you haven't seen it, you should probably add it to your netflix immediately. Pretty awesome. It was a great night together and much needed since today I am spending my Monday off doing taxes, Fafsa, and studying for lab practical. Whoot. But at least the boyfriend made coffee before he left for work.

Enjoy your afternoon!

Target

I love Target. I mostly try to stay away from it because almost everytime I go there, because I have of course come to the last roll of TP and need to restock quickly and for cheap, I always end up spending nearly $100 on so much other stuff I never knew I needed.
Well this morning I had an eye appointment (and now I have happy eyes) and what was across the street? But of course Target. And what did I have planned for the remainder of the day? Studying for anatomy. So clearly I decided to stop in. Just real quick.....to get TP. This by the way is the very best kind:

But anyways....
Today was the most successful Target shop I've ever had. Not only was everything on amazing sale, but I had some amazing lucky events occur that never happen in my life ever. So I must share. I did my swoop of the store....tried on clothes, looked at shoes, shopped in the tool aisle (because honestly I just have to see everything just in case I didn't know I needed a hammer for $2.49 which I actually do need and now regret NOT getting) and after grabbing a bag of goldfishes made my way to the checkout. Usually I have a running total in my head that I've already talked myself into thinking is reasonable to spend at Target because clearly I NEED everything in my basket....especially the three snack items. This time I assumed I was spending around $60, which is very good considering I'm almost never out of there without dropping a good hundy. Ha, that's $100 for those who don't speak ghetto, ahem, me.
Everything rang up, I slid my card and found myself doing a double take and actually saying, "wow that's awesome" when I saw my total was just $30!! Of course I doubted the situation but I really just felt happy about the smaller dent in my bank account and decided to get going to Starbucks for some studying.

Yum

Well once I had settled into Starbucks I pulled out the new earbuds I bought for the Ipod my little sister graciously donated to her poor pathetic Ipod-less, 13yr older sister; and decided to also check out my Target receipt to really see how I made out so good. As I cracked open the shiny new buds and downloaded Itunes I scanned the receipt and found my super soft new sweater which was on sale for $12 had rung up as $4! Freaking amazing. So that's why I made out awesomely....but wait, the total should still be higher. So I continued down the list. After ignoring how many freaking snacked goods I had walked out with I came upon the true deal of my day.
My poor sweet non-observant checker girl had rang in my $2 V-day card for Cole (which will be displayed later) twice and totally missed my earbuds! However as I was currently holding said buds in my hand; clearly I still made out pretty well.
Now I know....normally I would feel terrible in this case because I SHOULD go back, mention the mishap, and feel really great about myself as an honest person. BUT, I had already opened them, already left the store, and really..... I think with all the $$ I send Target's way, perhaps this is just their way of giving it back to me. ;)
Either way I feel good about it, my mind will not be changed, and yes I LOVE my earbuds. I got the infamous "Skull Candy" ones that all the more technical people say are awesome. 

 Oh, and thank you little sister for this:

 It really was a good day. And I got so much studying done. But alas, I will NEVER be done studying. So of course now I am doing this with boyfriend:

Perfect. Happy Monday to you!

Saturday Studying

This is what I should be reading right now.......

But it's so hard not to read this instead:

This magazine is so amazing! It breaks down all the best products from skincare to vacuums and also how to eat well and the best websites to online shop. Every time I open it I cannot put it down! I find myself getting so excited over the best siding for my house and it usually takes a few hours for me to snap back to reality and realize that I do not own a house therefore have no siding needs. But nonetheless....I LOVE it. If you see it, grab it and enjoy! I promise you'll love it too.

My favorite thing to eat

I love love love mac'n'cheese! I could probably live off of the box stuff as I make it better than anyone else ever (sorry, but I do) and I already do make it at least 3 times a week. Part of that is because I nanny and any good kid likes to eat mac. But let's be honest....I freaking love mac'n'cheese.
Tonight as Cole and I were trying to make a decision of what to eat, as we do every night, and always fail to have a good answer.....we finally chose this recipe below from here. It had 5 stars, said it was quick and easy (cooking is quick, as well as eating, but not combining of ingredients) but it was amazing so I thought I'd share.

CROQUE MONSIER MAC AND CHEESE

Cook Time: 35 mins Level: Easy Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound ziti [we did the curly rontini]
• 2 cups milk [2% worked great]
• 2 cups coarsely grated gruyere cheese (about 6 ounces) [we used just Swiss instead, cheaper and totally the same]
• 1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese (about 4 ounces)
• 2 large eggs
• 3 slices white sandwich bread, roughly diced [we used wheat]
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• Kosher salt [we used regular table salt]
• 8 ounces thinly sliced deli-boiled ham [we did BACON....yum]

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the ziti and cook until al dente, about 6 minutes. Drain and transfer to a large bowl; toss with 1/4 cup milk.
Meanwhile, combine both cheeses in a bowl. Beat 1/4 cup milk and the eggs in another bowl; fold in the bread and add half of the cheese.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over high heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring, until just brown, 2 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour, cayenne, nutmeg and 1 teaspoon Kosher salt; cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Slowly add 3/4 cup water and the remaining 1 1/2 cups milk; bring to a boil, stirring until thickened. Remove from the heat and whisk to cool slightly. Whisk in the remaining cheese, then add the pasta and toss.
Butter a shallow casserole dish. Add half of the pasta, top with some of the ham and cover with the remaining pasta. Top with the remaining ham, then cover with the bread mixture. Bake until golden and bubbly, about 20 minutes. Let rest a few minutes before serving.

AND HERE WAS OUR RESULT:

And we also had this:

Hope you all enjoy your evening and dinner!

Recipe courtesy Food Network Magazine

I challenge you to read

For the past 6-7 years I have been in college. There WAS a short break in there which I like to call "the time I didn't realize my Bachelor's degree didn't mean a thing". Because of all this school, I have really fallen out of the habit of reading for fun. I, in fact, have a stack of books in my nightstand just awaiting my read. And this stinks because I LOVE to read. My cute boyfriend and I were having a conversation about this reading dilemma and the fact that we are just too darn busy all the time. And I came up with this plan....
Before the end of January we both need to pick a book. It can really be anything or any length but just something for fun (ie: I cannot choose my anatomy book). Then every week we have to commit to one hour of reading. We will sit down together (perhaps in our favorite coffee spot) and just read. It doesn't have to be the same hour of the same day each week; rather just whenever we can fit it in. I don't want the guidelines to be so rigid that it just feels like another chore but instead just something fun that we hold each other accountable for.
I am now taking book suggestions. I enjoy anything about real people, places and things. I'm not good with anything fantasy.....also why I could never read Harry Potter. The boy is the real hard case. He likes to read but really really has fallen out of it. He needs a really good read (maybe even a series) to get excited about so that he really gets into it. Anything apocalyptic or zombie or even historical as long as it's intriguing.

So to recap: 

Books for Him

Books for me

the beginning

The start of this blog requires a bit of a story. I have always loved to write. (That's not the whole story) I found writing hard to do into my college years because well, school (and the social life that inevitably follows) takes up pretty much every minute of your time. Now here I am 25 years old (well almost....in 2 months anyways) and I am working on school for a second round.....but this time I want to do it different. Thus actually why I am going back in the first place. But that's a story for another day and not actually the story I want to tell today. I am decidedly writing again because it's really what makes me happy. And because I believe that we all need to find a little happy amongst this crap of life. 

This blog design and well motivation came from something else though. This amazing girl whom I hardly know from college (the first time) but who's blog I one day decided to start reading and absolutely fell in love. You can find her blog here. I literally spend an entire day reading her blog backwards (and on my Blackberry too) just because I couldn't get enough. And now I wait and check eagerly each day for her to post something new because it's like a little glimmer of happy in my day. So I hope to be able to do that for someone else, as well as fulfilling a desire to do something that makes me happy. 

I cannot really tell you what this blog will be about. I don't have a plan for it; rather I just want to see where it goes. So stay tuned. I do already have lots of good ideas and now that it's all set up and I've done this little intro; I can really get into some neat stuff. Yep, neat. 

For now I'll leave you with my favorite part of this new year so far. It's me and the man who also brings me the happy.