Combo pic and thought :)

I'm kind of obsessed with dark chocolate, sea salt, and caramel all together. I was at Target a few weeks ago and found a bag of chocolate with the three ingredients above and just had to buy it. I forgot about them until the other day and now I can't stop eating them. This was my favorite Dove wrapper advice I've ever gotten so it becomes my pic of the day and my wisdom for the day.

I'm basically just a giant little kid. So is Devon. I think it makes life so much better though because we indulge in the childhood joys around us and we don't take life super seriously (minus the things that you have to take seriously, like budgets and bill paying). For example, we have like 50 lego people on top of our stove (that should so be my pic of the day one of these days) and I think it's pretty awesome. Sometimes I wonder how anyone let us get married but we blame Kershaw Co. in South Carolina for that.

And in case you haven't heard that story well Devon didn't know where his social security card was before our wedding and didn't tell me that. He also didn't think you'd need one to get a marriage license. So he did some research and found out that in certain counties of SC you actually didn't need to show one to get a marriage license, you just needed an ID. Right, the closest one was about 2 hours away and was the podunkiest town ever. No joke, right next to the county courthouse was a hot pink and black trailer store called "Kuntry Korners Trailer Home Supplies". It was pretty awesome. Oh and the greek restaurant sold the state's best italian pizza. Right, cause the greeks are so well known for their italian pizza. Anyway, so we go to get our license and they didn't even ask for IDs. We could have been underage or cousins and no one would have cared. It made my understanding for SC so much more clear.

You've been booed

My picture for today is of the yummy treats I made tonight for young womens. The bags are full of muddy buddies and because I didn't make enough (someone stole some of my chocolate chips...hmm...) I tied suckers to the outside. I know my pictures aren't great and artsy and fancy but the whole point is I want to remember some of the little things in life. Tonight for YW we made ghost suckers on strings and took them to the homes of some of the inactive or sick YW and to a new family in our ward's houses, tied them in their trees, and also made a poster we left on their front door saying that we missed them and they'd been booed. The girl's then rang the doorbell and ran away like crazy. The group I was with had a lot of fun and no one got injured which is a plus. I'm seriously so grateful for my calling. I have learned SO much from all the girls and we have an awesome group. I've also made some great friends from the other leaders and they have been so nice about welcoming me in as an outsider. Anyway, so here is a picture of my yummy treats:

For my inspiring quote I'm going to just post a pic I found online of a quote. I was having a kind of a downer day and this cheered me up :) I found the picture here.

Why I get super stressed every 4-6 weeks.

Part of my job is being the Brand Manager. That means in addition to running the sale floor and making money I am in charge of running all the floor set changes. It's super stressful but I love it. I love visual standards and making sure everything is perfect. Unless it involves bows, anything involving a bow drives me nuts because a.) no one can tie bows pretty at my store and b.) I end up tying all the bows and it takes me forever trying to make them perfect. Anyway, todays picture is of my planning. We have to change the walls on Saturday morning at 6 AM and I'm stressed about it. Each of those boxes is a cabinet in the store (we have 47) and all the ones with the red dots have to change. Plus the laundry list of marketing changes for all 47 cabinets. Yuck.

My inspiring quote for today is from an Ensign article from Thomas S. Monson. It says:

 "If you want to give a light to others, you have to glow yourself." 

 I love this because it just encourages me to remember I need to work on me first before I can pass what I know and love onto others. I often times put myself last but that can be detrimental if I'm sacrificing some of the stuff I need to do in order to do things for others.

#30-Learning how to Golf...

I feel bad neglecting this blog just only a few weeks after it was created. Life was crazy the last 2 weeks, I knew it would be, and now I'm back to this in full force.

So number 30 on my list was learning how to golf. My dad and my husband are pretty avid golfers. My dad goes once a week and my husband would love to go once a week if law school and his internship with the public defenders office would allow it. Last week we spent 4 days in Myrtle Beach with my parents and I really wished I could have gone golfing with my dad to spend some time with him. I tend to go in and out of things I want to do/learn/make/see but golf has been one I've thought of for a while. Yesterday, Devon and I were sitting at home enjoying a lazy vacation day when he asked if I'd like to go find a set of clubs for cheap to learn on. This sounds fairly easy but there are a few things in life that I do left handed, and golf is one of them. So to find a set of cheap, left-handed, women's clubs in golf's off-season was going to be pretty difficult. Luckily, Golf Galaxy in Charlotte had one such set on clearance and it became mine. Behold, my new set of clubs:

Cute right? I like the touch of pink but I wish it didn't have the breast cancer awareness ribbon all over them. Not that I don't support breast cancer awareness, I just didn't necessarily want them all over my golf stuff but when you can get a $500 set of pretty decent clubs for $150 you go for it. It's much better than getting a cheap Wilson set that usually retails around $170. I also got pink golf balls not because I wanted pink but because they too were an amazing price. I'm all set, I just need a visor and some cute golf clothes (priorities!).

We then went to one of Devon's favorite driving ranges to try and hit some balls. Not going to lie, it was a LOT harder than I thought and I missed the ball a few times. I did however hit some just like a pro (ok so it went almost 200 yards but still). It was so fun though and I can't wait to go back to golf some more! Devon said I'll be ready for an actual course before I know it.

I'm not considering this done off of my list quite yet. Maybe once I play a decent 9 or 18 holes of real golf I'll completely mark it off. for now it will just be a work in progress.

Oh and here are some fun pictures from our trip to Myrtle Beach. The first is the view from the balcony of our hotel room. I got up early one day to watch the sunrise and it was an amazing site. The second is of our feet and I did the whole cheesy write in the sand thing. The last is of us at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Apparently whenever I wear my yellow plaid shirt Devon wears his blue plaid shirt. We both wore the exact same thing for our anniversary back in August!

Recipe #2, #3, and #4

Last week I actually tried 3 new dinner recipes (I'm starting to think trying 100 new ones will be easy thanks to Pinterest). The first two I tried Friday night. I was craving pasta so I made a pasta dish and a easy bread dish to go with it. I forgot to take a picture of the meal so I'll post the pinterest pictures so you get an idea of what it looked like. The pasta recipe was good, but I definitely would not put as much garlic in next time. I'm a HUGE garlic lover and usually go overboard with it when cooking, but even this was way too much for me. Also on the bread I only used one large can of biscuits and they all fit. They were still a little doughy in the middle though so next time I'm going to only use 6 of the 8 to see if they will cook a tad more in the middle.

Creamy Garlic Pasta (recipe and pic found here)

2 tsp olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
¼  tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 cups chicken stock
½ lb spaghetti or angel hair pasta
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
¾ cup heavy cream
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

In a pot, bring the olive oil to medium-low heat. Add the garlic and stir, allowing it to cook for 1-2 minutes. Mix in the butter until melted. Add the salt, pepper and chicken stock. Raise the heat to high and let it come to a boil. 

Once it is at a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook for as long as the box’s directions indicate. Reduce the stove to medium heat and mix in the parmesan until completely melted. Turn off the heat and stir in the cream and parsley. Serve immediately.

Parmesan Pull-aparts (recipe and picture found here)

• 2 cans (7.5 oz each) refrigerated Homestyle Biscuits (I used Butter Lovin!)
• 3 tablespoons Butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried Minced Onion
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1/3 cup shredded Mozzerella Cheese

Directions:   Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a small bowl mix together the melted butter, garlic powder, dried parsley, minced onion and parmesan cheese. Spread mixture in the bottom of a 9 inch glass pie plate. Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella cheese evenly over the top of the butter mixture.

Remove biscuits from cans. Place biscuits close together over the top of the cheese and butter mixture.

Bake biscuits in the oven for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let stand for 3 minutes. Turn biscuits upside down onto a serving plate. Serve warm!

Then tonight for dinner I really wanted to try a pot roast in the crock-pot. I went to my favorite cooking site Taste of Home for this. It turned out AMAZING! We actually did not have any dijon mustard even though I swore I had some and since it was Sunday and we don't shop on Sundays unless we're on vacation or family is visiting us that meant we were out of luck. I didn't have any ingredients on hand to even make the suggested subs for dijon mustard so I just completely eliminated it. I still want to try it with the mustard though. 

Melt in Your Mouth Pot Roast (recipe found here)

Ingredients

• 1 pound medium red potatoes, quartered
• 1 cup fresh baby carrots
• 1 boneless beef chuck roast (3 to 4 pounds)
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1-1/2 cups beef broth

Directions

• Place potatoes and carrots in a 5-qt. slow cooker. Cut roast in half. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, rosemary, garlic salt, thyme and pepper; rub over roast.
• Place in slow cooker; top with onion and broth. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender. Yield: 6-8 servings.

Sorry that the font gets all wacky on this post. I copy and pasted all the recipes from different sites and it made the font for each all different. I tried fixing it but I think it has something to do with HTML which is really beyond my computer capabilities.

Being optimistic

Now that vacation is over I'm totally on board with posting a picture from my every day life and a happy/spiritual/uplifting thought/quote/story every day. I really think this will be helpful as I go into the holiday season at work. It's hard to remember the good things when you're working so many hours and life is so busy.

Today I came across this article here and I really loved it. I especially love the last paragraph that says:

"Change is the Lord’s way. He wants us to be happy and growing, to be excited to move on with our lives. Life is a journey, and while still enjoying the present and preparing for inevitable challenges, we must move forward, remaining optimistic, our hearts open to the experiences and good things that are undoubtedly on their way." 

I totally am the type of person who always is wanting the next stage in life to happen. In high school all I wanted was to be in college, in college I wanted to be done working full time, in being married I just want to be a mom, so on and so forth. I really need to stop and enjoy where I'm presently at. Devon is the same way, and so I think we both consciously are trying to do all we can while we're at our present state in life before we have kids. After all, we'll only be young and just the two of us once. I also tend to get bogged down with the challenges I presently face without seeing the hope for the future. I need to remember any trial I'm going through is just preparing me for something great in the future.

The reason I decided to post a picture every day for this blog is to appreciate the little things in my life.  So my pic for today is of a puzzle I've been working on. I swear I'm never ever going to finish it (so much for remaining optimistic about the future from the quote above ha ha).

Recipe #1-Panera's Broccoli and Cheese Soup

Being from Wisconsin it wasn't really "cold" to me until it was in the 30's and 40's. Then I moved to the South and was shocked when at 55 degrees people were out wearing winter coats, ear warmers, and gloves. I thought this was ridiculous! Fast forward one year to today when it is 55 degrees here in South Carolina and I'm freezing! Bring on my winter coat, scarf and mittens (which on principle I wouldn't actually put on, but I wanted to!)! That being said, I decided to try to make homemade soup for my first recipe of my 100 new recipe goal. Thanks to Pinterest I found this recipe and it looked so good. It originally can be found here:

Copy Cat Panera Bread Broccoli Cheese Soup

Recipe type: Soup

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups half-and-half ( or skim milk)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 pound fresh broccoli ( florets only)
• 1 cup carrots, julienne
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 8 ounces grated cheddar cheese

Instructions

1. Saute onions in a little butter in a small pan – set aside.
2. In a large stockpot melt butter. Add flour and mix for 3 minutes.
3. Slowly add half- half – mixing the entire time.
4. Slowly add chicken stock- mixing the entire time.
5. Let simmer on low for 20 minutes.
6. Add broccoli, carrots; onions and cook on low for 25 minutes.
7. Season with salt, pepper; nutmeg.
8. Place soup in a blender or use an immersion blender and puree.
9. Heat soup over low heat and add cheese and mix till melted.
10. Serve ( hopefully in a bread bowl) and Enjoy

The List!

So I've come to the realization lately that I'm no longer 19 (actually I'm 28). I'm no longer a teenager, young woman, or girl. I don't really feel like I'm a grown-up. I sometimes feel like I haven't done that much with my life and I feel like I'm missing out a lot and I'm not content with where I am at. Sure I have done a lot of amazing things in the past 28 years. I married my best friend, moved someplace I never thought I'd live (yay South Carolina!) and I graduated from college with two bachelor degrees. That being said, I still feel the need to accomplish so much more in my 20's so I am going to do the cliche bucket list of 30 things before I turn 30. Here's my 30 bucket list (deadline of June 8, 2014):

1.) Lose weight the healthy way and be 130 pounds.
2.) Run a 5k
3.) Have a baby (*fingers crossed*)
4.) Visit 2 more Major League Baseball stadiums
5.) Go to a Wisconsin Badgers football game with Devon (jump around!)
6.) Go to another NFL game
7.) Complete my Young Womens Personal Progress stuff (hey I never got to go as a youth, better late than never)
8.) Post something in here every day that is spiritually uplifting or makes me happy
9.) Read the entire standard works (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants)
10.) Sew a quilt
11.) Scrapbook our honeymoon and first year of marriage pictures
12.) Learn to play my ukelele
13.) Visit 3 new temples
14.) Read 30 books
15.) Sew a dress for myself
16.) Have half of a down payment for a house saved.
17.) Take a picture every day from my daily life and post it on this blog.
18.) Try 100 new dinner recipes
19.) Learn yoga
20.) Start my family's genealogy for my dad's side
21.) Play tennis regularly again
22.) Beat Devon in Racko (seriously it's been years since I've beat him at that stupid game)
23.) Successfully make a pie crust (In all my years of cooking classes pie crust still is something I cannot make at all)
24.) Learn how to ride a horse
25.) Feed a giraffe at the zoo
26.) Take Zumba or dance classes again
27.) Watch all of the Star Wars movies (I've never seen any of them)
28.) Go on vacation to someplace I've never been before
29.) Go camping for real (We used to camp in an air conditioned camper, I'm talking in a tent type of camping)
30.) Learn how to golf


and an alternate one that Devon insists is on my list, Go to a NASCAR race and the NASCAR hall of Fame. So just in case I change my mind on one, or something happens where one becomes impossible I have that one to fall back on.


I have 22 months to complete all of these things. I know with a little hard work I can do it!