NANOWRIMO

To all those writers out there, I came upon a great site a few months ago! It's all about challenging yourself and pushing the limits. Its called Nanowrimo, short for National Novel Writing Month. The chosen month is November and the goal is to write a novel (50,000) before 12:01 on December 1st. There are other months dedicated to different types of writing if novels aren't really your thing. There is a month for songwriters and screenplays and I believe there's a month for poetry, but don't quote me! Anyway, check it out and snoop around the forums a bit. Happy writing!!

Etsy

I have been contemplating starting my own shop on Etsy for a while now. I have been working on creating items to sell and I'm happy to announce that I opened my shop!! (<-- click the link) I wanted to sell something that is small and portable so I can take it anywhere. (I'm one of those people that has to be doing something with their hands while watching a movie.) I decided to make tags. You know, gift tags, holiday tags, thank you tags ... pretty much any kind of tag. Each tag is hand traced, cut, punched, dyed, and stamped. It takes quite a while but I really enjoy doing it. If you have a moment, stop by and look around. Here are some of my tags!

P.S. The blue wintery ones were already tagged on the blog colorgirl

Post Valentine's Day

I know I'm a bit late, but I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. I've been busy here between Valentine's Day on Sunday and Mardi Gras on Tuesday. Friday I went to Target with my mom and sister. My first stop in Target is always the dollar section. Sometimes they don't have anything worth while and other times they have some pretty great deals. This time they had some really cute pink, blue, and yellow silicon cupcake liners. They came in packs of six, two of each color, in the regular shape or in the shape of a flower. I bought one of each.






On Monday I made Valentine cupcakes with chocolate batter and fluffy white icing that I dyed pink. The cupcakes looked so scrumptious, but I never got the opportunity to taste one. I was never really in the mood for desert, which is VERY odd for me. When I wanted desert I kept thinking that the pink icing was strawberry flavored and that turned me off. (I love fresh strawberries but nothing, except for candy, that is strawberry flavored.)

14 Days of Love (Day 3)

The third day of love is all about the color pink. What girl doesn't love a little pink? I'm not huge into pink, but I do like having little pops of it here and there. Below are some great pink treats!

These cute cinnamon heart marshmallows are made by Whimsy and Spice, a husband/wife team based in Brooklyn. Wouldn't you just love to have one of these little darlings in your hot chocolate?

These glittery tags would be great atop a colorfully wrapped gift for a loved one. And with the pink rose, the wrapping is almost as exciting as the package itself. If you're interested go stop by The French Nest Co.

Gooseberry, gooseberry, gooseberry, such a funny word! I've never seen these bowls in pink before. Not only are they cute but they have a purpose and can be useful. Of course you could use them for food, but how great would it be to have these in your craft room with all kinds of bobbles spilling out? I love the whimsical design.

I found these colored heart doilies at oriental trading. They are having a huge sale on everything related to Valentine's Day, so if you want some decorations or some candy for your child's class head on over for a steal. For only $2.99 you can get 100 of these little guys. They'd be perfect for stringing together to make a banner or for decorating cards.
This set of rose-shaped soaps are also from oriental trading. They come 12 to a set I think and each set is on sale for $2.99. They would make a lovely romantic addition to any bathroom. You could get a cute soap dish and use them as hand soaps or you could use them for bathing. I could go on and on with tons of great pink items I find, but if you've made it this far (you trooper, you) I find it very unnecessary to bore you any longer.

14 Days of Love (Day 1)

Liz at Brambleberry Cottage is hosting a "Fourteen Days of Love" party. I won't be participating in all of the days so if you want to check them out them head on over to her blog. The first day is all about how you make this one day special compared to the other 364 days. I'm not speaking from much experience (I'm coming up on my 4th Valentine's Day ever, but it is with the same guy and I'm only 20) but I have had a few good ideas. For our first Valentine's Day my boyfriend, J, gave me the impression that we weren't celebrating. He kept talking about how its just a "Hallmark Holiday" or he'd call it "Single-Awareness Day". So, needless to say, I was very surprised when he showed up to my house with a gift. I was so embarassed that I didn't have one for him. He was staying at a friend's house while in town (at this point he lived in Detroit) so I knew I could come up with something. Eventually I came up with the perfect idea. I bought a 64 pack of crayons and began stripping every crayon of its wrapper. Then, I used computer paper and made 64 new labels. On each label I wrote down a reason why I loved him and drew a little picture. Next, I taped the labels on. On the front of the box where it says "64 Crayons" I covered the word "crayons" and wrote on a piece of paper "reasons why I love you" so that the box read "64 reasons why I love you." When I gave it to J he loved it. Every time an anniversary, or holiday, or birthday comes up he makes me a card with those crayons.

(roses J sent me for our 2nd Valentine's Day)





For our second Valentine's Day J was far away in Detroit. I wanted to give him a gift that kept giving after just that one day. I decided to make him a bunch of little cards. I decorated about 90 different cards and wrote a message in each one. I put all the cards in envelopes and on the envelope was a date between February 14th and May 29th (our anniversary) upon which he was allowed to open the card. I placed all the envelopes in a box I decorated and sprayed it with my perfume so that each time he opened it, he'd get a little whiff of me. This was by far J's favorite gift. He told me that sometimes he couldn't wait til the designated date to open the card so he'd open it a day or two sooner. J also recently told me that he used to open the box very quickly just to get a whiff of my perfume.





So, what have you done for your partner?

oh-wee-oh

Saturday was the first home game of the season and this year I was able to buy tickets to all the home games. Yay!! I did some cool tailgating with some senior boys. Not that the word "senior" means anything, they were J's roommates. But anyway so tailgating, fries from McDonald's, Nachos at the stadium, and Tiger Football. A Saturday can't get any better than that, well ... usually. Except for the fact the it rained for the first half of the game and needless to say I had no rain gear to speak of. I was okay with that because most of the kids in the student section didn't have ponchos, until the wind started to blow. Rain on a Saturday night when its 80 degrees out doesn't sound so bad, but when it feels like a breezy 70 it gets kinda cold. We played Vanderbilt and were winning so I decided to leave the game in the 3rd quarter. J stayed behind and we scored an additional 2 touchdowns bringing the final score to 23 - 9. I have to say, football is soooo much more interesting in person than it is on t.v.

P.S. I graduated high school with Jordan Jefferson so if he ever makes it that will be pretty cool.

all pics curtousey of lsusports.net

Fajitas

So I told you I'd say what J and I made with our fresh bell peppers. Well ... we made fajitas! I really never was one to eat fajitas with peppers and onions. I'd just pick out the chicken and put that on my tortilla. I have recently come to enjoy a cooked pepper as long as it still has a bite to it. So we boiled the chicken and then cut it into strips. Then we browned it in some olive oil. Once the chicken was done we took it out the pan and put in the peppers and onions. You sautae those until they are soft and then add the chicken back in. Then we added the fajita seasoning (following the directions on the package) and stirred for a few minutes. Voila you have fresh peppers fajitas! It was soooo good but we only had enough leftovers for each of us to have one the next night. Oh well, better some then none!

Hope you enjoy as much as I did,

Meghan