TO DO List

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a crazy 'To-Do' list person. I always make them and I love crossing off the things I've done. I'll make these lists for anything...things to do before hosting a party...schoolwork/work projects....household stuff.

And now I'm thinking I need a bigger to-do list. More broad and random.

Here's my fall to-do list:

1. Make a pie from scratch...I'm thinking apple.
2. Start & maintain a workout routine.
3. Do something very 'Fall Like'...maybe apple picking or pumpkin patch. Perfect for my pie!
   
4. Buy a new camera.
5. Pass the bar exam/Find a legal job.
   
6. Make a fun headband...studs/feathers/something
   
7. Pay off some credit cards. barf.
8. Sew something...a pillow, a skirt, something!
9. Finally finish reading Pride & Prejudice
   
10. Save some extra cash for our Thanksgiving vacation to KW.

Do you guys make to do lists? Do you have any must-do things on your list? Any goals? I'm shooting for 50% on this list, haha

Weekend Round-Up

So like I blogged about last Friday, I had one busy weekend! It was full of non-stop action.


Saturday started off with a baby shower for an old family friend. She is the cutest pregnant girl ever and all of her college friends are having babies too. They're all 31, graduates from Ohio State and all having girls. Isn't that too funny? It's the year of the girls!

Then I rushed over to truly one of my oldest friend's bachelorette party. It was Cowgirl themed and let me tell you, it was a riot. I'm not a country girl myself, but I had fun! We got line dancing lessons and then went to a couple of bars on a bus...a school bus! I can say it was my first time drinking on a school bus, that's for sure :)

To show you how far back we go...look at some of these pics. WOW! And these aren't even the earliest ones!






Sunday I went to the Sox game with my Mom, Aunt & Uncle. It was such a long game but they did bring home a W! The game started off with KC scoring 6 runs in the first inning. The first homerun of the game truly landed one row in front of our seats. Out of the 5 years we've had our partial season tickets, this has never happened! I covered my face (I kid not) because I knew it was going to bounce and I feared I'd lose my teeth! HAHA!! The best part is that I saw the replay on tv when we got home...there I was, covering my face and holding a beer. If I can find it again I'll take a picture of the screen! It was quite exciting (yet terrifying)

Oh and how could I forget...this 'Bad Boy' was a couple rows in front of us at the game. He's obviously a fan of DIY!



And finally on Monday I saw The Switch with Jennifer Aniston & Jason Bateman. I LOVED it. I was one of 4 people in the theater but that didn't stop me from laughing out loud. Bateman was amazing, as always, and it was a really cute movie. I recommend it for a quick break from reality!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Did you do anything exciting? I have to admit I'm super excited that TV has started again...it's the little things in life, right?

Going Bananas

I have to be honest...

......I normally buy bananas to eat 1 or 2 and then wait for them to go bad so I can bake with them : )

I love banana bread, banana cupcakes, and banana pancakes. What's not to love? So today I'm giving you my world famous banana cupcake recipe. It's not mine and it's not famous but that sounds better, doesn't it? It will be famous one day and it's from my best friend, K.

So without further ado...BANANA CUPCAKES!

Ingredients:

½ pound (2 sticks) butter or margarine softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 large I usually use 2.5)
1 ¾ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 teaspoon baking soda
5 tablespoons buttermilk (regular milk or soy milk can be substituted. I've even used vanilla flavored before)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prep your cupcake pans
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add mashed bananas, mixing thoroughly.
Sift dry ingredients and add to butter and egg mixture.
Stir until flour has been incorporated completely.
Add buttermilk and vanilla.
Mix for 1 minute.
Pour batter into the prepared cupcake pans.
Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

***Helpful Tip***
Cool in pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Then take from cupcake pan and cool on rack for 2 hours. You really need to wait until they're completely cooled before icing them since the icing needs to then be refrigerated and it will just get messy if the cupcakes are crazy hot while being frosted.

And now for the best part....the CREAM CHEESE ICING! I do not discriminate against store-made frosting but if you want to make your own this is pretty easy!

Ingredients:

4 oz of cream cheese, softened (1/2 of a block)
½ stick of butter or margarine, softened.
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 ½ cups powdered sugar

Instructions:

Cream together the cream cheese and margarine.
Add the vanilla.
Slowly add the powdered sugar and beat until it is fully incorporated.

TA-DA! You're done! Now if you want to get snazzy, transfer all your icing to a ziploc bag, cut a small corner off, and you've got your own icing bag! I like to do swirls in the middle as you can see. Remember these cupcakes need to be kept refrigerated.

Make it special by putting something edible on top! This is a chopped walnut but I also like doing dried banana chips or even a small chocolate chip.

If you'd like to make this into a cake the batter recipe is exactly the same but bake it in 2 9" round pans for 25-35 minutes depending on your oven. Then double the frosting recipe and you're good to go. A nice touch is to make sure you have 1-2 firm bananas, frost the first layer of the cake, then slice the firm banana and place it all over the top of the frosted bottom layer. Place the top layer on and ice it up. YUM!

Please enjoy and let me know if you make them! Do you have any go-to recipes with fruits? I'm looking for a good pie recipe!

Decisions, Decisions...in need of some advice!

So I finally received all my goodies in the mail...at the same time, woo! Anyway, I need some advice.

umm next time I'll put makeup on before I put my mug before photobooth. Yikes!

What are your thoughts on the necklaces? I was pleasantly surprised by the JCrew one in the top right hand corner. The Anthropologie one is just too big in my opinion. It's the bottom left hand corner, shown long and short. I'm torn on the JCrew big & gaudy ones (as I call them) I think I prefer the second one compared to the first. Plus let me tell you, ladies...the first one is HEAVY. And this is the only length it can be worn.

I love the belt, need to find a way to make it stay though b/c there's a lot of extra length after it's belted. Hated the purple sweater. No wonder it was on sale. Those ruffles aren't helping anyone! Eww. Loved the tan sweater (it is so flattering! didn't want to make another collage....friday laziness!) and the brown tank...now I must head to Anthro to return the losers and use my 15% birthday coupon!

Any advice on the necklaces would be great!

I've got a busy weekend with dinner plans, a baby shower, cowgirl themed bachelorette party and a White Sox game. I don't know if I'll have time to come up for air...

Enjoy your weekend!!! Have fun & don't forget to laugh :)

Things I've Learned Recently

So do you ever have those A-HA! moments and then realize your A-HA! was a little late? Happens to me all the time and usually involves someone laughing at me.

Here's a list of things I've learned/realized/stumbled upon recently.

1. (the most embarassing) Veal is not baby lamb. Why did I think it was?! My brother asked me if I knew what veal was and I said duh, it's baby lamb baaaaaah. this did not end well for me.

2. Picasa is one of Google's greatest applications.

3. Giada De Laurentiis is married to an Anthropologie designer. No wonder she dresses well.





4. There's a little arrow on your gas tank that tells you which side your fuel tank is on. How come I never realized this before? I just always assumed they were on the driver's side. Sometimes I don't know how I graduated high school...

5. Mixing Red wine with Diet Coke is absolutely delicious. Pinot Noir (which is sooo good alone) + Diet Coke = so tasty!! Realized this when I had a glass of red wine and it tasted odd so I sipped a little bit of my DC to get the taste out of my mouth and it was so good. No wonder the Europeans have been doing this for so long. And it's supposedly better with regular Coke...






6. Bell peppers have the most pesticides on them of any vegetable. Gross. I know it's expensive to eat organically but this just creeps me out that there were over 64 pesticides on one pepper.

7. Eric from True Blood (Alex Skarsgard) has a famous dad, Stellan Skarsgard who is one of those actors you recognize because they're in a lot of movies, but never know their name. Thank you IMDB.com!



8. Gilt has designers make stuff specifically for their sites. This kind of blows because you're not really getting their stuff that's at the boutiques or department stores. I don't know why...but this irritates me. Does RueLaLa do this too? This article spilled the deets: "Of course, Gilt nor the designers want to let the buyers know which items were made exclusive for the site because they are usually lower in quality."

9. Maria Menounos used to be a size 14. Hard to believe...and I've never seen photos of her at this size, so who knows but good for her! She looks ahhmazing.

10. Justin Bieber accounts for 3% of all tweeting on Twitter. WOW.

Now I realize this isn't a groundbreaking list. Some of you are probably laughing at my lack of knowledge haha. So... what have you learned/realized/stumbled upon recently? Do you have a lot of A-HA! moments like myself?!

A Day full of Hmmms

You know those days when you feel like you can't make a decision, can't remember anything, don't know what to do with yourself? That was my day today.

Should I go to Starbucks? hmm

Where did I put that JCrew reward? hmm

Should I mail these cards today or sit on the couch? hmm

What is my problem, people?! It's a BEEEautiful day in Chicago and I wandered around the house like a lost puppy! But, in my defense I did hit some snags.

Bought these super cute Tory Burch flats the other week and they're painful. Not like hmm let's break these in, more like AHHH my feet feel like hell! So I didn't know what to do. I couldn't return them seeing as I've worn them. And I don't know if I have the heart in me to even attempt to break them in

How perfect is that metallic color? Too perfect!

Anxiously awaiting some of my birthday goodies to be delivered from Anthropologie and JCrew. And a perk! I just got the 15% coupon today for my birthday from Anthro. YAY!

I'm hoping that beige sweater looks as cute on as it does in the picture. The two bigger necklaces are JCrew and I think I'm in love with the one on top! It's hard to see but the purple Anthro sweater has really cute ruffles (and an even better price tag!)

So basically I was useless today. Oh well, we're all entitled to these days here and there, right? Now I'm on a serious hunt for a new pair or metallic ballet flats. I mean, I live in them come fall! There has to be a good pair out there. How do you feel about these?

Anyone else having a meh kind of Wednesday? And please, if you know of some cute metallic ballet flats...send me some links!!

Who Doesn't Love 3-Day Weekends?

Happy Labor Day, Bloggers! What did your 3-day weekend entail? Mine was incredibly relaxing and low-key. Did some shopping, saw The American (damn you George Clooney, give me my 2 hours back) had our family's fantasy football draft and celebrated my birthday! Phew, what a weekend!

As for my birthday, I'll have to post some pictures once I get them on my computer...for now, it's all mobile shots :) Got some great gifts from the fabulous people in my life. This deserves a post of it's own and I'll do it later this week :) One of my absolute favorite things is champagne. MMM love it! And I received a lovely bottle of Veuve from my friend. Yay!




OK...onward. Saw The American and it truly was bad. Like I checked my cell phone about 12 times. And picked at my manicure. And sent death stares over my shoulder to the slob, I'm sorry, man who was chomping on popcorn and crumbling his bag like an animal. I really wish we would have just seen Going the Distance or something light...After the movie, however, I did see some pretty CLASSY people at the bar/restaurant we went to.
Point in case. This was a MAN. Enough said.



And on to the lovely lady in her leather Pittsburgh Steelers jacket (this is not a shot at the team, don't worry!) It was more fun that she was 1) black-out drunk slamming shots and 2) using her jacket to shimmy up to the band and shake her sexy self for the singer (who is wearing the hat above. seriously.)



And then it was time for the Fantasy Football Draft. Think we got an ok team. I really don't know about these things.

And what is a party without goodies? We had burgers, brats, salads, desserts, munchies, you name it! But NOTHING and I'm telling you NOTHING was a bigger hit than Carrie's Shrimp & White Cheddar Stuffed Jalapeños. They were spectacular. And easy! The only time consuming bit was cutting the jalapeños and getting the seeds out. Note to self...don't then touch your nose. I felt as though I was a dragon for about 40 minutes. I eventually doused a paper-towel with milk and stuffed it up my nose. People, this is not glamorous, it was 100% necessary. I do have a picture, but I don't even think I can share it. Makes my nose burn.

Pre-paprika sprinkling and grilling. They were gone too soon to snap an after picture!

So that was my weekend add in some shopping and Pumpkin Spice Soy Latte heaven and there you have it...

How was your Labor Day Weekend? Relaxing? Crazy? Gone too soon? Hey, at least it's already Tuesday and the work week isn't as long :)