Dinner With Friends

Last evening we had the pleasure of having the hubby's high school friends over for supper.  The night before I spent prepping (which I loved!!) and prepared cucumber salad, potato salad, jello-vanilla strawberry pie (yummy!!), corn on the cob, and a chicken marinade.  It was one of my first experiences preparing a meal for 6+ people all alone.  I shouldn't say alone, though, one of the friends brought salsa, chips, mixed berries and some hamburger to contribute.  We had a great meal!  We started off the evening with a pool party while the hubby grilled.  Then enjoyed the meal on the picnic table.  After, we headed inside to some much needed AC and had dessert.  It was so wonderful to get the 'gang' all together again.  One couple is heading to Tennessee for schooling so it'll be while before we see them again.  Our other friends live just north of the TC so we are lucky we get to see them more often, but we always enjoy time we get to spend together. 


Light Strawberry Pie Recipe

1 graham cracker crust
1 package instant vanilla pudding (fat free, sugar free)
1 package strawberry jello (fat free, sugar free)
1 container of strawberries, cleaned and sliced
1 container fat free cool whip

Prepare vanilla pudding and jello as directed.  Mix vanilla pudding, jello and strawberries and pour into graham cracker crust.  Place in fridge until firm.  Top with fat free cool whip!

Makes 8 servings (decent size).

Challenge

Hello blog!  I'm feeling challenged today.  I am not entirely sure what to write about, plus, I didn't give myself very much time to write.  In fact, I am leaving in 3 minutes and I have a heck of an evening planned.  My plan includes a trip to a container store, grocery store, department store, cleaning and preparing some food for tomorrow night's guests - which I'm super happy about and cannot wait to share with you what I decide to make and how the evening turns out.  With that being said, I'm off - feeling motivated and ready to take on my tasks!!  Wish me luck!

What a weekend!!

I had a great weekend!!!  Friday night was spent just relaxing, having a good meal and spending time with my hubby.  Then on Saturday we got to take a trip to Rochester to celebrate a friend's wedding.  It was beautiful!  It was held outdoors in a garden and the ceremony was perfect.  The reception was also a lot of fun.  We left early because of early rounds on Sunday, but that's okay.  We were there for the important part, the vows.  They each said their own.  I really love when couples say their own vows.  It wasn't the right choice for our wedding, but it was really fun to witness their vows.  Sunday I went tubing with my mother in law and (probably) future sister-in-law.  We had plans to include a bunch of people, but they all bailed on us.  It was okay though, we got to spent some quality time together.  The weather was great, the water was fast and conversation came easy.  What a great day! I came home and had a picnic-type supper and a good friend came over to finish off the night with frozen  yogurt.  After a weekend like that, it was almost painful to go back to work today.

 Hoping you all get to experience wonderful and fun weekends that seem like they never end.  

A Step In the Right Direction

I received a job offer!! 

It's only part-time, and when I say part-time I kind of mean super part time, like 16 hours a week....BUT it's in the health care field and I think it's important to take a step in the direction of where I want my career to end up - in HealthCare!! 

So, I will start August 8th at Children's Hospital in St. Paul as an HIM Medical Scribe.  Basically, I will follow the doctors around and write down all their notes. Not super glamorous, but I'm super excited!!

Because of the short hours, though, I will be keeping my other position, just knocking it down to part time. 

That's all I got for now, folks!

Name my.....fruit? Vodka?

My brain is a little scattered today.  All I can think about is Christmas Shopping (I know, it's July AND 110 degrees out!) but I'm determined to start (and finish) super early this year.  I already have part of one of my sister's gifts done.  I'm thinking about  doing a lot of homemade gifts this year.  After all, who doesn't love homemade gifts?! 

I'm also in the mood to try a recipe my mother in law sent me a couple years ago - skittle infused vodka.  I've been looking up all sorts of ideas on how I would do this.  But of course, I need NAMES for my (yet to be) finished products ;)  I love themes and thought I'd try stick to the fruit theme. Then I found cute ideas to incorporate fruit into the name using the a wedding theme - {You're My Main Squeeze} Lemon.  {Orange You Glad I Love You} {I Love you Berry Much} Strawberry {Berry Much In Love} Raspberry {Berry Me} {Just Berried} Not sure what berries on those yet, but just options.  I would still need one for grape though and for lime. 

I also found a recipe for JOLLY RANCHER infused vodka and those flavors are apple, blue raspberry, cherry, watermelon and grape.  So, my names would be Apple of my Eye, or Love You to the Core, and for cherry, I do, Cherries You!  That's all I got.  I would LOVE if you would give me ideas.  I also need a name for my "Company".  I could always go with Watson's Winery, but that's too generic.  Please, send me your feedback :)

I also welcome different "Themes" with ideas please :)

And have a great Tuesday.  If you're in the TC area, be careful - it's black out there!  Suppose to have high winds up to 70mph and severe thunderstorms. 

Weekend Re-Cap

I had the best weekend.  Friday evening the hubby and I went to Teresa's Mexican Restaurant in Mendota Heights.  I thought it was delicious.  I had tres Marias and the cheese sauce was awesome.  I also indulged in a daiquiri (which was so big I couldn't finish) and I thought it was delicious.  The hubby thought it was too syrupy though, so I guess it's really a hit or miss depending on your taste buds.  Then we went home and I slept  - and slept - and slept.  I think I fell asleep around 8pm and woke up around 4:30am Saturday morning.  It was much needed though and I wish I could go back to sleep right now.  There was a huge storm all Friday night/early Saturday morning and the skies did not look like they were going to clear up for my tubing adventure.  Instead, the girls and I headed to Rochester anyway, met up with my sister-in-law and went to a burger joint called Newts.  Again, delicious food!  I was quite spoiled this weekend because I got to indulge in a lot of delicious cuisine.  On our way back from Rochester we stopped at the Cannon River Winery in Cannon Falls, MN.  It just so happened to be their wine and art fair this weekend too!! Lucky us!  We paid $5 and got to try 3 different types of wine.  My favorite was Winter Ice - and then I looked at the price of the bottle $45!  I think I'll stick to my barefoot wine for now ;)  It was tasty and light too - the perfect dessert wine.  We hustled back so some of the girls could go to the HP-72 movie. Who knew that movies were going to be getting abbreviations like that.  To me, it seems like a listing of some sort of gene that I'd study in school ;).  The other girls and myself went to Jen's apartment and swam and gussied ourselves up for a night on the town at Toby Keith's I Love this Bar and Grill.  It was a fun night filled with lots of laughter and old stories :)  Sunday brought on another heat wave and a much needed trip to another local ice cream shop.  My friend Jess LOVES ice cream and so I do, so I know exactly who to call when I want an ice cream fix.  This time we ventured Izzy's Ice Cream Shop  in St. Paul.  It was delicious!  They even have black licorice ice cream, which is my mother-in-law's favorite, so I can't wait to bring her there.  They make their own waffle cones and they have what they call the "Izzy Scoop" which is a watermelon ball size scoop of ice cream (of your choice of flavor) on top of your regular scoop of ice cream that you already chose. It's like a sample of a new flavor ;)  Sunday afternoon we had friends come over for swimming and pizza and then at 8pm I had a softball game in St. Louis Park.  Overall, awesome weekend - hoping this week flies by because Saturday is a wedding in Rochester and Sunday I'm going to attempt to tube..again!  Wishing you a great week!

My Personal Commandments

There are so many things that excite me about Oprah Winfrey's website, especially under the "Spirit" section.  I find it a little ironic that I am now obsessing over an Oprah website when I was definitely that girl who rolled her eyes when she came home from school and found her mom or grandma watching Oprah.  Everyday...4pm...now it's Dr. Phil.  Still not loving that guy.  Anyway, most of the spirit sections are all about finding yourself, your passion, what you want out of life..etc.  And somewhere among the posts today I found a link to The Happiness Project.  I was hooked. How to make yourself Happy.  Don't we all want that?  Now, I  count myself lucky because I feel pretty happy in life anyway, but I know there is always room for improvement.  So, I read about it and I have to say, that today, I'm starting my personal life commandments (read more!).  I think it's going to be quite a fun project.  I have already picked a few of my favorites:

Dig Deep - my interpretation is that you can do anything you set your mind to, but it may take hard work, dedication and time.  Be patient, work hard and know that it will pay off.  Dig Deep, we have big hearts and we are stronger than we realize :)

Avoid Debt - no one likes money problems.  Live within your means.  I think my hubby and I do this pretty well, but I need to kick a few of my luxury habits like Caribou Coffee and, well, Caribou Coffee.  Once in a while is fine, but whenever I feel a little blue, feel like I deserve a reward, want something refreshing, feel like I need a shot of caffeine....I go there, and quite frankly that's ALL too often!  And, I need to stop going to the vending machines at work.  I still get healthy stuff like pretzels, veggie chips, what have you, but it's costing me money I don't need to spend. 

Stay In Touch - I feel like I do this alright, but I need to continue to work on it.  I spoke with my 13 year old brother for a good 40 minutes last night and that hasn't happened in a LONG time.  It was so fun to catch up about what's new in his life and listen to all his stories (of course they were all sport related)  and I loved every minute of it. 


Stay tuned for more as I come up with them. 

I have to recount my evening last night for you because I got to do 4 of my favorite things. 
1) Hang out with some great friends.  We bummed around different sections of the cities in search of a new ice tea mug for me (success!)
2) We went out to eat - I love, love going out to eat, especially with great friends.
3) We ate pizza!  One of my favorite foods, ever.  If you have never been, you must try Punch Pizza. It's a Neapolitan pizza joint that is only found in and around the TC.  It's awesome pizza! 
4) We went out for ice cream afterwards!  Yummm!! The place is on Grand Avenue and it's called Grand Ole Creamery.  It's an old school, homemade ice cream shop that has very unique flavors and they make their own waffle cones (complete with a malt ball in the bottom to stop the ice cream from coming out).  Highly recommended!! 

Counting down the minutes until my weekend begins. For now, I'll send you off with a hilarious video of the cutest little girl and also a tune that always brightens my day (which we need since it's RAINING in the TC)

Jessica's Daily Affirmations

Jake Owen's Barefoot Blue Jean Night - perfect addition to summer!! 

Toes In the Water

I love summer - most of the time...most of the heat I could do without! What I love are evenings filled with friends, family, bbqs...you get the idea.  So that's why I am super excited about my upcoming weekend because college friends are coming to town and we are going tubing and out to the bar for some much needed girl time and catching up :)  Can't wait! 


Now, onto my ne-blog-ect.  Basically, I haven't been writing because I don't know what to write about.  I felt stuck, lost..what have you.  Don't get me wrong, I love my life but not so much my current job, which has led me on a chase of what my true passion is.  I read a lot of blogs and one of my favorites is cassieland.me.  It's written by an acquaintance from H.S. and I'm so inspired by all her ideas.  Today she had a link about how to write a dream board.  It led me to Oprah Winfrey's website which led to an hour or so of reading all about pursuing what you love to do..etc. I think it gave me the boost of motivation I need to rejuvenate myself for studying and working towards some goals I have. So, thank you, Cassie, for inspiring me. 


My hubby is smack dab in the middle of a pediatric surgery rotation.  He loves it. He said the work is so incredible because you meet these tiny babies and their families who feel as if their baby is "broken" and can't live a very good life and he gets to help "fix" them.  Then they get to go back to the family and tell them how their little angel will live a full and healthy life and the feeling is just incredible. Of course, not every story has a fairytale ending, but so far his team has been lucky.  He definitely stays busy, though.  He gets up at 3:30am to be to work at 4:30 and comes home around 6, but Monday night he didn't get home until 11!  So it really varies.  I try to be helpful and have dinner ready, clothes done, clean house..etc.  I actually really enjoy helping like that.  Thanks to his parents we have a coffee maker that I can preset to have coffee ready for when he leaves in the morning.  I LOVE it.  I know he can make his own coffee, but I feel involved and helpful when I can have it ready for him the night before (and I don't have to get out of bed in the morning!)


I can't wait to share with you the inspiring ideas that I got from Oprah.com/spirit, but I want something to write about tomorrow ;)