Friday, January 28, 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Happiness

I am a big BIG fan of chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, I used to come home from school and eat like 6 cookies with milk. Pretty consistently (leading to my middle school chubbiness). I don't like when homemade cookies get hard. It irks me really bad! So, I decided to try to attempt to find a recipe that doesn't do that. Now, I LOVE my grandma's recipe, but must admit hers do get a little crunchy after cooling.

I tried this recipe today for some dinner guests tonight. It is THE best recipe I have found as of yet. I got it from the Betty Crocker website (God bless that woman. She and Julia Child are pretty much my cooking/baking role models).

Here is the recipe: (be aware: this recipe yields 6 dozen cookies! be ready to eat them! 3 STICKS OF BUTTER?!?! HOLY MOLY!!!)source and recipe

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 to 2 bags (12 oz each) semisweet chocolate chips (2 to 4 cups)
  1. Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl with electric mixer, beat granulated sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and eggs until well blended. Beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.
  2. On ungreased cookie sheets, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart.
  3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.
On the menu tonight::

Tacos (and all the fixins')
Spanish Rice
Refried Beans
Corn
Chips and Homemade pico de gallo

Chocolate Chip cookies for dessert!

MMM MMM!!!!

What are you cooking/baking?!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Contradictory Me

I am 24 years old.
and I am still figuring myself out.

I always thought I was very extroverted.
I love people, but I also love my alone time.

I love being able to think.
But hate not being able to turn off my thoughts at times.

I love who I am,
but have always struggled with body image.

I hate pink,
but I like my fingernails to be pink.

I love being crafty,
but need a lot of inspiration and ideas to get going.

I adore music,
but never practiced piano enough.

I want to be more knowledgeable about my faith,
but struggle to read my Bible and learn more.

I hate judgmental people,
but sometimes struggle to not be judgmental myself.

I want to be less materialistic,
but have a list of things I "want" and yet don't need.

I want to travel the world,
and yet am very comfortable at home.

I am very contradictory and am still trying to figure o
ut who I am,
but becoming very more aware of who I want to be.




Sunday, January 16, 2011

Someday.... and some goals for the week. *

I will have a crafting nook like this:Featured HERE

and Matt will have a wall of books like this::(i lost the source to this picture)


(
We're already on our way there with the book collection thanks to undergrad and 3 years of grad school and about 4-5 more years of college for him).


Just a random thought while browsing the web and dreaming..

This week's goals::
*Work out at least 3 days that I have off.
*Get my sewing machine out of the box and make something
*Read my Bible

That's it. Nothing too extreme. I have Tuesday and Wednesday off this week and the weekend so I'm planning on enjoying my free time and getting off the couch and doing something. Hopefully! It's hard to do when you have days off because you have to readjust your sleep schedule! We'll see how it goes!





Saturday, January 15, 2011

Things That Made Me Happy This Week


1.) My Husband
(he has been so good about cooking dinner, cleaning and helping out around the house since I started working full time night shift!)


2.) Girl Friends
(I've made some really great friends with 3 girls in our apartment building. We're all newlyweds and we've all clicked so well. So great to have good girl friends away from home. I miss all my
friends back home, so it's great to have such good friends here!

3.) Living in the moment
I honestly believe this is the first time in my life that I have been 100% satisfied and happy with where I am in life! Granted, there are some barriers to that with the whole only bein
g here for 2 years and knowing life is going to change again, my job being so far away, and other factors, but all of those things are outweighed by being happy with being newlywed, our location here, our neighbors, and just life in general. It's great to finally be in a place where I can live for today and enjoy the moment.


4.) Family
It was so great being home for Christmas. I miss my family. It's hard being so far away from them and only seeing them every couple months for bits of time. I am thankful for phones and facebook and outlets of communication with our families. My brother sent me a picture of my 3 (almost 4) year old niece with a grandpa mustache on and I almost died from the cuteness. Matt and I bought her those mustaches for Christmas. Look how cute those 2 peanuts are!!!

5.) Me time
This whole "me time" thing has been lacking lately. sometimes it's easy to get lost in the whole routine of working all night, sleeping all day and in your time between feeling so lethargic that the only thing that sounds good is laying on the couch watching Law & Order in sweatpants. I've been trying to make this "me time" more of a priority.

6.) Working Out and Eating Healthy
Matt and I started our gym membership this week. We've only had time to go twice, but my goal is to go at least 3 times a week. I've decided that it's time to start investing in our health now. It's time to be done with the whole eating nachos for dinner and starting eating healthy and taking care of ourselves. It feels great! :-)


These are just some things that have made me happy this week. It's always good to think about happy things and focusing on the good in life rather than dwelling on the bad.

What makes you happy?

Saturday, January 1, 2011

I'm Back!

Okay ya'll, the CRAZIEST thing happened! My blog was deleted!!!!! I have no idea what happened! Both of my gmail accounts were hacked or something because I had to reset both of them!!! But, I'M BACK!!!

I've officially gotten into the full swing of working night shift. It's been an adjustment, hence the lack of blogging!

Anyways,

It's officially 2011 which means a New Year has begun! With a new year comes new beginnings. I have never been into the whole New Years Resolution thing, but I do like to set goals for myself. My problem, however, is that I tend to set too many goals for myself and then get bombarded that I cannot reach all of my goals and essentially give up on all of them. I set some goals for myself for my 24th birthday HERE.

1.) Start working out again- (run a 5k by spring)

2.) Travel to surrounding states-- Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, etc. At least 1 or 2.
3.) Get a Macbook or an IPhone
4.) Knit a cowl. Learn to Knit in the Round.
5.) Learn to be a great wife. :-)---- neverending process
6.) Communicate better. --- workin' on it
7.) Consume less caffeine-- CHECK
8.) Bake more delicious things. (Cheesecake, Pies and Cupcakes OH MY!)--- CHECK
9.) Open an Etsy shop --- not happening....
10.) Visit my Family--- CHECK
11.) Get a sewing machine and sew my own clothing, pillows, etc.-- got the sewing machine for Christmas (still in the box)
12.) Go to more antique shops
13.) Start a box herb garden next spring
14.) Be more patient --- workin' on it
15.) Eat Healthier (be vegetarian for awhile?!?!) --- come on it's the Holidays! get real...
16.) Go to more concerts (Local Natives, Ray Lamontagne, Ingrid Michaelson, are some of the ones I'm watching for coming to Chicago).
17.) Be frugal financially and save money-- CHECK (with the excpetion of having to purchase a new vehicle.)
18.) Continue decorating our apartment by making more things myself -CHECK
19.) Continue to learn to play Ukulele and possibly Guitar
20.) Be a great nurse-- workin on it! Just got done with my 6 week training/orientation!
21.) Go apple picking and bake an apple pie -- do apple dumplings count?!
22.) Keep in touch with friends and family back home better -- trying!
23.) Learn to appreciate today ( I am getting so much better at this).--- Workin on it!
24.) Read more books--- eeehhhhh....

There's a little update on where I am with my birthday goals.... so....

GOALS FOR 2011
1. Read my Bible. This is something I have always struggled with being in my routine. It should be my main focus and more important to me. My goal is to have my own personal time to do this in my daily routine.
2. Start gym membership and work out at least 3 times a week.
My Parents got us our first month of our membership, so we're going to start that soon!
3. Blog consistently and try to get people to actually read it!
4. Learn how to knit in the round
5. Learn to use my new sewing machine
6. Go on more mini-vacations
7. Book our first vacation! (Germany?)
8. Be more adventurous in my cooking
9. Eat healthier
10. Be more frugal and save more money
11. Have more time for myself


There you have it! 11 things for 2011. They kind of intertwine with my other goals for the year. Here's to reaching new goals in 2011!

What are your goals or resolutions?!?!


Matt and I went home for Christmas. It was so wonderful! Pictures and a blog post to come soon!!!!