The Weather Was So Hot and a Girl Date

Ummm attention Mr. Weather Man: This is not summer.  In fact it is still technically winter for a few more days.

Apparently the weather man did not get the above memo because on Saturday it was over 90 degrees here and on Sunday it was an oh so cool 80 degrees.

I went to the gym on Saturday morning and when I came out of the gym a wall of heat hit me.  It was not pleasant.  I drove though Starbucks to get a cold drink and ran into Trader Joe's to get a few necessities before coming home to eat lunch and take a shower to cool off.

After cooling off I got dressed and made my best attempt to wear something I wouldn't be too hot and and headed out to meet one of my girlfriends for a girl date.  Dinner and a movie!

We went to Mimi's for dinner and I decided the weather warranted a margarita.  One thing I will never understand is why when you are served a margarita with salt on the rim are you also given a straw.  How do you get the salt in your mouth if you use a straw??  This always puzzles me!

After we ate we grabbed our jackets out of the car just in case by some chance the theater was cold (it wasn't) and got to the movie just in time for the previews to start.  As this was a girl date of course we saw the girliest movie out there.  Cinderella.  The movie was actually pretty cute and the costumes were gorgeous.

We came out of the theater around 9 and it was still about 75 degrees so I knew my condo was going to feel like a furnace when I got home.  My wonderful fiance had remembered to put the fan in our bedroom window so it was actually not as bad as it could have been.

Sunday I slept in a bit and then went to the gym and Trader Joe's to get all the stuff I hadn't gotten the day before.
That afternoon the fiance and I went on a mission to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get some sort of shelving/drawer things for under our bathroom sink.

We ended up with these two sets.

Hopefully once I go though and organize everything under our bathroom sink it will not be such a mess and things won't fall out whenever we open the cabinet.  I think part of the problem is we have no other storage in the bathroom so hopefully being able to put things into two layers will help.  We have the organizers but the actual using of said organizers is a project for another day.  Before and after photos to come when the project is complete.

We finished off the day by relaxing at home and heading to bed early to prepare for the week to come.  Hope everyone had a great weekend too!

Favorite St. Patrick's Day Traditions

Growing up we always celebrated St. Patrick's Day in my house.  My grandmother was 100% Irish so it was always fun to celebrate my heritage.  It didn't hurt that my mom is a great cook and so the food was always delicious.  She loves to cook but can take or leave the whole decorating the table part so she always let me (and/or made me) set and decorate our table for St. Patrick's Day dinner.

This is the table decorations from a few years ago at my parent's house. My general thought on decorating the table was the tackier the better and there is not such thing as too many sparkles.  While I am not having a full on St. Patrick's Day dinner at my house this year because it falls on a Tuesday but I did decorate my house a bit and I can't let this holiday without my favorite St. Patrick's Day food.

Irish Soda Bread!  So yummy with butter as a savory dish and also so good with a bit of jam on it for something sweeter.  Here is the recipe I use:

4 cups flour

1 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

1 3/4 buttermilk

Preheat the over to 375 degrees

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter (or 2 knives if you don't have a pastry cutter).

Add the egg and the buttermilk to the dry/butter mixture and mix well with your hands. (put a bit of water on your hands to prevent some of the sticking).  

Divide the dough into two pieces and press into 2 greased round pans (or make 2 round shapes and place on a greased cookie sheet). 

Cut a cross into your loaves and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Linking Up

A Little Bit More Wedding

My fiance and I had our second wedding meeting a couple of weeks ago just to touch base on the details we had been working on.  My fiance has narrowed our church choices down to three and I have found a handful photographers that are possibilities for our engagement pictures.  Now we both have to start contacting these places and work out the details.

We are planning to have our wedding on the Big Island of Hawaii and it just so happens that we (along with my parents and sisters) are going there in May to celebrate my mom's birthday.  We are going to look at churches and the hotel I want to have the reception at while we are there.

Right now I feel like I have so much (almost too much) time to plan this wedding and I want it to be as low stress as possible so I am trying to get as much stuff done this far in advance so I can try to relax as it gets closer.  I figured the best way to stay organized was to buy a planner.

Of course it shouldn't surprise anyone that I picked a planner with a purple theme.  It has a two year calendar and lots of blank pages for all kinds of notes as well as pages to keep track things like bridal party/groomsman contact info and pages to list vendor information.  It even has some check lists and timelines to help as a guide.


I love stickers and this planner came with all kinds of stickers.  There are a bunch to put on the calendar pages with specific wedding events like showers and rehearsal dinner and then reminders for all kinds of other things that need to be done. There are also blank stickers so you can write your own to-dos on which I am sure I will have.  Hello buying sunscreen!

There are still a ton of things to figure out but at least it will be organized and colorful.  We are hoping to officially have picked our date (we have 2 in mind) and church by June and then we will be on our way!  I am going dress shopping at the end of May with my mom and most of my bridesmaids and I am so excited.  I love shopping and what little girl doesn't dream of wedding dress shopping.  I won't be able to post pictures of the dress I actually pick (just in case the fiance reads this) but if I end up in any really hideous ones I will be sure to post pictures for everyone to laugh at!

There are some very cute quotes spread though out the planner but I just love this one:

As sappy as it sounds I really can't wait to marry my fiance and continue our adventure together.

Weekend Wrap Up-Daylights Savings Time. Yuck!

Hello Monday!  You are not making me like you any more by being the Monday after daylights savings time.  You may not be my favorite day of the week but you are here I guess I will make the best of it. 

 Friday night my fiance and I had a nice quiet night at home and we watched the last episode of Agent Carter that aired a few weeks ago.  I sat on the couch with a glass of wine and read blogs with a candle burning.  It was lovely.

Saturday we lounged in bed for a good chunk of the morning getting up every so often to switch the laundry (gotta have clean clothes) until I got hungry. After I ate brunch I headed off to the post office to mail a few packages (Liz your Christmas present should be there before your birthday!) and oh my goodness did it take forever.  I always forget that the USPS is one of the least efficient businesses ever.  Even with a line practically out the door the clerks have no sense of urgency!  

After my stressful trip to the post office it was off to the mall for some retail therapy. Ok so really I went there for a purpose but I just ended up taking a few detours along the way. My poor laptop is getting old so in preparation for having to probably get a new one sometime this year I went to the Apple store and asked the poor staff a lot of dumb questions.  I think they were glad to see me leave but laptops are expensive and I want to make the best decision for me.  Any advice? 

My fiance has been complaining of getting old because he has gotten some sun spots/age spots on his face so I went to Sephora to get him a face cream to reverse them and prevent them.  I know he doesn't wear sunscreen everyday and has super dry skin so this Clinique moisturizer seemed to be the best option.  I smelled it to make sure it didn't smell girly and since it doesn't I am hoping he will wear it and that it will do what it says it will do.  It has good reviews but I will report back later on its success. 

After I did what I came to the mall to do I decided it was time to stop by the Loft.  I had tried a really cute dress on there last weekend but I needed the dress in a petite size instead of regular.  The store only had the dress in regular sizes last weekend and even though it was available online in petite I am kind of between sizes in petite Loft dresses so I was still contemplating which size to order.  This weekend the regular sizes of the dress were completely sold out but they had gotten in petite sizes on Thursday.  Success!  I got to try it on and get the correct size without having to order 2 and return the one that didn't fit. Such a pretty dress! I can't wait to wear it on my vacation in Hawaii in May.

I ran to Costco (always an adventure on a weekend) before heading home for another quiet evening at home.  Even though I went to bed at a reasonable time I woke up Sunday morning just exhausted.  I had lots of productive things planned for the day but as my fiance had to remind me many times yesterday sometimes my body has other plans and I have to listen.  I don't think my exhaustion had anything to do with daylights saving but I can still hate daylights saving time anyway.

A few of my favorite people

One of my very favorite pictures of my sisters and my fiance

Enjoying a very warm Thanksgiving in Southern California with my fiance and his family

On our way to Seattle for a bridal shower

And now on our way to Seattle for the wedding

I have known these girls for over half my life!

Most of my college roommates

More college roommates

Having a blast with my family in Germany

My grad school partner in crime

Running while wearing fabulously silly costumes is half the fun of Bay to Breakers

One side of my family

And the other

I can't wait to have all my favorite people help me and my fiance celebrate our wedding next year! Just a little (or a lot) more planning to go to make this a reality but at this point I am just at the excited point instead of the overwhelmed point.

Random Ramblings

None of these happenings quite warrant their own whole post but combined they made a great random post.

I have been competing in two different Biggest Loser contests at work and one of them ended on Friday.  This was just a contest for people on my floor.  There were about 10 people in this contest and there were 3 of us that had definitely lost some weight but I wasn't sure who had lost the largest percentage.  Everyone weighed in (with just one person monitoring) and when the results were announced I ended up winning.  Woohoo!  Each person had put in $20 to enter the contest and I won all the money!

The other Biggest Loser contest I am participating has more people since it for 3 floors of the building and doesn't end until April 1.  I will let you know how that one turns out!

Over the weekend our much anticipated dishwasher was delivered and installed.

Isn't it so pretty and shiny?  Since there are only two of us and we don't make a ton of dishes much of the time we have only filled it up and run it once but it worked wonderfully.  You can't really tell in this picture but the dishwasher matches our refrigerator and our sink fixtures which is really nice.  Our poor stove is feeling a little left out of this brushed silver party but it is working fine so we have no immediate plans to replace it.

I know our weather here in California is nowhere near as crazy as what much of the country has been experiencing but our weather on Monday was really weird.  I woke up and it was sunny but the weather report said chance of showers.  At 10 AM when I went outside it was still sunny but my lunch time it was pouring rain.  Not showers but full on downpour.  By about 2 it was sunny again and then when I went to go on a walk at around 3 it was pouring again.  It was sprinkling when I got off at 5 and sunny 15 minutes later when I got off the train.  We defiantly need the rain but I would like it to just rain all day or be sunny so I can be prepared!

I think that is enough random ramblings for one day!

St. Patrick's Day Decorations

As promised I tidied up our condo this weekend and took pictures of my St. Patrick's Day decorations.  Since St. Patrick's Day falls on a weekday this year I doubt I will cook a corn beef and cabbage on the actual day but I least I can look at my decorations.

I don't remember where I got this block with the saying on it but I just love it.  It is green and sparkly so it lives with my holiday decorations but if I had a good place for it I would keep it out year round to remind me to just be patient when things aren't going at the speed I want them to be.

We have a very picky HOA so rather than risk problems I have been putting all my holiday signs/wreaths on the door to our washer/drying instead of on the front door.  

My wooden bowl is back again!  This time it is filled with a shimmery shamrock garland.  I bought this this year at Target and it worked out perfectly for what I wanted it to do.

I haven't really put much permanent on the walls of the condo so the wall across from our dinning table is blank most of the time.  I figured it needed some holiday cheer so I hung a shamrock garland on it to add some color.  I am pretty sure these decorations have more glitter than all my other holiday decorations combined!

I put these decorations up the day after Valentine's Day so I would have plenty of time to enjoy then and I am pretty sure I will take them down the day after St. Patrick's Day since Easter come so soon after St. Patrick's Day and I want to have time to enjoy my Easter decorations.