20 questions

My sweet friend and Bridesmaid, Lauren, tagged me in this 20 questions thing and I figured it would be a good way to ease myself back into blogging. I have been ab awful blogger recently. Since Sayer and I got engaged I have just not had a lot of extra time or energy after work to blog. I know I know...not a good excuse. Who knew wedding planning was so stressful! Stressful but well worth it :)


Rule #1: The tagged person must write their answers on their blog and replace any questions they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

Rule #2: Tag 4 people to do this quiz (I've tagged 2). The tag-ee must state who tagged them.


1. What is one word that can be used to describe you?

Creative. I feel very blessed to have the creative gene (I get it from my Mom) and I have really enjoyed doing a lot of crafty things for our wedding this September. I cant wait to see it all come together! I started my own Etsy business creating personalized stickers for events about a year ago and have also been working on wedding invitation designs that I will eventually have on there as well...I have only had a few orders but I am hoping to be able to do more with it in the future. What would you say your word is Marj?


2. If you could have a dream come true, what would it be?

I know this sounds cheesy but my dreams are already coming true...I met the the perfect man for me, we are getting married this September, I have a great job and with in a few years we hope to be starting a family. Life does not get much better then that :) I would love to know what Ginny's dream is!


3. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Pay off my student loans, maybe buy a house for me and Sayer and save the rest!


4. What helps to pull you out of a bad mood?

A good laugh :)


5. What is your bedtime routine?

Wash my face, brush my teeth and then I usually read until I cant keep my eyes open...


6. What activities did you do in High School? If you could go back, would you do the same or something different?

I cheered and was very involved in my church youth group. I think the only thing I would change if I could go back would be to not be so concerned with boys and just have fun with my friends :)


7. What kind of books do you read?

Chic lit. Its me guilty pleasure. Also, I recently read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series and LOVED it...could not put it down.


8. How do you see yourself in 10 years?

I would love to be planning events and raising a family. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can't wait to have babies :)


9. What's your favorite piece of clothing you own?

right now, my wedding dress...its amazing!


10. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

thats personal :)


11. What's the first thing you do when you wake up?

Check my email, facebook and the weather.


12. If you could have any job, regardless of income, what would it be?

I would have my own event planning business but have assitants so all the stress would not be on me. I would love to plan weddings for other people.


13. If you could pick a new name for yourself, what would it be?

I would not change my name. I love it. My Mom picked it out just for me. I dont know anyone with my name. It makes me unique :)


14. If you had to choose between six months of sun or six months of rain, what would you choose?

Sun. no question. I am a sun girl all the way.


15. If you could only eat one thing for the next 6 months, what would it be?

Pasta. I love carbs!


16. What is the thing you enjoy about blogging the most?

hmmm...there are lots of things. I would say the top two are meeting friends in the blogging world and being able to keep my family and freinds up to date (althought I have NOT been good at it lately) on things going on in my life.


17. Do you prefer salty or sweet foods?

Salty. Cheese and crackers are my favorite salty snack.


18. What items are in your purse right now?

We recently traveled to London so I am carrying an EXTREMELY smaller purse then normal bc I didnt want to carry around a huge purse in the city. Right now I have my phone, carmex chap stick, passport, 5 dollars, my debit card and license oh and some cuticle oil. I am addicted to that stuff.


19. What is the best memory you have of you and the person that tagged you in their 20 questions?

I would say so far her wedding day (not that we did not have TONS of fun memories before that). It was such a blessing to be a part of Lauren and Zach's wedding. The wedding was BEAUTIFUL and everyone had such a great time. I loved dancing with Lauren and all the bridesmaids and celebrating her day...I cant wait for her to be a part of mine in a few months :)


20. What do you watch on television that you know you shouldn't?
Bravo. I. AM. ADDICTED. I cant stop watching the housewives, its pathetic...and Bethany is my favorite. I wish we were friends. Its sad, but I do. She cracks me up and always puts a smile on my face. I even got Sayer to watch a few episodes with me last night :)

Lucy Kate & Co.

My Etsy store was mentioned on Finding My Feet yesterday! Thank you Raechel for putting together this great list of Etsy shops. I can't wait to check them all out. I have been reading Raechels blog for about two years now. She has the sweetest little family and I love reading about all her creative ideas (and her house is super cute!) so check out her blog...

Have a great day!

xoxo

P.S. I am working on a new "section" of Lucy Kate & Co. and I can't wait to share it with you guys really soon!

Another Soup Recipe: Vegetable Beef with KALE!

I promise to get back to reviews soon (and a HUGE New York post). I have just had no time to blog lately but I have made some yummy soups and other food that I figured I would share. Kale is a super food and it is SOOO good for you. Full of vitamins and nutrients. A lot of people have probably never had it because it has to be cooked right or it can have a "rubbery" texture and taste kind of bitter. I think cooking it in a soup is a great way to help it loose that bitter flavor...

Ingredients

•  1 pound of stew beef
• 1 32 ounce carton of beef stock
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 2 large carrots (or about 12-15 small) - diced
• 2 celery stalks - diced
• 1 small can of green beans (the little half cans..not sure the amount)
• 1 small can of corn (same as above) 
• Half an onion - diced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic - minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon of poultry seasoning
• 5-8 cups of chopped Kale (depends on how much you want in your soup)
• 1 cup of water

Sear the beef on all sides in a large pot with a little bit of olive oil (no need to cook all the way through at this point), then remove from pot and let sit while you make soup. Add diced onions to drippings, and saute over medium heat until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add carrots and celery, and continue to saute until slightly brown. Add garlic and continue to stir for about 30 seconds.

Pour in beef broth, and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pot. Add tomatoe sauce, diced tomatoes, poultry seasoning, corn, green beans and Kale. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes on medium-low.

While simmering, add beef back to pot along with salt and pepper to taste, and continue to simmer until kale is soft and tender. I added a little water at this point to thin out the soup but that is up to you. You can do any veggies you like but these were what I had on hand. I made this up completely so if you make it and dont like it I am sorry! This was one of my favorites and Sayer really liked it too. Hope you enjoy!

Happy Hump Day

xoxo

Chicken n' dumplings

This is seriously one of the best things I have ever made and it was SO easy. I got the recipe from a friend at work and then altered it a little based on a few other recipes I have seen...

Sayer said it "tops any chicken n' dumplins he has ever had"...

Ingredients

• 2 large chicken breast
• half a medium sized onion - finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic - minced
• 1 32oz container of chicken broth
• 1 celery stalk - finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon of poultry seasoning
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 1 can of jumbo buttermilk biscuits
• about a cup of flour
• salt and pepper to taste

I baked the chicken breast in the oven the night before with a little bit of olive oil and poultry seasoning and then just shredded them into bite size pieces. You could also use a rotisserie chicken from the Deli. Brown onions and garlic in a little bit of oil in your pot on medium heat. Once onions turn translucent add celery and let cook for another minute or so to soften the celery. Add chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, chicken and poultry seasoning and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to low and let simmer for about 5-10 minutes.

While soup is simmering you can work on the dumplings!

First take biscuits out of can and flatten each one out to about 1/8 of an inch. Mix flour with pepper and salt in a bowl. Cut biscuits in long strips that are about a half an inch wide. Should make about 5-6 strips per biscuit. Next take each strip and cover both sides with flour mixture. This will help to thicken the soup and also to keep biscuits from dissolving in hot water.

Turn heat back to medium high and once boiling add the dumplings to the pot one at a time. Gently place dumplings on top of soup. Do not stir dumplings around or they will dissolve. All the dumplings will rise to the top and float around while they cook. Turn heat down to low and cover for about 20 minutes. Every 5 minutes or so you can push down lightly on the dumplings into the soup to make sure they are not sticking together. That's it! Enjoy :)

This will serve about 4-6 people, depending on your serving size. Its great for fall weather and it really is super easy!!

New York post coming soon!

xoxo

Blog Shout-out!

My cousin, Marj, has a really cute blog about her journey to become less messy and other life adventures...its funny and you will enjoy it:) Todays post features some of my sisters artwork...check it out (link below)!

One mess at a time

Rockford: Simple and Fresh

Last week I had dinner with a friend at Rockford on Glenwood. When you first walk up to this restaurant you are not really sure what to expect because it is just a simple glass door with the restaurant name and address printed on front which leads to a random staircase. But when you walk up the stairs there is a beautiful restaurant with gorgeous wood floors, a well stocked bar and lots of cute little tables. After doing a little research I found out that this place closed down for a few months and was opened back up recently under new management. I can not speak for the restaurant before the current management but the experience I had was excellent. 

                    

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The service was great. Our waiter was not overly attentive, which can be annoying…but instead filled our waters when they were empty, asked us for our order after we had time to catch up and asked how our food was after we had actually had time to taste it. Don’t you hate when you go out to eat and before you can even taste your food the waiter is asking “how is everything?” umm well I will let you know once I actually have a bite. Sorry. Random pet peeve of mine. Anyways….

I had the Turkey Bacon Avocado sandwich with a side of seasonal succotash (stewed tomatoes, Lima beans and corn). It was delicious. All of the ingredients were very fresh and the unique flavors were out of this world. I am a sucker for succotash and this one was really good. Again, all fresh ingredients that tasted like they were straight from the farmers market.

I will definitely be coming back here to try some other things on the menu. Apparently the pimento cheese sandwich is to die for!

Sayer and I are heading to the mountains this weekend for a wedding and then to NYC next week! I am so excited because I have never been…I will definitely have to do a blog post when we get back about our trip.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

xoxo

Raleigh Farmers Market

Saturday morning we headed to the Raleigh state Farmers Market to see what it was all about. I have been to a few other farmers markets but I have to say this is one of the best I have been to. It is HUGE and you just can't beat the prices on fresh fruits and veggies. I love the colors of the farmers market.

Bright red tomatoes and peppers, orange peaches and pumpkins, green cucumbers, yellow squash...its so vibrant!

The Raleigh farmers market also has a huge selection of house and outdoor plants. The prices were reasonable compared to lowes or home depot but somethings seemed a bit over priced. I am not a frequent buyer of plants though so I am probably not the best judge.

If you are looking for a great place to get LARGE pumpkins this fall you should definitly try the farmers market. They had massive pumpkins for $8-12. The pumkins were all very pretty and round and great for carving. They also had varities of pumpkins that I have never seen before. White pumpkins, light green pumpkins, pumpkins with bumps all over them  (the farm owner told us these were called "Goose-bumps" haha) and all kinds of gords and mini-pumpkins. These odd varities would make a great fall display on your front porch or dinning room table.

We ended up buying a few different things. First were the juiciest, yummiest tomatoes I have ever had. One was a German Johnson tomato and one was a Cherokee Purple tomato. They made the best BLT's! We also bought some fresh basil because we are big basil fans but can not seem to grow it ourselves even though everyone says its the easiest thing to grow. We bought some string beans for 99 cents that I plan on cooking tomorrow night (I will let you know how they turn out). We probably tried about 10 different kinds of peaches and about 15 different kinds of apples but did not end up buying any of those. They were REALLY good though. I think it must be peach season because there seemed to be an abundance of peaches.

The farmers market also has a section called the "Market Shoppes" which is an enclosed building that has a lot of canned items, home grown dried spices and lots of diary products. We tried some great goat cheese and salsa's. The even had a salsa that was made with strawberrys. I know it sounds weird, but don't knock it till you try it...its yummy!

There are two restaurants at the farmers market, one is the Seafood restaurant and one is theState Farmers Market Restaurant. We walked into the Seafood restaurant and it was packed and smelled amazing. We plan to go back and try them both at some point...that will be another post!

I think the farmers market is a great thing to do on a Saturday morning and if you are in to eating fresh foods, you really can not beat the deals you are getting here. And the freshness is something you just can't get at the grocery store. There is also a North Raleigh farmers market that we have heard good things about so I would like to go to that one and see how it compares to the state market. Overall though we had a great experice and we will be going back again soon!

Thanks for stopping by the blog! I plan on doing a restaurant review later this week about Cafe Luna...so stay tuned for that!

Have a great week everyone:)
xoxo

What a Mess!

Please excuse the mess on my blog. I am trying to figure out how to change things around and I am not doing a very good job of it...HELP!

Six Little Happys

The new blog is not quite ready so I figured I would write a short little post about six things that are making me happy right now. Don't ask me why I chose six.

1. Fall is coming. I can smell it in the air. I can feel it in the morning when I walk Lucy. I CANT WAIT!! for now I am enjoying the first signs of it...

 
























2. College Football has begun. I have never really had a team to pull for because my Dad was not big into College football and UNCC did not have a team. Now that I am dating Sayer and have been brainwashed into cheering for UT, I love it! We went to the season opener in Knoxville this past weekend and it was a blast!

3. Starting over in a new City. It is so refreshing to move somewhere new and just start over. I have never done that before and I am loving it. I am loving Raleigh and I cant wait for all the fun things to come.

4. Being creative. I am really trying to use more creative juices lately. I am working on restoring an old chair I got a few months ago. Sayer might kill me if I don't hurry up the process. I will reveal the before and after soon. For now here is the color/fabric I am using. I know, its BOLD! (the paint color is called Lemon Lime and it is a lot brighter then it shows up on Behrs website)

5. Cooking. I have been trying to cook dinner for Sayer and I every week night and so far I have done pretty well except the nights we eat leftovers or have something else going on. I made a yummy recipe from Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen site last week that was delicious. If you have a chance you should try making these Red Curry Coconut Noodles.

6. Food Network. This kind of goes a long with #6 but I have been watching a lot of it lately and it really does give me good ideas. I love the girl who won the next food network star, Aarti. Her food looks so yummy...maybe I will be brave enough to try something soon of hers. Her show comes on Sundays at noon, btw :)


I am hoping to get the new blog header and first post done tonight so please come back and let me know what you think :)

xoxoxo

BLOG UNDER CONSTRUCTION

My new blog will make its debut very soon....as...

From Raleigh With Love ♥

I am so excited about the change and all the fun things to come so please keep your eye out for my first post under the new name. Thanks to anyone who reads my blog still!