I’m so excited to share the news that my friend Liang got an awesome job in New York and moved to NYC! Excited and sad because I’ll miss seeing her!
In Liang’s honor, I hosted a little dinner party with some friends from my old job. Just a little get-together, but it was one that we knew we needed. A special occasion to celebrate friendship and new beginnings.
For starters, I chopped up a bunch of veggies (carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, celery) and set them out with a sour cream ranch dip, hummus and wine.
The meal was pretty easy for the most part. I think I went a little overboard on the cheese, but everyone seemed to enjoy it!
I asked my guests to bring dessert, so we had some delightful cookies!
Next we opened presents because all good celebrations have some sort of present.
Liang made up all fantastic cake balls and bought us keychains and friendship bracelets. After much deliberation about what to get our NYC-bound gal, we decided to make Liang a bright red envelope clutc because it wouldn’t break in the move or take up too much space.
These are really easy but kind of a pain to make if you’re not used to sewing vinyl, which I’m not. I made to practice clutches before I did this one.
Look at that sassy Liang! We’re all so excited for her! She’s seriously an amazingly talented person, and we’re all thrilled to see where she goes in life! It’ll be somewhere great because she’d have it no other way, honestly.
After dinner and dessert, we toasted Liang’s new beginnings with fresh-squeezed juice mimosas (or Sprite). I wish I could take the credit for the squeezing, but that was all the wonderful boyfriend’s doing. He’s so loving and kind!
This was my first dinner party in my new apartment, and I’m so happy that it was in honor of such a wonderful lady. Liang, you’re going to be awesome! You already are. I can’t wait to come see you soon!
Oh! And Liang took pictures, so all the photo credits belong to her 🙂
Today we had a bittersweet potluck at work to celebrate/mourn my dear friend’s new journey to follow her passion. Liz is pretty much awesome. If you haven’t met her, you should!
If you follow the link, you’ll see Liz’s weight loss blog, Love Weights, and you’ll be able to see how hard she works to keep her lost weight off. That’s why I decided to bring something moderately healthy for the potluck. I chose baked buffalo chicken bites.
I used all the lower fat options (just for Liz). From what I hear, they were pretty good! One lady even said these guys were her favorite thing at the potluck, which is quite a compliment!
They’re easy, too. Messy as all get out, but easy. Again, I shredded the chicken in the stand mixer, and then I just mixed everything else in there with it. The messy part came with dredging. Dredging is just gross for me because I don’t like to get messy. I survived, and apparently I was successful!
Also, good luck LIZ! I love and support you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This weekend, my boy’s aunt, uncle and cousin were in town. We stayed at a great place on the lake, and his sweet cousin, Sara, and I did a little cooking.
On Saturday night, we put on our baker hats, and made Baked S’mores because what lake weekend is complete without s’mores? Exactly.
Healthy and delicious! Haha!
Fine. Mostly delicious! Sara did a great job finding this one, and she is quite the dessert maker!
Check out her graham smashing and marshmellow spreading action! Nice job, Sara!
Love that fluffy goodness. So sticky and sweet!
Stand mixers are awesome for lots of thing, especially making graham cracker dough. Like this!
After the baking, this delicious dessert arrived.
Although it was seriously rich, this dessert was delicious and easy to make. My advice is to have some cold milk ready.
Sunday night, Sara and I decided we were going to make the Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas I made a few months ago. This was probably the best idea ever considering that Sunday was a beautiful day, and we had lots of fun in the sun to be had. Seriously, this recipe is so easy and delicious! Sara did an excellent job cutting the garlic and making slits in the pork for the garlic. We’re a pretty good team!
All in all, I think the weekend was a great success. Restful. Lots of sun. Maybe a little too much sun in some places, but overall pretty awesome way to celebrate Memorial Day!
Just a fair warning on this one; this post has nothing to do with crafting, cooking, cleaning or sewing.
Instead I feel like it’s time to talk about life. Life lessons. A little variety never hurt anyone.
I’ve spent a lot of my life letting people treat me like I wasn’t important. Like what I thought didn’t matter, and that my feelings and insecurities weren’t real. Of course, I’ve always had my solid core of people who have my best interests at heart and love me for who I am – mistakes and all, even if those glitches are annoying. However, very recently, I’ve become more aware of the deep need for everyone to have a positive posse. Maybe this realization has come with age, perspective and hindsight. Whatever brought this on, I think it’s important to share.
Women spend a lot of time beating themselves up about everything. Maybe I shouldn’t say “women” when I really mean “I.” It can’t just be me, though. We’re all under a lot of pressure to be one thing or the other, and it’s terribly taxing.
My boyfriend, the love of my life, told me that, “You are too hard on yourself, babe. You’re worse than an Olympic parent.” With that pretty harsh analogy in my head, my mind flashed to all the times I’ve yelled at myself for doing something a tiny bit incorrectly. The times I had to attack something with a seam ripper, toss out an entire meal with angry/sad tears streaming down my face, wore a cardigan with a teeny hole in it to work accidentally, forgot to take out the trash, skipped a workout. I could go on and on. Then I think of the one time, the worst time, I got so incredibly down on myself that I made my boyfriend cry. My pessimism directed toward myself brought this guy to tears. I look at that now, and I’m like, “What the hell is wrong with you, Jessi? Lighten up.” I know that it’s time for an attitude change. Mistakes are part of life. Miss Frizzle always taught us to take chances and make mistakes, so why am I walking around freaking out when everything’s not perfect. Does anyone really even care?! Probably not.
The point is, surrounding yourself with positive people is a good thing. People and things that bring you sunshine, not gloom and doom. Don’t waste your energy on things that bring you down, and if that thing is yourself, that’s an even better reason to find a positive posse to help pick you up. We all need lots of love and support. It’s give and take, though. Your positive posse can’t be about constantly picking up one Debbie Downer. It can’t be about one person doing all the talking. Sharing is caring. Having people who will call you out on your negativity and point out positives…awesome! Take advantage of it! It’ll make you feel good. Then you’ll feel even better when you repay the favor.
I have some examples:
After a particularly rough weekend, I was venting (and sobbing actually) to my best friend in the world, who said, “You know, I think you just block things out. [This situation] isn’t a new one at all. It’s been going on for years. Remember when… But if you remember and stop letting this happen, you’ll be happier.” And you know what? I am much happier.
I really hate swim suit shopping because I, like most women, have body issues. Two of my posse members offered to go with me, and they complimented the insecurities out of me! These ladies never woud have let me walk around in something that made me look bad, and I know that. From going to a tough doctor appointment to swim suit shopping, doing something that makes you uncomfortable is so much better with support.
Once upon a time, I hated my job. Seriously. I was physically ill daily because I hated it that much. Every single day, one fantastic friend lifted my spirits with her love and hilarity, and with her support, I wiped my tears, busted my booty, found a new job and quit my old one.
I can think of countless other examples, but I won’t bore you.
So, to summarize, get a positive posse, be an active member of a positive posse, and try to be less hard on yourself. I know I will.
With that, here is a ridiculous thing that always makes me happier…because I love it.
This weekend has been FULL of crafts! It feels good to be back!
It all started with the Texas Rollergirls’ game, and a group of friends supporting our friend Vicious Van GoGo, who is awesome! So what sort of friends would we be if we didn’t make signs!
And this one is covered in glitter!
Who knew that sign making could be so incredibly fun! Also, the roller derby is phenomenal! I’ll definitely be returning soon…we’ll see in what capacity.
In keeping with the fit and fun theme of the weekend, I made a new workout shirt that I found on Pinterest. It was super fast and easy.
Here’s the front.
And here’s the back!
Cute, huh? We’ll see how well it holds up.
Then, because I broke my favorite sparkly, black headband, I made a new one! It’s not the same, and it’s not sparkly. It’ll do, I think.
Additionally, I’m working on another really awesome thing. However, it’ll have to wait to be posted.
Lots of things have been happening in my life since my last post or so. I spent half my life packing up my old apartment to move to a new and better one. I unpacked most of my new apartment and was exhausted for like two weeks. I made some awesome new friends, which means I want to spend time with them. The boy got promoted to full-time at his job, so we’ve both been tired.
But hey! Instead of all these words, let’s see some pictures!
Bluebonnets showed up, and I took their pictures.
I fed some squirrels, and that made me love them even more than I already did!
I attempted to poach an egg. Turns out that’s a little more difficult than is sounds, but this meal (I didn’t take a good picture of it) was edible.
While visiting my new and awesome friend, Shannon, I met this cool cat! I was clearly more excited to meet him than he was me.
I helped my other awesome, new friend, Karoline, make some wedding decorations. Naturally, I didn’t take pictures.
Slowly, I’m getting back into my old habit of cooking and being domestically useful. It’s just so easy to be lazy, though!
Last night was a win for me. I made some Chicken Lettuce Wraps that are supposed to be like the ones from PF Changs. I’ve never had those, but mine were pretty good!
I thought we were going to have some dinner company, so I made an attempt to make the presentation a little nicer. Not great, but the taste is what really matters, right?
The recipe calls for ground chicken, but we used shredded because ground chicken made us both a little uneasy. I found an awesome way to shred chicken using a stand mixer, too! You just let the chicken cool, use the spade (it’s really called a paddle) attachment for your mixer, put the chicken in the bowl, and let it shred! Easy!
We have been cooking a little, but we’ve also been moving, which makes life a little hectic.
The last really great thing that we made was so delicious we didn’t even have time to take a picture before it was gone! No joke. It was delicious! Pretty much they looked like this picture that I borrowed from the recipe’s site:
Over Memorial Day Weekend, the boy’s wonderful aunt, uncle and cousin, Sara, were in town. Sara and I decided we could pitch in and do some cooking, and of course we used the slow cooker because it’s easy! Plus we’d rather be out enjoying this all day.
The last time the boy and I made these carnitas, they were to die for, so this recipe seemed like a good option.
AND now I have pictures!
Check out those awesome plates complimenting that fantastic spread!
Yum, right? The family seemed to think so! If I do say so myself, Sara and I did a pretty great job! PLUS, we made baked s’mores…
I blame the potatoes. Reasons I have a hang-up about potatoes:
My mom, hands down, made the best mashed potatoes in the world. Period. The end.
Potatoes leave a starchy mess in my sink.
Spuds take seriously my entire life to soften enough to smash.
The third bullet was the biggest problem this time. It took over an hour for my potatoes to be even remotely cuttable – let alone mashable. The entire meal was ready at least 40 minutes before we could eat the potatoes.
Let’s be honest. The boyfriend (the saint that he is for putting up with my cursing and fit-throwing during this meal) made the potatoes. I wanted to throw them out and eat tortilla chips. But, I have a wonderful boyfriend who, for whatever reason, loves me unconditionally.
So here’s the picture.
It doesn’t look half bad, and it was more than half good! I really liked the cucumber business. I’m a vinegar fanatic, though. When I was a kid, and my family would go to Luby’s, I’d always order the cucumber salad. When I’d eaten all the cucumbers and tomatoes, I would take a straw and suck out the remaining vinegar. My mouth just watered at the thought of doing that, so that should tell you something.
I’m a fireman’s kid, so naturally I have irrational fears about burning my apartment down. Actually a few times, it hasn’t been that irrational. That’s why yesterday was my very first time to cook in an unattended crock pot. Wow! Crock pots are awesome!
Dinner was Zesty Slow Cooker Barbeque Chicken Sandwiches and asparagus. I know those doesn’t typically go together, but you know. Asparagus is healthier than potato salad, so we gotta make compromises.
Look at this, and tell me you don’t want to eat it!
My humble opinion is that this meal was awesome! I could have cooked the asparagus a little more, but I was really hungry after a long run at the gym. Frankly, I couldn’t wait any longer without eating everything in my house first.
Next time I think I’ll use more chicken and different barbeque sauce. (I used some Jack Daniel’s sauce this time, and it was just not right. It’s really awesome on Lit’l Smokies though!) Maybe I’ll cook it for less time, too. It was a little burned in places, and seriously, I scrubbed the crock pot for like 20 minutes and still couldn’t get the caked on sauce off of it.
I want to have a little party when we move into our new apartment. These guys might be a nice, fast, yummy and easy meal for our housewarming party!
Today wasn’t the best of days. It just seemed like everything went wrong. I spilled some black bean juice all over my stove making some empanadas, and that was really just the icing on the cake. All downhill fast from there. Plus, although they looked pretty good despite being a little burned and leaky, the empanadas were very disappointing. Better luck next time.
I guess we should try to look at the positive. Very late last night I made this great turkey meatloaf because the boyfriend didn’t get off work until 10 p.m. I couldn’t wait for him, so I ate some crappy leftover pizza. Then I made him dinner. I know! I’m so sweet!
Seriously, it tastes just like beef meatloaf! Even the boyfriend liked it, and he barely eats turkey. He had seconds! I ate it for lunch today, and I promise you it was delightful!
And I love carrots, so this was just a perfect little meal!
In case you didn’t know, today is 3.14 – Pi Day! So Happy Pi Day, everyone!
All day I’ve wanted some pie to celebrate, and because I have a great boy in my life, he took me to buy a pie. We didn’t make a pie because everything else (except lunch) has been such a terrible mess today. I would like to thank Mrs. Smith (whoever she really is) for this fulfilling cherry pie!
Look at that sassy Liang! We’re all so excited for her! She’s seriously an amazingly talented person, and we’re all thrilled to see where she goes in life! It’ll be somewhere great because she’d have it no other way, honestly.
A Girl and Her Apron 