when funfetti cupcakes fulfill you

So much joy from such a little cupcake.

Sam & I have been staying with relatives for almost 6 months now, which means I don't have quite the same freedom in the kitchen as I used to.

This is mostly because when I cook, I use every utensil, bowl, pan, and measuring cup that I can get my hands on. My mom used to encourage messy cooking, so I've embraced it as I've gotten older.  Not everyone appreciates this characteristic, so I've started to shy away from making messes in kitchens that aren't mine.


I went home a few weeks ago and made apple crisp (which was an actual recipe, not a box of cake mix) and it was gone the next day. I then decided that my need to bake wasn't quite fulfilled, so I made up a batch of funfetti cupcakes. So delicious (so much sugar!) and I felt my anxiety over not being able to meal plan and bake and stress relieve ebb a little bit.


Thank you, Pillsbury.

throwback thursday

I mentioned in this post that Sam and I had been on vacation for a while in one of our favorite places on earth. Since I abandoned blogging around that time, I never wrote about our actual vacation!

Wouldn't it be your favorite place on earth, too?


Several members of Sam's family own property in Northwest Michigan, and let me tell you: it is to die for. Everywhere you go is so peaceful, and Lake Michigan is at it's finest. I've only been three times, and I'm in love. Sam has been there almost every summer (every summer?) of his life, and I'm so jealous!

 Eating some gyros at an art festival

These pictures are from the Sleeping Bear Dunes, which is a you-know-what to climb but is totally worth it once you get to the top! Look at that view!

Sam's best friend and his sweet girlfriend came up to hang with us for a few days! It was so wonderful to have another girl around with all of the testosterone (Sam has two brothers). 

Another one of my favorites--sweet shops in Fishtown. This one makes the. best. sandwiches around. 

Lots of beach time. As you'll notice, I'm wearing a sweatshirt in this picture. In August, it's not uncommon for temperatures to drop into the 40s at night!

Back porch sittin'

Here are a few pictures just to spark your interest. If you ever need a different kind of vacation, you should definitely head to the Traverse City area (we travel a bit more north) and check it out!

Can't wait for next year!

fall in the lou

I keep trying to type words for this post but nothing is really coming to mind. Maybe because I used all of my words on my last post :).

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last few months. Fall is so beautiful in the midwest, and we definitely soaked it up this year. It was almost 70 degrees today, so I soaked it up some more!


I recently (in September...) "ran" in a 5K to benefit the Mighty Oakes Heart Foundation, a wonderful organization that does a LOT for the unit I work for at the hospital. Although this special family hasn't been patients there while I've been a nurse, I've seen how much they help our families and so was so excited to do something to give back to the foundation. Plus we met FredBird. Check out the website if you want to donate to a great cause!

It's no secret that we love Cardinals games...and since the Cardinals went to the World Series this year, we went to a LOT of games! This is one of the games where we got to sit in some club level seats...makes it hard to sit anywhere else!

We also went to our favorite pumpkin farm in October, Rombachs. If you are ever in St. Louis and need a pumpkin patch to go to, head there. They have TONS of activities for kids. 

Also of note: they have GIANT pumpkins. This one was as big as my knees!

After we carved our giant pumpkins, we roasted some pumpkin seeds. I found the recipe for these on Her Bearings. Yum!

Last but not least, my best friend was in town for a whole month (!) and on her last weekend in town we walked around Citygarden, which is "an urban oasis downtown St. Louis" according to their website. It was full of fun sculptures and lots of great fall foliage!

What have you been up to this fall?

on being a decent human being

Today I had two different encounters with strangers that took me by surprise. And then I was sad, because I realized they weren't really all that surprising.


First, I was sitting in the waiting room at my ob-gyn's office (yes the location is relevant) when a woman came out of the exam room section of the office wheeling her around 2 year old daughter in a stroller. As a baby crazed individual pediatric nurse, I began smiling and chatting with the little girl and told her mom that she was super cute

The mom looked kind of tired, not shockingly since she was near the end of her second trimester and had a toddler, AND her appointment had to have been around 9:00. Meanwhile, while I'm acting like a stalker asking the 2 year old about her baby doll, another woman waltzes in and proceeds to accost this precious mom and her daughter. The little girl was presumably a mixed race baby, and this woman who came in started carrying on about this little girl's hair, about how the mom OBVIOUSLY didn't know how to do her daughter's hair (the mom was white) and that if she didn't know how to do her own baby's hair, she should start taking her to someone who did.

Um, what?

This mom handled this situation with so much grace, it was astounding. Mom just explained that they were running late this morning, that she did know how to style her daughter's hair, and then backed out of the office quickly and said "hope you all have a nice day!". I was then treated to a five minute diatribe about styling hair (including my own, which I have to admit I found offensive since I'm actually having a decent hair day and I actually really like my hair).

It's dark, but you get the picture.

The next incident was at Target (my favorite place on earth!). They have a new app, Cartwheel, that allows you to save coupons to your phone and have the cashier scan a barcode from your phone. As I watched, a woman snapped at her 5 year old daughter "to please STOP whatever you're doing", and then turned and said to the cashier, "Every single time I'm in your store, this app NEVER works. What is the point of developing an app if it's NEVER going to work?"  The cashier immediately got his manager, and in the meantime the woman opened the app, held out her phone, he scanned it...and gasp! It worked on the first try.

She turned to the rest of us in line and smiled and said, "Oh haha. How funny! I can't believe it worked this time!" No apologies to the sweet cashier or manager who were bending over backwards to solve a problem that never even occurred.

I'm the first one to admit I'm flawed. I have bad days, and I take things out on other people when I shouldn't. I had a reputation in high school for being the person that would get sent to the hostess if our table was taking too long, or asking to speak to a manager if the waiter wasn't up to par. I come home from work exhausted and snap at Sam all the time.

But see, I know what it's like to have people make rude comments to you based on your appearance, or some other quality you can't control. I know what it's like to work in the service industry and get the brunt of someone's unhappiness just because they got in your line that day. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a rant at hospital because the parent just. can't. take it.

I also know what it feels like when a customer is sweet to you. Or a patient's family brings your staff coffee. Or when a stranger tells you you look nice today.  And ask yourself, which one would you rather be on the receiving end of?


I share these stories because they were a little reminder to me of one of my favorite sayings:

and I hope they are a reminder for you, too.

Life Lessons With Molly

I'm making what seems to be a rare appearance on the blog today to offer you a life lesson.



This is what happens when you buy a new car:

First, your mom buys a car.

You like it, so the next logical step is for you to buy the same car.

Woo! First big girl purchase and it's a brand new car. Oh and also, congratulations. You're only 25 but you are already turning into your mother.



I know a lot of people who are vehemently against buying new cars because they depreciate in value so much over the first few years. I appreciate that. That being said, I bought my car because it was during Mazda's 0% financing (that means no interest. zero, zilch, nada. for the entire life of my loan!) and no payment for the first 90 days. When I went car shopping, I looked and looked and looked for a slightly used car that would have that same kind of deal and came up empty.



And there is where they get you.

I got a super awesome deal on that car. I also got a really great warranty. Except, the warranty is a huge pain in my ass. Now, in order to keep the warranty, I have to get all of my vehicular service done at a Mazda dealer. That means all of my oil changes, tire rotations, check-ups, etc must be done at the dealer. And let me tell you people, Mazda pays their technicians well. An oil change and a tire rotation is easily $100.00. It makes me miss Jiffy Lube and how damn pushy they are about changing your windshield wipers. My 15,000 mile service was almost $200 the other day.

Moral of this story: Read the fine print!

Liebster Award

My sweet friend Cortney over at Our Fishy Family nominated me for a Liebster Award three weeks ago recently, and I'm just now getting to my blog to answer her fun questions! The Liebster Award is given to up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers (or less than 20 in my case ;) ). Thanks, Cortney! Also, hop over to Our Fishy Family to see some ADORABLE pictures of Cortney's two boys and some delicious recipes.

The rules of the award are:

1. Link back to the person who nominated you

2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the nominator

3. Choose 11 bloggers, each with under 200 followers and nominate them for the award

4. Come up with 11 questions for your nominees to answer

5. Contact your nominees and notify them of the award

 

 

 

Here are Cortney's questions:

 

 

1. What must you have when going on a road trip?

Candy. I always need some sort of chocolate (ie: Reese's) and ALWAYS Skittles. Also, a lot of water.

2. What was the last movie you saw and how was it?

In theaters? The Way Way Back and it was VERY good. Highly recommend it!

3. What is your biggest accomplishment?

Passing my nursing boards and landing a job at one of the top 10 pediatric hospitals in the country...in the cardiac ICU. No big :). 

4. Who is the most annoying person on t.v.?

Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Do I really need an explanation?

 

5. You have a roundtrip ticket. Where are you going and who are you taking?

Sam & I are headed somewhere tropical (Hawaii, maybe) for a week or two to celebrate him passing the Bar Exam!

 

 

6. If you had to eat only one food for an entire month what would it be?

Pizza. There are so many different varieties! 

 

7. What is your greatest fear?

My flippant answer to strangers would be deer (I really hate them) but in all seriousness I would say my mom's cancer starting to grow again. 

 

8. Would you rather have a flawless face or perfect body?

Perfect body. That is why make up was invented. Plus if I'm going to eat pizza every day for a month, a perfect body would help. 

 

9. Spiders or snakes? Which is worse?

Snakes, they move faster.

 

10. Do you like to DIY or hire someone else?

DIY! I think hiring someone else takes most of the fun out of it.

 

11. If you could have a maid, chef, or personal stylist which would you choose and why?

Hmm. I guess I would say personal stylist. I don't mind cooking or cleaning but I never feel like I can put together a good looking outfit. 

My nominees are: 

Al @ Her Bearings

Brandi @ Sarcastic Subconscious

Leah @ My Joy Comes in the Morning

Bethany @ laugh.dance.create

And here are my questions!

1. What is your favorite season and why?

2. If you are in a hurry in the morning, what can you cut from your morning routine?

3.  How many books did you read last year? What was your favorite?

4. How often do you get your hair cut? 

5. What is your favorite vacation of all time?

6. Ocean or lake?

7. What is the most played song on your iPod?

8. If you could witness any event, past, present, or future, what would it be?

9. If you had to change your first name, what would you pick?

 10. You have 30 minutes of free time! What do you do?

11. What is the worst gift you have ever received?

{DIY} tie bouquet

When Sam graduated from law school, I knew I wanted to get him something practical, that he would use, but that wasn't totally boring (ie: a fountain pen). I also knew that someone would likely get him a briefcase (and likely a much nicer brief case than I could afford). Also, I felt like it should relate somewhat to the business of law school, though on reflection this probably wasn't totally necessary because my favorite graduation gift (see below) had nothing to do with biology.

Me with my favorite graduation gift (and those two lovely parentals who gave her to me). 

So when I was thinking about what to give Sam, I simply thought to myself "What does a lawyer need that Sam does not have?" The answer was neckties. He had a couple, but when you wear a tie every single day, do you really want two or three ties to choose from? This is obviously something a female would think of...


I also knew that I didn't want to wrap up a bunch of neckties in a box and say "here ya go!". If you know me at all, you know that this is the last thing I'd be likely to do. So, about 6 months before Sam graduated from law school, I had the brilliant idea to make a tie bouquet. I'm not sure where this idea blossomed from, because I scoured the internet after I thought of it and only found a few different examples...and nothing telling you how to make one.

After I had my brainstorm, I had it in the back of my mind to look for ties on sale, so whenever I'd go to the mall, I'd keep my eye out to see if there were ties on sale anywhere. Luckily, I struck gold during Dillard's Semi-Annual Clearance Event. Everything in the store is an additional 40-65% off sale prices during this time, so I ended up getting 10 ties for a super decent price. I mean, we're talking such a good price that when my mom was helping me with this project, my dad walked by and said "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY CUTTING UP A $100 TIE?!?!"  Haha. Thanks dad. Also, no scissors were even in sight.


SO this is what my mom and I came up with. Mind you, I came up with these directions about 7:30 on a Friday night (Michael's closed at 8:00) and we just went for it.

This is what you need:

• neckties (the amount you need varies depending how big you want your "bouquet")
• a potting plant (similar here)
• a foam ball (similar here)
• garden stakes (pictured below)
• double sided tape

These garden stakes are a huge pain, but they were pretty essential to the whole process.


First, lay out your necktie folded in half (like in the picture). It doesn't really matter which way you roll the tie, but it worked better for us to end with the smaller side (the part that would go around the neck). Otherwise, it kept falling apart because it was too big on the outside.

Tie the garden stake with the wires it comes with to the part of the tie that you can slip the back part of the tie through to keep it in place (I don't know the technical tie terms). Place several strips of double sided tape along the tie.

. 

Start rolling the tie...

Then, forgive me, I forgot to take a picture before I stuck it on the bouquet, but make sure it's firmly attached together with double sided tape and then use the garden stake to stick it in the foam ball, then pop the whole thing in a planter. It admittedly does take some time to get them all positioned and the ties were pretty heavy so they kept falling off, but I did manage to get it to stay together...until I took it back to St. Louis. Then I had to basically redo the whole thing (without my mom's help, which meant the end product didn't look quite as great).

 I think it turned out pretty great! Sam said he was impressed, though he could have been just making me feel like I'm more creative than I really am.

In fact, here he is wearing the tie I demonstrated with :).

Just before we headed off to graduation!

Happy Necktie-Bouquet-Making!

pardon the interruption

Lake Michigan

For the past two weeks, Sam and I have been soaking up the sun and 75 (yes you read that right, 75) degree weather in Northern Michigan. It has been wonderful, amazing, glorious, just about any other positive adjective you could throw into a sentence.

While I know that all three of my readers are begging for some updates, and I'd love to give you some, you might just have to wait a few weeks days for some posts with substantial content, because this is my to do list for our return home:

• Work 6 of the next 8 days
• Find an apartment to move into by September 15th (hahahahahahahaha)
• Organize all of the boxes that we threw things in when we moved
• Clean the place we are staying from top to bottom
• Host my mom for Labor Day weekend
• Did I mention working? 

Anyway, you can see why blogging has taken a backseat. It's not feasible to write about all the pinterest projects I'm doing for our house...when we are homeless.

For now, I'm going to soak up the last few days of Michigan sun(sets) and sand and try not to let any of that list invade my mind!

because you haven't seen any pictures of my dogs lately

 and you KNOW you missed them.

lawyered

you know what i'm talking about if you have seen how i met your mother.

source

Although this is one of my favorite running jokes on HIMYM, I'm here to talk to you about a different kind of lawyer.


I'm talking about this one: 

That's right. After 3 long, hard years, Sam is finally done with law school! Hooray! 

Shaking hands with the dean of the law school.

After the hooding ceremony, we went out for a delicious dinner with Sam's parents & grandparents, then the next day followed it up with a fun barbeque at his parents' house.

Sam, I'm so proud of you for accomplishing this huge achievement. I know there were days (many days) when it seemed like the end would never come, that it would be easier to find something else to do with life. That being said, I know that choosing any other path would have been a mistake. Many people say this about their significant others, but I really do believe you are one of the most intelligent people I have the privilege of knowing. What I love most about you is that you are so compassionate about the law, and I know the world is gaining a wonderful legal mind :). Congratulations!!! Now all that's left is that little thing called the bar exam. NBD.

#lawyered