Dear 18-Year-Old Self ...

Dear 18-year-old Ashley,

In recent weeks we've met on a few occasions to discuss the impacts that you made then that are effecting my life now. Let's revisit these conversations, shall we? I couldn't agree more.

The hot male nurse + that awesome butterfly tattoo you got! A couple of weeks ago (as some of you know via Facebook & Twitter) we had to go to the emergency room for complications with our old lady's back. I was completely mortified when the hot male nurse called my name to go over my "symptoms". When hot male nurse called our name again, he informed us that HE would be giving us shots in the upper part of our ass. Smashing! I had to apologize to him in advance for the brilliant butterfly TRAMP STAMP you decided to put on our body at the age of 18. After what felt like an hour of him laughing at US, he collected himself (while holding the first of a few shots).

Now, I have no problems with tattoos but I would of liked you to have thought a little harder and longer about what you wanted and where would be a more appropriate place to put it rather than a 1/2 inch above our butt crack.

In recent events ...

I know when you were flying high (not literally people) after you graduated high school and thought you didn't have to study for that one particular class because let's face it, we NEVER studied for anything in our life and you wound up failing that one particular (plus lab) class? You know, the one where our 20-year-old self re-took the class and passed? Yeah, you see our new college that we applied to for the nursing program is going to average those particular grades! Funny story really. And seeing as that class is a pre-req for the nursing program itself, you probably royally screwed the 24-year-old us on our chances of getting into the program without having to retake the class YET AGAIN to get that averaged 'C' up to a 'B'. Great job!

If I knew then what I know now ... it would all probably be different. But life is good and there really are no complaints with said life, but seriously ... I hope this is the last time we meet for AWHILE!

Love,
The now 24-year-old version of 'us'

If anyone is 18 and reading this please be ADVISED that the decisions you make and don't make do come back and haunt you later in life. Let my tales be a reminder that I warned you.

Eleven Hours!

Last night I went to bed at 8:30. Okay, actually it was a bit before 8:30p, but still - 8:30p and got 11 hours of sweet sleep! I woke up at 5, but I forced myself to sleep in with the husband until 7:30 this morning. It was wonderful. I did miss the Super Bowl, but since I did not care for any teams playing it wasn't hard to tune out while the husby watched it in the bedroom.

Speaking of the bedroom ...

I've slowly been adding things here and there in our master bedroom. I have plans for curtains soon (if I can find some I like ... I may make my own), along with a mirror and some sconces on one wall and maybe a picture or something decorative above the bed. The wall on my side of the bed, however, I did not know what to do with. After checking out some blogs, I got an idea!

Supplies :
Mod Podge
White Canvases
Paint & brushes
Hot glue gun & sticks
Scrapbooking paper
Letters
Ruler

First, I painted the outer trim on my canvases the same color as I intended for my letters. After they had dried, I took the white canvases and glued scrapbooking paper to them with the mod podge. I let them dry for a bit (the time it took me to sweep and mop my living room/hallway) and then I did another layer of mod podge on the top. I used the MP with matte finishing. I let them dry for about an hour or so. I painted my letters the same color as my outer trim on the canvases. When everything was good and dry, I hot glued my letters onto my canvases. I got out a pesky ruler so my letters would all be exactly centered on the 11x14 canvases.

I got out my husband's tape measure, centered the holes on the wall in between the corner of the room and the window and FINALLY hung my "art". I'm thinking of adding something below it, but for now this definitely works because the wall isn't blank anymore!

I bought papers in shades of brown to go with our dark cherry finish on our bed. Our duvet cover is green, so I decided to go with that to compliment the browns. This project cost me around $13. I already had mod podge, a hot glue gun & sticks and paint brushes. The letters and paint were $1 each. The canvases came in a pack of 2 originally for $8, but they were 50% off that week so I got two packages for $8.

The No 'Poo Bandwagon!

Over the last couple of months, I've been reading a lot of blogs where people have ditched the 'poo in their life ... as in shampoo. I've been really, really curious about this but wasn't sure if it was for me. I read stories and stories of the 'adjustment' period of where your hair gets super oily for a couple of weeks up to a couple of months!! But in the end, through the ickiness of the oily, it'll be worth it. I had wanted to do this before going home on vacation over the Christmas holiday but was afraid that I would get stuck into the couple of months category, so I decided to hold off until the new year. I took the plunge on Tuesday, January 12th and logged all my results.

Day 1/Wash 1 :
The whole mixing of the baking soda and water to get a paste made me feel like I was back in Chem class about to begin an experiment. It didn't feel like I was really washing my hair. I'm so used to the latering up thing that I wasn't sure if I was actually cleaning my hair, but I continued. Next came my least favorite part - apple cider vinegar. I hate, hate the way that stuff smells. It makes me want to puke and the thought of putting it on my hair and my hair potentially smelling like that all. day. long. - no thanks, but I did it anyway.

The first day of results was that I was able to immediately run my wide tooth comb through my hair with NO problems. Normally I have to put product in my hair to help with the tangles, but surprisingly enough I didn't have any this morning!

Wash 4:
I decided to add a cinnamon stick and some vanilla to my apple cider vinegar rinse and LOVE it! My hair smells so good. It's so manageable, even without all the products I would put in it to style it. I find that my curls are so much softer and bouncier.

Okay, I never had a crazy 'adjusting' period. I freaking. love. this! My husband does call my a hippie. I told him to shove it because I have never smoked grass and you can't be an official hippie if you haven't done that at least once in your life (true story mom!). I even switched my son over to this whole no 'poo and his hair is no longer frizzy or static-y. He has really fine baby hair still and in the winter, that stuff is all over the place. Especially after we put a fleece sweater or something on him. The husby has decided to stay committed to his shampoo. That's okay with me. However, he's a bit disturbed that I'm using all my "hippie" ideas on our son.

Normally, if I washed my hair and straightened it, my hair was oily before the day was over. Forget wearing it straight again the next day. GROSS! If I wore my hair curly, it was so damn frizzy if I let it air dry and again, I'd have to wash it the next morning. Not anymore! My hair doesn't get dirty until about 3 days later. My curls stay perfect until I wash them. And Babe's hair? We went from washing it every two to three days, now once a week, week&half! We've only been doing this for about three weeks, and I'm pretty sure I'll continue to use it :)

If you're looking for more information, there's tons out there! Here are some really good ones :

One Green Generation
Nature Moms

I Haven't Blogged In Forever.

That's right. I haven't touched bloggy land in forever. I haven't had the urge to blog nor read blogs. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's just that I have so much to say sometimes I don't know where to begin. So, I'm just going to let the words weave their own way.

For the past month, I've been working on things that I take issue with. I'm not going to lie some days it feels like I'm at the bottom of a stairwell looking up 100 flights of stairs. Each day I get up and try my hardest to walk up as many as possible. I'm trying my hardest to put myself out there, to be rejected and to feel hurt. While it's not a very comfortable feeling, it's not the world's worst thing and I know I'm not going to die from it. And as the days go on, things that I didn't want to deal with and have avoided are becoming easier to think about, feel and deal with.

My parents divorce should be final within the next couple of weeks. It's still hard to think of my parents as two separate forces rather than a whole unit. My mom is getting her feet wet back in the world and experiencing new things. She does things for herself now. No longer is she just someone's wife or mother, she's becoming her own person and that makes me happy for her. My father is in the process of moving here to Louisiana. Just got here today, as a matter of fact. It'll be nice to have a family member close, especially for my son. And now it gives me an excuse to go to Baton Rouge/New Orleans on more than one occasion! Mardi Gras anyone?

After the holiday, I decided some things needed to change in my life. It's taken awhile and although some endings have hurt a little bit, it really isn't the end of the world! I've found some amazing friends that make me laugh as hard as I did with my really amazing friends I left in Tennessee. For your benefit Sexy, no one is going to replace you! It's such an amazing feeling to break out of trying to watch what I say, control my reaction to things to being with a group of women that are sarcastic, can take jokes, are opinionated and tell you, etc. It's amazing that most of these women are Midwest/Northerners, because that's where my Bestie and Sexy are from. My friend that's from Pennsylvania said it best to me the other day, "People from the South are so worried about being perceived as nice that they try not to step on people's toes. It makes them passive-aggressive and fake."

Another change I made is to really get my child active with other children his age. With that said, we've found two amazing playgroups that we do stuff with weekly. For my childless friends, I know ... playgroups. That's what it seems that all of us moms are always talking about, but really it's an outlet to have people around you wanting/doing the same things for their children and someone to converse with about tantrums, milestones, etc. It would be like hanging out with people that you work with or go to school with. They know what you're going through.

I've found a new love of running. Yes, running! I always looked at my husband with jealousy when he would go running on the weekends and vacations. I envied that he could do that and that he did that. Along with so many other people, I vowed to not let my weight effect me in the new year and if I was as unhappy with it as I believed I was, then I needed to do something about. I have and every time I lace up my sneaks, grab my jogging stroller and head down to the track to run - it feels AMAZING. I'm working on entering and running in a 5k (3.1 miles) in March/April. I'm working on my time and getting it down, as well as, pushing myself further every time I go. This has changed everything. I feel like I can clear away any persisting thoughts. I leave all things that I was having a problem letting go of out there on the track. Thirty minutes to think about it, deal with it and then leave it there forever.

Along with running, I've been going to bed every night around 8:30/9 and getting in those 8hrs of uninterrupted sleep are awesome! I feel so refreshed when I wake up in the morning. I feel very blessed to have taken my friend Sexy's advice way back when Babe was young and put him on a sleep schedule! He sleeps through the night, only waking if he gets tangled in his blanket or is ill. It's nice to wake up with my husband in the mornings and go to sleep with him at night at the same time! Although, I totally let him sleep in until 8/9 on the weekends. The running and 8hrs of sleep combined with everything else has drastically improved my mood. I'm happy and it's not a fake happy. It's a happiness that I haven't truly felt since moving here.

There's this fire lit in me changing my life to proactive rather than reactive. I'm not waiting anymore for the good things to come to me, I'm going after them. I promise to try to blog more often! I'm excited to see what the new year has left to offer. I'm only a month in and it's this amazing, I cannot imagine what other goodness with come with it in the following months!

Con Queso.

My friend made this at a get together, and I feel head over heels for this. It's simply delicious and very simple to make! I will make this as an appetizer and also elaborate it to make it into a dinner. Never fails either way.

For an appetizer, you'll need :

1 lb of sausage. You can go hot if you like.
1 can of Ro*tel - again you can go as spicy as you'd like.
1 lb of Velveeta cheese, cubed

Recipe :

Fry sausage.

In another pan, combine cheese and Ro*tel and cook on low.

After the sausage is finished and crumbled into bite-size pieces, add to cheese mixture and stir. If your cheese is still not melted, feel free to bump the heat up a little bit until so.

To keep hot, melt cheese and Ro*tel in a crockpot and add meat. Once melted, stir and keep on 'warm' setting.


To make into a dinner, try this :

Make con queso as stated above.
Grab some lettuce, black beans, sour cream, and some jalapenos.
In a bowl, put down your tortilla chips, top with con queso and then all the fixings above. Yum yum!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins.

I first was introduced to this recipe by a friend while at a playdate. When she told me the ingredients and how easy these were to make, I flipped! I like to pair these with pumpkin spice coffee. Good for the fall or like in my home, year round. I usually will make a whole batch and then freeze the remaining 3/4th for easy breakfasts throughout the month.

Ingredients :
1 box of spice cake mix
1-15 oz can of pumpkin
3/4 to 1 cup of water


Recipe :

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

I like to rub my cupcake/muffin tins with vegetable shortening rather than line with cupcake liners.

Mix all your ingredients, slowly adding the water. I think 1 cup of water is slightly too much, but you can judge for yourself. I recommend not adding more than a cup though.

Fill cupcake pan 2/3 full and bake for approx 20 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

This recipe yields 24 muffins.

________________

Cool whip makes a nice topping on these.

I divide the muffins into 4 groups of 6, wrap in Saran wrap tightly and then toss them into a ziplock bag. Easy to remove from the freezer and reheat at 350 for about 5-10 minutes.

I will also make two mini-loaves of pumpkin-spice bread.

Favorite Oatmeal Cookies.

I usually make this oatmeal cookie recipe every other week for my family. It's super simple, and can be found on the underneath side of a Quaker Old Fashioned Oats canister. But if you're like me, and buy the store brand, it's good to have this recipe on hand.


1 cup - 2 sticks - butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs or 4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
3 cups Quaker Oats Old Fashioned, uncooked
1 cup of raisins or chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter and sugars together until creamy.

Add in eggs and vanilla. Beat well.

Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

Hand stir in oats and raisins/chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes for soft cookie or 11-12 for crispier cookies. Allow cookies to cool for 1 minute on cookie sheet after removing from oven and then transfer to wire rack.

_____________________

I like to cut the recipe in half for 2 dozen cookies (24). Original recipe will yield 48.

Also, I usually don't plan ahead when it comes to making these cookies, so rarely do I have a stick of softened butter just sitting out. A trick I learned from Martha Stewart is to put the stick of butter between two pieces of wax paper or Saran wrap and roll the butter out, thus making it soft.