A Few Pictures to Sum Up My Week

A week in photos.

I discovered a new yummy (healthy) treat this week. I like Greek Yogurt, but I'd never seen coconut Greek yogurt before until a recent trip to the grocery. It was extra good with a few blackberries (that were on sale at Kroger) on top ... almost as good as La' Berry.

Friday afternoon I kept Kansas for my mom. She kept looking at me pitifully while I was in the kitchen, because she is not liking her very strict prescription dog food diet.

I've started watching the DVDs of the first season of Downton Abbey this weekend. I read a review in a magazine over the holidays about this new British series (a new season begins this month on PBS), and it looked liked something I would take to watching. It's weird because I've not followed a TV series in some time with school work having taking precedence over everything. I feel like I'm crawling out of a pop culture coma.

I have heard great things about the resident sushi chef at the Kroger closest to my house. Every time I go out for sushi, it always seems to add up so fast. I picked up 2 packages of generous sized rolls tonight: Hawaiian on the left and Rainbow on the right. I ate my sushi (which cost me a grand total of $15 for all of what's pictured above) and watched some Downton Abbey and Something Borrowed for a quiet evening at home. I was up early for a work meeting, and I was in need of some down time.

The first batch of cupcakes I've baked in I-don't-know-when, chocolate devil's foodcake with a rather tasty icing: Bailey's Irish Cream Buttercream Icing. These were to celebrate my boss' birthday at the office Tuesday.

2012

Happy 2012! I hope everyone started off the New Year on a good note. NYE was my last weekend before returning to work from the holiday break. I spent a couple days leading up to it engaging in some overdue heavy cleaning. I also organized my bedroom closet for the first time since I have lived here - yikes. It looks 100% better though.

I went to dinner with Josh and two of his friends on NYE at Outback and later to a concert. The next day we hiked around a state park on the side of a mountain in Tennessee.

Below I've posted some of my favorite pictures that were taken with my Droid phone and stored on it from the end of December 2011. :)

Best deal of December: Chick-fil-a Grilled Nuggets Kids' Meal with a bonus cow watch that's so cute and fun... lunch and watch for less than $4.00.

Beautiful paddle boat that resides on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.

My Christmas tree shining from the window on my porch.

I got it! Santa (Josh) delivered a Cuisinart frozen yogurt machine the week before Christmas.

I transformed a Charlie Brown tree into an artsy Christmas tree for our countertop at work. It was easy - a dead tree limb, silver spray paint, an old extra large can, a string of pearl garland and some Dollar Tree shimmery snowflake ornaments.

My mom's pretty mantel all decked out on Christmas morning. Santa came to visit and stuffed our stockings 'til they were splitting at the seams. The same with my parent's tree below. Obviously, we were all good this year. ;)

I love this shimmery lamp that my mom got me for my bedroom. My favorite lamp kicked the bucket this Summer, and I've never replaced it. Santa also spoiled me with new red Cuisinart cookware, a personal laminating machine, a new Coach black patent leather bag, pearl bracelet with my initial, rolling pin, personalized stationery and some cake cartridges for my Cricut Cake Machine.

Snowman S'mores are so sweet. I made these little stocking stuffers for friends. Peeps Marshmallow Snowmen, resting on a Hershey bar square on a graham cracker...all tied up with coordinating snowmen ribbon.

Stocking Stuffers. Snowman Sanitizers to keep winter cold and flu germs at bay.
(Made with my Cricut machine and outdoor vinyl.)

Being exposed to new music, The Features concert NYE.

Andrew, my childood friend's baby boy, was born on the afternoon of December 29, 2011. :)

Poor Kansas! My family's 5-year-old beagle has spent the holidays very sick with stomach issues and acute pancreatis. They are pretty certain it is caused from her favorite chicken treats by manufactured by Waggin' Train in China and packaged in the U.S. If you have a pet, you must be aware of this (as this is her 2nd bout with this in less than a year): http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-recall/chicken-jerky-treats/.

It's My Birthday!

This past weekend was my birthday weekend and a good one!

My birthday fell on Thursday. My co-workers brought in an assortment of Hello There Cupcake! cupcakes. I had the gingerbread cupcake, one of their holiday flavors. It was yum-o.

Another very nice surprise was that Josh was able to take couple days off from work at the station to drive down Friday. He took me to dinner at my favorite, Carrabba's. I love their white sangria, and as an added bonus they had e-mailed a birthday certificate for a complimentary dessert of my choice. They were out of almost every dessert on the menu, but on the waiter's recommendation we tried their winter special: a homemade brioche chocolate bread pudding. It was different and tasty - though not something I would likely order again.

Afterwards we drove through the "Light More Homes" Chick-fil-A Christmas lights- 45,000 lights. We attempted to snap a quick pic with my cell phone which turned out rather goofy!

He had asked what I wanted to do Saturday, and I told him I wanted a relaxing day for my first weekend without HW and other assignments. I had said it would be fun to watch some of the classic holiday specials I enjoyed as a kid. He came prepared with the best ones: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Mickey's Christmas Carol, etc. In addition to Christmas classics Saturday, we made gourmet monterey jack cheese hotdogs, cheese fries and s'mores. I really wanted that crunchy, toasted marshmallow texture in the s'mores, which meant I had to use a pillar candle to roast the marshmallows on my patio which he found terribly amusing!

GOOD Things are Happening in December

Fall 2011: LONG and STRESSFUL.

But I have terrific news to share... I am a December 2011 candidate for Georgia Southern University's College of Education Masters of Education in Instructional Technology, Library Media degree.

I completed my lengthy practicum in 2 HoCo schools and 1 Bibb school -- all the while building and finishing my portfolio which can be viewed here: http://lauralanelee.weebly.com/ (if you're really bored). I presented the portfolio last Thursday evening which went very well.

December looks to be a great month. These are my next four weekends: celebrate my birthday, graduate "in absentia," Christmas, New Year's Eve. Good stuff. :)

For Thanksgiving my parents, Kansas the Beagle and I drove to SE Georgia to see my Dad's side of the family (about 30 miles outside Savannah). My cousin Wendy and her husband were thrilled to move into their new house just weeks before Turkey Day. Our family had our first Thanksgiving feast together in their beautiful dream house.

That weekend I met Josh in Atlanta, and we went to Stone Mountain Christmas, my ideal way to get into the Christmas spirit. This is the first time the temps were perfect -- not too cold with the perfect amount of chill in the air.

The next weekend we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday with the family. I used my Cricut machine to make some cute "Sweet 60" decorations. I decorated plastic tumblers for party favors with the date. I baked a rum cake and cookies cut out in the shape of shoes (She loves shoes.). I think she really appreciated all of it.

Happy December!

Josh and I had so much fun at the 2011 Stone Mountain Christmas outside Atlanta. Here we paused for a pic in front of the massive Coca-Cola Christmas Tree.

At the end of our night, the Snow Fairy made it "snow" real, crunchy icey bits and I appreciated catching the snow drops (though you can only faintly see it in the photo... those dandruff-y flakes on my navy coat!)

If you know me, you know I am becoming a frozen yogurt connoisseur -- so much so that I asked Santa for the Cuisinart frozen yogurt and sorbet maker. My "hurry up and take the pic so I can dig into my dessert" face. (Yogurberry in Atlanta.)

My first trip to Macy's Pink Pig in Atlanta. Josh had never been either. I was impressed that he was so willing to ride a a hot pink pig ride around the roof of Lenox Square.

Simply Cupcakes Soothes My Sweet Tooth

(Photo: Simply Cupcakes' Facebook Fanpage, Key Lime.)

I recently discovered a little slice of heaven for my (sickeningly-sweet) sweet tooth in Warner Robins. My friend Tyler mentioned that there's a new cupcakery in town, and later I read an article in the Houston County edition of the 11th Hour featuring this new haven for cupcake enthusiasts in middle Georgia, Simply Cupcakes.

Despite having baked a poundcake over the weekend that I have been hacking slices off of for the past few days, I was not tired of cake in the least bit and simply had to have a Simply Cupcake...or three.

One of my favorite people where I work had a birthday this week so I had a very valid excuse to indulge. Simply Cupcakes makes each of the day's cupcakes that morning. Once they have sold all of a particular flavor of cupcakes for the day, there are no more. Unfortunately, I made a mid-afternoon trip and every variety of chocolate or caramel was sold. These were the two main flavors my co-workers had picked out.

Fortunately, they still had their fruity flavored cupcakes on display which made me happy, as I tend to prefer fruit flavored desserts anyway. Though there were no peach cobbler cupcakes which I had read are a top seller, the key lime cupcake was still available and was absolutely delicious. It was extremely moist and had a small dollop of key lime pie baked into the center of the cupcake...mmm, mmm, mmm.

I also tried the Raspberry Waltz and the Simply Lemon. My co-workers beat me to the Red Velvet and Pink Caddy and everyone raved about how fresh, moist and tasty their cupcake sampling was. The website (linked above in kelly green font) promotes 50 flavors and provides descriptions of their most popular varieties.

I see another cupcake stop in the near future.

Finally, I am mostly settled into the new place. I do not plan to move again anytime in the near future. That was enough work and chaos, piled on top of everything else going on in my life, to hold me for quite some time.

Most people are probably thinking, "Oh, you're just one person with a handful of odds and ends. What's the big deal?" Not even.

I have my great grandmother Eva's bedroom suit that borders on antique, an oversized microsuede sofa (in spa blue that is my favorite piece of furniture), a leather chair with matching ottoman (a great LL Bean hand-me-down from my Aunt Linda), an antique secretary (another hand-me-down from my dad's side of the family), a faux leather armchair (a steal from Target online), a coffee table that's been floating around in the family since I was a little tyke, a fabulous end table that was granny's, a fabric tufted bench that conveniently stores all of my arts and crafts paraphernalia, a massive TV and TV/DVD hutch (compliments of the brother when he upgraded to an overpriced, flat screen last year), a giant bookcase (that was also granny's), a smaller wooden bookcase (an exact Pottery Barn replica from Target about 6 years ago), a small wrought iron bar cart that's about to be on the receiving end of a makeover, a square dark-wood pub table with 4 tall chairs (scored the entire set for $99 which will hold me til I can utilize my broke-down Duncan Phfye table again one day - which I had also been storing in the guest bedroom for the last 6 months and had to be relocated to storage - but that's another story) ... along with the furnishings I have plenty of kitchen items, linens, clothing/shoes, pictures, mirrors, lamps, decorating accessories and all of the odds and ends accumulated over the years. I did pair down these items substantially and participated in a group yard sale at the end of July down there - yet I still had lots of stuff to get a handle on.

Additionally, we had to move my brother's washing machine. Santa brought him a set of fancy front loaders in fire engine red last December that he requested and picked out - go figure since he hates doing laundry but that is what he wanted for Christmas. Fortunately, my parents had the vision to keep his perfectly good washer in storage. His other dryer was discarded as it had died in the Fall and was the catalyst for his Christmas present request. They purchased a new dryer which my dad installed Saturday as a housewarming, early birthday gift. :)

But back to moving: Let's just say that I envy folks who move and their employers provide all of the arrangements for the packing and heavy lifting and transportation and unloading and unpacking, all the while picking up the tab at the end (which seems to be 1/2 the people I know). I guess the one trade-off is burning a bunch of calories in the process. Being a single head of household makes it even more taxing, but it is always a great thing to have family and friends who volunteer to just pitch in and help you make it happen. For them, I am extremely grateful and appreciative. And at least, they got a good story to tell about renting a U-haul moving truck from the guy who invented the internet in the 1970s at a very dysfunctional storage center in Effingham County! Though It was not in the least bit amusing at the time!

I was spretty overwhelmed for the first couple weeks following the physical move. I worked a few weeks, moved over the weekend, worked the whole week, spent the next weekend having a yard sale and cleaning the old place from top to bottom, worked the whole week...and finally had a couple weekends to focus on making sense of my new home.

I felt like I was doing nothing but sleeping in my bed and digging through boxes and bags to find stuff every day. There were many things I wanted to tackle but could not because I was either out the door to work or had a queue of assignments (papers, projects, exams, etc.) screaming at me from an 8 week online summer class (condensed down from the norm of 16 weeks). I hate to say it, but I really did not learn much of anything in the class! I was simply trying to keep my head above water by reading and researching the minimum to accomplish each of the assigned tasks.

Luckily my mom hadn't yet started back teaching, so she spent an entire Saturday helping me and got the ball rolling for the whole "settling in" process. I've spent the last couple weeks working on a few projects to spruce up some of my accessory items that had become old and tired to me. It's been fun making things fresh again. For instance, I had a plain, carved wooden lamp that was stained a chocolate color. I used a really shiny, high gloss red spray paint to give it a new look and found some inexpensive rope ribbon to tie around the shade which gives it a nautical look. I want to have a coastal theme in my living room and it is gradually coming together the way I envisioned it. Maybe I will be able to post some pics down the road.

This week's goal is to secure cable. It's been nothing but a huge fiasco filled with technical difficulties that I won't even go into on here. I'll spare everyone the details but if it isn't resolved by this week, I will be moving on to another provider. No HGTV, TLC or baseball games is making me insanely cranky!

Here's to a Relaxing Memorial Day Weekend!

I have a bittersweet update: This morning I submitted my resignation and two week notice in my current position of 2 1/2 years. I will miss my co-workers and all of our science and technology advisees. But I will be starting in a similar position at the end of June at a college where I previously worked for 5 years. I am very much looking forward to this new change and being a part of the GMC family again.

This move also works well in allowing me to complete the considerable amount of hours to meet my practicum requirements this Fall. After my online summer course ends, I will have 1 online class, several extensive video projects, my portfolio and any other requirements with my practicum class to satisfy the M.Ed. objectives and graduate from Georgia Southern University in December 2011 (the weekend of my birthday to be exact). I just received my graduation clearance so it looks like everything is on track on this front too.