On Posting Recipes

I am by no means a food blogger but I love food. I love trying new recipes for my husband and posting them on the blog which I usually do once a week, normally on Saturdays. I get most of my recipes from Pinterest, I mean what the heck did we do before that? Oh yeah, I would email myself tons of recipes and they'd get lost in random folders and never get made. Most of the recipes I use come from food blogs which means the finished products insanely beautiful when posted. That got me thinking. Okay I understand if your a food blogger and blog about food alone, your stuff better look good. But there are times I make recipes from just regular blogs (lifestyle, mom, etc) and I swear it looks like they had a staging crew in their kitchen. So I wanted to talk about what goes into me making a recipe and posting it on my blog...

Roasted chickpea tacos

• I meal plan because it is hard to cook for just 2 people, especially with Jon traveling 2-3 nights a week. On a normal week, I'd make 2-3 meals and either fend for myself the other nights, eat leftovers, or go out (restaurant, friends house, etc). I don't have a specific day that I grocery shop, it is usually when we are running low on milk, fruit, eggs, and cottage cheese (those are the things we go through the fastest...I usually buy 3.5 gallons of milk a week). And grocery shopping usually happens at 5pm after work.
• I try to cook the more labor intense meals on the weekend so I have more time. Y'all...working full time out of the house is exhausting. I am up at 6:30q, leave at 7q, work from 7:30q-4:30p, home at 5p and sometimes the last thing I want to do is chop onions and stand over a hot stove. Heck we don't even have kids. Work outside the house mamas...you deserve a pat on the back. So anyway, I try to keep recipes simple and easy during the week so I can spend the little time I have with my husband, with Ernie, around the house, etc.
• We usually have snacks right when I get home and eat dinner between 8-9pm...although lately it has been earlier because it gets darker earlier and thus we want to go to bed earlier. Jon is good about helping me if I need it but he does his own thing while I cook. 
• While I'm cooking the kitchen looks like a train wreck. As clean and organized as I am, my kitchen is chaos while I cook. Sometimes I have recipe meltdowns when I realize I have to have 3 different pans going, pasta boiling, etc all at the same time. This is where I don't see how people have the time (or patience) to take pictures of their spices in pretty white bowls, them chopping fresh vegetables, etc. 
• I have started ONLY taking pictures of the end result because it just got too time consuming. I cook to feed my husband and myself, blogging stuff comes second.
• After the  meal is done, I throw it on a plate, nothing fancy at all, and snap a few pictures with my 50mm/1.8 lens. 
• Sometimes its months before I actually post the recipe on my blog, or sometimes it's that very week. I like having extra recipes in my queue because I never write posts ahead of time and sometimes just need a filler. 
• If I don't like something I make, I will not post it on the blog. And unfortunately this happens a lot with Pinterest. Something looks delicious in pictures but tastes like tar when you make it. Jon basically loves everything I make but I am the final judge on whether a meal will make it to the blog or not. 

peanut butter & jelly bars

Basically this post has no action items or main purpose but to tell you more about what goes into me posting a recipe on my blog. Not bashing food blogs at ALL because I love the way you can make enchiladas look appetizing because they are so dang hard to photograph! I wish I had the patience and time....

The goal of me posting recipes is to encourage other wives and women to prepare easy, delicious, and new meals for their families. You can find the recipes I've blogged about here. Enjoy!

Friday Randoms

Hi y'all...

It felt weird not posting yesterday but things are hectic! Tuesday we were with the crew til 8pm and went to bed at 9p and Wednesday wasn't as long but still crazy. Thank you for all the sweet birthday comments, tweets, and texts for Jon on Wednesday! He felt loved and said it was the most times he'd ever been wished a happy birthday :-)

So here are some of our randoms this week...I will probably continue to be MIA until we get fully moved in and finish filming. I can't wait to show you guys the house!!!!

My day 1 outfit...solids

Jon on Tuesday...last day of being 28 hanging out in a camping chair in our living room

I was laughing as I unpacked my box of popsicle sticks...so glad they made the move!

This is from 2 weeks ago but I had to share...I love this photo of me holding our sweet neighbor at his 1st birthday party!

Wednesday they wanted to shoot a car scene and my car was covered in bird poo so we made a quick trip to the carwash (and it sucked!)

I asked Jon what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he chose Mongolian Grille. I am pretty sure we are always 1 of 2-3 couples every time we go. But we love it! Oh and for $25, we got like 3 meals out of it

 

Birthday cheesecake

So we are now cleared to move into our house and had some rooms painted on Wednesday...eeek!!!!!! The color of our family room was totally outside my norm so I screamed a little when I saw it but I am so excited. The room is so light and airy and we put our new couch in it last night...I am obsessed. I had been collecting frames for a gallery wall and finally got to put it up last night. I want all the pictures to be black and white so that's on my list today (except for the frame with the heart...it is a cool custom print with our names). 

Tonight we have a crew of friends and family coming to help paint, hang stuff, and help with projects...we are so lucky to have such awesome people in our lives! Seriously I am dying to show you guys the house...hoping we can get it put together this weekend!

Oh and I came back to work Thursday and found this at my desk haha. We have people in from our HQ and a guy asked, "so were you in a movie". No...just on an HGTV show lol

Have a great weekend y'all!

Weekend in iPhone pics

How was your weekend?

Ours was full yet super relaxing. We did a million things yet I feel rested and ready to go this week! Be sure to check out the 2 recipes I posted this weekend- inside out pizza pie and cake batter blondies.

Friday night my parents took us out to celebrate our anniversary a little late. My dad's parents take out each of their children every year for their anniversary and my parents started that tradition with us. We went to an awesome interior-Mexican restaurant called Fonda San Miguel. The atmosphere and ambiance was so beautiful and romantic. 

Love this necklace from The Yellow Peony

Queso asado with chorizo...mmm mmm

My parents will be celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary this summer!

We finished dinner at none other than Yogurtland (we are trying to go at least once a week until we move since we won't be close!) and then spent the evening at our house watching basketball (okay that was the men, my mom and I were going through paint colors) and playing hearts. I learned the game 2 weekends ago and have been obsessed ever since. I recently downloaded an app on my phone so I can practice :-). 

Ernie got in on the fun

Saturday we ventured downtown to the South Congress area for lunch at a famous Austin burger place, Hopdoddy, with some friends. Traffic was bad, the streets were packed and we waited in a line outside that wrapped around the entire building. I instantly got annoyed by these frat guys behind us in their tiny little neon tank tops blowing their cigarette smoke everywhere and little did we find out...it was fraternity round up. If you aren't familiar with what that is...you are lucky :-). Sorry frat guys, you are not my thing.

Jon's double patty bison bleu cheese burger

Only in Austin...(y'all I will drink out of a hose!)

We mosied around the funky SoCo area and spent too much time in an antique shop called Uncommon Objects. Words can't even explain the merchandise they sell...if you're ever in Austin, you have to visit this place.

owls/love the chandelier/ernie bug eyes!

me and bailey girl

surprisingly this is not Shawn White, it is Bailey's rockstar bf Ed! (who had an obsession with the massive Bill Nye lightbulbs)

The frenchie smile

Hey! I know Him!

Can you hear me now?

My life would be complete if I owned a card catalog...

We spent the rest of Saturday evening furniture shopping around the town. We LOVE secondhand and antique shops and Austin has plenty of those. We live near tons of furniture shops and decided to check out the fancy shmancy Louis Shanks because they were advertising a huge sale. No lie, we parked, took one look at all the $5k oriental rugs and got right back into the car. It's just not our style. At ALL. I am on the hunt for an antique Queen Anne style desk for my craft room and we happened to find the perfect one that had a big ol red sold sticker on it. Boo.

Tiniest little armchair ever

We had never been to Z Gallerie and popped in there Saturday night at the Domain and ended up buying a couch. Y'all...this couch is divine. We didn't want leather for our family room (Jon is a hot body from Ohio and leather makes him sweat!) so that narrows down the search and makes it very difficult. We wanted to stay away from browns and wanted something gray. Here is a sneak peek of the sofa that will be here in 2-3 weeks! (it looks brown bc of Instagram but it is gray)

Jon has a thing for tufted furniture

(do you love Jon's Ohio State shorts and metal tee?)

We hit up Fry's to check out some TVs and appliances and buy an external hard drive. Funny as you get older what you spend your money on haha. We watched the movie My Week With Marilyn Saturday night...it was good but I wasn't totally blown away. 

Sunday was so beautiful!! We spent the morning at church, grabbed lunch, then did some work around the house. I've started packing up the kitchen and call me crazy but I get such a high from it...I am weird. We also watched some Baylor basketball...wish they would have won but we are happy to be cheering for Ohio State! 

We had dinner with friends at a Mediterranean place right by our house that they had been raving about. We won't live in Central Austin much longer and all the funky/quirky restaurants are right in our neighborhood so we want to soak it all in. Moving farther west won't totally shield us from coming into downtown/Central Austin but we definitely won't be as close. This place was awesome. We sat outside under a bunch of lights and after dark, the owner came out and did a full belly dancing show. Jon gets so embarrassed for other people and he couldn't keep a straight face...

For you Austinites, the place was called Phara's on North Loop. And it's BYOB which is fun. I had lamb and it was the most tender lamb I'd ever eaten and we are pretty picky when it comes to good Greek food.

I know this post is getting long but one more thing...we watched Frozen Earth last night. Have y'all seen it? It is similar to Planet Earth but all about the arctic/antarctic. We were hoping Sigourney Weaver was narrating (I LOVE her voice) and were pleasantly surprised to hear Alec Baldwin's voice. Check it out on Sundays on Discovery, I was floored to see the footage they got. God sure made a masterpiece out of our world.

Thanks for reading today friends!

Scenes from 2012

Unfortunately the Harts were under the weather the last few days of 2012. Jon came down with a fever/throat thing and so I automatically caught it too (only without the fever and adding a wicked cough). We were happy to ring in the New Year with our bff's, Justin and Leah. The night was perfect and low key. Leah served us a delicious dinner and we spent the last few hours of 2012 playing all sorts of games- Minute to Win It (hysterical! See Leah's previous blog post about it here), Taboo, Scattergories, and Ghetto-opoly. Midnight came and went and we ended up staying up until 3am, we totally got a second wind! Oh and I can't forget to mention we devoured a few wanna-be Butterfingers and a whole sugar free chocolate pudding pie.

(champagne and Fresca was my drink of choice)

Check out the chops

Ernie was invited to the sleepover shindig and had a blast...he was up as late as we were. 

New Years Day started late and it was one of the most relaxing days I've had in a while. After breakfast, we cuddled up on the sofa to watch Cedar Rapids and although it was quite hysterical, I enjoyed a little snoozer-oo. The 4 of us had been talking about doing an Iron Chef- Hot Dog edition for over a year now and finally got around to doing it! We had a late lunch of: mac N cheese cups with hot dogs, hot dog corn chowder and hot dog enchiladas. I was mildly grossed out at the end but the guys were all over it! 

We played more games, watched 30 Minutes Or Less and finally called it a night at 8pm. Jon and I drove home and plopped ourselves on the couch and watched football for the next 4 hours. 

Yesterday we slept in, almost until noon and ran a few errands. It was such a gorgeous day (60 and sunny) so we took Ernie to the lake park that wraps around downtown Austin. As we were walking in I asked Jon "do you think we will see any other Frenchies today?" and we ended up seeing 4! One was the cutest 4 month old chunk, I was in heaven! Ernie had a blast and was completely tanked for the rest of the night. 

I finally got around to making something with the silouettes I made of Ernie a while back. I bought an old shadowbox for $1 at Salvation Army and painted it, added some rosettes and scrapbook paper and boom...

While I was crafting, Jon was creating this....

No more beard or stache!

As much as I loved both (and I did! I thought they were hysterical), I was ready for my clean shaven hubby. He's getting a haircut today and I can't wait to see him after work! I love that baby face!

So far, 2012 has been nothing but relaxing and enjoyable for us! I hope you can say the same. Happy New Year!

A vintage bridal shower

This weekend I had the honor of hosting a bridal shower for my best friend Alyssa, along with the other bridesmaids! I will be standing by her side as her matron of honor at her January 7th wedding and I couldn't be more excited. Alyssa and I became close while cheering in high school and even closer when we traveled to Southeast Asia together and ended up rooming our freshman year at A&M.

Although I've had my hand at hosting different birthday and themed parties, this was my first bridal shower :-). Here is a peek into the shower...

I love scrapbooking and crafting so immediately I knew I wanted to make the invitations. 

The theme was vintage so I was sure to check out lots of thrift stores (and Goodwills) for decor. I also made buntings and paper rosettes for to add to the theme. 

I fell in love with the vintage flour, sugar, tea and coffee tins I found at Salvation Army. 

I made this out of a $1 Goodwill frame (which I painted), scrapbook paper and a wooden P from Hobby Lobby

I made lots of yummy foods

Check out the diamond ring shaped cookies...thank you for the help Leah!

Games are my favorite part of any shower and we played 3. I got the idea from my bridal shower decorated an apron with different kitchen/household items. Alyssa walked into the room full of guests for 1 minute while they tried to memorize the items. The person who wrote down the most correct items (after Alyssa left the room) won a prize! For the second game, I asked Alyssa 15 questions about where her and her future hubby will be in 5 years (example, what is your ideal career, will you have any babies, what will you do to celebrate your 5 year anniversary). The third game was my favorite. I teamed up with the grooms mom to get photos of him from birth-current and the guests had to guess what age he was (I made a powerpoint). It was hilarious and fun!

And of course the bride got loads of gifts!

The bride and her mom and future MIL

The bride and her swag

The bride and her bridesmaids :-)

My little sister, Tomi, and the bride!

High school friends :-)

I am not going to spoil the bridesmaids dresses but I just HAD to show yall the gorgeous necklaces Alyssa gave us to wear on her wedding day. I don't ever want to take this baby off. And yes, I am wearing clothes in the picture, the dress is strapless haha

Have you ever thrown a bridal shower? I'd love to hear about it!