FRIDAY!

Once again I'm linking up to my favorite blogs for another installment of the 5 on Friday.

1. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to spending time with one of my besties and bridesmaids, Allison. I'm so glad she lives close enough that we get to see each other fairly often.

2. I want to give a special thank you to my mom for watching Calvin for us the next two weeks. We will be traveling a bit so Calvin will get to spend some time chasing birds in my mom's backyard.

3. I'm really looking forward to Sunday when my dad, step-mom, aunt, uncle, and cousin will be joining P and I at a Nationals game against the Phillies. We really love going to the Nationals game and it is supposed to be beautiful weather this weekend!

4. Last weekend I started and finished the book The Best of Us by Sarah Pekkanen. It was a fun read about a group of college friends who take a week long vacation to Jamaica. It was a quick read and made me want to check out some of her other books.

5. I'm headed to Tampa, FL on Monday for a work conference. I'll be there through Friday and then we're heading up to Penn State! While conferences can be boring, I'm looking forward to a break for the usual work day.

Have a great weekend!

The Liebster Award

Last week I was nominated for the Liebster Award. This is an award given by fellow bloggers to up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers. This award is a great way to meet other bloggers and become more active in the blogging community. A special thank you to Lindsay at Life with the Rashids for the nomination!

Here are the rules for the nomination:
1. Link back to the person that nominated you.
2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the nominator.
3. Choose 11 bloggers, each 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 your nomination.

Lindsay asked:

1. If you could go back in time to one event, which event would you choose and why?

If I could go back in time to one event I think I would choose Woodstock. P and I love good music and I would have loved to see all of the great musicians who performed that weekend especially Janis Joplin, Joe Crocker, The Who, The Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and  Young, and of course, Jimi Hendrix. I'm not sure I would have loved all the mud but it would have been worth it.

 

2. If you could be any super hero, who would you choose to be?

This one really has me stumped. I guess Superman because I could fly to different places around the world really fast.....that feels like a really lame answer!

 

3. What is your favorite book?

To Kill a Mockingbird or Wuthering Heights.

 

4. What is something on your bucket list?

Traveling to Alaska. I was born in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska but obviously don't remember anything about it. P and his family spent two weeks in Alaska when he was in college and the pictures are breath taking.

 

5. What is your greatest accomplishment to date?

I think my greatest accomplishment to date would be earning my Bachelor and Master's degrees. I still get such a sense of pride when I glance up at my degrees and think of the hard work that went into earning them and the doors that opened to me because of them.

 

6. What is one thing you wish you were better at?

I wish I was a better swimmer. There seems to be something so calming about doing laps in a pool.

 

7. Who is your favorite blogger?

I have so many! Of my favorite bloggers at this moment is Young House Love. They have such creative, budget-friendly ideas for home decor.

 

8. What is your favorite blog post? Link back so we can read it :)

THIS is my favorite blog post. Hands down.

 

9. If you could be any animal for a day, what would you choose to be and why?

I would be a dog so I could communicate with our dog Calvin. I would just love to know what he's thinking in that little head of his!

 

10. Where do you see yourself in five years?

I hope to be living in a house (not an apartment!) with P and hopefully one or two little P's (or Emily's). I hope that we are all healthy and happy in life.

 

11. What do you hope to accomplish through blogging?

I hope to continue to use blogging as a way document and share my life through words and pictures.

 

 

So I'm going to break the rules a little bit for #3. Instead of listing 11 up and coming bloggers, I'm only going to list 6 and then list 5 of my favorite blogs.

 

The 6 blogs I nominate are:

1. Caitlyn @ Home Sweet Ruby 

2. Stephanie @ Newlyweds North

3. Sara Elizabeth @ Simply Sara Elizabeth

4. Emily @ Brown Eyed Girl
5. Caroline @ Sweet Caroline

6. Donavan @ A Marathon Runner's Wife

 

And here are 5 of my favorite 200+ follower blogs:

1. Young House Love

2. A. Liz Adventures

3. Carolina Charm

4. The Small Things Blog

5. Blair's Head Band

 

Finally, my 11 questions for the nominees if they choose to answer (please leave a comment with your responses so we can read them!):

1. Where is your favorite place to travel to?

2. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

3. What is your favorite movie?

4. Salty or sweet?

5. What other profession do you wish you could be or think would be fun?

6. Where do you see yourself in five years?

7. What is your favorite season?

8. Who are your top three favorite bloggers?

9. What TV show is your guilty pleasure?

10. Beach or mountains?

11. What is your all time favorite meal?

 

 

Scenes from the Weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Ours was pretty low key, just as I predicted. It consisted of cooking, the gym, football, and a few chores and errands. I don't have too many pictures mostly because they would just be of me and P on the couch, in sweatpants, watching football. But here are a few things I did capture:

After work on Friday I whipped up a batch of the pumpkin cookies I blogged about. I added chocolate chips to the second half of the batch and they were so delicious. This is definitely a new favorites fall recipe.

 

 

On my way home from the gym on Saturday morning I stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a few snacks for football watching. I couldn't resist scooping up these sunflowers. I love how they look in the Penn State glass bottle. Sunflowers and Penn State are two of my favorite things!

 

 Last night I made enchiladas for the first time. I was kind of surprised I had never made them before given how much P and I love Mexican food. I filled them with a mixture of sauted chopped onions, black beans, and cheese. I added a little cumin and 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce to the mixture to give it a little more flavor. They were delicious and I can't wait to enjoy leftovers for lunch.

TGIF!

Happy Friday! Now let's move onto the good stuff.....

1. Today I'm wishing my little sister a very happy 23rd birthday!!

2. I found my new favorite Essie nail polish color for fall: Smokin Hot

3. Since we have some cooler weather today and tomorrow I'm thinking about baking my first pumpkin recipe for the season. I think these cookies from The Chow sound delicious. Although I may eliminate the frosting and add chocolate chips.

4. Any time I go to Target my first stop is always the Dollar Spot. Last week I found these cute little pouches that came with two for $1. They are the perfect size for holding make-up, gum, etc. and tossing in your bag.

5. We don't have much planned for this weekend and I'm very excited. Right now my weekend is going to consist of catching up on sleep, football, the gym, and some cooking. Can't wait!

Fall Favorites



Now that it is officially September I think it is safe to share some of my favorite things I am most looking forward to this fall. 

Going clockwise from the top left corner:

1. Blazers. I now have quite the collection of blazers in my wardrobe and I find myself wearing them all the time in the fall and even into the winter. They are great over short sleeve or long sleeve blouses when the temperatures are just beginning to cool down. When it gets a bit colder they are great over sweaters.

2. Boots. Nothing is better then wearing a great pair of boots with jeans, a shirt or sweater, and a blazer (see number 1).

3. Pumkin bread and really anything pumpkin flavored. I just can't get enough pumpkin in the fall. I can't wait to make my first pumpkin loaf in the next couple of weeks.

4. Fall foliage. I love going for drives up along the George Washington Parkway or up to Pennsylvania in the fall and seeing the vibrant orange, red, and yellow leaves on the trees.

5. Football. This one is obvious but nothing screams fall like college football and the NFL.


PS - check out the fancy smancy collage I created using with Picasa. I am obsessed with it now and you better believe there will be many more coming!

Five on Friday

It's Friday which can only mean one thing....another installment of Five on Friday.

1. Three day weekend. I'm sure this is at the top of everyone's list this weekend. There's nothing better then knowing you don't have to set an alarm clock on Sunday night.

2. Penn State football starts TOMORROW!! We are headed to our favorite Penn State bar tomorrow afternoon to cheer on our Nittany Lions as they face off against Syracuse.

3. This weekend officially brings us into September which is my favorite month. Here's a short list of why I'm loving September this year:

• Football starts
• Family coming to DC for a Nationals/Phillies baseball game
• Work trip to Tampa
• Trip to Penn State
• Fall officially starts
• My birthday!

4. P's fantasty football draft is today. I'm nervous for him. We keep joking that I'm like Jenny from the FX show The League. Jenny is the wife of one of the league members and let's just say she pays a little more attention to the NFL and its players than her husband.

5. Picasa. I just discovered this little gem from Google and I'm obsessed with it. Especially the collage piler. Be on the look out for my first collage coming soon.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Currently Reading

Admittedly I have not been reading as much as I usually do this summer. I blame it on lack of pool/beach time and the stupid Candy Crush app on iphone. I read three books in one week on our honeymoon and I think I've barely read three since May. My goal is to read at least five more books before the end of the year (hopefully more).

Right now I am currently reading Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. I'm about a third of the way into it and have really enjoyed it so far. It starts off with a teenage Zelda in Montogomery, Alabama and tells the story of how she and F. Scott met and fell in love. The novel relives their glamorous life in NYC, Paris, and the French Riveria with their friends the Hemingways and Gertrude Stein while also exploring their personal demons. Z has the same feel as The Paris Wife (which I loved) but Zelda seems to have had a little more personality and spunk than Hadley Hemingway which makes this a fun read.

 

 

 

This summer I read J. Courtney Sullivan's newest novel The Engagements. I loved this book and devoured it in a few days. I have also read Sullivan's novels Maine and Commencement so I knew she would not disappoint in her third book. The novel follows several couples who are married (or don't marry) for various reasons over a nearly hundred year period. Sullivan's novels are written beautifully and always make me take a second to think about my own life

This summer I finally finished a book that I think I started in January. Admittedly, it was very difficult to get into the model. It wasn't until I was about a third of the way through that it really started to pick up. The Darlings follows a high society New York City family that finds itself in the middle of a financial investigation (think Bernie Madoff) and other scandalous affairs. If you can get through the slow start, I definitely recommend making it through to the end!