My Latest Blog

I have created a blog for my hair bows. I sell them in the store I work at and they have been going pretty good. I figured I'd try making a blog for them and see how that does. If you have any friends with little girls, pass me along. I also find that alot of older girls like to wear my bows too. It's something fun to keep me occupied when I'm not working :)

http://simpledesignbows.blogspot.com/

This is one of my favorites. It's very simple and plain, but I love it!

Recipezaar

Recipezaar.com is by far my most favorite website for recipes. It is so easy to use and I can always find good ideas for dinner. I love that you can search for any food ingredient, and it will pull up a huge list with recipes involving that. Then I sort the list by rating, and I‘ve found some really good recipes. I also like to look at the categories they already have listed and sort those by rating too. I love to just sit and browse recipes, saving them to my cookbook. Then when I need an idea for dinner, I can look at my saved recipes and find something I’ve been wanting to try. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to post some of my own recipes on Recipezaar. I thought I’d post the links to some of my favorite recipes from this website.

Spinach & Four-Cheese Manicotti
http://www.recipezaar.com/Kittencals-Spinach-Four-Cheese-Manicotti-Vegetarian-72308

I use the filling to fill jumbo shells and substitute cottage cheese for ricotta. It’s cheaper and I like the texture better.


Curry Chicken with Coconut and Peanuts
http://www.recipezaar.com/Curry-Chicken-with-Coconut-and-Peanuts-37139


Chicken Breasts in Lemon Cream Sauce
http://www.recipezaar.com/Chicken-Breasts-in-lemon-cream-sauce-50342


Absolute Best Ever Lasagna
http://www.recipezaar.com/Absolute-Best-Ever-Lasagna-28768


Delicious Chicken Pot Pie
http://www.recipezaar.com/Delicious-Chicken-Pot-Pie-10744


Beef and Broccoli
http://www.recipezaar.com/Sassys-Beef-and-Broccoli-39554


Cilantro Rice
http://www.recipezaar.com/Cilantro-Rice-28113

Technically it's still February...

I love that Valentine’s Day is almost exactly 6 months from our Anniversary. It’s a couple weeks later, but we had a really good Valentine’s Day.



My most favorite flowers are lilies and orchids. This year for Valentine's Day Ian got me orchids. I love them. He is so sweet and thoughtful. It was the perfect gift. I love that the idea came from me getting him a bamboo plant last year for Valentine’s. It is called a lucky bamboo plant, and that it is. Our bedroom gets hardly any sunlight, and has extreme temperatures in the winter and summer, but it is still thriving a year later.



I love my husband with all of my heart and can't imagine my life without him. I am so lucky to have found him. There are so many things I love about him. He is so patient with me and always seems to be there when I need him the most. I love that he supports me in everything I do. He always makes me laugh and we have so much fun together. He makes me happier than I ever thought I could be. He is so perfect for me and I hope to be the wife he deserves. I can’t imagine anyone else by my side to learn and grow with. Here’s to many more years! I love you Ian!

11 Year Upgrade

Ian and I have recently bought my realistic dream car!! It's a 2002 Silver Honda Accord and I love it so much. It was a desparately needed upgrade. I'm sure my little red '91 Accord is still a good car, I just got sick of fixing everything that went wrong. I decided I'd rather be making a car payment than paying $200+ everytime something went wrong. I was also sick of it dying in unconvenient places such as the bank drive through... I'm just glad it never died at a stop light! I'm so happy we were able to find the car I had in mind. We are definately an Accord family! Ian and I currently own three, looking to sell one :) Buying this car has been a great learning experience for us. This purchase was a little more complicated than normal with it being a used car, from a private party, and out of state. Our incompetant loan officer didn't help either, but everything finally worked out. Of course the day we were able to go back down to Utah to pick it up, the weather had to be horrible. The trip down wasn't too bad. Coming home was in pouring rain, dense fog, and snow. It was definately an adventure. I'm really glad I had a friend to drive home with me. It's always fun driving in scary weather in a different, new car, when I can't see very well at night. But we made it and now I have the car of my dreams!

Goals of 2010

What do we want to get out of the new year? We want to look back and feel that we accomplished something. We want to feel that we improved ourselves in some way and became better people because of it.

So far we have 2 major goals we want to achieve in 2010:

Lose Weight
Ok, this is everyone's goal at the beginning of a new year but we are ready to seriously commit and get down to what we used to be. We realize it is going to take some time and that it's going to be hard, but as a team we can support and motivate each other. We have our goals written down and charts made to track our progress. So far we are both doing great. Today marks the 7th day of our new life style change and as of this morning, I am down 7 lbs and Ian is down 6 lbs. It's alot of work planning and preparing meals, but it's been worth it. We are proud of ourselves that we didn't gain from last night. It was Ian's company party catered by Johnny Carino's. We took very small portions of the healthier choices and didn't go back for seconds or thirds like everyone else. We were both tempted to go back on multiple occasions, but we were good and it paid off. We know the temptations will get easier with time. We know it's time for a change and that we can succeed. Our next mini goal in this category is to go to the gym everyday. This is much tougher for us, but hopefully we can do it!

Ian going back to school
This has been a goal since before we were married. We are finally ready to really do something about it. We tend to put things off and time flies on by leaving us farther and farther behind from what we want. We know that it is important for Ian to have a college degree so that someday he can have a good paying job and I can be a stay at home mom with our kids. We realize that him getting his degree won't immediately pay off, but it will get us much closer to what we want for our life. We meet with an admissions counselor on Tuesday January, 12. We have no idea how we are going to pay for this, but know it's something that needs to be done and we will somehow figure everything out. Hopefully the admissions counselor will be able to answer our questions and help us get started on this adventure.