Almost Here...

      It's finally Christmas Eve! I feel like this has been the slowest and yet shortest couple of days, haha. Work was absolutely insane with all of the last minute shoppers. Here's hoping that things will be a little calmer the next week or so.

      

      On to the main subject though. I did promise some decoration pictures, so here we go!

I love these lights that I got last year! They change colors and have multiple settings from rapid flashing to slow changing. I also added some garland for a little fun.

Above one of my bookcases I have our stockings hung (mine is the Jack one of course) with some more garland and a set of plain lights to add more color. Also a Santa Claus figure next to a fireplace that was my Grandma and Granpa Wood's.

Every year we get an ornament with the year on it to mark our Christmases together. I wasn't sure about this one at first, but the more I look at it, the more I love it!

Finally, our tree! 

This was before we had all of our presents wrapped, but they've filled up the underneath even more nicely now.

      I know a lot of people do color-specific trees, but I've always been a fan of more colorful ones. There's nothing wrong with themed ones, and I've considered trying one myself, but this just reminds me more of when I was a kid. To each their own! 

      So how do you like to decorate for Christmas, or whatever holiday that you may celebrate? I always like seeing different decorations, and other's take on things. If you'd like to post or link to a picture, please do.

      Now it's time for me to wrap my last couple stocking stuffers, and a last minute gift I picked up for Mom from Dad today. I just can't wait to watch everyone open their gifts tomorrow, it's my favorite part of Christmas! I would like to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and holiday season. See you back here soon!

Crazy Season

      This holiday season has been absolutely nuts, both with family and at work. Has yours been worse than you remember last year being? I will completely admit that I just bought my first Christmas presents last night. I know, I'm a horrible procrastinator, but I had reasons for waiting. I do have at least solid ideas for everyone on my list though, so now it's just the purchases themselves that need done. We also finally put the tree up last night, since we now have items to put under it. I promise pictures as soon as the rest of the decorations are up!

      This season snuck up on me rather quickly with so many things keeping me occupied, but let's take a step back and a deep breath. I have to say, though obviously gifts are always nice, the thing I'm looking forward to most is spending time with my family and friends. Plans are still being made for Christmas, but I already have something set for after the first of the year and I can't wait to see everyone.

      I know this was a quick life post, but I'd like to end with a few questions! What is your favorite part of the holiday season? Favorite holiday food? How about favorite traditions? Please let me know! My boyfriend and I haven't started too many of our own yet, but I'm always looking for fun new ideas. :) Our only one at the moment is every Christmas since we started living together we've gotten a special ornament for the tree.

      I'll see you back here soon for decoration pictures and maybe a look at what I've been playing lately. ;) Have a good one!

Baked Ravioli

Hey guys!


      Today I wanted to share with you a super quick meal that's simple to put together on a busy weeknight. It also comes in handy if, like me, you sometimes forget to thaw something for dinner, haha. This has become more of a recent favorite, and leaves much room for customization. I see it as a bit of a compromise between my boyfriend and I, because he loves lasagna and I've never cared for it much.

      For the basic recipe you will need one bag of frozen ravioli, one jar of your favorite pasta sauce, and 2 cups of mozzarella or Italian blend shredded cheese.

      First preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. While it is preheating, you should have plenty of time to put the dish together. In the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish spread 1/3 of the pasta sauce. Then place one layer of ravioli, followed by half of the remaining sauce, and half of the cheese. Repeat the layering one more time.

      After the oven has preheated, cover the dish in foil and bake for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and bubbling.

      Like I said, this is a simple dish but you can do so much to it to make it your own. Try adding some veggies or herbs, make it with different types of ravioli and sauce, add something extra on top, whatever fits your personal tastes. I would love to hear what ingredients you like to add and how it turned out for you, I'm always looking for new ideas! I hope that you'll enjoy this dish as much as we have been at my home.


      I'll see you back here soon!










Random tidbits:

• After living in the same apartment for our third Halloween in a row, we finally had trick-or-treaters last night! Just two kids, but woohoo!
• Went in an hour early this morning to help put Christmas decorations at work. Surprised to hear the mall already playing Christmas music today, but made me feel less crazy! Haha.
• Totally counting down to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies! (1 month, 15 days!!!)
• What upcoming events/releases are you excited for?

     

This Is Halloween!

Afternoon ghosts and ghouls!

      What does everyone have planned for this Halloween? I plan on upholding my favorite tradition of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas(just the perfect Halloween/Christmas movie, right?) and handing out candy to any little monsters that may stop by! Just wanted to drop in for a quick holiday post and share with you my Halloween nail art. What do you think?

      I got my inspiration for them on Pinterest, and liked the 'stitched together' look between the nude color and the green. It made me think of Frankenstein's monster or a rag doll, though not blue like Sally. ;) To create these nails I did two coats of Pure Ice in the color Shore Bet for the base, then, using my Nailene Perfect Tips, I polished the tips with Sinful Colors' Innocent. To finish it off I used Salon Perfect in Black Ink which has a thin detail brush. Hope you like them, and would love to hear what you might be up to for Halloween night or weekend. Just remember to stay safe out there, and may you find more treats than tricks!


      Have a good one, and I'll see you back here soon.










Just so you know, I am still planning on publishing another post Saturday afternoon. So far that seems to be the best time for me to post regularly with my crazy work schedule right now, but if anything changes I will let you know!

Coastal Scents Haul

Hey guys!

     
      So Wednesday I finally caved and decided to take advantage of a couple sales on coastalscents.com. The 6 Contour Blush palette was on sale for just $9.95 (3 days only, sorry!), but they also have a limited edition Pink Combo for only $19.95 throughout the month of October. Five dollars from the Pink Combo price goes to a breast cancer charity of their choice, and it's a great deal as well so I definitely recommend checking it out.

    
      I was so excited to get all of my products today that I wanted to give you guys a quick first look at everything, along with some swatches. I have to say that I love Coastal Scents' packaging. Though I'm not currently working in the field, I did go to school for graphic design, and have an appreciation for sharp packaging designs and graphics. The cases for the products themselves are also nice black matte or sleek finishes with simple text that looks great.

      First let's look at the 6 Contour Blush palette. All 6 shades are matte and feel silky smooth to the touch. My first impression from just swatching the colors is that they all feel nice and silky smooth. I've been looking for good contouring/highlighting shades and have high hopes for these. 

The white is hard to see here, sorry I'm so pale! Haha

      Now check out the Pink Combo. 

      Warning: prepare for lots of pictures! I have the Coastal Scents' 22 piece brush set for my everyday use and the brushes are all so soft, so I'm happy to say that the travel set and pink kabuki are super soft as well!

Ever want to rub something soft all over your face? That was how I felt with this!

Nice nylon-feeling case.

The brushes are beautiful too!

Nice and dense, good size for a travel brush

Plus a super precise detail brush

Nice storage as well

      One of the things that I was most excited about was the Think Pink eye shadow palette. The palette itself is interchangeable and magnetic, so you can customize it! They sell a ton of hot pots so you can replace the ones that you like when your run out, or switch them out with other colors that you have.

It also has a full size mirror 

The top four shades are matte, the rest are shimmer

Swatches! Same order as they are in the palette above.

      The last item in the combo is the Juicy Pink lip quad. I already had the Passion Berry lip quad, so I had an idea of what to expect here and had been wanting another quad anyway. After application, the product feels more like a lipstick than a gloss and isn't sticky at all. The colors are also very buildable,  and can go from sheer to solid color with a few extra coats.

The three on the right are matte,
the far left having the only shimmer

      Sorry, the gloss swatches aren't wanting to cooperate right now! As I get to use these products and see how well they perform I will give you guys some updatests and let you know! I'm already wearing the middle left lip color, haha. Hope you enjoyed this first look at these wonderful products, and have a great weekend. See you back here soon!

End note: If you have any constructive criticism please leave a comment below! I'm looking to improve this blog and am working towards setting up a schedule, I just have to find out what will work best first. Thank you for your patience!

I'm Baaack...

 Hey guys!

     After my laptop died in the spring, I had pretty much given up on being able to blog, even though I had just started. Well, I still don't have a new laptop, but I have decided to give this another try! I have a new, better phone and more determination than ever (along with lots of fun stuff to talk about) so let's see what we can do with it.

      For starters, I got in an order from Coastal Scents this morning, so I'll have a post up with that a bit later. ;) Some other things to look forward to are some first impressions on a couple Nintendo games, and a new favorite meal or two! I hope you'll be patient with me as I figure this all out, and let's have some fun. Be seeing you later!

What's for Dinner? Asian Pulled Pork!

      Hi guys! Hope everyone is doing well. :) I just wanted to stop by and share a recipe that I recently found that has become a quick new favorite for me and my guy! It would of course be Asian Pulled Pork as the title would suggest, haha. I haven't had much experience thus far cooking with Asian flavors, but I must say that this was delicious. I stumbled across the recipe on Pinterest, which is where I find a lot of my food ideas these days, and decided to try it since I was wanting something a little different(and easy). Boy was it easy! One of the main reasons that I adore crock pot meals is that I can throw it in before work in the morning, let it cook all day, and add the finishing touches when I get home. Plus, with the crock pot liners I've been using, clean up is super simple too! I found mine near the plastic bags and such at Wal-mart. Tonight is the second time I've made this dish, and after having such a busy day at work, I'm glad I picked it for dinner tonight! Here ya go:

 Start with a roast(2-3 lbs), 1 chopped onion, 1 tsp instant chicken bouillon, and 1 cup water.

 Cook on low for 7-10 hrs. This is at about 9.

 Remove the onion, drain the liquid, and shred the meat.

Mix 1/4 cup Soy Sauce, 2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire, 

1 Tbsp Brown Sugar, and 1 tsp Minced Garlic.

(Low-sodium options work well too!)

Mix the sauce with the shredded meat and allow to cook for 30 more minutes.

I like to serve mine over white rice, so I cook it during this time as well.

And dinner is served!

      If you would like to check out the original recipe, you can find that here. This recipe is highly recommended, and boyfriend approved. ;) I'm also thinking of trying it with some fried rice, or maybe noodles. If it turns out to be worth mentioning, I'll be sure to let you know. Have a good week, and I'll see you back here soon!

Updates and Games!

      I feel like I've been gone so long! I hope everyone enjoyed their New Year's Eve and Day first of all. We went to a friend's and had a great time. If you follow my Instagram you probably have an idea of what I've been up to but if not, here ya go! I decided to finally try a monthly photo challenge on Instagram, which also caused me to write up a few resolutions:

• Make time to read more
• Get back into drawing
• Stay in better touch with friends
• Work on time management
• Be healthier in general - starting with no more pop!
• LIVE!

      If you made any New Year's resolutions, please share them in the comments. I would love to see them! If you are curious about the photo challenge, here it is:

      Anyone living in the mid-west should know that we got A LOT of snow this weekend. Before the storm hit on Sunday, the boyfriend and I decided to do some running around to pick up some essentials and grab a bite to eat. We used one of our Christmas gift cards and went to TGIFridays, which was delicious. We both got the Sizzling Chicken and Shrimp. I think it's safe to say that we both would recommend it. It is all packed with flavor and was cooked just perfectly. I think I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

     While out and about we also decided to get a new multi-player game for the Wii U since we didn't have any yet, and because I thought it would be the perfect thing to keep us busy during the storm. We settled on  Super Mario 3D World. It is so much fun, it was the only game we played for three days! We are now in what I believe is the last world, and have already beaten the main game. The new cat suit and other power-ups added some new challenges, allowing them to hide things in places that you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. I have to also say, getting to play as Peach has been a lot of fun too, and I love her different power-up outfits! Also, we enjoyed the fact that no one was forced to play Mario like in the side scroller games. Each character also has a different 'ability'. Mario is easier to handle, Luigi can jump higher, Toad can run faster, and Peach has her signature hover jump(which I have to say comes in handy in many places!).
*POSSIBLE SPOILER*
I have also been loving getting to play as Rosalina! You get to unlock her in the Star World and she has a slightly higher jump, as well as a spin ability that can kill enemies. Very convenient. ;)
*END SPOILER*
Overall, I recommend the game, especially if you are wanting just a fun multi-player, but maybe something different from the last few New Super Mario games.

     Now the snow. So much snow! I don't work on the weekends, but I know that the mall closed Sunday, and was also closed on Monday. It was going to open at noon Tuesday, but about twenty minutes before the stores were supposed to open, security came around and told us that the mall decided to just close for the day. After spending half an hour digging my car out so that I could get to work, I wasn't very happy only being there for forty minutes. On the plus side, I got another snow day at home which I used to finally go grocery shopping since we had no food left in the apartment, and also to catch up on some cleaning. It was a fairly productive couple days.

      I think that's about it for my updates for now. Sorry I was gone for a bit there, but I am including this in my time management resolution so it should get better! I'm fine with time management at work, but at home I tend to slack off a bit from time to time, haha. On that note, I think I will leave you with a few pictures of the snow. See you back here later!