Meals this Week

One thing Grant and I have been trying to work on this year is eating more meals at home, and--here's the kicker--not out of a box. Yes, I admit it. We love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I blame it on my mom really--I was never allowed to have it as a kid! I always had the healthy stuff--you know, the all-natural white cheese shells. And of course I loved them, but that's because I didn't know what I was missing out on! (Wait, when did this turn into a rant about my love for Mac & Cheese?)

Getting back on track...We've been making an effort since we moved into our new apartment and here's what we've come up with so far:

Friday night we had Nick and Briana over for dinner to repay them for making such delicious Peruvian food for us. We knew we couldn't make anything foreign, but Grant does make a mean ginger sauce to go with our favorite hibachi-style meal.

And for dessert I made a chocolate mousse pie with Cadbury eggs on top.

The next morning I woke up early (well early for a Saturday...it was 9:30) and decided to make Grant and I a big breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and steak.

We continued to eat our hibachi leftovers throughout the week, but we did take a break from it one night when I cooked up a chicken breast that I had leftover from when I made enchiladas a week ago. I didn't want it to go bad so I experimented with breading it (without bread crumbs since I realized too late I didn't have any) and baking it. It turned out really good so I was happy about that.

As lame as it might be, I decided taking pictures of the food I make might be some kind of motivation for me to cook more. I bet you're going to get sick of seeing our dinner plates pretty soon!

All Moved In

One week later and Grant and I are all moved in. Not too bad, right? We actually got everything unpacked, besides decorations and books, by last Monday and then didn't get around to pulling out the decorations and sorting through our boxes of books until last Thursday. But now our apartment is completely unpacked and set up and it feels like home, which is such a great feeling. I love the area we live in, I love our ward, and I love our apartment complex. The gym is really nice (and so close to our apartment) and the pool, even though I'm pretty sure we won't be going for a while, is beautiful. Everyone we've met here has been really helpful and nice. So far so good.

I made some attempt to clean up tonight and take pictures of everything. The pictures never come out right, but you'll get the general idea.

Bedroom:

Bathroom:

Dining Room:

Living Room:

Desk Nook (off the kitchen):

Kitchen:

That's our laundry room through that door. I would have taken pictures but let's be honest, it's not that interesting. I might post more pictures of our kitchen in a couple of weeks because we're getting all of the appliances switched out. Instead of white, we're going to have a new stainless steel fridge, microwave, stove, and dishwasher. They're also going to replace all the gold knobs for brass. I'm pretty excited--it should look really nice when it's all finished.

And did you notice my new pillows? I made those when I was home in Connecticut in December. I'm so happy with how they turned out and they look so much better than the old ones.

From this

 To this.

Quite an improvement, right? They fit my style and my furniture much better I think. And they were my first pillows I've ever made, so it just feels good to complete that kind of a project. Grant likes them too. Bonus! I had plans to recover my chair (the one that used to be in the same fabric as the red striped pillows) in the gold/brown/grey fabric you see on the pillows now, but apparently I got this fabric for a steal. When I saw it in Connecticut it was only $3.00 a yard. Everywhere else it's $40.00 a yard...so that's probably not going to happen. I'm watching to see if it ever goes on sale again.

My next project is making a coffee table for our living room. I saw something on Pinterest that gave me the idea and Grant and I started it last night. It'll probably take a few days, but I'm very excited about it! I'll post pictures as soon as it's all done. Wish me luck!

Another Move Under Our Belts

Grant and I finally moved into our own place! We're both very excited about this little apartment. It's in Grapevine and so far we've found that we're close to great restaurants, a shopping mall, the airport, and the best part, closer to work! I didn't realize our commutes were going to change at all, but the move cut off 15 minutes from my drive to work (and let's be honest, that 15 minutes really makes a difference when I'm late getting out the door...every morning).

We got the keys to the new apartment last Friday night and came over here to clean. Then Saturday we woke up around 6:30am, loaded up a U-haul and all of our cars, and unloaded everything in just a few hours. I unpacked the entire kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom while Grant went to coach the Young Men's Basketball Team (that's his calling--pretty awesome, right? He brings a clipboard and everything). When he came home we both worked until late that night and got almost everything set up. On Sunday we unpacked more and went over to Grant's parent's house to clean where we had been staying. And then today Grant unpacked more while I was at work since he had the day off. We're still not completely unpacked, but we are so close! We just have our boxes of books to sort through and figure out which books we want to put up on the shelves and decorations to put out. Not too bad, right?

I promise I'll post pictures of everything just as soon as we finish up. For now though, you can enjoy this mountain of boxes that I unpacked all by myself while Grant was at the basketball game. Impressive, right?

We also took a break from unpacking on Saturday night to grab froyo with Nick and Briana. Definitely a good choice :)

And on Sunday morning we celebrated the first morning in our new apartment with a big breakfast of eggs and pancakes. It also didn't hurt that our new ward starts at 1:00pm, so we have plenty of time to sleep in and actually make a good breakfast.

Our First Encounter with Peruvian Food

Our good friends here, Nick & Briana, invited us over for dinner a week or so ago. Briana was so sweet and spent hours making this home-made Peruvian dish (she's half Peruvian) and it was delicious! I'd tell you what it was called but even if I could remember it, I definitely couldn't spell it. Trust me though, it was delicious!

We also went on a ride on her scooter to the closest Red Box and rented Crazy, Stupid Love. I loved driving the scooter--I have to get me one of those!

And I also had fun playing with their brand new bunny, Herbert, who is so good at peeing on Grant and I. But it was okay--I forgave him pretty quickly and went back to playing with him. I want to get a pet pretty soon here too, although Grant and I are saving up for something a little more...what's a good word to describe it? Unique. Yeah, that's it. More about that later though.

It's a New Year

I know this isn't technically my first post of the New Year, but I'm going to treat it as such. That being said, Happy New Year! I detailed in my last post how Grant and I celebrated New Year's Eve, so I thought I would reflect back on 2011 in this post and feature the highlights of each month, in pictures of course!

2011 really was a great year--we graduated college, moved into a real apartment (real as in not a tiny, student-housing type apartment), experienced the tough job market, moved to Texas, got great jobs, traveled a bunch, and spent a lot of time with friends and family. Here are some of the highlights:

January: Las Vegas trip

February: Valentine's Day

March: St. George trip with friends

April: Graduation and One-Year Anniversary

May: Florida trip with Justin and Holly

June: My birthday!

July: Idaho Family Reunion

August: Connecticut family trip

September: Family Time! Cousin game night, dinner at Granny's, and Kolob trip

October: Halloween!

November: Thanksgiving in Connecticut

December: Grant's Birthday and Christmas in Texas

After going through all our pictures from this last year, I looked up my last year's blog post with my New Year's resolution. I'm happy to report that I completed almost all of them, and the ones I didn't get to will definitely be on my new list. Here they are:


Last Year's resolutions:

• Learn how to sew [check]
• Get straight A's [check]
• Work out 4-5 times a week [check]
• Cook more meals each week [check]
• Update the blog / write in my journal every day [not quite--but I will this year!]
• Lose ten more pounds [check--but now I need to do it again!]
• Grow my hair long [check]
• Get a real-life editing job [check]
• Be better about saving money [check]
• Find more time for craft projects and painting [check--but I still want to work on this]
• Go on lots of trips with friends [check! We took so many trips last year. Cabin trip with friends in January, Vegas trip in January, Logan trip with my sister Andrea in February, St. George trip with friends in March, Florida trip with Just and Holly in April/May, Connecticut trip with my family in August, November, and December]
• Stay in better contact with family members [check--I definitely improved with this last year, but I could always work on this so I think I'll keep it on my list]

And now that I've gone over last year's, I think it's time to post my New Year's resolutions for 2012:

• Save a substantial amount of money
• Lose fifteen pounds
• Recover a piece of furniture
• Write in my blog or journal at least once a week
• Learn how to really use my camera
• Improve my Photoshop skills and InDesign skills
• Take Anniversary photos and Christmas photos
• Go on a trip just the two of us
• Take off work and just stay home with eachother
• Cook at least two full meals a week
• Find more time to sew and do craft projects
• Focus more on spiritual things in my life
• Make friends at our new apartment complex
• Stay in better contact with family members, through emails, phone calls, and hand-written letters
• Make videos of people and places I love
• Work out 3-5 times a week
• Paint more
• Eat healthy and try to stay away from sweets
• Make an album of Grant and I's engagement, bridal, and wedding photos
• Take a picture of everyone I have contact with in 2012 (within reason, of course)

I think that's everything, although I'm sure I'll think of more to add later. This year my goals are different because I'm not in school and I'm not on the hunt for jobs. Instead, this year I really want to focus on expanding my creativity with photography, design, painting, sewing, crafting, making videos, writing, and everything else that acts as a release for me.

2011, thanks for being a great year. 2012, please be good to us!