I love my MOM! (Happy Birthday Mom!)

Today is my mom's birthday!  and I love her very much!  There are a lot of great women who have helped me become who I am today, and she is definitely one of the biggest influences on me.  She stayed at home to raise my sisters and I into young women, and I love her for that.  I can't imagine growing up any other way.  Having her at home when I would come home from school was great; whether it was a bad day and I needed someone to talk to or it was a good day and I wanted to gush about everything, she was there (and still is!).

Now that I am older, I appreciate her even more than I ever have.  I love that we have a good relationship, and I can call her all the time to talk about anything and everything.  :)  I love you mom!  Hope you have had a great birthday today!

Tonight I am making my lasagna for dinner, with a salad and some whole wheat garlic bread.  My mom decided she wanted a lemon cake, and so we'll have that for dessert.  Hopefully after dinner we'll watch a movie or something.  Tomorrow we will be back in Kansas City sometime, because Hannah has a concert she is going to.  I may be going as well, if her friend isn't able to make it.  It's in Lawrence so I dunno what my parents and I will do while Hannah is at this concert.  Surely we'll find something to do.


A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  - Tenneva Jordan


Best,
Megan

In Nevada for the Weekend!

Yay! Yay! YAY!  Another Friday has come, and thus the weekend is upon us!  This weekend I am in Nevada.  Tomorrow is my mom's birthday so I'm so glad I can be here to celebrate it with her and my family.  I am going to be cooking dinner and making a cake tomorrow for her.  Should be good!  Not sure what else we will be doing the rest of the weekend, but I'm okay with not doing much.  Relaxing is what is great about the weekends!

One thing that I hate about being here though, is the SLOW internet connection.  I'm spoiled in KC having a speedy connection, so when I come here some weekends it's almost unbearable when trying to load videos or music tracks.  Oh well.  At least we have cable tv here!  lol  I can get "caught up" on some shows that I never get to watch.

Well it's time for bed, so I will update again this weekend.  Hope you all have a great start to your weekend!


Less is More.  - Mies van der Rohe

Best,
Megan

We had a pretty good Valentine's Day!

So my Valentine's Day started out early.  I signed up to go to this free seminar at Mid-West CAD for Revit
Architecture.  It is a program that I used a TON in school, and really LOVE using!  Many firms are making the switch to Revit, so it's important for me to have the skills that I have with this program.  At Mid-West CAD they offer a certification exam, which is what I'm striving towards.  Their next exam session isn't until April, so I may do some classes to "study up" for the exam.  Just one more positive thing for my resume!  :)

That started at 8am and went till about 4pm (which we got out early actually which was nice!  it was kind of a long day of info).  We got to see a live demonstration of the program, which she covered a lot of the basic components of the program.  The rest of the day was primarily videos shown from AU (otherwise known as Autodesk University).  This is a great website for video tutorials and help from any of the Autodesk programs.  I am really excited to go to classes and learn even more through this company.  Everyone there was so great and helpful!  Getting my certification in Revit would be awesome!  (and they also offer AutoCAD certification that I am probably going to get as well!  :D)

After the seminar was over, I drove over to Grant's place to get things ready for dinner.  I had to run by the grocery store to get a few more things to make the lasagna.  The lasagna I made last night was AMAZING! lol  not to brag, but it was really good!  I really wanted to take pictures of each step, but I kinda forgot about it and all I had was my cell phone to take pictures with (not the best camera on that thing  lol) so bare with the quality of the photos.

These are the cupcakes I made Monday night.  They're just chocolate cake, with pink vanilla icing.  Some of them have red sugar sprinkles on them.  They were pretty delicious!  :)

Basically I just followed the directions on the back of the lasagna noodles, and added my own twist on it.  The picture above has the ground italian chicken layer.  The recipe called for italian sausage, but I used the ground turkey with onions and spinach.  So good!

This is the cheese layer.  Right before you but on the cheese and meat layer you put on the noodles.  It has 2 eggs well blended, shredded mozzarella, and some ricotta cheese, just like the directions.  Unlike the directions, I also added cottage cheese, and some creamy pesto mix (the dry sauce mix you can by at the grocery store).  I think this added a lot to the flavor.

This is the last layer (besides the shredded cheese on top).

In the oven it goes, for 60-70 minutes.  This time I got the oven ready noodles, which made it SUPER EASY.  Just put it all together and throw it in the oven!  yay!

Oh, and I made some chocolate covered strawberries too.  yum!  Getting everything all set up for dinner...

So these pictures came out pretty terrible, but it was really cute when I got it all put together.  I made a little "coupon book" for Grant.  There's all kinds of things like "one night of a home cooked meal", or a "weekend full of me doing a chore of your choice", etc.  I don't think he was expecting me to make anything, but I think he liked it.  :)  I can't help but be crafty sometimes.

Everything is ready, and in about 5 minutes after taking this photo Grant got home from work.  Perfect timing!  Last night was so great!  We just stayed in, and enjoyed each others company.  I had been wanting to watch Water for Elephants for a while now, so Grant agreed to watching it with me last night.

Today on the other hand wasn't the best.  I don't wanna vent on here really, but this job is killing me and my spirit.  Must get a new job soon...  Well, I'm going to get some laundry done tonight, so until next time.

Creativity is to think more efficiently. - Pierre Reverdy

Best,
Megan

Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend has been pretty nice.  To start things off Grant and I went out to dinner and did a little shopping. We decided to go to On the Border which was alright but we weren't that impressed.  Those hole in the wall mexican places are better lol.  We were in the Town Center shopping center, so we went to a few stores.  I ended up getting a new pair of stud earrings at Macy's which I love!  They're super cute.

Saturday Grant and I got up around 8am and had breakfast together.  Then we went back home and just hung out till about 1pm when I left to go to my grandma's place where her, my aunt, and I went to the Mother Daughter (Grand Daughter) Valentine's Tea Party.  They had a couple who played music and sang throughout the tea which was nice, and also raffled off some candy.  There were easily over 150 women there.  They had punch, finger sandwiches, candy, cake, and cookies.  It was pretty good.  It was really nice to see my grandma and aunt and talk to them.  I'm glad I'm so close to them now and we can get together more often!  :)  After I got back to Grant's house, we went to Target to get some things Grant needed around the house and groceries and what not.  I made spaghetti and meat sauce and some garlic toast for us for dinner.  It was pretty good.  We ended up watching more Sopranos last night before getting to bed around midnight.

Sunday we got up around 8am again, and I made breakfast burritos for us.  Today has been a very lazy day.  We continued watching some more episodes of the Sopranos and Big Love today.  For dinner I made FROM SCRATCH mashed potatoes.  lol  They really aren't that much of a pain, so I don't know why I was thinking it would take forever.  I guess I just hadn't made them in a while.  With the mashed potatoes I made pork tenderloin and for dessert Grant wanted brownies, so I baked a batch of those as well.  It was another pretty good dinner.  I just don't want the day to end!  Luckily I do have tuesday off for that seminar, so hopefully that will be a nice break from work.  We decided to stay in on tuesday for Valentine's Day, and I'm going to fix dinner for us.  I'll get off work at 5pm that day, and get stuff cooked and ready for Grant when he gets home at 8pm.  Should be a nice low key night in at his place.  :)

Well, hope you all had a great weekend!  Time for the work week!

Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.  - Don Norman

Best,
Megan

It's FRIDAY people! ...and some things I have been obsessed with lately

YAY!  It's Friday!  :)  So so so glad the weekend is upon us (in about 2 hours to be exact, because lets face it when 5pm rolls around Friday afternoon that is the start of the weekend).  So tonight Grant and I are going out to dinner and are going to walk around Town Center, since I've been wanting to for a while.  Even though I have no money to buy anything I enjoy walking around and looking at things.  You never know when or where inspiration will hit you for a project.  Definitely going to hit up Crate & Barrel (because I'm in love with that store and we don't have an Ikea or West Elm here  :(  o well probably for the best!)  I wish it wasn't going to be sooo cold this afternoon/night though.  Hopefully it won't be that bad walking around all the shops...

I hope that these images like the one above don't get too repetitive to you guys.  I really just find them so beautiful and inspirational.  I love print and the graphic arts!  So I try and find them everyday to brighten my day, and hope that they (along with my posts) brighten your day a little!  :)

So now to get on with some things that I have been obsessed with lately!  Really a random list of things that have been things that I do or like lately.  Most of this is directly from Pinterest which is a whole big obsession in itself.  :-P

    1.  Eating Healthier.

I absolutely love this yogurt!  It is sooo good and so good for you!  Seriously if you haven't tried it, go out and buy it.  I have also been eating fresh veggies and fruit almost every single day.  Some days instead of having the typical sandwich I just make a cup of veggies, and bring a yogurt.  I feel so much better eating healthy.  Now I just gotta get some more exercise in my routine.

     2.  Scarves.

I absolutely LOVE scarves.  I am a pretty simple person when it comes to fashion.  I like things that are clean and simple, but then I add a cute colorful scarf to spice up the look.  Seriously I cannot have enough of them!

    3.  Rings.

So I've never been one to wear a ton of jewelry, but I really like wearing stud earrings and a ring most days.  I went through a phase where I hated wearing rings, and now I'm loving wearing this sterling silver one I got from Target.  I wear it pretty much every day now.

    4.  Collecting Recipes.  

With Pinterest, this has become so easy for me.  The hard thing is finding time to try most of them!  I have got some really good ideas for my own recipes as well just looking through these food blogs that I happen to come across.  It's great!

    5.  Chevrons... on anything!

So this obsession really isn't THAT new, but it's safe to say that I am still very much obsessed with chevrons (like most people right now it seems).  The image above is from a pin I saw and its a DIY link to how to make this.  basically you just need a canvas, tape, and paints.  I love it!

    6.  Wearing Skirts and Dresses. (and just being more girly in general)

I think I've mentioned this before on a previous blog, but for some reason I'm really into wearing dresses and skirts again.  It's fun being a girl!  :)

    7.  Trying new hair styles

So I admit it; I'm not great at doing my hair but I try!  I have yet to try this one above, but I really love figuring out how to wear my hair differently.  I have so much of it I might as well try and do some cute different looks with it every once and a while!

Hope you have an AMAZING weekend!  I will be sure to post anything that sparks my interest. :-D

Design trends online change more often than the wind, and slightly less often than my socks.  - Suleiman Leadbitter

Best,
Megan