Valentine's Day is over.

Whew! What an eventful week this has been! Even though I don't feel as crazy busy as I have in the past, at the end of the week, I look back and can't believe how quick it went. With. out. fail.

I had my friend John over for dinner last weekend. I owed him a home-cooked meal after he rescued me when my car broke down a while ago-such a sweetheart! He cooked for me a few weeks ago at his place in Royal Oak, and then last week, made the trek down to Ypsi on Sunday. I made butternut squash enchiladas and flan for desert. I also picked up some pimento cheese from the creamery and fresh made pretzels from the bakehouse-it was all so good!

The enchiladas were super easy! I made up the filling on Friday during my day off so when I got home from work on Sunday, I just had to fill them and bake them. I used a recipe I found online that is similar to the recipe used at a vegetraian resturant in Ann Arbor. I, of course, made too much and there was lots of left overs.

Prebaking with lots of yummy Mexican cheese on top

For desert, my lovely friend Sider at work, gave me her mom's recipe for flan. Oh my lord! It was a cinch to make and was perfectly, wonderfully creamy. It, again, made too much, but I gave some to my parents and brother and saved one for myself for later hehe :-)

I was a little worried about boiling the sugar because I haven't really done it since I worked in the kitchen, but it turned out perfectly. It doesn't take much to turn into the yummy, syrup-y goodness and it only took about 25 minutes to get to the perfect brown color.

Hot suga

I also chopped up my leftover pretzels that I made and baked them to make pretzel chips. They are SO addicting! I brought some over to eat with my mom and we just about devoured the entire bag. I'm in love with them, for realz.

Yummy.

Monday was a very uneventful Valentine's Day.

Cookie from work

I worked, did some homework and got coffee with Hannah. I did ask my friend Christie to be my long distance Valentine, though.

Me: Will you be my long distance Valentine?

Christie: Do you put out?

Me: Hells yea...you know how I roll.

Christie: Then I will be your long distance Valentine. I got a buy one, get one free coupon to Dunkin' Donuts. I will think of you while I eat the second one!

Me: I like the cream filled ones, just fyi.

Christie: That's what she said.

I *heart* her.

On Tuesday, my cousin Haley, my uncle David, Grandpa and his wife Judi, and I went to dinner for our belated birthdays. Haley's birthday was in November and mine was the beginning of the month, but since were so busy and Grandpa and Judi are often out of town, we decided to all go to dinner together. Since Uncle David just moved back up to Ypsi, Grandpa invited him to join in as well. We went to PF Changs, which is my grandfathers favorite-he takes everyone there for their birthday meal! It's not too bad, but the desert Haley and I got for our birthdays was by far the best part of the meal.

It was really dmily lit in the resturant, but it's a fried banana's foster wonton, with coconut-pineapple ice cream and fresh fuit. It was sooooooooooooo good! I couldn't stop eating it!
The weather this winter has been nothing if crazy unpredictable. First we had almost a foot of snow, now, less than a week later, it's all gone! The weather has been in the 40's for the past few days and even though I think they are crazy, I've seen people in short! Shorts in Michigan in February? Crazy!

View from outside my window at work.

Unfortunately, it's getting colder again. Apparently, we are going to have an ice storm tonight. Blah! I'm heading over to my parents to watch the Social Network, so I'll probably end up just waiting out the storm at thier house. It's kinda nice to stay the nice with my parents though :-)

When I wake up, in my make up, it's too early for that dress.

Today, I'm trying something new and linking up to Kelly's Korner for "Show Us Your Life-Beauty Secrets"!

Let me preface by saying, it taken me quite a while to decide on the right combination of hair and beauty products. I have curly hair and have struggled with acne for a few years so it's taken a lot of trial and error. I used to buy only the most expensive products, thinking that those would do the trick. But at some point, I realized that a lot of the cheaper stuff works just as well and I don't have to break my bank account to look half way decent!

For hair, I have really fallen in love with:

TreSemme Flawless Curls. It one of the only thing that keeps its hold all day on my decently long and curly hair.

Sauve Hairspray. Because of my curls, I go through hairspray by the gallon it seems. This stuff has amazing hold, will last all day, and is the best for the price. I haven't find anything that really comes close to be honest.

Even though I wear my hair curly most days, I love my FHI straightener. This past summer, I broke down and bought a good (read: decently expensive) straightener and it was one of the best purchases I've made. My hair is is able to be transformed into stick straight locks (with the help of some hair oil, which is my life saver) and stays that way for a few days with only a few touch ups here and there. I love it, for realz.

As for make up, I do spend a little more money on this stuff because I adore Bare Minerals

I don't have anywhere near perfect skin, and this stuff covers pretty much any flaw and looks pretty natural while doing so.

My mascara and eye liner both come from the ULTA house brand. I've been really impressed with how reliable thier stuff is. The mascara offers great coverage and doesn't clump (I use the stuff in the orange tube) and the eye liner doesn't smudge too badly and comes in a really great range of colors (I have brown, sparkley brown and black, blue and green).

I rarely wear lipstick and usually just stick to my Burts Bee's.

I've been using it since middle school, so why stop now? haha

Those are pretty much all the things I use on a daily basis. I also have a decently large (and ever growing) collection of nail polish, along with way too much eye shadow to ever be used :-)

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So won't you kill me? So I'd die happy?

On Monday, I ended up borrowing my mom's Netflix-ed copy of' The Kids Are Alright.

I liked it a lot, but I keep going back and forth about parts of it. Julianne Moore and Annette Benning were amazing (though I could've definitely done with more Mark Ruffalo, preferably shirtless as well hehe) but I think some parts of it were kind of predictable and I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. My mom loved it, so I'm thinking she may have a different view considering she has a family and all. Overall, I like it, but not my favorite so far.

Tuesday, my boss Jaison, my coworker Laura and I took a baking class at work. We made Barvarian Style pretzels and, oh lord, were they good! We got to taste a few right out of the oven-heaven! And we got to take about a dozen home as well (I didn't finish mine so my task for the night will be turning them into pretzel chips-yummy!)

I think I may have a future in the Prezel biz haha

Besides the wonderful pretzels, I think the best part of the whole experience was doing it with Jaison and Laura. Seriously, who did I end up with co-workers and a boss this cool? We giggled the entire time and talked about everything except work. I love my job to begin with, but that fact that I get to go and hang out with people who genuinely like me and who I like to spend time with, makes it that much better. Sometimes, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world :-)

Thurday and Friday were my days off so I tried to be at least a little productive. I took a trip out to Westland to visit the produce market. I'm making dinner for a friend this weekend and had to pick up a few things. I was really good about spending money-even though I was right next to IKEA, I didn't stop in *and* I went to Target and didn't buy anything! I'm pretty sure it was a miracle!

But I needed to get some spending out of my system so I made an impulse buy...at the produce market. That's right, I bought a pineapple. I have no idea how to chop it up or when I'm going to eat it, but I bought it. My roommate thought that was just the funniest thing! Especially when I told her I didn't buy the pair of shoes I was looking at and opted for the fruit instead. I believe the phrase "old lady" was thrown around haha

Thursday night, Dan, Darin and I watched a movie at Darin's place.

The movie was Devil and was written (though not directed) by M. Night Shyamalan. I had never even heard of it when Darin suggested we watch it and even thought I'm really not a fan of horror movies, I agreed. I ended up liking it for the most part. It was pretty creepy-a fair amount of blood and guts, lots of things popping onto the screen and I definitely did my fair share of covering my eyes haha But it was written decently well and the story was interesting. As far as Shyamalan movies are concerned, I definitely think it was one of his better ones.

Friday I headed out with Dan to see a band some of his friends were in perform at teh Dreamland Theatre in Ypsi. It was really low key (there were probably only around 20-25 people there) but we had a really good time! We didn't stay too late (see the above mentioned "Old Lady" designation) but it was nice to hang out and do something new.

Saturday was back to work as usual, except Laura wasn't here so Jaison was working with me today. And, because he is literally the best boss ever, he bought me lunch!

Why, hello there Mr. Patty Melt and Fries from the Roadhouse.

Seriously, luckiest girl in the world.

I wish I could have this moment for life, cause in this moment I just feel so alive.

Well, "Snow-pocolypse" ended up being a whole lotta nothing. I think we got between 6 or 7 inches. Some other parts of the midwest ended up getting a lot more, but on this side of the state, it was a lot of hype and not much actual storm. The worst part of the whole thing was thet everyone was a) driving like idiots (there is no reason to go 55, nor is there a reason to go 15. Can we find some sort of middle ground here?!?!) and b) though the world was literally going to end and bought out all the milk, bread, etc. in every store. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me haha

The view from my office after round 2

But instead of panicking-I went sledding! haha Hannah, Darin, Leto, Dan, Molly, Sammy and I went up to the high school and enjoyed the freshly fallen snow. It was a lot of fun! I was surprsied that I was able to find people who wanted to go with me, but everyone ended up having a really good time. Sammy was born in New Orleans and had never been sledding and he was *so* excited! After we got some good sledding in (and did some doughnuts in the empty parking lot) we headed to Dom's Bakery to warm up with actual doughnuts and hot chocolate. Yummy! A pretty perfect end to the night, I think.

Friday was my birthday-I turned the big 2-3! haha I woke up and headed over to my parents and my mom made me waffles for birthday breakfast. After that, we got ready and headed out to see a movie.

I absolutely loved it. I don't think my mom liked it quite as much, though. I though Natalie was perfect-so graceful and confused and just amazing. Mila Kunis, besides from being strikingly beautful, was so twisted and played her part amazingly well also. As for my Oscar challenge, I've got a few more left to see:

1. Black Swan
2. The Fighter
3. Inception
4. The Kids are Alright
5. The King's Speech
6. 127 Hours
7. Social Network
8. Toy Story 3
9. True Grit
10. Winter's Bone

My mom got The Kids Are Alright from Netflix, so I'm going to try and watch that this after noon and I think we're going to see 127 Hours this weekend. I have untill the 27th to see them all :-)

After the movie, we went to the Creamery and got some birthday gelato and stopped by the Bakehouse to pick up some brownies for our Superbowl dinner. I also got a birthday doughnut and between that and the gelato, I was just about in a sugar come-so delicious! We also went to Kohl's and Target, where I broke down and got some jeggings and to be completely honest, I'm kind of upset it took me this long! They are so comfortable! I'm pretty much in love with them!

My mom and I stopped by Trader Joe's before heading home to take a nap and get ready for dinner. We went to Carson's American Bistro in Ann Arbor. We had never been there before, but it's owned by Main Street Ventures, so it couldn't be too bad. It was really good actually-I was pleasently surprised. We started with fried calamari and I got beef medallions and crabcakes for dinner, which was really, really good! Perfectly cooked-I had to stop myself from eating all of it that night! We got pineapple upside down cake for desert and I took my left overs home to eat the next day. My mother has been using the excuse of "It's for your birthday" to buy me things for the past 6 weeks, which ahs included the sequin tunic, a new chest of drawers, a few new nail polishes and a tank of gas (although I think that was a joke ha!), but she still got me a new shirt which is pretty cute and I'm excited to wear it.

I was so tired by the time dinner was finished, I fell asleep at my parents and had to get up and go to work the next morning. We got about 6 more inches of snow Saturday afternoon so between taking forever to get home (because of the aforementioned horrible drivers) and shoveling the snow, I wasn't really in the mood to go out on Saturday night. So I curled up with some reality tv and hot chocolate and was asleep by 10pm. I'm so lame! haha

Aside from the texts, phone calls and literal day-long barrage of Facebook messages, a few friends got me some treats, as well:

Pretty flowers from my wonderful roommate, Jen

Delicious cupcake from my sweet friend Sider at work (and the rest of the Cake Ladies, too :-)

Sunday after work, I headed over to my parents to watch the Superbowl. We had Buffalo Chicken Dip, Prosciutto and Carmelized Onion Pizza and Seafood Pizza with Shrimp, Crab and Scallops-seriously, I can only hope to be able to cook like my mother some day. It was all so good! We also had Brownie Sundaes for desert-yummy!

Unfortunately, the Steelers lost to the Packers, 31-24. I didn't really have a vested interest in the game, but I would've liked to see Troy Palamalu and Heinz Ward win. I don't usually pay too much attention to the commercials, but this year there was one that stood out for sure.

But I think the E*Trade Baby was a close second hehe

In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right.

This past weekend was the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Each year, the festival is put on by a local concert venue to raise money. This was the second time I've gone. My work is a sponsor, so two years ago, I was able to snag a few free tickets and my and my dad went togther. It was really great! The seats were super close and we saw a lot of great bands that year (Old Crow Medicine Show, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Joe Pug, The Ragbirds, Ryan Montbleau Band, Katie Herzig, and Jeff Tweedy with Jim Lauderdale acting as MC).

I didn't get to go last year, but this year, a volunteer opportunity was offered and I was able to see the show for free. I had to help set up for the intermission, which wasn't too hard at all, and in return I got to hang out backstage and watch the show! Lucky me!

I had to be there around 6:15, so I left my house super early so I could get gas and some cash but the line at the ATM was hella long, so I skipped it. Big mistake! Of course, every parking structure downtown was "Cash Only" and it's next to impossible to find street parking on a good night in downtown Ann Arbor, let alone a Friday night. Long story short, I pulled into my parking space by the library, which is on the other side of downtown, at 6:09. I booked it to the auditorium and made it on time (which was nothing short of a miracle) but then went in the wrong door and got lost *inside* the auditorium! Only me, I swear haha I was supposed to be back stage and could not for the life of me figure out how to get back there! Luckily, a security guard helped me out and I made it back there only a few minutes late...phew!

We didn't have anything to do right away, so I was able to stand by the stage doors and watch the first half of the show, which included Theo Katzman and his band The Love Massive, Anais Mitchell, The Paper Raincoat, The Spring Standards, and Vienna Teng with Alex Wong. I use the word "watch" loosley, since, because of all the people and my lack of height, I wasn't able to see much. But I was able to hear everything and it was really great. I was definitely standing at the back of everyone, dancing by myself haha

After setting up and cleaning up intermission, we were able to stay and watch the rest of the bands. By then the back stage area had cleared out a bit so I had a little better view of everything :-)

I was amazed that out of the 7 or 8 people who were volunteering only 1 or 2 of us stayed till the end. I mean, how could you pass up free music to begin with, but great music that also happened to be free!?!?! Just plain craziness...

After intermission, Citizen Cope came out and did a solo set. I really, really like him. He has more of a hip hop vibe to him when he has his band, which I love and I was really stoked to see him do the acoustic set. A lot of people I talked to didn't like it as much, but I think maybe he was geared toward the younger people at the show. But for what it's worth, I was totally backstage singing (and dancing, of course hehe) along :-)

After that, the headlines came out. My dad had wanted to come and see them but didn't end up buying tickets in time. The Avett Brothers were *amazing*! They rocked the entire time-had so much energy, looked like they were having so much fun up there and played damn good music while doing so. If they come back to town, I would love to see them do a whole set.

I also had a few obersvations I made while there...

Folk Fest 34 observations

• Sweating profusely is never a good luck (see my sprint across downtown A2)
• Boys with guitars are cute.
• Boys with drumsticks are cute.
• Boys who wear hats are cute. (seeing a trend? hehe)
• If you are opening a Tunisian resturant, don't wear a harissa shirt.
• You and your friend can't wear the same dress, even if it's in two different colors. People can still tell, and it looks weird.
• I'm probably too judgemental for my own good.

After they finished up, I headed back home and it was back to the grind up Saturday morning. I was a little bummed I could only go to Friday night-Mavis Staples was headlining the next night. I saw her a few years back at a local music fest and I still remember it, probably 10 years later-it was just that good.

As far an my normal life, it's been a pretty average week at work and with school so that's good.

Everyone is gearing up for "Snow-pocolypse 2011" tonight. I've heard predictions with anywhere from 10-24 inches between now and tomorrow, but considering it's almost 6 and I'm nto seeing any snow, I'm starting to doubt the likelyhood of that. Also, the winds are supposed to be 20-30mph and the term "blizzard conditions" has been thrown around a lot today. Apparently, it's supposed to start around 7, pick up around 10pm and do the bulk of the snowing between 10pm tonight and 10am tomorrow morning. I'm staying at my parents so I can use my jeep to bulldoze through everything tomorrow morning, so it would be really helpful if the county/city would stay on top of the salting/plowing tonight, althought I seriously doubt that will happen.

But hey, I can hope, can't I? :-)

Play my little part in something big.

It's been an eventful January. Even though work has been pretty slow, school starting back definitely had an impact. Both classes I'm taking are online, so I don't actually have to *go* to school, but they are both a lot of work! So far, I'm doing pretty well and for now, I'm just praying the semester flies by!

A few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night because my thumb was killing me. I tried to ignore it and go back to bed, as it was 3:30am and I had little motivation to actually do anything to remedy the situation but I did end up finding my metal water bottle (which was freezing because my house is always freezing! ugh!) and positioned it against my thumb to cool it down.

I got up the next morning to meet my parents at the gym and noticed that it was really swollen and red. I showed my parents and my mother suggested that it was from texting (har har har...) while my dad guess that I had an infection. I started popping some ibueprofen and went to work, where my parents showed up a few hours later with icthamol to try and draw out the infection.

I was being stubborn (suprise, suprise) and didn't really want to go to the doctor, but by Monday, it hadn't gotten any better-so swollen I couldn't move it, really warm and red-so I ended up going to the doctors.

I know they are pretty gross-sorry!

The doctor decided to try and puncture it to see if it would drain, but first wanted to inject some lidocaine to numb it. She stuck the needle in, and I swear to god, it was one of the worst pain I've ever felt. I have a really high pain tolerance and that really threw me for a loop! I almost fainted-saw stars, felt nauseas, clammy, the whole nine yards. She ended up not trying again (Thanks God!) but instead sent me home with antibiotics.

It took a few days, but the swelling finally went down (as Hannah told everyone "Let's just say, there was puss involved") but finally it seems back to normal. Although the skin in peeling, but it doens't really hurt anymore so I'm not too worried. It was kind of scary though-I mean, just wake up and my thumb is 3x its normal size. So weird.

Also, a few friends of mine got married this past weekend (Congrats Eileen and Gino!). Well actually, they had a vow renewal as they got married last year, but didn't get to have an actual ceremony. They are the absolute sweetest couple, and I was there when they fell in love canoeing down the river hehe

The day was pretty eventful in and of itself! It started with me driving all the way to the gym before realzing I wasn't wearing a bra, having to go get one and then drive all the way back to actually start my work out! After that, my mother and I ran some errands, which included finding something for me to wear since what I had wasn't "classy" enough (...grr).

Although, I probably shouldn't complain too much, because she did buy me this...

(Michael Kors Sequin Tunic in Dark Camel)

And I'm in love with it.

It was a little short, but I totally rocked it as a dress with black tights and Steve Madden black patent leather pumps. I've been racking my brain to try and find another event I can wear it to soon, but so far, no luck :-( haha

The night before, I had packed all my stuff-hair products, make up, jewlery options, tights, etc-because I figured I'd end up getting ready at my parents. So I get out of shower, do my hair make up and go to put on my tights and suddenly realized I had grabbed not one, but THREE pairs of brown and not a single pair of black! All I could do was laugh, especially considering the bra incident earlier in the day! I rushed home and luckily, was able to find some black ones quickly. But in the process, I forgot my earring and my cute clutch-oh well. I'm sure my dress brought me all the attention I needed :-)

Working at the bakery, I was able to provide a cake for them as a wedding gift. The cake ladies did such a fantastic job-I gave them the invitation and they just went at it! Everyone raved about how great they looked and tasted-It was great! The sheet cake was cut up for the guests and the couple took home the smaller cake to enjoy themselves.

My mom and I have decided that we are going to try and see all the films nominated for Best Picture this year. We were able to cross another off the list when we saw:

It was pretty good. I *adore* Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth was really excellent as well. It kept my attention, which isn't always an easy thing to do. All in all, I really liked it! Can't say whether or not it's the best picture of the year, as I still have a few more to see :-)

The List

1. Black Swan
2. The Fighter
3. Inception
4. The Kids Are Alright
5. The Kings Speech
6. 127 Hours
7. The Social Network
8. Toy Story 3
9. True Grit
10. Winter's Bone

Well, I think I've wasted enough time at work hehe I'm going to go listen to Something Corporate Radio on Pandora and *try* to be productive :-)

So this is the New Year and I have no resolutions, for self assigned penance, for problems with easy solutions

My New Year's was completely different than what I had imagined (and to be honest, kind of wanted...) but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! I ended up having about 10 or 15 people over to my place and we had such a great time! We played Apples to Apples which is the best game ever, watched some football and had a sparkling juice toast at midnight.

My day started at 6 am to work out then off to Meijer and Target for some last minute supplies. I got home about 11 and immeadiately started baking and doing some *much needed* laundry. (Seriously, during the holiday season I may have done 5 loads tops and four of those were probably my jeans).

While the cupcakes were baking, I worked on the dips. I made a Jalepeno Popper dip, a recipe from a friend at work, and a Garlic Feta dip, from my room mate. They were both sooo delicious! I'll definitely be keeping the recipes handy for more parties.

After the cupcakes were cooled, I decided to be adventurous and pipe the frosting on to them.

They look pretty good, huh?

My mother loaned me all sorts of serving dishes and decorations so I made a little table scape.

I was really happy with how it turned out :-)

But I think the best part was watching all of this:

Turn into this:

All in all, it looks pretty darn good, I think!

I was pretty much in the kitchen from 11 am till 4:30 and then finished up cleaning shortly there after. I did get to give myself a nice New Years Manicure though:

(I know it looks like I have some sort of deformed foot, but oh well)

I got two new polishes from the Sonia Kashuk at Target line. The base is silver-it almost looks like tin foil on my nails! The top is black and it has some silver sparkles in it that are kind of hard to see.

Last weekend my mom's brother and his family were in town. It was bearable at best, but we did get to see True Grit, which I really, really liked. Besides seeing the movie with them, I didn't see them too much. I had to work and stuff and they were only here a few days. I know my mom was pretty happy they were here though.

My January 1, 2011 was spent working and following the Michigan and Michigan State games on ESPN.com. After work, I jetted home, packed up mom's stuff to bring back and went over to watch the Winter Classic with my dad. The Capitals ended up beating the Penguins 3-1. I fell asleep before the end (I'm old! :-( I was so exhausted and I was in bed before 2!). I ended up falling asleep in the guest room haha

Also, we've had a pretty crazy winter so far. We've only had one snowstorm, which was more like an ice storm. We had about 6inches from that, so it wasn't too bad at all. Then, n Dec. 31st, it rained and all the snow melted!

So weird!

It's snowing a bit now, but nothing's sticking. I just can't believe it's December and we have basically no snow on the ground.

To sum it up, it was a pretty good NYE/NYD. I wish I would've been at home watching football, instead of at work, but besides that everything was A+!