Once I Had A Girl Who Rearranged Furniture On Stage

I am such a busy little bee! Last time I was home, I refinished all of my furniture for my room this fall! I came home this weekend and my parents had sprayed the final clear coat on it all to keep everything nice and smooth. I'm realizing that the more I enjoy spending time in Home Depot and Lowe's the older I'm getting. It's becoming a really scary reality.

We've had this desk forever just hanging out in the garage. So glad I get to put it to use. Since my trusty old desk hutch is now going to Kendall's dorm room, I'm going to have to find a new place for all my binders and books... hence the ridiculous amount of drawer space here.

Believe it or not, this little dresser used to be fire engine red. I found this at Angel's Antiques (aka my favorite store to kill time in) and got my mom to bring it home for me. I bought these mercury glass melon knobs from Anthro.

After seeing similar things on Pintrest, I made my own little plaques to hang necklaces on! The wood came from Hobby Lobby, the knobs from Lowe's, and I just painted them with leftover paint from my chair and table.

I can't wait to see all of this in my new little cottage! Fall can't get here soon enough!

Every Siren Is A Symphony

Is it safe to say I'm real obsessed with this song? I mean, Coldplay holds the place in my heart of being my favorite band of all-time. And I've been waiting for this album to come out since I graduated high school, so this first little bit is just making me even more excited!

Nutella Is My Love Language

Oh my gosh, I could sing about how much I love Nutella. If you haven't tried it, you're just punishing yourself. I mean, if I had to guess what the fruit that Eve tasted in the Garden was like, my guess is that it smelled like/looked like/tasted like something pretty close to Nutella. I digress...

I tried this recipe for Nutella Cinnamon Rolls tonight. (First batch of baked goods this summer. As my friend Katie says, "Summer school is like peeling off wallpaper with a broken toothpick." Wise, my friend, very wise.) I'm not used to this oven yet, so they were a tad on the dry side, but otherwise, delicious. I mean, Nutella makes everything taste better.

the reason my blogging is so infrequent...

This is just some of my reading for the past semester. And it is only going to get worse.

Alumna

We have another graduate in the fam jam! Little baby Leigh Leigh got her alumna status on Tuesday. We've come a long way since a lot of these:

1. She used to carry a stuffed animal kitty cat to preschool every single day.

2. She asked our mom to homeschool her after her first day of kindergarden.

3. She taught me how to be scrappy when we used to fight. Believe it.

4. In high school we could never agree on what to listen to in the car. Somehow we finally settled on Panic at the Disco. I mean, really?

5. There was that brief period of time that she thought the words to "Burnin' Up" by the Jonas Brothers were "I'm slipping into the llama" instead of "lava".

6. Once she got the cheap tickets to the Coldplay concert while I sprung for the more expensive ones up front. They ended up doing a set right in front of her.

7. We say weird things and make weird faces.

8. When we were put in time out, sometimes we'd tag team it and sing at the top of our lungs together to be obnoxious.

9. We used to dress our baby brother up in our old dance costumes before he was too old to realize we were torturing him.

10. She told me she would get her ears pierced if I went first. Well, she lied, but after my reaction to metal piercing through my ear lobe, I can hardly blame her.

My not-so-obligatory-yet-still-important "what I learned sophomore year: part TWO" list

This year was great. Seriously great. Except I realized how old I'm getting when I thought about how much history I've already lived through. On a lighter note, here's a snapshot of what I learned outside of the classroom this semester...

1. Creeping is an art form. A very, very delicate art form.

2. A 20-year-old's body can't handle the same things as a 19-year-old's, so you have to stop late night trips for doughnuts if you don't want to pay for it the next morning.

3. Turning 20 means your next birthday is 21, which means your next birthday is 22, which means your life is practically over.

4. Wing Zone delivers even in the middle of a tornado.

5. The Braves, however, do not play during severe weather.

6. Make goals, not foals.

7. Putting off a 10-12 page research paper until the day before its due when you still haven't even finished the book yet is a dumb move. Dumb dumb dumb.

8. You're never too old to go see Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 in theaters. Twice.

9. A royal wedding is a once in a lifetime event, so it's worth waking up at 3am to watch the live coverage, even if it is finals week.

10. If you can't decide what you want for dinner, it's okay to call 3 different places to order your favorite things from each.

11. Domino's pizza tracker is the best thing invented. Ever.

12. After sampling dumplings from all over the Auburn/Opelika area, MK's has the best. There, it's settled.

13. Everything in life can relate to two things: 1. Mean Girls 2. Modern Family

14. Meryl Streep is always the right choice. She could play Batman and she would be the right choice.

15. The last day of higher level English classes will always be the best. Tea parties, bread pudding, sentimental speeches, and maybe even a few glistening tears.

16. If you're going to make bread from scratch, double the recipe. But don't put it all in one pan.

17. Human Behavior classes come in handy when you need to figure out why your family is so weird. And lovable. But mostly weird.

18. StumbleUpon and Pintrest are the best and worst things that ever happened.

19. Sometimes professors are actually knowledgeable on subjects outside of their fields, like how to set up tigermail as your incoming mail server on your iphone.

20. You're about 1,000x less likely to skip class if you have someone to walk with you.

21. Total Eclipse of the Heart could be misconstrued as a song about Jesus.

22. Being matchers is underrated.

23. Sometimes you come home and your family is all granola. Just roll with it.

24. Don't start drinking coffee and coke if you never have before in your life. It will just make you anxious. And you'll have to pee a lot.

25. Go big or go home.

26. Banana pudding is worthless without the bananas.

27. WebMD is always a good idea.

28. You know, if you want to spend your birthday hanging out with your parents, its okay.

29. Wearing real shoes and a real bra is serious business.

30. Any movie featuring "Firework" in the preview is a guaranteed good movie.

Bread#winning

Hillary told me my strength was in my baked goods. And I'm okay with that. I have literally been drooling over this recipe from Joy the Baker (whose food blog is to die for) for days, and today I finally tried it. Good thing it practically took all day. It was the most agonizing thing getting one step further and then having to wait thirty more minutes for the dough to rise. But it was so worth it. I mean, really really worth it. Like it came out of the oven and before it even had a chance to even think about beginning to cool, I was stuffing it in my mouth. It was awesome on its own, but if I could perfect a really thick cream cheese icing... oh, I can't even deal.

Before it went in the oven.

And after. I think it could have stood a little more butter, but this wasn't Paula Deen's recipe.

Sorry I always use the camera on my phone. One day I'll remember to use my big girl one. And I wish I had snapped a picture of the inside, but I was running out the door. Next time.

s'more of what?

Ham: Hey, Smalls, you wanna s'more?

Smalls: Some more of what?

Ham: No, do you wanna s'more?

Smalls: I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?

Ham: You're killing me Smalls! These are s'more's stuff! Alrite now pay attention. First you take the graham, you stick the chocolate on the graham. Then you roast the 'mallow. When the 'mallows flaming... you stick it on the chocolate. Then cover with the other end. Then you scarf. Kind of messy, but good!

New favorite after-school snack: S'mores Turnovers. (Well, second to the Sargento cheese stick.) For real, this is like all of my favorite things combined (minus the cheese stick). The hardest part was waiting for the puff pastry to thaw out! So easy and so delicious!

procraftination

procraftination: n. the most productive form of procrastination in which something beautiful or delicious is created from putting off other "real life" responsibilities, obligations, and work in general.

I am an EXPERT at procraftination. When I went home for spring break my sweet mommy sent me back to school with plenty of watercolor paper, brand new watercolors, and some sweet crayola watercolor pencils. So I stenciled out a little birdie and went to town! Clearly, I had some trouble in certain areas, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out! Now I just need to n mount this on some cute paper then go to Hob Lob and find a frame for him.

easy beignets are a good monday decision

Since we've gotten back from spring break, life has been a little too stressful. So tonight when I came home in a foul mood, I decided it was a perfect time to make these beignets with praline sauce that I've had bookmarked for quite some time. The picture is very pretty since I took it with my phone, but these were so good! They were incredibly rich, but delicious! Definitely something I'll make when I have an intense sweet tooth! And I had all of the ingredients at home except for the biscuits!