Green with Kitchen Envy

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Although I am only maybe 1% Irish, you don't have to be Irish to celebrate St. Patty's Day.  One of my favorite aspects of this holiday is dressing up in green, one of my favorite colors.  Although looking through my closet, I barely have any green clothes anymore.  It might be time for a shopping trip ....

This new found love for the color green has been a pretty recent development.  I am not sure when I exactly decided that I loved this color and would decorate my whole house in green if I could (although it does rival my much beloved yellow and grey theme).  However, I realized it when registering for our wedding, and having the hubby point out that I am picking out a lot of green things and he doesn't particularly care for that color.  Ouch. How could he not like my favorite color, and how could I still work this color into my decor without him caring.  Hmmmm.... Ah yes, the kitchen.

The kitchen is pretty much my domain.  I do a majority of the cooking (like 99.9%) and I actually enjoy it.  While on the weekdays I enjoy simple meals, when I have the time I love to try recipes that involve zesting and my food processor.  The hubby mostly uses the microwave to heat up leftovers or makes Kraft macaroni.  So if there was one place in the house I could display my love of green, it would be there.

Right now my kitchen is not ideal for my needs and wants.  We live in a pretty small apartment and the kitchen is the smallest part about the place.  It lacks counter space, cabinet space, pantry space, and needs to be updated.

(Although I don't think I am helping much by taking bad pictures.  It is so hard to get the light right in this place.  I will figure it out eventually)

 I am just dreaming of our next place with a bigger kitchen!

One of my inspiration kitchens is over at House*Tweaking.    I love the white cabinets with modern hardware, and the butcher block island!  She even has some green accents in her kitchen!

(For this picture and more)

I also like different parts of these modern kitchens I found at HGTV

(Source)

(Souce)

(Source)

Now finally on to some green eye candy.  I already have a few green accessories but I could definitely benefit from more.  I don't even have my favorite green accessory out.

My Green Calypso Pitcher from Crate and Barrel that is hidden up in my cabinet right now.  I think I might need to find a better place for it.  (And yes we opened up wedding gifts and took pictures in the car because we are cool like that.)

So, What's on my wish list?

(Crate and Barrel)

(Crate and Barrel)

(I love salt and pepper shakers - Pier 1)

(Mojito Glass Set on sale- I'm In! - Pier 1)

(Green Herb Pot - Pier 1)

(Anthropologie)

My dining table right now is nothing to be desired.

We have been without chairs since the hubby moved out of his apartment with his friends back at school.  So we don't even eat at the table, we have dinner at the coffee table every night.  I can't wait to have a table where we can sit down and enjoy dinner together.  Maybe at a table like this:

(Crate and Barrel)

(Ikea)

(With a place setting like this - Pier 1)

(Or plates from World Market like this)

And some fun art prints to hang:

(Tessyla etsy)

(I don't drink tea but I love tea cups - michellechristina etsy)

(this would be fun for the dining area - pixiepixels etsy)

(might be a little bright but I love the wording - D6andco etsy)

(another wording print - ZavalicksDesigns etsy)

Was that enough green for you?

Loving this Midwest Weather

I have lived in the Midwest for most of my life but never have I seen such crazy weather as I have this winter.

Pretty much since winter began, we have just been a dumping ground for snow.  Schools have been out of session so many days this year, it is impossible to make them all up.

Then in February we got a legit blizzard, for real!  It started snowing at 8am on February first and by the next morning we had 17 inches!

Out our backdoor

Out the front door

Our cars the next morning

We didn't even have a snow shovel at our apartment, so we had to dig our cars out with garbage cans!  Thank goodness we weren't the only ones - most of our neighbors didn't have shovels either.  

For a while the weather died down a bit.  We even got some weather in the upper 60s and 70s.  Hello spring!  But still people were talking about more snow.  According to the Farmers' Almanac, they were predicting another huge snowstorm for Missouri, and all these Missouri people really listen to their Almanac.  My co-worker said her parents plan their lives around it - like the best time to stop smoking or the best time to have a kid.  I personally thought it was crazy and decided not to believe there was no snow coming.

This past Sunday night, I was checking the weather for the week as I always do before bed.  Looking at Monday's forecast it looked cold and rainy - and then I heard them say snow.  Wait - I must have been tired!  Did they really say snow?  Yes and there was snow.  Wet, heavy snow.  It snowed all day Monday.

The initial accumulations were only supposed to be a few inches, but half way through the day a winter weather advisory was issued with it reaching up to 8 inches.   It is hard to say how much we really got since most of it was a sloppy, slushy mess.  I soaked through my flats and ended up wearing my sneakers at work all day (it was Spring Break for students so no one was here to see me breaking dress code rules).

Then yesterday the sun was shining, most of the snow melted, and it felt like spring again!

Today it will be up to 60 degrees and tomorrow 70!

While I am not usually a spring/summer lover (I love the crispness of the fall), I am ready for this nice warm weather!  I am even on board for the hubby looking at jobs in the south, preferably the Carolinas.  Hopefully this Monday's winter weather was the almanac's predicted snow fall and we can move on.  I don't think I can take much more!

Living it up in LBK Part 2

Well as I alluded to in Part I, Day 3 really wasn't spent in Longboat Key. Guess I should change the title of this post, but then is messes with the whole flow of my honeymoon recaps...

This part of the trip is all thanks to the fact that I have an amazing hubby who knew how much I liked Harry Potter, and who knew I would never justify spending $80 a piece on park tickets to Universal Studios.

So, the day before the wedding while we were working on setting up the Reception Hall with our families, the hubby surprised me with tickets to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Placed within the wedding decor I packed, was a picture frame with two characters from the movies on broomsticks with our faces on the bodies.  He is just so cute in trying to surprise me, and I am clearly so preoccupied that I don't even act excited - which I really was! And my indifferent response was caught on tape.


Surprise Wedding Gift from Sarah Pickel on Vimeo.

How I wish we could re-do that moment, so that hubby knows how much his gift meant to me. Maybe jump up and down a bit, or hug him, or at least stop unwrapping all those candles!  We had previously discussed going but I just though the tickets were too much and it was too far to travel when there was plenty to do right there in Sarasota area. That was just an excuse - I really wanted to go!

So, on Day 3 of the honeymoon we set out for Orlando.  It was a two hour drive to Orlando, which really wasn't that bad considering we almost crossed the entire the state of Florida.

See the castle behind our heads!

By the time we arrived the park was already packed full of people. It was a very sunny, hot, and humid day, so we loaded up on sunscreen and walked all the way to the back of Universal Studio to get into the Harry Potter area.

Unfortunately when we arrived, there was a 4 hour wait to get into that area of the park. No, it wasn't a line for a specific ride - it was a line to even get in!

Needless to say neither one of us was happy, so we got out of line hoping it wouldn't be as crowded later.

In the meantime we headed to Jurassic Park and rode a ton of water rides to keep cool.

Then played around in Toon Lagoon and shared a Dogwood (amusement park food is pricey!)

And Spiderman was a must!

After exhausting the rest of the park we headed back up to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, praying that we could get in! It was still crowded but there was no wait! We took a few pictures...

Then jumped in line for their big ride - Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The wait wasn't bad because it went through Hogwarts Castle and there was so much to look at while we waited.

The ride itself was amazing, but getting on was a little bit tricky. There is this conveyor belt thing you have to practically run down and then hop onto the seats and quickly pull down the shoulder harness before it starts (your feet are dangling).  It was super intense!  Hubby ended up losing his flip-flops on the conveyour belt trying to get into our seats. Although the staff could not retrieve the flip-flop, they did give him a new pair from the gift store and let us cut to the front of the line to ride again! SCORE!

We tried to go into some of the Hogsmeade Stores, but there was a wait to even get in. The other rides weren't too exciting (we stood in line for a bit but were just too tired at that point) so we opted to just grab some butterbeer and window shop before heading back to the entrance.

Hubby had been eyeing our dinner location all day - Bubba Gumps! He just loves shrimp!

After a satisfying dinner, we dragged our tired and cranky butts back to the car to drive back to LBK. It was such an exhausting day, but I was so very glad we were able to go!

Full From the Weekend

After all of the food this weekend, I think I am still full!  It seems like whenever we travel home we always end up meeting our

We made a quick weekend trip out of town to visit my in-laws in Southern Illinois.  The hubby's birthday is coming up soon so we wanted to visit a bit with his family.  Plus his friends were having a baseball draft party for their fantasy team, so it made for good timing to come into town.

I had a little time off at the end of last week, so we left in the afternoon on Friday and met up with the family at Lindenwood University to watch his sister's tennis match.  The weather was gorgeous and sunny finally, so we took that as our cue to wear shorts and flip-flops - not the best decision when the sun went down.

Hubby took off to join his friends and I stayed around to watch the end of the match and grab some food with my in-laws.  We decided on a restaurant I have never heard of - Lotawata Creek - and oh my gosh you would not believe the food there! It was huge!  Since I knew that absolutely none of this southern style cooking was good for me, I went ahead and ordered the Big Hillybilly Fried Pork Sandwich which was covered in sausage gravy and cheese.

Bad Picture taken with my phone camera

It took up the whole plate.  I am glad I took the waitress' advice and ordered a salad instead of fries.  I ate about maybe 1/4 of the sandwich and barely could fit the rest of it in the to-go box.  I had plenty leftover for at least 3 more meals!

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day, watching Buckeye basketball and playing video games.  For the hubby's celebratory birthday dinner we went to Lonestar and enjoyed some serious steaks.  On the way home we stopped to pick up some birthday Wii Games to entertain ourselves for the night.  Then finished up the evening with homemade chocolate pudding dessert, the hubby's favorite, and Wii Games until we passed out.

Sunday after church, we ate some Mexican food at a local place that filled me up so much I didn't eat for the rest of the day.  Then watched the Buckeye game and headed home.  I was wanted to stop by World Market to shop around, but had a headache and needed to get groceries since there was no food in the fridge.

It was a great weekend and we loved visiting our family.  Now I am back to work this week and mother nature graced us with some snow on a Monday morning.  Nothing like being back! Happy Monday All!

Music Friday: AI Reject

This week on Music Friday I want to share with you some music from a recent American Idol reject.  Tim Halperin was on this current season of American Idol and was voted off after only one week of "live" performances.  (I say "live" because I have heard the past two weeks of "live" shows have been taped in advanced.)

I loved Tim from the beginning, and especially during Hollywood Week he was amazing!  He is more talented than many of the other contestants that moved on.  Lucky for him he is already in the works for making his own album!  Although, he can not release it yet because of his contract with AI, Tim released one of his original songs for free.  You can download it off his website or listen to it here:

Here is another one of his songs with his own music video:

And for fun check out some of his Idol performances:

I really like this guy and hope he has a successful career.

Have a good weekend all!

Four Eyed Adventure

I am a contact wearer, and have been since the 5th grade.  To me they are much more convenient.  I hate how limiting glasses can be and there are activities that I can't stand doing in glasses:

• Driving in the dark
• Driving in the rain
• Playing sports
• Cleaning the house
• Cooking
• Pretty much anything that requires me to be standing up

You get the picture.  In fact, I struggled to even find a picture of me in glasses.  Partially because of the infrequency that I wear them, and partially because I hate being photographed in glasses.  Hence the only picture I could find is from a few years back where you can't see my entire face.

Yes, that is some roomie love going on in my bed.

Recently, I have really been wanting to update my glasses.  I have been wearing them more lately, especially when I am tired in the mornings.  Sometimes you just need to give your eyes a rest.

I am really digging these:

Source

Or maybe these

Source

Clearly I am interested in something a little bolder and with some thicker frames.  I am not sure if I could pull off this look.  So I tested Pearle Vision's Try It On Tool.  What do you think?

With a little funky color?

Or a lot of funky color?

Square Shape?

Or Rounded?

Personally I think think I look goofy in all of those pictures, but that might just be because I have a weird smile.  Anyways I hope to make a trip to the eyeglass store to get some new goodies!