WARNING THIS COCKTAIL IS AMAZING

Okay. Prepare yourself for a highly delicious and very dangerous cocktail... if you love coffee this one is for you.
Alrighty so there are only two ingredients, the first is:

illy brand cappuccino, which you can get from your local Fresh Market. These things blow Starbucks out of the water, and they have much less calories! We use the illy pods at home for our cappuccino maker so when we saw this we knew we had to have it!

This is the second ingredient, Pinnacle Whipped. It is amazing, and sweet just like whipped cream. 

The recipe is simple: 

2-3 oz of the pinnacle whipped 

1 can of the Illy

Fill a glass halfway with ice, then pour the vodka in over it. Add the coffee and mix well. That's it... it's so simple and it is sooo delicious! Enjoy! 

Pecan Sour Cream Waffles

These are to die for! Thank you Alton Brown for this wonderful discovery! Seriously they are perfectly moist, with the crunch of the pecans, oh, seriously it may be my new favorite recipe for waffles. AND its perfect for fall! So here is the recipe along with some pictures I snapped along the way. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped fine

Heat waffle iron. Combine wet ingredients and whisk well to combine. 

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl and form a well in the center

 Add the wet mixture to the well and fold in with the dry. Don't worry if there are a few lumps. Stir in pecans just before cooking,

Pour the desired amount into your heated waffle maker. ** be sure to spray with PAM before you add the mix.

We were out of regular maple syrup so I found this in the back of our pantry.... AMAZING you have to try it if you are a ginger fan!

Bon appetit!

21 at last

It's official everyone, I am FINALLY 21. The fateful day came on Sunday and it was amazing. Mostly because I was in Boone, NC and got to see my handsome brother!! He goes to Appalachian State University btw and its about 6 hours away from my house... and while this birthday was definelty an unconventional one... (no cake or pie or anything !) it was rewarding in other senses, that is minus the crazy Boone weather, and serious sunburn I got while there. Anyways its good to be 21, now I can make pasta with vodka sauce without relying on someone to buy me the vodka! hooray!

Naughty...

Here's the thing... I've been super bad lately. So my 21st birthday is this coming SUNDAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY I'm so excited...

So back to being bad. I kind of sort of bought myself an early birthday present. Or really presents and they are the following:

Born Standing Up ( a biography about Steve Martin in his comedic years)
A Room With a View
Jane Eyre
On the Road
David Copperfield
The Awakening
Anne Frank
Balzac & the little Chinese girl
Beloved
Brave New World
Brick Lane
An American Tragedy
Autobiography of a Face
Crime & Punishment
The Curious Incident
and finally Cousin Bette


I'm sooo excited to start reading!

The wrapped twinkle lights

Who doesn't love twinkle lights? As a teenager I have to admit I had them everywhere in my room, and I also became obsessed with the movie You've Got Mail, more specifically the scene where Meg Ryan  gives an ode to twinkle lights, which then becomes sad because she goes on to remember her dead mother but anyways. Twinkle lights = perfection.

The only problem I have with these beautiful, inexpensive, bringers of cheer is the ugly green cording. While I know it helps with the whole Christmas tree aspect, being able to blend in and all, it kind of is tacky. So of course    I decided to brain storm ideas to fix the problem, spray paint? acrylic paint? and then it hit me. Ladies and Gentlemen I am in fact a moron to not have thought of this sooner. WRAPPED and no I don't mean in a tortilla, although that certainly works for Chipotle (yummy) but in ribbon! It's so easy and I have tons of left over ribbon, and what else can add to this equation to make it perfect...? uh hello.... the herpes of all crafts... yes I'm talking about GLITTER (apologies for the gross reference)!

So first things first: make sure you have some lights that actually work. ( I actually completed this first strand and then when I plugged it in half of them didn't work so I had to unwrap allllll of it and that is horrible) I would also go ahead and set out the ribbon and pick out your glitter.

The next thing I did was put glitter on the lights, the part that holds the tiny bulbs in. Now I tried using just regular old tacky glue first and I found that it made a huge mess SO  I used this super bright pink nail polish I had and never use haha. It worked great! None of the glitter has rubbed off, so thats a plus but if you don't have any nail polish you want to use I would just use glue. I also used some of the Martha Stewart Glitter, sold at all Michael's stores. Its the best glitter, I'm obsessed. If anyone wants to know specifics just let me know :)

So once the glitter was dried I just wrapped all of the green cord in ribbon, and I actually ran out so I had some scrap fabric that I used also.

This whole project kind of took a while, the wrapping gets tedious BUT I was hooked and watching Gilmore girls so I really didn't even notice after the time went by. So Voila! The finished project! Turned on and off, I hope you enjoy!

That time of year

Well everyone, after my waiting (not so patiently) it has come... We are on the brink of fall, my favorite season and what better way to ring in the best time of the year than with a birthday, to a very important man... MY DAD!  Personally I love birthdays, I LOVE giving presents although I usually get too excited and slip up and tell. My boyfriend gets soo annoyed haha but I can't help it! I have a gift, I pick out great presents. For example this year I gave my dad  an awesome one, a Manchester United personalized jersey with Giggs (a player, highly celebrated, kind of a  big deal) on the back and his number. He LOVED it (apologies for the all caps throughout this post, like I said I'm excited).  I also made him breakfast before he went off to work, served on china with silver cutlery :) see the pictures below for his special day:

operation cappacino complete!

Birthday boy blowing out his candles at our family celebration :) 

We had Ukrops cake, Vanilla Hagaan Daz AND my individual cheesecakes! yum!

Happy birthday to the best dad in the world :)

(p.s. sorry your eyes are closed)

The tale of the ugly lamp.

I went yard sale-ing a while back and got saw this table lamp for $1 and while it was ugly ( think tacky brushed silver and white) I had an idea I'd be able to turn it into something amazing!

So the first thing I did was I spray painted that sucker with this textured spray paint that I found in my garage, I can't even remember what it was supposed to go to, or what I used it for but it was this one:

I know it says outdoor spaces on it but I've had and used this lamp for about a month now and it seems like its working to me. So I sprayed that evenly and let it dry while I visited our local Target store and got a basic drum lampshade for I think around $15. Okay so originally I wanted to paint the lampshade in this super cool ikat pattern, however as I found out, that was a really hard design to do AND the tape I used left residue, which pretty much just looked awful. So to fix it I just went ahead and painted over it pink. Well, that turned out not to be so good because you could still see the tape residue when the light shined through it so on a whim I was looking around my room, and remembered I had this great scrapbook paper. So I decided to cut out some circles of the scrapbook paper  I already had the paper but I bought it at our local Michael's craft store, and the circle cutter too, (Fiskars brand is the best I think ).

So after cutting tons and tons of circles I glued them to the shade in an overlapping pattern, which I kind of thought resembled fish scales. So after it was all dry I popped a lightbulb in and flipped the switch and  TA-DA  a brand new (to me atleast) cute table lamp!

** and yes that is my handsome boyfriend in the photo :)

Breaking In a BRAND NEW BLOG

What better way to break in a "new" blog (comparable to the age old journal) than with a good old questionnaire? This my friends is no ordinary questionnaire, but one from the highly famous, critically acclaimed Vanity Fair! Before I reveal my innermost thoughts, and hopes and dreams, here is a little history about the questionnaire:
* The official title of the questionnaire is "The Proust Questionnaire" and it is published in the back of each magazine.
* It's a Q & A which highlights ( and also spotlights) the rich and famous, comparable to the quizzes in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
* It got its name "Proust" from Marcel Proust, who was a famous French novelist best known for his novel In Search of Lost Time 
* It made its way into Vanity Fair because so many people on the staff, loved Proust!  ( for better detailed information on the background story go to www.chick.net/proust/question.html )

So here goes:
1. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
When I've had nothing to eat all day, and I'm stressed out, and it's hot outside and I'm sweating bullets and there's no relief in sight.
2. Where would you like to live?

Some place where the temperature doesn't go above 73 degrees and I have a view of some water, preferably a lake, where it looks similar to this (lake gaston, nc) every morning when I wake up.
3. What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To be surrounded by people who love you and be completely content, no wants or desires, just your mind at ease, being able to take in all the joy for whats around you.
4. To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
over thinking
5. Who is your favorite painter?
Monet
6. Your favorite musician?
 I love some Taylor Swift and I also really really like Iron & Wine. I like a lot of everything.
7.What is your favorite color?
Blue! I like gray as well though.
8. What is your favorite flower?
actually its a combination, I love dahlias and hydrangeas !