Wishing on a White Horse

Long ago, my mom's best friend taught my sisters and I how to wish upon a white horse.  Before she bestowed this knowledge upon us, I'd never ever before heard that white horses were lucky, but an intrigued child with plenty of banked wishes, I didn't question her logic.  We were fascinated, and listened carefully to her tutorial of how to wish upon a white horse.

* spot a white horse
* lick your thumb
* stamp your thumb in your open palm
* make your wish
* seal your wish by punching your opposite fist into your open palm
* wait for wish to come true

One thing I do know, it's definitely something I've never forgotten.  Learning this as a child was magical as it was such a strange, weird, and unique set of instructions to follow in order to cast a wish.  Yet regardless, ever since that day, I've found myself scanning the horizon on road trips in search of every white horses without any markings, splashes, or spots, eager to make that next wish.

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Quote of the Week

Before you act, listen.

Before you react, think.

Before you spend, earn.

Before you criticize, wait.

Before you pray, forgive.

Before you quit, try.

{Ernest Hemingway}

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Link Love

Have a lovely weekend my friends!  One of my closest friends in town for the weekend, so we're celebrating her visit with dinner, drinks, and a play tonight!  What are you up to?

+ Pinata cookies!?  Genius!

+ My husband would love this print

+ I adore this dress!

+ Easy refreshments to bring to a picnic

+ DIY cap toe shoes, super cute!

+ Garden oasis for my dream backyard

+ Bright necklace for spring

+ A new twist on oatmeal

+ Another cute bun - I need to practice my skills...

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Weeknight Baking: Mexican Chocolate Cookies

Tuesday night was a cookie-eating kind of night.  A busy, hectic day at school, followed by a lazy night cozying on the couch.  Perfect occasion for a batch of cookies, right?

In lieu of my usual fave cookie (chocolate chip-coconut), I opted to try something new - Mexican Chocolate cookies, with a dusting of powdered sugar.  The recipe calls for fancy chocolate - which of course I didn't have, but I substituted in bittersweet chocolate chips, and they turned out just fine!  I mean, you really can't go wrong with cookies, but this recipe is definitely worthy of a repeat appearance.

Note: Make sure you have milk on hand when baking these bad boys!

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Salad Savvy

My new favorite salad recipe, hands down!

Holy moly, I'm excited to make this again!!  Don't you love it when you find a recipe that is just superbly awesome that you know FOR SURE you will commit to memory and DEFINITELY make again?

This is THAT recipe my friends (grab a pen...I'll wait...)

Okay, ready?  Golden Corn Salad with Fresh Basil, I made a few slight alterations.  First - I didn't have any fresh basil (no worries, you don't need it).  Second - I subbed in sliced fresh mozzarella for goat cheese - a worthy substitution in my opinion since there was already plenty of flavor in the salad.

Can't for summer picnics, potlucks, and parties.  Put me down for greens, 'cause I'm bringing salad!

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Wednesday Pretty

Don't you wish you could create a castle out of paper?

Color me impressed!

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Dinner Last Night: Chicken Enchilada Casserole

I've been thinking about making this recipe for a while - chicken enchilada casserole - and it didn't disappoint.  Albeit a bit labor intensive (I felt like I used practically every pan in my kitchen to make this dang casserole) - but after all the hard work, it tasted great!  Phew!   

Added bonus: it reheats well, I took the leftovers to work for lunch the following day.  I wish I had my own pictures of the dish to post, but my husband and I devoured this seconds after it emerged from the oven.  Pin it!

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6 Months!

 Today is our 6-month anniversary!  6 months, I can hardly believe it's been half a year since our wedding day, where does the time go?

I feel so incredibly blessed to have married my best friend, and comforted in the fact that we get to spend our lives together.  I am so excited for all the years to come and adventures that lie ahead of us.  

Happy 6 month anniversary babe!

What's on Your Workout Playlist?

I love a good playlist.  What I love even more?  A playlist so invigorating, so captivating song after song, that I can listen to it in its entirety without skipping a single song.  However, the challenging piece is, I'm not a huge music buff.  I'm that girl who can sing along decently to the chorus of top 40, but rarely do I know the name of the song or artist off the top of my head.

So I need your help... I need some suggestions as my workout playlist is slightly underwhelming.  I'm looking for fast-pace, high-energy songs.  

What's in your workout playlist?

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Dinner Last Night: White Pizza with Broccolini

A few months ago I subscribed to the Food Network magazine.  It's a decent magazine, there are plenty of blurbs from notable Food Network stars amidst recipes that surround certain themes...  While it's got all that jazz, I think I still prefer the oldies but goodie: Cooking Light and Martha Stewart: Everyday Food. Last night, I finally made my first recipe from the magazine - white pizza with broccolini, pretty tasty!

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DIY: Hair Ties

I have been seeing fold over elastic hair ties EVERYWHERE!  I love the look, but the price - ugh, not so much.  At a salon near my house, they were selling for $3 a piece.  So I thought, hmm...am I really going to pay $3 for a piece of elastic.  Ah...no!  So one of my spring break projects was to make my own fold over elastic hair ties.

First step - purchase elastic.  I bought 10 yards via elastic by the yard on etsy.  Super easy and crazy cheap!  Plus I got to choose colors that matched my wardrobe.  Step two - elastic arrives in the mail, I measured, tied the ends, and voila - instant hair tie!  Amazingly easy and much, much cheaper than the salon alternative.

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Glam Hair

 I've been on a mission to grow out my hair for summer, but this wavy chic bob Rachel McAdams is sporting is making me seriously consider a major chop.  

If you made a drastic change to your hair, what would it be?

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Happy Weekend

My spring break is drawing to a close, but it has been one relaxing week, that's for sure! This weekend I'm attending a fundraiser for a mission trip to Tanzania on Friday and a double date night with friends of ours. Hopefully I'll be rested and ready to go back to school on Monday...

+ Diet coke + brownies = how have I never heard of these before?

+ Beautiful chandelier

+ Clutch love

+ Breakfast of champions

+ Family love

+ Digging this clock

+ How to eat spinach

+ Glassybaby love

+ Canning for a new generation

+ Next must-read book on my shelf

+ Have you heard?? Anchorman 2 is in the work

+ Lemon blueberry cupcakes, yum!

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Weeknight Baking: Apple Pie Spring Rolls

After my successful endeavor making Thai spring rolls last week, I had leftover spring rolls wrappers to spare, which I decided I'd better put them to good use.  Thus, the perfect opportunity to make these: apple pie egg rolls via spoon fork bacon.  

These were fairly simple to make (definitely easier than making apple pie), although I'm still working on my rolling skills, it takes practice to roll a spring roll without spillage, let me tell you!  I highly recommend making these if you ever have spring rolls wrappers to spare!

image via spoon fork bacon

Wednesday Pretty

A little pretty for your Wednesday.

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Currently...

I love having time off.  My current to-do list for the day includes the following:

+ Start this new book (written by one of my fave bloggers)

+ Catch up on some magazines

+ Watching a few episodes of this show (How have I never seen it before? so funny!)

+ Workout

Excited for my blissfully un-scheduled day.

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Ireland It Is!

It's official -we're going to Ireland!!!  Flights are booked -  we'll be enjoying 10 days in Ireland this summer!!  We are so excited, let the planning begin!  While we haven't solidified too many other plans, including our itinerary, here's some of the highlights we're thinking of visiting: Dublin, Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Cork City, and the Ring of Kerry.  

If you have any advice, suggestions, must-do's in Ireland, we'd love to hear it! 

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Spring Break!

Jump for joy - it's Spring break!!  That means no school for me all next week!  YAHOO!  While I have no travel plans for my week off, I'm excited to relax, recharge, and catch up on some Zzzzz's!  My plans include a long to-do list of household projects, DIY creations for a friend's wedding, coffee + dinner plans with friends, and perhaps reading a new book or two.  I'm psyched to have ample time to check some boxes off my to-do list!  

Have a wonderful weekend!

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13 simple steps to get you through a rough day

Have you seen this?  It's one of those goofy links that 5 or so of my acquaintances posted on facebook.  The kind of link I usually bypass without a second thought, but it was indeed, one of those days.

If it's one of those days for you, check it out, it's sure to improve your mood!

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Dinner Last Night: Po Pia

Back in November, shortly after our wedding, my students' families threw my husband and I a wedding shower!  It was such a fun afternoon; cupcakes, bridal shower games, my students even had a Q&A with their teacher's new husband - and he graciously obliged and charmed them all!  Our favorite gift from the shower was a recipe book, a collection of favorite family recipes from all of my students this year, with little anecdotes explaining why this dish is meaningful to them.  It was such an amazing, generous gift, plus we scored insight on some delectable eats.

My first recipe to try - Po Pia, thai fried spring rolls.  This recipe was from one of my students whose mother was born and raised in Thailand, so I consider it a truly authentic Thai recipe!  Once I'd gathered all the necessary ingredients, these were surprisingly easy to create.  I haven't fried a lot of foods in my life, so I was so proud of myself that they were edible (and actually looked like spring rolls - that's my photo above!).   

I'm not going to include the actual recipe I used since it was a gift from the family, but here's a similar recipe to try at home.

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Stamps for Spring

Check out the latest forever stamps, they are gorgeous!  Celebrating the cherry blossom Centennial, these stamps are colorful and lovely, perfect for spring.  I just bought a whole bunch!

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