High Five for Friday (Vol. 16)

Linking up with the lovely Lauren and Jennie for

(source)

Is anyone else shocked that today is the last day of January?  This month is FLYING by!  I need time to slow down so I can enjoy everything a little bit more!

Well as the week and the month come to an end let me share with you my top 5

High Fiveable moments from this week.

1. Saturday was spent with friends.  First I went with my best friend and her best friend for pedicures.  It was the best pedicure I've ever had!  The massage was amazing, they used paraffin wax on my heals and best of all, my polish still hasn't chipped!  Then I headed to Rutgers for my side job, and came back to my friend's house that night.  Tell me this pic of my nephew hugging his mommy (my best friend) when we came back from pedicures isn't just the sweetest thing!

2. Sunday was literally spent in bed.  I LOVE lazy days!  I had some left overs for lunch, pasta and pepperoni for dinner, and watched at least 20 episodes of How I Met Your Mother!  I've fallen in love with this show!  I started watching it about 2 weeks ago and I'm already on the 8th season!

(My view from dinner.)

3. I'm so excited for Super Bowl!  Not because my team is in it (damn Giants) but because it means a day of drinking and eating with my in laws (whom I adore) and getting to watch funny commercials.  I can not wait for this weekend, I have 2 new recipes I'm going to try out!  However, I did see this on my coworkers desk and couldn't help laughing! (Sorry for the glare! In case you can't read it, it says:

I'll pretend to give a crap about the Super Bowl if you pretend to give a crap about Valentine's Day.)

4. I've been having some trouble sleeping and find that when I'm not obsessing over How I Met Your Mother, I'm addicting to watching YouTube videos on how to do my hair and makeup.  3 times this week I've gone to work with nicely set hair and well done makeup, and I love it!  I think I'll post some of my successes over the weekend, not how to's since I'm certainly not an expert, but just which how to's seemed the easiest and how successful I was at following them.

5. The people from the new company were in our offices this week.  We had an hour long meeting that turned into 2 hours, and got a bunch of questions answered.  Plus I had to sit through a couple of trainings that were a bit boring but over all very helpful.  I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the new parent company but I'm still missing the "small town" feel that I had before they came along.

That about wraps if up for me! 

Are you excited for the super bowl?  Trying any new recipes?

My coworkers and in laws do boxes, hopefully I'll get lucky and win some money!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Beer Infused Crockpot Pulled Pork

To start I have to celerbate!  This is my 100th post!  (Wow I ramble on a lot!)

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Ok!  Now that I've got that out of the way...

Last week I finally branched out of my comfort zone and bought a pork roast!  It was huge!  Way more than 2 people would ever need in one meal, but it was on sale and I was bored, so I figured I'd go for it.  I've never been a fan of pork or ever really cooked it but it looked pretty good to me, what do you think?

So I cut my roast in 3's, freezed 2 of them and went on a search for ideas on how to cook this.  I came across this recipe for a pulled pork sandwich with a beer cheese sauce!  Because I wasn't going to be home all day and I didn't want to go through too much work when I got home, I only made the pork and then ate it over rice, but it still turned out so juicy and good, I was very happy.  Also!  Because I didn't have many spices in the house and this was a last minute thing, I didn't quite follow the recipe to a tee.  Here is what I did:

What you'll need:

Pork Roast

1 Tablespoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

12 ounces of beer

1 bottle of bbq sauce.

Directions:

•   heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet to medium-high heat.  Sear the pork on every side (about 2-3 minutes per side)

• place the roast in your crock pot and cover with all the spices listed above

• pour in your beer, I used Yuengling because it's what I had in the house

• cover in bbq sauce and cook on low for about 8 hours.  I used Sweet Baby Rays because it was on sale at Aldi's.  (I'm a sucker for sales.)  

Sadly I didn't get a picture of the end result but I assure you, it was beautiful!  It flaked off, was juicy and delicious!  I must admit it was quite spicy as well!  I had no idea that paprika would have such a kick! But it was still a great new recipe that I plan to make again!

High Five for Friday (Vol. 15)

Linking up with the lovely Lauren for

(photo credit)

Happy Friday everyone!  I'm trying to get back into the flow of things and get more regular with my posts again, trying being the operative word there!  It was another week of ups and downs, but isn't every week?  Let's focus on the top 5 ups-

1.  We visited my parents this weekend and it was actually a nice visit!  We finally got to see Saving Mr. Banks (I balled my eyes out!)  I also did some laundry and helped my mom out with her Sunday school class (they are so stinking cute!)  But the best part was....

2.  We went to Jo-Ann's fabrics after class and before meeting my dad and Jim for lunch.  I found some cute things and particularly fell for a little bunny they had out for Easter decorations.  After lunch we went back because my mom was certain she could make the bunny for me and it would be better because it would be color specific, etc... We ended up just buying the bunny but we also bought fabric to make gorgeous custom curtains for my bedroom, living room, and dining room.  I'm so excited!!!  But also so sad because I forgot take pictures of the fabric, you'll just have to wait to see when I actually finish making them and get them hung up.

3.  It snowed like crazy on Tuesday!!!  It stunk but I got to go home early and that's always a nice thing.  But the best part was that the called the storm "Janice" and every time I heard it called that I thought of this...

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4.  I'm really getting acclimated to my new location in the office.  I'm still a bit uneasy about my future here but I get along so well with the other ladies in my office, at least while I'm here I can feel comfortable.  Bonus!

5. I came home last night and found a Valentine's tube of M&MS on my pillow.  Jim's trying, it's very sweet.

So those are my top 5.  Hope you all had a fantastic week and an even better weekend!

Holiday Vase

This weekend we visited my parents in PA and I got a chance to help my mom change over the Christmas decorations to Valentine's day decorations.  My mom and I both share a love for holiday decorating and tend to go a bit overboard for ALL holidays.  While we were putting things away and taking others out, I noticed that she had a vase filled with balls for Christmas and she showed me a little trick that I thought was so cute, I had to share it.

Here are all the supplies that she had.

1 vase from the dollar store

4 sets of decorations to fill the vase- all from the dollar store or found on sale at a
craft shop, neatly stored away in ziploc bags.

This is how I found it.  The picture does not do the balls justice.  She had an assortment of silver, white, and red balls, some were solid and some looked like woven metal.  I would have filled it to the brim, but it was still a great piece to have on a coffee table, like she did, or even have 2 and put them on either side of the mantle.

We changed out the balls for hearts.  As you can see they were pink and red, and they were different sizes.

She also has shamrocks for St. Patty's day!

And you can't forget Easter!  These glittery eggs were too cute!

By using a $1 vase and sweet little fillers that total cost about $10, she's got this cute and versatile holiday decoration.  I think it would be great to get some red, white, and blue marbles or rocks for the summer months too!  That way it's covered from Memorial Day to the 4th of July, right through to Labor day.  We're also going to look to see if we can get some pumpkins or spiders for Halloween, but I also think it would be pretty filled with leaves for the fall months.  There is so much you can do with such simple and inexpensive supplies!  I can't wait to see what other fillers we can find on my next visit with her.  What fillers would you put in your vase?

Amy the Unicorn

I watched my first Ted Talk this morning.  Well really I listened to it on my way in to work, but it was still incredible!

A coworker, who I actually went to high school with, kept talking about this video. 

"Amy the Unicorn!"

"This guy is hilarious"

"He puts up graphs, just to look important"

"You've got to watch it!"

I yes'd her to death and every morning for nearly a week came in to work having to admit that I had not yet watched the video.  Last night, she text me while I was working a second job (we'll get to that in my next post) to remind me to watch it.  This morning on the way to work I remembered again that I had not watched it and knew I couldn't go in and admit failure yet again.  So I queued it up on my phone and began to listen, and laugh, and be impressed, and wish that I had listened to her last week, or someone else had told me about this when it first came out, whenever that was.

The whole premise is about positive psychology and retraining your brain to look at things from a different perspective.  He's theory on our success to happiness ratio is simple but brilliant and so, so true!  It makes so much sense that it's almost sad that we need someone to tell us that we're doing things wrong. 

He lays out simple strategies which I'm going to view as challenges for a few things you can do every day.  If you do them every day for 21 days, it should retrain  your brain and actually help you be happier because of the way you're viewing the world.  Starting tomorrow I will lay out what the challenges are exactly and I'll be posting about my progress. 

I strongly recommend that you all watch this video!  Listen to it closely.  Listen and watch it more than once.  I truly believe that just these simple changes can have a huge impact on our thoughts and over all lives, and I hope to prove that by applying them to my own life (we shall see how it goes.)

Now, I can not get the video to post here but I can provide you with the link.  So without further ado, I give to you Amy the Unicorn!.

Happy Moments Jar

As part of my 30 before 30 challenge, I tried to complete at least 10 pinterest projects last year. The happy moments jar is a challenge to write down one good thing that happened each day and put it in a jar. At the end of the year you'll be able to look back on all of the great things that happened to you. Its a great way to stay happy/grateful in the moment and also a great way to reminisce at the end of the year.

I started this before I turned 30 and didn't actually finish but I'm going to try again this year. When taking out what I had added to the jar it brought back such good memories that I wanted to share them with you and also suggest that you try keeping a jar as well. Here are the 2013 moments that made it into my jar:

January 1- Watching the Honeymooners with Jim, realizing he quotes Ralph all the time
January 2- Finally doing stuff for myself, joined meet up group and organized girls night!
January 3- Playing "power hour" by telling stories with the sisters at Aunt Cheryl's birthday party
January 4- Grateful for OT- we're having "fun" trying to figure out the damn printer
January 5- great dinner with grood friends at Cafe Bello, but definitely feeling old- all we did was talk about babies, insurance, wills, and bills.  And it was awesome!
January 6- movie and football night at the Minichiello's (my in laws) So much fun hanging out with Shanoon, planning her 30th birthday party
January 7- Blizzards from DQ while watching the BCS bowl at Dave and Lia's
January 8- My 1st painting class was awesome!
January 9- Learning to let go and enjoy time alone without worry or concern.  Jim went to poker night in Hoboken for thr 1st time and I enjoyed a night of tv, reading, and fb photo uploading
January 11- Grateful to come home to dinner made by Jim so we can go to the movies with Dave and Lia
January 12-14 Learning to be aline while Jim is in DC with his cousins and Kristal
January 15- Told Jim I lost his headphones and he didn't flip out
January 16- so sick, took off work, spent the day relaxing with Jim
January 17- After taking a day off with a bad cold, I was welcomed back with a very friendly and warm reception.  Then came home to Jim making dinner and thank you Jesus he got a job!
January 19- got to see my Aunt Reyna and our friends Tara and Tre in PA
January 20- Awesome visit with my parents in PA
January 21- Jim's 1st day of work!
January 22- hilarious chat with CA boys about garbage pail kids
January 23- Jim came home to turn on the heat and porch light just so I could come home to a warm and lit house while he was at poker
January 24- came home to a dozen red roses
Janaury 25- Dinner and shopping with Jim.  Relaxing and no arguments- even got him to listen to Christian music
January 26- had an awesome house warming party!
January 27- had a fun day at the mall with Jim and Jester
January 28- Tamirah came back from maternity leave!  And everyone loved my baked goods!
February 1- Mama Perez sends us salsa- the woman is amazing!
February 2- Jim and I had a nice day at the mall and our last dinner with Lia (Chinese buffet) before CJ is born! 
February 3- Ravins win the Super Bowl!  Yay for Ray Rice!  Last time seeing Lia's bump at the party!
February 4- Collin James is here!!!  So scary to almost loss Lia but so thankful she is alive and CJ is healthy!
February 5- Amy took me to Morristwon after work so we can see Lia and CJ.  So happy to hold him and see my best friend!
February 6- Relaxing night at home, alone!  Happy I feel safe with Jim out and was able to get all my Valentine's day prep done!

Clearly it didn't last long- but just seeing these brought back some great memories.  I'm going to try again this year!  I'm shooting for just remembering happy moments as they happen instead of forcing myself to do one a day!  I'll let you know how it goes next year!

High Five for Friday (Vol.14)

Hey!  Guess what's back!  Linking up once again with the lovely Lauren!



It's been a while and if you keep up with my blog you know that things aren't all sunshine and roses right now but this is a new year and I want to start focusing on the good more than the bad once again!  So here we go!

1. The big move!  My company was bought out in October and a log of changes have been going on.  I was moved over to a different department this week- doing the same work but a new location.  I'm in an office of women and I have to say it's quite refreshing after working mostly with just guys for the last 5 years!

2.  Jim cooked dinner twice this week!  Enough said!

3.  I was able to see a counselor on Wednesday.  She let me talk and talk- I was there for over 90 minutes.  She can't keep seeing me because she's out of network, I had a free meet up with her through my specialists office, but it was nice to feel like I'm getting started on all this.  She said Jim and I both should start therapy, so that's the next step!

4.  Things aren't perfect, but they're definitely feeling more on track.  Having more affection has definitely been a bonus!

5.  We started watching Arrow.  It's so stinking good!  Jim and I have blown through the 1st season and we're working on getting caught up on the 2nd season.

That's my week in review!  It's not much but it's a start!  I hope you all had a fantastic week and an even better weekend!