The Nifty Foodie's Life

Since I was in middle school, I have had a planner of some sort. In middle school, my Mom actually had some sort of Mommy calendar on the kitchen wall where there was a column for each kid’s activities (there were four of us, so I’m sure this calendar kept her sane). When I got to middle school, I remember my Mom just asked me to put after school or weekend activities on the wall calendar, since at that point I was involved in cheerleading, 4-H, band and Beta club. I was a busy kid, and having that calendar definitely helped things stay organized. In high school, I bought my very own planner in addition to writing activities on my Mom’s calendar, and that’s when I got hooked. HOOKED!

I haven’t been able to get into electronic calendars, since my love for the paper planner is still evident. I write everything in my paper planner. EVERYTHING. To-do lists, meetings, blog post ideas, appointments, etc. And the prettier the planner is, the better. I LOVE colors.

Lately, I have been hearing about Erin Condren life planners from other blogger friends, and I was super excited to order one, but the price tag scared me. $50? Ouch…that’s a little steep. Then, about a month ago, the planners went on sale for $30 since it was almost May. To add more temptation, I saw on Plum District (referral link) that you could buy a $50 Erin Condren gift card for $25. I figured at that price point, I should give this planner a chance.

Y’all…I’m in LOVE with this planner. I didn’t think it was really possible to love a planner, but it has everything I need/want in a planner AND it’s bright/full of colors.

I ordered a planner where you can customize it to include things you enjoy (which repeats along the cover of the planner), as well as your name.

Isn’t that just adorable? I just love how personal the cover is!

Just to note, I’m showing (mostly) blank pages of the weekly/monthly planner, since some of the things in my planner are personal information. I swear, this week’s page is pretty darn full.

A tip I learned from another blogger. Write your upcoming posts on post-its. That way, if you want to change your schedule around, you aren’t scratching out things all over your planner. Just pull off and re-stick!

For the planner, I like how the day is broken up into morning/day/night parts (which is kind of hard to see in the picture…sorry). You have plenty of room to write down appointments and things you plan to get done that day! I also like the weekly goals and to-do list.

Here’s what the month looks like:

It’s pretty standard. Apparently next year’s planners are going to have the month spanning over two pages! Another feature you can see in this photo is that every month has a tab.

Ok, and these are just fun little features (which I’m an absolute sucker for) that they have for this particular planner. Stickers!

There’s another five pages of stickers, with four of those pages being completely blank stickers.

And last but not least of the cool features, there’s a small zipper pouch in the planner. When I got my planner, there were already some labels and personalized cards in there (as a bonus). I carry blank deposit slips (not the ones with my account information on there, but the freebies from the bank counter) in there, as well as stamps. You just never know…

You can kind of see in front of the zipper pouch that there’s also a small folder for papers.

Now, I know that $50 is crazy for a planner, but if you want to save money, you can often find Erin Condren gift cards on Plum District and One Kings Lane (both are referral links), which makes the planner a good bit cheaper! You just have to keep your eyes peeled…there’s a way to get deals on this site! Also, the planners for 2012-2013 aren’t for sale yet, but they will be next month.

Disclaimer: I got ZERO compensation or freebies for writing this post. Just wanted to share something awesome with y’all!

I feel like I have a ton of things to post about. This year is just flying by…wasn’t I just drinking a bottle of wine out of a plastic cup (so fancy) to welcome the new year?!

• It’s snowball season, y’all. A snowball is basically super finely shaved ice coated with flavored syrups. My favorite flavors are nectar (tastes like cream soda) and wedding cake. A new place opened near our house, and oh man, I’ve been visiting that stand way too much! It’s just so dang tasty. If you’re ever in New Orleans during the Spring/Summer, I highly encourage you to try one of these babies.

• Before Easter, I crossed off a major craft to-do. Two years ago, I bought a bunch of Spring colored felt to make into a gorgeous ruffle wreath. They were pretty popular around the bloggy world back then, and I finally found time to make one. It’s on our mantel now, and I absolutely love it! It was a bit time consuming to cut out all of those felt circles, though. I actually think this will go on the craft room door once Spring is over. I just can’t put it away!

• These border collie magnets just kill me. They basically describe Millie perfectly. I’d buy them, but I can’t justify spending $20 on four magnets.

• This mixer makes me want to open a bakery or feed a crowd with nothing but cookies and cakes. While I really only need a mixer that big for the holidays (hello bake-palooza), I think if I magically came across $550, I’d run to Williams-Sonoma and snatch it up.

• I’m pretty sure I’m about to give up caffeine again. I really hate that my body is SO dependent on it, so I’m going to go off of it cold turkey. I love you, Advil.

• I’m really sad that strawberry season is over out here. See ya next year, strawberries!

• I STILL haven’t gotten my 5% lost pedicure. There’s just not enough time in a weekend, y’all. As far as weight loss is concerned, things have stalled a bit for me. What? I’m human…it happens. I’m still 19 lbs. down, so it’s not like I completely messed things up. I’m going to get back on track next week, and this time, my diet is going to be a good bit more strict. I’m pretty stoked about it, actually. I love seeing results!

• H and I are about to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. Huh? Didn’t we just get married last month? I can’t believe it’s been 3 years already!

• I got accepted into a campaign for Essie nail polish on Klout. I feel like I sort of sneaked in on that perk…I’m SO not a beauty blogger. I actually have a make-up post in the works, but I feel like make-up/fashion is a subject I just can’t write well about…I just stink at it. In fact, I always criticize the way I do my make-up, and wish I had half the talent some of those YouTube gurus have.

• Also, thank you Kate Spade. Your sample sale didn’t tempt me this time around.

I feel like I write about weight loss a lot. It’s a big goal of mine to live a healthier lifestyle, since I’ve been a larger gal most of my life. I’m at that age where it’s time to start thinking about starting a family, and it sort of hit me.

I can’t keep living like this.

This time, I can’t keep living like this, because one day, I might get blessed with a kid. And that kid doesn’t need to learn from Mom’s unhealthy habits. That kid needs to learn healthy habits, and the best way to do that? You learn from your parents.

Now, this isn’t a jab at my parents. In fact, I was eating fairly healthy under their watch. I love almost every fruit and vegetable, because of them. I CAN eat healthy, y’all! (They totally did things right!)

So what happened? Well, independence happened. Once I got the freedom to eat on my own, I made mistakes. Mistake after mistake formed unhealthy habits, and those habits led me to my current overweight/unhealthy status. Some of those mistakes included eating unhealthy every day, eating WAY too much food, and no longer exercising as much as I used to.

So, now that I’m at the stage where my husband and I have a TTC date in our heads, it’s gotten more real. I have to change for our kids. I must. I’m really good at deadlines, because if you remember, I lost a good chunk of weight before the wedding. That dress HAD to fit, and I made darn sure it fit comfortably.

Then, the bad habits reared their ugly head, and I gained back a lot of that weight plus some! So, I’m back. I’m calorie counting. I will be exercising soon, and I will make a healthy lifestyle my new habit.

Since the New Year, I’ve lost 9.5 lbs. (what??!) Yup. 9.5 lbs. So, I’m doing this. I really am.

Of course, I can’t do this without some motivation. I offered myself rewards last time I lost weight, and this time will be no different.

Once I lose:

• 5% of my weight (or 15 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a pedicure.
• 10% of my weight (or 30 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini $50 fabric buying spree.
• 50 lbs., I’ll treat myself to a pair of fun, fancy shoes.
• 20% (60 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini-makeover at Sephora or MAC. Once I lose 60 lbs., I’ll be back to my wedding weight.
•  75 lbs., I’ll treat myself to some new workout clothes. I figure at this point, I SHOULD fit in XL/XXL in regular sized workout clothes, so BYE BYE plus sized workout clothes!
• 30% (or 90 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a fun Victoria’s Secret trip. I’ve never fit in VS before, but hopefully once I”m 90 lbs. down, I can get a few fun things there.
• ONEDERLAND (or 99 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to my first designer handbag.
• 110 lbs., I’ll treat myself to my first pair of fancy designer jeans.
• GOAL, which is 40% (or 120 lbs.), WE’RE (my husband and I, obviously) GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!! 

Lots of fun things to work for, right? I’m a measly 5.5 lbs. away from my first reward, and my toes CANNOT wait!

This is our first house. We lived here about three years, and it was an amazing little starter home. So many memories here…to name a few:

• we planned the majority of our wedding here (lots of DIY projects)
• this was our home after our honeymoon
• we hosted our first holiday here
• this was Millie’s first home
• this was where I learned how to sew
• this was where we had a LOT of DIY house projects

After a lot of thought, we decided it was time to move to a different area of town. We wanted to live in an area that had great schools for when we start a family. We also wanted a newer home with a good backyard. So, we moved here:

Since we got such an excellent deal on our house (and we weren’t sure how long those awesome interest rates would last), we decided to just scoop up this house and wait for our old house to sell.

And wait….for about four months. (yuck)

Well, today we CLOSED on our old house. We’re back to one mortgage, y’all!

So yeah…BIG HAPPY NEWS for us!

(Ok, so I have to know….how many of y’all thought the big news was a baby?)

Things have been a little quiet here. Oops! With two blogs, I usually find my stride with one and the other kind of just suffers. Since it’s the holiday season (aka baking season), I’ve been a little busy in the kitchen, so I’ve had a good bit to share on the other blog because of it. At the same time, I’ve been working on quite a few things non kitchen-wise, which I want to share with y’all.

One of the biggest pieces of news I have is that I entered a recipe contest. It was a local one that my newspaper held, and I stumbled upon it sitting in traffic reading one of those billboards that seems to flash from one ad to another. I immediately started brainstorming in my car when I saw “Holiday Dessert Recipe Contest”. I had two ideas in my head and the idea I tested out was a peppermint bark cheesecake truffle.

I ended up making one batch and brought it to my coworkers. I thought it was a decent dessert, but I mean, you are your own worst critic…I just thought it could be better. However, my coworkers started raving about these truffles and quite a few of them wanted the recipe. So I thought, maybe this truffle is perfect just the way it is. So that evening, I submitted the recipe.

To become a finalist, you had to be in the top 10 popular vote-wise. The hard thing about it was that if you wanted to vote, you had to register on the website. So, that made begging for votes even harder. I was in 7th or 8th place with votes in the end, so I barely squeaked by as a finalist. Whew!  (Thanks to all of you who voted for me!)

After I was selected as a finalist, I had to bring my truffles to the newspaper’s office for a taste test. I can’t tell you how nervous I was to bring those truffles to the office. What if they all HATED them? I started to doubt my recipe. So, I thought…maybe if I put them in a cute tin with some paper shreds, I might get some presentation points? (I have no clue if this was part of the judging criteria, but to me, a pretty dessert never hurts!)

I was told that they were announcing the winners on Saturday at a furniture store, which was 40 minutes away from our house. H offered to bring me, since he knows that I ::really:: needed to know and waiting until Monday for a possible phone call would just KILL me. So, we went.

I can’t tell you how nervous I was. My palms were sweaty, I had butterflies in my stomach and I kept telling my H that there was no way I placed. No way. Listening to some of the finalists, you could tell they knew what they were doing.

They announced 3rd place (wasn’t me)….2nd place (wasn’t me)…so, at this point, I told H at least I tried. The 2nd and 3rd place winners won gift certificates to a local grocery store, which to me, would have been completely awesome to put towards the Christmas dinner we were hosting! But yeah, didn’t win 2nd or 3rd place.

They go to announce 1st place, and my H is just smirking. I was 99% sure I was just going home empty-handed, because the 2nd place winner made a cheesecake. Why would they choose another cheesecake-type dessert to win? However, they said “Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles”.

WHAT?

I WON?

I looked at H and started tearing up like a dork. I’m such a dork. I couldn’t BELIEVE I won!

The prize for 1st place was a $1000 for Paula Deen furniture at the store. I already discussed with H that if I won, I really wanted to get my family a new sofa for Christmas. He was totally on board with the idea since my family’s sofa is/was about 20 years old and had DEFINITELY seen better days.

Sadly, the store didn’t carry Paula Deen sofas, but thankfully, the clerk who helped me allowed me to use the credit towards ANY sofa. SCORE!

So, my H and I finally found this sofa set that was discontinued on major sale. Not only were we able to get a sofa, but we also got my family a loveseat. I tried to keep it a surprise from my Mom as long as I could, but in the last few minutes, I had to spoil it, since we had to clear the old sofa and the stuff around it before the delivery people arrived.

Blurry shot, but here is the new set!

My family absolutely loves the new furniture, which makes me so happy. When it comes to the holidays, I care more about giving gifts than receiving them. I truly love to see the reactions of those I give gifts to, and this one just had me beaming.

Thanks so much to The Advocate for having this contest! Winning this contest was one of the big highlights of 2011 for me, and I’m sure it was for my family too!