noBOLOGNA

Life Lately

Good morning friends!

I’ll be heading to Atlanta shortly, but I wanted to pop in and catch the blog up on some things going on lately since I haven’t been around much.  I’m so excited about my trip to Atlanta – I’ll see my precious cousin and her little ones, my grandmother, some aunts and uncles, and friends on this trip while also taking a class for the Series 7 Exam.  So what’s been going on?

  • I bought a house!

Crazy, I know.  I had a great experience buying a house and would love to recap that at some point.  I have a few projects on the horizon, so there will definitely be some before/after posts coming soon.

morning-coffee

I’m getting fairly settled in, but it’s been crazy busy in my neck of the woods and things are coming together a lot more slowly than I initially anticipated.  The kitchen is organized though and I have my coffee pot brewing coffee, so that is the biggest start to making a house feel like home in my opinion.  This has been such a fun and exciting experience for me and I’m so thrilled to have my sister living with me during this time!

street-vegan

I’ve been waiting to have my own kitchen back for 3 years now.  Over the past 3 years, I have collected a multitude of vegan cookbooks.  One of which was recently given to me by some friends.  My birthday is in April, but I didn’t get this gift until last week, which turned out to be perfect timing with buying a house.  This cookbook looks so unique and fun!  I’m also looking forward to cooking from Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. and Vegan Cooking for Carnivores.

  • Book Club is Back!!

This is very very exciting, y’all!  We took a little book club hiatus and kept talking and talking about getting it back together…. well, we finally took the plunge!!  We started off with a night at Katy’s picking books and hostesses.  Katy provided tiny home-made pizza’s that we could personalize.  It was so much fun, we always have a great time getting together!  It’s wonderful to love who you work with and I certainly do.

book-club

Then Chris made the cutest bookmarks to let us know when/where/which book we’ll be reading!  The first book club was at Chris’ house and she made some delicious bruschetta.

bruschetta

bookmark

The host always provides the dinner and then you bring your own choice of beverage, usually wine.

  • My best friend is back

me and lacy

Back in July, I got a text message from my friend Lacy (who I met as a VISTA and who was currently working and living in South Carolina) that said she was applying to Law School at Mississippi College in Jackson, MS.  I was thrilled to say the least, but honestly didn’t believe it would actually happen.  I knew she’d get in and I knew she’d get the scholarship she wanted because she’s brilliant, but I wasn’t sure if she would actually take the plunge and move here.  Her boyfriend is still in South Carolina and I didn’t really think she’d be too excited about moving back to Mississippi.  She got accepted, got the scholarship, and decided to accept!  She’ll be here for three years and we have so many memories to make!  The very first memory made was with Sweet Tea, of course.

Well, that highlights a little about what’s been going on.  I’m off to finish laundry & packing, but I’m hoping to be back more frequently these days.  I have internet at my new house now, I have inspirational places to blog, and I have lots to blog about!

  • What’s been going on in your life lately? 
  • Have you bought a house, what was your experience?
  • What do you think makes a house feel more like a home?

Life Update – Food & Things

Good morning!

How is your Wednesday so far?  I’m looking forward to wrapping up a work week today.  At 3:00 AM tomorrow, I’ll be off on a fun road-trip with Katy & Chase to see our co-worker, Jeff, get married this Saturday in Milwaukee.   I haven’t been on this long of a road trip with anyone except Nick and my friends Lacy & Noelle (when we ran the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon.)  I love road-trips and I think this will be so much fun getting to know my co-workers a little more.  We’re taking the Prius of course!

For now, let’s just do some catching up!

  • Nick’s 10 Year High School Reunion

A few weekends ago, Nick and I attended his 10 Year High School Reunion.  It turned out to be a lot of fun!  I saw an old friend, Amanda, that I hadn’t seen in a really long time and we got to hang out with a couple, Will & Anna, that we’ve recently become good friends with.  Anna and I didn’t go to school with these people so she text me right before and asked if I was coming to this shindig and I was ecstatic that her and Will were going to be there because it was a nice surprise to spend an evening with them.

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The lighting wasn’t great at the venue, but the food, beverages, and company was awesome!

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A few things about this picture… 1) That dress is a new favorite!  I found it on sale and the picture doesn’t do it justice.  It’s a good maroon color and is very flattering.  2) My skin has seemed rather oily lately, so I’m trying out a few Arbonne products to help with that.  Hopefully part of it was the lighting in the room.   I’ll get back to you on what the products do for my oily skin right now!  and 3) This girl.. she’s just the sweetest!  It was such a treat to catch up.

  • Cade LOVES his Uncle Nick

This isn’t new news, but I love that Kathryn sent me this snap recently.  Cade seems to think that Ed Sheeran looks like Nick and every time he comes on the TV screen while they have music playing in the background, he starts calling Nick’s name!  It’s the cutest thing.  We miss him so much, but hopefully we have another trip to Disney in store for the near future!

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  • Athenos Greek and Lebanese Cafe

Greek food is becoming my JAM!  We tried a new to us Greek restaurant recently and it was different from what we’re used to.  It had a Lebanese aspect to it and the decor was more “date night” than we expected.  I don’t know about you, but we’re used to a more relaxed atmosphere in a Greek restaurant.  It seemed a little pricier than we expected, but the food was delicious and there was plenty of it!

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I got the falafel wrap with hummus and a salad.  I was pretty impressed with myself for getting hummus and salad instead of fries.  The hummus was great and the wrap was on point.  We will definitely be going back there again!

  • Cauliflower Buffalo Wings

You guys… Can we just hold the phone for a hot minute?!  Cauliflower Buffalo Wings… HAVE YOU TRIED THESE YET???!!!!  I bought a head of cauliflower not too long ago, but it had been in the fridge for about a week.  I had one of those lazy evenings at home and decided I should use up that cauliflower before it went bad.   I had been wanting to try Hot for Food’s Cauliflower Buffalo Wings recipe and although it seemed like a handful of steps, I figured – why not?!  Turns out, it really wasn’t as difficult as I originally thought and they turned out to be my new favorite party food or midnight snack.  I can’t wait to make these for friends.

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They were perfectly crispy and had just the right amount of heat.  It seemed like I burned them, but they didn’t taste burnt at all.  I’m a huge fan now!  Also, cauliflower has a lot of nutritious benefits I realized – lots of protein, fiber, and potassium!  #winning

  • Have you gone to your highschool reunion yet?  What was it like?
  • Do you like cauliflower buffalo wings?  What’s your favorite recipe to use?

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

 

Blountville, TN

Good Morning & Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  I had two baby showers to go to and some raw vegan food-prep to do, it was a fun weekend and I look forward to recapping that later.  Right now, I’m excited to share about our Memorial Day weekend – it was a doozy!  We had two weddings to attend.  One was Nick’s neighbor growing up and friend from Boy Scouts which was in town.  The second wedding was for Nick’s cousin and it was in Blountville, TN – the weddings were less than 24 hours apart, 8.5 hours away from each other and we intended to be at both.

Let’s back up though to Friday…. On Friday, I felt like I was coming down with a sinus infection.  Immediately after work, I went home and tried to rest up, drinking lots of fluids.  I knew that I couldn’t get sick because we had an intense weekend ahead.  Thankfully, I woke up Saturday morning feeling much better as if I was on the mend!  Nick picked me up early Saturday morning so we could work on a French Drain at my boss’ house.  That was some of the toughest work I’ve ever done.  Nick had agreed to the project before getting a job offer so he was able to start earlier in the week, but paused Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday because of his new job.  We picked back up on Saturday, hoping to finish the project.  I was there for some manual labor and motivation.  We worked from 7:30 AM – 4:30 PM.  We finished up just in time.  We rushed home to get ready for our first wedding that weekend. We barely made it to the wedding on time and at this point, my poor legs were killing me from all the squatting that day for the French Drain work.  We stayed at that wedding for a brief while to say hello to the very few people Nick knew, enjoyed some food, had one beverage each, zero dancing ensued, and we devoured rock candy on the way back to Nick’s.

We decided to go ahead and start our journey to Blouteville, TN for the second wedding.  It was at 1:30 PM on Sunday so we knew we were driving through the night.  We drove for a few hours starting at 9 PM before stopping at a rest stop to take a nap.  We napped from 11 PM to 3 AM and then I woke up to drive until Sunrise.  Nick finished off the drive and we arrived to the hotel by 11 AM.  Luckily, they let us check in early so we could go ahead and get ready and meet up with Nick’s fam before heading to the wedding.

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With Trey & Kathryn living in Florida, we don’t get to see Cade as much as we would like so every time we’re all together, he clearly steals the show.  His cuteness knows no bounds!  He loves his aunts and uncles so so much, it is the most precious thing to see.

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What a little ham.  I love him so much!

This was one of the funnest weddings we’ve ever been too and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the outdoor wedding.  I’m not an outdoorsy person – I don’t like bugs and grass can be so itchy, plus there are ants… and I don’t do ants EVER!  They did a great job planning this outdoor wedding though.  I’m so disappointed that I didn’t take more pictures of the decor, food, drinks, and farm!

The ceremony was held outside and it was short & sweet.  The bride was absolutely beautiful and there was clearly love in the air!  Once the ceremony was over, the bridal party went to take some pictures and we reconnected with friends and family.

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It was fairly hot so my hair went up pretty quickly.  The rest of the day was full of yummy food & drinks paired with lots and lots of dancing!  Nick’s family is so much fun!  This was my first time meeting his cousins in Pennsylvania and they were so sweet and fun to hang out with.  His cousin, Katherine, who got married, as I mentioned… was gorgeous!

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I didn’t get the best pictures (my phone isn’t doing a spectacular job these days), but look how pretty!!!  The wedding wrapped up around 8:30 PM and we decided to meet up with some family at Olive Garden to end out the night.  The visit was extremely short, but oh so sweet.  Hopefully we have another reason to all get together soon!

I woke up Monday morning completely miserable though and my sinus infection came back with a vengeance!  I’m so glad it decided to post-pone itself until after the wedding, but I was pretty miserable the rest of the week.  The drive home was awful and a struggle for both of us.  Nick had a pretty bad headache when we started out, but it cleared up a few hours into the drive, thank goodness.  I only worked an hour and a half on Tuesday because I was so sick, so I rested up Tuesday, felt a little better Wednesday, and about 95% Thursday.

Overall, Bloutville, TN was good to us!

 

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The views and statements expressed on No Bologna are my own. You are reading No Bologna at your own risk and I am not providing any type of professional advice. Unless otherwise noted, all material on No Bologna may not be used, reprinted, or published without my consent. I do occasionally have affiliated links on my blog - this does not raise the price of the product, I simply get a very small commission from the regular retail price if something is purchased using an affiliated link on my site. I appreciate any support by you in regards to affiliated links.