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November 26, 2016

Thanksgiving 2016

Good Morning and Happy Saturday!!

I hope you and your family had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving filled with love, laughter, delicious food, and much more.  I enjoyed celebrating my first Thanksgiving in my new home.  I woke up with my sister and we made some “sausage” croissants (a family tradition!)

sausage_croissants

She used a fake sausage crumble of course and then she seasoned it perfectly mixed with cream cheese and wrapped in a croissant, cut into pin-wheels.

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The remainder of the morning was spent prepping food for lunch with my family.  I made Green Bean Casserole, Cornbread Dressing, Vegetarian Gravy, and Peanut Butter Pie.  My sister made mashed potatoes.  Everything turned out so good!  I have found a new Green Bean Casserole (it’s not the one on the back of the french fried onion box) and it’s completely plant-based except the fried onions.  I’m absolutely in love with it!   The cornbread dressing was definitely not healthy (2 sticks of butter!!) but it was delicious and everything I hoped for.  I tried to find a healthier recipe, but would you believe that one does not exist – That I can find?  Lastly, the vegetarian gravy…. y’all – I can’t even begin to express how delicious this gravy was!  My dad even liked it and he’s all about that meat.  It tasted perfect!  I will never miss meaty bone fat gravy again.  Now, I tried Minimalist Baker’s Vegan Peanut Butter Pie.  I didn’t get to eat it during Thanksgiving because I was a little late making it, but I had a slice this morning and it wasn’t half bad.  I’ll be honest though, when you’re used to creamy peanut butter pie with cream cheese and sugar and all that’s horribly wrong for you – it’s not even close to the same thing.  My dad refused to give it a try though because it contains tofu haha.  You really can’t taste the tofu and I think it’s worth giving a try.  I love the chocolate gonache on top – I’ll definitely be using that on top of some other pies in the future.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pictures the remainder of the day.  I did spend a good bit of the Holiday reading my next book club book though and it was so good!

Have you read Me Before You?

me_before_you

I finished it pretty quickly because it wrapped me in.  Their relationship was so sweet and I loved seeing it bloom throughout the book.  I won’t spoil the ending for you in case you haven’t read it, but I certainly was a bag of emotions at the end of it all.  I immediately watched the movie afterwards.  The movie left off a few things I found critical in the book, so be sure to read the book!

I love reading a good book during the holidays.  I mostly read personal development books these days, but this was a nice treat to get lost in another person’s story and life.  I can’t wait to discuss this one with the girls!

After spending the morning lost in the book, I went to a Holiday Open House with local vendors.  It was so much and I went Facebook Live for the very first time!!  Do y’all know how scary that is?!  No room for error, right?  It was fun though and I got more comfortable with it as I continued on.  That’s exactly how life is though – we step outside of our comfort zone and suddenly our comfort zone expands and it’s not as scary anymore.

doterra_oils

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holiday_open_house

That about sums up my Thanksgiving Holiday!!  Today I’m going to pick up a tree at my parents and get to decorating!  I love this time of year and I’m excited to spend it with those I love most.  We have a few exciting things on the calendar for the month of December – a first annual Thanksmas party, Nick’s first work Christmas Party (I’m excited to meet some more of his co-workers!) and then of course, my office Christmas Party.  I’m going to miss our Arbonne Christmas party this year because it falls on the same day as Nick’s work party, but that’s okay.

Alrighty, well I’m off to do some more cleaning before starting to decorate.  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Filed Under: Arbonne, Family, First Home, Food, Reading, Recipes, Vegetarian Leave a Comment

September 3, 2016

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 and other Vegan Cookbooks

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?

Filed Under: First Home, Mississippi, Travel, Vegan Tagged With: blogging, bookclub, coffee, food, mcalisters, vegan Leave a Comment

June 22, 2016

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!

 

Filed Under: Family, Favorite Things, Food, Nick, Recipes, Travel, Vegan 1 Comment

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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.

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