Float like a butterly...

...Sting like a bee.

My little bumble bee was not happy about his costume.

He won't even look at the camera.

Please ignore all the cords. I'm refusing to turn our heat on, so we have electric heaters out.

This was our trial run in his costume. I'm hoping he does better the 2nd time around.

Happy almost Halloween!

bzzzzz! bzzzzz!

Help me recreate...

The best part about this busy work time is the free lunches we provide on med school applicant interview days. We have a fantastic catering company that we use for every meal.

My favorite meal is the Sweet Basil Chicken with brown rice.

It. is. AMAZING.

Sometimes there is enough left over for me to take home for dinner.
This is where you all come in.Anyone ever made anything like this before?I would kill for a similar recipe.
Here is the description from their website:Sweet Basil Chicken - a sweet chili sauce spiked with basil coating a tender grilled chicken breast.

Warm and Cozy

Ty was determined to start a fire for the first time in our house. I guess last year he was too focused on school to think about using our fireplace. Not the case this year. We ran to the store and bought wood and marshmallows.

Nuts wanted in on the action.

I'm listening to the fire crackle right now. It's perfect.

Mediterranean-Style Pot Roast

I wrote about a roast I was cooking last week and several of you asked for the recipe.

Mediterranean-Style Pot Roast

(from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook, but slightly altered)

Ingredients

(1) 2-3 lb. boneless beef chuck pot roast

1 tbsp cooking oil

1 med. onion, sliced

(1) 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes w/basil, oregano and garlic, undrained

1/4 cup sliced, pitted ripe olives

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp. dried herbes de Provence, crushed (I have never found this in the store and have never used it.)

1 tsp. black pepper

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (Ty doesn't like this, so I use it only on my portion.)

Directions

1. Trim fat from meat. In a large skillet brown meat on all sides in hot oil. Drain off fat. Set aside.

2. Place onion in cooker; top with meat. In a bowl combine undrained tomatoes, olives, Worcestershire sauce, herbes de Provence and pepper; pour over meat in cooker.

3. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 8-10 hours or high-heat setting for 4-5 hours.

4. Plate the meat and spoon juices over it. Sprinkle with feta cheese.

*We also add carrots and potatoes to this before slow cooking. Basically it is roast with a slightly different taste.

Sorry I don't have any pictures. It looks like roast with olives and feta cheese. :)

brightens my day

Med school applicant interviews have officially started and that means long days. Not really in hours. My hours stay about the same. But these days, while I love them, wear me out. Something about constantly being "on" all day is exhausting.

I decided to design a cover for my interview day binder. Just a little something that will make me happy when I see it.

I love these colors.

Using my WS pumpkin loaf pan for the first time this Fall also brightens my day.

Even though it's a pumpkin mold pan, I don't bake pumpkin bread in it.

I don't actually like pumpkin flavored food.

This is banana nut bread.

NBA & old friends

When I was in college I had an internship with the New Orleans Hornets. They were displaced in OK after hurricane katrina. It was the best internship ever! I met some amazing people. When you work in the NBA you spend a lot of time with your coworkers and you get to be quite close to them.

My old boss at the Hornets took a job with the Thunder. He got tickets for me and another girl that I interned with, Kasey. She and I went to dinner before the game and got caught up on each others lives.

This collage is for Chesley.

When I interned for the Hornets I would get free tickets. Chesley came to a few games and loved Air Hugo. When Air Rumble came out I immediately thought of her.

Kasey and I after the game.

We hung around after the game to see Jason and some other people that I worked with that now work for the Thunder. It was so weird to be on the court and behind the scenes again. I saw all the players getting scanned (for guns, metals, bombs??) before they boarded the bus home. I met a lot of the Thunder staff. It made me miss the NBA. {But not the long work hours.} It is such an incredible and fun atmosphere. There is so much excitement and adrenaline in the air.

My old boss, Jason

date night with my dearest

Friday night Ty took me on a date. We went to this upscale, outdoor shopping center for dinner and window shopping.

We ate here:

Had warm drinks from here:

I somehow got Ty to walk into Pottery Barn Kids. I love that store.

We are not having a baby anytime soon, but I just love nurseries. What girl doesn't?!

I loved this sweet lambie bedding.

In the store the bumper was switched around to where the white side was showing and the sheets were white and beige striped, like a seersucker print.

It reminded me of this onesie I made for a friend.
The sheets were the same as this lamb's head and legs.

Sea of Orange

Homecoming at my alma mater is a huge deal. It is so much fun! All the sororites and fraternities pair up and create these huge house decs:

It takes weeks and weeks of preparation and pomping. Pomping is stuffing pomps (essentially sqaures of tissue papers, but they are sold pre-packaged and are thicker than tissue paper.) into chicken wire. I like homecoming a lot more now that I'm not required to do so many hours of pomping each week. :)

The Friday night before the game there is a huge event called Walkarounds, where everyone walks around (obvs) and looks at all the house decs. We didn't go to walkarounds this year, but I wanted you all to see pictures of my sororities house dec.

I borrowed these pictures from fb.

They did such a good job. I loved it!

AXO placed 2nd overall in the Homecoming competition. yay!

The best part about Homecoming is seeing friends that I haven't seen in a long time!

I can't celebrate anything without this girl. Thankfully, she only lives 10 minutes from me.
Love me some Chesley.

I was SO excited to see Laura! (sorority sister, one of my bridesmaids, bff, etc.) She lives about 5 hours from me. I went to the game with her. We had so much fun.

Joy just happened to be sitting about 7 rows below Laura and I and we randomly saw each other. (She was also one of my bridesmaids and one of the first friends I made at OSU.)


Joy and I visited these girls during halftime. So happy to see them all!


I ran into a ton of other friends that were in town for Homecoming.
It is the best game of the season for that very reason.

The game itself didn't start until 8 PM! It made for a very, very late night. Ty and I had to drive home after the game. We left early and still didn't get home until 12:30ish.

Speaking of Ty, he is practicing his knot skills for his surgery rotation on my toes. It is tickling me and I'm about to lovingly kick him in his face to make him stop.
{I was just informed that "knot skills"=suturing.}

Free Stationery...I'll take it!

I read about this on Lis Loves:

"FB exclusive: FREE PERSONALIZED NOTECARD! Send us an email to VIP@traylorpapers.com with your name & address and we'll send you a free customized card with your name. Tell us your favorite colors and/or style (i.e., whimsical, classic, girly, etc.) and we'll try to make you a match ;) BONUS: post this offer on your blog or wall, send us a link and we'll send you a few extra! Good thru 10/28/09!"

I was pretty skeptical, so I looked it up on FB myself. I love personalized stationery!

Traylor Papers has a ton of cute items. I can't wait to get mine in the mail!

Why does Target hate short people??

I love shopping at Target. I can spend hours in that store just browsing each aisle. My bff and I used to meet their for our weekly grocery shopping trips. My wallet is thankful that has stopped. (We are both too busy right now, but I think we need to schedule one soon! hint, hint.)

I ran into Target on my lunch break last week and found some great dresses, but none of them fit! Boo hiss.

A $60 dress at Target???

Really??

It is an Annu Sui for Target dress and I'm guessing that is why the price is so high.

It's a gorgeous dress. But $60 at Target kinda goes against my principles. Good thing they didn't have it in my size, so I wasn't tempted.

I couldn't get this to zip in the back, but I wanted to show you all how cute the dress is.

I love sweater dresses with boots and tights. I was so excited to see that the Merona brand had lots of styles and colors this season.

This would look great on a tall person or anyone over the height of 5'2".

This one was my favorite. Love the ruffles. It hit me about half way down my shin. Not flattering. But once again perfect for you tall gals.
**Update: Target does have a small petite section online and it contains the ruffle wrap dress above. yay! Thank you to everyone who told me about it!!

Monday night I was at a recruitment event with a group of my student ambassadors. Several of them read my blog and were playfully teasing me about my mirror shots of my outfits.

sidenote: I am very lucky to work with a great group of students. I always have so much fun when they get to attend recruitment events with me. (I'm the same age as most of them.)

I know they secretly like those pictures. I thought of them the next day when I was getting ready in my hotel room. So this is for them. (You know who you are...)

This outfit turned out to be more casual than I would have liked for the event I was attending. But I was travelling and did not pack a back-up outfit and I dropped a hamburger on the silk dress I wore the day before. (fingers crossed that my dry cleaners are working some magic on the stain.)

{I try to wear school colors when possible to recruitment events.}

Brrrr!

The tempatures have been unusually chilly for this time of the year. I got to wear a sweater and boots Friday night. I was so excited.

The cowl neck on that sweater pulls up into a hood. You know, in case you get really cold or something. ??? I tried to take a picture of it as a hood, but Ty walked in and laughed at me so I gave up.

I interviewed for a position within my company on Friday afternoon at 4:30. Isn't that an awful time?? I think it went well, but we shall see. I'm so thankful for those people who were thinking of me and praying for me. I didn't get a nervous, shaky voice once and I didn't sweat during the interview. (Usually, when I get nervous I sweat like crazy. I did sweat before the interview, but not during. TMI, maybe. But it was completely a God thing.)

Ty asked me what I wanted to do Friday evening and I told him to take me to dinner. He chose Steak and Shake. classy.

We shared one of these.

My brother would be so proud of Nuts. He is finally interested in chasing the light from a laser pointer. My brother's and sister's dogs both go crazy chasing the light at my parents house. Nuts is never interested in playing that game. Ty bought a pen light to use on his rotations and there is a laser pointer on one end. He got it out the other night and Nuts started going crazy.

Ty has also been sneaking around the corner and shining the light on me to see if I will notice. He thinks he is so funny.

The rest of my weekend:
*I spent Saturday working on a project that is almost complete and I will be sharing pics soon.
*Chesley came over and watched the OSU game with us. They won. Go pokes!
*Our neighbors invited us over for a cook out Saturday evening.
*Ty worked on a presentation Saturday night and I went to Chesley's to watch Grey's.
*I bought a pumpkin and a mum today. Love the colors.

*I currently have a mediterranean pot roast in the crock pot and chocolate chip cookies in the oven.
*I should be in my room organizing my closet and packing up my summer clothes, but instead I am blogging and perusing the internet. I need a professional organizer to come help me! Any takers??

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!