my man is coming home

TODAY! Today is the day Ty is coming home! He has been gone the whole month of March on his rural rotation. He was about 3.5 hours from me. I did get to see him on the weekends, except for this last weekend. What a long, lonely weekend it was.

Ty's grandparents live about 40 minutes from where he was for the month. He got to spend a lot of time with them and I know he was so happy they were near. I went to their house one weekend and met Ty at the hospital first. He gave me a tour of his quarters.

The lovely hospital room he stayed in all month.

Now, before you start to feel bad for Ty for living in a hospital room and sleeping on a hard bed, he did get free food: breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was at a newly built hospital and they apparently have a great cafeteria. Townspeople eat out there. I hope my cooking is up to par. :)

You see those blue scrub pants; he lives in those things.
I can't remember the last time I saw him in jeans. haha.

I cannot wait to have this guy home with me every night! Hurry home husband.

mascara trials

My favorite mascara for the last three years has been Dior Blackout.


This little tube can get quite pricey for mascara and I have randomly bought drug store brand mascaras over the years to see if I can find anything comparable. I never have any luck and always go back to it. The last few times I have bought it I felt like they have changed the formula slightly. So, my quest for a great drug store brand began again.

Full N' Soft was my favorite mascara in high school and college. It still is a great mascara, but I feel like it doesn't have enough mascara on the brush and I never get my lashes as full or as dark as I do with Dior Blackout.

I have probably tried six or seven different mascaras over the past 4 months. This last mascara spree was a success. First of all, I had a coupon at Ulta and the Maybelline mascaras were buy two, get one free. Second of all, I found the ONE.

Here is my new favorite: Maybelline XXL Pro 24 hr. Bold.

I don't usually like having too layer two different formulas, but this one is great.

And it is a savings of almost $16 compared to Dior Blackout.

I had planned on taking picture of my lashes with each different formula on, but laziness won out. This was my runner up.

I love big wands, but I do have a problem with getting black specks all over my freshly shadowed eye lid. The brush may be a little too big.

Wow, my eyes look tired. Ignore them and just look at the lashes.

I did try mascaras that weren't the Maybelline brand, but they were no bueno. I guess I am drawn to them due to my old fave, Full N Soft.

What is your favorite mascara?

Blog Sale! {sold}

I am following the trend of several other blogs. I bought this trench coat last Spring from Target. I couldn't resist the navy. Unfortunately, it was too big, but that didn't stop me. This is why I shouldn't shop alone. :)

So my mistake can be your win! It is in great condition and has only been worn a couple of times. It is from the Merona collection and is a small.

It is hard to resist a fun color with polka dots as a lining.

Trench coat $20 shipped. {SOLD}
E-mail me at sweetsimplicityblog@gmail.com if you are interested.
Payment will be accepted via paypal.

snowy weekend

Our church hosts an Easter egg hunt every year and it is always a big event. Our church has a lot of involvement with a low-income elementary school in the neighborhood and a lot of those children come. Our Sunday school class always distributes fliers in the surrounding neighborhoods. We do it pretty early in the morning, so we just hang them on doorknobs. Of course the freezing rain and sleet started before we headed to the church, but we braved the elements.

Ty wanted to stop at QT for coffee and donuts before we got there, so that meant no time for make-up. See the picture above: best donut holes ever. Of course, we should have known there would be donuts at the church. Is any early morning church event complete without them??

Can you spot me in this picture?

By the time we were done it was snowing big flakes. I convinced Ty that we needed to make a Target run. We rented The Hurt Locker and The Couples Retreat and prepared for a day stuck inside. The roads didn't get that bad, so while we tried to stay off of them, it was nice to get out for a few errands on Sunday. Hopefully, this is the only freeze of the season. We are ready to plant some flowers, trees, bushes, etc.

perfect spring afternoon

Today reminded me of my college days, when the sun was shining and you grabbed your best friends and went to Boomer Lake to walk around. Ah, the good ol' days.

Today was just like that except Chesley and I were no longer in our college town, but our big grown-up city. I loaded Nuts up in the car, picked up Ches and headed to a park. The sun was shining and the trees and flowers are slowly starting to bloom.

This is the park we visited, but this picture is from last year in late April.

After a good walk in the park we headed to a Queenies for dinner. Nuts did such a good job sitting outside with us while we ate. He received a ton of attention and just loved it.

Today reminded of how much I love my city. There are parks everywhere, great little, local eateries and friendly people. I feel the winter blues melting away.

weekend recap

Ty and I spent the weekend at his grandparents' house in the country. We had such a good time catching up with them and his mom, and of course played endless hours of cards.

Nuts was on high alert looking out for the cats.

We went furniture shopping on Saturday. My MIL bought this gorgeous chest for the new garden room (sun room) that they are building at their house. Isn't it fab?!

I took yesterday off from work to return home from the country. Last night Chesley and I had a girl's night complete with mexican food and a watch party. We had two sorority sisters that appeared on MTV's True Life, I Need a Transplant.

YouTube+Workout Videos

I have been bored with my usual workouts and as a result have stopped working out and have become quite soft. (Although, I'm sure all the food I have been consuming has nothing to do with it.) I need something new to keep me entertained. I have been contemplating Pilates, but I have never tried it.

Tonight I got the brilliant idea to YouTube pilates for beginners. Several videos popped up and I tried a couple. Holy cow, I have zero stomach muscles!

Then, I searched for zumba and I was reminded that I lack coordination.

I wish this guy would have been on the YouTube video I found. haha.

I am going to be sore tomorrow!

Lunch Date

I had a lunch date with some of my favorite bloggy friends, Whitney, Emily and Megan.
Unfortunately, Megan got stuck in a work meeting and we had to eat without her. :(
It was nice to catch up with Emily and Whitney and see their little ones. Our waiter was not excited to see the hostess sit two highchairs at the end of our booth and did not try to hide his displeasure. It was really odd. He claimed he was terrified of dropping plates, drinks, etc on a child. Weird.

Levi is quite the ladies man.

Is there anything better than fresh flowers??

Spring is almost here!

weekend recap

These are my latest obsession. They are soooo good and addicting.

Ty and I had such a great, relaxing weekend. The weather was amazing and we definitely took advantage of it. I had planned a huge event that took place on Friday and it was so nice to be able to relax after it was over. I am taking Monday off to help me recover. :) Although, I'm sure I will be answering a few e-mails just to stay caught up.

I am in a weird work place right now. I am still doing two jobs and training my new boss (all on a measly salary). I love what I do, but feel overwhelmed in terms of my position and the amount of work. It isn't really proportioned and it can be frustrating. I can tell my blogging juices are not flowing lately and work is one of the big reasons. I figure you all don't want to listen to my work frustrations every day and I don't want to put them all over the interwebs.

I have lunch plans tomorrow with my city bloggy girls and I can't wait to catch up with them all!

one photo, many ways

I was in Houston and Austin last week for work. I love pictures of trees and the University of Texas campus is full of these gorgeous live oaks. (I think that is what they are.) I would love to have a picture wall full of all the different places I have visited represented by the trees. I'm almost positive I take at least one picture of a tree everywhere I visit.

I recently downloaded The Pioneer Woman's action sets for photoshop and started experimenting with this picture I took last week at UT.

1. straight out of the camera

numero two

numero three

numero four

numero five

numero six

I took this picture to capture the trees, but I love the way the newspaper stands look. Which is your favorite?