mexican night

last weekend we had mexican night, complete with: chicken fajitas, corona, tequila, nachos, sombreros, and a special dessert! i found a recipe for margarita cupcakes online, so i took a recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker and made it my own (a little more semi-homemade). everyone loved them (and even though there wasn't any chocolate - my weakness) i thought they were pretty good too. 

for the cupcakes:

1 box of betty crocker french vanilla cake mix

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup water

3 eggs

1 lime zested and juiced

2 tablespoons of tequila

cupcake liners

(combine and beat ingredients together with a stand mixer. fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. bake in a 325F oven for approximately 20 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test. cool completely.)

for the tequila lime buttercream frosting:

2 sticks of butter at room temperature

5 cups of confectionary sugar

1 lime zested and juiced

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 (or 2) tablespoon(s) tequila

2-3 limes for garnishes

(place butter in the stand mixer and beat until fluffy. add 4 cups of the confectionary sugar, lime zest, juice, salt, and tequila. mix until thick. if too thin, add up to another cup of confectionary sugar.)

i added one drop of green food coloring to add a little excitement :)

and here they are after i piped and added lime slices for a garnish.  i had a lot of fun documenting this, so i think i will try to do more of this in the future!

downstairs bathroom completion

we finished the downstairs bathroom (well, except for the cabinet hinges and knobs which will be done tonight); such a gratifying feeling! here are a few pictures of the finished product, the lights tend to discolor the paint in photos, so i also put up a picture of the sample. 

here's what we did: removed the old wallpaper, primed and painted (it took a long time to choose the color), refinished/sanded/stained the cabinet under the black shelves, painted the crown moulding, added the black shelves and things on them from ikea, made the valance (ikea fabric), and added the chrome accents to everything (knobs, towel hook, toilet paper holder, etc).

i have to say that i really like the way this room came out! and now that i'm going through mike's old pictures of the room to see the wallpaper and changes over time, there are a few more pictures than i anticipated, sorry!

"rhubarb" the second color from the top

before

look at that wallpaper. the bathroom is on the left - i guess mike didn't take many pics of the original bathroom. sad. 

here is the cabinet before we refinished it... and some of the wallpaper

i said we went between a lot of color options

and after!

sorry, i said that was a lot, but i'm proud of our work! now it's onto finishing the basement bar :)

happy friday!

ikea adventure

i love ikea. like love love love love. my friend, kate, and i decided to go there tonight to get some swag for the downstairs bathroom and the soon-to-be bar area in the basement. we went alllll out. we also brought mike with us and wheeled him around in a wheelchair all night... this is literally the first time he has left our house in a week.

here are a couple pictures of some of our purchases (plus 5 bar stools and a few other goodies). 

why yes, that collection includes shelves for the wall you see in the picture (our downstairs bathroom), candles and other trinkets to put on the shelves, stuff for hanging the shelves, shot glasses, boxes and magazine racks for storage, fabric to make a valence for the bathroom, and some track lighting for the bar area. whew!

and roxy has a thing for boxes... i was still trying to put this one together!

roxy and the vet

So I had to bring Mike's and my kitty to the vet tonight, and what a train wreck.  She has maybe meowed a total of 5 times in her entire 1.5 years of life and she meowed and shrieked the entire 15 minutes there.  I was so sad. I had this fear of her hating me afterwards and it was awful.  

The one funny part were her choices of hiding spots.  I noticed a few months back that when I vacuum she hides behind Mike's huge desktop computer in our bedroom so I guess this was fitting.  I did catch some funny pictures.

scouting out her hiding spot

not quite the right hiding spot

she found one!

i wish there was a clock on the wall to see the time lapse of a half hour in the same spot

she loves nothing more than her treats... but as you can see, all she would do is stare at them (it is that little spot in the middle of the light tile)

All in all she was a trooper... cried the entire 15 minutes home... and is now cuddling in bed with me.  Moral of the story: she doesn't hate me now and I hope she won't after I have to bring her back to the vet twice within the next month... eeeeek. 

woke up to roxy under the covers with me...how? who knows lol

chaos.

this week has been pure chaos. mike had foot surgery to remove a shattered bone in his foot, and i have to constantly tell him to go sit back on the couch and put his foot up because he is such a busy body like me (love you, baby :) ) (his foot has to be up for 2 weeks!). i am in-between jobs so-to-speak as i am spending this week half in our office in rocky hill and half in elementary schools in waterbury preparing for our in-school golf instruction (oh and those two places are 30+ miles apart). i am working with my other roomies to finish our basement bar (the paint, moulding, cleaning are done in half of it - photos soon!).  and to top it all off, last night i got in an accident and had to sit there for an hour and a half in the snow waiting for the cops... even though neither car had any damage. i was a WRECK, i have mild hypoglycemia and by the time we got out of there (thank goodness jeff was with me) it was after 9:30 and i hadn't eaten dinner yet. blah. 

i am reeeeeally looking forward to this weekend and hope it will be super relaxing! now i just need to get through friday!

lover boy cuddling with stitch on the couch with his foot up

awesome ikea stools i found for $17 each! going on an adventure with kate to get them on tuesday :)

i think we need a bigger cart

but jeffro makes it look super easy

seriously, blogger? disney revisited.

so apparently my disney photos posted in no order whatsoever, even though usually they post according to their time, so here is my attempt at remembering what we did everyday:

day 1 (wednesday, january 4th): magic kingdom, coronado springs for mexican dinner

day 2: magic kingdom, mgm, espn wide world of sports (health and fitness expo for half marathon prep), magic kingdom for the electric light parade, contemporary resort for dinner

day 3: animal kingdom, fantasia mini golf, coronado springs for dinner

day 4: half marathon, winter summerland mini golf, wolfgang puck dinner

day 5: mgm, pool/hotel time, mgm for fantasmic, steak and shake for dinner

day 6: epcot, boat ride around epcot/mgm/ boardwalk, hotel time, epcot for illuminations

day 7: mgm, magic kingdom, downtown disney, wolfgang puck dinner

day 8 (wednesday, january 11th): magic kingdom, home

phew,  i think i did it! 

and maybe one or two or four more pictures (ones i took from the half marathon website)

my day at school

i went to an elementary school in waterbury today - 90 minute snow delay, woo! but look at this, they do phys ed in the cafeteria and during the lunch period they have it in the front hallway. wow

back to work monday

after 3 weeks of amazing christmas/new years/disney/marathon vacation, it's back to business for this working girl. i really thought 3 weeks would feel a lot longer.  so as i sit here, listening to pandora, catching up on my nearly 100 emails, tweaking our social media pages, and nibbling on my mickey and minnie shaped chocolates (the dark chocolate raspberry/chocolate truffle filled roses are the best), i reminisce about my last 3 weeks.

disclaimer: i love my job, i just also love waking up at 11/cleaning our house/remodeling our basement/watching tv/going on rock 'n roller coaster all day too.

disney day 8

disney day 7

disney day 6