CHANGE OF PLANS

so, i was planning a post about my boring friday for tomorrow, but sometimes things change.  my friend lindsay came over for dinner about three hours ago, we had a lovely dinner, and started talking about this FAMOUS golf tournament this weekend that she has tickets to.

well, three hours later and now we're going.

chicago, here we come! FOR THE RYDER CUP!!!

actual pro-con list my roommate made that convinced me to go. please try and read this if you can...

i cannot thank my amazing boyfriend enough for making this possible for us.  i love you so much, mike!!

singer/songwriter - Laura Dowding: TAKE A LISTEN!

laura and i have been friends, well, forever.  she grew up down the street from me, we went to the same school pre-school through high school, and she has always been a wonderful musician.

laura and i on our first day of preschool

now, she is reaching for her dreams.  she has been living in LA for a while now, and now she is taking the next step...

photo by christine laudone

she just began her kickstarter, and i am so happy to support her.  if you would please watch this and consider supporting the project, either by simply publishing it on your own blog or giving monetarily, it will definitely be worth your while.

not to mention, she is one of the kindest and most genuine people you will ever meet in your life.

come on, don't you want to be able to say that you helped her with her first album when you watch her accept her first grammy on tv??

why yes, that is us sitting in the piano bench in her living room at her 2nd birthday!

fyi my mom sent me these pictures via her cell phone - hence the less-than-perfect quality.

last night and today

last night, mike and i went to the other side of ct for a banquet.  we were super early, so we decided to take some back roads to look at a cool nuclear power plant on the river.  on the way back to the main roads, we found this great spot with nearly 1000 ducks - it was amazing!

today has been spent doing some shopping [will update on that soon] and watching tv.  i think the cats think i'm intruding on their space when i have weekday days off - needless to say they don't look too happy.  haha.

apparently this is the new sign for "i need water"

i'm also linking up with jane for insta tuesday!

the animal game

my favorite week of lessons.

your response, "what are those kids doing, and why do they look so funny golfing?"

if i were to say: bat, flamingo, and elephant, would that make it easier to understand?

the kids hit golf balls as three different animals: as bats (with their eyes closed), as flamingos (on one foot), and as elephants (with one arm as a trunk). it makes a little more sense now, right?

aside from being really fun, it helps promote balance as well as strength and stability in different parts of the body.

we also played some tic-tac-toe.

don't you wish you could be in my class? :)

rocky road bites

ever since i made these delicious cookies and cream cookies, i have been in search of other ice creams to make into cookies.  after multiple attempts, i have come up with these! [they are more like "bites" than cookies, hence the name - but they are a good take on rocky road ice cream.]

ingredients:

- chocolate cake mix [prepared as stated on the box - but with 2 eggs instead of 3]

- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips 

- 1/2 cup heath toffee bits [you can use nuts if you aren't allergic like me]

- mini marshmallows or regular marshmallow cuts into pieces

directions:

- preheat oven to 350

- make chocolate cake batter

- add chips and bits

- heavily grease mini muffin pan

- add a tablespoon of batter to each cup

- stick 2 mini marshmallows or pieces of marshmallow into each cup

- bake for 10-12 minutes, until toothpick test comes out clean and marshmallows are brown

i think my next creation will be mint chocolate chip cookies.

i know it's finally fall when...

college golf season begins!

i went to visit my alma mater play golf today at a course about an hour from my house.  it was great; the course was beautiful; the trees are starting to turn and i was so happy to see my friends!

almost everyone i played with in college has graduated [that makes me feel old], but it was nice to watch my last collegiate teammate play.  a couple of my fellow graduates also came back to watch with me, so it was nice to reminisce.

i love still feeling connected to the team because my coworker from camp is now a sophomore on the team, so i look forward to following her for a few more years!

beautiful scenery

with my coworker and former teammate

we tried so hard to duplicate this from 2 years ago...

and of course i had to stop at the best farm around to get goodies for the team 

fresh berries and homemade peanut butter

and of course cupcakes for myself and my roommates!

top 10 of my day off

10 trips to stack firewood

9 ingredient rocky road cookies

8 trash cans emptied

7 slices of american cheese and

6 slices of buttered bread for grilled cheese lunch with my love

5 episodes of how i met your mother watched 

[in preparation for the new season next week!]

4 stove burners scrubbed

3 miles run

2 new manicures 

[my roommate and i both got purple nails!]

1 awesome power outage 

[there are crazy winds and rain in the northeast today, so the power went out for a while tonight.  not going to lie, it was great.  my roommates and i haven't had a lot of time to spend together lately, so, like we've done during the last few power outages, we walked a few miles around our neighborhood seeing where the outages stretched.  i loved it; we always enjoy each other's company when we have the time!]

ready for grilled cheese!

our backyard fire pit with my nicely stacked wood in the background

recipe to follow!

sunday snaps: let's give this a go

i love blog browsing, as i bet many of you do.  i recently found this great link-up from jules and sarah b texas: sunday snaps.

i swear, i think i could start [and have thought about starting] another whole blog just with day-by-day link ups!  between confessions, pinterest, book clubs, recipes, nails, favorite things, and updates when am i going to have time for self-expression and my own ideas on my blog? haha

i'm not good at confessing things, i'm a bit worn out from pinterest after my pinterest april, i don't have much time to read lately, but i really like this photo one!!!

and even better, i also have great pictures from sundays because i work, hence my tuesday days off.  i have 3 classes of adorable 5 & 6 year olds on sundays, so they always do something funny!

we do a lot of jumping to promote balance; they were trying to jump all the way around in a circle.

shadows and socks

they love rolling down the hill

learning about aim and targets

also, here is my instagram: megatronnn27 in case any of you would like to follow.  i know kristen asked me for it yesterday in a blog comment, but i'm not a fan of how blogger/google doesn't alert you to blog replies.  what's the point of asking a question in a comment if you have to go back and check for answers! annoying! [okay, weekend rant over.]

hope you all had a nice weekend - let me know if you also decide to link up so i can check it out!

easy dinner night

i love them.

stouffer's french bread pizza and mama rosie's cheese ravioli with bertolli sauce

so i did a bad thing...

... i went window shopping.  this never ends well. 

maybe it's because my current kitchen is the only room in my house i am not obsessed with, or maybe it's because i love cooking, baking, and every kitchen gadget ever, but in either case, i always imagine my dream kitchen.

i had a little time to spare before work today, so i stopped at kohl's.  they have my favorite selection of kitchen stuff!  what i REALLY want is a kitchenaid stand mixer, but i don't want to get one until i know the color of my future kitchen - silly, right? but there are so many colors, so i'll wait a couple more years to get the perfect one :)

here are a few photos from my trip to kohl's:

cake pop makers, donut makers, waffle stick makers, pancake makers, cupcake makers galore!!

OBSESSED.

and i love keurigs almost as much as kitchenaids

as you can tell from these appliances and the paint in our current house, we love color!!! 

so, after much deliberation, i think i want an aqua sky stand mixer (second one on the page).  

now here are a few photos of my dream kitchen based on that lovely kitchenaid:

i really like the layout and style of this first kitchen.  i love the kitchen island with seating, stainless appliances, and desk on the side (that i would use for cupcake decorating).  

via

i would just want to add some of these turquoise accents to it, maybe turquoise island seating, turquoise plates or mugs in see-through storage, a turquoise backsplash or paint accents, and of course my dream stand-mixer [with another possible appliance to match -- this is my dream, right?].

via

now i have even more reason to save money to make this happen in my next fixer-upper.  maybe i'll take some tips from gabbi over at retro ranch reno who made my dream a reality!  

top 10 of my day off

10 painted nails

9 rooms of dusting

8 hedges trimmed

7 online presents purchased 

[have you ever noticed the number of  birthdays this time of year?]

6 photos instagrammed

5 fresh picked veggies

4 loads of laundry

3 loads of dishes

2 purry kitties

and 1 svu marathon

merp wants to be like roxy

tomatoes, eggplant, and a pepper

my backyard

america united.

we will never forget september 11, 2001.

while those terrorists took so much away from us, they also gave us something that they were seeking to destroy: unity.  they were trying to shatter our nation, leave it in pieces, and while they did that to american landmarks and american families who lost loved ones that day, they also brought so many people together.

i was only in 7th grade, but i will never forget the sense of unity in my small northeastern town during the days and weeks following that day.  every year i feel the same way around this time, and even when mike and i traveled to new york city this past winter and walked around ground zero, it seemed as though no one was complaining, no one pushed through the crowd, and everyone, even ten years later, observed this site with respect.

from the brooklyn bridge