La Petite Chic

Fabulous Find Friday

Who doesn't love a good peanut butter & jelly sandwich?  It's definitely a front runner for my all time favorite sandwich (along with a juicy tomato sandwich in the summer).  I like mine with creamy peanut butter and strawberry fruit spread, thankyouverymuch.  I love this Peanut Butter and Jelly Spreader from Williams-Sonoma.  No need to use two utensils for your peanut butter and jelly; just use one end to spread your PB and the other end to spread your jelly and violá--there'll be no mixing of the two!

 

Next up are two fabulously beautiful, yet simple dresses from Target.  You all know how I love wearing my dresses!  The first dress is the Bubble Sleeve Dress for $24.99.  I love white for the summertime and this one would also look great over tights while the weather is still cool in the spring. 

The next dress is the Kimono Dress in Fuschia, also for $24.99.  It comes in many other colors like blue and yellow, but I really love this one.  I think it's more coral than fuschia, but the color is beautiful regardless of what it's called!  This dress can easily transition from over your bathing suit during the day to out on the town at night (with the right shoes and accessories!).  Love it! 

Last, check out these darling Sugar Mary Jane Pumps in Yellow, also from Target.  I don't know what I would wear them with, but aren't they so sunny and happy and feminine?  And only $19.99!!  They come in red and blue too, but yellow is definitely my favorite.

I have a $25 Target gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so it's safe bet that either one of those dresses or the shoes will be coming home with me this weekend!

Updates and Wine

Our neighbor stopped by last night to give us an update on his plumbing woes.  Everything has been fixed and is back in order and you would be none the wiser that there was ever a minor flood in the kitchen.  For their troubles, Chris's landlord gave them a $100 gift certificate to The Cheesecake Factory.  In turn, Chris invited Jon and I out for dinner this weekend to thank us for our help.  Of course, we didn't expect anything in return but it's nice to be rewarded for our efforts!

Heard a little something from Google...they're still trying to get approval for my GPA.  Seriously?!?!  What's so bad about a B average student?  Helloooo!  I ran D-1 cross country, indoor and outdoor track (in season all freaking year), held a job at the library, was a VP in the SGA and was in the Young Democrats.  What the freak, Google? 

Moving on, go check out my guest blog today over at EmilyPie while she enjoys her vacation in Napa Valley.  There's mention of wine and 5th grade and err, more wine!  Go now!  And leave comments!  No one has left any comments yet and I'm feeling a bit like I'm letting Emily down!

Photo Pie -- Week Five

I've missed the last few PhotoPie challenges, but my life has finally slowed down enough to allow me time to take a few pictures!  This week's challenge is Spring..that's it!  I loved this challenge as it gave me a good reason to take pictures of all of the beautiful flowers that are in bloom.

Here are a few of my favorites:

   

Water, Water Everywhere!

I fully intended to post last night about the dentist appointment (i.e. torture) I had earlier that day.  That is until our neighbor, Chris, came banging on our front door last night just as we were finishing up Chinese takeout from our favorite restaurant.  I figured he was coming over to harass us about our matching license plates that arrived in the mail yesterday and which we already put on our cars (and which look completely adorable, by the way).  Nope, I was way off.  When Jon opened the door, Chris simply shouted, "Water emergency, come quick!" and ran back to his apartment.

Jon took this as a code for "Dear neighbor, my girlfriend is at work and I'm bored.  Please come drink beer and play video games with me."  So he sauntered over to Chris's apartment and within five seconds he ran back in the door and said, "Quick, grab some towels!"  Meanwhile, I was trying to enjoy Dancing with the Stars and the rest of my beer on the couch, but as soon as I heard the word towels, I ran in the bathroom after him and frantically shouted, "Don't use our good ones!"  (I am in love with the towels we registered for for our wedding and am quite anal about keeping them nice!)

As Jon was pulling old beach towels out of our linen closet he quickly explained to me that there was a major leak in Chris's kitchen and that he was going to try to fix it.  Sidenote: Since we have become homeowners, Jon has become quite the handyman.  My hubby can fix minor plumbing issues, knock down and build walls and install lights with the best of them.  Anyway, since it seemed that Jon and Chris had the situation under control, I decided to get back to my beer and my t.v.  About 15 minutes passed and Jon still wasn't back, so I decided to go see if the guys needed any help.  I knew it was bad as soon as I walked outside our door.  There was a huge puddle of water in the hall right outside of Chris's apartment.  "Ohhh, shit" I thought to myself.

I opened the door and immediately saw the kitchen covered in at least an inch of water.  Wet towels were heaped at the threshold of the kitchen in an effort to save the hardwood floors in the living room and dining room.  Jon was still under the sink trying to fix the leak and Chris was on the phone with his landlord explaining the situation.  I immediately ran back to our condo to get the bucket and ran right back to Chris's apartment, rolled up my sweatpants and started to wring the wet towels into the bucket.  All in all, I think we hauled out over ten full buckets of water from the kitchen floor.  Keep in mind that Chris kitchen is about the same size as ours so that would make it about 5'x5'.  That's a lot of water for such a small kitchen! 

Jon was able to determine that the hot water pipe was busted but he wasn't able to fully stop the leak even after turning the water off.  He got it down to a strong leak, but it still would have required Chris to bail out the bucket throughout the night.  His landlord was a little hesitant to send out an emergency plumber since they are ridiculously expense, but Chris was trying to convince him that it was quite the dire situation.  We were finally able to get the floor completely cleared of the water after about 45 minutes of the bucket, towel and mop brigade.  I'm just glad that Jon and I were home to help him out because both his girlfriend and the other roommate weren't at home.  He didn't even know where the water shut-off valve was and the only reason Jon did is because we had a leak in our shower last year which forced him to find it.  I can only imagine the water damage had we not been able to locate it.

Even though we were the helpers last night, it makes me really grateful to have good neighbors because I know he would have done the same thing for us.  It's a relief to have people you can count on so close by, whether it's for bailing out water or to borrow a cup of sugar.  I still have to recount my dentist story for you all, but I just had to share the water debacle first.  Also, look out for my guest post tomorrow over at EmilyPie while she gets her wine on in Napa Valley!  Lucky girl!!

Leftover Mashed Potato Soup

Jon and I spent Easter dinner with our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Unnaturally Blonde.  This was the first holiday for both of us that we didn't spend with either our own parents or our in-laws and to be honest, it made me feel a little old.  We were the grown-ups and we were in charge of cooking and if the turkey got burned or if the casserole wasn't ready on time, we only had ourselves to blame. 

Jon and I (read: me) brought the mashed potatoes, cheesy broccoli casserole, a veggie platter, and rolls and I also baked mini cherry cheesecakes.  Mr. and Mrs. UB took care of the turkey (yes, we had turkey on Easter because neither myself nor Mrs. UB are very fond of ham), stuffing, corn, salad and peach pie with vanilla ice cream.  Needless to say, we had more than enough food for the four of us and there were plenty of leftovers.  Since I used about five pounds of potatoes to make the mashed potatoes, we had a whole bowl of those left.  I went in search of a good recipe today to use the rest of them up and came across a hearty soup recipe called, wait for it....Leftover Mashed Potato Soup. 

I gave it a shot tonight and it was definitely a big hit with Jon.  He had one big bowl of it, finished up the rest of mine, and I even caught him scraping the leftovers out of the pot when he thought I wasn't looking!  The soup was a great alternative to Shephard's Pie for using up leftover mashed potatoes and was really easy to make.  The other wonderful thing about it is that it uses ingredients that we normally keep around the house, like bacon, chicken broth, sour cream and shredded cheese.  I'll definitely make this one again.  Here's a picture of the finished product before I dug in!

Leftover Mashed Potato Soup (found here)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter or bacon drippings
• 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
• 14 1/2 ounces chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 2 cups prepared mashed potatoes(leftover is great)
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
• 2  scallions, finely chopped
• 3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 tablespoons cream or half-and-half

Directions

1.    Cook bacon, and set aside to crumble.

2.    In a large saucepan, cook onion in butter or dripping until softened.

3.    Add chopped mushrooms and cook until tender and onion is golden.

4.    Add chicken broth, salt, pepper, and paprika, stirring to mix.

5.    Blend in mashed potatoes, stirring until lumps are gone.

6.    Bring soup to a boil, then lower heat and add cheddar cheese, stirring until it is melted and smooth.

7.    Mix in scallions, crumbled bacon, sour cream, and cream/half and half, stirring to heated through but not boiling.

 

Baking In Bloom

I was at the mall on Tuesday night to get my jeans hemmed and I can never go there without checking out the clearance bins at Williams-Sonoma.  You're guaranteed to find some cocktail mix or cooking sauce on sale for $2.99.  I didn't find any of those things in the clearance bin this time around, but I did find this beautiful gem:

I guess I should let you all in on a little secret.  I'm a closet June Cleaver.  I am in love with aprons, especially those with a vintage feel like this one.  I adore the ruffle details and the tiny pocket that this lovely apron has.  My mom bought Jon and I matching aprons (Mr. D... on his and Mrs. D... on mine) from Red Envelope as an engagement present and I've been collecting them ever since.  I was lucky enough to stumble upon a trove of handmade, vintage aprons at a yard sale last summer.  You wouldn't believe the beautiful details on those.  I think the old woman I bought them from was so happy to find a buyer who would obviously love them as much as she did. 

So when I saw this apron reduced to $25 (from $35), I thought, "what the hell, it's gorgeous and it will make me happy" so I decided to add it to my growing collection.  I plan on wearing it for Easter while I'm preparing some of the dishes for our dinner.  Now if only I had a bigger kitchen to cook in! 

P.S.  I swear you read my mind, Jess.  I saw your last comment and was like, holy crap, I was just about to write about my new apron!

Le Google

Rather than sounding like a broken record and explaining why I've been so glaringly absent from my blog and all of yours, I'll just say that life has been busy.  Very busy.  And of course I have had some free time at night after my long days at work, but to be honest, I have been exhausted.  So exhausted in fact that I'm starting to get concerned that something is wrong with me.  I've been trying to stay rational about why 8 hours of sleep is no longer enough for me by not letting thoughts of "oh my god, I must be pregnant" or "oh my god I must have mono" run through my head.  Easier said than done though.  In all reality though, I figure the fatigue probably has a lot to do with the stress at work and training four new people in the past two weeks while trying to keep up with my own work.

It's actually kind of strange for me to be so busy at work.  We've been in a hiring freeze pretty much since I started at my company, but it's finally lifted and now I barely have time to eat lunch.  Or post on my blog.  Or catch up on anyone else's blog.  I've actually had some feelers out there for a new job.  I'm currently a contractor, which means that while I'm getting paid a pretty penny for my work, I don't have the benefits of being a full-time employee.  And I think it's now safe to talk about an interview I had two weeks ago, because it doesn't look to be panning out.

So I had an interview with Google.  The Google.  As in FORTUNE magazine's top company to work for in the US for two years straight.  Things were looking pretty good.  The recruiters at Google conveyed to my recruiter that my resume had just what they were looking for.  They had two reservations though.  The first was that my college was not ranked in the top 20 universities in the nation.  Dude, the Unabomber went to Harvard.  The second was that my college GPA didn't meet their usual GPA requirement.  Umm, seriously?  I had a B average...isn't that good enough?

My recruiter told me that they were thrilled that I was a scholarship athlete at a Division I school because that's just the sort of thing they look for but she wanted to know if I had any other collegiate extracurricular activities that I didn't list on my resume.  I said, well, sure, there are plenty of things that I was involved with in college, but since I graduated five years ago this May, those things had been long gone off my resume.  In fact, working in Human Resources, I usually laugh at people who are my age that still put all of their college activities on their resume because that tends to mean they haven't done much since then.  But apparently Google puts a pretty heavy weight on those sorts of things.  And did I mention that their employment application asks if you hold any records or if you've ever created your own money making venture?  I thought my answers of yes and yes to both of those would have surely guaranteed me a move to the next step in the interview process.

Unfortunately, it hasn't. I haven't heard anything since last Monday, so I think it's safe to say that it's a no go.  It's a shame, because I was really looking forward to sitting on an exercise ball rather than an office chair at my desk, with my Lola Bean at my side.  It kind of miffs me though that they really care that much about what you did in college and how high your GPA was.  I still have some other full time opportunities to explore at my current workplace so at least I have that going for me.  For now I'm just going to hope that things slow down so that I can take a breath and catch up with all of you!

EDITED TO ADD:  Jess made a great point...why even do an interview if I didn't meet their standards right off the bat?  Well, they have several rounds of interviews (the first few being phone interviews and the final one in person) and when I had my initial phone interview, they were going by my resume that didn't have the GPA or college extracurricular activities listed.  I guess they gave me a chance first to see if I could meet those standards, but when I resent my interview with all of the additional information, they never called back for the second interview.  Meh. 

Fins Up!

Sweet Hazel is officially legal to drive in the Commonwealth of Virginia, thanks to a trip to the inspection station on Tuesday and a trip to the DMV on my lunch break yesterday for a new registration.  Yes, a new registration, not a renewal of my registration.  Apparently, it was so deliquent that I wasn't able to just renew it online.  Awesome. 

However, that did give me the opportunity to apply for a new license plate.  Virginia has the largest variety of vanity tags that I have ever seen.  They have something for everyone.  Sweet Hazel had been sporting the tags of my alma mater since I first moved to Virginia, but it had my maiden name initials so I've been wanting to change it anyway.

Since I love Jimmy Buffett (and my car has numerous Richmond stickers on it anyway), I decided to go for the very exciting and tropical Parrotheads license plate.

Seriously, how fun is that?  Now, I'm not going to give away my license tag number, because that's probably a bit dangerous, but I will tell you that it's some variation of "With Salt."  You know, like a margarita?  I love it!  Jon is going to get a matching tag with a variant of "With Lime."   We are too cute for words, no?

And speaking of Jimmy Buffett, we've got tickets for both the Philadelphia show and the Virginia show this summer!  We're not even sure if we can go to the Virginia show because the first one is on the Friday before Labor Day and the second show is on Labor Day, which just so happens to be our anniversary.  Unfortunately, we're supposed to leave for Mexico that weekend.  The tickets are already sold out, so we figured we can just sell them if we're not able to push our anniversarymoon back a day. I cannot wait...this is going to be the best summer yet!   

Lesson Learned

I've been pulled over a total of three times in my life.  The first was when I was 15 and still had my learner's permit.  I was on my way to the mall with my Dad when I was pulled over for not having my updated registration sticker on my license plates.  I was let go with a warning.

The second time was when I was 21, fresh out of college and on my way back home after a trip to Target.  Again, I was pulled over for not having my updated registration sticker on my license plates and again, I was let go with a warning.

The third time was Sunday.  I was on my way to Target and I saw a cop car with it's lights flashing, blocking one of the two lanes up ahead.  I figured there was an accident and switched lanes. When I approached, I saw that there was an officer on the side of the road, slowing cars as they passed his car. Then I noticed there was a car pulled over in front of his car.  In my head, I was thinking, "Awwww, shit!"  I was on the phone with Unnaturally Blonde at the time and I told her, "Duuuude, I'm totally getting pulled over right now."  And I was. 

The cop signaled me to stop and pull over.  Totally busted!  I was stopped for an expired registration and inspection.  Again.  Only this time, I was not so lucky.  I was slapped with a $125 fine.  One hundred and twenty-five dollars.  That's a fabulous pair of shoes or designer jeans or many, many beautiful things from Target.  Instead, the Commonwealth of Virginia will be taking my $125 for being deliquent on my car registration and inspection.  The cop told me that I can make my appearance in court and that the fines will probably be dropped.  So I get to go plead my case in court and feel like a criminal.  Lovely. 

Anyone see a pattern with my deliquency?  Katie shopping + expired car registration = A run-in with the law. I'll be dropping my car off at the inspection station tomorrow and registering it online shortly thereafter.  I think I've finally learned my lesson...albeit a very, very expensive lesson.  Stupid expired stickers. 

Excuses, Excuses

I didn't post last weekend because I was too busy celebrating this (Happy Birthday, Leen!):

And drinking this:

And eating this:

And drinking more of this:

Oh, and I have ever mentioned that I'm a master sushi chef? 

Or that I can touch my toes?

Or that my husband is the secret love child of Gene Simmons?

No???  Well, now you know!  I'll try to post more later, but I've been training two new girls at work and dealing with Lola's ailing bumhole at home (trust me, you don't want details).  Happy hump day!