The Return of ME!

I am SO sorry for being MIA lately. I felt like I was doing so good at blogging – and I was so proud of myself! – but then the weather started spiraling downhill and raining and/or snowing for days and days. And it was so cold and dreary. And work has been absolutely insane the last month. I just felt like I needed a few weeks to relax and cuddle on the couch and have me time. But I think I’m back now and I have so much to talk about! Where oh where do I begin?

First of all, I officially have my own domain name!

http://www.lovelywanderingthoughts.com

We’re getting too much of this lately.

Second, I finally caught up on everyone’s blogs.. and you guys are as awesome as ever!! I tried to like and/or comment on quite a few posts (some of you may have been bombarded with both!) but I just wanted to let ya’ll know I haven’t forgotten about you!

Third, I found this awesome recipe for Lemon Pepper Chicken Divan on Amber’s blog over at Momma In Bloom. It was so creamy and cheesy and just plain yummy! I don’t have an oven-safe skillet, so I just put it in a 9×13 Pyrex pan and it worked fine. I definitely recommend trying it out!

Fourth, my beauty products! I’ve been contemplating cancelling my Birchbox, so I didn’t bother writing anything about February’s box. I should be receiving March’s soon. I’ll discuss my Julep box on Friday (for the Friday Nail Files). And that leads me to.. my first Ipsy bag! I actually received it in February, so I’m not going to go into TONS of details – as my March bag should be arriving soon – buttt you can check out this awesome blog called Pearls and Paris and she goes into much more detail (we received the same bag!) AND gives discount codes for all the items. Unfortunately, I’m a little late to update and the codes expire tomorrow.. so get shopping!

Quick review – Black patent leather makeup bag – looks kind of cheap, but still cute for little items. Eye shadow pallette – the yellow looks a little too bright, but I’m willing to try it. Primer – went on super smooth and made my skin feel really soft. Mascara – I’m very, very faithful to my current mascaras but it defined my lashes nicely and didn’t get clumpy. Lash card – I have tried these things before and was not impressed, so I just threw mine out. BUT the winning item in this bag – the gel eyeliner!! I am not a fan of liquid eyeliner and I always have difficulty finding pencil liners that give me the look I want. I used a small eyeliner brush to apply the gel liner.. and I instantly fell in love! Overall, I was super impressed and the $10/mth price is pretty awesome too 😉

Fifth, my BFF from PA introduced me to this jewelry brand called Alex and Ani. They sell bracelets that are like charm bracelets – except they’re bangles! Their prices vary (some are quite expensive!), but most of them are really affordable. I’ve never been a fan of charm bracelets – they’re a little too gaudy for me – but these bangles are seriously SO cute.

$48 – source

$38 – source

And lastly, I was tagged by the lovely Mrs. Burnett for a Five Things About Me challenge and I figured.. why not?

One – I have a problem with things that don’t match or things that aren’t consistent. A few examples – I have all 4 books in the Twilight series but only one is paperback and it drives me crazy every time I look at it. I color code all my notes at work and if I write something down in blue instead of green on accident, it’ll seriously drive me nuts until I can either rewrite everything or use white-out to fix it. I can’t think of anything else right now (way too sleepy!) but you get the idea. Is this OCD-like behavior?

Two – I have baby fever to the extreme. Like I really, really, really want a baby. Most people are aware of this. (Mom – are you aware of this?!) The hubby is well aware of this and is – thankfully – on the same track as me. So yay 🙂

Three – I don’t feel like the same person I was before my grandparents died. Sometimes I don’t understand how I’m continuing to live my life without them. I know I was running away when I moved to NC. I know I did it because I couldn’t handle living in the same town they lived in. It hurt too much. Thankfully I love our home and the city we live in, but it’s sometimes hard to know I’m here because I wanted to hide from my fears.

Four – I could watch HGTV for hours and hours and hours and not get bored. Seriously! I love watching shows about people house hunting or renovating their houses or selling their houses or anything! If I even watch 2 seconds of a show, I have to watch the whole episode because I need to find out what happens! I get drawn in so easily!

Five – I got a tattoo my senior year in college. It’s a red rose on my right hip bone. Yes, it hurt. No, I don’t regret it. Yes, I still love it every time I look at it. And yes, I sometimes contemplate getting a second one but I don’t know if I have the guts to do it!

Feel free to join in and write 5 things about yourself on your blog – just don’t forget to tag me! 😉

Sunday Social #1

((First time linking up with Ashley from Ashley Lately and Neely from A Complete Waste of Makeup for Sunday Social! Feel free to link up!))

1. What is your ideal way to relax?

A glass of wine, a good book (or my Kindle), and a bath with lavender scented candles or bubble bath.

2. Where is your favorite place to be?

At the beach! Walking on the boardwalk.. listening to the waves.. looking at the sun or moon reflecting on the water.. it’s beautiful! Not to mention pretty romantic 😉

3. Who do you consider your biggest role model?

Definitely my mom. Yes, she’s had her ups and downs in her life.. but she’s conquered everything and she’s an absolutely awesome person. She took care of my grandparents (her parents) right up until the day they died. She did everything she possibly could to make their lives better. And she’s also an awesome mom and my best friend.

4. What does your life look like in 3 years?

Well, hopefully I’m further in my career as a nurse – Nurse manager? Care coordinator? And hopefully we have a little one and maybe another little one on the way?

5. If you could go back and change one decision, what would it be?

Honestly, I can’t think of one major decision in my life that I would want to change. The bad decisions we make along the way are the things that make us grow! There’s definitely stupid things I did during the summer that Joel and I weren’t together, but what’s the point of dwelling on that? I’m super happy with where my life is right now.

                                           Source: marylenagbang.tumblr.com via Cybill on Pinterest

 

6. What is your biggest accomplishment in life so far?

By the age of 25 I’ve managed to graduate college, get an awesome job, move 500 miles away from my family, marry my soulmate, and buy our first house. I’d say I’m doing okay.

30 Day “What If” Challenge

Day 17 :  What if you had 25-hour days (while everyone else continued to have 24-hour days), what would you do with the extra time?

Oh gosh, this is a terrible question to ask me. I lose hours of my day on a regular basis. I’d probably end up sleeping it away or watching trashy reality tv and not even realize I had an extra hour. If I was really motivated – I’d say I’d take that extra time to prepare super awesome meals for my dear hubby. Or play with my dogs. Or clean my house. But in all actuality, I’d probably just lay on the couch and watch tv. Not very motivated, eh?

What would you do with an extra hour?

Reblogged Inspiration

Found this on a blog that I thoroughly enjoy reading. I loved the quote and loved the picture so much that I felt like I needed to reblog and share it! Enjoy 🙂

Pearls and Paris

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My Brain Is Exploding!

Oh myyyy, I feel like my brain is about to explode! I woke up today (after only 2 1/2 hours of sleep after working all night) and I felt like my brain was going in 8,000 different directions. There are so many things I want to write about but there’s just not enough time in one day, so I’m doing the only thing I can think of.. I’m going to make a list! I love lists!

Cybill’s List of Future Topics

1. It’s OK Thursday – will be done today!

2. 30 Day “What If” Challenge Day 11 – will be done today!

3. Inside my 1st Julep Maven box – coming tomorrow for The (Friday) Nail Files!

4. Top 10 Favorite Beauty Products – coming soon!

5. My first guest post about my own personal love story – coming soon!

Phew, I hope you guys are ready for all of this! I definitely am! 🙂

It’s OK Thursday #2

Well, I’m technically linking up with Amber from MommaInBloom for It’s OK Thursday (because it’s her idea) but she wrote about a yummy and healthy chicken salad today instead – you should still check it out!

It’s OK..

That I’m never able to cook pork chops correctly. I found this yummy recipe for honey garlic pork chops and I decided to bake it in the oven instead of grilling it. Well, the marinade was super yummy, but the pork chops were tough and dry. I’ve tried making pork chops a million different ways – with only a handful of times actually being successful – but I’m not giving up!

It’s OK..

That I love reading pregnancy blogs and looking at pregnancy and/or baby boards on Pinterest.. even though I’m not pregnant. BUT someday I will be pregnant and I’ll already have tons of awesome ideas in my head. And I’ll already have tons of topics to discuss with my awesome readers 🙂

It’s OK..

That I’m nervous about being a preceptor to a senior nursing student. It’ll be my first time being a preceptor so I feel like I have every reason to be nervous – but I’m sure I’ll feel even better after I take my preceptor class! (I’ll probably end up writing about this more in depth at some point.)

It’s OK..

That I had my time zone set as “South Georgia” and I couldn’t understand why it was putting my time as 3 hours later than the actual time. Apparently, South Georgia is not the same as the actual state of Georgia. I am now correctly listed as being in the NY time zone, phew.

It’s OK..

That even after feeding my dear hubby dry, tough pork chops last night – I’m feeding him Hamburger Helper tonight because I’m too exhausted (aka too lazy) to cook anything. In my defense, I worked 7p-7:30a last night and then had a CPR class from 1-4 today – so I’m running on less than 3 hours of sleep today!

Easy AND yummy.

30 Day “What If” Challenge

Day 11 : What if you could hear what someone is thinking for a day, who would you choose?

Hmm I’d probably say my husband. Yes, I understand this could be a good or a bad thing. It could be good because most men (including my hubby) are not always very verbal about what they’re thinking. It’d be interesting to actually hear everything that goes on inside his head! On the negative side – there could be things that I definitely don’t want to hear. Anything from checking out the bartender or cashier or someone else attractive (he would never! hehe) or complaining about some of my terrible dinners (he better not!).

My second choice would be to hear the thoughts of one of my patients at work. Now I think I’m a pretty good nurse and many of my coworkers have told me that I’m a great nurse, so I don’t worry about that. But I have this problem of being quite clumsy.. and I drop things.. and I run into or trip over things. A lot. I’ve been told by many, many patients that I look too young to be a nurse.. so I wonder if they look at me and think “who is this girl who looks like she’s 15 and keeps dropping things and should I trust her to take care of me?”

First day of work as a nurse.

Whose thoughts would you want to hear?

What I’m Doing Wednesday #1

Let me begin with some background information.. Amber from MommaInBloom was my first friend on WordPress (and is actually a real life friend too!). I keep finding all these awesome ideas from her blog, so pleaseee go check it out. I’m borrowing some of my ideas from the section of her blog titled “Loving and Pinning,” where she talks about the things she’s currently loving and currently pinning. She linked her Pinterest/pinning idea to a blog called The Vintage Apple that has a section titled “Oh, How Pinteresting!”  – you should definitely check that out also.  I ALSO discovered “What I Wore Wednesday” from The Pleated Poppy, which another fellow blogger (MrsBurnett22) linked up with here. (PHEW!!)

Now that THAT is out of the way.. let me introduce you to What I’m Doing Wednesday. It’s going to be an (almost) weekly update on random things that’s happening in my life at that current time. It might not be the same things every time. It may be only 3 things.. or maybe 7 things.. I really have no idea. It’ll pretty much be random (of course), but feel free to join in and link up! So here we go!

What I’m Reading

“I Like It Like That,” which is book #5 in the Gossip Girl series. I loved watching the TV series and now I’m heartbroken that it’s over, so I felt like the obvious next step was to read the books. It’s a little bit weird because there are definite differences, but it’s a quick, easy read – I’d definitely recommend it!

From Google Images.

What I’m Wearing (on my nails)

I’m not allowed to have my nails painted when I’m at work so the first thing I did when my mom came to visit (and I was off work for a week!) was get a manicure. I think the design is supposed to be zebra print. Either way it’s super adorable and I’m going to be so sad on Friday when I have to go back to work and back to ugly nails. Bleh.

It’s really hard to take a pretty nail picture.

What I’m Buying

We have a local spice shop that sells all sorts of spices for really reasonable prices. I happened to come across this yummyyyyy Dill Dip spice. You’re allowed to taste everything while you’re there and this stuff is so so good. You can add it to sour cream for a dip, cream cheese for a spread.. or you can just sprinkle it over some cooked vegetables like we did for dinner. Seriously, so good.

Blacked out the address, don’t want stalkers, lol.

What I’m Looking At

I recently discovered this website called Reddit. It’s full of hilarious pictures – sometimes I almost cry because I’m laughing so hard – but it also has a lot of drug related and perverted pictures, so look at your own risk. Anyway, I came across this insanely awesome picture of a bookshelf that someone uploaded. Not only do I LOVE bookshelves, but this one is seriously a piece of artwork. Gorgeous!

So awesome.

What I’m Pinning

I’m still trying to figure out how to embed these directly from Pinterest, so for now.. they will not be centered and I haven’t figured out how to add any additional words.. so I’ll write my little notes up here.

1. Glue wooden letters to canvas and paint. Super pretty and seems super easy!

2. A Jack Daniel’s bottle as a soap dispenser? Pretty sure my husband would not only approve of this, but would also LOVE it. Maybe for our downstairs bathroom??

Anyway – let me know what you think of What I’m Doing Wednesday! 

Source: inspirationformoms.com via Cybill on Pinterest

Source: curlybirds.typepad.com via Cybill on Pinterest

30 Day “What If” Challenge – Day 1

So I’ve been playing around on the internet looking for something to do to motivate me to update my blog.. and I’ve decided to do a DAILY QUESTION! I found this 30 Day Challenge on Tumblr and I’ve decided it’s perfect. Hopefully I can figure out how to link up with other people and get started – let me know if you’d like to join – or if you know how to help me link up with others who might be interested. So here we go!

Day 1 :  What if you were in a fire and you could only save one object, what would it be? I’m going to make this slightly more difficult and say you can’t include people or pets, because I’m going to assume that’s obvious.

Oh crap, I decide to start this and now this question is really stumping me! I’m going to go with my first thought and say my wedding dress. (I’m really big on trusting my instincts and this was the first thing that popped into my head, so I’m sticking with it).  My wedding day was truly magical. Hopefully someday I have a daughter.. and no, I wouldn’t expect her to wear my dress or veil.. but maybe somehow incorporate part of it into her wedding. And if not, it would still be awesome to have my dress to show my future children.. future grandchildren.. nieces.. whoever would enjoy seeing it! My wedding dress is a symbol of something that is very, very important to me.. and something I’ll always cherish.  (I always wear my wedding band set so I’m not counting those!)

What would you save??

Oh, What A New Year

Oh gracious. I promise I’m not neglecting you my faithful readers (there has to be some of you.. right?!). I wish I had more time to update, but I’ve been way too busy being sick (I think I’m finally better now), working, and cleaning like a crazy person because I was preparing for my mom’s arrival. She arrived on Thursday and is staying until the 10th so I can’t guarantee a ton of updates this week.. sorry!

She really, really wanted a sign.

We had a billion days of rain last week so on Saturday when I took the dogs out after working all night.. my precious little Roxie decided to lay on her belly and pull herself through piles of mud. Yep, through the mud. She was quite pleased with herself.. until she realized that it meant I would be giving her a bubbly bath. At 8am. After I worked 12 hours. UGH! But look how cute she is 🙂

Muddy feet.

I’m working on organizing my life and my first project was using my awesome new makeup organizer that I talked about here and that you can purchase here. I seriously love it! It’s meant to be placed on top of the counter, but I have a serious issue with things cluttering my counters.. so I made room for it under my cabinet and it’s beautiful! I seriously love using it and now I need to go out and buy more makeup because the whole back half of it is literally empty.

Perfection!

Today is Playoff Sunday.. let’s go Redskins! My mom and I made a feast with tons of yummy foods and most importantly, we made Cranberry Pomegranate Sangria! You can find the awesome recipe here which I found on Pinterest, of course. It’s seriously amazing. Unfortunately, the Redskins appear to be losing and will most likely have lost by the time I end up publishing this. My dear hubby is not very happy.

Pot ‘o Sangria.

So I guess I’m going to finish this update with my New Year’s Resolutions.

1. To become a better, more successful blogger. I want to become more involved in the awesome WordPress blogging community and participate in daily activities. Or maybe even make my own daily activities/topics to blog about! I have a seriously hard time updating when I have to work, so I can’t promise daily updates, but I hope to update at least 3 times a week. One of my favorite things is “It’s OK Thursday” by an old coworker of mine. You can read her blog here.

2. To become more involved at work. I’ve already begun working on this goal, go me!! I’ve been working as a floor nurse for 3 1/2 years now and I feel like it’s time to start working on my career. I’ve agreed to be a preceptor to a senior nursing student for an entire semester (which should be starting in the next few weeks). I’ve agreed to take a charge nurse class. I signed up for an ACLS class. I’ve signed up to be on a committee to help educate other nurses on new nursing skills. I feel like I’m heading in the right direction, especially because education is something else I’m very passionate about.

3. To become more organized in my life. Pinterest exists for a reason!! I’ve pinned a billion different ways to clean and organize my life.. now it’s time I get started! I’ve already begun working on this goal. Go me! My next task is figuring out how to make my closet a little less chaotic.. at least until we can have someone come in and customize/rebuild my walk-in closet for me. I also hope to FINALLY paint some more rooms in this big ol’ house. I’ve only succeeded in painting the living room, the downstairs half bath, and the upstairs guest bathroom.. and we’ve lived here since May!

I have way too many beauty products.

I think I’ll just leave it at that for now. Wish me luck!

And now something to make you giggle.. that I found on Pinterest.. of course.

And So It Begins..

Okay, so first of all.. I created yet another blog about 3 weeks ago. Something called a Weebly. It was cute and I liked the layout, but I realized no one else has a Weebly.. and therefore no one can follow me. And I can’t follow anyone. Which seems quite boring as far as blogs go.

So here I am.. creating yet another stinkin’ blog. Seriously, I have so many of these things floating around the internet that I should SERIOUSLY be famous by now. Or at least have hundreds of faithful followers.

But my problem is that I start blogs when I’m bored.. and it’s late at night.. like right now. And then the next day comes and I work and take care of the house and go grocery shopping and do who knows what else.. and then I completely forget about my cute little blogs that I spend so much time creating.

Therefore, my pledge to you.. dear faithful reader of.. well, no one right now.. I pledge that I will be better at this blogging thing! Because I really want to have a hobby of some sort.. and what better than playing on a computer? I spend enough time on Pinterest, I could dedicate a whole blog to my pins!

So wish me luck and let’s begin this awesome journey together! (Yet again.)