Dressing for a Professional Portrait

At work, they decided to retake our photos for the directory.  Most of the photos were horrible!  They were ususally taken on the first day of work, by HR, in front of the background of the year.  Most of us had a lovely blue background.  Here was my picture...
 

My picture was taken after running around the building an getting all sweaty.  Looking at the photo, I wasn't even sitting up straight!  I was so glad that we were getting the chance to re-take our pictures!

This new picture would be with me for a while.  I had to figure out what to wear (jewelry and clothing) and how to do my hair and make-up.  I started by searching "professional business portraits."  I took note of what I liked and didn't like.  Here's where I ended up.  I would recommend a similar outfit to anyone that is going to have a professional portrait taken.

Clothing
I wanted to wear a suit.  I have a black, navy, and grey suit.  I liked the black but I thought it was a little harsh.  I though dark grey would be better.

For the shirt underneath, I didn't want to go bright or white.  I thought the bright would look a little young and the white would wash me out.  I went with a darker teal shirt.

Jewelry
The necklace would probably be the only thing that would show.  Perhaps my earrings. 
I wanted something simple and classic.  This was easy and I settled on my small pearl necklace with pearl studs.

Hair
My hair is naturally curly so I could have gone curly or straight.  The deciding factor here was the time of day.  I had to wait until 1:30 to get my picture taken.  If I went curly and it rained, it's possible my hair could frizz more than I wanted.  If I went straight, I could run my flat iron through it right before the photo.  I chose to straighten my hair and then run to the bathroom before the picture and do a quick once over.

Make-up
This was easy, I was going to go with my normal everyday make-up.  I was going to go with a lip gloss rather than my normal chapstick.  When I ran to the bathroom, I brushed my teeth (it was after lunch!) and did a quick check and reapplication of mascara and lip gloss.

Voilà!

I'm happy with the new photo.  I can't wait until the replace the old one!

Thanks for stopping by!

Garage Makeover

When we moved in, the garage was a holding place for a long time.  A couple of weeks ago, my parents came to visit and we built the workbench.  In anticipation for the project, I took an hour and moved stuff around or put it away.  There was a huge improvement.  Sweeping out the floor and cleaning up the cobwebs also helped tremendously.

After we built the workbench, we moved other stuff around and swept up.  The garage is now so neat and organized that it's one of my favorite places to be.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pantry Challenge: Update - Week 3

Tuesday was the completion of week two of our pantry challenge.  It is going pretty well!  Last week, we ran out of milk and eggs (and dryer sheets and hair gel).  I had to make a grocery store run to grab those few items. 

In the past two weeks, Tony and I have cleared out our crackers, tuna, yogurt, ground beef, lean pockets, juice and pop.  We ran out of bread so I made wheat bread from some flour we bought when we went to Tennessee.  Last Friday, we had Chicken Continental for dinner.  My mom made it a while ago and it's been in our freezer since.  Since Tony's parents came into town this past weekend, we picked up a few items (milk, cheese, and crackers) at the store before they came in.  We still kept it pretty minimal.

Here's where we are:

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3

I think that we'll last until Friday but after that, I think we may need to end this and make a run to the store.  It's getting pretty sparse!

Stay tuned for the final outcome!

Fruitshakes

Have you seen the Yonana's product where you take frozen fruit and turn it into ice cream? Why couldn't I turn frozen fruit, specifically bananas, into a milkshake? 

I'm very picky about when I eat bananas. If there is any brown on them, they're bad. I know that they are not really bad but I can't bring myself to eat them. 

I took my magic bullet, a frozen banana, milk, and a little Hershey's syrup and viola, a banana milk shake!

BANANA FRUITSHAKE
Serves: 1
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
Frozen Banana
Milk
Chocolate Syrup

Directions:
Blend together.
If you add a few frozen strawberries, it tastes like a banana split!

BANANA SPLIT FRUITSHAKE
Serves: 1
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
Frozen Banana
Frozen Strawberries
Milk
Chocolate Syrup

Directions:
Blend together.

Enjoy!!

Pincess: Fix a Broke Compact

 

I saw this pin on Pinterest and I thought I'd give it a try.  What you do is further crush up you make-up.  Then you add Isopropyl Alcohol (found at drug/grocery stores) and mix it well with you broken make-up.  You let it dry overnight and you have a fixed compact.

Here are my results!

Did it work?
Yes but the new compact is not the same as before.  It's much harder.  I have to actually scrap some make-up free to use it.  The brush alone can't get the make-up.

Would I do it again?
Yes. The remaining makeup is lasting.  Just an added step in my morning process.  I'd use this as a final option.

Have you tried this pin?  Did you get the same results?

Grammy's Crab Dip

One of my favorite appetizers is my grandmother's crab dip.  This is something super quick and easy.  There's two ways to serve it and they're both yummy!  If you want something more formal, layering them is the way to go.  If you want something for a larger group, kids, or to take to a party, mixing everything together is the way to go.

GRAMMY'S CRAB DIP
Serves: 2 -8
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
Bar of cream cheese
Can of Crab meat
Bottle of Cocktail Sauce

Directions:
1. Layer cream cheese, crab meat, and cocktail sauce. 
               - or - 
   Mix cream cheese, crab meat, and cocktail sauce.
2. Serve with crackers (I prefer Sociables)

Enjoy!

Pantry Challenge: Update - Week 1

Today marks one week of the pantry challenge.  The weekdays went well but the holiday weekend not so much.  While we were home, we were good.  I made spaghetti with meat sauce a couple times and had sandwiches, yogurt and oatmeal.  With us traveling 5 1/2 hours Friday, this led to lunch in the car (~$15).  Saturday night, we went out to dinner with friends which added to our food bill for the month (~$20 thanks to having a gift card).  Then traveling home on Sunday, things fell apart.  We stopped at the Italian bakery where our wedding cake was from and picked up way to many sweets (cannolis, wedding cake, cookies) (~$18) and then we stopped for dinner (~$15). 

This week should be better since we'll be home all week and Tony works next weekend.  This week, I plan to do something with the frozen ham in the freezer and finish up the ground beef that I cooked and re-froze last week.

Here's where we are now:

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3 

We'll see how long we can hold out...

Return to Reading

Growing up, there were very few books that I read and actually liked.  During my spring break two years ago, I read three books in one week while sitting on the beach.  That fall, I started work and took a couple trips overseas.  While there, I finished 4 books in one trip and 6 in another.  I started to really like reading.  Recently, I haven't been traveling as much and my reading has dropped.  That's got to change.  The goal for the rest of the summer is 2 books per month. I'm finishing up Allegiant by Veronica Roth now.

I found HPB - 100 Books You Can't Put Down.  The books that I have read on their list I did really enjoy.  
 
Amazon also has a 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime: Readers' Picks.  Some of the books overlap with the list above. 

Here are their top 100 books:

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

"Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
“The Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank
“1984″ by George Orwell
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling
“The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Charlotte’s Web” by ER White

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
The Hobbit by JRR Toiken
“Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  by Mark Twain
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Night by Elie Wiesel
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Handmade’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Little Prince by Antoine de St-Expupery
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
MacBeth by William Shakespeare
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Holy Bible: New King James Version by Thomas Nelson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pere
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Catch-22 by Joesph Heller
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Stand by Stephen King
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Outlander by Gabaldon
A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Odessy by Homer
Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from 5 Years of Weekly Knowledge by Sri Sri Ravi Shanker
A Prayer for Own Meany by John Irving
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullogh
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I thought I'd pull from these two lists for now.  Up next, I am between:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Eat, Pray, Love
• The Fault in Our Stars
• Bossypants

What do you think?  Do you have a favorite book on/off the above list?

DIY Workbench

This past weekend was filled with a quick and easy project that made all the difference in the world.  My parents came to visit and my dad helped us build a workbench.  I wanted something that had a table top, a bottom shelf, a peg backboard, and an upper shelf.  My dad had built a workbench years ago when they moved into their current house.  We were going to build something similar. 

When he built his, he used RTC2Z Rigid Tie Connectors.  We used the same ones and they made the whole thing so easy!!

We also used plans from DIY Done Right as the starting point.  We did modify them to create a 6' x 2' x 6' work bench rather than the 4' x 2' x 5' one that the plans had.  We lifted the height of the table top as well since Tony and I are taller. 

Here's what we did.

Step 1: Determine the size of the workbench and the materials required.

As I mentioned, we modified the design to give us a larger workbench.  See our new plans below.

Here's what we needed for our larger workbench:

Tools Required:

• Saw
• Screw gun
• #2 Phillips head bit
• Tape measure
• Clamps
• Framing square

Materials Required:

• 2" x 4" x 8' lumber - 6 pcs 8 pcs
• 24" x 48" - ⅝" plywood sheet 48" x 96" - 23/32" plywood sheet
• 24" x 48" 48" x 96" - ¼" pegboard sheet
• (8) Rigid Tie RTC2Z Connectors
• (1 box) Strong-Drive® SD #8 x 1¼" Screws - 100 ct
• (20) (36) #6 x 1¼" flat-head screws
• (4) #6 x 2½" flat-head screws

You can also buy a workbench kit from Amazon here or here.

Step 2: Purchase Materials.

The Rigid Tie connectors and SD Screws came from Home Depot.  I had gotten them earlier in the week.  Saturday morning we went to Lowe's and got the lumber, plywood, and pegboard.  The nice thing about Lowe's, or any of the big hardware stores is that they will rip the large sheets for you.  We had them cut the plywood and pegboard down for us.  If you have this option, take it!  The pieces are perfectly square and it saves a ton of time!  This gave us:

• (2) 2' x 6' - 23/32" plywood sheets + scrap
• (1) 3' x 6' - 1/4" pegboard sheet + scrap

Step 3: Cut to length


We had to cut our 2x4's to length.  We followed the modifications that we made in Step 1.

We needed:

• 1 - 72" piece for the top rail
• 2 - 70" pieces for the rear corner posts
• 4 - 69" pieces for the rails
• 2 - 38" pieces for the front corner posts
• 4 - 17" pieces for the end rails

Step 4: Assemble end pieces.

Make sure you make opposites ends.  You don't want two of the same ends.

Step 5: Install rails.

Step 6: Attach top rail using 2-1/2" screws.

Step 7: Corner out plywood and install.

Step 8: Attach pegboard

Step 9: Organize!

The larger size gave up plenty of room for our small and large tools.

The actual assembly of the workbench took us about 1-1/2 hours.  Not bad at all!

Enjoy!

July Pantry Challenge: Day 1

I have seen Pantry Challenges all over social media.  Tony and I decided to give it a try.  From January - June, our average spending on food is $650 per month.  This includes eating out, lunches, and groceries. 

The (30-Day, New Mom, The Great) pantry challenges all have different ground rules.  If you read through them, they talk about well first you have to re-organize, then plan your meals, and sometimes fill in the gaps.  This fill in the gaps is the thing that get's me the most.  If you are trying to not spend money and empty your pantry, then why do you fill in the gaps?  I wanted to do something more passive.  With Tony and I working opposite hours, it's hard to plan big meals.  Our pantry challenge would make do with what we have.  It'll force us to clean stuff out but also get creative with what we make.

Here's the ground rules that we agreed upon:

1. The pantry challenge would last as long as possible without running out of food.
2. When Tony's parents come to visit, we will take a 3-day pause.  During this time, we will only buy what we need for those meals.
3. Okay to buy only if/when we run out and it is needed - milk, eggs, yogurt, bread (if Jen's homemade bread doesn't come out), meat
4. Try to cut back on eating lunch at work and eating out (plan ahead)

Fortunately for us, we don't have a large pantry so we are limited to our fridge and freezer and three small cabinets.  I'll be surprised if we make it past week 3.

I did a quick survey of what we had where and did a quick date check.  This whole process only took me about 15 minutes.  The biggest concern I have is with our meat supply.  We'll see how things go.

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3

With today being day 1, here's where I started:

Breakfast - yogurt and iced coffee
Lunch - yogurt and oatmeal
Dinner - pasta (cabinet #1) with meat sauce (freezer ground beef & pasta sauce)

Since I cooked a pound of ground beef, I didn't mix it all with pasta sauce.  I only used a what I needed for dinner.  This allows me to have ground beef for the next few meals.

I think Tony's probably looked like this:

Breakfast/Lunch - yogurt with granola
Dinner - Sandwich (bread, turkey, ham, cheese) and yogurt

Stay tuned for updates on our pantry challenge!