down week.

So it's nearing to the end of school so classes are....slowing down?? This week has been a little unreal for me. Usually at the end of the semester things speed up and last minute topics are jammed into our brains in order to learn everything we need to in time for our finals, but it's been the exact opposite. It's a little frightening, because although I don't have a lot of immediate due dates or tests or things of the like, I know that in a few 3 weeks classes will be finished and juries will be here! BAH juries! With that said I know I have a million things to do and get prepared for!

On the other hand, I've tried to take advantage of the fact that I have some VERY uncommon free time. Don't worry I'm balancing it with productive-ness too!

So what is it I fill my free time with you ask?

1.

blurry, but I still love it! 

 2.

 3.

 4.

5.

1. Spooning at 3Spoons!
2. The bestie and I gettin' all fancy shmancy at Sing Alliance Formal
3. Enjoying the beautiful weather. Sat on the porch and started a new knitting project!
4. Cooking new recipes: Zucchini Cakes
5. Trying new foods: Kale Chips. (to be honest, these were disgusting!) I'll stick with the homemade kind :) like these!

Well, I'm off to bed! Running in the morning with Solange, and the boyfriend and his fam and the mom will be in town tomorrow! Another choir concert! :)

-Amy

Bestie Adventures.

I'd just like to start off this post saying how AWESOME my bestie is! I just had such a fun day with her!

We woke up this morning around 8 and went on a run around my hometown's neighborhood. I have no idea how far we ran but MAN was it foggy! We came back home and ate the rest of my oatmeal bake from yesterday, which by the way was a HUGE hit with my mom and was just as delicious the second go-round! I will definitely be making it again soon/trying out another oatmeal bake recipe!

 I can't remember if I shared a picture of this or not, but here's
another, just in case!

After filling our tummies and getting ready for the day, we headed to Plato's Closet. If you haven't heard of it, it's a resale shop in the metroplex that buys your used clothes from you and gives you cash for what they take. I had a ton of clothes from the past year that I don't fit into anymore, so we sold them away. I made a whopping $93!!! Score! I also found some jeans and a black dress skirt there that I've been looking for for a while! Double score!

From there we headed to Northpark Mall to hit up H&M where we were both extremely successful! Solange found some highwaisted wide-leg linen pants that look amazing on her and a super cute cardigan with elbow patches! Have I mentioned how much I love elbow patches?!? Which reminds me...I'm dying to give this DIY a try some time:

Super cute right?
I found an awesome LBD, a lace skirt, some coral colored linen shorts, a new pair of sunglasses, and of course necklaces to add to my collection!

By this time, we were starving so I drove us to Zoe's Kitchen for lunch:

Zoe's makes their own hummus and I LOVE it! The
pita served with it comes out warm :)

We both ordered these delicious spinach chicken
wraps!

Then we perused around Whole Foods, for probably about an hour! Waco doesn't have one, so we took our sweet time taking it all in :)

look at the digitized price labels!

these cracked me up! On-the-go CHIA!

 Here's what I came out with:

Kale Chips, 2 fruit leathers, 2 almond butter samplers,
walnut butter, and all natural peanut spread.

 From there we went home and took a much needed cat nap and then treated ourselves to ice cream before we hit the road again to head back to Waco.

My humongo ice cream sundae, which by
the way, was my first ice cream since I
gave it up for lent. SO GOOD!

My "case of the Mondays" was fantastic! Here's to a good and productive week. fingers crossed!

-Amy

Easter Weekend

For most of the weekend I've been in Waco. Baylor's classes let out Thursday afternoon and campus quickly emptied out, everyone headed home to their families for Easter. I love how Baylor gives us both the Friday and the Monday off of classes for Easter Weekend. I, however, chose to stay in Waco for most of the weekend to participate in my church's Holy Week Services and celebrate Easter at St. Alban's. I am so extremely blessed to have such an incredible church family away from home. I couldn't think of a better way to spend Easter morning. Most of the beginning of the weekend was filled with some much needed "catch-ups", i.e. laundry, cleaning, organizing, practicing...and sleeping ;) A couple of my friends stayed in town as well, so we kept each other company, went out for lunch, got pedi's, and dyed Easter eggs! Easter Morning (this morning) was glorious! I woke up super early, to my surprise, to throw together a new recipe! Okay, let's be honest...I was so excited to try it out that I could barely sleep...had multiple nightmares about it not working out...but long story short it was super easy to throw together and pop into the oven while I got ready for church. I sang at both my church services this morning, and they were equally enjoyable. So much JOY!  After church I picked up the bestie and we road tripped up to Dallas to spend the rest of Easter with my mom and brobie. Mom made a delicious Easter dinner: ham, mac n cheese, asparagus, deviled eggs, bread....and my first dessert since the beginning of Lent! and gosh was it good!! I know, I know, you want pics. OK!

LUNCH OUT WITH FRIENDS

DYEING EGGS

SUPER PROUD OF MY TIE DYEING TECHNIQUE!

EASTER DRESS

PEDI DESTRESSING :)

Every year the children at St. Alban's bury the "Alleluia" banner...
on Easter morning they dig it up and process it into the church
at the beginning of the service, ringing bells. 

Strawberry Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Bake
it was a hit at our choir breakfast!

Easter Dinner Table

John slicing his homemade bread!

Easter Flowers :)

Tomorrow, Solange and I have a full day planned. Starting off the day with a run, food, shopping, food, and more shopping :)

I hope your Easter has been as full of love and joy and blessings as mine has!

-Amy

confessions.

Confession 1: Okay, so I've been totally MIA the past 5 months...yeah I said 5 months...that's almost half of a whole year...WOW so sorry for that!


Confession 2: I've had many many good reasons why. Don't worry, I'm about to share them all!


Since the last time we talked...


I've attended crazy voice studio Christmas parties (yes, that's my voice teacher, Dr. Gordon! Isn't he the cutest?)

 I've been supporting our AWESOME basketball teams! Did I mention our lady bears are NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 40-0?!! nbd. I know. sic. em.

 Exploring Texas and all the yarn stores it has to offer! This one is in Boerne, Tx. That's me with my grandpa and my aunt. (she's a fellow knitter!)

 Having adventurous nights in San Antonio with the boyfriend, during TMEA. (@ Dicks Restaurant)

Going out on "friend" dates for Valentines Day, since my man was far away and Vday was on a school night :( But let me just say, I have the best friends in the whole world...and this might have been the best Valentine's Dinner I've ever had....but don't tell Kev!!

Performing in this HUGE university wide performance called SING!

Skiing down a mountain with an elevation of 12,000 feet! This was in Winter Park, CO over Spring Break with the roomies, Jamie and Janna. That's our other Baylor friend, Daniel. He's pretty awesome too ;)

Oh yeah, and then the bestie and I ran this thing called the Bearathon! :)

And I've done a lot of knitting:

Okay so no more excuses :) Regular blogging will happen more often. Pinkie promise.


-Ames

island time.

With the end of the semester quickly approaching, it is getting pretty crazy stressful around here!! Last weekend, fortunately, I got to escape it all :) My stepmom, Amy and my cousin's girlfriend, Kara, and I all drove down to Port Aransas for a GIRL'S WEEKEND!! It was so wonderful to leave everything behind, even if it was just for 2 days.

Add caption

sunset the first night

Woke up both mornings to go for a run...I've
never enjoyed working out so much
in my life! If only I lived by a beach!!

sand writing.

our cute entrance through the dunes

AWESOME log I discovered on one of my runs. It
must have gotten washed in with the tide....
about 20 feet long, and completely covered with these
little guys!

It was a MUCH needed escape and a chance to clear my head and *breathe* before the last mad dash through classes and then finals :)
Hope your life isn't as insane as mine is right now!
-Amy

a yummy end to my Tuesday

So I really dislike Tuesdays...mainly because they are long and I usually have a million things to do. I decided to start giving myself something to look forward to at the end of my Tuesdays to help me get through the day, and today my motivation was dinner haha....lame I know. ACTUALLY, NO NOT LAME! I came across a recipe for Zucchini Fries on this loverly blog the other day and have been dying to try them out! So that's just what I did. They were super easy to make and turned out DELICIOUS! Enjoy some pics from my adventure:

"battered" up, before baked

my yummy spicy black bean cheddar burger

all finished

End product! :) They were sooooo delicious,
 and ignore the bites out of the burger, hehe

You should definitely try these! I made the "fries" with 2 zucchini but only ate 1...so if you make them for just one person, only use one zucchini at a time, and half the recipe for the "batter" :)

Happy Tuesday!
-Amy

No-Excuse November

Who knew one little 'pin' on pinterest could spark a whole blog post and motivation for something: Here's the pin that sparked it all:

Ever heard of No-Shave November?? This is most typically a guy thing, where males decide to go without shaving for the whole month...so by the time December comes around, they are sporting some mean facial hair. It would just be way too weird if girls decided to join in on this....(sorry if for some strange reason you're a girl who has insisted on not shaving your legs for a WHOLE month, ew!)...so I saw this picture on Pinterest today....it's definitely something a girl can do for a whole month and maybe even start a habit of (guys can join in too of course):

No-Excuse November

I'm deciding to set goals for being healthy and sticking to them for a whole month to prove to myself that taking care of myself is worth it. So here they are:

1. Get up 4 out of 5 school days to go the gym and get my cardio on!

2. Go to the gym Saturday morning, if I have nothing planned

3. Allow myself to take occassional naps, but only if I've worked out that day

4. Eat healthy!

So, I think these are definitely do-able!

Number 1: I've been doing this one pretty consistently since school started and have already started seeing the major benefits to it---> more energy during my day, minus 10 lbs. since school has started, and a ton more self confidence! I just want to stay consistent! So let the determination begin!

Number 2 is my fav. I usually head to the gym on Satuday mornings with my bestie and then start my day of productive homework-doing and errand-running. So, keep this up :)

Number 3 is mainly just a deal I'm making with myself. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to take naps...and who doesn't??? However, I usually feel guilty laying down before bedtime if I know I have a ton of other things I could be doing....like excercising, practicing, studying, singing, etc...but if I have gotten up early to work out, then I've earned a small nap (not longer than an hour!)

Number 4: Oatmeal for breakfast and packin' the lunch everyday :)

So, let No-Excuse November begin....accomplish my goals, and prove to myself that it's worth it!! NO EXCUSES!!

-Amy