How to Beat the Blahs #1

Make Pizza Margherita with fresh ingredients and pretend the tomatoes and basil are from your backyard garden. We usually have this every Friday night, but it fell out of the rotation during the holidays. After the heaviness of holiday foods, we were ready for something a little healthier.

Tips:

1. I always add baby bella mushrooms.
2. Try with a whole wheat crust to make it even healthier. Make your own so you control exactly what you consume!
3. Use white balsamic vinaigrette so you don't discolor the basil. Add extra!

Read the history of Pizza Margherita here. It's more than a meal, it's a cultural and historical experience.

**Image property of Cooking Light.

(Not to brag, but I think this is one of the few things I make where my version comes out looking prettier than the cookbook version. I think it's because I use lots of basil.)

Oh yeah, wash down with plenty of good ole fashioned WATER and welcome back your previously healthy ways!

Blah

Already I'm settling into my after holiday BLAHS. Mainly because I'm dreading the next three months. The time from January to March has to be the most boring, drab, cold, ugly, horrible time of the year. Just thinking about it makes me want to crawl under my covers and sleep until spring. I think I need to change my attitude in order to survive what's coming. So, blog readers, help me, what can we do to make the last half of winter a Lovely time?

First I think I might go buy some pots of tulips for my coffee table. I need some color.

My Nightstand

Crystal Waterford Candle...check

Fresh Cut Roses from my very own Rosebush...check

Lilac & Lavender Scented Candle...check

Anthology of Love Letters...check

Picture of the Lieutenant in Uniform...check

Classic Love Story I'm Currently Reading {Wuthering Heights}...check

Hopeless Romantic? Guilty.

Thanksgiving in Review 2009

Thanksgiving with the in-laws in Columbus, GA....

Happy Thanksgiving & Welcome Christmas!

One More Test...

By the way, this boy turned ONE a couple of months ago! Where does the time go?

We Interrupt End of Semester Paper Writing...

..to test out my new-found ability to add BIG PHOTOS to the blog. Because what better way to take a break from paper writing than to post really big pictures of my beautiful niece?

Study Buddy

Studying is made a little more bearable with help from a grey tabby cat named Maggie...

Don't worry, I thoroughly clean my kitchen table before anyone eats there.

Is it time yet?

I may or may not be listening to Christmas music on Pandora today....okay I am. But I refuse to decorate until after Thanksgiving!

When do you start celebrating Christmas?

{Wrinkles of Time}

When I was younger I remember taking frequent trips to Perimeter Mall with my mother and grandmother. After parking, I would watch them pull down their respective visors and use the vanity mirrors to freshen their lipstick before going into the mall. I come from a long line of good Southern women who taught me many valuable lessons, not the least of which is "thou shalt not enter a public gathering place of any kind without fresh lipstick". I would watch them pucker their lips and apply, and sometimes Grandmother would let me put on a little (ever so little) bit of lipstick myself. In doing so I noticed something, my eight year old lips were smooth, whereas hers had lines in them. I thought the lines were beautiful, and I was jealous. I remember mentioning this fact to her once, and she was quite appalled that I would refer to such a thing (I should probably mention here that my grandmother, even still, doesn't have that many lines, people actually used to ask if she was my mother, so she was probably not accustomed to such questioning). I could not understand her reaction, I wanted those lovely lines; they made the lipstick look so much better in my opinion!

Earlier this week upon my arrival at school, I drove in the parking lot, pulled into my space, and proceeded to pull down my visor to freshen my lipstick in my vanity mirror. After all, I was taught by the best, and I too am a good little Southern lady. It was then I saw them. Despite the fact that I have religiously applied Vaseline to my lips EVERY MORNING and EVERY NIGHT since I was 15 years old (a beauty tip from Mama) there they were. Lines.

I. Freaked. Out.

It was not the first sign of age I've noticed this year. I as approach my twenty-ninth birthday, my body seems to be looking for ways to advertise my increasing years. Two years ago I noticed that the two lines that appeared in between my eyebrows when I squinted didn't immediately disappear when I relaxed my face. Instead they remained indefinitely. In the past couple of months I've also noticed my cheeks seem a little different. Less smooth perhaps? It's hard to quantify it exactly; all I know is the skin looks different. In discussing this with my mother, she told me that when you hit thirty it all "goes downhill fast", and "don't I use any wrinkle cream"? Well, I do as a matter-of-fact. As a teenager Grandmother also taught all us girls that it was never too early to have a skin care routine. My main problem, however, is that while the wrinkles are starting to appear, I'm still getting adolescent pimples, so what's a girl to do for a skincare product?

Here's the thing, I've always found lines and wrinkles on women to be beautiful. In fact, I think most women only get more beautiful with age. So why do I recognize and admire that beauty in other women, but not in myself? I think the main reason is that as the changes occur, I see them as transforming me from the true person I am into someone I am not. As pondered on this, however, I came to a realization. Are not these lines and creases more of who I am than the smooth skin of 16? Life writes its story over all of us, in the smile lines around our mouths and the crinkles around our eyes. If we are lucky, most of our lines will settle into pleasant ones, inevitably though, there will be some of sorrow and of worry.

I made a decision that from now on when I look in the mirror and discover this line or that, I will accept them. I will know that living and loving will leave its mark, and I will cherish each one as a badge of honor; proof that I've lived and experienced in full all the joys and all of the sorrows that womanhood has to offer.

That being said, a little cosmetic help never hurt anyone….and I just discovered a combination anti-wrinkle/anti-blemish cream made by Neutrogena. This good Southern girl bought two tubes.

Repost: No Jackie O

Today marks the one year anniversary of my fall from grace in my front yard. In celebration, I'm reposting the original blog here. FYI, I had several x-rays of my foot and they didn't find anything, but said if pain continued to go see a foot specialist b/c they can do more in depth x-rays. Well, still had pain, didn't go see anyone (yeah, Ben was thrilled about that), and 365 days later it still hurts when I walk a lot or workout. So, most likely it was fractured. Whoops. I should also note that the day after this happened Ben went ahead and purchased crutches so there will not be a need in the future for a bar stool walker. He decided crutches were a sound investment when he had a wife like me.

Here's a Friday laugh for you at my expense!

Originally posted THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008

No Jackie O

Those of you who know me well know I LOVE Jackie Kennedy. There are many ways in which I try to emulate her. I wear pearls as my signature jewelry item (and mine are fake, just like her signature three string pearls), I send out handwritten notes on personal stationary, I try to be the perfect hostess, and I try to choose a classic way of dressing that is stylish yet timeless (that is a work in progress, it's harder than it sounds). There are many many ways in which I will never ever be like her. She was always graceful in walk with her shoulders back. Well, I inherited my fathers gait, and while it's great for a man it's less than attractive on a woman. I've tried very hard to change. I've even walked over and over towards mirrors. It doesn't work. My shoulders also slump. I think I inherited that from my mother, who was never proud enough of her 5 feet 11 inches and therefore always slumps (and just in case the height wasn't enough to make you hate her, she's skinny like a supermodel too). Jackie spoke in a quiet soft voice that made gentlemen have to lean in to hear her. If you've spent .7 seconds with me, you know I'm LOUD. It's another thing I try to change. In college I decided instead of fighting it I would just channel the trait into becoming a speech communication major. I never made less than an A. Go figure.

So why the sudden dissertation on the strengths of Jackie and the weaknesses of Angela? Because tonight I had another reminder of why I can never be like her. I arrived home after nine tonight from an SAA meeting. I got out of my car (and I would like to insert here that it was raining all day and the ground is quite slippery) to walk to the trunk to get out a bag and WIPE OUT! You know those times when you fall when you just don't know where you lost your footing or how, but suddenly you're out of control? Well, I slipped on the ground, twisted my ankle, and rolled a little ways down our front hill with the contents of my purse strewn over the lawn. There was searing pain through my ankle and foot. I managed to drag my body to my purse, fish out my phone, and call Ben who was inside. When he came out the door his response was not, "Oh my goodness, poor baby, are you okay?". Nope, it was "Why in the heck are you laying in the middle of the yard, get up!". Now I ask, if I had been able to get up, why I would have called him? He also said, "You are officially the clumsiest person I know." OUCH. I'm pretty sure Jack never said that to Jackie. He really shouldn't complain. He hasn't taken me to the hospital for my clumsiness nearly as many times as my college roommate Elizabeth did. The UGA Health Center knew us well! Anyway, he carried me in the house and did some manipulations on the ankle. While I have complete faith in him and know he would never do anything to hurt me, in the midst of the pain in my ankle I found myself screaming, "Please don't!! Remember you are not yet licensed to practice medicine!" He keeps telling me how dramatic I am, but how can talking about how bad something hurts if it really hurts be dramatic? So, I cannot put any pressure on my ankle AT ALL. Ben, being the clever boy he his, devised a way for me to get myself around the house.

Used to be a bar stool...now it's my walker.

So I'm in the bed, and I ask Ben to bring me orange juice and my computer so I can blog and he said I was PUSHING IT!

He brought the orange juice, but do you know that he refused to bring me to my computer so I could blog? He said I am way too addicted to blogging and he refused to be an enabler.

This is me, devastated, desperate, and begging!

So, I did what any dedicated blogger would do. I got my stool/walker and began the slow trip across the house myself to update the blog with the night's adventures. I do know Jackie was determined to get what she wanted, so here's an A+ to me for stubbornness.

And...come to think of it...Jackie did sprain her ankle while participating in one of the rough Kennedy tag football games at Hyannis Port, so hey, maybe there's hope for me yet!