Dinner Party(?)

My good friend from work, Parneet, is in town for two weeks. She lives several states away, but about every month and half she comes here for two weeks and works where I work. I met her last summer for the first time and we just clicked! So every time she's here we spend as much time together as possible. Last Thursday I had her and our good friend Matt over for dinner and here's the low-down on what I made.

There are no pictures (I'm so sad about that...), but I made Herb Cheese and Spinach Sauce Pasta which I got from this site. It was my first time making it, but it's so easy and there are only a few ingredients and I actually already had them all on hand anyway. That's always nice.

I also made a hashbrown casserole, but I altered it by adding in fresh zucchini and squash. Love those two veggies, yum.

And in the interest of making something that I had actually tried before, I made parmesan green beans as well.

I was surprised at how well the spinach pasta was received and I was also happy that it made a lot because I had lunch for the next few days. Always good. To finish off the meal, we had fresh strawberries and whipped cream. I would like to consider that a dinner party even though it was just the 4 of us, but either way it was fun and if you like spinach you should give the spinach pasta a try. =]

Spring Break!

Oh wait... I don't get one of those... But my BFFs do! Last week they were here and I took advantage of it. Kelly is in pharmacy school (3rd year) and Sharon is in physical therapy school (1st year). They are both super smart and I'm very proud of them.

On Tuesday, BFF Sharon and I got hot chocolate and shopped til we dropped.

On Wednesday, BFF Kelly and her fiance Bobby came over and we partied.

Then Sharon joined us for root beer floats and we watched Despicable Me (which is super cute if you haven't seen it yet).

We also danced (Just Dance 2 for the Wii = my new favorite game).

On Thursday Sharon and I got together again.

Yes, we are crazy.

We went to Sonic. Yay!

And it was St. Patrick's day so how appropriate is this next picture?

We had planned to use it as a St. Patty's day prank, but then we couldn't think of anyone to prank... Fail.

On Saturday Kelly and I got to have lunch with our friend who is expecting her second child very soon. =]

Then I got to play ultimate frisbee and that night Kelly and I threw a surprise party for our friend Matt!

We made oreo truffles and chocolate-covered pretzels.

 The finished product!

We also made a birthday banner for him. Any fans of The Office out there? We made this based on the banner that Dwight made for Kelly's birthday. =]

And of course we posed under it.

So sad spring break's over and my bestie's are gone! But now I'm looking forward to summer. =]

I Was Totally Amazed!

This is so random... but on Sunday after lunch, I was passing by the library and I stopped there so I could get some books. I LOVE reading, but unfortunately have not read much in a while. Growing up I read all the time and loved checking out my own books from the public library and from the school library.

We had Accelerated Reader at my school (did any of you have that?) which is a program that gives students points when they read books and then take a quiz on the computer about them. When you got to a certain point level, you would get a prize. I eventually won all the prizes in my school because I read so much. (dorky? yeah, probably).

So anyway, I was super excited to get to go in and grab some books. I headed immediately for the mystery section (my favorite...) and grabbed 4 books. I headed to checkout and as I was walking over to one of the librarians, but then I noticed these 4 little kiosks. I didn't know what the kiosk was for, but I stepped back with my books and checked it out. There was a touch screen above a glass table top and there was a scanner just under the touch screen. On the screen there was a button to checkout so I hit that and then it said to scan a library card. Done. Then the screen instructed me to place up to 4 books on the glass table top. I was incredulous (you like how I tossed that fancy word in there?), but set the books down anyway. Automatically, each book's title and information appeared on the screen one by one.... There was no scanning, no laser, nothing....

People, I was amazed by this. The screen then read that the books were checked out and I was done! I relayed this information to a group of friends last night and one in particular didn't seem too surprised and was explaining about some chip being in the books, blah blah blah. Still, I am in awe of this technology and thought you all should know.

Oh, and did I have enough parentheses in this entry? I think I could have used a few more...

For the Future Office

We all love a good deal, right? Well, here's one. At Target a few months ago, I stumbled across these frames on clearance.

Oh, you can't read that red sticker? Here's a close-up:

When I saw the price, I thought, "Boo-yah!" But then when I got to the register they were even more discounted. I ended up paying something like $0.53 for each of them? I'm pretty sure my face was something like this:

The only problem is that I wasn't so much into the wood color of the frames soooo I just took some trusty white spray paint and went to town. You know the drill.

Yes, that's a dry cleaners bag. I am so resourceful. =] I also threw in that other frame on the right while I was at it.

After a short drying time, those frames were looking quite fabulous.

I already one white 8 x 10 frame so I added that one to the collection too. Then it was time to add my papers! As we all know, my favorite colors are blue and green so I had to incorporate those. =]

And here is the finished collection! These will be added to the future office down the road, once it's painted and everything. Something to look forward to!

Thanks Walmart!

Sooo... Let's talk about these for a minute:

 I went to Walmart and got a delightful surprise. These beautiful, green (my favorite color) magazine holders were on clearance for $4.

That is right up my alley. Thanks Walmart! 

Woo-hoo!

Oh, and this week I'm painting the future office. =]