Pictures from June

I realized that sometimes I take a cute picture here and there, it isn't really enough to make a story but they are kinda fun. I thought that I could share the pictures with you and I would tell you about them if there was much to tell.

My friend took this picture of me at a Friday Happy Hour and I think it looks really good.

First pepper and big tomato

My garden is finally coming together and I am starting to get lots of tomatoes and a single pepper. Look for a new update pretty soon. I am really enjoying this garden since it is growing stuff.

At White Rock Lake Dog Park

Lily and I try and hit up the dog park every now and again. I have to try and bring more water next time because I thought she was going to melt.

Working the pompadour yet again, they are looking better

Sometimes Lily and I spend a little time in the bible outside on the patio when it is nice outside. It was one of the last nice mornings before things just got super hot. I just finished a study by Beth Moore and I am looking into what I am going to study next.

These are just a few snapshots from our month of june. It was a pretty boring month but I am looking forward to what comes next in July.

Painting my Nails for Gameday

I know that it is only the end of June but game day will be here soon enough so I am starting to figure out what I am going to wear for game day. I have also been on a painting your nails kick so I realized that I could paint my nails for the game watching parties. For this I opted for maroon and silver nails.

Before

The first thing I did was paint two layers of maroon nail polish and then I let it dry for a few minutes. I then cut strips of tape, I used just regular scotch tape for this. When I do this again I will be sure to take care of all of these things before I paint my nails.

Then I placed the tape gently over my ring finger nails and painted a thick layer of silver paint over the nails.

After several minutes I gently removed the tape. Now this was more difficult than I had expected, the tape stuck to the center of the nail and was hard to remove. On the left hand, non-dominate, I was able to get the tape off and it looked really good. However, the right hand looked terrible. I opted to just paint the whole nail silver and work on it more later.

Left hand... look good

Right hand, eww.

For the next time that I work on this I will use packing tape because I think the thickness of the tape will help it come off evenly. I may also try some different patterns but for now I am pretty happy with the stripes. I think the silver bled into the maroon just a little but it looks cute on the nail but with different colors it might not look as good. I did make sure to use a thick layer of top coat on the stripes so that they were even layers.

A plainer right hand, better but still needs work.

I have been enjoying this all week and I am looking forward to trying more fun ways to paint my nails for the coming football season. I think I am going to try polkadots the next time I do this. I will be sure to let you know if I come up with something wonderful and crazy.

Fixing my phone

Over the last few months my phone has gotten slower and slower and filled with lots more data than I knew what to do with. So like any good woman I deleted pictures, that had been backed up of course, or apps that I haven't been using. Eventually I looked at what was taking up all of the space and I realized that my Pinterest App was taking up 5GB of space... seriously. I eventually Googled what to do about this and figured it out. So I thought that I would share this with you since I know that most of us have iPhones and love Pinterest.

Look at all of that cached data!!

So to delete this data you need to clear the cached data. To get to this go to your page on your phone and click on the gear in the top left corner. Then click on the account settings page and scroll down to the bottom of the page and then start clearing data.

Click on the gear

Both the browsing history and the recent contacts were relatively easy to clear out but there was so much data I will admit that this took forever. In about 30-45 minutes I could delete about 2MB of data. I found that you do have to have the app up and running for this to work. In the end it took about 2 hours, in the future I will try and do this more and more frequently.

No more data

I will admit that I love my app so I am not willing to delete the app and just reload it. I found that this was a pretty simple fix and I have heard from multiple people that this has happened to them so I figured that I would share with you how I fixed it.

After browsing for about an hour.

Has this happened to you? How did you fix it? I am definitely going to keep up with this so that I don't have to keep deleting things from my phone. Also, doing this does eat the battery when you are working on it.

Quiche for Brunch

For the last few weeks I have been craving quiche something fierce, it has taken a while for me to have a little time to actually make this. I have found that a small quiche or either a small egg soufflé is good for lunch. I really enjoy having quiche.

I am going to share the recipe with you because I don't really have a whole lot else to share for the day... I guess this is what happens when you finally settle into a city and then there isn't a whole lot that happens in the city. I am trying to get out more in the city and enjoy what is going on here in Dallas while I am here. I am not planning on leaving but I want to make sure that I take advantage of the time that I have here before that time is up.

Pie Crust

1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 c shortening
4-5 Tbsp Ice cold water

1- Mix together flour and salt, cut in the shortening until it looks like oatmeal
2- Add ice cold water and then knead the dough for just a few times
3- Roll the dough into a log and cut into four equal parts.
4- Roll one out and wrap the remaining dough chunks in seran wrap and store in the freezer.

Quiche

2 eggs
2/3 milk (or half-n-half)
cheddar cheese
diced mushroom
sausage chunks that are cooked

Mix all of these ingredients together and pour into the pie shell or a greased ramekin (I used pam). Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until the center is set (i.e. a knife inserted comes out clean).

*You know that you should have waited just a tad longer if the eggs are just a tad soft... that happened to me this time.

This was a great brunch on Sunday. I wish that I had cooked them just a few minutes longer but they were super yummy. I think in the next few weeks I am going to look for a different dish to put the quiche in, perhaps a small tart pan. I am not quite sure what I am going to look for but if I find something cool I will be sure to show you a picture of it. Do you love quiche?

Times Ten Cellars: Dog Approved

On Saturday night one of my friends from work and I decided to head out to a new place in Dallas and we decided to grab a glass of wine at Times Ten Cellars. For the most part everything I read about the place sounded amazing and their patio is pet friendly. After I asked my friend if I could bring the dog and made sure she understood that if this went bad we would have to leave, I decided to bring Lily.

Once I finally got ready I opted to get a little fancy and wear a maxi dress from last year. My friend and I drove town and found some parking around the corner. There wasn't too much parking around the Wine Cellar but we found something and then walked over to the restaurant. My friend went in to figure out how to get onto the patio, turns out you just go out there and grab a seat.

Once we got out on the patio they immediately brought us a bowl of water and all of the wait staff greeted Lily like she was there long lost pup. She did really well and when she started to freak just a little and I mentioned that she was a rescue the guy petting her leaned down to get on her level and was very patient with her.

I had two glasses of the Sauvignon Blanc, which was yummy. It was so relaxing to sit around and just visit and hangout. I will definitely be going back to this place for as much wine as possible. It wasn't too hot to be seated on the patio, it was a little dark but you could still see the wine.

I think that for Lily and I this place is going to get four paws up!!! We both had a wonderful time and the staff was amazing, if you get a chance you should definitely go there. You can find there website here in case you wanted to head over there for a glass of wine.

Taking the Focus to the shop

As you know my car is getting up in age and miles so I am trying to take care of her and make sure that she sees the doctor often. I have been really good about getting the oil changed when needed and just keeping up to date on regular maintenance. There was a Firestone that I liked in St. Louis and for the most part it worked well for me to take my car in when it needed something. Now that we are here in texas and driving substantially more the Focus needs a little more TLC.

One Saturday my dad was on his way out of town and was coming to spend the morning with me so I hopped on the chance to take my car to get the oil changed since I wouldn't have to sit there and wait the whole time. I dropped the car off and headed out with my father. My dad and I hung around the apartment for a while before we went off to play. While we were deciding what we should do for the day and having our typical discussion of my finances (I used to loath these talks but as I get older and have slightly more money I am loving that I can talk to my dad and hear his experience with money and get his take on how I should treat my finances) the shop called.

My note trying to write down everything that he said... see the price $1647.44?!?!?! 

Now I figured this was the typical your car is ready phone call so I wasn't really paying attention in the beginning but as it went on and on he kept listing things that were wrong with my car... to a final tune of roughly $1600. Thank goodness my father was there and he told me to tell the mechanic that I would think about it. As I look at my father with terror in my eyes and try not to panic (I was pretty unsuccessful on that front), he talks me off the ledge and we start making a plan. For the most part what the mechanic wanted to fix were things that were beginning to go bad like my breaks, shocks, plugs and wires, wipers, air filter, etc etc. I am often of the opinion that if it is bad fix it and since I don't know how to do much on my car I just let them do it. As we talked about this I realized that many of these things were not bad and probably didn't need to fixed at this point. The mechanic called back twice to try and talk me into getting this stuff done and kept giving me different discounts... that was a little strange.

As I stood looking at the non-existant corrosion on the battery and the air filter container that hadn't been touched I realized that he was trying to take advantage of a single female. So I decided that I am going to hang on to the Focus for a little bit longer and not panic but start to make plans for a new car. I am not sure what I am going to get next but I am making tracks toward figuring that out. Sometimes having a car and being single sucks but then again I have a great family that helps me out in these moments.

Why I will never bring watermelon to a party again...

So for my families father's day get together I was tasked with bringing a watermelon for both a side and as something to munch on out by the pool. I was pretty excited because I wanted to see if the cool way they show to cut it up on pinterest works and this would be an easy task.

So while I am at Target on Saturday I look through their melons and find the best one they have. It is very heavy and has a pretty good creamy spot on the bottom. It doesn't thump just right but you know maybe I am out of practice, who knows. I snap this bad boy up and head for the house. Once I get to the house I decide to go ahead and chop this up so that I don't have to do it later.

This looks strange

Imagine my surprise when I slice it open and it is yellow inside... I panic just a bit and text my Aunt Judy since she will know what to do. Since I am not sure what to do and google says that the yellow melon is the sweetest of the melons I go ahead and chop it up. I also eat a bit of it to see if it was good, it wasn't terrible but it tasted like a watermelon.

Looking for help

As my stomach becomes very angry I realize that this melon is bad. I put everything in the trash and just move on with my life. I don't really have tome to grab another melon on Saturday and I decide to run to Kroger and get one after church.

I get to Kroger and don't see any melons so I kindly ask one of the floor guys who tells me they just got off the truck so he grabs one for me. Since that was all I needed I don't have a buggy so I just carry it out like a boss. Once I get to the house I open the door and say hello to Lily and then turn around to lock the door.

As I turn back into the living room I don't see the jug of water sitting on the floor that I chose not to put away yesterday since I didn't know where to put it and I promptly trip over the water with the melon still in my arms. In what seems like a million seconds I go from standing upright to laying on the floor sobbing because my knees are killing me. Yes, you did read that right, I took a facer in my apartment while carrying a watermelon. After several moments, maybe a whole minute, of crying in self pity trying to determine if I have to call someone to take me to a hospital I realize that there is a second terrible thing that could have happened... the watermelon could be broken in a million parts on my carpet?!?! Luckily for my it managed to stay intact so that was good.

I eventually get off the floor and realize that I am not dying and I don't think I have irreparably damaged my legs so I must continue on my tasks. I will admit that I was a little slower than before but not totally broken.

Look at that melon... so good

Once in the kitchen I cut open the melon and realize it is red!! WooHoo I have a good one, it was so sweet. I followed the method here to cut up half of the melon. Well, this didn't really work well for me. I would guess that part of that is that my melon was cracked in the center (perhaps from the fall or it was just that ripe). So I found that the peeling and then dicing the melon was a great idea but I don't know that I saved anytime over a different method. But I do think I might try it again should I get a seedless melon since they are smaller and might be a little easier to use this method on.

As I am sitting here with ice on my knees I realized a few different things:
-Most likely I won't be bring watermelon anywhere ever again.
-Target probably isn't the best place to buy produce.
-Falling while you live alone is pretty terrifying for the first few seconds.
-Don't eat unripened fruit.

I still cannot believe that this happened in many ways this is a great story however I am a little anxious about how I am going to feel tomorrow.