Dots Dot Dots

My first outfit post! This was so very exciting because I have established a huge dress collection and want to show it off to the world. I am quite proud of it! It has also made me want to reorganize my closet constantly because I like to have all the cardigans and dresses hung side by side in order to see all the options. I love it!
These pictures were taken at my college's beautiful campus in front of this adorable, old cabin in the middle of this field. There was absolutely nothing in it, but it definitely provided a rustic background! Ricky had such a blast finally having a reason to use my fancy fancy camera, so he was (nicely) telling me what to do. I told him the only rule was that he didn't growl or make cat scratches towards me. Thankfully, the rule was not broken!

I am in love with this dress. It is the most comfortable dress I own, and it makes me feel a wee bit confident. I bought it with one of my good friends for my family Christmas party, and when he said he thought it was cute, then it was an instant winner! I love the sleeves on the dress, but it was too cold on Christmas day, so I paired it with this light green polka dot cardigan. Too much polka dots for ya??
The necklace has my real name "Jillian" and was a sweet gift from Ricky darling for Christmas. He bought it from a girl on Etsy who hand makes them. I would link to her shop, but he conveniently won't tell me where her shop is; maybe because he bought me more things from there!

Black Polka Dot Dress -- H&M
Green Polka Dot Cardigan -- Target
Black Tights -- We Love Colors
Shoes -- Blowfish
Necklace -- Boyfriend :)

I am so ready for February! Are y'all?
Birthday and Valentine's day! Best month of the year!

Hope you have a good rest of the week,

Wednesday Date Night

Today was a long day for both me and the boyfriend, so we decided to go out for a date night and enjoy each other! We headed downtown and just went on stroll down all the streets before because the weather was so refreshing. It was like a perfect 65 degrees with a slight breeze but not chilly at all. I almost took off my sweater because it was so great! He then convinced me to walk to the town cemetery, which is this huge hill that has more stairs than the Lincoln Memorial. Gosh, it took forever to get to the top, but it was definitely worth it! You could see the entire town from the top of this adorable hill. It was a tiny bit creepy being in a cemetery that dates back to the Civil War, but it wasn't too late in the evening.

Then we finally went out to dinner. We decided on Panera because it's relatively cheap, and he used to absolutely hate Panera, but for some reason, I got him to kind of enjoy it now. So, I try to take him up on Panera every time he suggests it now! :) I guess I forgot to snap a photo of my soup/sandwich, but I most likely gobbled it up as soon as he set it on the table!

Next week is his 21st birthday, so we are celebrating all week with presents and dinners and such. I cannot wait to give him his birthday presents. I even offered to let him open one tonight, but he wants to have more stuff to open on his birthday day!

Hope everyone has a good last couple of days in January,

Spring Semester

Gosh! This semester has barely started, and I am already falling behind on my posts. This semester isn't even as chaotic as past semesters have been, but of course, I still find some way to put more stress and deadlines on myself.
I know you all are dying to hear what thrilling classes I am taking this semester, so I am going to tell you. Be prepared because I already have strong opinions about some!

1. Music Appreciation: First class of every week starts with Music Appreciation. I had to take another fine arts kind of class, and I have already taken Theatre Appreciation. I heard Art Appreciation was way too much staring into paintings and trying to find meanings in them, so I figured music might be a bit easier. So far, it's not too bad. Just powerpoints filled with terminology and song examples from my favorite Beethoven and Mozart. Ha! I do have to attend four music concerts (FREE too!) throughout the semester in order to write reviews on each of them, but that's not too bad since for Theatre Appreciation I had to attend all the plays which cost $10 each. It was pure publicity for their department and should be academically illegal, I'll say.
2. Health Topics: Sex/Drug Education: Unfortunately, I have not actually started this class yet. It is only a half semester class since it is just a health class, so I won't start it until the end of February, which is perfectly fine with me! I had to take one more health class for general education classes, and lucky for me, this is the only one that worked with my class/work schedule. I am interested to see what exactly is going to go down. I feel like it's just gonna be like that class we had to take in 5th or 6th grade about what will happen with our bodies when we start puberty. Gosh, I hope not. I mean, hopefully everyone in the class is already way past the "good touch, bad touch" stage of growing up.
3. Human Resource Management: I enjoy management classes because they tend to be fairly easy and straightforward (hopefully since it is my major!), and also this one is taught by my advisor, so it's not too bad. Of course, another huge group project in this class where we all actually have to write a scholarly paper. How does she expect an entire paper from a group of four people to flow perfectly? Well, I actually got lucky with the group I was assigned, and I feel confident I won't be finishing the paper alone on the night before it's due!
4. Cross Cultural Management: Another management class, of course. This one is way different from my HR class. It only has about 8 students, so we all sit in a circle and just have discussions every class. It was intimidating at first because I felt like I needed to have something prepared to contribute for the discussions, but now that it has gotten more comfortable, I just say whatever comes to mind. That is appropiate, of course! :)
5. Business Ethics: This class is a complete joke. I love the professor as a person, but he does absolutely nothing. He comes to class with nothing prepared and just wings it, which does not fly in my book. He never lectures because he assigned each group a chapter, and that group presents the chapter to the rest of the class. Is this high school? Ridiculous. Did I mention there is another giant group project research paper we have to do too? I just adore those, if you can't tell.

Okay, there is my rant for the day. Now I actually need to be working on some of the work I need to do for those darn classes.

Thanks for taking the time to read my crazy rant,

Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

Last night, we decided to make these sugar free peanut butter cookie recipe that I have always had laying around but never tried it. We had all the ingredients from other things we have bought recently, so perfect time to try it out! It was actually a recipe from a local diet that I got from their website when I was reading about what the diet was all about. It looked delicious, even with the Splenda! And it is so simple; it took us about 5 minutes!

Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cookies 
Makes 16 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup Peanut Butter
• 3/4 cup Splenda
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Mix all the ingredients together. Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls two inches apart onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes until lightly browned.
(Ours turned out perfect after barely 12 minutes)

 
BEFORE 

AFTER

Happy baking!

So Much Weekend for Activities

Once it hits 5:00PM today, I am free for the weekend! I have been working my butt off this week at my job, working from 8-5 every single day. It was hard waking up at 6:30AM every morning and finding the motivation to make myself look presentable and want to accomplish things for the day. It was ten times harder since the boyfriend was doing the exact opposite, but thank the lord we were able to take lunch breaks together throughout the week, or I may have gone insane. I absolutely love my job, but each day at my job brings new situations and obstacles that make it frustrating at times. I am very thankful to have it as a job to keep some extra spending money in my pocket while I finish up school (did I mention 3 more semesters? YAY!) And thankfully, it is on campus, so I can easily walk to it once my class gets out and can build up more hours.
Tomorrow is going to be a nice, relaxing break from this crazy week. The boy is FINALLY using his massage gift card I gave him on Valentine's Day of 2011! I have been reminding him and remindig him, and he has always wanted to get one (that's why I got it for him), but he is just always working or doing school stuff. But I finally got him to schedule an appointment, and just to be safe, I am driving him to his appointment! Thankfully, there is a lovely mall with my name all over it for me to go to while he is getting pampered. I hope he enjoys it, or I could have definitely enjoyed it! :)

I have a gift card to the movies at a Regal theater, and there is one near the massage place in the town we are driving to, so I am hoping to catch a movie right after his schedule massage. I love free weekends! I don't even mind paying for gas to get there if there is free stuff going on! I wasn't sure what movie to use the gift card on because none of them really thrilled me, but tonight him and I are going to nail one down after dinner and a nice workout. Yes, I said workout. It's our new thing! We have started to workout after dinner every night (we try to at least) since my apartment complex has a little workout area. Cross your fingers that these good habits stay for the long haul!

Oh gosh, and is it bad that I still have Christmas up? This weekend I definitely need to do what my dad calls "destroying Christmas". Especially in such a teeny apartment, it is very noticeable!

Hope everyone will have a fun filled weekend!

Morning Surprise

Unfortunately, my darling had to leave me alone here in the south to head up north to be with his family during the holidays. It breaks my heart every time he leaves for a long period of time like this, but I know how much he enjoys his time with his family. I just wish we could spend the holidays together. Maybe one year, when we are married! HA! We'll see, he says.
Luckily, he will return to the good ol' south on Tuesday after Christmas. I wouldn't be able to handle it if it was any longer than that. Is it sad that six days apart breaks my heart?

I woke up at 6:30AM Wednesday morning to try to start getting ready for work. Wednesday was my last day of work before my Christmas break actually started. The college is going to be closed from Thursday, December 22 until Tuesday, January 3, and then I head back to work! I am very thankful for this long break that they are giving us as workers. As a student, classes don't start back until January 9th, so I still have a little time to rest my brain from the stressful last semester. Only three more semesters to go before I graduate! I cannot wait.
Anyway, I got dressed and ready to head out the door, but then I noticed something differently on my apartment door. It was covered with some Post It notes with messages from the boy that he left after he tucked me into bed. It instantly made the day better, and it had barely started!

He is too sweet to me! I am so blessed to have someone like him in my life who makes me the happiest person I have ever been.

Much Love,
Jill

Weekend Family Gifting

This weekend was full of family, family, family time.
Saturday morning/afternoon we went to his little brother's basketball game. He barely played unfortunately, but when he did, he shot a three pointer, and he could not contain his excitement. He has a nice shot too, but we don't want to tell him that all the time or his little head will get bigger than it already is! Then his family took us out to lunch at Chickfila before we headed out to go visit my family a little over an hour away.

We were halfway there when my dad called with a weird request. He wanted us to find a glass dome that has a wooden bottom where he can display some shark tooth. What a dork! So, we backtracked a little to go to Hobby Lobby, where I know I could find something similar to that. I forget how huge that store is until I step foot into it. It is the size of a Walmart but full of arts & crafts and home goods stuff. I wanted to just walk around and look at everything, but of course I was rushed by the boy who hates to spend money not on food! He ended up finding the dome structure, and we took a picture and sent it to dad, who loved it. It was only $14 for both the glass and wooden bottom when Michael's had something similar for $100. Craziness.

When we finally arrived at my family's house, it was 5:00ish. Dad was already making dinner, and it smelled so good since he was making my favorite: mashed potatoes, especially his mashed potatoes. So good! The night was full of catching up with stories, grades, the upcoming semester, etc. Then my step mom brought out the gifts they got for my boyfriend, which was so sweet. They ended up getting his a really nice button up shirt and a long sleeve shirt from Ralph Lauren. He loves that store, so they did good!

Sunday morning we went to church which is luckily five seconds from my apartment, so I love being able to sleep in a little and take my time. After the service, we decided to take his little brother out with us to lunch at the mall food court. We both were craving some delicious Chinese/Japanese food court yummyness. We headed to his family's house afterwards, and then waited anxiously while his mom wrapped the rest of the gifts she had to wrap. Once she finished that, we all gathered together to give out the gifts we got for one another.
His little brother got me some adorable Christmas pajamas as well as some foam soap from Bath & Body Works. It was so sweet! His mom and dad got me a vacuum! Oh gosh, I needed one so bad. Some people would be offended by that, but I absolutely love it. Him and I together bought his mom a COACH purse, his dad an old man hat, and his brother's gift was...something interesting. He is such a country boy, so we decided to make him a basket full of hillbilly stuff he would love: camo belt, camo duct tape, beef jerky in a tobacco can, Browning camo hat, camo knife, a raccoon hat with raccoon tail, a Swamp People tshirt...all in a camo bucket. He loved it! He was so surprised. I am glad we went with that adorable idea instead of just a silly video game or something.

Him and I also decided to give each other our last gift in front of his family. I opened mine first, and it was the Ray Ban Sunglasses I have been wanting. They are so beautiful in person! They are wayfarers and also the tortoise shell pattern instead of just plain black. I wish it was summer right now so I could look super cool wearing them on my face or the top of my head every day.
 


He then opened his last gift from me, which was the Guess Watch he has been wanting for a long time. He hopes to get a job after we graduate, and he has been starting to dress so professional, I guess to get used to it?! Haha, who knows. I love it though, he is so adorable. He also loved how big the face of the watch was, it covers his entire wrist. That's my favorite part about it. It looks like a watch that a millionaire would wear. Thank god it didn't cost as much as a millionaire would pay for a watch!

Sunday night was the candlelight service at his church, which I was super excited about all day because the boyfriend was going to sing up on stage with just him and his guitar. It was beautiful. I made his little brother video it on my phone, which came out well, but I wanna see if I can adjust the volume somehow with my computer. He sang Silent Night, but a different version than the usual slow, sleepy one. It was a little more upbeat since he played it on his acoustic guitar. Once I figure out how to fix the video, I will upload it and show it to every one! I am so proud, can you tell?

Don't forget what Christmas is all about,
Jill