New Phone!

Its been a long time coming, but on March 25th I am finally making the upgrade to an iPhone! 

My first smartphone was a Blackberry Curve 8900 junior year in high school. Since then I have had androids and have really liked them. Right now I have the HTC Incredible 2 and I really like it, but everyone in my family and my boyfriend has an iPhone and the seem to work so much better! Plus my sister lives over seas and she has an iPhone, so if I get an iPhone we can iMessage! Well as long as she is home with wifi we can. 

As you can see, I have already bought five cases for a phone that I dont have. But who cares! Im prepared. Haha. 

I cant wait to get my iPhone! 12 days to go! Lets just hope they dont have to order it in for me...

Perks of being Short

Well, here we go. I bought a maxi skirt, or dress or whatever it is. Its meant to be a skirt but its so long that I can pull it to to be a strapless maxi dress. I spent a few minutes in the dressing room seeing if I could make it work as a skirt and still be able to wear flats or sandals, and I can! Finally! I have a maxi skirt that doubles as a dress! Bonus!
I have had this problem my whole life. I am a whopping 5'2" and nothing fits! You might ask, "Why not just buy the "short" jeans instead of the "regular" length?" Well, jeans are cotton, meaning they shrink when washed. So over a few months of being washed they become to short. So I have to buy the regular length jeans and cuff them to make them fit. Not a big deal. But when it comes to dresses and skirts I have a big problem. They never hit me in the right place on my legs to look nice. This is why I never buy new clothes!

Shopping

So I hate shopping for clothes. Like really hate. I find a ton of cute stuff to try on, then once its on I hate it! I haven't bought new summer clothes in a long time. The newest shorts I have I bought like four years ago and they aren't that great.
My boyfriend took me shopping for my birthday this last weekend and all I ended up getting was a few pairs of earrings, a headband and eye shadow. I have like no tank tops, no skirts and one pair of sandals. Now that I am done with school I can actually wear clothes again so I really need to get some! I will probably just end up getting stuff at Target, which isn't bad, they have lots of cute stuff.
I really want maxi shirts and dresses. Here is the valley summers are super hot. Average temp is around 85. Perfect for skirts and sandals! I do need shorts for work though. Working at Jamba it gets pretty warm on the line with everybody in such tight quarters so jeans aren't an option.

Cake

So I could not figure out how to get perfect cakes, like the one above, at home. I had no problem getting perfect cakes at school though. I figured it was just the oven and I was going to have to deal with it. That is until I found this nifty little pin on Pintrest. All you do is take strips of towel (I used paper towel) get them wet, not dripping but fairly wet, and wrap it around the cake pan. It took two strips of paper towel so I held them together with paperclips, then bake as directed.
My cakes came out so much better than they had! The wet towel keeps the sides of the cake cooler so they don't bake as fast. The reason you get mounded cakes is because the sides of the cake bake faster and don't have the time to properly rise with the inner portion of the cake. Also, you want to make sure you have a thermometer inside your oven. I couldn't figure out why my stuff wasn't baking correctly until I bought a thermometer and found out my oven was baking 50 degrees hotter that the dial said! That's a lot!
Also a little tip for perfect cupcakes. Bake them 25 degrees cooler that directed and a few minutes longer. Fill them 3/4 full, not 2/3. Doing this they wont be flat, they will mound like you want them too and be soft and fluffy inside!

Cilantro Lime Chicken

I've really been liking this dish lately, and the best part is you dump it all the crock pot and leave it for 4 hours and its good to go! Minus the rice, again just a dump and go item.
I've really been trying to eat better lately, minus the chocolate covered peanuts sitting next to me. But hey, we all need a treat every now and then. But this dish is super easy, low calorie and low fat! I found the recipe on Pintrest but didn't love it the way its suppose to be made so here is my take on it.

2 cans black beans (drained)
16 oz frozen corn (thawed)
1/2 large onion
6-8 cloves minced garlic
1/2 bunch cilantro, give or take depending on taste
1-2 tsp cumin
1 - 1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1-2 tsp Mexican spice rub blend
S&P TT
2 lbs boneless chicken (I used thighs)
Top with fresh lime juice
Serve over rice

The original recipe said to juice 2 whole limes into the crockpot but the lime was way to much and had an off flavor so I prefer to use it as a finishing touch. It also said it use chicken breast but I like boneless thighs because they are perfect serving size.

Enjoy!

Happy To Me!

So yesterday was my 20th birthday, yay! I never think about what I want for my birthday until someone asks me. My mom called be like two weeks ago asking what I wanted, I have no fricken clue! I told her I would think about it and let her know. And of course I didnt put any thought into it. the older I get the less I care about what I get for my birthday. All I want is to go to my Grammas and have prime rib dinner and spend the day with my family, but thats not enough for my mom. 

This year all I could think about was shoes and cake pans. So as you can see I have included pictures of such items. My mom and her boyfriend got me these for my presents! Well, I ordered the shoes and she gave me money for them. Haha. But a gift non the less. I have been wanting that four piece Wilton pan set for a while now so thats what I got! The only problem is when I took it out of the packaging I notices that the pans had odd circles on the bottoms. I flipped over the pans and noticed there was an indent from the pan that was inside it. I thought it wasnt a big deal until I looked at the biggest pan and noticed it had a large indent and would make quite the difference in the final product. So now I get to exchange it. I just hope the store still has them because I was at Michaels the other day and didnt see any. Fingers crossed! 

I Will Not Be Like My Mom!

My mom is the one standing in the left picture, me on the right.

I don't know how many times I have said that over the years. But as much as I try not to be like my mom, I am exactly like her! I love my mom, but who wants to be like their mom? My mom always told me I will grow up to be just like her, and I thought, "No way!". Well yes way. Everything about me reminds me of her. The way I talk, the way I act, even how I look is exactly like her! I have very little features of my dad, but my sister is so much more like our dad than our mom. A few weeks ago she posted the picture above of her on Facebook. In it I think she is 14, and the picture of me is at 19. Even with the age difference we look so much alike! If I had her wedding picture it would be even better. Minus the big poofy, permed out hair of 1989.
I get a lot of traits from my mom. We are both sensitive, outgoing, loud, always put others first and we try to avoid conflict as much as possible. The first thing that I noticed about myself that was a lot like my mom was the way I laugh. But hers is still much louder than mine!
I was always embarrassed by the way my mom dances around the house, but now I do the same thing! She always said I will do the same little things to embarrass my kids. Again I thought, "No way!", but oh yes! I don't have kids yet but I do it to my boyfriend all the time!
I am sure I will discover many more things I do that are just like my mom in the next few years.

I love you Mama!