It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you know me then you are well aware of the fact that I have a slight obsession with Christmas (and really just the holiday time frame in general). "All I Want for Christmas is You" along with a plethora of other Christmas carols can be heard blasting in my car, my cube at work, and my apartment beginning on November 1st. You can never start too early. Sorry Thanksgiving!  I apologize in advance for the absurd amount of holiday tradition, cooking, and crafting entries that I will undoubtedly post in the coming weeks, but without further ado my first holiday tradition is...

GINGERBREAD HOUSE DECORATING

Every Thanksgiving weekend, my sisters and I decorate a gingerbread house together. When I say my sisters, what this really means is Brooke and I decorate while Mandy pretends to help (she doesn't share the same enthusiasm that Brooke and I do for baking). The past couple years my mom has gotten us a Mini Gingerbread Village kit so we each assembled and decorated our own separate houses (which means dearest Mandy was forced to participate).

Gingerbread House Decorating 2011 - Can you guess which one Mandy made?
(I apologize for the awful picture quality)

This year my mom bought a Pre-Baked and Pre-Assembled Gingerbread House kit which I feel like was cheating slightly . The most challenging part of a gingerbread house is putting it together. It seems like we never get through a year without having at least one massive collapse (usually after we've decorated a good portion of it). Anyways, this year we got to avoid all that and just focus on making it pretty!

This kit came with the pre-assembled house, candy stars, candy canes, gumdrops, and gummy trees. We had some red, green, and white regular and mint m&ms at the house so we threw those into the mix as well.

Usually Brooke and I like to get creative and try to decorate with some other items not included in the kit. This year the selection at our house was pretty slim, but we did have some chocolate chip cookies my grandma had baked, dry roasted peanuts, and the m&ms pictured above. I also stumbled upon some adorable little gingerbread men on Black Friday at Target. If you like decorating, you can find some really awesome seasonal Wilton products in the holiday section there.

Obsessed. These have to be the cutest thing ever.

Mandy conveniently had physics homework to work on (who does homework over Thanksgiving break!?!? Such an overachiever!) so Brooke and I were on our own tackling this house. We decided to make a classy gingerbread house this year so we didn't go overboard with candy and used only a red/white/green color scheme. We used the peanuts for stonework if you will, and crumbled a cookie for the path to the front door. We also used some white sanding sugar to cover the frosting on the cardboard base to make it look more like snow.

Definitely an improvement over last year!

Considering what we had to work with, I think it turned out pretty cute! Maybe next year we will be more adventurous and try assembling one from scratch! If anyone else has any pictures of gingerbread houses they've decorated I would love to see them! Now what to do with my remaining 10 little gingerbread men...

Me? A runner?

In honor of The Domestic Wannabe's Move it Monday and the anxiety of trying to squeeze back into a pair of jeans this morning after the long holiday weekend - a post about running! Hopefully it will prove to be somewhat motivational for both myself and all of you :)

I would have never ever guessed that I would become a runner. I can’t think of anything I dreaded more than the day we were timed running the mile back in elementary school. Why WHY would people choose to do this for fun?!? Yet somehow I’ve become one of those people.

I really didn’t develop this affinity for running until I was 24 so I guess I was a bit of a late bloomer. There was one summer where my friend Katie and I tried to “get in shape” and would run laps (and by run I mean we probably ran 0.1% of the time and walked/talked the other 99.9%) at the track every morning. However, these “runs” were followed by trips to Hardee’s for bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits so I’m going to go ahead and say those didn’t count.

More of the same story in college. I did work out pretty regularly, but I was strictly an elliptical/aerobics girl. No treadmills for me unless I was walking. From time to time I would attempt to run, but it was just so hard. I would usually give up after less than a minute. Some people are just not meant to run I would tell myself. I am obviously one of those people.

It wasn’t until about a year and a half after I graduated from college that I really got into running. I'd moved halfway across the country for a boy (smart right?),  and I was working at the most miserable place ever. Seriously words can't describe how awful it was, but at least I had my boyfriend. Fast forward a year or so. Bye bye boyfriend. Hello heartache. There I was, single and stuck in Cincinnati for at least another 8 months until my lease was up. After wallowing in self pity for several weeks, I decided that something had to change or else I wouldn’t survive until October so I made the only logical decision. I signed up for culinary school (this topic requires an entirely separate post), and I signed up for a half marathon. Darn it I was going to become a runner.

Having no experience with running whatsoever, I googled different training programs, and ultimately decided on this one:

I like how is says 3 "easy" miles. Like running 3 miles is easy!

The half marathon I had signed up for was only 8 weeks away so I had to jump into the 12 week training program in week 5 (after literally never running further than a mile before in my life). It was a bit of a shock, but I survived. If anyone is considering running a half, I would definitely advise planning ahead better so you can complete the entire training program, but I made do with the time I had. Believe me, that first 7 mile run was difficult, but after feeling the sense of accomplishment of actually completing it, I was hooked. Running was just what I needed. It took up a lot of my time, cleared my mind, and gave me a long range goal. Seriously, running has to be one of the greatest things ever if you are going through a breakup.

The weather conditions were less than ideal on race day (thunder, lightening, pouring rain). I had squishy shoes and blisters the size of quarters before I’d even made it through mile 1, but I finished and lived to tell the tale. Without a doubt, one of the reasons that I’ve been so taken with running is the sense of camaraderie among all runners. Everyone is so friendly, welcoming, and motivational. If you start to struggle, there is always someone there offering words of encouragement to help you keep going.

I wasn't lying about the rain. My hair is proof. Gross.

So here I am two and a half years later...still running. I’ve completed several 5K’s, one 10K, 3 half marathons, and 1 full marathon. I’m telling you, if you’ve tried to run before but given up, get back out there and try again. It is so so worth it. I’m glad I can finally call myself a runner!

Here goes nothing...

If I had a dollar for every time one of my friends told me that I should start a blog over the course of the last few months...well I would have about $11. I keep telling them that in all reality I actually live a very boring life. I wake up before the crack of dawn. Go to the gym. Go to work. Come home. Watch a little TV. Maybe read a few chapters of my book club book if I’m feeling overly ambitious. All the while talking to my cat, Evie, mind you. Then I’m in bed by 8:30 p.m. on a good night. 10:00 p.m. if I’m feeling crazy. These are not the things people want to read about day in and day out I try to convince them. I am a 26 year old self-proclaimed cat lady, and I am boring with a capital B. 

The problem is my friends think my life is way more exciting than it really is because I have an unhealthy obsession with Instagram. Please see this unfortunate comic by Pandyland: A Comic about Instagram. I hate the truth in this comic because I feel it describes my life perfectly. Sad, but so so true. Take a peek at my Instagram profile here, and it appears my life is filled with fun baking adventures, fashion, cocktails with friends...and maybe a few too many pictures of my cat. I can't help it that my cat should have been a model, and the world (okay my 218 followers) deserve a new picture of her at least every other day. Sorry I'm not sorry. Nonetheless, my life seems exciting. And so I’ve been pressured to start this blog. 

you can't deny the cuteness...

So here it goes. I’m about to begin sharing my life with my friends, my family, and complete strangers. I anticipate this blog will focus mainly on my baking (maybe with a little actual cooking although this usually results in utter failure), with some fashion, fitness, and other random topics thrown into the mix. I apologize if I bore you, but you can stop reading at any point right?

I also feel that the key to a good blog (or any website really) is good pictures. Unfortunately, like I mentioned before, I’m a 26 year old young professional, and let’s be honest. On my salary, I cannot afford to drop roughly $1,000 on any of the DSLR cameras I’ve been lusting after, and still have enough money to buy fab clothes in order to post my OOTD selfies (i.e. an outfit of the day picture taken by yours truly and posted to Instagram in order to validate my style).

this baby got 29 likes

Maybe if this blogging thing really takes off, or if I get a big promotion I will reward myself with a nice camera, but until then you will have to suffer with my grainy pictures taken on my ancient Nikon Coolpix or iPhone 5. Yes, I did splurge and upgrade my phone after living with an old cracked iPhone 3 for almost a year, but that was only because I needed better quality Instagram pics so I could get more likes. Obviously. Okay enough rambling. Here goes nothing...