Birthday Week!

Everyone! We are in the midst of birthday week! (yes, that's a thing)
Look at what my mom did .....

She sent me seven cards. One for each day of birthday week! Hundreds of miles away and still finding a way to celebrate with me! She gets me. 

I really love birthdays and celebrating things, and today Jono and I have a lot to celebrate!

1. Birthday week continues!
I don't plan on baking myself a cake, but if I did, I would hope I could make it as pretty as potter + butler did .....

2. HE GOT A JOB!

I'm pretty sure he'll be working in a cubicle of sorts, but I'm still feeling inspired by this masculine work area via this way cool tumblr insideinside .....

3. We have officially been married for 8 months as of yesterday!

Our conversation about it .....

Me (yelling from our office to the living room): Hey, Jonathan!

J (yelling back): Yeah?

Me: We've been married for 8 full months now!

J: Wow! That's cool. 

Me: Yeah, that's 2/3 of a year!

J: Yup

Me: 66%

J: Yup

Me: Like, if we had a pizza, and it had 12 slices, we would have eaten 8 of them .....

J: I'm hungry for more!

Me: *walks into the living room to kiss him for being adorable*

^^ Proof that marriage is fun

This weekend we plan to continue celebrating by possibly hitting up the Denver County Fair (I am particularly interested in the Zombie Beauty Pageant), and by definitely hitting up the Blues and Brews festival on Sunday! 

BOOM. It's celebration city over here! Lovin' it.

Thanks for reading!

Bye friends.

I Believe In The Happy Place

In Denver, during monsoon season, a day goes something like this ....

cool sunny morning
warm sunny day
cloudy rainy afternoon
cool clear evening

It is the best weather pattern I could ever ask for. I really love cloudy days and I really love rain.

Yesterday we woke up to cloud cover and the temperature didn't rise above 75. I wore a flannel shirt and leggings all day, and for those who know me well that is my outfit of choice.

This is a picture of the view from our desk chair. You can't tell, but at this point there was some rain coming down. 

My desk chair with a cup of coffee, something mildly creative happening on my computer screen, and an open window with rain coming down outside. 

I would consider this a happy place for me. 

I love that moment when you breathe in and realize that you are in a happy place. So pleasant. 

I encourage you to seek your happy place! Maybe this weekend? Let me know what you find!

Thanks for reading. 

Bye friends. 

Ch Ch Changes!

One of my favorite things about keeping up with a blog is having the creative freedom to do whatever I want with and to it. So I'm working on making some changes to the way the blog looks. Bear with me, just having some fun.

Celebrating!

Founts Used - Sunshine In My Soul, Quicksand & Georgia

Thai Inspired Turkey Lettuce Wraps

You guys, I want to preface this post with the proclamation that my husband is a wiz in the kitchen. His ability to turn out rock-star meals should no longer blow my mind, but it does. He's just so creative.

We had some leftover turkey loin in the fridge and he decided to shred it and make some Thai inspired deliciousness that we could use for lettuce wraps. He found a few recipes to gather inspiration and then totally just went for it! Here was the result ......

Fonts Used - Sunshine In My Soul & Georgia

They were so so good! And he made them in basically no time.

Recipe:

Ingredients 

- 1lb of ground turkey, cooked (we used leftover turkey loin)

- Lettuce (romaine, iceberg, etc. your choice!)

- 1 cup, carrots, shredded

- 3tbs of cilantro, chopped 

- 3tbs of almond butter

- Juice from 1/2 a lime

- 2-3 green onions (your flavor preference)

- 1 small jalapeno, chopped (add more if you're into it)

- 1tbs garlic, minced

- 1tbs olive oil

- 1tbs sesame oil

Directions

Heat both oils together in a skillet. Add garlic and onion and let cook for about 1 minute. Then add almond butter. Let it cook until smooth. This will create your base sauce. Next add carrots and the jalapeno and let cook for about 1 minute. Finally add your ground turkey and let it all cook together for another 1-2 minutes. Turn of your stove, add lime juice and cilantro and mix. Season with salt and pepper if desired (we thought it was fine without it). Scoop onto lettuce cups and serve!

Let me know if you try them! I want to know how they turn out for others. The recipe is a bit of a guess as he just adds as he pleases, but it should be pretty close! However, it does give you some freedom to play, which is what this recipe is all about.

BONUS: Ways to shake up the dish (via, my hubs)
- Add fish sauce and/or soy sauce for more of an asian flavor
- Use red pepper flakes or siracha instead of jalapeno for an intense spicy kick
- Make with peanut butter instead of almond butter

Well thanks for reading!
Bye friends.

Bye, Google Reader. Helloooo, Feedly.

Well, I hadn't been keeping up with my blogs lately .... I've been mildly preoccupied with being unemployed .... so when I went to sign on to my google reader the other day and found that it was NO LONGER A THING, I panicked. BUT, they were kind enough to suggest other options, and I went with Feedly.

I'm all about easy to figure out and easy to use. I've only been on Feedly for a couple of days but I am liking it overall. I haven't utilized all that it can do yet, and I don't really know if I'll need to, I just want all my blogs in one place and this does that for me. You can use your gmail info to log in, so you don't have to create a new profile if you don't want to. And the lay out is clean, well designed, and easy to work with.

So, thank you Feedly, for being there for me when Google Reader no longer could be.

What readers do you guys use? AND bigger question, what blogs do you read? I realized recently that there is whole world of blogs out there that I don't read and should .... so I am open to suggestions! Leave a comment with your personal favorites.

Hello My Name Is Unemployed?

So, I've been thinking a bit about self worth lately. What all goes into it? Where does it come from? And, unfortunately, I feel like it rarely comes from the right place.

Recently, I've been finding a lot of my self worth in my current employment status. I am unemployed. And everyday I wake up, open my computer, and apply to as many jobs as I can. Once I've completed enough to make me feel accomplished and productive, I close my computer and relax for about 2 minutes, then I start excessively checking the email on my phone.

As the day progresses, I start feeling worse and worse about myself, no responses must mean I'm no good, right?

Wrong.

But it's not easy to remember that. And after almost 2 months of this, it's almost impossible to remember that.  And that's just silly.

Why am I putting so much power in the hands of these employers? A power that they probably have zero idea that they have (nor do they want). It's not fair to them and it's not fair to me (or to us, I can't be the only person guilty of this, right?)

I have made being unemployed my whole identity to myself. Job descriptions are constantly telling me how qualified I am. At what? Life? No, Hayley, just that position, calm down.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, I've decided to no longer base my self worth on my unemployment, because I am confident that the right opportunity will come my way soon enough, and I want to be just as happy now as I will be then.

So, to all my fellow unemployees; we are fighting the good fight, soldier on, keep the faith, and trust that you're still awesome.

BONUS: How to get through unemployment...
1. Learn something new - I've been learning to sew and I made a skirt!
2. Write about it - I mean, why not. It can get emotional. Start a journal and make it funny, like pretend unemployment is a deserted island and you're stuck on it.
3. Read the book "How To Cope With Unemployment (Without Going Crazy)." - I haven't, but I probably should.
4. Better your self-branding - Here's an article to help you that.
5. Work out - Is this one obvious? Because I have yet to take it on.

Ok. Thanks for reading.
Bye friends.