You Always Make Me Smile

Just because I'm in a happy sort of mood today!

{Must be the springy sort of weather out there!}

Enjoy!

You Can Be First Class

You can be first class.

Respect yourself. 

Do not feel sorry for yourself. 

Do not dwell on unkind things 

others may say about you. 

Polish and refine whatever talents 

the Lord has given you. 

Go forward in life 

with a twinkle in your eye 

and a smile on your face, 

but with great and strong purpose in your heart.

Love life and look for its opportunities.

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

image via

Summer Squash Enchiladas

I'm taking a break from all my recent wardrobe planning to bring you this awesome recipe!  :D

I still had some summer squash left from Bountiful Baskets a while ago {kept fresh in the fridge with these awesome produce keeper bags!}.  I had almost forgotten about them but luckily they were still good as new!  {Seriously, those bags are genius!}

So I whipped up some good ol' Summer Squash Enchiladas for dinner.

Summer Squash Enchiladas

Filling:

1 1/2 cup onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp olive oil

6 cups summer squash, chopped

1 4-oz can diced green chili peppers

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

Sauce:

4 tbsp butter

4 tbsp flour

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 cups milk

3 cups mozarella or monterey jack cheese, shredded

Tortillas

Preheat oven to 400.

In large skillet, cook onion and garlic in oil until tender.  Add squash and cook 3-5 minutes more until tender, stirring occasionally.  Stir in half of the green chile peppers, 2 tsp chili powder, and the black pepper.  Cook and stir 1 minute more.  Set aside.

For the sauce:  Melt butter over medium heat.  Stir in flour, chili powder, salt and black pepper.  Cook and stir for 1 minute.  Stir in milk and stir until thick and bubbly.  Remove from heat and add cheese, stir until it melts.  Add the remaining chili peppers to sauce and stir again.  Pour half of sauce into squash mixture and stir to combine. 

Spoon squash mixture down center of each tortilla and roll up.  Place in a lightly greased baking dish.   Top with remaining sauce.  Bake about 25 minutes or until heated through.

Yeehaw!  These are a yummy, comforting southwestern {?} tasting sort of enchilada.  With a hint of spiciness, but not too much {for my family anyway!} that was perfect with a side salad.  Y'all should try it!  They were tasty!

{GULP!}

If you were my jewelery you should be afraid.

Very, very afraid!

Because {gulp!} I'm certainly afraid of this!

Watch out baby!  I've got paint!

Stay tuned . . .


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Update:  Um, yeah.  So that worked out well!  {Not really!}  It's still a little too chilly to paint outside, so, um, maybe there will be a better update in a few months!

Weekend Shopping Trip

Slowly I am revamping my wardrobe.
Headed out to the stores over the weekend

and . . .

found some sweet pink shoes

{thrifted}

and cute coral bracelets!

{from Kohls}

And a really cute blue shirt
{love the collar!}

{from Walmart}

On the lookout for a new coat
{or two!}

I auditioned a few coats at Kohls.
Loved the color of the turquoise one
but not the price.

Since I'm still in weightloss mode,
I think I will keep thrifting for a while!

Still need some appropriate church clothes.
I really wanted to find a chocolate or navy
crisp little A~line skirt.

Didn't find any.

:(

But!

Found these cute new ties for the toddler!

 {from Peanut Posh ~ I went pretty basic
but they had lots of cute and funky ties too!}

We also found ourselves near the Dressing Your Truth store so my daughter and I hurried in to see if we could figure out her type.  She's been rather intrigued with my experiment!  We found out she is a Type 1 too!  

Check out the cute little coat she picked up at the DYT store! It has a cute little swing effect on her. Adorable!

So we came home and purged her closet as well so that she can try out the experiment too.  We have lots of bags to haul off to our local thrift shop!

Let's see, what else?  

Oh yeah!  

I ended up replenishing and freshening up my makeup.

And bought new basics.

{Layering tee's etc}

My wardrobe still has some holes and gaps in it,

but I'm getting closer to

having a closet full of appropriate clothes for

our grand old experiment!

And the fun part is 

that I get to do it along with my daughter now!

Sweet!

Lunch Bunch: Foods for Romance

This turned out to be a tricky month for our group to get together, so my apologies!  But if you have blogged a healthy recipe you would like to share then please feel free to link up to us!

What did you have for Valentine's Day?

What foods say romance to you?

Tell us either in the comments or link up to us with a post of your own!  I will leave the linky open for a week!

Next month we will do 

healthy breakfast recipes, 

so start thinking!

image via

From Cacao to Coats to My Fav Accessory

Today is a little bit of a mish-mash.  First up, to continue our chocolate discussion, Adrienne from The Rich Life asked me yesterday how the cacao smelled when we were stepping on it and the funny thing is, I don't really remember!  So I had to do a little investigating! 

My raw cacao beans

I pulled some raw cacao beans out of my pantry to see what they smelled like.  When I first opened the package there was no noticeable smell wafting my direction.

Raw cacao beans with the packaging {in case you want to find some of your own ~ it's always helpful to see what it is you're searching for.}

So I stuck my nose a little closer to the package and they smelled kind of fruity.  Not chocolatey.  Which is interesting to me {in a way, but I'll explain more about that tomorrow}, because if you eat real dark chocolate it definitely doesn't taste like the chocolate you are probably used to.  In fact, if you're like Rebekah from Cupcake Caramel, she thought it tasted like dirt.  And I have to admit, when I first started cooking with it and trying to make my own chocolates, it didn't taste so great to me either!  But!  The fudge sauce recipe I blogged the other day is definitely sweet, yet dark and doesn't taste like dirt!  I promise!  It's taken me a while to perfect the recipe, but I think we got it right finally!  :D

But in other news, I am continuing along with my fashion experiment and trying to acquire the correct type of clothing for my type.  Yesterday as I was thrifting, I came across this coat:

In the past I haven't been a huge fan of yellow on myself but I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone to try this out. It fit the criteria of things I need to look for plus it felt so springy!  So I grabbed it.  I think with the right styling it could be quite fresh and cute looking!

I've also been thinking a lot this week about my favorite accessory after Janet at The Gardener's Cottage showed us hers.  I couldn't really think of one off the top of my head because I actually have quite a few that I adore, but I finally narrowed it down and I'm going to say that this scarf is my favorite:

I love it because it is lightweight, fun and springy {as in bouncy!} and the perfect creamy shade.  And those cute little "grapes" are so fun!  And amazingly it is one of the accessories I already had that still fits within my type!  Hallelujah!  I would be so sad if I had to stop wearing this one!

So there you have it!  An odd assortment from chocolate to coats to scarves!