Road Tripping with Grits

Hello folks!  The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of travel for me, and I am happy to be back at home sleeping in my own bed, with my husband and my puppyhead Dex.

After visiting home, and having a beautiful shower, I hopped back on a plane to Alabama.  I got in Monday afternoon, saw Mumford and Sons play Monday evening, worked Tuesday, and left again Wednesday for a fun road trip to visit our friends in Gainesville, FL!

Since I am a southern transplant, I want to share with you what I found unique about our trip down to Florida.  It seems the south is full of quirky new things and it's always fun to discover them!

We took a few pit stops along the way to Gainesville.  First, we stopped in Dothan, the location of the first Del Taco in Alabama!  Andrew's favorite restaurant is Del Taco (dream big honey), and since there are none where we live, this was quite the treat for him.  Embarrassingly enough, we actually stopped at Del Taco several times on our trip so Andrew could get his fix.

Andrew enjoying his "Green Burrito"

A Festive Fall Front Porch on a Budget

I'm going to get a little personal here.  The last couple months have been really stressful for my McKay and I.  McKay's job has been in jeopardy because of the nationwide sequestration.  With several rounds of layoffs at his work and more to come,  McKay and I have felt so uneasy about his future and the need to have a more stable job so he can finish his masters and support Amelia and I.  The good news is McKay has been offered a job with a government program where they allow him to go to school full time, pay him salary, and they pay for school!  This is a huge blessing, but there's one crappy stipulation, it's a significant cut to his pay :(

We've had to have some serious heart to heart talks about our finances.  We even thought of moving out of our home and renting it out for a couple of years to save money.  Even though that would save us money we just didn't feel right about that option and plus I would feel overly territorial about someone else living in my home, worrying about whether or not they're keeping it clean, and thinking about someone sleeping in my bedroom (it kinds of creeps me out).

We'll be able to survive, but money is going to be really tight for the next couple years.   It's hard to be at a comfortable stage of your life then being forced to feeling like a poor college student again.  You feel like you're taking three steps backwards.  After weeks of feeling mopey and "my life sucks" kind of mood, and dealing with some health issues (it's been a rough week).  I've realized that this isn't the end of the world.  Many people go through set backs in their lives and this one will be such a small one in the grand scheme of our lives.  We're extremely blessed and have SO much to be grateful for.  This new opportunity is going to get McKay through school, have a stable job, and allow him to be home more.  Not many families in our area do have options, and I need to remember that.

I'll stop my whining now.

My friend Allison from Cupcake Diaries asked me to be apart of her series of 30 Days of Halloween where each day she features a blogger creating something Halloweenish.  You can go here to learn about the series and see all of the other awesome Halloween ideas you can use this year.

Anyway, I really, really, really, wanted to dress up my boring front porch this year for Fall/Halloween for Allison's series but needed to do it on a VERY small budget.  I was pretty skeptical I could pull it off.

I set a budget of $5 and promised myself I wouldn't go over it and I'm happy to say I was able to stay on that budget!  It wasn't easy.  I wanted to get a few new fall decorations I saw at various stores, but I stuck to my guns and bought only what I really needed.  Everything else I used I already had in my house, found in the garbage, borrowed, reused, painted, and grew to get this front porch looking festive.

6 Best Budget Beauty Products for Dry Skin

Fall is here!  Fall is here and I love it!  I can see the leaves in the mountains change already!  Not to be a Debbie Downer, but one thing I don't love about the changing season is the havoc it does to my skin and hair.  Living in the high desert of Utah, it gets EXTREMELY dry during the fall and winter and this is brutal to my skin.  My skin starts feeling dry and tight, my acne starts up, my scalp gets flaky, and I pretty much feel like I'm falling apart!  I've found over the years that when the weather changes, I need to change my beauty regime to combat the dry desert air.

"Grits" Comes into Town

Hello!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  I sure did!  My sister Melanie, aka "Grits" came into town this week from Alabama!  I love it when sister comes into town. I love being able to spend everyday with her doing something fun, chatting, and taking it easy.  Normally we talk a lot on the phone or Skype with each other.  It was really good to see her and her little pregnant belly.

We did some fun things, we went to the cute Oh Sweet Sadie Boutique, saw Austenland, ate a lot of baklavas and gyros at the Salt Lake City Greek Festival, toured my town's local Garden Show, and Caitlin and I hosted Melanie a baby shower with all of our family and friends.  Melanie is doing a really cute mermaid theme nursery, so Caitlin and I thought we would host a mermaid theme shower and it turned out really cute.  We had it at my parents backyard.  Check out some of the pictures from this week.

Caitlin riding her bicycle with Maizie.

Red Lip Tips

We are somewhat nervous to post this video, our first tutorial, so please bare with us.  Let's just say that filming a tutorial was WAY harder then we thought it would be, and we are still learning!!

We ran into a few isssues: background noise, a crying baby, Courtney talking while I was trying to apply the lipstick and smearing it all over her face, lipstick malfunctions, my pregnant butter fingers dropping everything, and much more.

Please ignore some of our funny faces, and Courtney's stoned look.  But, the good news is we finished it, and we will hopefully learn from this one, and there will be better tutorials to come!  Let us know what you want to see in the future and we will work on it!

Healthy Chocolate and Coconut Oil Mug Muffin Recipe

I've been SO excited for fall to arrive this year!  Don't get me wrong, I love summer, but I've been getting tired of the heat.  I heart fall because it gets me all nostalgic of cool crisp weather, thick sweaters, wearing socks with boots, hot out of the oven pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, football games, school starting up, and the changing colors of the leaves.  During this festive time of year my biggest weakness comes out in full force and that is my sweet tooth.  Let's be honest, it can get a little out of control.  I inherited this very dominant gene from my mother.  

To help curb my sweet tooth I've been making healthy desserts to help me get through this time without having to go buy larger pants.   As I have been on this heath and fitness crusade I've found a bunch of healthy desserts I can enjoy and that satisfies my sweet tooth, but the one I'm sharing with you today is one of my favorites!  

Decorating Your Dorm Room On a Budget

I like to think that you can tell a lot about a person, by taking a peep into their college dorm room.