In this post, I’ll be continuing my (long) story of how I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. If you missed it, you can read part one here.

So we left off with me leaving the hospital…

During this time, I started seeing a Nutritional Therapist. I think I was annoyed with conventional medicine, I thought that getting my gallbladder removed would solve my problems, and none of them went away. My nutritional therapist was awesome. It was kind of expensive, as my insurance didn’t cover it, but I think it was worth it. She pegged inflammation in my colon right away. She also got rid of the headaches ad migraines I had been having for years.

In October 2012, my weight loss got bad. I used to weight about 135 pounds, but over time I got down to 110 pounds, and being 5’6” and with my body type, it was too low. I was eating a lot, but most of the time I just wasn’t hungry, and wouldn’t and couldn’t eat. Combined with my fevers, my mom thought it might be something serious, so I went to my doctor. (I should have gone much sooner, but I just never put things together and am crazy unobservant when it comes to my own body and tracking things over time.) My primary care doctor did some blood work, and the only thing that came back was a very high platelet level. Since he couldn’t find a cause, he sent me to an Oncologist/Hematologist. This doctor did some more blood work, and ordered a CT scan of my head, chest, and pelvis. It was the CT scan of my pelvis that showed I had an inflamed colon.

Because of this, I was sent back to my G.I. doctor. In November of 2012, he did a colonoscopy, and diagnosed me with Ulcerative Colitis.

Ulcerative Colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease, or chronic illness that affects the large intestine. The cause of ulcerative colitis is still unknown.

My G.I. doctor prescribed me Apriso, which is an anti inflammatory drug that is supposed to help with the inflammation, stomach/colon pain, as well as the diarrhea.

It didn’t work, and three weeks later I was having another bout of extreme stomach pain. It got so bad I could hardly walk. I called my G.I doctor, and he prescribed me two medications. When I got to the pharmacy to pick them up, I got some bad news. They were going to cost me $400 for only 10 days. The pharmacist said that without my insurance, it would have cost me $2,800. To make matters worse, my pharmacy had to order the medication, and it wouldn’t be in until the next day. Not to mention, that the nurse on the phone told me that the medication would take 24 to 48 hours to start working. I called my G.I. doctor back hoping he could prescribe me something else. He had already left for the day, so I was told he would call me back the next day.

I knew I couldn’t live with this pain for another two to three days, so my mom took me to the emergency room. I had a very high blood pressure and heart rate (which can be an indicator of pain) and they did some tests to check for inflammation. They gave me two doses of morphine, and one of dilaudid before the pain subsided. They also gave me a prescription for oral pain meds, which I took for a couple days before the pain went away.

The next day, my doctor called me back. He put me on 40mg of prednisone daily. Within just a couple days, my upset stomach went away, as well as the diarrhea.

Thankfully, I had an appointment already scheduled with my G.I. doctor the next week, and my mom (the nurse) went with me because she always asks the right questions. My doctor did a really good job at explaining everything. He was upset that the first medication he wanted to give me was so expensive, and he really didn’t want me to stay on the prednisone for long. It’s a horrible, horrible drug. It’s a steroid, and one of it’s most famous side effects is moon face, where your face and cheeks swell up. My face is a little puffy and a little rounder, but thankfully it’s not too bad. I have gained like, 15 pounds though, which is no fun.

He decided he wanted to put me on Imuran, which is an immunosupressant. but first I needed some blood tests and a TB test done first, to make sure that my body could handle the medication, and that I didn’t have TB. (I don’t!! hooray!) II had to go get my blood drawn twice, because the first time they screwed up and drew for the wrong test. But finally, after a month, I’ve started the imuran. I’m currently tapering off the prednisone (Which is HORRIBLE! My whole body aches and I’m tired all the time.)

And that’s where I am now! I’m happy that this feeling of not knowing what was wrong with me is over. I’m not thrilled about the diagnosis, as it’s something I’m going to have to live with and take medication for forever. But, I can’t change or fix anything, so I’m trying to stay positive. It could have been much, much worse, so I guess I’m thankful as well. I’ll never forget my second appointment with the Hematologist to discuss my lab results and the first think he said when he came in the door was “Well, it’s not cancer.” On the right medication, Ulcerative Colitis is treatable (although not curable) and you can live a normal life.

Thank you so much for listening to my (long) story! And sorry for the photoless post. And sorry it took so long for me to get this next half up. I’ve started a new job (on top of my old one) and with school back in full swing it’s been a busy time!!

Anyway, why am I on this new medication you may ask? (Or, maybe you don’t care, and in that case, feel free to skip this post.)

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably know I like to complain a lot, haha. You probably also now that over the past year, I’ve had some health struggles and haven’t always felt the greatest.  But, finally, in November, everything was figured out. I think I waited so long to post about it because I think I was kind of in denial about it. I just didn’t want to be true. I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, but just didn’t have the time. I figure since I had the day off, I would get started on it!!

I won’t draw it out, I’ve been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. But I will tell you the story on how this came about. Some of it’s not pretty, but I found that reading stories like these have really helped me, so maybe my story will do the same for someone else.

It all started in April of 2011, when I started getting horrible stomach/abdominal pains. They hurt so bad that sometimes it hurt to walk, and they even woke me up at night. I was going through a busy time in my life with lots of changes, so I brushed it off as stress. After a week, they were gone. I did notice however that every time I ate my stomach would become upset. I tried an elimination diet, eliminating many of the most common foods people are intolerant too. After about 6 weeks, I thought I had my answer. I always had horrible headaches, and took Excedrin every morning. I thought it was the aspirin that was upsetting my stomach.

In August of 2011, I went to North Carolina to work on an Alpaca Farm. After only being there a week, I got hit with horrible stomach pains again. This time, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep. I also started having constant diarrhea, back pain, and a fever. After a week of this unbearable pain, I ended up in the emergency room. The doctor’s there did some tests, and told me that although it wasn’t an emergency and didn’t need to happen right away, but I was having a gallbladder attack, and I would need to get my gallbladder removed. I left North Carolina the next day.

Me and Healther, the alpaca!!

When I got back to Indiana, I set up an appointment with a surgeon right away. The Ultra sound results they had done in North Carolina didn’t really show anything, so my surgeon ordered a HIDA Scan, which would show how the bile in my gallbladder was being excreted. These results were borderline, so in order for my insurance to cover the surgery, my surgeon sent me to a gastroenterologist to rule out anything else.

My G.I. Doctor did an endoscopy (Where they send a scope down your throat to look at your stomach, and upper small intestine.) He didn’t find anything unusual, and concluded that I should have my gallbladder out. He did mention that there might be other problems, and if my symptoms persisted, I should come see him after my surgery.

So my gallbladder was set to come out at the end of December, 2011. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had another horrible attack, was still having diarrhea, I was going to the bathroom a crazy amount of times each day, I was even waking up 4 to 5 times at night. Life was a mess.

Finally, it was surgery day and I got my gallbladder removed, there were no complications and everything went smoothly. I went home to recover, and started to feel better after three days. The fourth day after my surgery (Which of course, had to be New Year’s Eve!!) I woke up feeling terrible. That afternoon, I took my temperature, and I had a fever of 103. My mom being a nurse, knew that having a high fever after surgery was dangerous, so off we went to the emergency room. (For the second time, if you’ve been keeping track).

In the emergency room, they did a ton of test. Ultra scan, X-rays, and a CT scan. They also did a bunch of blood work. They couldn’t find anything, so they admitted me to the hospital, at the instructions of my surgeon. They wanted to do another HIDA scan, but the technician wouldn’t be in until the holidays were over. My surgeon said that I couldn’t go home until they figured out where the fever was coming from, or the fever stayed below 101 for 24 hours. I was in the hospital for 3 days. When they finally did the HIDA scan, it showed nothing interesting.

I went home, and everything was normal for several months. And by normal, I mean normal for me. Diarrhea, stomach aches, and weight loss. I lost twenty pounds in just a few months, and we didn’t know why. I was also having fevers. It was weird, once or twice a month, I would get a fever of around 101, and I would be totally wiped out. I was so tired, just for a few days, and then it all went away.

This is where I’ll leave you today… it’s a lot of writing. I feel bad for the lack of photos, but it’s a hard story to illustrate, haha. I’ll post the rest of the story early sometime soon!

First off, breakfast.

I had some banana Chobani (Soo good! Not too banana-y, but just enough. Actually, I could have used a little more nanner. That’s why I added a banana.) With a banana, a scoop of PB2 Chocolate mixed in, and some cornflakes on top. I was all out of my delicious Oats and wanted a crunch factor.

Then, on my way to work, the worst thing happened as I pulled my sunglasses out of my purse.

THEY’RE BROKEN. And these are my favorite sunglasses of all time. I bought them from a sketchy man on a street corner in Italy. In my opinion, the best things are bought from sketchy men on street corners in Europe. I found the screw in my purse, so hopefully they’re fixable. At least they weren’t expensive.

Blah Blah Blah, work was boring, and then I came home and hung out with my cat and knitted. Because I’m an old lady?

(P.S.- this Photo is from Monday. I’m just using it today. This just shows you how much I knit. I multi tasked as I watched Obamz get inaugurated.) Also, don’t assume I’m an awesome knitter or anything. I can knit scarves. and that’s it.

If you follow me on twitter, then you know I’ve been whining about chocolate, ice cream, and wanting to watch Leonardo Dicaprio movies. (That’s because it’s that time of the month you guys!! And those are the only things I want at this time of the month.) So I watched Inception as I got my old lady knitting on.

Then, because it’s that time of the month, and all I want to do is stuff my face with unhealthy things, I decided to make nachos for dinner. But I have to admit, they were a pretty healthy version. Ok. They were healthier than the kind you’d buy at the movies or a sports game.

This was actually my brother’s plate, because I had inhaled half of mine before I thought to take a picture. It’s filled with chips, Chicago Soy Dairy Nacho Cheese Sauce (AMAZING. It tastes just like what I remember nacho cheese tasting like.) Beans, black olives, fake ground  meat, (I skipped that on mine, as it contained wheat), green onions, homemade salsa, guacamole, and lettuce. So good. It definitly hit the spot.

Then, I ended the evening by finishing Inception, and drinking some hot chocolate, and eating some chocolate. SWISS MISS you guys. I can’t remember the last time I had that. I do pretty good staying away from dairy, except in these situations. I just needed it.

Oh, and sadness, I burnt myself while making dinner. : (

Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt to bad. Hopefully still won’t in the morning.

What fun things did you do today? Are there things you don’t eat often that sometimes you crave like crazy?? 

This was a common snack at least three times over the past few days:

Honeycrisp apples FTW!!

I’m way too cool to use only one nut butter, so I change it up a bit, and use THREE.

PBco White chocolate wonderful, Barney Butter, and I know it’s not a nut butter, but it’s similar, Biscoff Spread. I know it’s not gluten-free, but I saw it in the cupboard while I was rummaging around, and I couldn’t help myself. I have no self control.

This was my lunch Sunday, another apple with all three butters, some corn tortillas with hummus and tomatoes, and some dates and cocoa roasted almonds.

And I’m not just loving nuts (haha, hold the jokes) in butter and whole form, I’ve been digging them in powdered forms as well.

These three ingredients make the beeessstttt smoothies/frosties/ice creams. The concept isn’t new, so I won’t pretend you haven’t seen it before.

You just put some bananas (I use two) a few spoonfuls of PB2 (I love the chocolate kind) and a little almond milk which makes a thick yummy ice cream…

Or a lot of milk to make a smoothie… or frosty as I like to say. It’s not a Wendy’s frosty, but it’s pretty darn close for dairy free and relatively healthy!!

Do you like nut butters? What’s your favorite kind/brand?? Do you have a cupboard full of half empty jars like me? 

I’ve got lots to share with you today. First off, I did some baking this weekend!! I know. I haven’t baked anything in a long time. Grad school man. Except I can’t really use that as an excuse, because this week is my first week back, I’ve had almost a month off.

I was at Wallyworld the other day, (thats Walmart) and I discovered some new Chobani flavors!!!! I almost squeeled in the yogurt section. No noise escaped my lips, but I did get a funny look from the lady standing a few feet away debating what type of cottage cheese to buy.

Vanilla chocolate chunk!!! Right when I got home I knew what I had to make with this. I had seen this recipe for Chocolate Chunk Muffins on Chole’s blog, Every Craving, but I brushed it aside thinking, I’ll never find that Chobini here. (Even though I could have just used vanilla chobani and added more chocolate. I’m not a quick thinker.)

I thought about making them gluten-free so I could enjoy them as well, but sometimes just substituting gf flour for the regular stuff doesn’t always turn out well, and I didn’t want to waste my precious Chobani. I followed the recipe as is, except I used coconut oil instead of canola, and I used egg replacer eggs because my mom hard boiled the last of the eggs we had.

My batter turned out kind of stiff, and I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be like that. It might have been the fact that I used coconut oil and fake eggs. Or maybe it was just supposed to be like that. Either way, I was about to scoop some into my muffin liners, when I thought. I bet these would make awesome cookies. So I made cookies.

They were amazing. Or so I hear. My brother and my dad polished them all off. (A double batch!!) I made them Sunday, and they are all gone as of today. (Well, really Tuesday night.)  I’m definitly going to try them with gluten-free flour once I’m brave enough.

Another recipe from another blogger I’m loving as of late is this gluten-free ravioli from Clean Eating Chelsey:

Since I’m apparently incapable of following recipes exactly, I didn’t do it quite the same way she did. I nixed the spinach (Is it just me, or does cooked spinach taste like fish to you? I just can’t handle it.) and doubled up on the mushrooms in the filling. Also, instead of boiling the ravioli, I baked them, because I’m all about throwing things in the oven and forgetting about them. I made a triple batch, so we could have them two nights. I love leftovers. I simply sprayed a 9×13 inch pan, spread a little marinara sauce on the bottom, placed my raviolis out in one layer, then topped them with some more sauce. Bake them at 350 for 45 minutes and you’re all set!! They are sooo good. Even my gluten eating brother loved them. Even my gluten and meat eating dad loved them.

I just had to throw this in here. Dinner of champions much??? Gotta love (veggie/gluten-free) hot dogs and (dairy-free/gluten-free) macaroni and cheese!!! I had like, 2 more helpings of noodles, fuurr shuurr.

Welp, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Ok. That’s a lie. I’ve got a picture of Dwight.

Lazy day yesterday for Dwight!!! He looks so sleepy. And just one more, I promise, that’s the last one.

It’s a Dwight taco. He got stuck in the couch. Silly kitty.

Do you follow recipes exactly, or do you change them up a bit?? Have you been eating anything good lately?? 

When I was younger, my mom used to make this snack that she simply called “Oats”. Technically, you could call it granola, but we always just called it “oats”. Recently I was thinking about them, and made her dig out her old recipe card. And when I call it old, it’s old.

See what I mean? All smeary, and even some sort of stain. I think it’s vanilla. Anyway, there weren’t a lot of instructions on this index card. Actually, there were none. I added the 1/4t of salt (Never trust a recipe that doesn’t have salt in it.) and the “350 for 20-25min”.

They were delicious. Most of it comes out in these chewy, granolay chunks, and then theres a little left at the bottom that’s perfect over yogurt, in a smoothie, or with milk as cereal. It’s like two snacks in one! The spice is pretty basic, but there’s lots of room to change things up!! How much fun would it be to add cocoa powder and some cayenne pepper?

Mmmm. Check out those clumps of granola!!

It’s ridiculously simple as well.

Oats
2 3/4 cups oats (I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Old Fashioned Oats)
1/2 cup sugar
1t vanilla
1 egg, beaten (Or, 1 replacer egg. I used an actual egg, but I plan on trying it with a substitute soon!! Maybe a banana!)
1/2 cup water
1t cinnamon
1/4t salt

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Once the oats are coated, dump them out onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment, or sprayed with oil.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes. The oats on the edges will start to get crispy.

Not going to lie, I ate these all by myself. In like a day. It’s a great grab and go snack!!

Do you have any recipes that are so simple to make, but so good? What types of add ins or flavors do you like in your granola? I’m looking for some ideas to spice this recipe up!! 

I’m definitly one of those people who thinks setting goals is important, but my life is definitly lacking an overall goal. Sometimes I attribute this to the fact that I’m young, and I don’t really know what I want my life to be, or what I want to do. I’m still trying to figure that out. But after reading this, I know that just because I don’t have an end goal, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have any.

Also the graphic states that one in four people make the same goals every year, and still don’t achieve it. I often make the same goals over and over again, because I don’t achieve them. Now that I know the importance of writing them down, I’m going to do that and post them above my desk, so I see them every day. Then I won’t be able to forget them!

I’m so not surprised at the top 5 resolutions in 2012. Get organized is a repeat offender on any goals list of mine. (I can get organized… it’s just staying that way that’s the hard part!!) I thought the fall in love one was kind of funny. I understand that people want to be in love, but I guess that’s never been one of my top priorities? I’ve never gone out looking for it. I’m just hoping one day I’ll come across it!

The part that got to me the most was that people who wrote down their goals were on average earning TEN TIMES MORE MONEY than those who didn’t have any goals. That is crazy.

Needless to say, I’ve spent some time over the past day or so writing down some clear goals that I want to see in my life over the next year. For my blog, my personal, professional, and academic life, as well as for my mind and body. I’m going to stick to my monthly goals as well, but I’m going to have some of them focus on helping me attain my overall goals throughout the year.

Do you make goals or resolutions? Are you good at keeping them? If you don’t, does this graphic make you want to? 

This graphic came from: www.onlineeducation.net. Once again, Thanks Allison for showing me this!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m not doing New Years resolutions like I have in the past. It just gets too overwhelming, so I’m making a few small goals each month. This way, hopefully I’ll get these things in my system, and they’ll become second nature once the month is up, and I’ll continue to do them, as well as making new goals.

Speaking of goals, one of my goals for January is to try at least one new recipe each week. (To blog about.) This either means a new to me recipe, or a recipe that I’ve created.

I kicked things off by making a variation of this Baked Avocado Salsa the other night for dinner. They were AMAZING. Her photos are better, but I’ll show you one of mine:

Soooo good. I tried cooking with avocado once before, I think I put it in enchiladas or something, and the texture and taste was way to weird. Definitly not like raw avocado. But these don’t bake for very long, so it didn’t get funky.

I changed the recipe up a little, and here is how I did it.

Salsa Stuffed Avocados 
Serves 4

2 avocados, cut in half with the pits removed
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1/4 cup black olives, chopped
10 cloves roasted garlic, chopped
1T olive oil
1T pomegranate infused red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
A few grinds of Trader Joe’s Everyday Seasoning

For the Breadcrumb topping:
1/3 cup bread crumbs (I used the ends from some Udis GF bread that I had in the freezer)
1T nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 t olive oil
1/4 teaspoon red wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Mix together the tomato, onion, olives, garlic, oil, vinegar, and seasonings. Scoop out a little extra avocado from each half. You want to scoop out maybe a tablespoon from each one. Not too much, you still want some avocado to eat!!

Place the avocados on a baking sheet, and divide the salsa filling among them evenly.

Mix the breadcrumb topping ingredients together, and divide evenly among the four avocado halves. Place on top of the salsa filling.

Bake for 7 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are golden brown. Eat immediately! (Although, I bet they would taste good as leftovers too)

Here’s the final shot of them baked and with the topping:

These make a great side dish, but I bet if you put some black beans in the salsa they would be great as a main dish as well!! I love me some healthy fats.

Have you ever cooked avocado before? How did you feel about it? For those of you who made New Years resolutions, how are they going?? 

Another question for all of you awesome cooks out there. Rice Makers. Any recommendations? We’ve had one for at least ten  years, and a few weeks ago it just quit on us. : ( Ironically, just a few days after our dehydrator started smoking. (Who knew they were even capable of that?) We live in a pretty remote area, and the Bed Bath and Beyond closest to us only sells one model, so I was wondering if any of you had any rice makers out there that you loved? I’m not looking for anything too expensive, but I do want one that has different grain settings, so let me know!!

I’ve got a few photos to dump on you from my new years. I mentioned in my last post that on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve my family has a dinner full of appetizers. This year was tricky, as I’m dairy, meat, and gluten free. But, we managed to do it!!

Look at that veggie tray!!! It’s always my favorite thing because it looks so pretty. and is delicious.

Soooooo much food! We had a veggie tray, crackers and pretzels, pigs in a blanket, meatballs (both veggie and meat versions) spinach dip, bbq tofu, pasta salad, taco dip, and an amazing flatbread that I recreated from a restaurant we had it at while on vacation last summer. I didn’t get any good photos of it, but I plan on making it again soon and posting a recipe for it!

Here is a photo of my (first) plate:

Yum! That taco dip is my soul mate. I’m sure of it. I’m working on a variation of the recipe that uses a cashew based dip instead of the mayo/sour cream layer. Exciting stuff, I know.

My new years eve plans were kind of lame (to some people anyway, I had a lot of fun). I skyped with my best friend who lives in New York and we had a couple drinks via skype, haha. You can call me lame. It’s ok. I’m used to it.

I’ve also had a lot of fun reading everyone’s new years resolutions on their blogs. They’ve definitly inspired me to make a few goals myself. I never tend to stick to new years resolutions though, so I’m trying something different this year. I’m going to make three to five small goals each month. I’m hoping that this will help me stick to them, instead of making a million goals that I’ll have to try and remember all year. I’ve got my goals for January set, and some of them are kind of silly. For example, one of them is to wear a different pair of shoes to work everyday. I have soooo many different shoes, but I always end up wearing my Toms every day. And as much as I love them, they wear out rather quickly.

See what I mean? They need a break. I know that you all wanted to see a picture of my gross worn out shoes.

Another one of my January goals is to try and post to the blog at least twice a week, and to try a new recipe each week. So hopefully I’ll be blogging more often, and have some interesting recipes to share soon!!

Did you do anything exciting on New Years Eve? What are some of your New Years Resolutions? 

Anywho, What’s new with me you might ask? Not a whole lot. But first things first, a correction needs to be made. Do you remember this guy? (That was rhetorical, how could you not remember such a cute face?

I know what you’re thinking. And the answer is yes, I am 24 years old and yes, I do have a pirate pillowcase. This would also be an awesome time to comment on how my computer matches my bedding. I’m going through a turquoise phase.

Back to the point. I mentioned in a previous post that this guy’s name was Balto. But after careful consideration, we changed his name to Dwight. We called him Balto for the first couple of days, and it just didn’t really fit. I’ve also always wanted to name a pet Dwight, because I love The Office and Dwight K. Shrute.

Now onto some of the few photos I took over my Christmas vacation. I always wondered how so many bloggers could take so many photos during the day and blog about them and still be able to live their life, and then I got a smart phone (I know, finally! Welcome to the 21st century Liz.) and I was like oooohhhhh. That’s how. They make things so much easier!!

Here are the yummy chocolate orange gluten-free cupcakes I made for dessert. I don’t know how much my extended family liked them, but I needed something gluten-free. (And mostly dairy free, there was margarine in the frosting). Over Thanksgiving I overdid it, (gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol) and I ended up in the emergency room just a couple days later. (A health update will come in a later post, It was nothing life threatening, just unbearable pain!!)

Our family does a dinner of appetizers on Christmas Eve as well as New Years Eve (My favorite meals of the year, hands down) so I made these cute little cucumber cups. I filled them with my Aunt’s Corn Salsa Dip. They were amazing, and everyone really liked them! Definitly healthier than eating it with tortilla chips.

Pretty baked oatmeal!! I used this Stuft Mama recipe. I am in love with it and eat it almost every morning. For the holidays, I added some festive sprinkles!! The only changes I made was I used a packet of stevia, and instead of putting nut butter in the middle, I just added a tablespoon of PB2 chocolate powder to the mix.

Amazing Christmas presents from friends and family!!! One of my college roommates/best friends knitted me this awesome scarf!! And she works as a baker at Panera, so she got me some gift certificates!! She knows me well.

Another awesome present that I got was VINTAGE 70′s PYREX MIXING BOWLS. My boss is amazing. I love old pyrex stuff, and I guess she actually listens to me when I talk. Who knew??

Here’s a present that I gave. I made some cute chocolate lolipops for my cousins’ sons, and put them in these cute reindeer baskets I found in the Target dollar section. (Or better known as, my favorite place in the world.)

I’m not a very fashionable person, so I don’t post a lot of clothes related things on this blog. (for good reason.) and if I could, I would dress like Jenna everyday, but I’m not that fashionable.  I did recently buy some polka dotted jeans that I’m in love with though . (Ignore my hair and mismatched socks in this photo.) I’m just starting to feel out the colored/patterned pants and jeggings trend. (I’m always late.)

And this is the last photo, I promise. But here’s another one of Dwight.

When he’s sleeping I can’t help but take a million photos of him.

So that’s what’s been going on with me! I hope (I know, I know, I say this EVERY time) to get better at posting, and I’ve even got a few recipes to share! Shocker, I know. We haven’t seen one of those in a while!

How was your Christmas/Holiday? What was your favorite part?