February Wrap-Up

I was convinced it was mid-month for the entire month of February. How confusing. But! I'm looking forward to March! Matt will defend his dissertation and be done forever! Spring will be here! People will wear pretty dresses to the Oscars! Matt and I will have officially been together for NINE YEARS! (Do people still count dating anniversaries after they're married? We don't celebrate, but it's in my phone and I have no intention of removing it from the calendar.)

Food Challenge: Cook All The Way Through a Cookbook
I'm cooking through the "Bride and Groom First and Forever" Cookbook.

"Butter Lettuce With Mango, Goat Cheese & Mighty Mint Vinaigrette." Okay, so I used bag salad instead of butter lettuce, because my grocery store is not fancy enough to carry anything besides romaine and iceberg. I was really not expecting good things from this salad, because I don't like mangoes. Or goat cheese. Or fresh mint. So I was pleasantly suprised by the results! I had two bowls of it for dinner one night while Matt was out of town. A far cry from my normal fare when he's gone.

"Green Beans, Beets and Goat Cheese With Sherry Vinaigrette." This salad was not as good as I was hoping it would be. I didn't want to pay $$$ for walnut oil or sherry vinegar for one recipe, so I omitted the former and used white wine vinegar in place of the latter. Matt took one look at it and decided he'd rather eat the remains of the mango salad. I did have the cold leftovers for lunch on a hoagie roll, and I actually preferred eating it the second/third/fourth days after all the flavors had melded and the beets turned everything bright pink. Everything is better in bright pink. 

Completed: 34 of 150

Food Challenge: Sample Every Flavor of Bluebell Ice Cream
Even though I'm not crazy about mint-the-plant, I'm a sucker for mint-flavored ice cream. Mint Cookies 'N Cream finally made an appearance at HEB, after I'd been looking for it forever, and it was amazing. We shared it with some friends, but I would have been happy to eat the entire half gallon by myself.

I bought Matt another half-gallon of Coffee ice cream for his birthday. We originally tried this flavor back in September, and this time I didn't mind it so much, so long as there was chocolate syrup and sprinkles on top. I'm growing up?

Completed: 58 out of 72 flavors

New Year's Resolutions: More Lipstick, Less Sugar, More Time With Friends
I finally had people over this month! I invited some girls from church over for craft night, and I used a bunch of old scrapbook paper to make these homemade cards.

I've always got tons of envelopes around and nothing to do with them, so I'm happy to have a use for them too!

Apparently I can only focus on one resolution at a time, because the lipstick and sugar ones fell by the wayside. But I did buy a Lip Butter from Revlon on Catherine's recommendation, and it's a bright Barbie pink (ahem, "Sorbet") and I love it. :)

Other Adventures
I reviewed the book Moonwalking With Einstein, which I would recommend. I talked about saying yes and avoiding regrets. I caught my typical weather-change cold/sinus thing. We chatted about ambition after I got back from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. I shared some book quotes that inspired me this month. I showed you our house updates in preparation of the next steps in our lives. This blog celebrated its third birthday! And we got DEEP into small talk.

Do you like doing crafts? What type of projects are you working on?