Warning:Photo OVERLOAD!

Woo hoo for 23 years! I always thought I would dread the day that I turned 23 but actually, I was really looking forward to it! It's gonna be a really good year :)

My birthday started off a little crazy, I worked 31.5 hours in 2 days and 14 of those hours were worked on my birthday...but as they say...you've got to do Whatever It Takes! My hard work paid off in the form  of a raise!! I'm super excited about that :) Thursday my sweet sweet boyfriend sent me the most BEAUTIFUL flowers, he is so sneaky!! I got off pretty late on Thursday so Shawn and I went out to a late dinner and then came home and crashed...on Friday I went to lunch with my dad, brother and Shawn. We had pizza and sangria at Grimaldi's. YUMMY!!!!! I originally asked my dad to start a camera fund for me as my birthday present this year because I have really really been wanting to get into photography, but he surprised me by giving me an amazing NEW CAMERA!!! I was so so so excited, a Nikon D5000!!

Isn't she the most beautiful thing you ever did see?! Definitely excited about this new toy!!!!! :)

I literally spent the rest of the day walking around taking a thousand pictures of everything in my dad's backyard, including his two dogs. (They make for pretty cute models!)

 Peppers that he's growing.

Just testing it out, the colors look amazing!

Trying to be super artsy and creative with Alby! (He's the best model)

He just LOVES getting his picture taken ;) haha this cracks me up!

I had so much fun taking close up shots of flowers!

Figuring out how to blur the background...

LOVE this shot haha he's just so pensive, loves TEXAS!

Precious little Shlee...she was verrrry hard to capture on film...

My handsome boyfriend :) I took a thousand pictures of him, he was not very happy hehehe :)

PABLITOOOOO!! My sweet baby boy <3 

 On Saturday Shawn and I got to spend the whoooole day together, which was amazing! We haven't been able to do that much since our jobs are both different hours and days usually. We started off by going to lunch with his dad, then we made an EMERGENCY stop at Ulta (my trusty straightener of 5 years crapped out on me right in the middle of straightening my curly hair..YIKES!), then went to Walmart and picked up the hardest puzzle ever created by man...because, we're cool like that. Once we had our puzzle we headed over to my mom's house where she put together a little birthday dinner for me! It was all so delicious!!!

A little bit of the food that she had, we had all appetizers and they were all completely DELICIOUS!!

The bouquet that she handmade for me. These flowers are so beautiful and my room smells amazing because of them!!

Two types of bruschetta that she put together, traditional with pesto and one with mozarella and prosciutto instead of pesto YUM!!

Her black bean hummus dip and black bean chips.mmmmmm!!

Antipasta (special request of no red peppers, I hate bell peppers, YUCK!) But this was perfect

Bloody Mary's!! She made her own mix and my stepdad put it together, it was awesome!!

 I got some photo's of the cooking master at work! She was so sweet and let me practice my camera skills while she cooked!

Ta da!! Delicious little cheesy rolls (actually I found this recipe on my new favorite website, www.tastespotting.com, it looked so GOOD and Shawn thought it looked absolutely disgusting so my mom made it for me, love you mom!, and her and I didn't like it but Shawn LOVED it) haha funny how that worked out!

My sweet little girl!! Bit Bit :)

(Her and Pablo are actually the parents of my dad's two dogs Alby and Ashley)...we're a family of weird dog namers but I love them!!!

My mom and stepdad got me an AWESOME gift too!!! A couple posts ago I talked about how I made mushroom ravioli at my mom's house and her and Harold went and bought me my very own pasta machine! I am so so so so so excited to be able to use it. But of course I haven't eaten everything out of my pantry yet so I haven't been to the grocery store yet to buy the ingredients to make it. (I just realized the whole above section is about me eating out, but I promise I didn't pay for the food, so I'm still doing good!) hehehe

I'm so excited to be able to make my own spaghetti noodles and ravioli's and tortellini's! It's really really fun and so so delicious!

I also received a really fun cookbook, a scale and a little ravioli cutter! Woo hoo!! GREAT birthday! I wish I had gotten a picture of everyone all together.

And yesterday we finished off the weekend just as great as we started it, Shawn worked during the day so I hung out at my mom's and then my dad's house for a little while. When he got off we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then came home and rented a movie. It was so great! I love just getting to relax with him when we're not busy and working. It's one of my most favorite things :)

I am so grateful for all the people in my life, my parents (all 3 of them, couldn't ask for a better bunch), my siblings, my friends, my boyfriend...everything...it really meant so much to me to have everyone together laughing and just having a good time. (I'm such a sap)

This Saturday I'm going to meet my precious pregnant friend Brittany to take some maternity shots of her! I'm so excited and nervous, I obviously want them to look so good because I know it will be a great memory for her, but I also want to be able to practice my camera skills. Thanks Britt and Breniyah for being my models!! So hopefully, my next post will be amazing pictures of my beautiful friend (but if I turn out to be a super sucky photographer, then I am not putting them up haha)

Here's to the 23rd year!! Hoping it stays as great as it started out...maybe even better?!

Wouldn't it be nice..

Today for some reason the adventure bug has hit. I want to explooooore the world! (said in adventure voice) Haha!

How AMAZING is this CASTLE in Spain??

Or maybe we can check out the Canary Islands!!

How about a little bit of Italiano?? Yes please!

^ I could definitely see myself "Rome"ing around this place (hehehe see what I did there?)
                        How beautiful is this??? ----->

Mmmm...the food alone would be reason to go!

                                                  But the best part about either place????

                                             Enough said...I need a vacation here...STAT!

Speaking of Italy...I could really go for some of my MOM's homemade pizza (hint hint), maybe with a little pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, extra cheese ;) I could be over on Saturday hehe

Wishful dreams and an adventuring heart,

XOXO

Organi-what?!

O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E-D...yes, it's a word I'm very familiar with...but the concept?! Hmm...let's just say it's something I've tried for years and still can't seem to get down.

(Yep, that's the plan!)

Well as I mentioned in my last blog I am looking to make a lot of changes and since I posted my last blog GUESS WHAT!?!?? I've actually taken a step in that direction.

I'm the kind of person (like probably a lot of people out there) who gets so excited about a concept that I swear I'm going to change my whole entire life and start abiding by this fun new idea...give me a week (or less) and I'm over that and on to the next thing. But, ever since I moved into my new house I've noticed that I've made a lot of changes with myself.

1) I do my laundry every week, and always immediately fold and put my clothes away.
2) Every single morning I make my bed and make sure everything is picked up before I leave. (My room hasn't been messy ONCE since I've lived here--super rare for me!)

The only thing I've really needed to begin learning is truly how to save, which means no more eating out for this girl!

My friend Jen e-mailed me last week after she read my blog about wanting to get craftier and start experimenting with recipes and told me about this AMAZING website (Yes, I know it's been around forever, but I've never had any interest in it at all...until last week when Jenay-nay told me to check it out) www.stumbleupon.com, it is seriously AWESOME! You just go to the site, register, check off all of your "interests" and the site randomly "stumbles" to different websites that might interest you. I've been so INSPIRED...and the good thing is when I get bored I can stumble to the next web site and immediately my interest is peeked again. I have learned so many new things and have a thousand new projects that I can't wait to try out.

Which brings me to yesterday...I was hungry, it was lunchtime, I went to the fridge to find something to eat. In the bottom drawer of the fridge I saw asparagus and apples, so I opened the drawer and to my surprise it was ALL rotten...and juicy...and GROSS...I was so disgusted, I immediately grabbed a trash bag and started throwing away all the old food and cleaned up the mess. What a waste!!! I immediately went to the internet and googled "How to Meal Plan" and found this awesome template that I have started using:

http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/20/creating-a-weekly-meal-plan/

I went through EVERYTHING in my fridge and pantry and decided right then and there: I will NOT go to the grocery store until I have eaten every single thing that I have already purchased. This challenges me in many ways, 1) I LOVE going out to eat, but I want to be a good money saver so planning my meals in advance leaves me with no choice but to cook what I have and 2) It will force me to get in the kitchen and start learning how to cook. 

So, basically I have planned out my meals for the entire next week using every thing that I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry. Just last week I looked in there and thought "I just went grocery shopping but I have NOTHING to eat" and now just a couple days later I have an entire weeks worth of meals planned and ready to go. I even have a section on what to prep the night before so I don't stress out about it the day of and have no reason not to stick to it.

Here is my lunch that I took to work today and my weekly meal plan all filled out and ready for action!! (Note: sorry the pictures are so blurry, I took them with my cell phone and the lighting wasn't too great)

And tonight, I made "red beans" and rice, kind of...I didn't have any red beans but I had black eyed peas (haha!)

The recipe was super easy, only 4 ingredients really (5-6 if you count seasoning and salt and pepper that I used).

I cut up the sausage and seasoned it with my favorite hot sauce for about 30 minutes, cooked white rice and added some butter to it. Cooked the sausage and once those had been cooking for a while added the black eyed peas and some extra hot sauce, seasoned with nature's seasoning and covered for about 5 minutes. In less then 30 minutes I had a delicious meal! The only thing missing was some fresh cilantro (but it wasn't in the house so that's a no go!).

Once I've cooked all the food I have, I will start meal planning for the week in advance, create a shopping list and stick to it when I go to the store. That way, I am learning new recipes and saving myself some money!

It's been great and fun and exciting and challenging! Next on my list: something crafty and decorative...I just need to find the perfect project!!

So this has been my inspiration for the week, now it's time to find YOURS!!!!!!!! Let me know if you need any help ;)

THAT Kind of Girl ;)

It's been quite a while since I've updated this thing, which really disappoints me because I am SO loving blogging lately, reading them, writing them, everything about them. I often times find myself in my every day situtations making mental notes to "blog about that next time!" haha and here I am slacking on my newest addiction.

Let's see what's been happening lately...hmmm...well this last week I went on a week long trip to Sevierville, TN for a family reunion. We went to the most PERFECT little resort place called Hidden Mountain Resort, it was so beautiful! Here is the link, I will definitely be wanting to go back there soon:

http://www.hiddenmountain.com/

It was so good to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles and see how their families are growing! I couldn't even remember most of my cousins it had been so long since I had seen them!

Here is a tiny little picture of all of us! My dad is in the front in the green shirt

and my brother and I are on the far left side (I'm in a white shirt

and Tony is behind me in the orange!)

Fun little fact: My brother is the only Biernesser namesake left in the family and I am the youngest grandchild!

A week away from work, boyfriend, friends, etc. was a little bit too much for me but I definitely enjoyed being back in Tennessee. I got to see one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world JEN!!! It was so good to see her and catch up on what she's doing with her life. She really is one of the most beautiful, smart, funny and kindest person I have ever met. (She was our photographer for this ^ beautiful family picture haha!!)

My cousin Brian's PRECIOUS daughter Taylor, I loved this little girl! She was so funny and would just follow me around. We had a great time together!

                                                 I loved being around all those precious kids,

                                                  it really really makes me so excited to have

                                                          a family of my own one day.

But it was definitely nice when I was able to hand them back to their parents and go about my business. ;)

I guess I've been staying away from the blog because I haven't felt like I've had much to write about. But lately, I have been feeling so...I don't know...completely like a GIRL...i'm not sure if this is the right word but..."maternal" I guess (hanging out with all those little kids probably didn't help!). I've had the urge to cook, clean, craft and decorate lately. (Which a lot of those are things that I am NOT good at, but I'm hoping to get much better!) I guess that happens when you're my age and all your friends are getting married and having babies and I know it's only a matter of time, so in the mean time I'll just practice so I can be the perfect wife one day. (Hopefully shawnsy boo will be able to thank me for that in a couple of years ;) hehehe)

I cooked in the kitchen last night and enjoyed myself SO much, I really want to start exploring that world a lot more. My parents are both AMAZING cooks, their food is so good it could make you CRY and I want to be like that in my own right. So my new goal is going to be to start focusing on taking my time and enjoying myself when I cook.

SO I guess I should say my new GOALS, are to try to blog more, blog about my cooking adventures, attempts at crafting and organizing my life, etc. I need to start finding delicious recipes and fun little crafty things! Hopefully that will make this thing a little more exciting! (That's one of the reasons I love reading other people's blogs, I get so many great ideas and it makes me feel motivated to start doing more things!) I really also want to start exploring the area more, like adventures, etc. So hopefully maybe I can convince Shawn to journey around with me ;) ;)

Shawn and I are trying to make a list of places that we can go to for a vacation and I am trying to find super fun places for us to go and see! I'm definitely open to suggestions :)

I'll leave you guys with my ridiculous 4th of July story:

Caitlin, Allison, Blake and I decided to go to Freedom Over Texas Festival (or something like that), it was SWELTERING outside so HOT! (Surprise surprise, it's TEXAS) But for some reason my body decided to completely destruct on me haha not really, but I was miserable! I had the STRANGEST, ITCHIEST heat rash EVER all over my legs, it looked like little chicken pox. I was so stinking dirty from walking around and dirt was just clinging to me and then I cut the back of my foot on some stairs, so I'm rashy, dirty, bleeding EVERYWHERE and we all finally decided to call it quits before it even got dark outside haha. But besides the fact that I was literally falling apart I had a great time with all of them, we definitely laughed a lot! I was so surprised that I didn't even hear one single firework the whole night!

This post is ridiculously long...two more goals: find a way to condense blogs, and take more pictures to visually stimulate my maybe two readers haha

Hopefully this weekend will hold something fun to share!