How I Plan My Thanksgiving Dinner

I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for the 5th time now! I did all my shopping this afternoon. Although I am only cooking for 6, I purchased enough food to feed a small army! I hate the idea of people being hungry! No one should ever be hungry! Okay onto happier thoughts...

All of these recipes, which are underlined, can be found on allrecipes.com, or by clicking on the links. Here is the order in which I've decided to make things this year. Each line item list the name of the dish, the total time in minutes it will take to prep and cook the dish and specifics on cooking times and temps. I plan on dinner being served at around 4:30 p.m.

I'll be sure to let you all know how it turns out! Happy gobble gobble and remember to be thankful for your turkey!!!

Wednesday

Make-Ahead Mashed potatoes: 60 total: boil for 20 -30 minutes

Super Sausage Stuffed Mushroom: 40 total: bake for 20 minutes after cooking sausage crumbles

Baked Brie in Pastry Puff: 25 total: bake at 350 for 20 minutes don’t forget the almonds

Cranberry Sauce: 15 total: Boil 10 minutes

Design and Print out menu - I like to let my guests know what is being served. Plus it just makes it a bit fancier! 

               

Thursday

Noon:   Perfect Turkey: 4:30 total: bake at 350 for 3 ½ to 4 hours. Let sit for 20 minutes before carving

2:00        Warm up mushroom caps and brie and serve as appetizers

3:00        Homemade Mac N Cheese: 50 total: bake at 350 for 30 minutes

3:20        Candied Sweet Potatoes: 45 total: boil for 15 minutes then bake at 400 for 15 minutes

3:35        Golden Green Bean Casserole: 40 total: bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Add onions and bake for 5 more minutes

3:45        Honey Glazed Carrots: 30 total: boil 10 – 12 minutes

Last 30 minutes:

4:00        Warm up and butter mashed potatoes

4:10        SpecialTurkey Gravy: 25 total: simmer for 15 minutes

4:20        Biscuits: bake at 400 for 10 minutes

4:30        Carve turkey

4:30        Serve cranberry sauce 

Fixin My Ombre

If you don't know this by now you probably should... I am madly deeply in love with... Halloween. In fact for two years in a row now I have cheated on my boyfriend with Halloween. The hours and hours that I pour into planning and executing costumes borders on "perhaps I should seek help". This year I was Iron Man (err... woman?). More on how I made my costume later. This post is about the torture my hair endured during my transformation.

I decided very last minute that my hair needed to be red. Looking back now I realize the inaccuracy of this decision  After all, Tony Spark has black hair. Regardless I purchased a can of what was supposed to be TEMPORARY hair color. BUYER BEWARE! Here is the product I purchased in red:

I sprayed it through my hair only to discover the next morning that it was not rinsing out! My hair was now an awful color with blotches of red and orange and pink. Yep it looked this bad:

At first I thought a clarifying shampoo would remove it. Nope! It just made my hair extra dry. After nearly a week I felt desperate. Although I did not want to have to bleach and dye my hair I didn't know what else to do. So, with a brave face I trotted off to CVS since the beauty store was closed. I purchased Splat's Bleach Kit.

Following the directions in the box I bleached the blonde part of my ombre. Here's the during picture:

In my arsenal of products under my vanity sink I already had 20 Volume Developer and Satin Hair Color in 8N - Light Blonde. So I mixed the hair color and developer and deposited onto my bleached hair. After 25 minutes I rinsed it out and began working on the brunette portion of my ombre.
While at CVS I also purchased a box of Revlon Color Silk in Deep Rich Brown. Again, following the directions in the box I mixed and deposited the color onto the the brunette portion of my hair and let it sit for 25 minutes. I was very careful to not let the color drip onto my newly colored blonde portion. If I had it to do over again I would have done the brunette before the blonde.

Alas, I was so relieved and happy when I dried and styled my hair and this was the result:

Moral: Don't ever spray color onto your bleached hair. Lesson learned. : ) 

Breakfast in 30 Seconds!

I have some early mornings ahead of me! Followed by long days. Can't possibly miss breakfast but I know I am going to favor hitting the snooze button over making a healthy balanced breakfast. Alas, there is a compromise! Making my breakfast muffins and, for the man in my life, turkey sausage patties!

For the breakfast muffins I whisk eggs, pepper, salt, cheddar cheese, and green bell peppers. Then I butter a  non-stick muffin pan and pour the mixture in. I then cook the eggs in the oven for 7 minutes at 350 degrees. Once they are cool, pop them into a plastic container and the next morning microwave them for 30 seconds. You can also add bacon if you eat meat.

To make the turkey sausage patties you'll need to mix ground turkey breast with sage, thyme seeds, white pepper, garlic salt, garlic powder, cayenne and nutmeg. I don't fuss too much with exact measurements; roughly 1/2 tsp of each spice is good in 1/2 a pound of ground turkey, with the exception of sage, which I use 1 tsp, and nutmeg, which I only use 1/8 tsp. Form the mixture into round patties and bake on a cookie sheet for minutes. Just as you did with the breakfast muffins, let them cool and place them into a plastic container. Reheating for 30 seconds in the microwave is also a safe bet.

Rocking an Ombre

I was tired of the maintenance of being blonde, or bronde as I called it, and so thought this was going to be a how to on going back to dark brown. However, quickly in I had an idea! Why not try an Ombre??? I actually used the words "rock an Ombre" and now feel super silly.

Here's how it looked right after. Dontcha love my ratty t-shirt?

Here's how it looks today, after 2 weeks.

Finally, here's my trusted chart: 

Modern French Manicure / Tuxedo Nail Art

Hello! Whoever is out there and reading this....

In my latest series of WWPD - or, What Would Pinterest Do I have a Nail Art Tutorial to share with you! The original image came to me via  spanishkisses.tumblr.com

It was just an image. No step by step. But it wasn't too difficult to figure out.

Step one: Lots of coats of  Wet N Wild 205B Sugar Coat

Step two: Holding brush at a 45 degree angle sweep Wet N Wild 229C Ebony Hates Chris (love that name!) on left side and then the right side of your nail, until you have a pretty little pink triangle in between

Step three: Sweep on a clear top coat

Tuxedo Inspired Nails

Donezo!
Here's the video:

DIY: Fringe Scarf

So I decided to start a new series of blog post titled "What Would Pinterest Do?"
In these post I want to take popular Pinterest Pins and take my hand at them, from make up to crafts, fashion and more! I will do my best to source the original pin!!! If you have any insight please share.

The second of these series continues with the very easy FRINGE SCARF. I purchased the t-shirt form the Dollar General! So this entire project cost $1!

The original pin I found came  from http://indulgy.com/post/DHfddH4aR1/fringe-scarf-to-make-for-a-rainy-day

Here is my how to video:

What Would Pinterest Do? Newspaper Print Nail Art

So I decided to start a new series of blog post titled "What Would Pinterest Do?"
In these post I want to take popular Pinterest Pins and take my hand at them, from make up to crafts, fashion and more! I will do my best to source the original pin!!! If you have any insight please share.

The first of these series starts with the ever popular Newspaper Print Nail Art. The original pin I found came  from The Hybrid Chick at  http://www.thehybridchick.com/2011/09/the-digi-nails-a-hybrid-manicure/
I then delved deeper and found some people were using newspaper print.

Here is my how to video: