Fashion Friday - Workout Gear

With a new year starting...and a goal set of running a half marathon I think it is time to buy a few fun new workout pieces. I am a big fan of wearing black shorts with bright colored tops. However, I have some brightly colored shorts that I still wear so I also need some more toned down tops.

I typically get all of my workout clothes from Target on the clearance rack. I don't like to pay more than $12 for something to workout in.

Here are a few of my faves that are all under $20 (either I will splurge or wait till a sale):

Target Finds -

$19.99

Running Skort - $16.99



$12.99


Purple to remind me of my K-State roots - $12

Old Navy Finds -

Super Cute capri pants in gray or brown


$12.00
$12.00

Moisture wicking to help with the chilly spring runs - $16

Mesh shorts - $10

$12

Forever 21-

Doesn't tie dye scream spring -$10.80

Can't wait to go shopping for some new duds!

Wedding Wednesday - Flowers

Over break my mom and I worked on deciding the fresh flowers we will use for bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. I have always had a general idea for what I wanted, but making sure everything looks good together was a little harder than I thought.

I took inspiration for my bouquet from the following picture:

Not sure where this picture came from.

My grandma grew beautiful hydrangeas every summer that I would help her with for my 4-H projects, so I knew hydrangeas would be a part of my bouquet. I also plan on using mini calla lillies, stephanotis, and mokara orchids.

My ladies will carry smaller bouquets in the combination of the hydrangeas and mokara orchids. Belows is a picture of what these orchids look like...I love that they don't actually look like an orchid...not a huge fan of them, but they are beautiful.

The knot

For the boutonnieres, we will use different combinations of the flowers in my bouquet, so everything ties together. For the groom, he will have a calla lily with a small cluster of hydrangea at the front. Plus it will be wrapped it wire. I took inspiration from the boutonniere found below. The groomsmen will just have the calla lily.

The Perfect Palette

Wow! It is all coming together. We are currently trying to decide who all needs flowers... where do you stop?? Does every person who has a role in your wedding get flowers? Such as cake cutters, singers, organists, gift table helpers, etc.??? Ohhh...decisions.

Also, my mom needs to decide if she wants a wrist corsage or one to pin on. She doesn't want to hit everyone in the face with a pin on corsage.

Wedding Wednesday - Bridesmaid Dresses

Now that my defense is over, I can finally start focusing a little more on wedding planning. So the next 4 weeks is major crunch time for the big day. My mom was here over the weekend and we finally decided what line we are going to go with for our wedding dresses....Bill Levkoff. I completely love their dresses in European Satin and the Euro Eggplant color.

I am letting my ladies decide what dress they want, so that it will best fit their bodies. Here are the dresses they can decide from and my personal preferences:

I love this dress and I totally do not think it looks like a bridesmaid dress. I am thinking I am going to have my little sister wear this one...she doesn't really get a choice in this decision :)

I could kind of see my cousin in this dress.


I could see my MOH in this dress.

Another good choice for my cousin.

Loving this dress for my former roommate.

All of the dresses will be hemmed so they hit right at the knee...this way they are uniform in length.

Can't wait to see what they decide!

Wedding Wednesday

Ever since Alex and I got engaged in April, my parents have been busy planning our wedding. Or maybe I should say my mom has been busy planning the wedding and my dad likes to think of crazy ideas for our wedding. Typically, they will come up with these new ideas late at night when they have maybe had a few too many drinks and they are with some of the favorite cattle industry friends at the ND Stockmen’s Convention, Louisville, or a wedding.

Here are some of the most recent ideas:
· Instead of having the ring bearer carry our rings down on a pillow….he will carry a head of a horned Hereford bull and the rings will be on each horn. Or as a friend from NE suggested they could donate a roping steer head.

No pretty pillow from TheBloomingSouth

· For our wedding favors instead of having koozies, candy, or matchboxes….we will give away straws of semen that have “Alex and Rebecca - September 3, 2011” inscribed on the side.

No koozies which the boys would love, but I think are tacky anyway.

Instead you can get semen straws!

· And the lasts idea that came up this weekend is that instead of auctioning off a garter…we will auction of straws of semen from the newest bull we have that went into a stud.

Check out Tokach Update 9009 available through Genex.

I have a feeling that if my dad could plan this wedding it would be a crazy, redneck, backwoods affair…thankfully God has blessed me with my mother who knows that all of this is absolutely not going to happen…EVER!

Why would someone want a wedding like this?!?!?

Black Friday

On Friday, we woke up a bit early…2 a.m. to be exact to check out the Black Friday Sales. I had never been out that early on Black Friday and I really wanted to give it a try, so I convinced Alex to join me and we ventured out in to the great open wild of Black Friday. We arrived at Kohl’s at 3:15 a.m. (15 min) after the store opened and there was already a line forming with over 100 people in it. We promptly left the store and headed to JcPenny to wait until they opened at 4 a.m. We I had a lot more success at JcPenny. A few things I picked up include:

Except mine is red.

Another pea coat in black and white

tights, tights, and tights

watch

new pillows

By then I was all tired out and wanted to go back home and sleep. We spend the rest of the morning sleeping and did some online shopping in the afternoon. Ann Taylor was having a 40% off sale, so of course I hit that up. A few things I purchased include:

Skinny Jeans

Gold Belt

Sooo..my thoughts on the early morning Black Friday shopping experience….anyone who can do that every year…KUDOS to you! It is not for me, but hey maybe if a store had a good enough deal I would think about it again… J

Thanksgiving 2010

This is the second year that I wasn’t able to go back to ND to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. L Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays with the great food, family, and all of the things that we can be thankful for. Since I was unable to leave TX this year, Alex made the trip down here to celebrate with me. A.K.A Our FIRST Thanksgiving Alone Together…EEEK!

He ended up leaving Wednesday after work, so he didn’t arrive until about 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. When he got here we took a quick nap and then I started in on preparing our Thanksgiving feast.

Even though there were only two of us, I wanted to prepare all of our favorite foods. The list included:
· Crescent wrapped brie
· Ham – I don’t do poultry
· Pioneer Woman’s Mashed Potatoes

· Brown Gravy
· Rolls
· PW’s Green Beans
· PW’s Corn Casserole
· PW’s cranberry sauce
· Olives – When you were a kid did you put the black olives on your fingers, too? Alex still does this.
· Blueberry Cobbler
I think we may have a thing for recipes from Pioneer woman!

Everything turned out great, but there was a quick mix up in the kitchen. I was setting out all of the food and was telling Alex it was time to eat and as we started to dish up our food I realized I totally FORGOT to make the mashed potatos…so we took a 30 minute break while I quickly whipped some up.

After we ate, we spent the afternoon watching Grownups and Toy Story 3.







Grownup was completely hilarious. I would definitely recommend it if you want a good laugh. Toy Story 3 was very cute and a great ending to the series…trust me you will want to check it out.

Thanksgiving day was a total success and I can’t wait to see where we spend it next year…hopefully with our families.

Relief

RELIEF....Is exactly what I felt at 10:39 a.m. today when I turned in my thesis to my major professor! I won't lie I haven't been able to stop smiling all day. Yes, I still have a million things to do like:
* Prepare for my defense
* Read more papers
* Pack
* Get more my lab notebooks in order, so that future students know what I did
* Make corrections to my thesis
* Finish doing my orthogonal contrasts
* Have I mentioned starting to pack?
* Finish my experimental design test

But when I came back to my desk this morning all I could think about is WOW! I have nothing to do. The last 6 months have been crazy as I have been trying to finish up and the last month has not been fun. Too many 15 hour workdays at school before heading home to work on the comfort of my couch, but for right now it is done.

So, what am I going to do with my free time??? I am going to actually try to start blogging again. Maybe if I get in the habit of it now, I will keep it up when things start to get crazy as I begin my PhD next spring. Plus, I need a way to document my final 30 days in Texas...wait make that 29 days! Can't even believe I am saying that either...it seems like just yesterday I was moving here and didn't know how I was going to last more than two days living this far south. Now I am actually starting to feel a little emotional...ha!

Have a great day. And Go State!