Hands Up!

So, I was looking online for nothing in particular, but since I'm going Honduras in January, volunteering and mission trips seem to be on my radar! I know mission trips aren't for everyone but check this one out!


It's called Hands Up Holidays. I believe the trips are out of England so it will be a little hard to sign up for this type of volunteer experience. Anyway, the main gist I get from this is that you can pick out of a variety of trips they offer to places such as Australia, Indonesia, India and South Africa. The all range in prices.


The trip I would love to take is the 'Way of the Dragon' to Indonesia. With this itinerary it would be hard to find someone who would not want to do this!







· Volunteering on Flores
· Artistic Ubud in Bali
· Komodo Dragons on Komodo
· Flores’ volcanoes and pristine beaches
· Luxurious Bali Hyatt hotel
· Spa & massage treatment


The spa and massage, luxurious Hyatt and pristine beaches sold me!





Enjoy the beach!!

Best Berry Cumble

My mom and I picked a ton of blueberries a week or so ago, and they've just been sitting in my freezer so I decided to try a new recipe. I found it through The Daily Green newsletter I've been getting sent to my email. Since I don't have a computer or Internet at my new apartment yet, I couldn't upload any pictures of the final product, but it was delicious. The recipe calls for blackberries but they were pretty pricey at the store so I just substituted more blueberries. I scooped it on top of vanilla ice cream while it was still warm and it was so good. Ross even ate it! He ate a lot of it! He's pretty much a chocolate guy, so for him to like this is saying a lot. Here's the recipe and a photo from the website. The pie looking thing in the right background is what it looks like.



BEST BERRY CRUMBLE

Crumbles are great sprinkled on your favorite ice cream. They're also good when mixed into hot cereals.


SERVINGS 4

COOK TIME 15

TOTAL TIME 45


INGREDIENTS
2 cups blueberries
1 cup blackberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
whipped cream or vanilla ice cream


PREPARATION
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Adjust oven rack to upper third.
Toss blueberries and blackberries with sugar, lemon juice, and 2 tsp. flour. Turn into 9" pie plate.
2. In medium bowl, mix remaining flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oats with fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over berries.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until fruit is bubbly and top is browned.
Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

ban.do

What do you think about this?

At first I wasn't sure, I'll admit it. I really like it a lot, the colors, the concept, I'm just not sure it's practical for day to day wear. Then I thought about it more, and I don't think it's made for day to day wear. I would wear these for my wedding (if I have one) I'm not sold on the veil so I think one of these would be a great alternative.

I even think these ones would make beautiful bridesmaid pieces or a great option for a high school dance or just to get dressed up.

These can all be found here, and they are all for sale, along with many other great pieces. Enjoy browsing!!

Daily Candy

I found this website after reading this blog post by sfgirlbybay . I love the postings on sfgirlbybay. She always finds the most interesting and inspiring pieces of furniture or artwork or designs.







I love the idea of placing beautiful fabrics in embroidery hoops and decorating with them. I think this may be the perfect idea for my new apartment.

And look at those pillows, so easy to make and embellish, such a pretty idea! Her whole blog is filled with stuff like this!

Anyway, back to Daily Candy. This website finds all kinds of special offers and events happening around a specific city and shares them all on their site. I chose Daily Candy Chicago because it's the closest city to me and because I'm going there next weekend for a bachelorette party!!


For example there is an article advertising this 'new' margarita. There is a showing at a fashion building and they are serving these tasty drinks while customers wander the store, they are also offering 20% off any item in the entire store.

Maybe there will be fun events like this next weekend!

Just another fun website I thought I'd share!

FredFlare Fun

I want to take pictures like these!! And I can, with this camera from fredflare.com!!

I was browsing online during work yesterday and stumbled upon this fantastic website! I am in love with everything about the site. Not only the goods for sale like this and this, but also because of the page set up, colors, and personality. I am becoming obsessed very quickly with reading their short and sweet blog posts.

They also offer this camera to take shots like these, with just one click of the shutter button!

One of the employees at fredflare.com, Anne is from Michigan and works out of Michigan!!! Maybe I can meet up with her and work for FredFlare.com out of Michigan too! I did however look at their job postings and noticed nothing was open in Michigan. And I can not move to NY to make their $10/hr offer. Bummer deal, maybe someday I'll get a fun job...until then I may just buy a few cameras!!

APT

I finally got a new apartment!! I'm not entirely sure I can afford it yet, I'm pretty sure, but I'm holding off on cable just in case!

Here are some pictures of my apartment off of the website.

This is the kitchen.

This is my spare bedroom, it used to be the elevator shaft.

This is the master bedroom.

This is the veiw walking in the front door. It shows how small the apartment really is!

Maybe I will take some 'after' photos after I decorate a little bit. I'm happy to have my own place, it was time to move out, I'd be living at home with a full time real job for a year. I decided it was time to take the plunge, I just hope I don't regreat it. Living on my own may get lonely!

Bored

So I'm super bored and work this week. It's not all bad to have nothing to do at work, but it sure makes the day go by slowly! Anyhow, I am catching up on blogs that I used to enjoy on a daily basis and found this neat idea from stitch marker. You type your answer to a list of 12 questions into the flickr search bar, and using the Mosaic Maker create a piece of art! Just copy and paste the URL from flickr into the Mosaic Maker, hit create and there you go. Just to get a look at some of the pictures on flickr is amazing.

This is a great way to browse flickr if you've never done it and also a great way to try out Mosaic Maker. I became a member of bighugelabs, and there are a ton of cool things you can create using that website. Unbelievable fun!!

Here are the questions. Try one for yourself!

The Questions:

What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you go to?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Favorite drink?
Dream vacation?
Favorite dessert?
What you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
One Word to describe you.
Your flickr name.

Enjoy!!