Full

The first thing that is full - my schedule. I seriously am having trouble keeping up with everything. I feel like many of my cases/clients are undergoing small emergencies that need immediate attention. Thank goodness I do love my job, because I have been at the office late most nights the last several weeks. And it isn't helping that I am trying to go with on a lot of Drew's weekend interviews, and help him stay on top of things. Although I am particularly blessed that my bosses are so understanding and allow me to have such a flexible schedule so that I can have a more active part in Drew's interview process.

The second thing that is full - my heart. My heart is complete and content now that Drew is home. Even though he is in and out during the week (for interviews) it is so nice to have him home.

And finally, something to keep your stomach full:
Super easy pumpkin spice cupcakes/cake

• 1 Box of cake mix (I recommend spice cake)
• 3 eggs
• 1 can of pumpkin
• 1 can of cream cheese frosting

Mix the first three ingredients with a few (2-3) tablespoons of water. The batter below is a little light in color because I used white cake mix because the store was out of spice cake mix. If you use white cake mix I would add some cinnamon to the recipe as well. The mixture will be a little thick (partially because no oil is used). But the pumpkin is a healthy (and tasty) alternative.
Bake for the time recommended on the box of cake mix (it will depend on whether you are making cake or cupcakes). After cooking let cupcakes/cake cool. Frost with cream cheese frosting.

These cupcakes require so few ingredients and are a super easy fall treat! Hope you enjoy!

Fruit pizza

Last week I made a delicious fruit pizza for work. With spring here and summer on its way I figure it is a good time to share the recipe for easy to make dessert.

Refrigerated sugar cookie dough (16 oz)
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Fruit of your choice

Pat dough into a 12 to 14 inch pizza pan.* Bake at 350 until golden brown. Cool completely. Beat softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Spread on cooled cookie dough. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Top with fruit of choice such as strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, mandarin oranges, etc.
*Just from personal experience if you use a pizza stone leave extra room on the sides because the dough will spread as it rises - I forgot to do this and was scraping dough off the bottom of my oven.

Spring Cleaning & Showers

Our Saturday was filled with some extensive spring cleaning. We were cleaning the apartment for Shannon's baby shower which was today. And when I say cleaning, I mean cleaning the gross stuff under the fridge cleaning. So I am proud to say our bathrooms, bedroom and kitchen are spotless. The only problem... is that our office...is not so spotless. Everything that I couldn't find a home for.... went in there. And it was not too clean to begin with because I have a habit of putting all all my mail, coupons, filing, papers, etc. on top of my desk. So perhaps this week or next weekend the office will get taken care of. But for now I will enjoy how super clean the rest of our house is!

Although the shower was a lot smaller than I was expecting (small to begin with then one guest was sick, and two more cancelled last night) it was still nice. I made an egg cassarole, a french toast cassarole and then the two other hosts brought fruit, juice and delicious pecan rolls.

Not only did hosting force us to clean, I also had a fun time making and decorating for the event. Above are the candy pacifiers I made. Also on the tray are the personalized pacifiers I purchased for Kaiden Jeremy. The little blue hexagon shaped boxes below were filled with pastel M&M's for the guests to take home. (I hot glued little purple and blue flowers on top).

Below is the coffee tabled that I decorated with a table runner and ribbon. And at the very bottom is the tray of gifts I got for Shannon that was also used a shower game (the guests got a few minutes to look at them and then we took it away and they had to see how many of the 20 items they could remember).

Unfortunately the shower was pretty brief, partially due to the small number attending, and then partially due to the tornado that hit the east side of town. One of the guests had to run home because some of the siding had been blown off her house! Another thing to be grateful for- although I wish we had a home, I realize our apartment can be a blessing - we don't have to worry about expensive or unexpected maitenance!

Exhausted

Drew is officially done and on break.... and of course he is excited and filled with energy - I however, am exhausted! Between recovering from being sick, and trying to finish up Christmas crafts and everything that has to be done before Tuesday, I am just plain tired. Drew has headed off to spend time with friends, but I stayed home and will be in bed or laying on the couch shortly.

I am super excited to go to Florida next week - but along with that comes the pressure of getting everything done before then! For some reason this week all my quiet cases have had stuff come in so I am suddenly swamped... and with taking vacation, everything has to be done by Tuesday. I have several motions, and an appellate brief that has to get done. In order to make sure I am going to head in to work tomorrow and possibly Sunday as well... but all this hard work will make my vacation will be all the more worthwhile. And I must be grateful that there is plenty of work to do, for that means I have a job!

Below is a picture of the jars of fudge I made for the partners at the firm. (One of my Christmas crafts I was trying to get done this week) - Thanks, Aunt Missy for your famous recipe!

Ta da.....

Here are two of the Christmas crafts I made this weekend....

Floral arrangement I made for Grandma Sinker

(her Christmas present from us)

The wreath I made for our front door!

I'm alone tonight...

Drew is on-call with trauma surgery. This is the second time this week. This is his first and last week of trauma - which he would tell you is a good thing. Surprisingly, "trauma-surgery" is not as exciting as it sounds. I thought he would be handling all kinds of crazy-odd traumatic surguries... not so much. Instead he deals with every related trauma incident that comes into the ER -so it is more emergency medicine than "surgery." While he has seen a few interesting things (a cyclist who hit a car due to intoxication) he has mostly been examining patients with very LITTLE surgery involved. In fact when I emailed him this week to see how his day was going, and the email I got back said "My day is ok, I think we can cross off trauma. I'm gonna research Neuro some more. I still love and miss it." I asked him yesterday - if you 1) could totally disregard time committment and 2)you had to decide today, what residency would you choose? His answer: neurosurgery. The main concern with choosing neurosurgery is that the residency is 7 or 8 years (which puts him at finishing in 2017 or 2018) and he has read a lot that it is not a family-friendly profession. For right now we are just going to do lots more homework to try and find out just how time consuming neurosurgery is. It does make me feel better that family is a top priority of his! Enough about that...



Today was a busy day for me too - after working out and going into work until 4 I ran around Springfield to do some Christmas shopping. Which the reason I went into work for most of the day was because I am trying to rack up some extra hours because I am hoping to take some time off Thursday because my parents are coming in town! This is huge because my Dad has not come to visit me in DeKalb or Decatur or Springfield where I have lived the past 3 and a half years. Anyways afterwork I ran to Hobby Lobby, JoAnn fabrics, Factory Card Outlet and Barnes and Nobles. (The picture is from all my purchases). Needless to say I have lots of wrapping and Christmas crafting to do. I will post my successful/failed crafts later this week. Time to get to work!