Splat Hair Dye

This is my brother, Benjamin. He had been asking me for a few weeks to dye part of his hair green. Now I dye my hair dark brown, I've never bleached hair before. It was FUN! We used Splat's hair dye in Neon Green.

 I could've stopped here. This was right after the bleaching part was done. His hair was SO silky smooth and such a pretty blonde. Maybe for summer. And yes, our cat box is in our kitchen. We've lived here for a couple years now and still don't know where to put it...

 This is after the first time I dyed it with the green. It was very light. Now Benjamin's got light blonde hair to begin with, so I'm sure everyone who dyes their hair with this color will need to do at least one more 1/2 hour of dye. Even then it's not a "neon" green. Which was fine with us, it turned out an almost turquoise color but also can look either more blue or more green depending on the lighting. They should definitely change the name and pictures on the box though.

 I told Benjamin he should definitely wear a different shirt with this hair dye because it was super clashing haha.

  

 Nowhere near neon green. I don't know how anyone would get neon green with this color. Thankfully Benjamin loved this color, and I love it too :)

We were not paid for this review, just my honest opinion :)

Welp...Tim had a terrible reaction to the anesthesia when he got his wisdom teeth out last Thursday. He was sick (throwing up) for the first day, then has just been in terrible pain ever since. Today marks the fifth day. He finally ate something other than mini ravioli and applesauce yesterday for dinner but ended up being in pain because of it. We had him see my boss on Monday, and no dry socket, just painful healing. I also had a side effect of being on amoxicillin for over 5 days due to my strep throat, so I've pretty much been laying on the floor for the past few days.

Valentine's Day came and went. I bought us each a bar of chocolate. Tim was able to eat a couple pieces. As soon as he's healed up, we're going to go away for the day and eat pizza and a burger :)

A friend from work knew the majority of everything going on. When I got to work Monday, she gave me this calendar and note:

Somedays you have to create your own sunshine. Other times, God brings it to you <3.

Saving money, pulling wisdom teeth, and reading books

These next few weeks are all about saving money for me. I've been working really hard to put any extra money towards paying off my two credit cards (they're really not that high of balances, I just hate debt). I will have them paid off within two months. Honestly, my issue with spending money is at the grocery store! I know we've got enough food to last us for well more than two weeks, we've just gotten so used to eating what we're craving that day rather than what's in the house. I need to get us back to when we used to only spend $50 (max $75) on groceries each week. How the heck did we used to do that?! I seriously just spent $200 on groceries. For TWO people. Granted, it included some medications and popsicles, but still. $200...yikes.

My next paycheck is going to be minus 2 1/2 days though...I sprained my finger (while seriously taking my pants off. Yup. Darn straight legged jeans.) and went to the doctor for 1/2 day to get it x-rayed, then the other two days are due to Tim. He's had a lot of chest pain lately, so his doctor ordered a bunch of tests and we went up to Traverse City last week for the day, then this coming Thursday, he's getting all of his wisdom teeth out....good grief, I swear our family is falling apart. Oh, and I had strep throat this weekend as well. Thank goodness we decided to pay more this year for the better option of insurance! This whole past weekend was spent on the couch. And in the tub. I felt awful. I definitely watched my share of movies!

This was my view while watching "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" haha. I think kitty was wishing she could dance during this part. Excellent movie, so is the first one! 

Gesine Bullock-Prado's recipe for scones I made since I had heavy cream that was expired...I tried experimenting with adding blueberries and raspberries which you can see are the ones on the right-Note to self: don't try to make a recipe better that's already great :)

I'm working on creating a menu for Valentine's Day for us, and so far I have mashed potatoes and pudding haha-I probably picked the worst weekend for him to get his wisdom teeth taken out :)

I've read two books this past week. And it feels awesome. The first was a recommendation by a coworker, "Room", by Emma Donoghue. I'm sure you've seen the trailer for the movie; but if not, it's about a woman who gets kidnapped at 19 and is held in the guy's storage shed in his backyard for 7 years. She has a son, and this story is told from his perspective, at the age of 5. I took this book with me to the hospital last Thursday and finished it that night. It was excellent.

The second book I started after work yesterday and did not move off the couch until I finished it at 11pm, "Me Before You", by Jojo Moyes. I had seen the trailer for this last weekend; and when I saw it was a book,  immediately put it on hold at the library. I got the email notification that it was in right after work yesterday and immediately went to get it. Ugh, what a GREAT book. I definitely cried. This is about a 26-year-old girl who just lost her job, and ends up getting a job caring for a 35-year-old quadriplegic. She lives an ordinary life, and he used to live life to the extreme but now cannot. After working for him for awhile, she secretly learns that he has decided that he wants to die in 6 months, so she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. Seriously a great book. And I just found out there's a second book! I'm sure it won't be as good as the first book, but there's nothing better than actually being able to read how your favorite character's are doing after. When I like a book, I normally just buy it immediately off of Amazon, but since I'm trying to save money, I put it on hold at the library instead. Honestly, it's kind of fun waiting in anticipation for it!

One more day of work, then Tim's teeth are coming out. I have to drive him back home because he'll have been put to sleep, so I'm having another 4-day weekend! Hopefully I'll be feeling good enough to start working out each day again. I'm also going to write up our menu for the next couple of weeks and clean out my closet. And probably pin a lot to Pinterest. Hope you have a great day!

2015 in Review, part 2

Tim and I went on many bike trips this summer. It was fun, besides my butt killing me!!! Being on an enduro for 5 hours is no fun in that department.

Checked one more place off my bucket list, this covered bridge near Sleeping Bear Dunes :)

Tim got part of his sleeve done over the course of about six months

I made my first lemon tart! Besides having a slight metallic taste to it (darn metal pan!), it was really good! I will definitely try this again, just in a different pan.

Harvested banana peppers and cucumbers :)

Homemade croissants filled with chocolate or fruit

Went on a camping trip with my entire family! I realized 80% of my photos taken were of Micah :)

Found a place in Traverse City that sells macarons and cupcakes :)

Tried truffle fries for the first time and fell in love <3. With the fries. And my husband :)

Made Giada De Laurentiis' Marinated Salumi Sandwich-so yummy! I even got Tim to eat fennel and arugula!

I got a Dutch oven and made Irish beef stew with mashed potatoes, very yummy!

Spent lots of time on the couch with my family.

Harvesting grapes from my neighbor's yard-I ate bowls full of these, so good!

Celebrated my 27th birthday along with Micah, Rebecca, and Chloe. Rebecca bought me some delicious tea and a sloth tea infuser!

Tim and I (me especially!) wanted to go away for our 1st anniversary. Since we didn't have a ton of money, we decided checking off a bucket list item still in Michigan, aka da U.P.  I'll do a post on this :)

Tim was voted employee of the semester!

2015 was the year of organization! This is an upstairs closet that just houses all the crap we rarely use. My whole thought is that if Tim and I were to die, we don't want people to have to take forever going through our stuff to keep/sell. I want things to be organized. We're slowly getting there.

Kitty and I spent a lot of time on the couch this year. I wonder how many movies I've watched?

Halloween

I've tried making time for myself on weekend mornings. This book helped. It's amazing how much our body craves alone time.

Tim and I tried making meals ahead of time: breakfast sandwiches and cookies, lasagna, and marinara. We did it for one week and stopped. I just think frozen food doesn't taste as good. We'll definitely try it again, but not these recipes. Besides the cookies. Those are awesome. I'll post the recipe sometime.

We hosted Thanksgiving at our home this year, and everything went well :) Minus the mashed potatoes not being cooked all the way. Oh well.

I took Benjamin's senior photos :)

We found our Christmas tree, thanks to a goat :)

I, again, took a lot of cute pictures of Micah :)

I bought this book for Micah that talked all about a brave, courageous little boy named Micah!

Tim turned 28 :)

We celebrated by going to see Star Wars :)

Made our Christmas cookies for the season!

Tim saw some posters on etsy that he wanted for his Christmas present, so I bought three of them; and I saw a couple of rings I wanted on etsy, so he bought me them :). Limit of $50 gifts sort of kept...

Went to my parents for our annual Christmas breakfast :)

New Year's Eve I actually dressed up...for the morning haha. Sweatpants were found later, I just love comfort. My hair actually looked cute though :)

I purchased my first Try the World box and think I love it-I'm going to give them a couple more months to see if I really want to keep subscribing. Good food, just kind of expensive.

This was the last photo taken of 2015!

Overall, I believe 2015 was a year of finding myself through baking, spending time with family, and traveling. Exactly what I'd love to do EVERY year <3.