Study snacks

My weekend was horrendously boring. I literally studied every waking minute apart from sleeping, showering, and eating. Actually no. I think I studied in the shower and while eating because I was chanting various traditional vs. modern rules for real estate transactions or recounting steps for analyzing the constitutionality of congressional delegations to administrative agencies. But luckily, I don't seem to be stressed to the point of dreaming about studying {which I normally do during finals time}.

To fuel myself during all of this studying I prepared home made chicken and stars soup {sadly, I have no picture of this}. I am sure I will make it again and create a wonderful post with a recipe and all!

Other than that I have been eating salad, ice cream, apples and cheese, chips and salsa, spaghetti Os, mac and cheese, 1 Wendy's Frosty, and pretty much everything else in sight. SO many snacks are necessary to keep me going during intense studying! Frequent trips to starbucks have also been essential.

I did make this:

I highly recommend this banana chocolate chip bread recipe! {Recipe available here}

And I did take this picture of a pretty tree outside of my school:

I hope you all had wonderful weekends!

Traditional New England Boiled Dinner

If you are looking for a perfect rainy day meal, you really cannot beat a traditional boiled dinner. It was quite serendipitous that my spontaneous decision to make this meal, which I have never made before, coincided with the wettest weather we have experience in quite a while. Here is a picture of S showing his plate:

I think that these recipes originated from immigrants and/or fisherman communities. I know the Irish versions use corned beef and the french version uses ham.  As you can probably tell, we eat a lot of soup in this house, and this meal was a welcome change.

My Recipe

1 ham shoulder {I bought a 9lb shoulder and had to cut off a lot of chunks so that it would fit in my pot}
6 peeled potatoes, cut in half
6 peeled carrots, cut in half
1/2 turnip cut in wedges
1 small cabbage

Place ham shoulder in pot and cover with water {leaving about two inches of space beneath the rim of the pot}. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer. The package my meat came in recommended 15 minutes per pound, but it was precooked.

Once the meat is cooked and is easily separating from the bone, remove it from the pot {reserving the water in the pot} and add the turnips and potatoes. Return to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 5-8 minutes. Then add the carrots and cook simmer-boil for another 5-8 minutes. Lastly, add the cabbage. Once that is soft, probably after an additional 5 minutes, everything should be ready! I like to double check the vegetables during this process by stabbing them with a knife just to make sure nothing is getting mushy. In the meantime, while the vegetables are cooking, carve the ham and arrange on a serving platter.

This is a really easy and inexpensive meal. Seth and I call it the "poor man's feast." And it certainly was the perfect choice for when it was raining buckets earlier this week!

Barrister's Ball

Here are some photos of us getting ready for Barrister's Ball, which took place on Tuesday night:

S is wearing a Banana Republic suit, and J Crew shirt and tie. I am wearing Banana Republic earrings, J Crew bubble necklace {mentioned here and available here. However, I got mine at our local J Crew factory store and it was on sale hooray!}, J Crew fishnets {It was too cold for bare legs in my opinion} and a J Crew Dress.

We had a good time but not quite as good as last year when we made a whole night of it and stayed at the Portland Harbor Hotel, which was amazing. This year, S had class at 8 am the next morning so we only stayed to 11. Nevertheless, it was nice to see my classmates, though a little bit sad because I realized that, apart from graduation, I may not see many of them again.

BTW! can you tell which photos were taken with my DSLR and which one was taken with our old fit-in-my-coach-clutch digital camera? If you look at the bottom photo I had to do a little bit of dirty editing because there was an imperfection in the photo on S's suit. Sadly, that is the only photo I have of the two of us together that night : (

Late Night Cravings

S and I don't eat A LOT of ice cream, but we probably get it once a month. When we do, I always select Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake {AMAZINGGG} and S usually gets B & J's cookie dough. It is inevitable that I finish off mine first. I prefer to devour it all in one or two nights, and S enjoys a little bit each night for many many nights. SO when I finish off mine, I usually just reach for his. WELL the boy wised up and this time chose an ice cream flavor that I hate:

I absolutely detest the taste of mint. So, when I just HAD to have something sweet the other night, I instead made these:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies -- new. favorite. cookie. Somehow, I am able to better justify eating cookie after cookie by telling myself they have oats in them : ) Recipe available here.

Gingham

To say I love gingham would be a dramatic understatement. {Lately I have bought gingham sheets, planned to recover my bar stools in gingham, and recover the living room pillows in coordinating gingham and ikat patterns}. That is why I was delighted when I received an email from J Crew today letting me know about the new Altuzarra for J Crew collection, checked it out, and discovered this amazing dress:

Feeling very J Crewsy after viewing this collection, I decided to pop in on my way home from school today. Being my last day of school EVER, I felt it was appropriate to treat myself to a little something. Also, I had to pick up a new shirt and tie for S because I made a very last minute decision that we need to go to Barrister's Ball tonight! 

I came home with the following items:

AND

{all available at jcrew.com or jcrew.com/factory}

I will be sure to post pictures of barrister's ball -- including the AMAZING J Crew dress I picked up MONTHS ago that I have been saving for a special occasion.

Sunburst Mirrors

I have been wanting to invest in a sunburst mirror for years. Part of the reason I didn't was because I looked up a few DIYs and always thought I would make one . . . but I never got around to it. Here are some that I like:

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THEN . . . one fateful day at target {this past Saturday to be exact} I discovered this little guy on clearance:

Sure, he might not be the most exciting or glamorous looking of all sunburst mirrors, but for $7.25 I could not resist. I think a makeover is in his future. I am considering painting him gold. I do not know why I am calling it "him." My favorite ways to style it are over a console table or bed, like in images 4 & 5. I was so excited when I got home that I whipped out my hammer and nails and put it up on a bare wall in my living room. Not very artful and now I have created yet another hole in the walls of this house that will later need to get filled. S is going to kill me when we move and start taking stuff down and sees the terrible holes I made underneath every single thing I hung up. For example, wall shelves hung while he was on deployment. Let's just say my measuring was hasty and I am not so good with the cordless drill . . .

Weekend Recap

Lots of nostalgia going on for me this weekend. Saturday was "picnic day" at my alma mater. Picnic day is basically a day of festivities the entire college campus and town partakes in. There are parades, fashion shows, a polo match, drink specials at every bar, and many other similar events and demonstrations going on all around the HUGE campus. Starting early in the morning, college students and alumni can be found enjoying mimosas and bloody marys {or beer in the case of frat boys -- Davis has a HUGE Greek community, I myself was a tri delta} and beer pong/flip cup tables can be found on every front lawn. You don't attempt to drive around the town of Davis, California on picnic day. And if you are an alum planning to return-- it is necessary to book a hotel room MONTHS in advance. I can't even describe how amazing picnic day is. It is truly something the entire town participates in. That is what I loved most about Davis, it was a great college town. Truly better than the college town I currently live in, which houses Bowdoin College {though I certainly do like it here!} Also, Davis, California is very warm this time of year and everyone is in cute sun dresses and sunglasses for picnic day.

SIGH

While picnic day was going on, I on the east coast was reminiscing but also trying to catch up on some work. And get some stuff done around the house. Here are some highlights:

Deep cleaned our bathroom and invested in some new soft bath mats. LOVE THEM!! it is funny how such a small change can make me so happy : )

New shower caddy to make things a little more organized {i.e. prevent bottles from falling all over the place while showering}

New nail polish -- OPI Panda-monium pink. I love it because it is kind of a lavender pink. Judging from this photo it looks like I could use another coat though! Purchasing this nail polish was how I "rewarded" myself for mostly completing my two bar applications. Had a little marathon session Friday night filling them out. Luckily I completed the paperwork necessary to obtain a security clearance when I worked at the DOJ last spring {externship}. So a lot of the work needed to fill out these applications had already been done and I just needed to re copy it onto my bar applications -- i.e. every residence/job/etc. held since 18 yrs old, or from college or five years ago, whichever is longer. Lucky for me I came to law school right after college so I did not have to account for that much time. AND also, luckily I don't have so much as a speeding ticket to report in my application. So everything was pretty straight forward. Just a few things to finish and these guys are ready to get sent out! I feel SO much better that these are almost done.

Rescued this guy from the curb in my neighborhood last night while taking Chase for a walk. Not quite sure what I will do with it. It might be fun to paint it, but I haven't decided yet.

These made the perfect rainy Sunday snack. I took some phyllo pasty shells and added brie and raspberry jam. The melty goodness was the perfect snack for late afternoon studying.

These beauties finally arrived. There are two major commercial legal research companies -- Lexis Nexis and Westlaw -- that essentially provide search engines for researching cases, laws, and anything else lawyers need to be able to access as part of their day to day job. The cost of these services for firms is expensive and many smaller firms do not make use of them. Mine uses Lexis. But for law students, the service is free and as an incentive to get students to use them, the companies offer points for attending research seminars, looking up cases, training, etc. Points can be redeemed for a variety of items and after saving up points for the past three years I settled on these ray ban aviators. I am planning on redeeming the remainder of my points for what will likely be a year's supply of starbucks gift cards : )


I hope you all had wonderful weekends!!

Grilling!

This week we did our fair share of grilling.

Steak, salad, and mushroom tarts:

These tarts were delicious! Recipe available here. Mine certainly are not as pretty as Natalie's {of designer bags and dirty diapers} this is because (1) in an attempt to expedite the thawing process of my puff pastry, the the layers melted together and would not roll out afterwards, resulting in very thick tarts; and (2) I skipped the egg wash. Nevertheless they tasted amazing. I will definitely be making these again, and next time I will be more patient so that they are prettier : ) And yes, we like our steak rare in this house!

Then, another night, I was in a hurry and googled "grilled chicken and shrimp recipes" and this came up. This meal was super easy to make and did not require very "sophisticated" ingredients, yet it tasted delicious and took less than 30 minutes to prepare:

Because it is so easy (deceptively so) this is a recipe I may use next time we host some friends for dinner. And in case you are wondering, those are indeed two different types of noodles -- my pantry was running dangerously low on pasta and once I discovered this recipe I knew I had to make it and fortunately was able to combine two half full boxes of pasta to pull it off! phew : )

Happy weekend!

Graduation Pt. III

Currently, I am obsessed with the idea of having a lobster bake at home with my entire family after graduation.

Here are some images inspiring my plans:

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Welcome Spring!

In our house we have been taking full advantage of the above average temperatures this week.

Despite endless work that needs to be done, S and I made time to enjoy the outdoors a little bit by checking out a new local hiking trail:

playing with my lens and taking this photo of a teensy fiddle head : )

beautiful twisty cedars

loved the bright green color of the moss

Peaceful and serene. I am certainly no photography expert, but I am loving playing with the different lenses on my camera and learning. Seth got me a Nikon D3100 and a couple of lenses for my birthday this year because he thought I needed a hobby. I absolutely love it and it was such a perfect, thoughtful gift.

PS how cute is my dog?!?

Note-- Chase is sporting the Gentle Leader, which is an absolute life saver! He is a big bog (weighing 75lbs) and is very strong. He can definitely pull me around, but with the Gentler Leader, he walks like a perfect gentleman . . . for the most part.

Plates On Walls

I really love how old plates look when hanging in rooms, especially non dining related rooms. I would love to one day do this with some of my grandmother's china but in the meantime I may resort to picking up some unusual plates at local antique or thrift shops. Doing this can help achieve the "shabby chic" look, which unfortunately I will never get to feature in my home because my husband would hate it! But the examples below demonstrate how hanging plates on walls can achieve a sophisticated look as well by adding layers of depth and dimension to a room. Also, it is such an inexpensive way to class up a room! 

My personal favorite is image one. I can't decide what I like more, the plates artfully arranged above that fantastic dresser, the wall color, the curtains, the Greek key pillow, the chevron rug, or the head board. Image two is a close second!

Enjoy!

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