Secret Santa Crafting

I started working on this week's secret santa gifts! I loooove participating in these; so fun! My co-worker is a teacher so I really wanted to make her a crayon initial craft I, of course, saw on Pinterest!

She also loves popcorn, like I do, so I made her "popcorn in a jar," using popcorn kernels, popcorn toppings (apple cinnamon and chocolate marsmallow), and two vintage popcorn bags (I have tons leftover from our wedding)! It came out so cute! I hope she loves 'em!

all the supplies

all packaged up!

I already know what I want to do for two more of her gifts but I'm a bit stuck on one more! We'll see! :]

Christmas Spirit

I feel like I'm going through the motions of Christmas without feeling much of anything. I have no idea why but I seem to have misplaced my Christmas spirit. Sad...I think it may have to do with this being my first year not going home to L.A. for the holidays. G and I always figure out a way to split our Christmas between both families, despite the fact that they are a state away. Christmas for me, is one the 24th, whereas for him, it's on the 25th. I can't imagine cooking, dancing, having so much fun without my small family. Midnight won't be the same... :/ If we had children it'd be easier to make our own little traditions BUT as we always do, we'll try and make the best of everything.

For now, I am searching for my spirit. One of the ways I like doing this is by giving back. Volunteering is one of the best things I can do. This weekend was the Help Portrait event, in which families get to get their hair and make up done and get a free portrait by a professional photographer. Seeing all these families come into the Boys and Girls Club to take (for a lot of them), their very first family portrait was beyond incredible. I, personally, had our first family portrait taken at our wedding early this year! When we were raising our teenage sister, we always made sure to take her to serve food during the holidays. The first time she was annoyed that we had to wake up so early and stand in the cold to help, but by the end of the day, she was asking for our next event. When I was growong up, we often didn't have money for gifts so we would be on the opposite side of charity events. I want to spend my life giving back as much as possible. I wish I could just invite all my family, friends and their kids to volunteer to give back. How amazing would that be?!

I haven't done any Christmas shopping this year, probably part of my missing spirit...  I always go all out at Christmas and absolutely loooove giving gifts! I get so much satisfaction from finding or making the perfect gift from me to a loved one! Geoff always tells me I go overboard and never likes when I keep giving when it's not reciprocated. But seriously, who cares?! If you give to receive, are you really giving with generous and true intentions? Not in my opinion...anyway! I'm digressing! Lol!

Speaking of gifts, I want to make some awesome crafts from Pinterest! I have a Secret Santa at work and can't wait to make her gifts! But I have to get started on it tonight and I didn't find anything at the store earlier so now I'm left to creativity at home!

This is our first year together with a real xmas tree! Of course, it's all gold, rose gold, and copper lol! We topped it sith Geoff's gold maneki neko instead of a star this year. Maybe once our lights are on outside and I get some gifts under the tree it'll feel more like Xmas? Or maybe, and better yet, once I experience the true meaning of this season...:)

Top of our Christmas tree with G's Maneki Neko atop; G's parents gave us a new ornament for our first Xmas as a married couple! <3

My ivory/cream booties! Wish the tops weren't so wide!

Friday Accesorizing

Fridays are the culmination of most work weeks and the commencement of weekends of freedom! Lately, they have been yet another day to continue our ridiculous schedules. Our schedules hardly ever match up and our weekends are full tasks, projects and errands. Relaxation is sometimes incorporated but often not. Lots of laughter and wine is though (usually)! ;)

I woke up late this morning (again!) and had to rush out of the door to make it to work on time! I love that my job has casual Fridays because I feel that I work faster and easier in jeans and Vans/Chucks/Toms, rather than my usual professional attire. Despite that, I absolutely love accessorizing. I love wearing things in my hair (flowers, headbands, scarves, braids, pomps,etc); and 99% of the time I wearing earrings, a necklace, a ring and a bracelet. I feel like something missing without them, haha!

My new closet is amazing (for me) and so organized that it makes it soo easy to get ready in the mornings. I'm in love with it!

Today, in my rush, I went for what's become one the easiest and fastest hairstyles for my hair. It's kinda like a half-french braid (one on each side to frame my face). I am not great at french braids but the way I do this one makes me feel like I can do it if I really try! You start a regular braid on the side of your head and each time pick up/add more hair to the strand that is closest to your face. It creates this awesome braid that looks like a crown headband, haha! I don't know to explain it! Sometimes I just wear it on one side and poof up the other side; today I did it on the other side, as well!



I wore my hardware necklace with a silver/turquoise ring and my beloved fork necklace from Brasil! I <3 accessories!



I have to work tomorrow, boo but yay to making that dollar!
Let's see what the rest of the weekend brings us!

Brrrr

I woke up this morning freezing! The temperature was in the mid 30s! That's way too cold for this California girl! I think it's time to turn on the heater before we go to bed and turn it off when we wake up! Geoff even came home from work wearing his scarf yesterday! I was excited to finally wear one of he gazillion scarves I own! I woke up late so I didn't get a chance to look up one of pins on Pinterest that shows a bunch of different ways on how to wear a scarf! I've been sooo into beiges, gold, rose gold, coppers since our wedding early this year; Geoff has been saying he needs to hide the gold spray paint from me because our house is becoming more and more gold! Lol! I chose an ivory and gold striped pashmina I bought in Argentina this past summer!
Yay for scarves even though I don't enjoy being very cold!



Unfortunately, the details of my pashmina cannot be seen once this picture is uploaded for some reason. But it's so pretty, light, and has sparkly lines of gold. Love it! I have really light dimples in this picture, I just noticed, too!

Barbecue Chicken Pizza

Sometimes we are extremely organized with our meals and those weeks are amazing! Other times, like this week, organized isn't even in our vocabulary. Our house becomes a mess, our schedules hardly enable any time for each other, and our work interferes with any personal or social time! Weeks like these resort to quick stops on our way home to grab fast food or whatever is more convenient. This week is one of those weeks but since I went grocery shopping during the weekend, I've been attempting to cook as much as possible. So on Monday while still at work, I started rummaging our fridge (in my mind); I remembered we had whole wheat pizza crust from Trader Joe's that Marlyna had brought us from L.A. If we didn't use it, it'd go to waste. So pizza it is! I ran to the grocery store and grabbed a rotisserie chicken and came home. My intentions were to make homemade chicken alfredo pizza! Yum! But once I got home I had to improvise because I didn't have all the ingredients for the sauce. So I rummaged through the fridge and found an unopened jar of Red Hot's BBQ sauce and voila! We ended up with one of the most delicious pizzas ever made in our kitchen!






Recipe
Ingredients:
-whole wheat pizza dough or any homemade or prepackaged dough
-1 cup chicken breast, shredded
-1 1/4 cups (or so) of Red Hot's BBQ sauce (we loved the spiciness of this one but you can use any you like).
-1/2 cup cilantro (or as much as you like)
-1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
-1-1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese (mozarella or colby jack
-1 handful of feta cheese
-1/2 cup of greek (kalamata) olives, sliced or diced

Directions:
1. Let your pizza dough rise for about 30 minutes. (I put a bottle of wine in the freezer and worked out to keep me preoccupied). Unless you have dough that doesn't need this step. Preheat oven to 450•F.
2. Stretch your dough into shape you want it (I pretty much am amateur at this, I need a lot more practice in kneading and stretching with my fists!) place your dough on a pizza stone or baking dish and cook the dough for about 6 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix your shredded chicken, BBQ sauce, and cilantro.
4. Once you take out your precooked dough, spread garlic onto the crust circumference. Then add your chicken/cilantro/BBQ spread. Add olives.
5. Add cheese over the top. Feta cheese on top.
6. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly is slightly browned. Cut and serve!





Soo easy and sooo delicious! Reheated leftovers were even better! So this would make a great make-ahead dish!