Friendship

Recently, I was doing ordinary things one night. I think I was cleaning up my makeup area. And I started thinking about how touched I am by my friends. 

Friends are so important. All different groups of friends. I have old friends and new friends. 

I still talk to one of my elementary school friends often. College friends. First out of college, moved to Charlotte friends. Friends from our old condo building. Old work friends. Old and new neighborhood friends. Daycare school friends. My kid's elementary school friends Moms. Friends I play tennis with and against. Church friends. Club friends. Blog friends. Work friends. 

Remember the ole Girl Scout song?

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.

I am incredibly thankful for my friends. I truly do think I have amazing girlfriends. That is a treasure and I do realize it. I'm just so grateful for all of their friendships....old and new.

Go be a nice friend to a friend today! 

Who you surround yourself with help makes you who you are!

Girls on the Run

Since February I've been helping coach the team at Molly Anne's school for girls on the run! It was a fun time getting to know many new friends from school. On Saturday was the final race that the girls had worked toward for months. Molly Anne ran 99% of the entire race. I was super impressed! I loved getting to run with her.

Five on Friday

ONE - we took the kids to see the Harlem Globetrotters on Sunday afternoon. We knew they'd LOVE it and they did. Of course they had to get a ball too! 

TWO - my favorite iced coffee combo. Better than anything you can get at Starbucks in my humble little opinion. 

THREE - rough work week. I went to bed at 7:30 last night and was asleep before 8. A dream and much needed. 

FOUR - Molly Anne "graduated" from Charlotte Aquatics this week. It was kind of just set up. She prob graduated a year or two ago but she was back to do private lessons there with Devyn. She LOVED getting a trophy!

FIVE - loved getting this picture from Molly Anne's teacher! They like going to each others classrooms in the mornings before the bell rings. 

Happy weekend!

Thursday Looks

ONE - super gorgeous dress under $200

TWO - such a fun summer dress!

THREE - loving this top

FOUR - cane acrylic clutch - yes!


FIVE - so many occasions for this dress!

Shortcuts for Getting Dinner on the Table, A Few Meals

Dinner continues to be a hard part of my work week every week. The best thing I have done over the years is to meal plan, order groceries then cut/clean all fruits and veggies every Sunday. If I do those things, the work week is A LOT better. I'm talking I cut the red pepper that I need for shrimp and grits on Wednesday night. I also clean/cut fruit for kid's lunches. It just makes life a lot smoother.

Another thing that works for me is to make a more complicated meal for Sunday night. Something that sounds good but takes too long during the week. And I hate to be a debbie downer but if we have spaghetti, that is not an easy meal to me. It takes too many dishes! So if we do pasta, I usually do it on Sunday. 

I also like to make a meal for Monday on Sunday evening. Even better if we have leftovers for Tuesday. If I can make it to Wednesday, I can wing Wednesday from the freezer then get my act together for a Thursday meal. 

Just a few tips on how I'm surviving. 

Meatball Subs - got the $1 french bread loaf from Wal-Mart and used this recipe to make meatballs (made these earlier in the day when I had time). Sliced the bread lengthwise, hollowed out the bread, sliced the meatballs and put them on the bread. Drizzled Rao's marinara over and topped with provolone. Kevin said this one was a winner! I served with green beans on the side.

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas - I made these on a Sunday night to have on Monday before a baseball game. 

Shrimp and Grits - I already had everything chopped and ready for this. Also used quick cooking grits. Took me about 15-20 minutes to get this on the table including defrosting the shrimp. 

Easy is the name of my game. Oh, another thing I always do - we have Mexican food every week one of the nights. I make the taco meat early in the morning while I'm doing the kid's breakfast. Makes dinner very easy when you have the meat already done. Win! 

Grady Game Ball

Grady got the game ball on Saturday at his game. He played awesome. Had three solid hits, hustled on and off the field every time, played well and cheered for his teammates. I was so proud! My Dad got to watch one of his hits on FaceTime. A great day! He loves baseball. 

Porch Flowers

Grady and I went over to Lowe's this past weekend and got a bunch of flowers! I got them all planted when we got home. Excited to have them done and will now get to enjoy!

This is the banana plant that my parents gave us at the beach last year. I took out everything that was around it and replanted with this!

Grady picked out this mandeville. 

Petunias and daisies 


Cucumber, jalapeño, tomato and basil


This isn't ny typical style but it was fun and whatever. 


Geranium 

Five on Friday

1. Grady loves these all time greats books if you have a little boy that loves sports! I'd say these are good for ages 5-7. Amazon!

2. My friend Nina had this on her lips and I was like that's so fun! Can't wait to try it. 



3. This picture cracks me up. Girls on the Run water bottles. Soooo many Stanleys. 

4. They are too cute. They do this on their own and then I just melt! 


Little love buckets 

5. Had a busy week of work, tennis and teacher appreciation week. It was good though but very late nights! I need to sleep!

Thursday Looks

Found some cute ones this week!

ONE - may have to grab this $158 cute dress. 

TWO - an easy throw on dress for the summer. Bunch of colors. $47

THREE - well this dress is a stunner!


FOUR - a dress for work. 


FIVE - I saw a girl on the court the other night wearing this skirt. It's super cute. 

Recipe: Presidential Crab Salad

Dad and I made this delicious dinner one night over Spring Break in Ocean Isle. He brought a couple pounds of crab down from Maryland so we put it to good use. 

We found amazing large tomatoes at the market in OIB on the holiday weekend. Kevin and my parents did some errands one day and they went to a produce stand and got the lima beans and corn. It was fresh and delish!

I happened to find this recipe in my big binder of old school recipes! It's email from my mom in July 2012! Oh the good times when she could email me!

Presidential Crab Salad

3/4 cup diced red onion (I used 1/4 cup)

3/4 cup diced celery (I used 1/4 cup)

2 tablespoons of mayo but add more if need be (see how it looks)

Old Bay sprinkled in (she says until you get tired of pouring ha!)

1 pound crab meat

I boiled the lima beans for about 30 minutes and added bacon and salt and pepper to the boiling mixture. These were even better the second night! 

We cooked the corn in the microwave (3 at a time) for 4.5 minutes. You leave the husk on and only cut the bottom off to stand it up. Then after they have cooked you can push the corn right out. Add butter and old bay of course!

Updates to the Beach House

Every time we go to the beach I feel like all I do is work on the house. Especially when my Dad is there because he knows how to do everything handy! 

This is a list of what we got accomplished during Spring Break...

Put deck box together and put in our back yard under the stairs with cinder blocks in it so it doesn't float around

Boat lift motor change - they had put two different speed motors on the lift so the guys had to fix this. We only took the boat off then put it back on so this was relatively easy. 

Put together a cabinet ($130) for our main room

Mounted a flag holder on the back of the house along the canal

Got a cover for an irrigation hole in front of the house

Put some weed and feed on the yard 

Got a bunch of stone from Lowe's and filled in the area between the fence and the canal bulkhead

Re-secured the electrical meter box on the outside of the house

Got a new vacuum FINALLY

Fixed a fan blade that had broken off 

Here's the before and after of the cabinet!

We have taken all three of the pulls off (too modern for me) and the bottom two we changed to brass cleats from West Marine (nautical vibe) and the top knob I'm looking at possibly getting this one from Anthropologie (they have the best knobs FYI!). I'll take a picture of the cabinet after all three knobs are on it and will share!

Weekend Wrap

The kiddos had field day on Friday. It was a gorgeous day for it! Braids for the big day! All of those years practicing on my American Girl dolls are paying off!

Grady had the best time. They both did! I walked over and watched them. I'm so thankful to be able to do that during the work day.

Grady went to another nearby club with a friend on Friday night...


and we took this queenie to our club for dinner! Then we ended up going to pick Grady up at our neighbors and hanging with them for a bit. 


Baseball on Friday morning. He had a few wonderful hits!



His biggest cheerleader, with a team shirt of course!



I took Molly Anne to a birthday party at Kate's Skates Saturday afternoon. She had never rollerbladed or skated before. She tried skating first but she liked rollerblading a lot better. And she got a lot better as the hour went on!





Saturday night we went to dinner the four of us to Pacos Tacos. We love that place so much. It's delish and I like that you can make a reservation. 

Sunday morning I had a make up tennis match from the rain last week. I played my third singles match ever and won 6-2, 6-0. Woohoo!

Sunday afternoon Molly Anne and I took a CPR/AED/First Aid class with some friends. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and I'm grateful for the opportunity to know more. 

Back at home...twins!


Of course he got to dig in!

This week and next are nuts with work and travel so I keep telling myself - I will survive, I will survive.