Sunny Sunday and Giveaway Glimpses

 {we heart it}

Hello lovelies!  I hope this post finds you enjoying a relaxing, sunny, and rested Sunday afternoon.  I have enjoyed a pretty chill weekend, which entailed a much needed trip home to see my family.  My mom is out of the country right now, so I had to make sure my dad and brother hadn’t starved to death or died of a Panda Express overdose.  Thankfully neither had happened and we enjoyed an afternoon of Chicago inspired shopping (more on that later) and dinner at a Mongolian grill.  (My dad literally has a problem obsession with these places.  Seriously, he’d eat there every meal if he could.)  It was nice to catch up with two of my favorite guys, although we missed my mom a lot (Hello Mom if you’re reading!)

Last week I posted about my new headband storage system and lots of you seemed enthusiastic to try it for yourself.  (If you did, let me know, I’d love to see pictures or your take on it!)  Anyway, after the project, I’ve been left with mounds of oatmeal, and as promised, I’ve been creatively making use of the contents of my storage system.  So in case you tried the system and have tons of oatmeal left over (or if you just love oatmeal), here are two of the recipes I’ve played around with to work my oatmeal mound down to a more manageable quantity :)

 {image by Lara Robby/Studio D}

Mom’s No Bake Cookies: Now, I know lots of people have their own take on this recipe, but this one is my mom’s and its the BEST.  Seriously, it would win in an no bake cookie competition.  For real, it’s that good :)

1/4 cup butter or margarine…3 Tbsp. cocoa…2 cup white sugar…1/2 cup peanut butter… 2 1/2 cup oatmeal…1/2 cup milk…1 tsp. vanilla…nuts may be added if desired (I do not desire.)

Boil butter, sugar, cocoa, and milk for 2 minutes only.  Then add peanut butter, vanilla, and oatmeal.  Stir and place large spoonfuls on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.  Let cool and enjoy.

Easy and delicious.  My kind of recipe :)  The other recipe I successfully conquered (I’m not exactly the best in the kitchen) was Betty Crocker’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It was good, but it made three dozen freaking cookies, so unless your jeans are just sagging on you, I’d suggest taking at least half of these cookies to work, school, hungry college students, etc.  (I graced my dad and brother with 2 dozen of these bad boys.  There were less than ten cookies in the bag when I left this morning.)

As I mentioned above, I was able to do some Chicago inspired shopping this weekend.  Now that we’re moving to a climate that actually gets below 50 degrees, I’m realizing I need to update my closet accordingly.  I’m on a budget, so it’s taking some care to do this, and when I have a little bit more time, I’m going to lay out (and share with you) exactly what my closet needs for Chicago, what I have, and what I need to keep my eye out for in the next several months.  Slow and thoughtful shopping is important to me these days, for both financial and style reasons.  I’ve had bad habits in the past of binge shopping, and well, the results are never good, financially or stylewise.

In addition to my Chicago inspired shopping, I also did some other shopping that I think you guys are going to be VERY excited about.  I shopped for my FIRST BLOG GIVEAWAY.  A  woo hoo!  I’ve been wanting to do a giveaway for a long time, but I wanted to wait until I hit 150 followers.  Now that I’m inching towards that number, I’m prepared for the giveaway and let me tell you, I think you guys are going to L.O.V.E. what I got.  I don’t want to tell you everything yet, but I’ll give you a few hints…

The store where I discovered the little lovely is in the Houston Galleria…the designer specializes in fabulous accessories…the color could not be more perfect for spring…the logo is typically in all lowercase letters.

That’s all I’m saying :)  Any guesses?  So as soon as I get to 150 followers, I’ll post the giveaway!  (Unless I can’t contain my excitement, and I give in later this week lol…)  So if you read this blog and you’re not a follower, become one, so I have this giveaway!  I am super pumped because my blog and blog friends are such a fun part of my life, and I can’t wait to give something special to one of you. 

So I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday (and by “enjoy” I mean grade papers, work on my dissertation, and start/finish a presentation I have to give at work on Tuesday.)  Yeah…about as fun as it sounds :)  Have a great rest of the weekend yall!