Lazy

I'll be honest, I was lazy and didn't really have a post ready to go for today. But, sticking with the lazy theme I decided to share how I'm not actually the laziest one in the house. That award definitely goes to the dogs... literally.

By now you probably know I have two dogs: Winnie and Annabelle. You probably also know that Winnie is my favorite the good one and Annabelle is evil naughty. For the most part they are polar opposites but there's one thing they have in common - sleep. 

These dogs can sleep allll day. And I do mean all day. It's not just like a casual snooze, it's more like 'OMG I'm soooo exhausted'. Cause, ya know, doing nothing all day must be pretty exhausting. The only thing worse than how much they sleep is just how many pictures I have of them sleeping. I mean, it's ridiculous. And who really needs to see that? No one, that's who. Lucky for you though, you get to see them! I know, you're crazy excited. 

Here's some of the best most ridiculous sleeping pictures I have shamelessly compiled. I apologize in advance. 

Sunbathing. By far their favorite activity to do together. Quite possibly the ONLY activity they do together. If she sees you watching, Annabelle will promptly move and deny it ever happened. I had to take this pic through the sliding glass door.

Winnie with my parent's dogs. This just makes me laugh because they're all laying in the same position. Running around like fools must be really exhausting.

This picture demonstrates the unfair rules in our house. Annabelle is allowed on furniture. Winnie is not. Really the only reason annabelle is allowed is because no one can tell her what to do. Main reason Winnie's not allowed? Because the first day we brought her home she hopped on the bed with Annabelle and was promptly chased across the house by a screaming devil. I mean, Annabelle. 

Have cold feet? Annabelle will gladly warm them up. All while she's mostly unconscious.

This is just ridiculous. And yes, she's wearing a hoodie.

When Winnie's really tired she sleeps with her head on the floor. Seems so uncomfortable.

There's nothing special about this picture, I just think it's adorable :)

Spoiled. That is all. And yes, she crawls under the covers herself.

I mean, why not pass out in your princess dress? It's gotta be tiring ruling the whole house and all...

The obligatory upside down sleeping picture. She's the only upside down sleeper I've ever had.

And just for good measure another head off the bed pic. Just to prove that one time wasn't a fluke. It really is how she prefers to sleep.

So there ya have it. More pictures of sleeping dogs than you ever wanted, or needed, to see. You're welcome.

Croissant Bread Pudding

Croissants are one of my all time favorite foods. I could eat one every day and be a happy, happy girl. So when a friend of mine sent me a picture of this on twitter I knew I had to try it. 

She used the original recipe found here at the Stone Soup blog. There's even a handy video you can watch!

I don't have a loaf pan, so I just used a glass casserole dish and watched it closer to the end of baking. The original recipe also calls for dark chocolate and that happened to be all I had in my pantry at the time. I used 72% I think? Anyway, it was too dark for me but I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate to begin with. I ended up sprinkling some powdered sugar on top to help balance out the bitterness of the chocolate. Next time I'd love to try this with Nutella instead. 

Anyway, onto the recipe! You can start with any croissants, but I highly recommend the frozen ones from Trader Joes. If you love croissants you need to go pick up a box. There are 8 in a box and they look itty bitty, but you set them out to rise overnight and they triple in size. If you use those for this, overcook them just a bit so they're nice and crispy. I didn't do that and it made them a bit hard to work with when cutting them.

The original recipe calls for 3 large croissants sliced up into rounds. I ate one of the 8 (I couldn't resist!) and then sliced the rest up minus a few pieces that ended up so mangled they were fed to the dogs. 

Let the croissant pieces soak in the cream/sugar/egg mixture in a large bowl for a few minutes to soak up the custard, then throw them in your baking dish and that's it! Easiest recipe ever. 

Ingredients:

-Croissants (3 large, or 6-7 smaller ones)

-2.5 cups whipping cream

-1/2 C sugar

-3 eggs

-handful of dark chocolate broken into chunks (or use chocolate of your choice!)

Preheat oven to 350. Slice croissants into rounds. Combine eggs, sugar and cream in large bowl. Add croissants and let soak for a few minutes. Layer half of the croissants in baking dish, add chocolate on top and then layer remaining croissants. Pour some of the remaining custard on top. Bake 40-50 minutes (adjust depending on what size dish you bake it in!) or until no liquid custard comes out when you press on the top. 

In the original recipe they let it cool and removed it from the loaf pan to slice & serve it so she lined it with parchment paper. I served mine in the baking dish and served it warm with whipped cream. It's really up to you!

Let's Talk Hair

OK, I should start out this post by saying I am NOT a beauty blogger by any means. In fact, the only make up I own is moisturizer (does that even count?) 1 eyeshadow (+ 1 free one I got as a gift from Ulta) 1 blush, bronzer (that I don't actually use since I don't really know how!) and mascara. Out of those the only thing I use on a daily basis is moisturizer... and I just started using that in the last few months.

This weekend was all about hair. I have enough hair on my head for 3 adults. And they would probably have too much hair. Not only that, but each individual hair is curly & frizzy. It's great, really. Especially in this lovely NC humidity. 

Here's what my hair normally looks like if I just get out of the shower & let it dry. 

Dry, frizzy & curly. Not fun. Luckily I don't have to worry about this anymore! This weekend I got a Pravana Perfection SmoothOut treatment done. 

Right after leaving the salon. Excuse the terrible photo quality!

Second day - curls!

The first picture is right after the treatment - my hair was so silky and smooth. The second day I took a shower and just let it air dry to see what it would do on its own. I was happy to see I still had plenty of curl but my hair was soft, shiny and smooth. You can't really tell in the picture, but the biggest difference is the texture. I can't stop touching it - and I've never been able to touch my curls! Anyone with super curly hair knows what happens once you start touching curls - hello, afro! The curls definitely aren't as tight as they were before, but they aren't limp and flat either. All I did was hop out of the shower and let it dry as we went to lunch and ran errands. Normally I'd have to put leave in conditioner, curl cream, argan oil and gel on humid days. I'm excited to enjoy the rest of the summer with calmer, happier curls :) Plus, now I can straighten it when I want to without worrying that it'll just turn into a frizz ball 10 seconds after walking out the door. 

Aside from staring at and running my fingers through my hair this weekend, I also had the most ridiculously good ice cream ever. Cinnamon Crumb Cake. And yes, it's just as delicious as it sounds. If there's a Kilwins near you I highly suggest you go there. Now.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Linking up with Sami and Molly.

**Update - I thought I'd update to include a bit of info about the actual treatment itself.
The whole procedure took about 3 hours to do on my hair - wash, condition, rinse, apply product, let sit, blow dry & flat iron, wash/condition/rinse again, blow dry. From what I've read into online it looks like price varies depending on your area but is generally $100-300. I was lucky and got mine at a discount since my stylist was running a promotion, but if it really lasts as long as it's supposed to (8-12 weeks) then I'd say the original price is probably worth it. At least for these crazy humid summer months. My favorite part is that it doesn't contain all the harsh chemicals that some other straightening treatments do. It's basically a nano-amino acid complex that softens your hair and relaxes the curl. No harsh chemicals or hazardous fumes! Plus, you can wash your hair that same day unlike other treatments where you have to wait 1-3 days with gross stuff in your hair before you can wash it. 

It's Friday?

Wow, this Friday totally snuck up on me. Having a holiday during the week really threw me off. I enjoyed it, but all day today I kept thinking it was Monday. What a nice surprise to have it actually be Friday! I'm way late to the game today, it's currently 6:30pm and I'm just now sitting down to catch up on blogs and write this post.

1. July 4th!! My absolute favorite thing about this week was the 4th. Obviously having the day off work was awesome, but it was also nice to have a cookout over at my parent's. Hadn't done that in a while. Also got some belated birthday gifts which is always nice :)

2. I made this bread pudding with croissants and dark chocolate. I'll post more about that soon, but it was pretty delicious. I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan so next time I'd love to try it with nutella or semi sweet chocolate since all I had on hand was super dark chocolate. 

3. We FINALLY got some sunny weather. All we've had is rain, rain and more rain. It's been awful. So glad to see the sun. I wore shorts for the first time yesterday... definitely need to spend more time in the sun before I do that again!

4. This is the story of my life. Definitely got up on Thursday and then proceeded to take a nap until noon. 

5. Winifred got a new bed. She was super confused at first seeing as how she's not the brightest dog in the world, but she figured it out pretty quick. You didn't think I'd do a whole H54F post without a dog picture, did you?!?

Hope everyone had a good week and has an even better weekend!

Linking up with Lauren Elizabeth.

Happy (early) 4th of July!

July 4th is one of my favorite holidays. It's basically an excuse to have a giant cookout, eat awesome summer desserts and watch fireworks. It's very much a no strings attached type of holiday. No pressure to dress up, buy the right gifts, or... anything really. Just show up, eat food, go home. Easy & stress free - the perfect summer holiday.

Of course my favorite thing is the desserts. Mainly the ones involving strawberries. It's a good thing they're red and find their way into all the main Fourth of July desserts. 

Last year I had to work on the 4th so of course I brought this cake. No one wants to work on a holiday, but at least cake makes it slightly better. And this one is covered in fruit which also makes it healthy... right? I'll be making this again to take to my parent's house for a cookout this year. You can find the recipe to this Vanilla Pudding Cake  I shared back in May when I made it for Memorial Day. You should definitely make it - it's super easy, fun to decorate and everyone always loves it. 

What are some of your favorite Independence Day desserts?

Tall Tails!!

You guys, I am SO excited for the new Tall Tails link up with Adriana and Katie. I mean seriously, like I needed even more of an excuse to ramble on about my dogs. 

I have two dogs. Winnie and Annabelle. Winnie's the good one and Annabelle... well she keeps life interesting I guess you could say. I already talked about Winnie when I proclaimed last Wednesday Winnie Wednesday. If you want to read about the most perfect dog ever, go check that out. She's kinda dumb, but super lovable and always tries to do her best to be a good girl. Today's post will be dedicated to Annabelle. A former pharmaceutical research dog who wiggled her way into our lives and has kept us on our toes ever since!

Yeah, that's right, she's wearing a princess dress.

Remember how I just described Winnie up there? Well Annabelle is the complete opposite. She's ridiculously smart, is generally just annoyed by everything, and does only what she wants when she wants. Everyone who sees pictures of her thinks she's just the cutest, sweetest thing they've ever seen.

Who, me?

I'll admit, she's certainly got cuteness on her side. But don't for a second confuse cute with innocent. Cute she is. Innocent she is not. If she's not snoring away on the couch or the bed then there's a 95% chance she's getting into trouble somewhere. The other 5% just means she's looking for something bad to do but hasn't found it yet.

It was already open, I just found it like this. I swear.

Main offense #1 - the fridge. Yes, she can and will open the refrigerator and help herself to a little snack. All 12 pounds of her will climb right on in there until she finds something to her liking. Major damage so far? 1 pack of hamburger buns. 48 ounces of chocolate in 24 hours. An entire loaf of banana bread including the bottom of the foil pan. So much dog food that she could barely breathe. Literally. Oh, and once she ran away and apparently ate out of a dumpster for ~8 hours. When we made her vomit she weighed 3 pounds less afterwards! 3 pounds! When you only weight 12 pounds that's impressive!**

This is what it's like to eat dinner with Annabelle around.

Food isn't her only vice. You need to watch your drinks, too. She's quite the boozehound. She loves cheering on the Tarheels with us, but I think it's mainly because she likes wearing her jersey and trying to steal our drinks. James says she's like a sorority girl - she'll flirt with you & kiss you, but she's really just hoping for a free drink.

Yeah, we put our dog in a 12 pack. Don't judge us, PETA.

We don't take Annabelle many places, she's not really a fan of most things. We did try taking her to the beach once. And only once. 

I'm sure you can tell by her face how much she loved it. She's more of a homebody really. It's better that way. For everyone.

She is also remarkably talented at injuring herself. This one particular incident we were all upstairs and heard that lovely beagle scream coming from downstairs. We ran down to find bloody little paw prints all over the floor and one of her toenails hanging halfway off. No clue how she did it. Good thing I can provide a little at home vet care.

I have to say though, despite all her faults, she is the world's BEST snuggler. I mean, this dog can curl up and nap with you like no other. And she's more than happy to snuggle up to you allll day long. Great when you're sick, bad when you need to be productive and get things done. 

Want to read about more cute dogs?!? If your answer is yes (which it should be!) then head on over to the Tall Tails link up and check out some other dog-centric posts!

**I work in veterinary medicine so no need to warn me about the dangers of dogs eating everything under the sun including chocolate. I already know all about it and Annabelle is treated appropriately each and every time.**

What a Weekend!

Well folks, I lived through my first weekend as a 28 year old. It wasn't so painful after all. I took some time off from work including blogging & baking. I'll get back to it this week, but first let's rewind for a weekend recap!

First of all, this showed up at my door which is always a great way to start off a weekend!

Of course, Annabelle being the terrible dog that she is promptly took it upon herself to destroy the box. She has this weird thing where all cardboard boxes MUST be destroyed. It's fine, minus the enormous mess she makes. 

Take a look at those crazy eyes!

OK, moving onto more important things. Friday, we woke up at the crack of dawn and went to breakfast before I had to head to work for a bit.

That giant pile of carbs? Yeah, that's mine. James, of course, had the much healthier veggie omelet. We went to a little place called Gypsy's Shiny Diner. If you're in the Raleigh/Cary area you should go. It's diner food so don't expect anything fancy, but if you want a heart attack on a plate then go ahead!

I left work around 1pm, got stuck in traffic and finally made it home. I had plans for that afternoon to get some things done, but since we had gotten up at 5am a nap won out instead. Can't say I regret it. 

We went to dinner at Ruth's Chris Friday night. For my birthday this year I wanted a nice dinner out and a weekend at the beach. Our beach plans have been postponed due to iffy weather so instead James got me some small gifts - a seashell and a sailboat charm for my Pandora bracelet. We love the beach & try to go every summer so they were fitting. Anyway, enough about that... Dinner was fabulous. Another place you must go if there's one near you. I could talk about what we had for dinner, but instead let's skip to dessert.  Allow me to introduce you to the Chocolate Explosion. Heaven on a plate. Seriously I would go there every day just for this. Every. Day. 

Of, course dessert was followed by beverages. I don't know what this stuff is, someone recommended it to us though and it was great. It has a light summery taste with a hint of melon and NO burn. The perfect summer drink. Just pour over some ice & enjoy :)

Saturday was filled with more eating. We finally went to breakfast at a little cafe right near our house. Once again I had the best french toast made out of a french baguette and James had something far healthier. We enjoyed a lazy day the rest of the day and then I headed out for dessert & a movie with some girl friends. 

We saw The Heat. Hilarious. Like, whole theater laughing out loud hilarious. And I only teared up once... or twice. Pretty good for me considering commercials can make me cry. 

Like this one from Chevy. Watch it without getting a little single tear. I dare ya.

                                    

Sunday was the best day. James got a flying lesson for his birthday which was cancelled last weekend &  rescheduled for Sunday. The weather looked dicey but we headed out and it turned out perfect for the flight. It started raining immediately after and pretty much flooded everywhere, but at least he got to fly! He did so great, and I actually enjoyed myself. But seriously, the feeling of terror I felt beforehand was unbelievable. I'm sorry, but those little tin can planes look less than safe to me. 

I'm off work for the day today to get some things done and have a girls dinner with my mom and sister to wrap up my birthday weekend. Then it's a just nice little 3 day work week for me this week! How was your weekend?

**Linking up with Sami and Molly!