Spring Fever

To all who read my blog: I'm sorry I've been slacking and haven't posted anything new in a very long time!! I promise I'll working on getting better!
If you live in the South, I hope you've been taking advantage of this beautiful weather we've been having!! My friends and I certainly have been! Even though it's only the middle of February, we got a lot of sun sitting outside by the pool last Saturday! I hope it's safe to say spring is here to stay!! I could definitely get use to this beautiful weather.
Now on to the more personal stuff instead of talking about the weather. I have added something new to my daily routine. Every morning after I have fixed my coffee the way I like it, with a splash of milk and 2 Splenda packets, I find myself sitting outside on our back patio with a box of Nilla Wafers, my giant cup of coffee, and my devotion book. This morning I added one more thing: my camera. It is so peaceful sitting outside facing the woods and just spending my morning reading God's Word. As I have experienced, it is very easy to get distracted from God when you first come to college. With all the exciting new things, it's quite easy to forget the only real need in life. Thankfully now in my junior year, I have never felt closer to Him. God has blessed me with so much, including the most amazing friends I thought I'd never be lucky enough to have. I never would have dreamed that spirituality and God would ever be just a normal, everyday topic I would talk about with my friends, but surprisingly it actually is now. Last night, on a run to Kroger to get chocolate milk and ice cream with two of my closest friends, Jessica and Anne, Jessica gave me the coolest idea! She had a friend who took a really awesome picture of a flower by a pond and wrote a Bible verse on it. She asked Anne and I if we would help her find a good picture and verse so she could send it to people in a church event she's been working with. So this morning during my devotion time, I took my camera outside with me and snapped some pictures and added some verses.

"All We Do is Win"

All we do is win, win, win!!!!!! Yesterday a group of friends and I got together (despite all the Ice Storm Warnings we had in Auburn) to watch history be made by our Auburn Tigers. Yep! That's right!! HISTORY WAS MADE! Our team has worked so hard all year and it has definitely paid off. WE'RE OFFICIALLY THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!! I feel so honored to be able to say I'm part of the Auburn family!!!!!!!!

WAR EAGLE!!!!

Date Night with Sir Mix A lot

Yes. I had a date night with Sir Mix A Lot, Britt's new mixer she got for Christmas and nicknamed it Sir Mix A Lot. Last night we made sinfully delicious cupcakes together. Brittany bought me a book for Christmas called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, by Jill O'Connor, and I think these cupcakes fall under the messy and gooey categories pretty easily. They didn't exactly turn out beautiful, but the chocolate cupcake filled with a chocolate chip cheesecake-like filling and a chocolate glaze on top is definitely perfect for those nights when you just need that comfort found in eating chocolate and cheesecake.

Black Bottom Cupcakes
Adapted from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, by Jill O'Connor

For the filling:
8 ounces Cream Cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together the first 5 ingredients, then stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon into pastry bag or Ziploc bag with a snipped corner.

For the cake batter:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, boil 1 cup water in the microwave then add the vegetable oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredients. Fill 24 lined cupcake tins about 1/4 the way full then pipe about 1 tablespoon of the filling in the middle of the cupcake tins, then fill with remaining cake batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, until the cupcakes are firm. As mine cooled after baking, the filling deflated some and made the cupcakes have a little crater in the center but if this happens to you, don't freak out. They still taste delicious. Let them cool completely on a wire rack before you dip them in the chocolate glaze.

For the glaze:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave about 1 minute. Stir until everything is melted and nicely blended. Dip the cupcakes into the glaze once they are cool.

A Christmas Miracle

As you all know, I'm quite the animal freak. I think it all started back years ago when I was about 4 or 5 and we would always have multitudes of kittens and cats at our farm. Every time we'd go out to the farm, rain or shine, I'd be walking around with at least one litter of kittens wrapped up in my old dirt covered tshirt. We were never a huge dog family until we got our Cocker Spaniel, Honey. Our first trip to Opelika was in 1999, and we came home with a cute little fur ball that had a bad case of not so cute diarrhea the entire trip home. After that long trip home, she began her happy life as being our first real family dog. Of course Brittany and I both told our parents that we would feed her every night and bathe her and they would never have to worry about a thing; we'd do it all. We'll to anyone out there with small kids pitching a fit for a dog, don't fall for that lie. My mom of course ended up taking care of her. Honey loves momma for good reason. Mom would take her in the side yard when she was a baby puppy and play in the grass with her for hours, and I can't forget to mention any animal living in the Byrd house will *with no exception* eat better than the Queen of England herself. When Britt and I were seniors in high school, we were both allowed to get our own dog (Regardless of the fact I was 17, I still pulled out the "you let her get one!!" line). Maggie, Britt's dog, was a poor excuse for an animal. She was so tiny and scrawny, Momma almost had a heart attack when she found out how much money Britt paid to get her. This has to be the most gentle and sweetest dog ever. I would never ever in a million years worry about her around little kids. She loves everyone and everything. Don't get me wrong though. Maggie is one heck of a stubborn dog. She has chewed up shoes, our blinds in the apartments, door frames, cabinet corners; you name it, she's chewed it. She'll let you know when she's mad. Nonetheless, she's my little Mags and I love her. And lastly there's my sweet baby Gracie. I owe Ms. Laura Martin everything for taking off work and driving me to Valdosta to get her. Gracie is my world. I don't think I'm even going to be able to love my children (whenever that time of my life gets here! No rush please) as much as I do my dog. She's a bit crazy sometimes and probably needs some doggy chill-pills because she has a bit of an anxiety problem (trust me, you've never seen a dog shake and tremble like this dog does). Anyways lately Honey has been very sick with arthritis. She hasn't even been able to stand up to eat because her joints hurt her so badly. Mom has been so upset because she honestly thought we were going to have to put her to sleep. She's lost a ton of weight and would yelp when she would try to even stand up. It's made all of us really upset over the holidays. Well yesterday, Momma and I went to the vets office to get some medicine called Rimadyl, which is given to dogs for severe joint pain. We gave her one about 5 yesterday afternoon and by 9 she was running around, jumping, knocking over the trash can looking for food, and wagging her tail like crazy. Momma and I almost starting crying because our sweet Honey Byrd was acting like she dud when she was a little puppy! It was the best Christmas present ever!!! And God DEFINITELY answered our prayers on this one. I had Daddy's credit card today and bought them all little Christmas surprises!! :)

Maggie


Honey


Gracie

Back to the Circle City

After finishing the most stressful week with a billion tests, we got out for an entire week for Thanksgiving! Talk about being thankful...I'm SO happy last week is over with. Instead of staying in Auburn for the weekend, Britt and I cleaned the apartment up perfectly after class and decided to come home Friday. It's Sunday and we are already bored out of our minds. Yesterday (after sleeping until 12:30 pm) I went and got a manicure and pedicure for the first time in two years! To any people from Dothan, I recommend going to Sola. Their pedicures are amazing and they don't talk to each other in Korean about you! After I left the nail salon, I went out to our farm with my mom. I haven't ran around the cow pastures and pecan orchards in probably 10 years and it was the best thing ever. I still had on my sandals because I didn't want my freshly painted toenails to get messed up and I had so much dirt in between my toes by the time I got home! I felt just like a little kid again! We found some pretty cool stuff and saw the prettiest sunset!

Creepy cow jaw we found in the middle of the pasture


The sky was completely breath taking




A long time ago, about when my great-great grandparents lived out here, there used to be a road going straight through these pecan trees that would take you to the other side of the town! How awesome is that!?


And the grand-finale sky picture:


Later last night after we ate dinner, Brittany and I went to BestBuy to waste time and look at future Christmas presents. We ended up running into a someone we know that worked there. She introduced us to the coolest thing everrrrr!!! Xbox's new Kinect. If you have no idea what that is, which I definitely didn't, here's a youtube video I found.


This is just part of the Sports game. We watched our friend play the dancing one.

BFF

Best. Friends. Forever.
I think every girl has written that somewhere at least once in her life with her best friend. I have had many good friends over the years but true best friends are not easy to find. In the book I'm still reading, Captivating, (which I'm really sad that I'm almost finished with it! I wish it could last forever!!!) I finished the chapter on mothers, sisters, and friends. God showed me so much through this book, especially with this chapter. In case you don't know this about me, my best friends tend to be guys, and I think it's because during middle school and junior high,some of the girls I hung out with seemed to often let me down. Girls just naturally know what to say to other girls to make them feel completely insecure, self-conscious, and worthless. They even make movie after movie about this!! (Mean Girls!? I mean come on, we ALLLLL have had a Regina George in our lives at one point....) I still even to this day have some things I'm self-conscious about because people made fun of me in the 6th grade. Thankfully I've grown up a lot, but some of those things that happen to you when you're that age are really hard to work through, ya know?? I know I'll always have my Lucy Lane group, but ow that I'm in Auburn, God has blessed me with an abundance of the most amazing friends I could wish for. Unfortunately, I haven't had much of a social life lately thanks to school and constantly being sleep deprived (welcome to college, right!?) so I went about two weeks without even talking to my best friends. The other night when I was having my "Jessie-time" I finally got to this chapter in Captivating. I felt really bad about secluding myself from my friends and being completely over taken with school and I was really worrying they were all going to be upset with me. I prayed about it that night and the very next day I had FOUR of my good friends call me that I hadn't talked to in over a month and hung out with my very best friends after chapter! And to add to that, throughout the past week, God has just filled my life with little moments with my best friends that I really really needed. God definitely showed me to never take the relationships I have with my best friends for granted or they could be gone! Anyways I know this is kind of a random, babbling post, but just remember no matter how silly of an issue you feel you have, just pray about it!!

Fall is in the Air

I don't know one person in the South that doesn't love the fall. Right now, I am sitting in my bedroom with my window open and can hear the birds chirping, the leaves rustling, and can feel the breeze blowing through cooling down our cozy apartment. I've been reading a book lately, written by John and Stasi Eldredge, called Captivating . It's a very inspirational book for girls and women of all ages and I highly recommend it. Last night I finished Chapter 7 entitled "Romanced." It was about how God gives us little gifts proving how much he loves us. In my opinion, fall is one of the best gifts God could give us. The weather feels amazing, the colors of the trees are completely breathtaking, and the leaves that slowly drift down falling on our lawns look like God had fun dotting blobs of paint on His masterpiece. Just this morning while having a quiet devotion time outside on our patio I snapped a couple of pictures.





Another reason to love fall so much is the food. If someone doesn't love all cookies, bread, pies, and cakes that accompany the arrival of fall you just haven't experienced it the way my momma and grandmothers do it. As y'all know, I've been baking since I was about 8 years old. I LOVE IT. I love everything about it, including eating it (with moderation because I wouldn't be able to fit through a door if I ate everything my family made during this time of year). Just the other day my sister bought a precious cookie jar at an antique shop. We have been keeping it full of cookies ever since. She made some yuuuuummmmmyyy oatmeal-raisin cookies that I loved! (This is a huge accomplishment because I have never liked oatmeal-rainsin cookies) And two nights ago I made some Ginger Cookies. I found a recipe in one of Paula Deen's cookbooks and once again, she reminded me why I love her so dang much. They were awesome!! Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture after they were baked before they were all gone. If you want to give them a try, which I totally recommend doing because they are really easy and incredibly delicious, then here's her link! Ginger Cookies.