the civil wars.

Tomorrow I begin a period of 10 days that are to be filled with 2 papers and 6 exams.  I am so excited!  Only not.  I'm actually shaking and crying right now but you can't see because you're reading this and not sitting next to me (thank God, for your sake).

I like to give myself self-imposed study breaks so I don't go insane while study and also so I can forget all about my sad, stressful, overwhelming life (now would be a good time to mention that I am a little dramatic).  The entertainment really isn't confined to the study breaks, I tend to listen to music while I'm studying as well.  Not all the time, it depends on how I am going about the studying and what exactly it is that I am studying, but a lot of the time I have some tunes playing in the background.

pink heart cake.

Happy Cougar Town is back day!  ...I mean, Happy Pink Day!  ...I mean, Happy Valentine's Day!  No but, seriously, Cougar Town is back today (after an excruciating nine month hiatus) at 8:30 EST/PST on ABC.  Please, please watch!  I don't want to lose this show.  I promise it's a good & hilarious show that has nothing to do with it's title.

It's also Valentine's Day, and I have a little something I'd like to share.  At the beginning of this year we lost my Grandpa (horrible way to start out 2012) and since his passing my Grammy has been understandably depressed.  They were together for over 50 years, had 4 kids, and numerous grandchildren.  All of the sudden, her husband is gone, and she's alone in the house.  My family is lucky enough to live within an hour of where she does, so we've all been making many visits to her - not to mention phone calls - to ensure that she does not feel alone.  The first holiday she has had to spend without him is today, Valentine's Day, and I wanted to make sure that she did not feel alone because she certainly is not.  She has a lot of love surrounding her from all of us.  It was a terrible tragedy but it is true that a heartbreak like that brings a family closer together, there is something magical about how we all rallied around her and showered her with so much love.

saturday baking.

I'm thinking that Saturday's are going to be food days here.  Every Saturday I'm either going to talk about a favorite recipe of mine...a favorite food of mine...or most likely a favorite food blog of mine, like I did last week.  Today is actually going to be a combination of a few of those, because I'm gonna link y'all to a few recipes for a certain holiday that is on Tuesday, Valentine's Day.

I love baking.  It's arguably my absolute favorite thing to do in the world.  I also am a lover of pink, it's possibly my second favorite thing in the world.  A good half of everything in my life is pink.  A holiday which celebrates pink, red, & baking (can you tell I'm single & ignoring the actual reason for the holiday)?  Sign me up!  I'm planning on making a few things for Valentine's Day, so I've spent the last few days poking around the Internet looking for recipes that I deemed adorable yet doable (apparently professors do not share my love of Valentine's Day, because I have 2 papers and a borderline in-san amount of reading to do for this week).  It was super hard to narrow them down, but here's a few that caught my attention. . .

* pictures are from the websites linked below! be sure to click!

Pots de Creme from The Pioneer Woman
Heart Cinnamon Rolls from Cake & Allie
New York Style Chocolate Cheesecake from Emeril
Lofthouse Style Soft Sugar Cookies from Two Peas And Their Pod
Heart Cake from i am baker (this one is just for fun! no way I could pull this off)
Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes from Brandielle via The Pioneer Woman

I've personally made the lava cakes about 15 to 20 times before and can attest to not only their awesomeness but their easiness as well, I swear anyone can make them!  Also, how precious are those heart shaped cinnamon rolls?  Such a cute idea.

Happy Valentine's Day baking!

xx Meg

please, stop crying. i can't handle it.

I'm currently eating a grilled chicken salad and watching a show on HGTV called My First Place with one of my roommates/best friends.  The title of this post is a quote from her, as she's getting angry at the girl on the screen because she keeps crying ever other minute while she's buying this house.  And I'm sitting here laughing at her, eating a salad, and being really jealous of the girl on the TV show who is getting a pretty nice house for under $200,000 in Texas.  Couldn't even dream of finding anything like that for that price her in NJ.  So jelly!

We watch a lot of HGTV in this apartment - I really, really love decorating.  In fact, the most exciting part of moving into my current off-campus apartment was the fact that I/we got to decorate it.  And decorate it exactly how we wanted to.  It came out so lovely, I'll share pictures some time soon!

I find that I get a lot of my inspiration for decorating from the web, there's just so many different places to see examples of gorgeous homes and have that little creativity seed sparked.  Now the biggest place that I find inspiration is Pinterest.  I am literally SO in love with this site I think I could puke or die.  It's basically a virtual cork board, you "pin" things that you love onto it.  You can pin basically anything at all - and I do.  Not just home decor, but food & recipes (my food board is perhaps my biggest), fashion, nature, etc. Literally anything you want!

And not only can you pin things, but you follow other people on Pinterest so that you can "repin" their ideas onto your board.  This is where you can find a lot of inspiration, seeing what other people love.  That's my favorite part of this social media site - it's a bunch of pretty, cute, funny things all in one place!  I've seen so many cute ideas for home decorating and fashion that I can't even explain.  It's also great for recipe sharing.  Since I visit so many food blogs daily, I already felt like I was getting my fill of recipes, but alas I was not!  Pinterest has introduced me to so much more.

I really think y'all should get one.  It's so much fun and the possibilities of things to pin are endless.  When you make an account, be sure to follow me, I'm fullheartss.  Got the name from a favorite little show of mine - Friday Night Lights.  Perhaps I'll speak of that obsession in the near future. :)

xx Meg

the voice.

What a big (understatement) night for TV last night.  First I got to see the Giants win (!!) and basically lose my voice in the process due to all the screaming, then I got to watch the premiere of what has become a favorite reality show of mine – The Voice.  I watched and loved the first season last year and had been really looking forward to last night since I found out that it was premiering after the Super Bowl.

The reason I love this show so much is actually really simple: the coaches.  Not only do I love them, but I love that fact that they are coaches and not critics.  They are there to help, not to make fun, and to guide and provide support.  Which creates for a very nice, happy atmosphere that I can feel through the television.  Don't get me wrong, I love American Idol too.  And I do believe that AI is better at creating stars than The Voice is but I also tend to get very, very angry and very, very frustrated while watching American Idol.  Mostly because of comments that the judges say - and this does not happen when I watch The Voice.  I just end up laughing and enjoying good music, which I appreciate.

Continuing on with the coaches, I love all four of them.  I hope that they stay on for at least a few more seasons.  They have really nice chemistry, are pretty funny most of the time, great coaches, and are very talented themselves.  Adam Levine deserves a mention just strictly on his face (congratulations on that, buddy) but my personal favorite is Blake Shelton.  I don't think it'd be outlandish of me to say that he was the breakout star of the first season.  I'm a huge fan of country music so I had heard of him prior to the show, but never really paid him much attention.  That 100% changed within the first 15 minutes of the first episode.  He is HILARIOUS.  But what really got me is just how much he cared about his team.  Beyond the show, beyond what the producers created, you could tell he truly cared about those people (in particular Dia & Xenia).  I loved seeming him guide them, pump them up, and then make his funny comments.  Basically I just love him!

I really urge everybody to watch this awesome show - it's airing tonight at 8pm EST on NBC - although looking at the numbers from last night, it looks like mostly everybody is already watching.

Leaving you with one of the greatest captures I've ever seen in my life. . .

xx Meg

comfy saturday.

Slept in today, had some apple cinnamon steel cut oats that I put in the slow cooker before I went to bed last night, and now I'm sitting on my couch watching Beautiful Homes on HGTV and drinking a huge mug of black coffee.  This is my kind of day.

Saturdays are my favorite, they're almost always filled with some sort of cooking or baking or both.  There's really not much better to me.  I'm feeling like making some blueberry muffins today, I'm not sure why or how that came into my head.  Especially because for the past 4 days I have had the most intense craving for chocolate cake ever with no time to make some, so I figured I would make one today.  But nope, woke up wanting a really good blueberry muffin.  Weird!

So while I contemplate making blueberry muffins, I'm gonna talk a little about one of my favorite things in the world - food blogs.  Since I discovered their existence about a year and a half ago my cooking life has, I'm not being dramatic, done a complete 180.  I've always watched Food Network, so I got a lot of information from there, but having the resources online often with step by step super, super, suuuuuper detailed recipes is just unmatched.  And the creativity by the food bloggers is out of this world, I'm left sitting in front of my computer with my mouth hanging open saying - HOW?

ann, you beautiful spinster.

I'm back to my normal self!  No more sick Meg, YAY!  I am soooo happy I could either puke or die.  Not to mention I just splurged calorie-wise on some CinnaStix & Cheesy bread from Domino's.  Everything really is beautiful and nothing hurts.

What I'd like to blog about today is another thing that makes me very happy.  It's a sweet little flawless show set in a pretty little happy town called...Pawnee.

This show brings me so much joy.  It's absolutely one of my favorites.  It might even be my favorite but I never answer that question because I watch and love so many shows that I can't make a decision.  It's lit-er-a-lly like Sophie's Choice.

The entire cast of Parks and Recreation is amazing.  All hilarious and such great actors, they play their parts so well.  I really wish more people watched it and the award shows paid it more attention (although brava! to the Emmys for at least nominating it & Amy Poehler).  I would hate to lose it after this season, but according to the King of TV, Michael Ausiello, it doesn't look like we are going to.  Thankfully.

Tonight's Valentine's Day episode isn't going to shoot to the top of my favorite's list but it was still hilarious.  I liked the fact that we got to see an unhappy Chris for at least a little bit.  I realize that his whole "thing" is being happy all of the time but some contrast sometimes is nice to see.  I love that he is basically an on/off switch character.  He's either really happy...or really sad.  It wouldn't have made sense had they put him in the middle.

Anytime Ron gets excited (or drunk) it's immediately my favorite part of the episode, so the little moments of him trying to control his emotions had be rolling.  Basically the same goes for anything Chris Pratt related.  He might just be the most underrated actor on the show for me.  His delivery is so hilarious and perfect and his physical comedy?  Dead.  Ben and Leslie were precious, as always.  Their storyline didn't grab me as much as normal but that could be because I was really engrossed with everything else.

I also thought it was a really sweet moment when April set Tom & Ann (I just wrote those names correctly, right? Tom and Ann?  That actually did happen, right? Tom and Ann?  That wasn't just a weird mirage that I did not see coming from a mile away?) up on their date.  The small scene with her talking to Ann about how Tom was the only person that had made her laugh all night really made me smile.  I do enjoy April's hate for her but I'm beginning to think it's just so that I can see moments like that happen.

I clearly have a lot of feelings about my obsession today, but I can't help it.  Parks & Rec is made of sunshine and rainbows.  And I love that it's a tv show in my life.

xx Meg

feeling good.

I feel much better today, yippee!  Not 100%, but as close to normal as I've felt in a couple of days which is all I can ask for right now.  I'm really just waiting for my energy level to start climbing back up to where it used to be.  Been so, extremely tired since the moment I woke up this morning.  But all in due time!

Today my obsession is something that has been in my possession for many...many...many years.  Pretty much since I can remember I have used this product.  Not the exact one that I am using right now, because over the years I have gone through many of them, and it'd be virtually impossible to still have the same one from all those years ago.

It's ChapStick's Medicated lip balm!  This is the one my mom always used and so I grew up believing/knowing this one is the best.  I have tried others such as Burt's Bees, Rosebud Salve, C.O. Bigelow, and even different kinds from the same brand (ChapStick) and they have all been nice but none have compared to this one.  It heals, lasts, and protects my lips better than any other lip balm ever could.  In fact, the past couple of days I've even been putting some on the skin of my nose and guess what? Works there too!  At this point I'm pretty convinced this stuff has some form of magic in it.

Promise that I'll stop relating everything to being sick soon, it's just that this cold has attempted to take over my life the past couple of days.  Off to watch the rest of American Idol and work on resumes, and cover letters, and take a quiz, and read, and...eat a brownie ;)

xx Meg