Happened to Look Down and See

This...

It made me smile when I glanced away from my monitor this morning and saw a random Christmas decoration on my desk.

It made me shake my head when I saw the two batteries next to it. Are they old? Are they new?

What's the funniest thing you've found on your desk lately?

Wednesday Night Confession

I took an hour and did my taxes tonight. 

Five whole days before they are due. 

via

Score!! I told my sister that I wasn't procrastinating. I was being patriotic and letting the government keep my money as long as they could. I'm a giver like that.

She didn't believe me either...

Does this last minute rush to the mailbox surprise you?

It shouldn't since I'm the same gal who had this in her living room up until a month ago...

What? You didn't have your Christmas tree up in March?

Where's your Christmas spirit?

"Baby Jesus is my favorite Jesus..."

Name that movie...

Well, I'm off...I think it's about time to box up the Valentine's Day decor! (Just kidding, but don't ask me about my Easter stuff.)

Fun Uses for Leftover Easter Candy

What do you do with the leftover Easter candy laying around your house (or the bags you buy on sale after the holiday)?

Instead of consuming all of it by myself this year, I decided to use some of it in some tasty treats for the family.

Candy-filled cupcakes & Chocolate-dipped PEEPS

The Chocolate-dipped PEEPS were super simple to make.

I just melted some milk chocolate bars (I used 3, 2-ounce bars from Dove Discoveries) on the stove in a bowl set on top of a pan of boiling water.  Then I dipped the PEEPS, let them cool a bit and then I decorated them with different sprinkles. They aren't "professional quality" by any means but I think they turned out cute.

In addition to some leftover PEEPS, I also had some York Peppermint Patties and Dove Coconut Creme Eggs so I decided to make some Candy-filled chocolate cupcakes!

I just used a regular box of chocolate cake mix and dusted the candies with flour in hopes they didn't sink to the bottom of the cupcake while baking.

I filled the cups about half full, placed the candies on top...

Then I topped them with another dollop of batter so they were about 3/4ths full.

I thought I was very clever by topping the cupcakes differently so they could be easily identified...

Unfortunately, I told everyone that the cupcakes with the little Easter eggs on top were the Peppermint-filled ones and the plain ones (not shown) were indeed plain chocolate cupcakes. This was wrong...it was the opposite. Oops!

Despite the mix up, they were all very yummy! 

Do you have creative ways to use leftover Easter candy? If so, please share!

Friday Confession Easter Candy Style

I confess I have a chocolate addiction.

Easter candy is my favorite hands down.

I like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I love Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. It's the peanut butter to chocolate ratio, according to a friend. I think she's right.

So when Hershey's sent me this basket full of Easter candy, I was excited.

But to be honest...I didn't need the basket to enjoy Easter candy. I had that covered...

Just behind the Reese's PB Eggs on my list of favorites are Cadbury Mini Eggs (the candy-coated kind). I may have 3 bags of those in the house right now. Growing up my mom always had a bag of the candy-coated Hershey's Eggs "hidden" in the house and the Cadbury Mini Eggs are very similar so I guess my mom's choices have rubbed off on me.

The mini Robin Eggs (colored Whoppers) are sentimental favorites. As a child (or maybe earlier this week), I would lick them and then use them like lipstick. I was cool like that.

Side Note: I prefer the mini Robin Eggs over the regular size. Just letting you know.

Honestly, most of the candy in my basket will be shared with others. Between my nephews & nieces and my coworkers, I will move it out of my house and beyond my reach very soon.

The rest of the candy will either be consumed by me, myself and I OR used to make some Easter Sunday desserts, like these brownie cups.

I just mixed up a box of brownie mix and put the batter into cupcake pans and baked as directed. About 15 minutes into the baking time, I pushed some of the York Peppermint Pattie Eggs on the top of about half of the cups and let them finish baking.

This is how they turned out...yummy!

On the other half of the brownie cups that I left plain, I dabbed a bit of chocolate frosting on them and added 2-3 Whoppers mini Robin Eggs.

This was just a test batch that I made with a small box of brownie mix (made 10 brownie cups). After I taste tested a couple of them, I packed the rest off to take to my mom's today for snacks for my nephews and niece who are hanging out there while on spring break.

I'm definitely going to make a bigger batch this weekend and I think they'll be a hit at Easter brunch (yes, we serve dessert at brunch).

If you want to see other great Easter tips, hop on over the Hershey's Bunny Trail!

Note: Hershey's provided me with a basket of Easter candy. The opinions, photos, thoughts (and love of Easter candy) in this post are my own as usual. 

Bryan or Ryan

As I was driving home today, the guy on the radio prefaced a song as "the song that introduced us to Ryan Adams."

This brought back the first time I heard of Ryan Adams. It's a funny story...or at least it is to me.

After college, a good friend and I decided to do some traveling together and took off to San Francisco.

We hopped on a trolley (or maybe it was a city bus...I can't remember) and rode it to the end of the line and back again. There's a great story about what happened when we got to the end of the line, but that's for another day.

As we were seeing the city, a theater marquee caught our eye. It read "Ryan Adams in Concert."

I looked at my friend and said "Bryan Adams? I can't believe he's still performing." We both laughed.

It wasn't until YEARS later that I heard Ryan Adams on the radio and realized that the theater in San Francisco wasn't the one behind the times!

Bryan...Ryan...who can keep them straight! I'm sure the native San Franciscans (or is it San Francisconers?) were laughing behind our backs.

Today, RYAN ADAMS is a favorite of mine. His CD Easy Tiger is on regular rotation in my car and I have several of his CDs in my iTunes library.

Another funny story about Bryan Adams...many years ago when burning mixed CDs was still being done (instead of making playlists), my Baby Sister asked me to make her some CDs to take with her on a trip. I asked what kind of music she wanted and she said "Oldies, you know like the Bryan Adams' song from Robin Hood." Yikes...if Bryan Adams is considered "oldies" by the 20-Somethings, what do they call the Beatles?


Note: The links in the post are affiliate links. Just letting you know!

The Perfect Card

So I was hanging out in CVS recently...well, not really hanging out.

It was more like killing time while I swear a dozen men checked out each with their choice of beer and booze.

I imagined a van pulling up to the door and them all filing out, picking out their bottles of hooch and then piling back into the van and pulling away.

Any way back to the story...

I found myself in the card aisle and this card caught my eye...

OMG...this card was MADE for ME.

I chase squirrels all the time. Don't believe me? Check out this post about my squirrel chasing moments.

I almost bought it for myself but the As Seen on TV aisle caught my attention and you know what happened...SQUIRREL!!

My New Fitness Friend

In the last six months or so, something happened that took me by utter surprise.

Looking back, it shouldn't have been so shocking but it was.

I had moved firmly into wearing my "one size bigger pants" full time. It wasn't an occasional visit with them when I had too much pizza the night before. It was an extra 10 pounds that I had never seen before.

I decided I needed to do something about it, but with an hour commute one way 5 days a week, a tendency to avoid fruits and vegetables and a deep love for watching bad reality TV shows at night, it's hard.

I have to admit, I haven't hit my fitness stride yet.

However, with the appearance of this new fitness friend, I've made some initial progress...

Meet Fran, my Fitbit One wireless activity and sleep tracker! 

Cris over at Goodeness Gracious introduced me to the Fitbit through her Year2Change challenge.

Fran not only tracks my steps...as you can see I need to start moving today.

She also tracks the floors I climb, miles I travel, and calories I burn. If you have later model iPhone or iPad, it has some great additional features. I don't but I do have the ability to update my Dashboard wirelessly on my laptop.

I deliberately did NOT change my activity level during my first week with Fran. I wanted to have a realistic baseline of how much I do actually move in the course of a week.

As you can see my Monday activity level was embarrassing! I definitely need to learn to get up and take a couple of laps around the office during the day!

 Monday

Wednesday was MUCH better because I had a couple of events outside the office that kept me on the move, as well as up and down some stairs.

 Wednesday

My Saturday was OK. I didn't break the 10K steps mark but I did go climb some serious stairs (more on that later).

Saturday

It's been interesting tracking all of this and it's definitely a wake up call that I need to start moving more.

For now, I need to come up with a solid, workable plan to get 10K steps several days a week. Once I have that established, I think I'll tackle the food tracker that the Fitbit Dashboard has...oh I'm not looking forward to that!

Fran, the Fitbit 1, is not a cheap new friend (I had some Amazon points to burn) but I think she'll be true friend for many years and be the support system I need to get my act together so I can retire my "one size bigger pants" once and for all.

NOTE: The link to the Fitbit One in this post is an affiliate link. The opinions in this post are my own - no one else wants to claim them.