Thursty Thursday Dirty Martinis

Hey everyone! Today I'm joining Kristin as the co-host for her Thursty Thursday linkup. 

Of course, my signature drink recipe is my all time favorite...Dirty martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives

Serving size: 2 Martinis

Ingredients:

5 shots vodka

1 shot dry vermouth

1 shot olive juice (for extra dirty)

Blue cheese stuffed olives

 What To Do:

 Shake ingredients in a shaker with ice and serve chilled.

 

1. Follow Hopelessly Ever After and Martinis & Bikinis via GFC or Bloglovin'.
2. Write about your favorite DRANK (alcoholic beverage).
3. Grab a button from below or Kristin's sidebar and put it in your post. 4. Come back here and link up!!!
5. Get some new recipes or drink ideas for the weekend and make a new friend!!

6. Send a tweet with #ThurstyThursday and include @leggs532 and @TriniEmz  so we can see it!!

Anyone interested in co-hosting next week email Kristin at: hopelessly_ever_after@yahoo.com

An InLinkz Link-up

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Urban Decay Naked Eyeshadow Palettes

I used to be a big MAC eyeshadow girl until I bought the original Urban Decay Naked palette. I love shimmery colors and the quality of the brush. I've never seen a brush that's so easy to clean (by wiping with a tissue) which makes it easy to apply multiple colors with the same brush.

I recently bought the Naked 3 palette so here's a comparison of the colors side by side.

Urban Decay's Naked Eyeshadow Palette

As I mentioned the brush is awesome and I love pretty much all of the 12 colors, except the 11th color is a bit too dark for me. I chose this palette over Naked 2 as I think the colors were a good blend to create a neutral daytime look to a more bold nighttime look. I especially love the 12th color, Gunmetal, the more I experiment with it to get a slightly dark blue smokey yet sparkly look for evening or nighttime.

Favorite colors:

1. Sin

2. Sidecar

3. Half baked

4. Toasted

5. Gunmetal

Urban Decay's Naked 3 Eyeshadow Palette

I love the double-sided brush and the neutral yet shimmery colors that come with the Naked 3 palette. The right side of the palette also has a few colors to create a smokey eye look so you can get the best of both worlds.

Favorite colors:

1. Dust

2. Buzz

3. Trick

4. Mugshot

Do you own any of the Naked eyeshadow palettes or something better/comparable?

What colors or color-combinations are your favorite?

Pepper Jack Cheese & Chicken Dip

Thank you to Steph for introducing me to this Pepper Jack Cheese dip recipe. It was rich and tasty with a bit of spice and a big hit at the Holiday party we went to a few weekends ago. 

Ingredients:

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

½ cup cooked and crumbled bacon

1 cup shredded rotisserie chicken

1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

1 tbsp diced jalapeno, seeds removed

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Melt cream cheese slightly in microwave for 20 seconds and then beat until smooth.

3. Stir in the rest of the ingredients and pour mixture into a baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes. 

4. Sprinkle with Paprika and serve warm.

Enjoy!

1. Follow Kate and myself via GFC and Bloglovin. 

2. Link up your favorite recipes or food-related posts.

3. Grab our Recipe Swap button and link back to our blogs.

Thanksgiving & Disney Fun

Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving (for those in the US) and the weekend.  

Thursday: 

Lola went with us on a 2 hour road trip to spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws and extended family.

After Thanksgiving dinner, we went to visit a few friends and introduce everyone to Lola.

Friday:

We headed back home and got some errands and cleaning done. I put up our Christmas tree and started decorating for the holidays. We also watched the UCF game, ordered Chinese food and had an early night since we were pretty tired from all the Thanksgiving traveling and early mornings with Lola.

Saturday:

We headed to Disney with Kate and her hubby. We went to Animal Kingdom first to do the safari ride and walk around the park.

We saw a ton of animals including elephants, hippos, giraffes, rhinos, zebras and more.

We then headed over to Hollywood Studios to do a few rides and check out some Christmas shops.

After Disney, we all headed to my place to cook up some dinner and hang out by the firepit with Lola. Kate and her hubby loved playing with Lola since they also have an English bulldog, Roxy.

Sunday: 

Sunday was a Home Dept and errands kind of day to get some final Christmas decorations. I've already overloaded you with photos so will do a Christmas post when everything is completed.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Joining Biana for Weekending and Leeann for Monday Morning Gossip.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday and gets to spend it with their loved ones.

I'm thankful for the newest addition to our family, Lola Chanel...our baby English Bulldog.  

Lola is 10 weeks old and is adjusting better than I expected. She is a puppy so she keeps up busy with potty clean ups but she is super lovable, easygoing and playful. We are in love and thankful for this blessing that melts our heart.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Black Bean & Corn Chunky Salsa

I made this for a potluck at work last week. It's always tough finding dishes that can be made the night before and still taste good but the flavors of these ingredients get better as they marinate in the fridge over night. This dish was inspired by this recipe I found on Pinterest with just a few changes,

Ingredients: 

1 can sweet kernel corn, drained

1 can black beans, drained & washed

 1/4 red onion, chopped

1/2 jalapeno, chopped finely

1 lime, juiced

1/4 red pepper, chopped

1/4 green pepper, chopped

2 roma tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup cilantro leaves, chopped finely

2 tbsp virgin olive oil

Black pepper to taste

Avocado, chopped (optional topping)

What To Do:

Wash all fresh vegetables and chop/dice according the ingredients list. Mix all ingredients (except avocado) in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve. I refrigerated over night to get the flavors to blend together but 1-2 hours is sufficient. When ready to serve, add chopped avocado. 

Enjoy!

1. Follow Kate and myself via GFC and Bloglovin. 

2. Link up your favorite recipes or food-related posts.

3. Grab our Recipe Swap button and link back to our blogs.

Puppy Shopping & Holiday Kickoff Party

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I'm so excited Thanksgiving is almost here. Definitely looking forward to some family time and a few days off of work. 

This weekend we started our search for a baby bulldog. We've had an empty nest since Skyh passed away and think it's time to adopt a new furbaby.

Friday night looked something like this. Well, it looked exactly like this. Chinese takeout, Redbox movies and homemade dirty martinis.

On Saturday, I used the pamper package gift certificate I won at a charity event a few weeks ago. I got a facial, mani & pedi and my hair styled. The package included a few more things but honestly I don't have enough patience to stay more than 4 hours in a spa so that was good enough for me. 

Saturday night, was our first Holiday party for the year with friends and it was a blast!

Sunday: we cooked up some brunch at home and continued our search for a new puppy. We finally found our furbaby and she'll be arriving this week from the breeder!!

 K also thought pineapple mimosas with blueberries were a good idea to celebrate.

How was your weekend?

Joining Biana for Weekending and Leeann for Monday Morning Gossip.  

Pig Floyd's & Blog Direction

 Photo Credit

Earlier this week, a friend and I went for lunch at a fairly new restaurant in town called Pig Floyd's. We wanted to check out the menu and see what the hype was all about. We sat down and were chit chatting when the owner stopped by offering us Cuban-style tacos he had just created in the kitchen. Have you ever seen tacos with black beans, rice, pulled pork, plantains and a fancy avocado sauce? They were amazing!! He said he's thinking of calling them The Fidel. (aka Fidel Castro = perfect name based on the ingredients)

We chatted with him a bit and convinced him these tacos needed to be on the menu asap. Not before long, he was back with with a plate of BBQ ribs for us to taste test. Amazing once again! We had such a great time on our lunch break away from work. Thanks cool dude who is the owner of Pig Floyd's for making our experience so enjoyable. We'll be back to try more of your menu options. P.S. sorry I thought you were Canadian when in fact your accent is that of Puerto Rico. #blondemoment 

He posted the #Fidel tacos photo on their Facebook page and we even got some love.

Lucky for him, he was sharing his creations and chats with a blogger and had no clue I would share my experience online.  The Big Floyd sandwich is amazing btw! Tough to finish as the menu says but worth a shot.

So about my blog direction...

I've been thinking for a while now about where I want to take my blog and different avenues I want to explore. Experiences like this at Pig Floyd's solidify what I've actually been leaning towards the whole time. Outside of blogging, I love to write restaurant reviews on Yelp & UrbanSpoon as well as reviews for retail websites and stores. 

I want to create a section specific to Orlando or at least Florida life in general. I love the city in which I live. There's lots to do and I want to be able to share that on my blog. It's part of my lifestyle and what I enjoy. While I know most of my readers and blog friends don't live in the Orlando area, it is a popular vacation spot and I think my reviews will eventually be helpful to both locals and visitors looking for recommendations for different types of restaurants, entertainment, shows, festivals and so on. This won't be the focus of my blog but I plan to do a review here and there based on my experiences and what I think is worth mentioning.

I travel quite a bit and I already have a section for that where I can do my travel recaps and restaurant reviews. I think it's time to create a section for the city I live in and love ~ Orlando. 

What do you think?

Birthday & Christmas Wish List

My birthday is right around the corner in December and soon after will be Christmas so I've finally finished putting together my wish list for the year. 

The big ticket item on my wish list is this Nikon D3200 Digital SLR camera which we actually just purchased a few weeks ago to have in time for the holidays so you may have noticed some better quality photos are these parts (big upgrade from my iPhone). I love taking pictures and I'm considering it a huge investment for my blog. Now, I just need some photography lessons!!

My Wish List

What's on your wish list?