I may not have gone where I intended to go...

But I've ended up where I needed to be!

WOW! Well hasn't it been a while? I miss all of you so much! My life is crazy hectic at the moment! I wish I had the time to blog every day like the good ole days, but I'm busy living the life I've been dealt. I am currently in my last semester of college to receive my Bachelor's degree in Social Work. I am interning for DFCS or what most of you all know as the Department of Family and Children Services or Child Protective Services. Yes, I hear all of your gasps and this is nothing I do not hear on a daily basis when I actually tell people what I plan to do for a living. I love my job though and although there is a lot of bad in what I do, it pays off to be able to witness the good. I love having a job that has a huge purpose.

Source: insidejobs.com via Carie on Pinterest

I am also currently applying for jobs in Atlanta, where I plan on moving the week after I graduate. That's right, Stephen and I are taking the next step. We have gotten an apartment together and I will be moving there to live with him as soon as I graduate. I am very excited for these future plans. We have been dating for a year on Thursday and we have been dating long distance and visiting each other every other weekend and on holidays. I have spent every break from school with him. He completes me and I could not have chosen a better man! I am also in the process of applying to the Master's Social Work Program at UGA so fingers crossed I get in :) I still plan to one day become a forensic interviewer and work with child rape victims. I am also currently writing a grant for a 501c3 non-profit here in my town. It is for a special needs playgroup. I love where my life is taking me at the moment. Stephen and I also brought a dog together. We love her so much and could not have chosen a better furbaby. She stayed with me for a while, but due to everything I had going on we decided that he could give her a better routine so she has been staying with him for the past few weeks and will stay until I move up there and am reunited with my little family. I love them both bunches! As you can see, my life is pretty amazing at the moment and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world! I am looking forward to finding out how everyone else has been since I have been away from bloggy land.

September Recap!

Wow, I suck at life! I am such a slacker! I know I promised you all that I would be back to tell you about my internship, but holy moly, life has been so crazy. I am finally figuring out how to juggle my internship, school, my family, the boyfriend, and friends. My internship involves lots of crazy hours and I'm learning how much I am going to have to learn to depend on others to help me out in the future, even though I do not like having to ask for help. On a brighter note, I absolutely LOVE my internship. That's right I lurv it! I do hate all of the paper work and documentation that I have to do, but I love visiting with out children and being so active in the lives of so many different people. I love working with all of our kids from babies to teenagers. When I started my internship, I was not sure how I would feel about working with the teenagers, but I really do have a good time visiting with them. I also love how this doesn't feel like a job most days and just feels like I'm traveling visiting friends and family. I can't go into details about what I actually do within my job, but I promised I would give you all feedback on how I liked it and I am proud to say that all of these people who have been trying to talk me out of working with DFCS from day one can shove it because this is my passion and I absolutely LOVE it! Considering I do not know where to begin with updates on my life from the past month, I will leave you all with a bunch of pictures from my life recently.

{Just a typical work day! Keep your face to the sunshine and you never have to see the shadow!}

{I celebrated my silly niece's 5th bday!}

{The outfit I wore on my first day of work!}

{Another busy day of work!}

{I get to play with this little booger before I go to school. This is my cousins baby girl, Kendall.}

{I got to spend time with my cutie pie nephew for his 2nd birthday!}

{His motorcycle (bike) like daddy's!}

{Spending time with my nieces!}

{And my favorite thing to do, spending time with my other half! Even when I have to share him with dogdog :)}

{Watching football with my nephews..yes one of my nephews is an alien dog, don't hate!}

{Enjoyed some homemade cinnamon roll pancakes}

{My hair is getting really long and although I'm fighting the urge to go get a new do, I really want to grow it out!}

{Work outfit}

{One of my favorite meals this past month, Parmesan Chicken!}

{I know you are thinking by now, "How many pictures of oneself can a girl have?"}

{But, I'm just thinking that I don't want you to miss out on my awesomeness!}

{And last, but certainly not least, I have the best man ever who brought me these beauties!} Well I hope you all enjoyed recapping my life for the past month! I leave y'all with a little funny that I loved!

Nerves and comfort food :)

Hello loves,

I would love to have a real post today, but instead you get this scheduled post while I'm at my first day of my internship. I am overly excited about starting it, but I'm also extremely nervous about the cases I may have to face tomorrow. Not to mention, this is my "emotional week". I have been crying with anything and everything on tv, even weddings. Lord help me! Anyways, I will be sure to let everyone know how my day goes and of course I will have to show you my cute outfit!

Sooo....

I leave you with a pinterest recipe that I tried tonight that was freaking amazing!!

I decided to try the Crockpot Creamy Italian Chicken!

Crockpot Italian Chicken (Recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything
4 chicken breasts
1 packet dry Zesty Italian dressing (Regular is fine but I like zesty better. Sometimes I use a packet and a half.)
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1-2 cans cream of chicken soup (depending how cream cheesy you want it)

Place the chicken in a crockpot and sprinkle Italian dressing over it. Combine cream cheese and cream of chicken soup in a small pot over low heat and pour over chicken. Cook on low in the crockpot for at least 4 hours. You can leave it in there all day. Once chicken is done you can leave the chicken breasts whole, cube it, or even shred it. (I just let it cook until you could break the chicken apart with the spoon and then used the spoon to cut the chicken into big shreds.)

This was a pretty good recipe and I will definitely be trying it again.

Well I hope everyone has a great day!

The Weekend Where I...

Miss my boyfriend tons, so I end up turning into Betty Crocker and baking my buttocks off..That's right, I have recipes for you guys today!! Heck yea :)
Anyways,

Friday night, I went to Zumba and had a much needed awesome workout.

Then, I cleaned up and got to looking cute, which was kind of hard when after a shower and make-up I still looked like a red tomato. Oh well, I texted my girls and warned them and headed off to dinner.

We had a good time, but I must say that the food was completely awful. We went to Loco's, which I "usually" LOVE! We split three appetizers and I found all of them disgusting. We ordered Spinach and Artichoke dip, which excuse the phrase of one of my friends, "Looked like snot" and felt like it too! We also ordered potato skins which literally tasted like someone microwaved them until they were wrinkly and brought them out to us. Last, but not least we ordered chips and salsa. Now how can you go wrong with chips and salsa? Oh well, you just throw a can of rotel tomatoes in a bowl and call it salsa and then serve your customers stale chips. I was then so excited for the actual meal because I was sooo hungry. So, I get my spicy boneless chicken sandwich with medium hot sauce on it and bite into it only to end up with a HUGE hunk of blue cheese in my mouth. I open the sandwich to find that they have poured chunky disgusting bleu cheese all over my sandwich when it was supposed to be covered in ranch. I was one sad girl and ended up having to take the chicken out and cute all of the breading off and soak it in ranch dressing! I was hungry! However, so I am not complaining about absolutely everything I ate at dinner, the cajun fries were off the chain! (Oh and the water was pretty freaking amazing, all 5 glasses! :)

Anyways, Saturday I woke up and went and got yummy Chikfila with my mom. We then went to a liquidation sale at our Stein Mart and I was soo in love with everything. I wanted so much of the house and kitchen stuff. They had Zebra chairs that I have been wanting for forever! If only I had somewhere to actually put the chairs at the moment. I will after April, but I would have no clue where to put them between now and then :( Then I did, what felt like, two hours of grocery shopping at my favorite grocery store, Publix. I LOVE their deals! We then went to sonic and got corn dogs, icecream cones, and small watermelon slushes. Yes, my mom rocks and completely spoils me! I did ask her if she was going to send me care packages when I moved away in May, but she said No. I hope she was joking :/ I spent the rest of the afternoon doing yard work until it was time to clean up and cook us some dinner and get my Betty Crocker on. I made a basic supper of pork burgers (no bread) and diced potato and onions. While that was cooking I whipped up a peach upside down cake for after church on Sunday. We always have some kind of dessert with my grandparents after church and a big lunch. I know, I know you want the recipe and because I am absolutely the sweetest person ever, I have it just for you!

Peach Upside Down Cake:

Melt 1/2 butter in bottom of glass dish.

Mix 2 TBSP brown sugar with melted butter in bottom of pan. Then pour drained peaches over butter.

Next, make a yellow cake mix according to directions.

Pour cake mix over peaches. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Best if served warm with vanilla ice cream!

Then my dad was going to tear into my cake before I could take it to the grandparents' house the next day so I had to make him a batch of brownies.

Then I decided that I could use some healthy muffins for Sunday morning breakfast and for breakfast and snack throughout the week so I whipped up a batch of pumpkin muffins.

You can do these with any flavor cake mix. We have quite a few chocolate cake mixxes lying around so we ended up with chocolate pumpkin muffins!

Pumpkin Muffins:

Mix up one box cake mix with one can of pumpkin. That's all folks!

Bake at 350 for 20-25 min.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and WALA!!!

Sunday consisted of church, yummy food, and family time.

Well that was my weekend. I hope everyone else's weekend was great also!!

Fridays Letters & an Uh Oh!

Dear Boyfriend, I wish I was able to spend the weekend with you, but LDR's suck and we have to do this every other weekend thing. I miss you bunches, especially during all of this rain! Yes, rain=cuddling weather! Dear School, Please hurry the heck up and fly by, so I can get out of this town and go live the big city life with my baby. Dear Albany,GA, Don't get me wrong, I will miss you and my family. But, I will not miss the childish people you have here and the drama they like to start. I'm so above that, which is reason #125 why I do not like to go out too much or get involved with any of the people in this town and why I keep a close knit group of friends. I will miss my memories, my family, and my friends but visiting sounds so much better than living here, just saying! Dear Internship, Please hurry up and start so I have something to do with my time. I'm so bored sitting at home all of the time. Plus I overthink too much! Dear Car, please last me these next two semesters until I can save up enough money to *cough,cough* FIX you...hmmph! Dear Besties, Please be ready for an amazing girls night tonight and expect me to do lots of talking. What can I say, I don't get to see y'all often and I have so much to tell you all!Dear Fall, please hurry and make your arrival. I love summer, don't get me wrong, but I am so ready for cute outfits, football, crockpot meals and soups, lots of yummy coffees, pumpkin everything, fall weather, fairs, and all of the fun fall brings. Can't you tell I'm excited to see you!! Dear Body, please start to feel better and give me back my energy. I don't have the energy to do anything anymore and as much as I love Zumba, I've even struggled getting to and through my workouts lately. You need to get it together, right Meow!

On other news, I do believe I am turning into a foodie..eek! I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad. Just yesterday I took all of these pictures. But I promise you that everything I ate yesterday was freaking awesome!

I had amazing candy apple nachos! I saw this recipe at Healthy Hits the Spot a while back and then I kept seeing it come across pinterest and I just knew that it was a must try. So, I had this lonely apple sitting in my fridge yesterday and I thought to myself, "hmm, apple nachos"! I can definitely say that they did not disappoint and are definitely going to be repeated in my kitchen. I made mine with one green apple, cinnamon, chocolate morsels, and melted pb. They tasted like heaven!!

For breakfast yesterday, I had cheerios with a diced peach and 2% milk. It was like have cereal along with peaches & cream at the same time, which was pure perfection! I also had a cup of Starter Fuel. Meet my good friend, Stewie :) He is the hottest penguin you will ever meet!

For lunch yesterday, I decided to try out lettuce wraps! I had leftover fajita meat and ended up making lettuce fajitas! They were awesome!! Well that's all I have for today, it's time to go see who everybody else wrote letters to today. Don't forget to join in and link up with Ashley!

WIAW:

My absolute favorite meal of the day {Breakfast}:

Monday's breakfast was some yummy peanut butter cheerios with banana and 2% milk!

Tuesday's breakfast was blogilates' two ingredient pancakes (1 banana, 2 eggs...mix together..cook pancakes & bamm!), spekial k chocolate delight with 2% milk, and of course my favorite thing about mornings.. STARTER FUEL!! Oh my bad, brain got the best of me there, I totally meant coffee! (Don't you like how I'm already in the fall spirit!) Today: (Not pictured) I had Original Special K with a whole peach sliced in it and 2% milk. Of course, I also had starter fuel :) Lunches Lately:

Today I had Peas and Crayons' Irish nachos. I put shredded sharp cheese, diced tomatoes, fresh bacon bits, and salsa on mine.

Mondays lunch included Italian Wedding soup, an apple, and agua! My fav. snack ever:

Apple with 1 tbs. natural peanut butter & a tiny glass of 2% milk. My best dinner as of lately:

{Barbecue chicken burger with lettuce on a whole wheat bun with baked sweet potato tots} What have you been eating? Join me over at Peas and Crayons to share what you've been eating and snoop around at other wonderful bloggers' delicious eats!!

I decided that since my weight loss has been such a big part of my life lately that I would tell you all about my diet and lifestyle choices over the past year and share some before and after pictures with you all. Me now:

Me then:

My plan: I am addicted to myfitnesspal.com! It has been a godsend. I love being able to track my calories and exercise and how it keeps me on track. I eat at least 1200 calories a day, but try not to go over too much. I exercise at least 5 days a week. I love zumba and spinning. If I can't make it to the gym and even on days when I am really bored I will do a blogilates (or pop pilates) or Tone-it-up exercise from youtube. I also believe in giving in to my cravings, but with moderation. I've learned that if I do not give my body what it wants that I will eat tons of other stuff just to get past the craving which end the end turns out as a bigger pain in my butt that just indulging in a small piece of chocolate or a half cup of ice cream. Before (Halloween 2010):

(Halloween 2011):

Then:

Now:

P.S. I also drink tons and tons of water! If you would like to add me for support on myfitnesspal, my name is softballerchik1