Beef or Turkey?! It's Still a Meaty Loaf!

I can't stress enough how much I LOVE easy recipes! I enjoy cooking and I enjoy having home cooked meals during the work week, but I refuse to slave away in a kitchen all evening! It just doesn't work with my schedule! I get home from work at 6 pm. If it's a gym night I come home, change and head back out the door for my 6:30 class and I don't get back home till about 7:45. It does not help that the hubby usually heads to bed at 9 p.m. {he has to wake up at 3 in the morning for work!}. That gives me, on average, only an hour to prepare, cook, and eat a meal. I also like to change meals up during the week and offer a variety! Meat and potatoes one evening, a casserole dish of some sort another, a pasta dish at least one night is a must, and for the past several weeks I've been incorporating more fish into our dinners!

One of my little secrets?! I utilize Kraft Recipes A LOT {which is where this recipe came from}!! They have easy and quick recipes for all kinds of dishes and the great thing I've found is that you don't have to use the exact ingredients! Just substitute your favorite brands and/or healthier/low-fat/nonfat choices!

This recipe is my hubby's favorite meal! I've been making it for several years and I try to cook it for him at least once a month! I love when he asks "what's for dinner?" and when I tell him "meatloaf!" he lights up like a Christmas Tree! His reaction always makes me feel good!

What You Will Need:

Stove Top {Chicken} - Ground Meat - Barbecue Sauce - Eggs 

 {I normally cut this whole recipe in half for the two of us}

2 lb. Lean Ground Beef {I used 1 lb. of Lean Ground Turkey}
1 package Stove Top Chicken Stuffing Mix {I use 1/2 of a package}
1 cup of Water {I use 1/2 a cup of water}
2 Eggs Beaten {I use 1 Egg}
1/2 cup Barbecue Sauce, divided {I usually just eyeball this}

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Place meat, stuffing mix, water, eggs, and 1/4 cup barbecue sauce in bowl.

Mix just until blended.

Shape into loaf in a greased 13x9-inch backing dish {I use a loaf pan}.

Top with remaining barbecue sauce.

Bake 1 hour or until done. {I usually heat the oven to 400 degrees and cook for 45 minutes}.

Serve with your choice of sides! This particular evening I opted for fresh green beans and roasted creamer potatoes!

I post a lot of dinner photo's on Instagram and I get many comments about my cooking skills! I promise you it's not hard to make hearty and delicious meals even on a work night! I meal plan each week which keeps me organized! When meal planning, I look for recipes that don't include crazy preparations or a billion ingredients! By doing this alone it helps in cutting down my time spent in the kitchen! Because I've received so many sweet comments I'm thinking that Tuesday's will now feature a weekly post {as I've kind of already started} showcasing an easy main dish that you can whip up any time! I'm not a chef or cooking guru by any means nor am I trying to become a food blogger. I just want to help make your life a tab bit easier in whatever way I can!

Have a fantastic Tuesday my darlings! XoXo!

Weekend Recap!

Here we are, staring Monday straight in the face, again! Have you noticed how we all seem to live for the weekends?! Counting down the days starting on Monday, complaining how the week is so long and then moaning and groaning about the weekend flying by?! It's sad that we seem to live our lives for the weekend! Buuut why wouldn't we?! It's two days that we have off to jam in all kinds of "to-dos" "must-dos" and fun stuff! I want to try harder at not wishing my weeks away just to get to my weekend! Wishing it away is wishing time away and quite frankly I would like it to slow down just a bit! It's already the mid to latter part of March! Didn't we just celebrate New Years?! Anywho, enough of the serious philosophical thoughts... what kind of St. Paddy's Day shenanigans did y'all get into this weekend? Me?! Buying Bailey's Irish Cream flavored Irish colored French Macarons were about as crazy as I got for St. Paddy's Day!

Friday evenings for us, are usually relaxing nights in! We eat dinner at home, sip wine {for me} and beer {for the hubs} and chill out from our hectic weeks with the pup in front of the TV! This Friday was no exception, though I did grow a wild hair up my rear and decided it was time to tackle the daunting task of cleaning off our office desk. I kid you not, when I say, that there were bills {that have been paid, just needed to be filed} piled up on the desk since before Christmas! Ugh please don't judge! I've been procrastinating on buying a file cabinet and instead of putting everything in their designated folders, I've been piling it up on the desk! Well, I decided to pull out the folders and file it all away. While doing so, Baby Reef decided it would be a grand idea to nap... right in the middle of all my files. He even was brazen enough to move some folders and papers out of his way so he could make room for his napping spot! Silly Silly boy!

Baby Reef in the midst of all my organizing and filing! 

Saturday we slept in which was glorious since we had a morning rain shower come through and it was incredibly grey out. When we woke up, the sun was trying to peak through and the hubby headed off to baseball practice! Meanwhile I decided to accomplish a few things outside of the house since it was turning into a beautiful day! I packed up the car with stuff that has been taking over our dining room to donate to Goodwill and I grabbed my Tory Burch's and a pair of hard worn heels to take to the cobbler for some sprucing up and repairs. Mind you, I've never been to this cobbler, or any cobbler for that matter, and I wasn't sure if they would be able to fix the heels or my TB's. When I walked in the man at the counter stared at me intently, making me feel really uncomfortable. I explained to him that I had never been to a cobbler before and I wasn't sure if my shoes were fixable. He didn't say anything, just kept staring. At this point, even with how uncomfortable I was feeling, I felt I couldn't just turn around and leave. I pulled the heels out first and he paused and looked at them and said they weren't fixable; fine I'll just buy another pair. I then pulled out my TB's and explained that they were very special to me, and I just really needed them spruced up if that was possible. Meanwhile he is STILL staring and looking at me as if I am ET, himself. He took the shoe and said "I can polish them". At that point I was so eager to get out of there, I said OKAY, gave him needed information, took my ticket and ran! Once I got in the car all I kept thinking was I hope he doesn't hold my shoes hostage or something... I should've never left them with this dude! I mean he was just creepy. Thank goodness Baby Reef was tagging along in the car to help with my anxiety attack I was having! I will give the guy some credit! They did a nice job polishing them and they look very much to being almost brand new!!! I plan on taking them to another cobbler the next time they need some attention as to avoid the creepy guy, though. I'd rather not deal with the unsettling feeling again!

Once I dropped my shoes off, I headed to the grocery store to pick up some bread for the appetizer I was making for my best friend, Tatiana's birthday celebration later that night! Then with the windows down, music up, and a doggy hanging out the window, we headed to Goodwill! We dropped off quite a few things and I was immediately relieved to see it go! It was causing too much clutter in the house and needed to go months ago! I'm still purging and organizing so this will not be the last trip but knowing this batch is gone helps relieve some of the purging stress I have right now!

After dropping off the donations, Baby Reef and I headed into Old Towne Portsmouth to visit a local bakery, Artisans Bakery! I had inquired on their Facebook page last week if they sold French Macarons and they informed me that they would have St. Paddy's Day themed ones this weekend! They then commented to me Friday saying they were available for purchase during the weekend! I'd never been there before so I was really excited! Seriously.... cutest place ever! It's a full service bakery/cafe in a historically built home! Absolutely adorable and I can't wait to go back and grab lunch sometime, coffee, and more macaroons! I bought a dozen of them to take to the birthday party later that night! They were green, orange, and cream colored and Irish Bailey's flavored! Annnd they were tasty to boot!

Bailey's Irish Cream Flavored St. Paddy's Day inspired French Macarons! 

When we left there with the goodies we headed to Starbucks so I could use my gift card towards a Chai Tea Latte {my favorite!}. Once Baby Reef said his hello's to the Drive Thru girls we headed to an older neighborhood in the area to check out homes for sale! I love love love the Old Towne area with it's historic 18th century homes and gorgeous architectural buildings! I would love nothing more than to buy a home {renovated or we renovate ourselves} from the early 1900's! They have such character and charm and contain so much history! It's just difficult to find these houses in safer areas and in good school districts. Nonetheless it was really nice to just cruise with the pup and look at the beautiful homes!

Later, once we were all spiffy and ready to go, the hubby and I headed out to Tat and Kevin's house! Tat decided she wanted to have a "wine/cheese tasting" birthday celebration and she did not disappoint with the spread! Lots and lots of artisan cheeses, salami, nuts, olives, fruit, french breads, and even dark chocolate and of course more than a few of yummy wines for us to try! After all the girls caught up with their girl talk in the kitchen, we joined the the guys for a game of LCR. If you don't know what that is, check this out! I had NEVER heard of it but -oh my lanta- how fun! I'm not much of a gambler so it's not something I think would play ALL the time but it was definitely a good way to add some innocent fun to a party!

The Birthday Girl!

The amazing spread! 

Some of the delicious wine!

Tat and Kevin's sweet puppies Bosley and Kenya! They just so happen to be brothers and are the sweetest little souls! 

LCR

Tat and I have an appreciation for some of the finer things in life and we share an obsession for Louis Vuitton and Christian Louboutins! We also share an unhealthy obsession with Paris too! Neither of us have a pair of Louby's but we often chat about buying our first pair one day! Because we share this love, I haaaaad to buy her this wine bottle holder {this isn't the exact one but very similar}! She loved it and I told her that was the closest I could get to giving her the real deal!! I hope when we both can buy our first pair, it's an experience we can have together! And yes, it is that serious when it comes to Louby's and LV!

I had to but the polka dot gift wrap paper! 

Yesterday we did absolutely nothing! And when I say nothing, I really mean nothing! The weather was grey and damp all day which made if difficult to get motivated! I did manage to watch Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married, Too? on TBS! I have to give Tyler Perry credit... he makes some movies that really pull at your heart strings! I haven't seen all of his work, but the ones that I have seen always move me, usually to tears, but they do make me laugh too! I did give myself my weekly manicure as well, but other than that and watching the movies, we literally did nothing!

My manicure - Essie Pink Lemonade 

How was all of your weekends?!?! It felt good to be somewhat productive on Saturday! The winter weather has a way of making me want to stay in bed under the covers so it was great to get out in the warm sunshine and accomplish some things! Hope everyone is having a stellar Monday so far! XoXo!

Claiming my Blog!

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Friday's Letters!

Whoop Whoop it's Friday!!! I may be just a little excited! Heck, I'm always a little excited when Friday is here! It welcomes two days that I don't have to go to work! That's worth being excited over!

Via

Dear Google Reader, Apparently, according to all the Bloggers I follow and the person I know who works for Google, himself and announced this on his FB status before the rest of the world, you are disappearing in July! I don't really care as I didn't use you to begin with. Yea, sue me folks, I'm not a Google Reader user! However, since everyone is posting about an event that happens in 3.5 months I guess I'll familiarize myself with BlogLovin'. I never said I was good at being a blogger or educated in blogging 101. I guess it's time I take the crash course and get with the program! This techy stuff is for the birds! Dear Low Tire Pressure, Let's hope you aren't more of a problem than need be! Last time your notification came on in the car, the dealership had to patch a hole in the tire. If there is another hole, I will be 100% ticked off! Now it was common in my old car to run over nails, where they came from I have no clue, but I'm pretty sure those tires were patched a few times a year. Can we NOT carry on this tradition with the new car?! That would be pretty stellar! I guess I'll find out the problem later today as you are at the dealership now being checked out! Dear 96X Vintage at Noon, This one hour in the middle of my work day makes the rest of my day literally fantastic! The majority of the songs you've been playing take me right on back to middle school, high school and even my early college years and they remind me of my much younger years!! Some of these songs are my absolute favorites too! Like ANYTHING by Blink 182, A Perfect Circle, Rise Against, and even Crazy Town {You know... the Butterfly song!}! Thank you for reminding me I need to dig through my old CD collection and add these to my iTunes! Dear Bow Flats, I really want a pair of you!!! You are really popular amongst bloggers and I am seeing them EVERYWHERE!!! It doesn't help that I love anything with a bow on it, which I blame on my past cheerleading days. If any of y'all know of where I can find a reasonable priced pair, preferably pointy toed or peep toe, let me know, and don't saw J.Crew! I'm too hard on my shoes to spend that kind of money on them! You should see my poor Tory Burch's! I'm so ashamed of their condition, hence why I need to get them to a cobbler asap! Dear Complainers, I'm not saying its wrong to complain! We all do it, though some more than others, and there really is nothing wrong with it. However, try to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are complaining too. Maybe you've complained that you are fat to someone who is larger than you. Maybe you've complained that your car sucks to someone who does not even have a car. Maybe you've even complained that you hate going to work to someone who is having a hard time finding a job. These are just examples, as my recent personal experiences have gone waaaaay deeper than this and while you may be innocently complaining it may still sting the other person. Just keep that in mind. As I said, we all have been guilty, myself included, of doing it but we could all stand to be more positive in life and lift other people up instead of knocking them down.

See y'all Monday, my dear darlings!!! XoXo!

Everything is Pinker in Texas with Taylor!

Howdy hoo love bugs!!! You know today is Thursday and I am over the moon excited to share today's Guest with you!! Not only does she share the same name as my sister but her favorite color is pink, as is mine, she LOVES books, as do I, and she's a shoe-a-holic, as am I, though there is no doubt she has more shoes than I may ever own in my lifetime! She hails from the great state of Texas and wears about twenty different hats! Seriously. Visit her blog, she really does.it.all!!! With a genuine soul and sparkling beauty, this gal really has it all!!! I hope you enjoy her! She was one of my first blogging friends and I will forever treasure her for that!! 


Hey y'all! I'm Taylor and I blog over at Pink Heels Pink Truck. I'm so excited to be guest posting on Lauran's fabulous blog today!! Here's a little bit about me, just real quick. ;) I'm a Texas girl who absolutely has an obsession with all things pink, shoes and books. Great combo, huh! ha! ;) I'm a Petroleum Landman by day and blogger extraordinaire by night (at least I try to be...ha!) Today, I thought I'd discuss some of my favorite authors. I'd love to show off some of my shoes, but then this post would get into a novel form! ;) haha! I do have my shoe closet tab on my blog, so you can take a peek at some of my shoes (I've not put them all up there, but that's a good chunk of them). I like to drool over them a bit, cause I can only really wear 1 pair at a time! Right now my book club is reading "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn and OMG...what an interesting book. So many twists and turns, this book will keep you on your toes the entire way through! One of our previous book club reads was "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern and that is a book I would highly recommend! I would love for Erin to write up another book. Her creativity will blow your socks out of the water! ha! So, here's some of my favorite authors, with a book recommendation to go with it: (in no particular order, cause really..that is just way too hard!) :)

 1. Mary Kay Andrews - "The Fixer Upper"
 
 2. Jennifer Crusie - "Maybe This Time"
 
 3. Janet Evanovich - "One for the Money" {The Stephanie Plum Series}
 4. Harriet Evans - "Going Home"
 
 5. Joanne Fluke - "Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder" {The Hannah Swenson Series}
 6. Diana Gabaldon - "Outlander"
 
 7. Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham - "Twenties Girl"
 8. Sue Grafton - "A is for Alibi" {The Kinsey Milhone Series}
 9. Jill Mansel - "Perfect Timing"
 
 10. Kate Jacobs - "The Friday Night Knitting Club"
 
 So, now you have 10 books (plus The Night Circus and Gone Girl, so 12 total) to add to your "to be read" list. :) I hope you'll stop by my blog and leave some love! :) Oh and a shameless plug for my brand new venture...Fabuless Wardrobe (an online consignment shoppe where you can buy & sell gently used clothing and accessories) just launched this week. Woot Woot! This has been a baby of mine for the last 5 months. Click here to read the post all about it!
 

It really is funny to me how my Sponsors really can read my mind! Just as my previous ladies have done, Taylor must have known that I was looking for more books to add to my reading list! With all the blogging I've been doing I haven't made ANY time for reading. Plus I'm kind of waiting till June when Entwined to You comes out! I can't start another book when I'm hanging in the middle of a trilogy!! None-the-less I may have to give one of these a go! Hope you all can add some to your list as well!!! Be sure to visit Taylor in her sweet space of the blogging world AND visit her Online Consignment Shoppe! It's pretty freakin' fabulous!!

If you are interested in Sponsoring The Real Young Housewife of Southern VA for FREE. Please e-mail me at Lauran.Huffman@gmail.com or comment below! I am now booking for April and May!! 

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I am crazy excited that I finally decided on how I will be changing up my Wednesday posts {Remember I kind of chatted about it last week here?}. There are still a few things I need to do in order to get it finalized and ready for sharing, like creating a button and setting up the link-up for y'all to join! I think it will be a way for my readers to get to know me on a more personal level and hopefully relate to me even more than they may already. This probably won't get underway for a few more weeks so until then I will continue with the "What I'm Loving Wednesday" series!

1. I am in love with Daylight Savings Time!! Okay... maybe not in love with the fact that I lost an hour of sleep, I'm still trying to catch up,  or that it's still pitch black when I wake in the morning, buuuuuut I'd trade pitch black nights for longer sunshine evenings any day of the week! It's the first sign that warmer weather is around the corner and who doesn't love that?!

2.  Attending my first official Pilates class on Monday night! I'm actually pretty excited and proud of myself for going! I switched my gym schedule around to Tuesday and Thursdays, however because I had my monthly YAAA! meeting last night I decided to go to the gym Monday night and try out Pilates! Holy Moly, if you think it's easy, you are in for a rude awakening! I've done it with at home DVDs so I knew it wasn't a cake walk, but I didn't realize just how much it was really going to work me! I've been quite sore in areas I very rarely work, and it's a darn good feeling! I'm really thinking about adding Monday night to my gym schedule and upping my workouts to three days a week!

3.  Celebrating lots of Birthday's this month!! March seems to be a pretty huge month in our lives when it comes to celebrating birthdays! There is my mother-in-law, my stepfather-in-law, my stepbrother-in-law, our nephew, my close friend Tatiana, my awesome boss Jen, our dear friend Matt, and a slew of other friends of ours! Lots and lots of celebrating going on around these parts!! 

4. Having my first cup of coffee in almost a month! I'm not a coffee addict whatsoever. I've been a one cup a day drinker for forever and can function fine without it. I actually like the taste of coffee, however. about a month ago I noticed I wasn't enjoying the taste of it much anymore so I gave it up and started drinking tea! Lots of green tea, chai tea, and herbal teas and even using my Starbucks giftcard for Chai Tea Lattes instead of fancy coffee beverages! This weekend while at my girlfriend, Whitney's house, I had my first cup of coffee in almost a month and boy was it yummy! I don't think I'll be going back to drinking it every day but I think it would be a nice pick me up on an extra lagging day - say like this week when I'm trying to adjust to this Daylight Savings Time! 

I found this really interesting!!! 

5. Working on our taxes! To most this is probably a daunting task but this marks year number two that we have done our taxes ourselves with the help of TurboTax. Since we don't have a ton of "extras" to worry about like second properties, self employment, or rental income we are able to do them ourselves! It's usually a few day process as I like to, obviously, make sure they are 100% accurate before filing them! I won't lie though, I am always completely nervous when hitting that submit button! It's a great feeling seeing what we should be getting back from the government during the entire process! I'm quite satisfied with the figure we've been given! These suckers should be completely finalized by weeks end and we will be on our way to get our little check back and this will be another task I can cross off our "To Do" list! 

Happy Hump Day my darlings!!! Hope you all are having a wonderful week so far and didn't miss me too much yesterday!!! XoXo! 

Sorry I'm Not Home Right Now, I'm Walking into Spiderwebs!

... So leave a message and I'll call you back! Okay - Who is laughing with me that they just belted out some old school No Doubt?! Oh that Gwen Stefani! You have got to love her!!!

Anywho, as the title implies, I'm not here today! Why?! Well because I'm guest posting over at Horseshoes and Pearls with Ashley today! Head on over to see what I'm jabbering on about and if you are a soon to be bride or will be attending a wedding in the near future as a guest, you're going to want to read this post! Not that I'm a know it all by any means about wedding related adventures however, I've been there, done that, and bought the teeshirt so I can give y'all some of my own personal insight!

Check out Miss Ashley! A girl after my own heart for her love of Labs and Horses! 

Hope you loves are having a fantastic Tuesday! I'm definitely enjoying the daylight savings change, even if I am a wee bit on the sleep side! There is something just spectacular about leaving work and the sun is still shinning bright! See you darlings tomorrow! XoXo!