{chocolate croissants for cheaters}

Let me start by saying this… I love to bake from scratch. Truly, I do.  But this morning I wanted to make chocolate croissants, and croissants from scratch are not for the faint of heart. They’re also not for the hungry, because they are literally hours of work. So I decided to cheat and use already made dough from the store. I don’t even feel that bad… they’re super easy and pretty delicious. I also decided to forego traditional chocolate and use nutella instead, because, who doesn’t love nutella?

(image mine)

Puff pastry will also work beautifully for these.  You just want to let it thaw a little if frozen, and then roll it out and cut into triangles.

From there, take about a tablespoon of nutella and spread it onto the wide end of your dough triangles. If you want to make more traditional chocolate croissants, the equivalent amount of semisweet or dark chocolate works here too.

Next, simply roll each one from the wide end to the point.

I like to then brush a little egg wash on top of each of them, because it gives you that perfect golden brown color when you bake. Egg wash is simply one egg with about a tablespoon of water… easy as that.

Once they’re all rolled and egg washed, pop them in the oven and bake according to the directions from the package. 14 minutes at 350 degrees did the trick for me.

And then… voila. Chocolate (or nutella) croissants that I didn’t have to slave over for hours.

Cheating never tasted so good.

{rest and relaxation}

I finally took some much needed vacation days this week, and I must say... I feel like a new woman. Work had been so busy for a while that it was starting to feel like I was teetering on the brink of my sanity.

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I am a big believer in the idea that a woman deserves to and needs to take the time to take care of herself, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The few days off of work, the 30 bucks for a pedicure, an hour-long soak in the tub with a glass of wine... all are well worth it in my book if that's what you need to feel recharged when life gets a little too hectic.

Hope all you gals will find what it is that makes you feel pampered and rested, and indulge yourself a little! We deserve it.

{home office love}

I admit that I dream of being able to work from home as a writer. It's what I love to do more than just about anything, and I've loved spending more time focusing on it over the past year. And the dream that goes hand-in-hand with my dream of being a full time writer, is having a beautiful, inspiring, mine-all-mine home office that I can work out of. I'm not usually big on bright colors in my home, I love my neutrals. But when it comes to a room where I could sit and write for hours, I definitely want a room that is bright and inspiring. Right now, I'm loving these spaces that use bright whites with a little, and sometimes a lot, of color.

( 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. )

We'll continue to see what God has in store for me down the road, that's the exciting part, but it would not hurt my feelings to have a room all my own to wordsmith my little heart out.

Happy Sunday to everyone!

{blog crush... good girl gone glad}

As someone whose love of blogging is growing by the day, one of my favorite parts of blogging is spending hours perusing the blogs that others put their hearts and souls into. I quickly developed a few favorites that I visit every day, and without a doubt, Good Girl Gone Glad is one of those blogs that is a must on my list.

Aside from being a DIY goddess (check out the stenciled wall below), Jesse, the creator of Good Girl Gone Glad, has impeccable taste, inspiring faith, and a house that is absolutely to die for.

(images via)

I hope that you will all check in with this one from time to time, and I hope that you all love it as much as I do! I'll try to start posting more of my blog crushes, because I love sharing the things that I draw inspiration from.

{the stars at night are big and bright}

The other morning while I sat and waited at a red light on my way to work, I took a second to look at the mountains that stand so impressively along the edge of Denver. They’re certainly a sight to behold, and they're particularly lovely in the morning. I thought about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. But that being said, as much as I like it here and as much as we have come to feel at home here… my true home always has been and always will be… in Texas.

 (image via)

Being from Texas is a special thing, in a way that probably only Texans truly understand.  I have a dear friend in Texas who is getting ready to move to Chicago, and the other day he wrote a blog that offered a thought that I found particularly poignant…

“Texas, however, will always be the only place we will ever truly consider to be home. I know this in my heart the same way I know that God put a very special people in this land for a reason… That’s part of the reason Texans are so proud of who they are, and where they come from. It’s not some abstract “because we’re bigger” reason. It’s because of a sense deep inside that we are different, and set aside for a special purpose; both individually and as a whole.”

I couldn’t agree with him more. As much as we like Colorado, our hearts have never truly left Texas. It’s more than having grown up there… it’s the way time seems to slow down a little when you’re in the hill country, the unassuming beach towns like Port Aransas that feel like an old friend when you return summer after summer, the rich and honorable history of my hometown of San Antonio, the friendly “hello” waves you get from total strangers when you pass on the road, the goodness of its people, and the sense of camaraderie that you seem to feel with them simply for being fellow Texans.  It makes me proud to say that Texas is where I’m from, even though I know that others don’t always understand why that is. And that’s ok… they just haven't seen how the stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas.