InVESTed

I have a tendency to buy an article of clothing, wear it everyday for a few weeks in a row, and then lose interest.

When I first bought this vest, I wore it a lot, but then the weather got colder and I traded in vests and light jackets for heavy winter coats, hats, and gloves. Then, the other day I was looking at pinterest for some outfit inspiration since I am in the process of cleaning out my closet, as a result, feel like I have nothing to wear, but also don't want to spend any money on new clothes. I rediscovered this outfit:

I wasn't sure I could pull off the coolness of this outfit, but I managed to pull off something like it, bun and all, and no one gave me any weird looks or had anything negative to say, so I think I got away with it:

As I wore that outfit, I started thinking about how much I loved my vest and wondered what other combinations I might come up with. I once again search my pinspiration and stumbled upon this tough looking cooke:

I have a leather jacket so may recreate this look when I am in my heavy medal rockstar mode, but decided to use this as inspiration for another opportunity to style my vest. The result:

Perfect for running errands on the weekend and looking cool... or jeggings and the rest of this outfit were the most comfortable option after a 12 mile training run. 

If you have any other vest suggestions for me, please let me know. I thought about adding it to a suit or nice skirt for work, but I am not sure that's going to fly.

New Recipes: Cheese Ravioli with Mushrooms and Spinach and Chipotle Chicken Tacos

The other week I went to Pennsylvania to visit my family and my mom sent me home with three Rachel Ray Everyday magazines. I flipped through them, noticed a few recipes I thought sounded tasty, and put them off to the side until I could spend more time looking through them.

Now, as many of you know, my sister moved back to the DC area and every week, Ilyssa, Jesse, and I have family dinner night. Sometimes we host, and sometimes Ilyssa hosts. Most of the time we know in advance who the host is, but this week's craziness left us making last-minute hosting decisions. I ended up volunteering since I was near the store, but needed a recipe.

This is where Rachel Ray came to the rescue. Thankfully I had jotted down the ingredients to one recipe for later in the week, and had the ingredient/shopping list in my phone. I ran into the store, picked up the few things I would need and headed home. Fifteen minutes later, a gourmet-looking Cheese Ravioli with Mushroom and Spinach was served. The reviews were good and family dinner night was a success.

Well, after the success of the family dinner night ravioli, I started flipping through each of the magazines my mom had given me for more tasty and easy dinner ideas. That's when I came across Chipotle Chicken Tacos.

Jesse is in the middle of studying for finals and I have been running all over the city, so the easier the recipe, the better. If it has a lot of flavor, even better! This recipe has it all. It also made for leftovers that were even tastier the next night (and left me off the hook for coming up with another recipe).

Unfortunately, in my haste to come up with dinner recipes, I didn't take pictures, so the pictures in the post are from Rachel Ray's website, but both tasty recipes can be found on my What's Cookin' page, along with lots of other tasty treats.

Also, I just want to take this opportunity to thank Rachel Ray for all she has done for my family. It is with her recipes that I started cooking and just when I think I have run out of new recipes to make, she comes to the rescue. So, from the bottom of our hearts (and stomachs) thank you.

Stay tunes for more delicious recipes.

New Deal

Hi friends!

Yes, it's been a month since I last wrote, but life keeps getting in the way. So, here's the new deal... I love Messy Jess C. It's my outlet for writing and telling the story of my life and all of its adventures, and I am not ready to give up on it just yet. I also know my current schedule does not allow for detailed and daily posts. So, I pledge that I will continue posting as often as possible and my schedule will dictate the details and content of my posts.

Hope you will continue to follow along! Thanks to you all.

XO