VALENTINES GIFT GUIDES

Wrap | Palette | Earrings | Water Bottle | Bangle  | PJ Set | Flute | Necklace | T-Shirt | Candle  

French Press | Vest | Backpack | Joggers | Vans | Shave Kit | Ski Socks | Mens Kit |
Glass Set |  Flannel 

Hi everyone! Hope y'all had a great weekend! I sure did, Eli and I went down to Bend and had a great time! On Sunday he skied and I stayed in the lodge. It was really nice and relaxing way to spend a Sunday.

With Valentine's Day (or Galentines day) coming up soon, I put together a list of gifts for your bf/gf or your best friend! The gifts I've listed are great for all budgets too! 

One of my favorite parts of Valentine's Day is the cheesy cards and the flowers. An excuse to fill your house/apartment with pink flowers, yes please!! 

Eli will be going to Colorado and will be returning to Portland on Valentines Day so I'll probably make dinner that night when he comes home. 

Look for a post about Bend   later this week. 

What are your plans for Valentines Day? 

WORKPLACE SHOPPING

Tumbler | Office Supplies Set | Calendar | Lip Gloss | Treat Yourself Reusable Bag | Weekly Calendar | List Pad | Gold Stapler | Love Potion Cup 

Good Morning everyone! Happy Tuesday! 

I just started a brand new job yesterday and I am SO excited for it. I can't wait to share more details about it soon.
I just wanted to do a quick office shopping list for y'all. I love office supplies and staying organized and what better way to stay organized and motivated is with cute office supplies. All of these office supplies are also under $60! 

My new job I have my own desk and business cards! It's the little things in life, y'all. 

Keep your eyes out for more work related posts! I'll be sharing what to wear to the workplace, perfect lunches that can be eaten at your desk, etc!  

What supplies are a must at your desk? I'd love to hear!

HOW I MEAL PLAN

So today I wanted to share with y'all about how I meal plan for a week. Now, I'm not a hardcore meal planner like some, but I have found it very helpful!

When I was a senior in college I lived in a house with a kitchen. It was my first experience with having to buy my own groceries and cook my own meals. I would scroll through Pinterest and try to find meals to make, but I typically ended up making roasted veggies and baked chicken. And I would honestly end up going to the grocery store every other day to buy things.
I love going to the grocery store, but it's like going to Target I just blackout and want to buy everything.

When Eli and I moved to Portland, I wanted to get more experimental when it came to cooking. After a few weeks of going to the grocery store multiple times a week and literally spending $40-60 each trip, I decided to look into meal planning.

Meal Planning is basically creating a menu for you and your family for a week or so. You make a list of your foods for the week and then go to the grocery store ONCE! PRAISE! 

 I developed my own style of meal planning that works best for me and Eli. Most meal planning formats I found on Pinterest were for mom's with three kids. And most of the meals I was finding were casseroles and a lot of crockpot recipes. I do not own a crockpot and I am not the biggest fan of casseroles, especially eating them multiple nights a week. So I wanted to share my style and format of planning that has worked for me. I've noticed that we have saved money and a lot of time by doing this. 
So hopefully this will help you if you're interested in meal planning! 

Step One: Shop Your Own Kitchen

Before I even begin to plan my meals, I take a look at my own pantry/fridge. I look for the staples: rice, quinoa, veggies, and other items that need to be used. I then will either make a list of the items I already have or just keep them in mind.
When I fist started meal planning, I didn't check the pantry or fridge and would end up buying items I already had. #annoying

Step Two: Do Your Research

I am always pinning recipes on my food board and one of my favorite parts of meal planning is actually finding the recipes. I scroll through my Pinterest, I look through cookbooks and scroll through some of my favorite food blogs (Cookie and Kate, Budget Bytes, Pinch of Yum) and find recipes and inspiration.
Find recipes that use the ingredients you already have in your pantry/fridge.
So if you have rice, search for recipes that use rice.
Find recipes that also do not require you to buy:
1. a ton of ingredients and 2. ingredients that you do not use regularly.
There are some dishes that I want to make, but require me to buy all kinds of condiments so I typically skip those because how often am I going to use rice vinegar. 

Find recipes that are inside your comfort zone

If cooking cassaroles and pastas are more your speed, then go for it! Don't get all Top Chef and make octopus with a beets salad.....I mean, ain't nobody got time for that.
Also find recipes that you know your family is going to love. 

So again, don't make octopus if your family hates seafood. Find versatile recipes that everyone in your family will enjoy.

Step Three: Pick your Recipes and Make your List

This is honestly my favorite part of my meal planning process. I find all of my recipes for the week and I make a word document and make a bullet list of each ingredient that is needed. Most of these recipes have repeat items which is a total jackpot!
And most of the time I will either italicize or not list the items that I already have at home. I usually save this document so that when I'm ready to start cooking I know which ingredients go to each recipe.

Then I make my grocery list! And yes, because I am totally OCD I organize the list by category. This just helps me insure I'm not running all over the grocery store and so I don't miss anything. 

Typically when I meal plan I plan for about seven or eight dinners and I also plan for weekday lunches as well so I will add deli meat, hummus, feta cheese and potato chips to my list.
I almost always go to Trader Joes when I do a big shopping trip because I love their prices. And most of the time I will get seven/eight meals with lunches for $70-80 depending on how bare my panty/fridge is.

Yesterday I bought shopped at Whole Foods and Safeway and spent $80 and have enough food to make lunch for a week and eight dinners. Insert salsa dancing emjoi here.

This week I'm making:

Brown Sugar Pork Tenderloin with Cauliflower (did not make pork in a crockpot)

Avocado and Chicken Salad (did not buy ingredients to make dressing using store bought (#lazy))
Tomato "Lasagna" (using zucchini instead of lasagna noodles)

Eggplant Pizza
Salmon with Baked Zucchini Chips (did not buy salmon yet, will buy it fresh the day of)

Sausage Pepper Hash
Honey Balsamic Chicken with Veggies
Baked Pesto Rigatoni 

I really hope this helps y'all if you're interested in meal planning. 

What are some of your favorite meal planning tips? 

SIX TOTALLY DOABLE RESOLUTIONS

Hi everyone! Welcome to my new site. I decided to move PG&G from Wordpress to Blogger. Anyways, I hope y'all had a great Christmas and New Years! 

So, New Year, new resolutions. 2016 is a difficult year for me because it's the first year I'm out of college (yikes). When making resolutions I would always revolve them around school; make better grades, don't procrastinate, go to the library every day, stuff like that. So when thinking about my New Years resolutions for this year I was stumped. 

So after doing a little brainstorming I came up with six resolutions. I wanted to make resolutions that obviously I would want to keep and ones that I knew I could keep. They're not requiring me to completely change my lifestyle either. 

Eat breakfast every morning:

I have always been the worst breakfast eater. I never eat breakfast and then around 10 I'm dying from being so hungry. And I think to myself, "wow, why am I so hungry".... The reason I'm so bad at eating breakfast is because I'm always too lazy to make it. I never want to get up twenty minutes earlier to heat up a bagel or make eggs, I'd rather spend those twenty minutes in bed. However, I've found several recipes on my Pinterest for make the night before breakfasts! Insert the praise hands emoji. I will definitely keep y'all posted on how they turn out too!

 Do y'all have any quick and easy breakfast ideas?

Read, at least, one book a month:

Now that the holiday season is officially over, it's time to stop the binge watching on Netflix. I've watched a ridiculous amount of Netflix in the last month. And now that work has started back it's time to get back into a routine. I've made a list of books I want to start reading! So more reading and less Netflix. 

Do you guys have any book suggestions? 

Limit, not eliminate, sugar and carbs:

I don't want to be cliche by making a diet a huge part of my New Years Resolutions. I hate diets and I never stick with them. However, I want to do little things to change my eating choices. Limiting my sugar and carb intake and becoming more conscious of my choices. I've tried eliminating sugar and carbs completely and it turned me into a hangry monster. So my resolution is to start slow and then maybe slowly wean myself off of it. I'm going to start by not buying anymore ice cream and no more pastas at dinners.
Do y'all have some not so dieting tips? 

Start saving money:

It has always been difficult for me to put aside money. If it wasn't saving up for a Disney World vacation, I had no desire to save money. It's horrible, I know. So what better resolution to add to my list! My dad told me of a great idea to saving money! So instead of spending $10 a day on lunch or coffee, take that $10 and put it in your savings account. Don't even think about it, just move it. And then you have $50 in your savings account each week and by the end of the month it's $200! And that's money that you were going to spend anyways. 

What are some ways you guys save your money? 

Spend less time on social media:

I guess this goes back to the whole binge watching part...This is a goal I've been trying to stick to for a while. I'm going to start putting my phone up at dinner and to not be on my phone while watching a movie, well like my resolution said, reading! I don't even notice how much time I spend on my phone until I've missed a whole TV show or something. 

Join a yoga studio:

I took yoga in college and I loved it! When I moved to Portland I had no motivation to go out and find a class to take. Since I still don't really know anyone here, I don't have anyone to go to yoga with. But I'm going to do my research and hopefully find a studio that I'll enjoy. 

What are your New Years Resolutions? I'd love to hear them!

CHICKEN QUINOA ENCHILADAS

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so MIA lately!
Okay so I LOVE Mexican food, I mean...who doesn't?! One of my favorite Mexican dishes is enchiladas because of how easy they are. They're quick, easy and super yummy. I found this recipe  on Pinterest! I took inspiration and decided to add a few of my own touches.
And to top it off, having a Mexican fiesta night is an excuse to make guac and eat a bag of tortilla chips. Guilty.

Preheat oven to 400º.
So you're going to want to cook your quinoa in a medium sized pot because you'll eventually add all of your ingredients into it. I use this sauce pan almost every night.
First cook one cup quinoa with two cups chicken broth (or veggie broth). Cook quinoa as directed on the bag.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare your chicken. Heat your pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil. I took two chicken breasts and cut them into pieces. This makes them a lot easier to cook and easier to put into the enchiladas. Season the chicken to your liking, I just add salt, pepper, a little paprika and garlic salt. Cook your chicken until done and set aside.

Once your quinoa is cooked, add a can (drained and rinsed) black beans and about half of a 20oz can of enchilada sauce. Add your chicken and Mexican cheese! I think I added about a cup of cheese, but add as much as you want (this is a non-judgment zone). Mix all the ingredients together and make sure everything's covered in enchilada sauce and cheesy. Add a little more if needed.

Take 10" tortillas and fill with the mixture. Fill them to your liking. Use those burrito rolling skills and place them into your baking dish.

Now add the rest of your enchilada sauce and more cheese.

Cook in the oven uncovered for 25-30 minutes.

Serve imminently with tortilla chips, guacamole and a margarita.

What is your favorite enchilada recipe or Mexican dish? 

Shop my kitchen:
Sauce Pan 
Wood Spoon 
Frying Pan
Baking Dish
Dinnerware 

FALL FURNITURE BUYS

Hey Everyone!

Ever since we moved into our apartment, I have been dying just to decorate the whole entire thing. Well, decorating a small apartment, or even a house takes time. And I've actually found it more fun taking my time with it, it makes the whole process last longer!
I love going to a store or going online and finding one item to add to our apartment.
Our apartment is small, like less than 500 square feet small. Eli and I have noticed that we 1. have a lot of stuff and 2. we really need to organize said stuff. So here are a few things I want to get very soon to help keep the apartment not looking like an unorganized mess.

Funny thing is, I used to have this bookshelf! It's currently in storage in South Carolina right now because it wouldn't fit in my car. For $100, you can't beat it! It has a tons of cubbies to put whatever you want in it! I've used it horizontally and it made a perfect TV stand and bookshelf.  

I think this bookshelf looks so cool and would be perfect to hold extra kitchen essentials like mixing bowls or wine glasses and would be great for storing cookbooks. It's also only $50! 

We have a coffee table in our living room now but I love the way this accent table from Target looks! It would just add even more space for books, magazines or candles. 

Our bedroom is really weird and does not have any lights in the ceiling. So we've been using a lamp which is NBD. I do want to get another night stand for the bedroom so we can put another lamp on it to get some more light. This one from Ikea is only $40 and is such a steal! 

We also have very little storage in our bathroom which is also where our washer/dryer is. This storage shelf from Ikea goes over the toilet and works great for extra towels, storage containers, and any other items that won't fit in our drawers (like all of my straighteners, curling irons, hairdryers, the list can go on).

Living in a small space really requires you to get creative! And stay tuned, an apartment tour will be coming up soon! Have a great rest of your week and thanks for reading!

FALL SPLRUGE VS STEAL

I am all about a style deal! I love finding items basic items that are around 10 bucks and even really nice items, like the coats above, for less than $100!

Here I listed some splurge vs. steals of J. Crew vs. Forever 21. It's kind of crazy how similar the items look, for a fraction of the price! I love Forever 21, but sometimes it always seems to have been a hit or miss for me. I go in the store and "meh" find maybe two tops. But when I was looking at they're new arrivals a few days ago, WOW was I impressed. Such cute coats and sweaters and for a reasonable price too.

Splurge $98 / / Steal $17.80  

Splurge $365 / / Steal $52.90  

Splurge $88 / / Steal $19.90  

Splurge $298 / / Steal $29.90  

Splurge $120 / / Steal $24.90  

Splurge $165 / / Steal $15.90 

Splurge $45 / / Steal $10.80  

I definitely have more luck shopping online than I do in the store. Everything online is organized and you can find exactly what you're looking for.
But, I will have to pick up a stripped turtle neck from Forever 21 soon, it's $10.80 and comes in five different colors!

Let me know if you guys have found any awesome style deals from Forever 21 lately.

Thanks for reading

FIRST AND FOREMOST: OCTOBER ADDICTIONS

Hello all and welcome!

I have always wanted to start a blog but didn't really seem to have the time for it. School, work, friends, family, something always seemed to get in the way. But now that I have graduated from college and no longer have to worry about homework and essays, I can finally share some exciting things with you!Also I have moved out of the South and made the trek out West. Living on the West Coast is totally different than living in North Carolina. No Lilly Pulitzer or big hair to been seen. So I guess that makes me unique, right? So I wanted to share how I'm surviving my cross country move and my experiences.

When thinking about what I wanted to focus my blog on, I had a really difficult time. How can I focus a whole blog on one theme, I love too many different things to focus on just one. So, because I am an overachiever, I decided to share many different things with y'all. Food, fashion, decor, travel, etc.

I'm really excited to dive in and share some exciting post and hopefully I can inspire y'all in some way!

So since it's October, I wanted to share some of my favorites for this month. Fall is my favorite season of the whole year. I love when the leaves change to reds and yellows and breaking out sweaters and boots. Sleeping in actual PJ's and not dying of a heatstroke. Drinking hot coffee/lattes and not looking like a crazy person. Also, all of the eating holidays are getting closer too. I mean, how can you not love Halloween, Thanksgiving, and duh Christmas. Break out the stretchy pants too girl!!

Also follow me on Instagram (emilyetingle) and Snapchat (ememtingle) to see what adventures I get into this week.

Wearing: Fall means bundling up and getting comfy-cozy. I am a huge fan of layers and anything that I can just throw on and run out the door. I finally got to wear my favorite Patagonia fleece last weekend while exploring Cannon Beach and Seaside, OR. I got it on sale last summer and I wore it all the time last winter and I plan on wearing it all fall/winter long. I definitely want to get it in more colors because it is so soft!

Watching: I have been so obsessed with How To Get Away With Murder. It's an unhealthy obsession. I just started watching HTGAWM a couple of weeks ago and finished season 1 very very quickly, like embarrassingly quickly. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend! Also I just started watching Gilmore Girls. I know I'm pretty late in the game..But its so good!

Eating: So since it's fall and all, I have been craving eating squash and lots of it. Anything warm and yummy please give me now. Check back soon because I have an amazing butternut squash recipe for you! I've also been eating a lot of steal cut oats and rolled oats. I'm going to share my morning routine with y'all soon and share a super easy way to make oatmeal the night before!

Exploring: So since I'm living somewhere completely new and have never been to prior to my move, Eli (my boyfriend who I moved here with) and I have been spending our weekends taking day trips to various towns and exploring! It has been so much fun to just get away and hike, walk around, and obviously eat (because I plan my day around meals). A few weekends ago we went up to Multnomah Falls which is about half and hour from our apartment. We hiked up to the very top of the falls and looked down and it was gorgeous. Let me just tell y'all, I hate hiking. I am not an outdoorsy person I have never been one to venture outside. So this is definitely something new for me. But I got lots of gorgeous pics!

Wishing:

Has anyone had a thing lately for ponchos? I have been wanting to get one so badly! I remember being in middle school and ponchos were totally the *thing*, I am so glad they've made a comeback for fall. I found this adorable one for $40 at Old Navy last week. I tried on a M/L and it was baggy but very comfy. Perfect to just throw on, especially with these white jeans and these similar booties!

Since we are still in the process of decorating out apartment, I have really been wanting a faux fur throw  for my living room and duh matching pillows. But one can dream of having the super lush super expensive ones from Pottery Barn. Let me know if you know of any steals!

Thanks for reading and have a great week!