What I'm Craving this St. Patrick's Day

I adore St. Patrick's Day. It's always been a big holiday for my family. My mom loves to celebrate her Irish heritage and use to do it in a big way with a large St. Patrick's Day party. She no longer hosts the elaborate parties but, if I'm lucky, she'll still cook me her famous corned beef and cabbage dinner.

Here are the items that I'm loving for this St. Patrick's Day celebration.

Kitchen & Foodie Cravings

Corned Beef & Cabbage Dinner

Irish Soda Bread

Bailey's Irish Cream for some Irish Coffee

Potato Candy

I haven't tried this recipe before, but thought Ethan would like it and what could be more Irish than potatoes? The candy is basically mashed potatoes mixed with powdered sugar and then rolled with a peanut butter filling.

Fashion & Beauty Cravings

Emerald Green Dress

Modcloth Dress

Personalized Little Boy's Shirt

Ethan would love the truck on this shirt and it's so adorable.

Etsy Handcrafted Shirt

Green with Envy Cocktail Dress

I love the colors in this dress but the $$ price tag makes it completely out of my reach.

Bestey Johnson Dress

Kelly Green Heels by GUESS

I am in love with these shoes! Unfortunately, these pretty babies have been discontinued. Maybe I'll be able to score a pair on ebay someday.

Green Classic Trench by Miss Sixty

The perfect way to add a pop of fresh color to an outfit this Spring.

Blue Fly

Home Cravings

Celtic Harp Music

My mom has this on cassette tape and I grew up listening to the beautiful sounds of these classic Irish melodies being played on the harp. It was always my favorite tape that my mother owned and I listened to it all the time - car rides, dancing in the kitchen with my mom, etc. Most of the tunes aren't the well known Irish songs that you instantly think of, but they are beautiful pieces of music. I was excited to find it on CD and plan on ordering a copy for myself and maybe even a modernized copy for my mom.

Celtic Harp, Vol. I: The Music of Turlough O'Carolan

Four Leaf Clover - Luck Frame

Red Envelope

The Irish Tenors

Another selection of Irish music. I love these guys and they are awe-strikingly talented. Just listen to them sing "Danny Boy" and you'll be hooked. Traditional, well known Irish tunes that are perfect for playing on St. Patrick's Day.

The Very Best Of The Irish Tenors

Shamrock Chicken

I have a small collection of these covered, chicken dishes. It would be fun to add this little guy to the mix.

QVC

Belleek Shamrock Vase

I love Belleek's delicate designs that consist of traditional Irish knots or trellises and the hand painted shamrocks that adorn the pieces.

Shop Irish

Go Red For Women

Go Red For Women. Today is National Wear Red Day. Did you remember to dress up in the color red today? I'm wearing jeans and a red, long sleeve henley shirt today. Wearing red is a simple way to honor the women, and their friends and family, who are facing heart disease and help to raise awareness.

We still predominantly think of heart disease as an older man's disease. However, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. To learn more about the Go Red For Women movement, please visit http://www.goredforwomen.org/.

And now for some red eye candy for inspiration.

Birthday Girl

I celebrated my 27th birthday on January 14th - Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm starting to feel like a real adult and not a kid playing "house" and pretending to be an adult. In some ways, I feel accomplished for my age but, in other ways, I feel behind where I pictured myself being at this point in my life.

For 27, I think I've accomplished a lot on my life list. I've been married for almost five years, have a wonderful three year old son, completed my MBA degree and we have owned our home for about 4.5 years. On the flip side, about a year and a half ago, I lost my job and that put me behind my career and professional goals. I'm enjoying my new found career but I still feel like I'm lacking some professional fulfillment with my current position.

Now on to the fun birthday stuff...

Jim took Ethan to pick out a card for me. I loved the bright and cheerful card that Ethan selected. The inside of the card made me laugh. Ethan signed the card in his typical scribble but was not satisfied with how Jim wrote on the card. Ethan instructed Daddy to sign his name like he did. So my card was adorned with my two boy's scribble signatures. Too cute! (Daddy on the top and Ethan on the bottom.)

I'm a little bit of a birthday princess and would love to have surprises and lots of attention. However, I know Jim is the opposite and have learned to not expect a big show of emotions and showering of gifts at occasions. Since I knew there probably wouldn't be any presents from my boys to open, I took the matter into my own hands.

I took Ethan shopping and let him pick out something for my birthday from him. Ethan really wanted to get me a Webkins stuffed animal but I nudged him in a different direction.

Didn't Ethan do a great job? I love this dainty necklace that can be dressed up or worn casual. There are definite benifits to picking out your own gift.

My sister sent me a wonderful birthday surprise. I covered some of my favorite things in December and she picked one out and surprised me with it for my birthday.

I am in love with this print. It's pretty good sized and I lucked out in finding the perfect sized frame on clearance at Target. Currently, I have it hanging in our home office. It landed there since there were already nails from an old picture that hung in this spot. I'm not sure if this will be its' permanent home but, for now, it looks great and reminds me of two of my great loves and how I start my morning every day - drinking coffee and catching up on my favorite blogs.

As Seen on TV = As Seen in My House

"Set it and forget it"!

"It will have you saying WOW every time"!

If you spend any amount of time watching TV, you likely recognize these taglines from popular infomercials.

Infomercials are one of my guilty pleasures. I am a sucker for all things "As Seen on TV." From the slick salespeople to the gimmick bonus offers, I fall for them over and over again.

I will watch certain infomercials repeatedly for the pure entertainment. My favorite infomercial right now is for the GT Xpress cooking gadget. Love that sales pitch lady and, of course, I have one so I have to pick up her recipes like Stuffed Soup that she demonstrates during the presentation. I mean, come on! How can you resist a product that delivers delicacies like stuffed soup and cakes with mini candy bars hidden in the middle?

I can remember watching the infomercial for the Ronco Food Dehydrator over and over again as a little girl in the late 80's. I wanted to make the fruit roll ups and beef jerky so badly that they demomstrated! I also remember that half way through the presentation he would stop to demo his spray on hair product for balding men and his pocket fishing rod for outdoorsmen on the go. This man is a genius.

My first infomercial purchase that I can remember was buying this little makeup cube that was pitched by so called celebrity make up artist, Victoria Jackson. If I recall correctly, this little cube of makeup cost me almost $80. I was in high school at the time and making $5.75 per hour working at Alco. That's a lot of after school hours to get this prized baby in my hands. I was sure that I would have celebrity worthy makeup results! Any of you that knew me in high school know that was not the result. The makeup in this cube was greasy, thick and nasty. I think I wore the makeup once and then the cube went untouched.

I have found some As Seen on TV products that do live up to their hype. I find that I either love or hate the products and it's about a 50% success ratio.

I am the ashamed owner of a wide variety of infomercial hyped products. Everything from the Total Gym to the Pedi-Egg. Here are some of the products I have collected for over the years. Staggering isn't it?

I still haven't gotten the food dehydrator that I've been pining over all these years. I'm not too keen on the amount of space it would take up.However, looking for an image of the commercial online, I found that the original 80's infomercial is on Youtube. Of course I had to watch it again and revisit the man and commercial that originally got me hooked.

What "As Seen on TV" products have you fallen for? Any good ones that I should add to my collection or bad ones I should stay away from?