Trashy Taco Soup Recipe!

Hey Everyone! Sorry its been so long since I last posted on this blog! I've been busy with school, life, and my beauty blog is keeping me very busy as well! ;) But anyways, just wanted to post the recipe of this soup I made last night for dinner.



Its called Trashy Taco Soup. It was SO good!! I got the recipe from my awesome friend, Emily or as we all know her as Emilynoel83 :) But she made this soup a few weeks ago, and I thought it sounded so good!


The recipe is linked HERE but originally it was from Pinterest.



Thats it for this post, I just wanted to post this for y'all so that you could make it if you wanted to. :) And if you do end up making it, let me know how you liked it! Have a wonderful day everyone and I'll be blogging again soon!


Daily Nuggets....

• Got Music Fundamentals 101 college class this afternoon, yay!! :D 
• Also while we're on the subject of college classes, I also have an exam and a final for my Psychology 101 class this week and next week! Yikes! Wish me luck, please pray for me! :) 
• Possibly playing another show with my band next week and we're also for sure playing in November! yay!! Its been SO much fun! 
• Took this picture of my puppy a couple weeks ago, so cute! Love that look he's giving me :) 

Finally home from the hospital!!!

Hey Everyone! I hope y'all are having a great Thursday afternoon. After a total of 14 days in the hospital, I finally was released this morning around 10am! It feels so good to be home and I think my puppy missed me :) what do you think?
Anyways, I can't wait to be back making my beauty videos and blog posts soon! I have a Sephora haul and a Tarte hautelook haul coming soon! Thanks so much for the prayers everyone! Have a great day! :)

Hospital stay: day 8....

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are doing well. It has been 8 days here in the hospital, nothing new to report. Which in a sense is a good thing I guess :) All the cultures are coming back negative still and I am feeling pretty good.

Surgery is still set for Wednesday unless something changes drastically in the next 24-48 hours. So that is pretty much it for now. I'll be putting up another update tomorrow! Have a great night everyone! :)

Hospital stay: 1 week....

Hey everyone! So its been 1 week here at the hospital and everyday gets a little better! The cerebrel fluid cultures are still negative and the plan remains the same. We will re-internalize my shunt on Wednesday if the cultures continue to come back negative.

Well, that's about it for now :) lunch is almost here, but I hope y'all have a great day and I'll post another update tomorrow. I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday, I only had gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before so I turned everything off early last night :)

But anyways, have a wonderful day! :)

Hospital stay: day 6....

Hey everyone! Ok, so its been six days since I've been here in the hospital and it has been 5 days since surgery. Things are going well today (thank goodness!) and I met with my neurosurgeon's resident this morning. He said nothing has come back from the cultures as positive yet (which is good so far, but this slow growing shunt infection can take up to 7 days to come up positive) 

So the plan is still to re-internalize the shunt next Wednesday again barring nothing shows up positive from the cultures and my symptoms don't get worse. If everything goes as planned for next week, I should be home by next Friday. 

Thats all I have for now, I'll be updating daily :) Have a great day everyone! :) 

Yesterday was Day 5 in the hospital....

Day 5 in the hospital: Sorry I didn't get a chance to update yesterday, but I figured I would just put yesterday's update following up with today's update. (If that makes any sense :) 

officially made it to 4 days since surgery! Had some minor issues this afternoon, but other than that things are going really well! The plan is still to definitely re-internalize next Wednesday barring nothing comes back positive from the daily cultures :) again, thank you to everyone who has visited, brought me things, brought smiles and laughter when I need it most, and most of all prayed for me!! Y'all are awesome, I love each of you so dearly! {{{Hugs}}} ♥ can't wait to be back to life soon! :D 

Hospital stay: day 5....

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a great Tuesday morning! I got the "final final" answer from my surgeon this morning, he will be re-internalizing my mechanism next Wednesday. So I'm here at the hospital until at least next Friday :)

But anyways, one good thing I was able to skype with my college girls Bible study group last night. It was a great session and I think it was the best "medicine" for my headache! Laughter accompanied with awesome friends? I think yes! :D

Having a few of the girls from the group come visit as well as a girl I work with, so very excited for that today! :) but other than that, nothing too exciting is going on.

I'll be updating more as the week goes on, have a great day everyone! :)

Hospital stay: day 4...

Hey everyone!! I hope y'all are having a great Monday morning! So it has been officially over 48 hours since my first surgery and I'm still doing pretty well. Got up, sat in the chair and ate breakfast this morning (doctors orders to get up out of bed :) and so far the only meds I'm on is Tylenol with some caffeine in it :)

So how's everyone else doing? Is it nice outside? When you go outside please breath some extra fresh air for me :)

That's all for now, excited to be skyping in with my college girls Bible study group tonight! I'll continue to update as the week goes on :) have a great day everyone!

Hospital stay: day 3....

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is having a great Sunday morning. Well, its been 40+ hours since my surgery and I'm doing pretty well so far! I'm moving a lot better than I was yesterday :)

So everything is going pretty well! That's all I have for now, I'll update more as the week goes on :)

Hospital stay: day 2.....

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are doing well. Ok, so day 2 of my hospital stay. We are officially 24 hours out of surgery, finally went in for surgery around 11am yesterday morning. It went well, I'm sore but doing pretty well :)

That's all for now, I'll be updating more the week goes on. I'm here for 2 weeks for IV antibotic treatment and then back in for surgery at the end of 2 weeks to put my mechanism back in my brain.

Have a great day everyone! :) thanks for all the prayers! I really appreciate it! :)

Hospital stay: Day 1.....

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a great night. So just updating y'all on my hospital stuff, I was admitted this afternoon from my doctors office and I since then have gotten all checked into a room for the night. I got my IV placed in my arm and surgery is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon

I'll be here for 2 weeks receiving antibotic treatment through my IV and then at the end of 2 weeks I will go back into surgery to have my mechanism that regulates my cerebral fluid put back into my brain after I have been treated.

I'm on the adult floor tonight, but I'll be moved to the ICU floor after my surgery tomorrow and I will stay there until I am released to go home.

So that's the update for tonight, I'll be updating more as the week goes on. Have a great night everyone! :)

Crazy last few weeks!!!

Hey everyone! So it has been really crazy the last 3 weeks at my house. I have finals in 3 weeks, I'm trying to do school AND keep up with my extra curricular activities as well as both of my blogs on here AND my youtube beauty channel. And unfortunately, I have dedicated all of my time to college. So that is why you haven't seen any new blog posts or new videos up in quite a while and for that I apologize, but I have to say (please don't get mad at me when I say this) that school comes first for me right now. I'm hoping that I'll be able to film a haul video this weekend as well as hopefully do a blog post on my beauty blog.



BUT in other news, I had my re-audition for my church's worship team and my worship pastor said I'm on the team for vocals!!!! I am beyond excited because I have been wanting to branch out in addition to being on the team for choir, I just wanted to do some single stuff. So I am so excited to be able to lead our congregation in worship on Sunday mornings!!!


Anyways, just wanted to update you guys and let you know that everything is going great, I am just insanely busy with school right now. Well, I better go study for finals! Have a great weekend everyone and I'll hopefully be blogging again soon! :)

First week of college: Complete!

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a wonderful Sunday night. One of my new years resolutions was to give this blog some love, since my beauty blog has been taking all of my time as well as my youtube channel....BUT as you can see that resolution has failed. I apologize for not keeping up with this blog, but I just wanted to share with you that my first week of college at Thomas Edison State is complete!

I have to say, I am really enjoying my class and all my professors. I have completed the first 2 lessons in my Comparative Worldviews class as well as 2 exams for the first 2 lessons. So tomorrow, I begin my third lesson and probably will start my 4th lesson on Wednesday. I get my lessons done within a couple days, which is nice because I can go as fast or as slow as I want. I am well on my way to getting my BA in Music which I am beyond excited about! :)


I am finally starting to realize that the changes that were made in the beginning and end of 2012 were made for the better. Because of the things that happened, I am a better person and I have learned SO much about myself over the past 6 or so months. You could say I have been changed for the better! :)

Anyways, thats about it for now! I'll continue to try and remember to update this blog more often. As school picks up more I may not be able to get to either blog as fast as I have been, but I will try my absolute best. Also, it would mean so much to me if you would go check out my youtube beauty channel! Here's the link: www.youtube.com/mariahsierra94 there will be a makeup collection video coming soon!

Have a great night everyone and I'll be blogging again soon! :)

Christmas Decor/house tour!

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a wonderful Wednesday afternoon! I watched emilynoel83 (aka Emily Eddington) in her recent "Holiday House Tour" video, and I got inspired to do a blog post on my Christmas decorations and just an overall tour of my house all decked out in Christmas decor :)

So lets get started:



First, this is my bedroom/makeup room and I recently re-designed my room to be more "college age" appropriate :) anyways, my walls are a turquoise color and I found this mini Christmas tree at Target. I just thought it was so cute and the best part is its turquoise!!! :D

So I just sat the Christmas tree on top of my vanity and I think it adds some color to this side of my room because this wall is a beige color and the other 3 walls are the turquoise color :)


Here's what it looks like:

Next, as you come out the door of my room you see my big Christmas tree in my living room. Now this tree my parents had gotten a few years ago when they had decided that a fake tree was best for our house because we didn't want to keep cleaning up all the little pine needles that kept dropping on the ground. Plus, my animals specifically my cat liked to play in the water basin that we would sit the tree in :) Anyways, heres a picture of the big tree:

Next, as you go around the couch to the front door, you can see another mini Christmas tree sitting beside the end table:

This tree was actually given to me when I was in the hospital on Christmas last year by one of my bosses at work and we thought we would go ahead and pull it out for this Christmas :)

Anyways, next as you walk out of the living room, you come into the kitchen and the first thing that catches my eye is this jar on my kitchen table that my mom has put those glittery ball ornaments inside it :)

Now in my kitchen window overlooking my backyard, we have our nativity scene set up with some real Christmas tree clippings and mini candles around it, as well as the cross :)

Above my stove, my mom has also put some garland up on top of my cabinets :)

I almost forgot to mention, as you look downstairs you see yet another string of garland, Advent candles and ribbon that my mom has put up :)

Next, as you walk down my hallway from the kitchen, we put a hope chest in the middle with candles, beads and a red cloth on top :) as well as another mini Christmas tree! (in total, scattered around the house, we have a total of 6 mini Christmas trees)

Finally, as you walk down the hallway into my bathroom, we put a big red candle holder on top of the counter as well as some real Christmas tree clippings :)

Next to that counter above my sink, we have put a couple candles and some more beads on the ledge of the mirror :)

Well, I think thats it for my Christmas decor/house tour! I hope y'all enjoyed this and I would love to see what your house looks like all decorated for Christmas! Have a great rest of the day everyone and I'll be blogging again soon! :)

FINALLY a College Student!!

Hey everyone!! I wanted to share some really exciting news with y'all!! I graduated high school FINALLY!!!! :D After I came home from the hospital in September and recovered from surgery, I started back to my school stuff. I was bummed because I only had about a month left of stuff to do right before I was told I was sick and I was admitted into the hospital for a month. But alas, I got everything done! I completed everything 2 days before Thanksgiving and an added bonus, I have a month off before school starts!! I start classes January 2nd and my graduation party is December 15th! I'm studying to be a Music Therapist and a high school music teacher, along with training my 8 month old puppy to be a therapy dog.


So I am so excited to start college and another kind of exciting yet scary thing is I am moving next year as well. I never have moved before and I don't like change, so this is a very scary territory for me to be in but I am trusting God to help me through this new phase in my life. There are alot of changes going on within the next year but I am excited about them :)


Well, thats it for this quick post! I just wanted to tell you guys an update on my life and share these exciting new things with you. I hope you all have a great night and I hope you enjoyed this! I'll be blogging again soon! :)

Room Renovation is FINALLY complete!

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a great Monday afternoon! I'm sorry its taken me so long to make a "finished room renovation" post, I've been super busy trying to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas and just everyday life has gotten in the way. But, my room renovation is FINALLY finished!!! I'm so incredibly happy with it, my friends from college say that it has a very classy feel which is true :) I painted 2 walls turquoise and the other two walls are a light beige color, I think its kind of looks like the ocean :) anyways, here are some pictures:

So I have a couple quotes on my walls. The first one is down in the picture on the bottom left. It says "Faith Not Fear" and the reason I put it up was 1) I love the quote and it has helped me through all my recent medical stuff. 2) I also put it up in memory of a very close friend who passed away last year and she used to say this quote a lot. And the other one is down in the picture on the bottom right, that one says "If Music be the food of love, play on!" its by Shakespeare and its from his play Twelfth Night. I've just loved this quote so much and I thought it had to go on my wall! :)

Here is one more picture of something that I couldn't fit into the photo collage I made above:

This vanity is on the wall that has my bedroom door on it because it was the only place where I could put it and still have room around it. It is also next to the wall that says "Faith not Fear." To give y'all an idea of how big my room is, its only a 12X12 but I was able to fit a lot of furniture in it :)


I had my sister, my grandparents and my parents help with the painting and decorating. My grandma is a great interior designer, so she helped me place all my decorations and such. My sister was so sweet and she came over and helped with the grueling paint process, which took not as long as I thought :) I mean with me, my sister, my mom, and her best friend we got it all finished in a few hours! :)


So thats my room renovation! I'm so happy with it and plus everything that I put in there can go with me when I move next year with the exception of the paint, obviously :)

I hope y'all enjoyed this and I hope you have a great day! I'll try and update on this blog more often! :) If you haven't checked out my other blog "Beauty Beat" here's the link: www.mariah-cantstopthebeauty.blogspot.com :)

Room renovation!!!

Hey everyone!!! I hope y'all are having a great Saturday morning! I wanted to share with you what I'm doing for my room renovation! So I thought that I since I am a freshman in College, I would update my room to be a more "grown up" room :) I am going to put a vanity in there with a mirror and lights running down the sides of it. And I am going to put all my makeup stuff in rolling 3 drawer bins and store them underneath the vanity. Then I'll put the sterilite bins that I have in my closet with my other makeup and brushes on top of the vanity. I am really excited about this new set up! I bought the paint to re-do my walls in teal and a pea- green color, then I'm going to write some quotes and verses on my 3 walls with the teal color in black paint. And then I'm going to hang some fun things on my walls such as a wood guitar that I made in last year's VBS camp at my church, also some awesome wall decals that I saw at Target not too long ago. Anyways here's pictures of the colors I'm going to paint my walls and picture of my room so you guys can see how big it is. FYI: my room is a 12X12 :)

So comment below and let me know what you think of the new colors! I love the teal, not sure if I like the pea-green color so if you have any ideas of another light shade to pair the teal with, please either tweet me or comment below! :) have a great day everyone!! www.twitter.com/mariahsierra94

Also, in case y'all were wondering I am finally home from being in the hospital for a month!! I've been home for 6 days so far :) thanks for all the prayers, I really appreciate it!! :)

Arts Camp day 5 and showcase...

Hey everyone! Well, Arts Camp 2012 is complete! The last day and the showcase night went very well last night! My music class 1st grade-4th grade kids did a great job with their performance, I am so very proud of them! I didn't get home until about 11:00pm last night because the clean up took the longest to finish. I'm going in today to finish what we didn't get done after the show. I had awesome people helping me during this week, I am so thankful for them I don't know what I would've done without their help!


This week and the 12th year of Arts Camp was awesome! I am bummed its over, but I know there will be next year! :) Well, thats it for this post for today! I have today and tomorrow to rest up before I have to jump back into my regular routine, so I'mgoing to get ready for the day to go back to the church to finish cleaning up from last night. I'll be blogging again soon and I hope y'all have a great day! :)

Arts Camp day 4...

Hey everyone! I hope y'all are having a fantastic Thursday evening! Well Arts Camp day 4 is: complete! Its nearing the end of our VBS camp and its bittersweet. I've absolutely loved teaching this year and I hope to do it again next year! We have one more day left which is tomorrow and although I'll be glad its over so I can get some much needed rest, I am also sad. Its a bummer that I have to wait a whole other year before it comes back around again, but no worries!


Anyways, day 4 went very well. I have to say a huge thank you to my other teachers and my younger teens that are dealing with the kids hands-on, they are all awesome!! :) Its been a great week and I can't wait to do it again next year! I am trying to get rested up for one of the longest days which will be tomorrow because its not only the last day of camp but its also SHOWCASE NIGHT!!! Showcase just means that the kids will present what they learned to their parents and all of us by either putting it on display in the art gallery or actually performing something on the stage for them. Which my kids will be performing what they learned this week as well as the Dance track and Drama track will also be performing what they learned. The Visual Arts track, Creative Craftsmanship track, and Culinary track will be putting what they learned out on display in the art gallery. Performance night is a huge, crazy, chaotic night but its so much fun!!! I'll be at my church from 7:50am to probably somewhere around 11:00pm-possibly 12am. Its a huge deal to clean everything up afterwards, so that takes the longest. But this week is the absolute greatest because this camp is all about sharing the gospel and possibly bringing some kids to a lifetime relationship with Jesus that would've never had if they didn't come to Arts Camp 2012!! I am so humbled and blessed to be working with such amazing staff and crew!!! Lets keep the energy going for one more day people! As my camp co-producer always says every year "Its one week people, one week!!!!" :)


Well, thats it for now!! I'll try and blog tomorrow to tell you all how the performance night went and also how the last day of camp goes! Have a great night everyone! :D

Arts Camp day 3...

Hey everyone! Well, I just got home from another AMAZING day at Arts Camp! (if you're just reading my blog posts Arts Camp is a VBS camp that the staff of my church puts on every year) Anyways, today was awesome!! This camp is the most amazing week of my life!! I am so amazed at all the kids today, when my camp producer prayed with them today to ask them if they would.  like to accept Jesus into their lives every child's head was bowed. It was just a really humbling moment because some of these kids don't come from great families or backgrounds and this camp is like the highlight of their day. They love it, so I am just so proud to be working and teaching this year!!! Day 3 of Arts Camp is complete!! Trying to get rested up to do the last 2 days and then do a quick turn around this weekend, and finally I have to jump right back into my normal routine of starting school because I took this week off. I am finishing up my high school classes, I have 20 days left!! So its been a long week of getting up at 5:30am and not going to bed until around 9:00pm, but its all good!!! Hopefully this quick 2 day weekend turn around will let me get sleep to be able to jump back into life full force :)


On another note, starting in September I am returning to my former voice coach!!! I had her as my coach when I was 11 and I had her all the way up until I was 14 then I had to unfortunately quit. But 7 years later, I am returning to her!!! She is the most amazing teacher and more importantly a very dear friend of mine. She will be teaching me piano and voice again :) So I am very excited for that!!!

Well, thats it for now! I'll be posting again tomorrow!! Have a great day everyone!!! :)