Happy December!

I can't believe it's December already! This year has really been progressing incredibly quickly... and the holidays always seem to speed up the process too. I've been so busy working overtime these last few weeks that I barely even got a glimpse of November. December is one of my favorite months though; I get so giddy about the holidays! I could do without the bombardment of Christmas music e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e, but I love the decorations and I really do believe most people are in better spirits this time of year too.

But back to November for just a moment. We celebrated Thanksgiving at Shawn's grandparents' house this year. Even though we've known each other for eight years and counting, it was my first time ever meeting any of his family, other than his mother and brother. Actually, he's never met any of my extended family either! (But I have an excuse... none of them live in this country.) Shawn's family was nice though, and his grandmother cooked up quite the feast. I went back for seconds of everything, but the stuffing was particularly delicious. And I must have impressed her too because apparently she's very picky when it comes to food, yet she had four (yes, FOUR!) pieces of the cornbread that I made for the occasion. Remind me to post the recipe for my amazing grandmother-approved cornbread one of these days!

I have no photos from Thanksgiving, but here's a taste of the last two weeks of November...



1. One of our staples: sausage, peppers, and onion.
2. I can't find Sour Punch Straws around here so my friend brought some back from Ohio for me.
3. Another staple: chicken, broccoli, and mashed potatoes.
4. Roasted zucchini, tomato, onion, and cheddar quiche!
5. Breakfast wraps... both of those were for me the monster in my belly.
6. Snow! Not our first one of the season, but snow nonetheless.



The most exciting thing to happen recently though is we got our very first Christmas tree!




Look at the size of that thing! I'm 5'6", if that gives you any perspective.





We don't have many ornaments though, so just some lights will have to do for now. My mother left some of her older ornaments behind, so we do have a few on there, but not nearly enough for the size of it. I guess we're going to have to buy some of our own this year!

I'm so excited for Christmas! I really love giving gifts. Even more than I like getting them :)



P.S. You can tell how excited I am because I use so! many! exclamation! points! in! this! post!

What we've been up to

Hello! Well, stranger, it sure has been a while...

Lets see - last I left off here we were looking at a bright and brand new October. Well, now that has come and gone and we find ourselves in the midst of blustery November; the day before Thanksgiving, none the less! (Side note: the letter U is located right next to the letter I on the keyboard and I originally typed 'blistery', which isn't a word but it would give a whole new perspective to what I was originally trying to say... so, to clarify, November was not painful and swollen, but has been rather windy and, well, blustery. Man, this was a long side note.)

So, if you don't mind, let me take you back a few weeks.





In October we celebrated two birthdays, my mother's and my own! The tart is what I made for my mom's birthday (It's pear frangipane, if you were wondering). She and my dad came to visit for a week between our birthdays, so we had a joint celebration. I turned 25 this year! A quarter of a century- that's a pretty big milestone, don't you think? When I consider that it has been 7 years since I graduated high school and I've been working with/along-side coffee for over 9 years... it makes me feel a little old. Old, but seasoned. I can't wait to turn 30; people will take me more seriously then! At least, I like to think so.

Oh, the sushi dinner is what I had for my birthday. I share October 22nd with my friend Elyse and I think this was the first year we've been able to celebrate together! She invited a few of her friends to an all-you-can-eat sushi place and we ate-all-that-we-could. Apparently, I can't eat as much as I think I can.








The weekend after my birthday, Shawn and I drove up Villa Roma Resort in the Catskills region of New York. My parents were kind enough to let us use their timeshare points this year so we opted to take a mini-vacation not too far from home. The drive up was creepy - we left at around 6pm Sunday night and with Hurricane Sandy on the way it was super windy that night. Add on the fact that the majority of the dark roads contained spaced-out farm houses with seemingly no one at home, and you've got Walking Dead creepy status right there, minus the zombies of course.

We were easily the youngest people at the resort, except for a few of the staff. But the apartment was great and there was a small bowling alley on site! I expected to do some hiking but the weather ended up being bitterly cold and lightly drizzling the entire time we were there. Instead we stayed indoors watched Food Network and ventured out to the bar in the main area for some drinks on a few occasions. The bartender we met on the second day liked us. If I recall correctly, after a half hour of chatting with us she concluded, "You guys are weird. But in a good way.". She made me a damn good Tom Collins cocktail.

Thankfully, Hurricane Sandy spared us any serious damage at the house. When we drove back that Thursday afternoon we found close to a dozen uprooted trees in our front yard, and one fallen one in the back yard that narrowly missed both the house and the pool. We were left without power for 10 days, but luckily Shawn's mom got power back before us and we were able to stay with her for a few days. It was like an extended vacation, except it was dark and cold for part of it.




With Thanksgiving on the way, we've been exceedingly busy at work. I am now in charge of all things tart related, so I've spent the last 5 days in Tart Land. I think I made close to 400 tart shells of different sizes and all the fillings for them too. Please, if you see me over the next few weeks, don't ask me if I'd like to try any tarts... I'll be doing it all again for Christmas! After the holidays, maybe we can talk.

So that's been it! If you made it all the way down here then high-five! I've been particularly wordy lately, don't mind me.

We're Almost On The Move...

Saturday is the big day! Moving day, to be specific. Some friends are swinging by to help us move the bigger items like the couch, bed, and our desks... things that won't fit in my tiny hatchback. Aside from that, most other things are already at the house. Our now-minimalistic apartment is actually kind of sad... the walls are bare, the fridge is almost empty, and there's nothing left in any of the many closets. We've spent two years here and all we really have to show for it are a couple of pictures and some memories. This move is bittersweet - I'm sad to leave the job and people that I've gotten to know for the last two years, but I'm really excited to see what happens next, and to be back amongst old friends.

We made two trips this past weekend; our usual Friday night-Saturday trip, and another ride out Monday-Tuesday to celebrate my brother's birthday. I made him a key lime cheesecake on Monday night, along with some candied lime zest (...which would have turned out slightly more attractive had I not forgotten to pick up some superfine sugar and ended up having to use granulated cane sugar instead) I don't make cheesecake very often because it's usually too rich for my tastes, but I was happy to oblige at my brother's request.



The pre-cheesecake scene... siblings and cats; I love looking at the living room from this arial view:



Speaking of the cats, I've shown you plenty of photos of them already but never introduced them on the blog...


They are Mushu and Bamboo; they both enjoy lounging in the sun and being pet often, and Mushu also likes to get in your way when you're trying to get any sort of work done. They're my parents' cats but I think they may be staying with us once the rest of the family moves to Switzerland... they were confined to the top floor of the house when the dogs were around, and they've really been enjoying having full reign again since the dogs were moved. Either way, we're happy to have them around.

Bamboo gets grumpy when Shawn picks him up though... why so grumpy, kitty?



Here's a strange sight from Tuesday afternoon:


I heard the sound of something hitting one of the windows by the deck, and found these two birds lying there. Upon closer inspection, it looks like they may have been mating and didn't realize that they came upon a window. Poor things...


But, to end this post on a bit of a happier note - I made brown sugar from scratch the other day! I've been out of brown sugar for a while now but haven't bought more since we're trying to work our way through everything in the apartment. It's surprisingly easy to make your own - for every one cup of white sugar add 1 tablespoon of molasses and whisk it until all of the molasses is incorporated (that took about 5-6 minutes with my kitchen aid). What a difference it makes! The sugar itself was so incredibly fluffy, and the cookies I made with it were by far the chewiest cookies I've ever made. I might just start making my own brown sugar from now on - why spend the money on it when I always have the ingredients on hand to make it?



Next time I post, it will be from my desk in New Jersey!

Scenes From A NJ Road Trip

Last week we took a trip out to New Jersey to visit our families. Despite some bad news that put a slight damper on the day, we had a delicious lunch with my parents and siblings and then visited Shawn's mom at her equally delicious workplace. Our families treat us so well when we visit... sesame chicken salad for lunch, a homemade pear & chocolate tart for dessert, and a bag of locally roasted coffee? How come we don't visit more often?!

I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this blog is either family or friend and already knows this, but just in case I'm wrong, here's a small tidbit of information that I haven't mentioned before... over the next few months my family is gradually moving to Switzerland for a few years (and leaving Shawn and I behind, those bastards!). They're taking the dogs and the cats with them too, and since the dogs are scheduled to fly out next week, this was our last chance to see them for a while. Not that I don't love seeing my family too, but I know they'll be able to travel back to visit more often than the dogs will.

Shawn and the dogs have a special relationship - he used to housesit them when my family would go on vacation - in fact, I think they're usually happier to see him than they are to see me!



Check out that bear face. (It's no wonder we call him a big bear...) Kusko was growling right before these were taken, but don't mistake that for unhappiness - his smile will tell you otherwise. Malamutes make such interesting noises!




Shawn loves Luna, Luna loves Shawn.




I caught a Luna smile on camera! It's nearly impossible!

.....

And, on a completely different note, here's another photo from that day...



Shawn wears a beanie pretty much all the time, so whenever he takes it off his hair tends to be a crazy mess of Kramer hair. After arriving home from our road trip though it looked more like Ace Ventura hair, so he had me snap a photo.


Between the three of them, this turned out to be a very hairy post indeed.

A Very Merry Jolly Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! We drove to my parents' house late Saturday night and had a delicious breakfast and lunch with my family before heading over to Shawn's mom's place for even more food and family time. The only thing that would have made the weekend better would have been a little bit of snow!

I only took a few pictures; family time takes precedence over immense documentation! Here's a taste of our weekend:



So many presents under the pretty tree! I think we all spoiled each other this year.




It's always a good day when you're greeted by this big fuzzball. I just want to fluff him up and curl up in a ball next to him.




Speaking of Kusko, look at him stealthily checking out the ham action going on. It's not the best photo of the ham, but I totally caught those hungry eyes without even meaning to.




Breakfast was croissants and jam, with freshly squeezed orange juice. Lunch was champagne and wine with a plate full of baked ham, mashed potatoes, spinach and sweet potato salad, and green beans. Dessert consisted of a pear and chocolate tart, key lime pie, and a buttermilk pear pie. We definitely did not go home hungry (especially since Shawn's mom made a whole Thanksgiving dinner too!)




I also wasn't kidding about the gifts; this year's bounty put smiles on our faces. A good mix of things we needed (gloves, wooden spoons, a quality chefs knife), things we wanted (all sorts of books, a video game, old navy gift cards, dinosaur related things), and things we never expected (a roku player, a quality chefs knife, and a mini cast-iron brownie pan) - yay!




My new iPhone cover didn't make it into the group picture. It's too cute not to share though!




We also did a gift exchange at work this year. My co-workers must know me well because I got some cashmere pocket hand warmers (perfect for our walks!), a book by one of my favorite authors, a recipe book for cat treats, a recipe box full of recipe cards, and this gnome statue (it even has a squirrel!!). Unfortunately it arrived with one broken bench leg, so we need to glue it back together before he can hang out with the other gnomies.




I'll leave you with a gratuitous 'stache shot. Shawn says I look like Frank Zappa, ha!

October Comes to an End

I apologize for my absence from the blog lately... I've just been feeling more crafty than chatty these days. I've been keeping myself busy with various little crafts here and there. I always forget how satisfying it is to create things!


Cupcake craftery.
My mother bought this awesome cupcake wrapping paper just for me! I have two big squares of it from the last gifts I received, and I really wanted to find some way to re-use it. I have a few ideas for these cute little cupcakes, but so far I've only done one thing with them: turned them into magnets! I bought some card stock, glued the cupcakes on, cut around them, and stuck a small magnet on the back - easy fridge bling!


Can you find the cupcakes?



A-ha! There they are, those sneaky cupcakes!



How about food crafts? Does making chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies count as a craft? I believe it does. A girl's gotta eat while she crafts, don't you agree?



Headbands are cool, right? Either way, I've been making a bunch of them lately out of t-shirt scraps. What I'm most proud of on this one is the stitch work; I've been having fun trying out different hand-stitches on each headband.



I also made a skirt out of a hand-me-down dress, just in time to wear for my birthday!
A friend gave me this pretty dress over the summer; I loved the colors and the pattern but I was not a fan of the top half... the spaghetti straps and the cross-front style just weren't doing it for me, and I knew I would never wear it as a dress. So I turned it into a skirt!


It was a really simple re-fashion; I just cut the skirt part off and folded the cut end of the fabric down and sewed a straight line, making sure to leave enough room for my elastic. Then I just messed with the bunching a bit to make sure all the fabric was easily distributed, and voila! A much more wearable item for me.


Here are some other awesome/noteworthy things:


A pumpkin themed dinner with old (& new!) friends.
These two ladies and I had been trying to plan a dinner gathering for at least two months before it finally happened this past weekend. All the boyfriends were in attendance too, except for Shawn, who was unfortunately stuck at work during the festivities :(

The menu consisted of butternut squash, bacon & onion soup, with a side of parsley chicken, beef bacon, honey butter cornbread, and spiced pumpkin cupcakes for dessert. It was delicious, to say the least, and time spent with good friends made it all the better. Also, I have to admit it's really pretty fun playing hostess!



Death By Chocolate Cupcakes
I know I said I wasn't going to make myself a cake for my birthday (after making Shawn's and my mom's recently) but I just couldn't resist these cupcakes. Is there anything better than chocolate? How about more chocolate? Chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache, chocolate buttercream, and more chocolate ganache... too much chocolate? Blasphemy! They only kill you if you don't eat them.



I think that's enough for now. Crafts, friends, family, food, (snow!)... October was a busy month. I felt so much love this October, and I'd like to thank everyone who made me smile - I love all of you!

Spooky Sweet Halloween

I didn't go trick or treating this year, or even dress up, but this Halloween I got to spend a few hours with my brother and sister! The three of us caught up for a bit, and then my sister and I made some cupcakes in the spirit of the holiday.

My sister was in the mood for pumpkin, so we went with spiced pumpkin cupcakes and got a little crazy with the designs. We picked up some candy corn, black food coloring, and white red and green food gels, and we used some dark chocolate covered raisins too.


Check it out: spider webs, a pumpkin patch, floating heads, and a pumpkin massacre! (My sister is far more creative with her cupcake design than I am...)




We thought the icing looked really cool as we were adding the food coloring!




Monster cupcakes!

We actually had to make two batches of cupcakes... the first batch were under-baked by a good fifteen minutes, but I didn't realize it until we'd already let them cool (my mistake - I thought the cakes were just incredibly moist and delicate... dehhhh). So we made a second batch and baked them twice as long (I wonder if the person who wrote the recipe we used has a convection oven, perhaps...) - the second batch was baked all the way through and puffed up nicely. We used the first batch for practice decoration!

On Family, Sisters, and Growing Up

We don't talk about family much on the blog - Shawn comes from a relatively small family and most of my extended family still resides over seas in France, so neither one of us has much family to speak of. Both of our immediate families live just one state over and we make a point to visit on a fairly regular basis, but otherwise, it's just the two of us. So I'm going to dedicate this post to my lovely younger sister who left home on Friday for her first year of college!


sisters being crazy, circa 2005

I am the oldest of three children - five years older than my sister, six years older than my brother. Growing up, I definitely felt the differences in age; the two of them were always very close, but I was always slightly too old to relate to them. They grew up and into their personalities while I was away at college, so I feel like I missed out on that transition from child to mini-adult, the crucial time to be an older sister. When I moved back home after college, they were no longer the childish minds from four years prior - they were developing their own philosophies on life and I could actually talk to them as peers - something I'd waited years for! And now, my little sister is starting a new journey on her own, and I'm sitting in the sidelines again, waiting for the moment to be a big sister if she needs me to be.


for reference, a more recent picture of my sister

She was kind enough to come visit last week so that we could hang out one more time before she left on Friday. We had planned on driving into center city and going thrifting, and then bringing home our finds and altering them on my sewing machine - I had looked into it and written down a few thrift stores to check out, and that's exactly what we set out to do. We parked near the first store (Circle of Hope Thrift), only to find an empty shell of a building where it was supposed to be. So we got back in the car and drove up towards the next store (Philly Vintage), parked in (what we later realized was a really pricey) lot, and walked over to the store's location... only to find yet another empty building! Slightly disheartened and running short on time by this point, we decided to abandon our plans and just walk around the city to kill some time and hopefully stumble upon something interesting. And stumble we did!


Second Time Around thrift store; picture borrowed from yelp.com

With fifteen minutes left before needing to be back at the parking lot, we finally found a thrift store. Second Time Around, to be exact (the irony is just too much). We just browsed, since we had to keep it quick, but this is definitely a find! The selection is beyond amazing and the prices are decent (I hate consignment shops that take themselves too seriously and charge nothing less than $30 for crappy old clothes...) If we had no time limit, we definitely would have been there a while and gone home with a few pieces. There's always next time!


yummy gelato from Capogiro!

Another great find - Capogiro Gelato. One of my co-workers used to work there and always praises them, so when we happened to stumble upon it, there was no way I could just walk past without stopping in for a taste! And taste we did! Like any good gelato place, they let you sample as many flavors as you want, and they let you pick two different flavors for the small cups - I settled on Nutella and Banana Rhum, and my sister got Dark Chocolate and Lime Sorbetto. Both were delicious, and gelato was definitely a good choice over the coffeeshop we were originally going to seek out.

Even though the day did not go as planned (when do plans ever go right?), it was still a whole lot of fun and I got to spend it all with my sister. I appreciate times spent with my siblings more now than I ever did - funny how that works. And now we have a few ideas on where to go next time she visits!

Do you have any siblings? How close are you in age, and do you feel age makes a difference in your relationship with them? Tell us a story about growing up in your family! Or a story about a day that didn't go as planned.