Adventures in the Anderl House...

Romans 8:31

2012-02-07T18:48:00.000-05:00

My religion teaches me to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with my God. I am to serve the Lord, show respect for other religions, and share the Word. I accept people for who they are - although I might make fun of your hair :). It's ok, you can make fun of mine too. I use my judgment, aided by my faith, to determine the correct course in life and sometimes I make mistakes.

I have never read the Bible from beginning to end. I rely on certain scriptures during hard times, but don't rely on them enough during good times. I'm working on that.

It hurts me to see Christians pluck one verse from the Bible and use it to justify discrimination and hate against a specific group of people. We have learned to overlook the verses surrounding Leviticus 20:13, like the one that compels us not to share communion with those who have skin conditions (sufferers of eczema, like me, appreciate that one) and the other one about wearing clothing made from more than one kind of cloth (like the poly/cotton blend cardy I have on right now).

Why the obsession with this specific verse? If we should use the Bible as a black and white rulebook, shouldn't we abide by every verse? If we did, we would all have unshaven faces and hair to our knees, all people with psychic abilities would be put to death, and anyone who surfed the crimson wave would be shunned.

Am I a bad Christian because I don't condemn people to Hell if I don't agree with their sexual orientation? Am I a bad Christian because I am not willing to stone people who worship a different God?
Am I a bad Christian because I have defiled my body with a tattoo?

If those things make me wrong, I don't want to be a good Christian.

One in a Million

2012-01-26T19:04:00.000-05:00

This weekend we celebrated my nephew's first birthday! Eric and Amey hosted a party at their house, and we enjoyed some lunch and all crowded around Reed to watch him inhale a piece of birthday cake!

When I loaded these pictures, they reminded me of a flip book - you know those photo books that you flip through real fast and it looks like a video?

He looks all cute and innocent, right?

The cake has arrived! This boy is so smart - he's trained to know that when he sees the light on the camera, he needs to cheese smile. Amey, her brother, her mom, and I were lined up taking photos, and he would smile at one camera, wait for the flash, then smile at the next camera, and so on. He's ready for the red carpet!

He timidly touched his cake with one hand, just to test us and see if anyone would yell "Reed, no!"

When no one stopped him, he started to dig a little deeper:

Mmmmm, good!

Two-fisted cake slamming!

He demolished this slice of cake...

The aftermath:

His buddy, Dixie, took care of any last bits of icing and strawberry filling he missed:

Once he was all cleaned up he showed us his mad walking skills, aided by his Radio Flyer:

Happy Birthday Reed!

Recipes Contained!

2012-01-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

This is what my recipe collection used to look like!

photo credit

I had a little recipe book with 3x5 cards, but never got around to writing down many recipes on them. In addition to that book, I had a metal recipe box with random scraps of paper and tear sheets from magazines, notebooks full of bigger tear sheets and loose notebook paper with my chicken scratch on them. It was chaos!

For Christmas a few years ago, I put this recipe notebook on my Santa list and Dave's dad got it for me. He didn't understand why my current system wouldn't meet my needs anymore, but he bought it anyways. That's love :)

It's spiral-bound and has divided sections for appetizers, main dishes, breads, desserts, etc. so everything can be organized and in one place! Lovesit! ;)

Each page has room to document ingredients, instructions, serving size, and other details:

Fast forward like two years, it was still sitting on the shelf empty. One day I was complaining to Bonnie about how this is one of those projects that seems so big and overwhelming that you don't even want to start it. So she offered to take it on (how awesome is that?!?) and transfer all my recipes from my multiple sources and forms into the book! Score!

For my birthday this year, she presented it to me wrapped in a fun bow - I was so excited! She included all the recipes I gave her and added some of her and her grandma's specialties :)

I think it's so awesome that she spent so much time creating this for me! I probably would have taken at least a couple more years to start the project, because I know I wouldn't have been able to do 2 or 3 recipes in a day, take a break, and do a few more the next day. I would have wanted to sit down and do the whole thing, and that time commitment would have scared me away! Welcome to my world...

Now all I have to do is add some recipes that exist only in my head, and some new ones that Dave and I have cooked up recently.

Thank you Bonnie!

Welcome to the world, Agnes!

2012-01-24T15:30:00.000-05:00

Before Agnes was born, Sharon had multiple baby showers - at work, Joe's work, at home in Jersey, old friends - so we decided to throw both her and Agnes a party after the birth. That way all the guests can enjoy the baby during the party, and Sharon could have a nice day out with the girls! :)

Bonnie offered up her house for the party, so we took over the dining room for a brunch. We hung streamers and paper lanterns, in pink and brown, and hung a paper banner I made.

bad lighting = user error

We had a good spread of food - Ukrop's chicken salad, which may have made its last appearance at one of our parties because it's now $10 a tub!, creme puffs, fresh fruit and cool whip, croissants, quiche, deviled eggs, and of course monogrammed cupcakes!

We served our favorite punch - orange sherbet, ginger ale, and orange slices - so good!

We also made a candy bar, using miniature cocktail glasses and trifle dishes:

We decided against traditional baby shower games because, well, they're lame. Instead we bought some onesies for everyone to decorate! This is actually easier to plan than other games, with little preparation other than pre-washing the onesies, picking up some fabric paint, and finding cardboard pieces for inside them so the paint doesn't seep to the backside.

You would think that I, having had months to think about it since I knew we planned this activity, would have known how I would decorate mine. But, no. I froze. After some whining, I decided to use her name :)

The other girls did a great job with theirs:

Lastly, Sharon opened her gifts - she and Joe had already bought all the stuff on their registry that hadn't been gifted to them before Agnes was born, so most of this was bonus stuff :)

Of course we forgot a group picture. When will we get better about that?

70 Years Young!

2012-01-23T14:40:00.000-05:00

Dave's mom recently celebrated her 70th birthday! To celebrate the milestone, we planned a dinner at Lemaire in the Jefferson Hotel.

Dave's brother and his wife flew in from Dallas to help us celebrate - and I'm pretty sure we pulled off that part of the surprise! But while we were at dinner, Ann admitted that she knew something was going on when Dave and Marv had a super secret conversation over at their house one day. Every time Ann would go over to them to join the conversation, they'd stop talking and find an excuse to move the conversation elsewhere. Then she'd find them again, lather, rinse, repeat. Also, Christmas Day I went outside to talk about gifts and plans with Marv while he was grilling some steaks, and we just happened to be standing right under the kitchen window, where Ann was washing veggies - she thought it was odd that we were out there so long :) OOPS!

Even though we were there after Epiphany, The Jefferson was still decorated for the holidays and it was so pretty! They had a huge tree at the bottom of the Gone with the Wind steps, so we couldn't resist posing for some photos after dinner.

After dinner we went back to the parents' house so Ann could open her gifts - we got her something she really wanted, and something she's been hoping for...a digital camera (pink!) and a basic laptop for email and internet that she can call her own!

I think Ann was a bit overwhelmed by the surprises, attention, and gifts, but it was a great night! We'll be doing it again in July when Marv turns 75!

Winter Inspiration: DIY Snow Globe!

2012-01-20T20:22:00.000-05:00

Taylor Swift made a snow globe. From a Mason jar. How cool is that?

I wanted to make my own, so I googled how to do it. Apparently Taylor isn't the first girl to think of this, and she said she got the idea from Pinterest - I knew I liked her!

I went to 3 places (CVS, Hobby Lobby, and Ben Franklin) to get everything I needed to make the snow globe, although Hobby Lobby let me down:

gallon jug of distilled water
glycerin (by face washes at CVS)
glitter
bottle brush trees (59 cents on Christmas clearance!)
super glue

Just like my golden snitch, my iPhone ate the photos of the snow globe assembly :(, but it's pretty easy :)

I super glued the bottle brush trees (wood bases) to the lid of the jar. After a few hours, when the glue was dry, I filled the jar with water, a few drops of glycerin (slows down the glitter flow when you shake the globe), and glitter. Make sure to leave room for water displacement at the top of the jar!

I super glued around the rim of the jar, so when I put the lid on and let it dry, it would be completely sealed and no water would leak out during the shaking. Here it is:

Notice it's not a Mason jar? I couldn't find one with a big enough mouth (that's what she said) so I used an empty jar that was collecting dust in my craft room.

Shakeitupshakeitup!

Now if we can only get some actual snow!

Little Drummer Boy

2012-01-19T20:17:00.000-05:00

Alternate Title: Christmas number five!

On New Year's Eve, Dave and I visited my brother's family in Northern Virginia! I wanted to deliver some Christmas presents we picked up for my nephew, and I hadn't seen them since early summer - too long since they're only 2 hours away :)

Reed is one year and two days old and *this* close to walking, so we had fun watching him walk circles around their house, guided by his new Radio Flyer Walker Wagon. This thing is great - a wagon with a handle to push or pull and big grippy wheels to offer some resistance so Reed doesn't go flying across the hardwood floors! I'm not sure who got it for him, but he loves it!

After taking some laps around the house, we took it down a notch and played with his instruments - he has a little drum that came with a tambourine and egg-shaped maracas, so we tried to form a band...

...unfortunately Reed was more interested in eating the drumsticks than beating them on the drum. It's so hard to find good talent these days! :)

Don't mind the cleavage. BTW, this is my before picture :)

Amey and Eric gave us a framed picture of Reed - how cute is he in his little prepster outfit?

Adorable!

Winter Inspiration: Golden Snitch Ornament

2012-01-18T16:26:00.000-05:00

Dave is obsessed with Harry Potter. He has read all the books, seen all the movies, and has an entire Pinterest board dedicated to all things non-muggle.

He's trying to get me on board with his obsession. I've watched most of the movies, but I can't say I've paid attention or absorbed much information. My friends Maureen and Carrie were disappointed in my HP knowledge and challenged me during my NYC trip in the spring to read the first book before the fall semester - they knew I'd love the books, which would spark my interest in the rest of the Hogwarts world.

They were right. I started the book on a trip to the beach and finished it the next week when I was under the weather. It is so good! I get why the series is so popular - sure, it's for kids/young adults, but the story is so elaborate it sucks you in! So now I'm dedicated to finishing the books, then re-watching the movies.

All that to say, I made Dave a golden snitch ornament inspired by one I saw on Pinterest:

photo credit

I pulled a small gold bauble from our ornament box, and got all my other supplies at Hobby Lobby:

gold glittery cardstock
gold glittery puffy paint
rubber cement

I wish I had pictures to show how I did the wings, but my iPhone ate them. Boo. I cut two strips of the glittery card stock and glued the backs together with rubber cement to create a 2-sided glitterfest. Then I freestyle cut out each wing, using this photo as a guide.

Once my wings were ready, I used super glue to attach them to the bauble. I used super glue because it dries super fast (see what I did there?) so I wouldn't have to hold these things together for an hour while the glue dried.

Once the wings were attached to the ornament, I used the puffy paint to cover the raw edges of the paper. You could see the back sides of the paper in between the glittery sides, and the white was distracting. I also used puffy paint to create the design on the ornament. Since I'm no snitch expert, I wanted to make sure not to commit some Harry Potter faux pas while creating this!

Dave said no two snitches are alike and that I was free to design it any way I wanted. Is that true? No two snitches are alike? I didn't know that, though unless it was in the first book, I have an excuse! :)

Here's my finished snitch ornament:

We'll have to wait until next year to display it on the tree, but I think it's festive and fun!

North Pole Cupcakes

2012-01-17T00:43:00.000-05:00

I wanted to bring Christmas-themed cupcakes to our Christmas dinner at Sharon and Joe's, so I (naturally) trolled Pinterest for ideas! I found these North Pole cupcakes and knew they were the ones!

I used my basic vanilla cupcake recipe and buttercream icing, and sprinkled white cake sparkles on top to make the frosting look like glistening snow. I broke the curved part of the candy canes off and stuck them in the frosted cupcakes, adding a red M&M on top with some extra icing. The final touch is the North Pole sign, also attached with some icing, and you're done!

These are so cute and festive!

Spot the fail cupcake?

Check out NOLA Mommy's blog for the free North Pole sign printable!

Glamour Shotz!

2012-01-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

While we were at the Colleluores' on our Four Christmases tour, we had a photo shoot with their baby girl, Agnes Ann!

Bonnie and I started a board on Pinterest before Agnes was born to brainstorm ideas we had for a potential baby shower, gifts, and photo ideas we loved. We assumed Sharon would be okay with us stealing the baby to take some photos - and we were right!

Here are the photos we wanted to copy:

We gathered all the props we needed for the planned photos before we got there, and brainstormed outfits we could use. We didn't want to stress Sharon out with asking her for a ton of stuff when she was already hosting us for dinner, so we thought we should be prepared. :)

Here are our versions (courtesy of Dave Anderl Photography):

She always gets 1 arm out of the swaddle - she's a baby ninja!

She couldn't be bothered with the candy cane :)

We staged some additional shots after seeing her amazing wardrobe! This girl doesn't need any clothes until she's like 4 - entire chest of drawers full of frilly dresses, sparkly tops, and accessories galore! :)

Jersey girl praying already - starting early :)

This is her Winter Princess look :)

So fun! After the Winter Princess outfit we tried one last shot, but she was not having it! She was fed up with us and became a total DIVA! :) She just wanted her binky and to be left alone for a while, and I can't say I blame her...

Four Christmases

2012-01-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

Christmas week was a busy one! We thought we were smart taking the full week off so there was time to recover from each large meal before the next. But we ended up needing the time off to recover from something else entirely - a stomach bug! Blech!

Let's start with Christmas Eve - Dave and I had a quiet day at home, watching movies with the Christmas trees lit. We both went way overboard on gifts for each other - making Steve Jobs' estate even larger :) - and we played with our new gadgets while watching "A Christmas Story" 437 times before bed (checking that off my Winter Inspiration list!). We'll regret the purchases as soon as we get our credit card statements this month...

Christmas Day we went to Dave's parents' house to exchange gifts and hang out. It was another low-key day. We started with blueberry danishes and fruit for breakfast, and then went to the den to exchange gifts. We have a standing $25 rule for each person to lighten the burden of shopping, and we exchange lists so there's no fake reactions when you open vacuum cleaner bags - OH THANKS, I REALLY WANTED SPEED2 ON VHS! :( We all get little things we've been hoping for, rather than a money-wasting free-for-all - it works for us :)

After presents we sat around watching "A Christmas Story" (again), waiting to get hungry for dinner! While Ann, Dave's mom, was preparing some steaks and veggies (nobody wants Ann in the kitchen all day working on a ham or turkey), I went outside with Dave's dad to scheme plans for Ann's upcoming birthday. I thought I was being sneaky, but I found out later she knew exactly what we were up to! Darnit!

After dinner, Dave and I headed home so I could whip up some North Pole cupcakes for Christmas number three at the Colleluores' house Monday! Our group of friends tries to get together for holidays if we're all free, so this year it worked out that 3/4's of us were in town. We went non-traditional (see a theme here?) and had pork loin, mashed potatoes, and homemade applesauce (I didn't screw it up!). While we were there we set up a photo shoot with their new baby, Agnes Ann! She's so cute! Stay tuned for those photos :)

Christmas number four was Tuesday, when we met my high school peeps (Mo, Phil, and Carrie) at Blue Goat for lunch! We had too much fun, stayed chatting after they closed their lunch shift and kicked us out, and then carried the party up the block to Starbucks.

How is it possible I have no photos of any of these 4 Christmases? LOSER.

It was a good long weekend, full of family, friends, and food, but here's where the stomach bug kicked in. As soon as we got home from our lunch date, Dave felt exhausted and went to bed. I went to bed at the normal time and we were both sick for the next 2 days! I think I pretty much slept through Wednesday and part of Thursday, and then we were pretty lazy until Friday evening. Then we were pretty much back to our normal selves.

Winter Inspiration: Visit the James Center

2012-01-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

First item checked off my Winter Inspiration board is visiting the James Center!

We didn't make it until the 23rd, but that's still before Christmas! :) I wasn't going to miss going to see this spectacular display - it's so festive and fun! We got there at twilight to visit the Very Richmond gallery before it closed. We rushed by some of the lights to make sure we got inside by 6pm, when the store was closing, and I tried to use my blinders so I wouldn't ruin the experience since it wasn't dark. I know that's weird. :)

After browsing the gallery and not finding exactly what I was looking for (which I got for Christmas anyways, yay!), we wandered around the Omni lobby, which is decorated with fishing penguins, nutcrackers, and gingerbread houses! So fun!

Now it's dark - back outside! All the bank buildings surrounding the courtyard decorate their buildings for the season, and every tree is filled with tons of lights! They create a canopy of Christmas - I love it! There are hundreds of pre-lit deer statues and lanterns hanging from some trees' branches...

The clock tower is one of my favorite parts - bells chime on the hour. There was also a saxophonist playing Christmas carols :)

Sorry for the no-makeup, messy-hair, gray sweatshirt twins...well, Dave shouldn't be wearing makeup, but you get it. It was vacation. Who wears makeup and combs their hair on vacation? Not this girl!

The random stranger Dave chose to take this photo was a perfectionist! She must have taken 5 or 6 shots because she wasn't happy with the people:tree ratio or she cut off a deer's rear-end. It was funny. Maybe you had to be there :)

On the way home, with our tummies grumbling for the chili that was cooking in the crock pot at home, we stopped by the Capitol to check out the tree on the portico. The tree lighting was delayed because Spielberg and his peeps were filming a movie, Lincoln, on the Capitol steps in the weeks leading up to Christmas and they had built a new facade to make the building historically accurate for the 1860's. They got out of Dodge a couple weeks before Christmas, so the lighting ceremony still happened, just a little behind schedule. Phew, did that send all of Richmond into a tizzy!

Fun Friday in the RVA :)

Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes

2012-01-11T18:45:00.000-05:00

Dave found Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes on Pinterest and I decided to make them for a ~~Holiday~~ Christmas potluck at work.

I used my basic vanilla cupcake recipe, adding about 3/4 cup of chopped cereal into the batter for a little crunch. The first time we made these, I used the rolling pin/ziploc bag method and the chunks of cereal were too big, which make them kinda of chewy after baking. The second time, I had my new food processor, and that did a much better job of pulverizing the cereal to the right size.

I used cream cheese buttercream (cut this recipe in half) and added a little extra pulverized cereal on top as a garnish, along with 1 whole piece of cereal. So cute!

I didn't bring any of these home!

Honey Pecan Butter, Y'all!

2012-01-10T19:09:00.000-05:00

Dave got me the most awesome birthday gift!

We went back and forth about what we wanted for our birthdays. We thought about buying something big for the house (like a new bed) and calling it our birthday gift to each other, we thought about not exchanging gifts in the interest of saving money, we talked about yaddayadda...we landed on walking into Sur La Table and picking out something nice for ourselves. Everybody wins :)

He picked out some grilling accessories that he wanted but would never buy for himself. I picked out a purple, Cuisinart mini food processor! I've always wanted a food processor, but they're friggin' expensive! Plus, with only the two of us we really don't need a full-size one. I don't like pesto enough to eat it for 3 days! So this 3-cup vs. 14-cup version is perfect. And it's preetttttty!

To christen my food processor, I went all Paula Deen and made some honey pecan butter, y'all!

I went crazy and used my brain instead of the internet to create my butter. I used a stick of unsalted butter, a few tablespoons of honey, a dash of nutmeg (maybe a teaspoon?), and a handful of pecans...that's it! Then it's as easy as throwing it all in and pressing chop! I don't know why I let silly things intimidate me. If I knew how easy this was, I would have bought one of these things a long time ago!

I let it blend until the nuts were sufficiently chopped.

Creamy goodness! I wish I could offer scratch-n-sniff blogging, because it smelled like heaven!

We toasted some fresh herb focaccia and spread a little butter on the warm pieces of bread to melt it:

Mmmmmm! Next I'm trying pesto or roasted pepper and artichoke sauce for pasta! If Giada can do it, I can do it!

Winter Inspiration

2012-01-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

Forgot to hit publish on this one, so it's a little late. It's still winter, right?

It's a new season, which means it's time for a new list of things I'd like to accomplish in the next few months!

Here is the list, in all its winter-time glory:

Some of these inspiration items seem a little cliche and easy, especially the last one, but we take simple things for granted sometimes and don't stop, take a breath, and really enjoy them. Here's what we'll be doing this season:

Drink a caramel apple spice: I mentioned before that there are 2 hot drinks I can tolerate - pumpkin spice latte and caramel apple spice, both from Starbucks. The caramel apple spice is a perfect sweet treat at the end of a cold day, or a perfect pick-me-up when the 2:30 blues hit at work :)
Conquer potato soup: My mom used to make potato soup in the crock pot whenever we had snow days from school, or cold, lazy weekends with no errands or obligations. It reminds me of home and those easy kid days where your biggest care is homework and which pair of Jams you'll wear that day. Those were the days! Anyways, I've tried to make her potato soup, and failed. Hers is a creamy, spicy collection of flavors, and mine was salty mush. BLECH! So I am determined to master it.
James Center: This is a Richmond tradition, where all the big banks and hotels downtown are decorated for Christmas, and a few of the courtyards are filled with lit Christmas trees and deer! It's so festive and I dare anyone to come away without feeling the Christmas spirit!
Star Wars marathon: Anyone who knows Dave knows he's obsessed with Star Wars! Not in the Stormtrooper-costume-wearing-at-ComicCon kind of obsessed, or the internet-forum-arguing-whether-Han-shot-first kind of obsessed, but he loves these movies and whenever they're on TV, the channel does not change. Usually when I walk into the room and see one of them on, I moan and promptly turn around, but I feel I need to throw him a bone and sit down to pay attention to the movies. Who knows, maybe it'll be like Harry Potter and I'll end up liking them?
Lazy snow day: I'm not holding my breath for this one. We've had 1 night where the temperature dropped below freezing, so I'm not sure snow is in the cards this year :(
Make a wedding Christmas ornament: I made one for my brother-in-law and his wife, and now I want my own :)
Carillon and dinner: There is absolutely no excuse for the fact that I haven't visited the Carillon in the 7 years I've lived here. It's time to change that. It's also time to finally visit a restaurant we constantly talk about patronizing, but never do.
Complete 3 projects inspired by Pinterest: I thought about committing to specific projects, but I'm going rogue instead!
Vist Edgar Allan Poe museum: Another place I should have visited by now and haven't.
Finish wedding scrapbook: Should read "begin wedding scrapbook" :) The only progress made so far is purchasing the album, paper, and some accessories. I've put no thought into which pictures to include, but Bonnie, Crystal, and I are working on planning a scrapbooking day which will give me a deadline to pick/order pictures. I need deadlines.
Read 3 non-textbook books: This one didn't go so well in the Fall, and I had to sorta cheat and read a 22-pager. Hopefully I won't slack off the same way this time :)
Make a snow globe: I can thank Taylor Swift for this one. And Pinterest. How cool is it to make your own snow globe, where you can control what goes into it and which color glitter floats around? Yes please!
Watch "A Christmas Story": This one's the easy, cliche one. Sometimes it's nice to watch "A Christmas Story" deliberately because it's a great movie, not just have it on in the background while wrapping Christmas gifts...but that's fun too :)

Dang, that's a long list! Here's hoping we can tackle it all, while managing work and school at the same time! :) Remind me why I changed it from a bucket list, where items must be checked off, to an inspiration list, which is more casual. I'll forget and stress myself out to fulfill "lazy snow day" even if we have no snow. Just shake me and snap me out of it, k?

Fall Bucket List: Complete!

2011-12-21T20:56:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of winter, and I am happy to report that I checked off every item on my Fall Bucket List!

Here's a recap:

My friends and I hit the Graves Mountain Apple Harvest Festival and The State Fair of Virginia, where I rode a Ferris wheel for the first time

I found Jonagold apples at Carter Mountain Orchard during a work event
I got a free flu shot at work
I made homemade applesauce - not for the first time, but the first time using a recipe and the correct tools

I roasted a pumpkin, yielding 4 cups of fresh pumpkin puree

I took a staycation during a fall semester break from school
Dave and I carved pumpkins to display on our front porch

We won free tickets and took a road trip to James Madison's Montpelier

I drank a pumpkin spice latte - let's be honest, I drank several :)

I completed 5 projects inspired by Pinterest - overshot this one a bit :)

Lastly, I read a non-textbook book: A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings. This is a very short book, but it counts. It is written by a slave of James and Dolley Madison, who was more to them than a slave. That's a weird thing to say, since he was still a slave and had no choice but to stay with them, but the relationship he had with James Madison transcended Jennings' slave status and became a friendship.

Done! Though I am glad I am able to check off all items on the list, I have to admit the book I read to satisfy that item was only 22 pages long. I had big plans to read another book - a meatier one - and am still going to finish it, but it didn't happen in the fall. Too bad.

The point of doing this was to help take my mind off 24/7 school, and that part was definitely a success! I finished my semester with an A and a B, plus I managed to have some fun. It got me out of the house and away from the computer, and it also motivated me to do some projects.

Now I'm moving on to my winter list - though I'm not calling it a bucket list so I don't feel the must-check-off-every-item-or-I'm-a-failure pressure. Stay tuned!

Yep, we're those neighbors

2011-12-19T22:14:00.001-05:00

We're those neighbors with pumpkins and a fall wreath still out on the 17th of December.

We're also those neighbors with a rotten porch :(

Rolo Turtles

2011-12-19T20:08:00.003-05:00

A coworker signed up for Pinterest today, and she's already adding value to the Pinternet <- see what I did there?

I was looking for a recipe that includes only ingredients I already have in my pantry since I am in the baking mood but don't feel like braving the grocery store. First I tried Super Cook, an awesome website where you choose ingredients you have on hand and it spits out a recipe using only those ingredients. None of the results appealed to me, though, so I tried trolling Pinterest instead.

My coworker just happened to pin a recipe during my search that included ingredients we have in our pantry - Rolo's, mini pretzels, and pecans: Rolo Turtles!

I have pecans and mini pretzels in the pantry for 2 baking projects that I haven't made yet and probably won't until next year, or some random day in July when I'm missing the holiday season: here and here. The Rolo's were a birthday present from my Bonnie since she knows I love them.

I counted out 30 of each item so everything was at my fingertips - it started as just counting an even number of Rolo's and unwrapping them, but then decided having a set number of each item (30) of everything ready to go for assembly would make the whole thing easier. I'd like to say I chose 30 as the random number because that's all the Rolo's I had, but that would be a lie. I might have kept 1 or 2 or 9 out to snack on later.

I lined up the pretzels 6x5 on a small cookie sheet and added a Rolo on top of each one:

Bake at 350 degrees for 4-ish minutes, and when they come out of the oven, gently press a pecan onto each one to flatten the Rolo. We're going for gently, not Rolo obliteration:

And here they are!

They're cooling now so the chocolate will harden a little - but I can't wait to have a few with a tall glass of milk :)

Dueling Christmas Trees...

2011-12-17T18:07:00.000-05:00

Cue the banjos...

Last year I shared a tacky project - a JMU Christmas tree. We put it up along with our big tree - it's so festive and I love it!

I love it so much that this year I made a University of Richmond tree to go with it!

They taunt each other from opposite ends of the living room. Since I've only finished one semester at UR I haven't collected many mementos to hang on it so it's a little bare, but I did purchase some red and silver ball ornaments and a $1.99 fleece blanket to use as a tree skirt.

I did add some awesome ornaments, like my first UR-specific ornament:

Also, I painted some clear ball ornaments to dress up my tree, just like I did for the JMU one:

it was hard to get a good shot of this one - it's supposed to be a spider but the design in the back blurred it :)

I also added my Virginia ornament from the Handmade holiday...

...and my cupcake ornament from BFF day:

There's plenty of time to collect ornaments I love for this tree, so I won't be running out to find several UR-related ones. I did put one on my Christmas list though ;)

Since we now have 2 college-themed trees, we didn't put up the big tree this year. It's sleeping up in the attic - maybe it'll make an appearance next year :)

Pinterest Craft Day: Cupcake Ornaments

2011-12-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

While our cinnamon applesauce ornaments were cooling, we got to work on another ornament project: cupcakes!

Bonnie pinned these so I thought I'd surprise her with a bonus project during our craft day :) I got everything we needed for these ornaments at Michael's:

2 1/2 inch diameter styrofoam balls
fake snowflakes
foam brush and craft glue
cranberry-ish floral sprigs
foil cupcake papers
ribbon

You'll also need bbq skewers and a glue gun.

Poke one of the styrofoam balls with the skewer and coat it with craft glue:

Then roll the ball in the fake snow to coat it:

Easy Peasy!

Once it dries, it's time to add the cupcake paper. Apply glue from glue gun around the top inside edge of the cupcake paper. Then take the coated ball off the skewer and insert it into the foil paper. Gently apply pressure around the circumference to make sure the paper is attached to the ball:

Almost done! The next step is adding the ribbon, if you are going to use this as an ornament. I used the skewer to insert the ribbon loop into the styrofoam.

I pushed it down inside about 1/2 inch, and then put some hot glue to fill up the rest of the hole:

The last step is to add the cherry! I cut off 1 berry from the floral sprig and hot glued it right where the ribbon is inserted into the ball. Once everything is dry, it's ready to be put on the tree!

Pinterest Craft Day: Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments!

2011-12-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

After Bonnie and I went to the Handmade Holiday and then had some lunch at Padow's, we came back to my house to work on some projects!

First up were McCormick's cinnamon applesauce ornaments - from where else but Pinterest!

Bonnie pinned these a while back, but until she suggested we make them on craft day, I hadn't looked at it close enough to realize they are made of only 2 ingredients. I can't mess that up, can I? Ha, we'll see :)

Because we wanted to make a bunch of ornaments, we each doubled the recipe and made our own batch. Out of each batch, we probably got at least 10 ornaments of various sizes. Here's what we used:

1 1/2 cups applesauce
2 and 1/4 cups cinnamon

That's it - mix those up with your hands and once it's thick like cookie dough...

Although it looks and smells like cookie dough, the recipe says DO NOT EAT in all caps, so leave all the dough for the ornaments, k?

...put a quarter of the batch between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and roll it out to about 1/3 inch thickness:

Now it's time for cookie cutters!

We had a candy cane, a Christmas tree, 2 gingerbread men, a snowflake (FAIL), and a star. Here they are cut out and ready to go in the oven at 200 degrees for 2.5 hours:

Don't forget to use a straw or skewer to add a hole at the top of each ornament so you can add a ribbon for hanging it on the tree! So cute!

A perk of this project is that your whole house will smell like Christmas for the entire 2.5 hours!

Once they were cooled on a wire rack for a few hours, Bonnie decided to paint some of them. Notice there are no snowflakes on this finished tray - I was a little rough when poking the ribbon holes and they had lost a limb by the time they cooked...but a few candy canes and trees came out for me, and most of Bonnie's gingerbread men made it!

Here's my candy cane hanging on the tree:

Stay tuned for cupcake ornaments!

Handmade Holiday at Plant Zero

2011-12-14T21:43:00.003-05:00

This weekend, Bonnie and I trekked down to Plant Zero for the Richmond Craft Mafia's Handmade Holiday!

The same group held the Spring Bada-Bing in April and I loved all the handmade goodness! It's like a craft fair, but less tacky Grandma and more locally-made Etsy-like items! So me! :)

photo credit

I scoped out some of the vendors on the RCM blog beforehand, so I had a couple items to watch out for like these chic vases by turnerbots (in eggplant, of course):

And this embroidery hoop art, by Il Gatto Selvatico:

Unfortch I didn't see either - turnerbots had little ceramic robot guys, but I didn't see these vases...bummer.

Modern June had a ton of awesome stuff, including her new book, Sewing with Oilcloth, but I didn't purchase anything. I would love to get my hands on that book, but not sure I'd ever make anything with oilcloth to make it worth the money :(

I did find a few things I couldn't leave without :)

Funnelcloud was selling these beautiful maps and other artwork. I purchased the Virginia map, with each county separated by color - so cool! This will for sure be included in our upcoming stairway gallery wall:

I also picked up a hand-painted Virginia ornament from her booth:

Lastly, I picked up a little mushroom ring holder, by Tasha McKelvey:

I look forward to the next event! I must do even more research before going in case it's as crowded as it was this time! There were a ton of people there (included YHL's Petersiks), and it was hard to navigate through them to see the most popular booths, so I'm sure there was stuff we missed.

Date Night in Fredericksburg!

2011-12-10T22:56:00.001-05:00

Last night after we met baby Agnes Ann, Bonnie had to go to work so Dave and I followed her downtown to have a date night. Rarely am I in my old hometown without anything to do or someone to meet, so I wanted to take advantage of our free evening to show Dave around my old stomping grounds.

Our first stop was Hyperion!

Dave loves coffee, and I love Hyperion in spite of my disdain for the hot, caffeinated, beany stuff. Blech. Hyperion is a place where my friends and I would go in high school, after football games, marching band competitions (yep, we were the supercool kids), and pretty much anytime we could. We loved the music, the atmosphere, the long farmhouse table right next to the coffee bar because all of us could sit at one table and just hang out and talk.

The menu is bigger than I remember, but I suppose coffee trends have changed in the last 15 years.

Dave got some micro-sized coffee drink - I'm sure it has a special name like no-fat decaf soy mocha choco latte java lava frap-tini something. Oh wait, he's saying it's called espresso macchiato. Well that's just not as fun, is it?

Isn't that cute?

I had a Diet Coke with some hummus and pretzel chips. Yum. Also, Dave's a Hyperion fan now - he said whenever I want to take him there I can. Thanks buddy! I'll take you up on that! :)

Once we were caffeinated, we talked about where to have dinner. Since we were downtown, I didn't want to turn lame and drive up to Dairy Queen for dinner. Instead, I wanted to stay downtown, so we threw around some options that were within walking distance - although pretty much everything downtown was technically within walking distance :) All within 1 block we had Capital Ale House, which we can patronize at home; Otter House, which has reviews containing roaches and food poisoning; Castiglia's, where we eat often with friends; and Kybecca.

Clear winner.

On the way up the block to Kybecca we saw the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window of the Olde Towne Butcher:

Awesome!

Kybecca is for hipsters. The food was really good - I had shrimp and grits, and Dave got fried ravioli. The music was even better. I was that idiot who asked for a Diet Coke, without realizing they only serve organic drinks - no sodas.

not my photo

After dinner we walked around a bit - I showed him the slave auction block; the Chinese restaurant where the guy I knew from high school, who recently got arrested for beastiality, used to deliver food part time; and we saw Santa greeting children in the Museum Store.

Good times in the 'Burg!

Hospital Survival Kit for New Moms

2011-12-10T22:13:00.001-05:00

Please feast your eyes on Agnes Ann Colleluore:

Agnes was born on Thursday night and we are all in love with her! Sharon and Joe are the first of our group of friends to have a baby, so Agnes will be the most spoiled little girl on the planet until another little one comes along. She has plenty of faux aunts and uncles to love her!

Friday we visited the Colleluores in the hospital and we came bearing gifts. Bonnie found a really cool hospital survival kit for new mothers on Pinterest a while back, and we thought it would be a great practical gift to take with us to meet Agnes. Baby gifts are cool, but that means the new parents, in addition to remembering to take the kid and all her stuff home, need to remember a gift as well. So we wanted to fill the bag with things that they might need to use while in the hospital, so there's less stuff to take home.

We stuffed the bag with the following items:

4 mini bottles of water
baby powder
tissues
mouth wash
brush and compact
chapstick
gum
hand sanitizer
rubberbands and headbands
baby wipes
candy
fuzzy socks

To dress up the bag, which already had a cute pink bow as a handle, I used the free printable provided by the blogger who posted the original idea. I love free printables! The little things make me so happy - plus she made pink, blue, and gender-neutral green labels so us less photoshop-inclined peeps can choose which one to download... :)

I cut out the pill-shaped pink kit label and attached it to the bag - she also included little footprint labels that you can use to hang from the handle of the bag. I didn't use them, but they're so cute!

Here's the finished product:

I know for sure the candy was used since it was almost gone before we left the hospital that day! Hopefully the rest of the items came in handy :)

Alton Brown is my hero...

2011-11-28T19:22:00.001-05:00

I surprised myself twice in the last few days. First, when I bought cocoa mix on Black Friday, since other than 2 exceptions (caramel apple spice and pumpkin spice latte, both from Starbucks) I don't like hot drinks. Second, when I found the perfect recipe to use said cocoa, since I knew I wouldn't drink it: brownies! I don't like brownies either.

Is it shark week?

The cocoa powder I bought is s'mores flavored - World Market had it and peppermint cocoa on sale (buy one, get one free) and both sounded good for some reason. Unfortunately they were out of the peppermint so I picked up 2 s'mores.

All the way home I thought about how I could use this cocoa powder in a baked good: something neutral that would taste good with the added s'mores flavor, but something that needed cocoa powder. That seemed like a tall order when I Googled 'recipes using cocoa,' which is like Googling 'bugs' and expecting useable results.

Speaking of bugs, I'm OD'ing on nostalgia - you can't just walk into a room and say BUGS:

Most of the recipes were cakes, and I'm definitely not a chocolate cake fan so I kept looking. Then my eyes stumbled upon this Alton Brown cocoa brownie recipe - it has no other major flavor that would compete with the s'mores and only made an 8x8 pan of brownies rather than a huge cake that we don't need sitting around the house - you know?

Brownies it is.

Tonight, in a true fit of procrastination (I should be reading a book about feminism) I decided to make my s'mores cocoa brownies. Here's the recipe:

4 large eggs
1 cup sugar, sifted
1 cup brown sugar, sifted
8 ounces melted butter
11/4 cups cocoa, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions, from the Food Network website:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square pan.
In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow. Add both sugars. Add remaining ingredients, and mix to combine.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan and bake for 45 minutes.

Check for doneness with the tried-and-true toothpick method: a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan should come out clean - it took mine about 75 minutes to be thoroughly solid.
When it's done, remove to a rack to cool. Resist the temptation to cut into it until it's mostly cool.

Here they are all cooled off (actually chilled for a couple days):

Still not a brownie fan, but these did satisfy a craving ;)

Fall Bucket List: Bonus project inspired by Pinterest

2011-11-18T14:28:00.001-05:00

I was planning to include this project on my winter bucket list - because the fall one was so fun! - but I realized that if I waited until it was technically winter to make it, it would be the most pointless holiday gift in the world, since winter starts a few days before Christmas! Duh, Kristen.

I got the idea from Pinterest, naturally, and looks like this:

It is a wedding invitation that has been cut into strips, curled, and stuffed into a clear glass ball ornament. So cute, right?

Dave's brother recently got married - as in 2 months ago - so we thought this would be a wonderful gift to commemorate their first Christmas as a married couple. It's so sentimental!

We used both their invitation and response card and got to work!

I used my 4x6 Creative Memories paper trimmer to cut both pieces into strips, each about 1/3 inch wide. I can't say I measured each piece, and the important part is to get the lines of text, so whatever size works for you, go for it!

Once our strips were cut, Dave wrapped each one around a pen to curl it...

...and then we stuffed them into the ornament:

Originally we thought we could strategically place certain pieces so the most important ones were on the outside, but that's way too Type A for this project since the pieces fall where they want. Unless you have experience with inserting ships into bottles without breaking or maiming them, 'good enough' is going to have to do. Eventually we realized that it isn't the specific words that make this sentimental, it's the act of bottling or containing this sentimental item and its memories -mushy? yes.

Once all the pieces were in - and we ended up with a bunch of strips without text that just wouldn't fit - we used a pen to try and move some pieces around to make sure the whole ornament was full.

The finishing touch was the layered ribbon we added so they can hang it from their tree. Their colors were brown and gold, so we went with that theme:

Dunzo!

How cool!?! Hope they like it :) Congratulations Rich and Cindy! Also, hope you don't read my blog, because I just SPOILED your Christmas present! ;)

PS - I had to share this picture - do you see the eye staring at you from inside the ornament? CREEPY! We need to call Zak Bagans to come check out our house, pretty sure it's haunted... :)

Fall Bucket List: Complete a project inspired by Pinterest

2011-11-18T13:32:00.001-05:00

The Fall Bucket List is winding down...now there is only 1 item remaining: read a non-textbook book. Piece of cake! But first, let's talk about Pinterest-y projects.

I actually over-achieved on this one and completed two projects inspired by Pinterest! It's amazing - stay tuned for project number 2! Not that kind of number 2. Dirty.

The first project is inspired by this project:

I love that fact that she painted them both white and relied on paper to increase the level of festive! I ran to Lowe's to pick up some cheap terra cotta pots and saucers in various sizes that looked proportional - this was not very scientific, just what looked good to me while standing there in the garden center...

I think these 4 pieces might have cost $7? That could be a total lie, but I think it sounds right. Anyways, then I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up some Gorilla Glue and spray paint. Apparently this stuff is the go-to glue for crafters and DIY'ers, which makes me feel bad for Aleene, who used to be the queen of the craft glue jungle.

See what I did there? Gorilla Glue => Queen of the Jungle? No? Ok, moving on...

I wiped down the saucers where I intended to glue the pot to moisten it - this was recommended on the glue bottle, to maximize the effectiveness of the adhesive:

Then I glued the pieces together and stacked books on top to make sure they sealed firmly...

I believe a person's book collection gives you a peek into their soul. What do you infer about me from this shot?

...but didn't finish reading the directions. You might notice in the next photo that the glue expanded. A lot. When I went back to the instructions on the bottle to find out why, I noticed that it clearly said to be conservative with the glue because it may expand up to four times its original size while drying. Oops...luckily it didn't cause a problem, just makes the seams between the pot and sauce look less clean. Lesson learned.

Here's the paint I bought - white primer, dover white gloss paint, and a clear sealer to protect the paint surface:

And a whole shitload of coats later, here's the cake stand! What happened tot he little one? Well, this spray paint novice thought the little white plastic piece in the nozzle was just there to make sure no paint accidentally sprayed at the store or in a truck, so I pulled it out before painting. Yeah, DON'T do that! That little, ittybitty piece is VITALLY important!

So long little cake stand - RIP.

But your big brother looks fabulous! I think we'll use him this weekend to display a bowl of pumpkin dip and some ginger snaps/Nilla wafers at our faux Thanksgiving dinner with friends - all dressed up with a fally napkin or piece of scrapbook paper...

Fall Bucket List: James Madison's Montpelier

2011-11-14T15:45:00.001-05:00

Remember this post, where I talked about how Facebook could be used for good rather than evil? Well I'm back with the next installment. Except it's really more of the same: more free stuff! Wahoo!

The day of the Great Earthquake of 2011 (is that title dramatic enough? I can't decide...), James Madison's Montpelier's Facebook page used their routine Tuesday Trivia game to pose an earthquake-related question:

To be honest, I didn't know who said it but my gut told me that since the page was owned by curators at James Madison's family home and it was said during his lifetime, he probably said it. Then I Googled it to be sure. Yep, James Madison said it...and I won 2 free admission tickets to tour Montpelier - score!

So on a beautiful fall weekend when I had no major school deliverables, Dave and I schlepped up to Orange County to tour JMad's home. On the way we made a pit stop at a unusually busy gas station off 64 - based on the VT stickers/facepaint/attire, I assumed this is a main intersection on the route between Richmond and Blacksburg? It was Tech's Homecoming weekend, so I'm going with that. The parking lot beamed with Hokie pride...except in our car, since Dave and I thought it would be festive to wear JMU shirts since we were visiting the home of the namesake of our alma mater. We stood out during that pit stop, for sure! At one point I asked Dave "We're in enemy territory...are we safe?" Haha

Thankfully we made it out alive, with drinks in hand, and continued our journey. When we arrived at the gatehouse, the security guard asked if we needed tickets, so I told her we already had them. She needed to make sure I was telling the truth, so she asked to see them and then gleefully exclaimed "OH - Duke (the guy in the back)! We have contest winners! They're famous!" Haha - she was goofy!

She ~~rolled out the red carpet for us~~ handed us some maps and gave us directions to the visitors' center and sent us on our way :) The loooooong drive up to the house provides ample opportunity for photo keepsakes like this one:

Once in the gift shop, we killed some time until the next tour started by perusing the gift shop. I saw a few books I wanted to buy (surprised?) and we found a pewter ornament of the house that we wanted to pick up for our JMU Christmas tree. We waited until after the tour to buy stuff so we wouldn't have to carry anything around...

After a brief movie explaining the phases of construction on the home and the political rise of James Madison, we were off on a short walk to the house:

Only a few rooms are furnished and decorated as they would have been while the Madisons lived there because it had owners who renovated it through the years. Most rooms were empty, some were in progress with open walls and all so we could see how the house was constructed, but the rooms that were set up how the Madisons would/may have had them were awesome! The wallpaper was very ornate and they had white noise playing in the background while the guide was talking, so we could hear the clanking of dishes in the dining room during one of Dolley's dinner parties, and card games going on in the parlor room. It's the little details that make something like this worth it. And I know I'm a dork for having thought about that...I'm ok with that.

No photography was allowed inside, but I snuck this one...in my class that week we talked about Aristotle and his views on government and education, so this quote on the wall in Madison's study, where he once spent a winter reading over 400 books to research the best kind of government should be established in America, really struck me:

Helped me make the connection between ancient government systems and ours, and that although they are very different, at their core they have the same goal. The tour ended on a rooftop terrace overlooking the property. The Madisons frequently held parties on the terrace...if I lived there, this would be how I started each and every day. Check out this view of the Blue Ridge Mountains:

We took a walk around the backyard and gardens on the scenic route back to the visitors' center, and found this bronze statue of James and Dolley hanging out in the backyard...

...so we posed with them:

The garden wasn't looking too festive since it's fall, but this sleepy kitty caught my eye...

...as did this sundial:

2:30, in case you were wondering :)

We exited through the gift shop, after picking up our ornament. I didn't buy any books! Can you believe it? But I did order 2 from my phone in the car on the way home. Dork.

Fall Bucket List: Roast a Pumpkin

2011-11-10T20:18:00.000-05:00

Last fall, my girls went to a cooking class at Miller Farms, but I couldn't go because I had a Biology lab. They learned how to make all kinds of pumpkin treats: pumpkin roll, pumpkin dip, a pumpkin shaped cheese ball, and some other stuff they probably didn't tell me so I wouldn't cry. They also learned how to roast a pumpkin to get natural, healthy pumpkin for fall treats rather than using the preservative-filled canned puree. Feel sorry for me yet? You should. It was good times, and I was sorry to miss it.

Luckily they made copies of the recipes for me so I could make them at home! Wasn't that nice? Love them. By the time I got the recipes and had the motivation to try roasting a pumpkin for myself it was Thanksgiving and it was impossible to find a pumpkin. By then all the stores have Christmas greenery instead of pumpkins, so I waited until this year to try it out.

Unfortch, I almost waited too long to find a pumpkin again. Can you believe that? I can. I'm such the procrastinator lately. Hope it's only a phase. Monday night Dave and I trekked out to Chesterfield Berry Farm's Skinquarter Market to pick up a pumpkin since all the local stands and grocery stores got rid of them after Halloween - we got there with 2 minutes to spare before they closed!

I got a Jarrahdale pumpkin, which is a blue-gray color, has a ton of pumpkin meat in it, and is great for baking (so my Miller Farms cheat sheet says). By the time we got home with dinner I didn't feel like starting a baking project, so Tuesday after work I set up my tools for the big roast.

Here's what you'll need to roast your pumpkin:

Um, a pumpkin
Big sharp knife that will cut through a pumpkin
Spoon to de-gut the pumpkin
Large roasting pan or deep cookie sheet to collect all the moisture that bakes out of the pumpkin
Food mill, food processor, or strong potato masher
Coffee filters - Weird, right? You'll find out what they're for in a minute.

First thing to do is wash your pumpkin with soap and water - make sure to get into all the nooks and crannies to get all that pumpkin patch dirt off it. That might sound weird if you watched the episode of RHOBH, where Adrienne and Lisa make some chicken dish, and one of them washes the chicken with soap - ew!

Once the pumpkin is washed and towel dried, cut it in half, north to south:

Then scoop out all the stringy stuff and seeds to expose the flesh of the pumpkin:

Now put the 2 halves, cut side down, in your roasting pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. You should be able to easy insert a fork into the skin of the pumpkin if it's done.

Check out the awesome color of the meaty part...

...and it's so soft and juicy it comes right out with a spoon:

Here's where the coffee filters come in - line a colander with them and put the colander over a large bowl. The coffee filters help extract the liquid from the pumpkin, which is good because the less water is in your pumpkin puree the better quality your baked goods will be! :) Spoon your pumpkin into the lined strainer and put it in the fridge overnight:

Try not to get any of the skin in your meat, like I did. We can't all be winners, I suppose! I fished it out later...

Wednesday after work I got out my handy food mill to break down the pumpkin. But first, look how much water drained out of the pumpkin overnight!

I guess it doesn't seem so dramatic in the photo, but I was surprised how much liquid came out of such a little bit of pumpkin...but back to the food mill - this part was hard! The pumpkin all bunched up on the edges and I had to continually steer it towards the blades. #firstworldproblems

Once I puree'd all the pumpkin, I put it back in the coffee filter-lined colander and drain overnight. Again. But the good news is that was the last step!

Tonight after work I divided the pumpkin into 2-2 cup portions and bagged them in a gallon freezer bag. You be the judge - all that work for 4 cups of pumpkin puree, which is the equivalent of 2-15 oz. cans? Jury's still out...

I put them straight into the freezer on a cutting board so they'll freeze flat. Once they're frozen I can stand them up so they take up only like an 1-inch wide section of the freezer - sweet! Even though the freezer's still mostly empty from the total loss after Hurricane Irene - I think there's ice cream and 2 veggie burgers in there. Not 2 boxes of veggie burgers - 2 veggie burgers. Sad!

Active Imagination

2011-11-08T16:24:00.002-05:00

The other night I dreamt I was sitting at my desk at work, wearing my headphones, as usual, to drown out the sounds of acrylic nails typing on keyboards and conference calls on speakerphone and conversations about the latest Twilight movie (who am I kidding, I'm usually a part of those). We were all startled by a series of staccato sounds coming from outside that ended as quickly as they began.

I ran toward the window and saw a crowd of people beginning to form around a bloodied woman, wearing a pink 3/4-sleeve button-down shirt and brown pants, laying askew on one of the walking trails. It hit me that some serious shit just went down and that I had no idea what to do or where to go next. That realization seemed to hit the others around me around the same time, evidenced by the startled and quizzical looks we exchanged. Do we get under our desks? Are the doors locked so the shooter can't get into the buildings? Is someone calling 911? Is this some sort of sick drill?

Then the fire alarm went off, meaning we were to go outside and leave all our stuff behind. Why would we go outside if there is obviously something nefarious going on out there? Any one of those people surrounding the woman in pink could be the perpetrator, as could be anyone walking around campus by now. Anyone outside should be a suspect, and releasing the general population from the building just corrupts the situation. Too much Law & Order? Guilty.

So once I was outside with my team I (naturally, it's me) started over-analyzing how they would ever know who did it since everyone on campus was now outside and the suspect would just blend in with his/her coworkers. It might not seem out of the ordinary that your coworker, who wasn't with you at the time of the shooting, nonchalantly walks up to the group incredulously gossiping about what we'd all just heard. My team calmed me down and said we should let the authorities do what they're trained to do. Meanwhile some people I'd never seen before came to sit with us under the shady tree. We made conversation with them and I tried to act like I wasn't looking for gun-shaped bulges in their pockets, residue on their hands (is gun powder residue visible to the naked eye or only after testing?), or blood spatter anywhere on their person. No luck.

After a while we were sent back inside and I turned back towards one of the strangers who, I just noticed, didn't have a badge and didn't start towards the building with us. Once we made eye contact he pointed to a gun-shaped bulge in his pocket (that's what she said) and pressed his index finger of his other hand against his lips, glared at me, and mouthed "Shhh..."

Then I woke up.

The perp looked exactly like Bob Ross, only with glasses.

Fall Bucket List: Status Report

2011-10-26T11:22:00.001-04:00

Fall's only one-third over and my bucket list is almost complete!

So far, I:

Visited Graves Mountain and the State Fair, where I rode the Ferris wheel with 2 very supportive friends and 1 very unsupportive husband :)
Found Jonagold apples during a work off-site in Charlottesville - Carter Mountain Orchard always delivers! :)
Made homemade applesauce.

Funny story about this: after I published the post about making the applesauce, a coworker reminded me that I have attempted applesauce before with VERY bad results! 5 years ago or so I tried making applesauce without consulting any recipes or cookbooks - I thought it can't be that hard and used my KitchenAid mixer to blend/mash the apples. What was I thinking? Shortly after I shared my applesauce misadventure with everyone at work, Kara read an article in the Washington Post about applesauce being a dummy-proof recipe and anyone could do it! We all got a great laugh out of it - how could I forget that?!? So this was not my maiden voyage, but this time I used my brain...and a recipe :)

Taken a staycation!
Carved a pumpkin - actually 2!
Visited James Madison's Montpelier - stay tuned for that post this weekend :)
Drank a pumpkin spice latte - never tried one before, and it is like crack! My favorite cold-weather drink is still the caramel apple spice, and the gingerbread latte is good in small doses, but the pumpkin spice is awesome! Go get yourself one :)

All that's left is reading a non-textbook book, getting a flu shot, completing a project inspired by Pinterest (which I hope to finish up on Saturday), and roasting a pumpkin (the scariest thing on the list!). Here's hoping the other two-thirds of fall will be equally productive!

Fall Bucket List: Drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte

2011-10-24T16:37:00.002-04:00

My awesome co-workers randomly gave me a $10 Starbucks gift card today, so I took it as a sign to go ahead and check off another item on my Fall Bucket List: drink a pumpkin spice latte [or PSL if you're into Starbucks cup label lingo ;)]:

It's so good! Doesn't beat the caramel apple spice, though...

Still unchecked on my bucket list are:

roast a pumpkin
flu shot
read a non-textbook book which might wait until after December 3, when the current semester is over :) - still fall until December 20ish right? :)
complete a project inspired by Pinterest (in progress)

Fall Bucket List: Carve a Pumpkin

2011-10-23T21:10:00.001-04:00

Dave and I have never carved pumpkins together, so when I was asking for suggestions for my Fall Bucket List, he reminded me that we found a pumpkin carving kit a few months back at Diversity Thrift for a dollar! All signs pointed to us needing to carve some pumpkins this year :)

We picked up a few pumpkins a couple weeks ago for an arrangement for the front porch, but we went back to West End Plants and Produce to pick up some more for carving - 2 big ones and 2 small ones. Yesterday we got to work on our pumpkins :)

Dave was much more creative than me as far as carving - I'm not an artist, so I can't look at a big round pumpkin and see an evil face or jack-o-lantern. If I had a template I could trace a design, but I can't just pull it out, you know? So my pumpkins are more simple and methodical, and Dave's are more traditional Halloween pumpkins...

Here's my K:

One year at my townhouse in Fredericksburg, I wasn't going to be home on Halloween and didn't want to get egged for not giving out candy, so I drilled holes in a pumpkin and stuff Tootsie Roll pops in the holes. I added a sign that said "Please Take One" (I'm sure the kids ignored the signs)...so I decided to do that again, only without the lollipops. I thought it would look really cool lit up at night!

Dave carved this evil guy, which we filled with orange twinkle lights:

He also made a vampire and another small carved pumpkin - see what I mean about the creativity? It's unreal!

Here's the whole pumpkin family:

And all lit up on the ~~rotten~~ porch:

My drilly pumpkin needs bigger holes I guess - you can barely see the light through it!

I think we have a new family tradition! So fun!

Chex Mix

2011-10-23T19:45:00.001-04:00

Every fall my mom used to make homemade Chex Mix. The smell of it cooking filled the house and we all waited for our treat! It's a little sweet, a little salty, and a LOT yummy!

I've never tried to make it before [unless I tried and failed years ago, like applesauce, and my selective memory is kicking in :)] Last week as I was cleaning out our kitchen buffet to make room for our new table I found an Amish cookbook. I was sorting through the book deciding which recipes to throw out and which to keep and found a recipe for Scramble. WTF is Scramble? As I read through the ingredients it was starting to sound all too familiar! Sounded exactly like my mom's Chex Mix - so I called her to read her the recipe and see how it compared to hers.

After making some small changes based after a failed attempt (burned it!), here's the recipe:

2 cups each:
Rice Chex
Corn Chex
Wheat Chex
Honey Nut Chex
Unsalted or lightly salted peanuts
Pretzel rods

1/2 cup each:
Butter
Worcestershire sauce

I combined all the dry ingredients and threw them into my turkey roasting pan. There's no reason to Pam it since you'll add the wet ingredients before putting it in the oven.

I melted the butter, stirred it with the W sauce, and poured that mixture over the dry mix. Bake it at 250 degrees, stirring every 15-20 minutes to make sure the bottom pieces don't burn.

It should be evenly coated and crispy within 90 minutes...here's what you end up with:

Witch Hat Cookies!

2011-10-13T15:23:00.000-04:00

Have I mentioned Pinterest is awesome? Yep, I think maybe once or twice...well it is!

My college roommate, Erica, posted this a few days ago and I thought they were so cute:

Explore. Dream. Discover

Without reading the description they looked complicated and I didn't even re-pin them, thinking I couldn't tackle them. Then I took a second look and noticed the base is just a fudge stripe cookie! That I can handle :)

To assemble these adorable witch hat cookies, all you need is a package of fudge stripe cookies, a bag of Hershey's kisses, and some orange icing.

Since you don't need a lot of icing, rather than making a batch of buttercream I picked up a small tube of orange decorating icing from the baking aisle at the grocery store. Wilton makes tips that can be screwed on top of the icing tube for easy piping - so convenient!

Pardon the extremely blurry picture (the background is in focus -hahahahaha), but I just squeezed some icing onto the bottom of the Hershey's kiss...

...and plop it down onto the chocolate side of the cookie. Plop is a technical term.

Repeat for however many cookies you need - this would be a great snack or dessert at a Halloween party! It just takes a few minutes to prepare many cookies and they are so good!

What a fun idea...and whatever icing you don't use can be stored in the tube. Just take off the piping tip and put the tube's lid back on to seal it up...

I was thinking you could change the colors of the icing, but there are limited options I guess...it's not like cupcakes where you can make them match any theme or holiday. With witch hats you're pretty limited - but maybe if you're having a Wicked-themed party you could change the icing to green? The orange reminds me of The Worst Witch :) LOVED that movie when I was little - we taped it and I wore that VHS out!

Fall Bucket List: Make Homemade Applesauce

2011-10-12T21:04:00.000-04:00

I only picked up six apples from Graves Mountain to avoid a Baby Boom situation:

In previous years I've picked up 2 or 3 bags or a 1/2 bushel and ended up throwing most of them away after getting tired of churning out a few apple dishes! Six apples seemed much more manageable, and the plan was to choose 1 recipe that needs no more than those six apples.

When I find Jonagold apples I'll find room in my life for another recipe :) Those are the best!

Since I've heard homemade applesauce is really easy to make but have never tried it, it is my recipe of choice for this year's batch of apples! I trolled the internets for the yummiest-sounding recipe, and found it here. I modified it a little for my batch:

6 apples
1 cup water (apple juice or cider might add more flavor)
2 tablespoons (or was it?) honey
3 ounces sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

I used my apple peeler/corer/slicer for the first time! Super easy to use, yet somehow I found a way to muck it up at first. I had a hard time lining up the core on the first few...

...but by the sixth apple I figured out how to do it neatly :) Aren't they cute?

Once they were all chopped up I put them in a saucepan and added the rest of the ingredients:

Stir to combine all the ingredients, cover the pan, and the recipe said to cook it on medium heat for 15-20 minutes. After 20 minutes it seemed a little liquidy, but I think that's normal since the apples are losing so much juice. I turned off the burner and kept the pan covered for another 30 minutes or so...and it thickened up!

I mashed it up and it turned into this:

Hopefully it will thicken up a little more overnight in the fridge...tomorrow night: pork ~~chops~~ loin and applesauce!

Perfect Fall Weekend in Virginia!

2011-10-12T19:05:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was jam-packed with good times and good friends! It started with a date night at Cinebistro to see The Ides of March - great movie and a great meal! I love that place :)

Sunday morning I got up early to head to Graves Mountain Apple Harvest Festival with Bonnie and Crystal - a few of us go every year and it's always so much fun!

We walked around all the vendor tents, where there were some interesting things people could buy for their homes, like this reminder for all husbands:

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

Scentsy had a booth, and Crystal knew all about it! I had heard of it but just thought it was some other candle home party company, which it kinda is...but the scented wax is melted by a light bulb instead of a flame, so you don't have to worry about falling asleep with an open flame next to you! Their scents are awesome! I picked up this eggplant warmer and 3 scents:

Can't wait to plug it in and try it out!

Crystal found a cute sock monkey hat - which I hear through the grapevine can be found at Walgreen's for $7, much cheaper than the $18.50 price tag at Graves!

After lunch in the barn we headed over towards the apple bins, and passed this guy churning apple butter:

Then we hit the apples! They bins and bins of all different kinds of apples. I just got a mix of different kinds, because I knew I'd be baking with them and had no idea which ones were better or worse for baking...I figured if I only bought one kind, that would inevitably be the one that isn't good for baking. :)

After I picked up my apples we headed home to meet up with the rest of our clan for the State Fair! It was very ambitious to do both these activities in one day, but we took a bit of a break in between to build up some new energy :)

My main goal at the fair, besides eating fatty fair food and having lots of laughs with my friends, was riding the ferris wheel. I have developed a fear of heights over the years - I'm not sure where it came from since I used to love riding roller coasters and sky wire bucket things at Kings Dominion and rode the tram up to the top of Stone Mountain and ran around the top for a while without a care in the world. But for some reason now I am so fearful anytime I'm high enough that I feel I'd break multiple bones if I fell. Bridges are the worst.

I publicly declared to the group that I was riding the ferris wheel and told them not to let me chicken out. I don't believe I tried to get out of it after my declaration, but they might tell a different story :) I rode it with Dave, Bonnie, and Joe. Bonnie and Joe were very supportive, even offering their hand for support only to be turned away since I was clinching the side of the bucket with all the strength I had...I suppose I thought my little fingers would keep me attached to it if we began to plummet to the ground. Jeez, I'm delusional. Dave, on the other hand, was NOT supportive at all! He kept jumping around, rotating himself to take photos. Every time he did that the bucket started to sway and I thought it would turn upside down and drop us out! I kept yelling at him to sit still and he wouldn't - the nerve!

This is the only picture I took at the fair before my camera died :( It's good though...

I'm sure I made the trip miserable for all 3 of them, and at one point Bonnie (who had also never ridden a ferris wheel) said she was starting to get scared because of my reaction! Haha! Here's a video Dave took while we were up there - you can hear me in the background the entire time complaining about what a bad choice this ride was:

Once it stopped I hopped out of that bucket and almost ran down the ramp to get out of the area! Haha - we ate some more fatty fair food and then decided to try and catch a few songs at The Band Perry's concert on the other side of the park. We missed my favorite song of theirs, If I Die Young, but heard a couple other good ones. Then it was time to head home and rest my aching feet!

Fun weekend! And I got to cross three things off my fall bucket list: State Fair of VA, Graves Mountain, and Ride a Ferris Wheel :)

Fall Bucket List

2011-10-09T23:36:00.002-04:00

I have been a project and activity slacker lately. School started back up, so everything else has taken a backseat so I can focus on getting nothing less than an A. I finished my first class this weekend, and now know the format, workload, and time commitment that should be needed throughout the program. I also know that I can't keep up the all work and no play routine because I will burn out, and burn out quickly.

BTW, Professor: anytime you want to post those grades, I'll be very happy to see that A! :)

I can't ignore my favorite season - FALL - so I decided to make a list of all the fally things I don't want to miss.

Here's my bucket list - from a free, customizable printable you can download here:

As you can see I've already checked off a few things! This weekend was full of Virginia Fall fun, about which I'll post later :) My staycation is in progress and off to a great start! Hopefully I'll knock more than a few of my bucket list items off this week, before my next class starts...although the Pinterest project that has inspired me is more appropriate for winter, I'm going with it during this season! :)

Ways Facebook can be used for good #58: Gift Certificates

2011-10-05T22:11:00.003-04:00

My first class at UR is all about exploring how our minds are evolving with the ever-changing technological landscape. We no longer need to store massive files of information in our brains because we can look up anything on the internet at any time. We no longer need to read every page of books; rather we can skim some pages and infer what we missed by deeply reading other sections.

The majority of our final grade is based on a 10 page research paper - the topic is very vague so we are able to get creative and narrow down the subject: "Knowledge and Information in the 21st Century." Wow - that's pretty broad. I am writing about how consumers can circumvent any privacy practices in effect for their financial data or personal information on social networking sites and breach their own data or identity. How beneficial is it to so heavily regulate banks around what information can be shared, with whom and when, if the customer can breach their own data by simply 'checking in' at home, revealing their address to anyone on the internet, unless they are one of the few who pays attention to their privacy options and customizes them?

I've been reading all about the dangers of Facebook and how we're all going to Hell in a handbasket for even having an account -really, only those of us who ignore common sense and don't lock down our pictures or personal data to friends - so I am so glad to see Facebook doing some good as well...in the form of fabulous gifts and prizes awarded to yours truly. :)

A few weeks ago Ray's Italian Ice, a sleepy little dessert place on Lauderdale, posted a riddle with a prize of a $25 gift certificate to the winner.

I love a challenge, so I got to work. When I should have been actually doing work. At work. But anyways...

Once I wrapped my brain around the jumble of letters (each word of the sentence is written backwards) it was easy to ~~figure out~~ Google the answer...

The riddle is: what can go up a chimney down, but can not go down a chimney up? Answer: an umbrella!

Yay I won!

Dave and I stopped by there on the way home from work to redeem my prize, and immediately cashed in a few dollars of it for a dessert-before-dinner treat.

I got peanut butter and Dave got a combination of mango and banana - yum!

Stay tuned for an upcoming post: "Ways Facebook can be used for good #59: More Gift Certificates"...I won another prize on Facebook around the same time, but I'll share that after we redeem it next week! Fall road trip style!

Day of Remembrance...

2011-09-18T19:42:00.001-04:00

Dave and I took a trip downtown today to visit two sites dedicated to people lost to unimaginable violence.

First stop: Virginia War Memorial, built in remembrance of Virginians who died in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, or the Persian Gulf War.

The tour begins with a series of dramatized movies to give us insight into the long-term emotional effects of losing a loved one in battle. They added special effects like insects chirping in surround sound to make you feel like you were there with the soldiers in the Vietnam jungle, strobe light to emulate an incoming helicopter by moonlight, and blasts of cold air and snowflakes (sounded like Pop Rocks when they hit my hair) to help us feel the cold conditions of the snowy Korean mountains.

After the video, we went outside to the glass and marble monument that pays respect to each and every Virginian who died in these wars. It was reinforced in class this week, based on a learning inventory, that I am a visual learner and this is a great example of how seeing a tangible reminder of the magnitude of an event means so much more than reading about it. It was powerful to see all the names of those Virginians lost, listed by county, and to think about how many soldiers from across the country were killed.

The Missing Man Table was set up for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action:

It contains:

round table to show our everlasting concern
white tablecloth to symbolize the purity of those who sign up to fight for their country
red rose to remind us of the lives of soldiers and their loved ones
red ribbon to symbolize our dedication to account for them
slice of lemon to represent the bitter fate of those captured or missing
pinch of salt for the tears of the missing and their families
Bible for the strength gained through faith
inverted glass to symbolize the missing or captured's inability to share our toast
empty chair for the missing

My favorite display was full of telegrams and letters sent from soldiers to their families:

The messages range from short telegrams from a son to his mother reassuring her that he's being fed well and has warm clothes, to a letter sent to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, asking the editor to publish the letter so his family will know he's safe. This one has a positive message, including "We Will Win":

This one seemed innocent enough, talking about breakfast and building a tent in Okinawa, but most of the page was censored by the military:

It's rare that museums and historical attractions offer a first-hand glimpse into the psyche of the soldiers, so it was great to see this collection of personal letters to family rather than rely on the official records for the story.

Our next stop was the Virginia Holocaust Museum.

After watching a brief video containing interviews of local Holocaust survivors, we picked up audio guides and the voice of Jay Ipson, the museum's founder and a Holocaust survivor, narrated our tour.

The first room, and I already learned something I never knew. Not only were Jews persecuted and sent to labor camps, but also any other group of people Nazis thought were detrimental in building the Master Aryan Race. Each group's uniforms (Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, asocial individuals, American prisoners of war, etc.) was identified by a uniquely-colored triangle-shaped patch.

Prisoners were held in very closed quarters like these bunks and were rarely allowed outside:

This guy was standing guard at the ghetto, collecting valuables from people as they walked through the gates:

As we're hearing Jay Ipson's narration and the emotion of his voice as he tells his family's story through this tumultuous time in his life, we see this scene which depicts the Nazi occupation of a neighborhood. These simple figures, made of mesh and decorated only with Stars of David appear almost ghost-like and it was very eery.

Also eery was the story of Mr. Ipson's father, who lied to a Nazi soldier about being a car mechanic, only to be visited later when that soldier needed an auto repair! I was sure the story wouldn't end well, but I was surprised that Jay's father was so resourceful and fixed that car - he was even rewarded with a loaf of bread and a free ride back to the ghetto from the soldier.

At one point in the tour, Mr. Ipson recommended that we walk over this Nazi flag. He was very persuasive, and who am I to disregard his instructions? Dave may or may not have stomped on it, rather than simply walking over it.

Visiting these sites was a great way to remember the sacrifices of young soldiers who volunteered to protect our country in times of war and ensure freedom for all of us, as well as the senseless deaths of 6 million people who were guilty of nothing but being who they were. I couldn't help but feel vindicated when I walked into the Nuremberg Trials Courtroom exhibit and witnessed (sort of) justice for the countless evils committed by these officials.

Patriotic Berry Trifle

2011-09-15T16:35:00.002-04:00

We were invited to a Labor Day cookout and I started brainstorming dishes I could bring to the potluck. Potato salad, baked beans, watergate salad, fruit and burgers/dogs were already claimed, so that narrowed it down to me bringing a dessert. :)

I wanted to bring something patriotic to celebrate the holiday, and had a few things in mind:

Red, white, and blue layered round cake, like this one from I Am Baker:

Blueberry and cherry pie tarts, like these from Our Best Bites:

Or, my old faithful dessert - tie-dye cupcakes, dressed up for the occasion, like these from One Ordinary Day:

All great options, but we lost power due to Miss Irene on the 27th and still didn't have it back by the following weekend, so I had to go with something that required no baking, no microwaving, no refrigeration, etc. You see, even if we got power back Friday night (when I went shopping for my dessert) or the next day, I was not comfortable with putting anything in the newly cool fridge until I cleaned it top to bottom. All the shelves had to come out and get scrubbed down before I'd put fresh food in there. Lord knows what kind of bacteria was lurking in there after 7 days without power.

When I got to Martin's for my brainstorming, all I had to do was walk in the door and saw that they had done all the work for me...they had pre-baked pound cakes on display right next to huge cartons of strawberries and blueberries. Light Bulb! I could make a patriotic berry trifle! I couldn't buy anything then because I had no way to keep the berries cool, but I had the idea to think about until Sunday morning on the way to the picnic.

Here's my inspiration photo - I'd source it, but I found the identical photo on at least 10 blogs and can't figure out who did it first versus who stole it without credit:

After stopping at the store in the morning and bringing home the berries to wash them, we made our way to the picnic. I assembled my trifle at the hostess' house - is that rude? I tried to bring all the tools I needed with me - cutting board, knife, trifle dish, etc. - so I wouldn't be in her way, but it might have been a tad annoying to take up her counterspace. Sorry Sharon! :)

Here's the finished product...

...and here's what you'll need if you want to make this the easy way, like I did:

1 loaf (4x8) of pound cake
2 pints strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 pints blueberries
2 containers of fat free Cool Whip

So easy to assemble - just cube the pound cake and throw half of it into the trifle dish, top with 1/2 of your sliced strawberries, 1 container of Cool Whip, 1/2 of your blueberries, then repeat each layer. I saved some blueberries and 1 unsliced strawberry to decorate the top, just for fun!

It was yummy!

Florida Date Night

2011-09-14T18:08:00.071-04:00

Whenever we vacation in Florida we have a date night. My parents are early dinner-eaters and then they chill out in the evenings, so we take an opportunity to see the exciting night life of the area (read: sushi for dinner and usually a movie or putt-putt). We like to try local places that we couldn't eat anywhere else to make every date night original.

This year we vacationed very soon after the release of my most anticipated film of the summer, The Help. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie since the cruise last year when I read the book. I'm not sure a movie had been announced at that point, but based on the content of the book and its popularity, I as 90% sure some Hollywood producer would board The Help train and make some money. Whaddyaknow, that's exactly what happened.

Dave agreed to go see the movie with me for date night, after I had talked about the story incessantly while reading the book and waiting for the movie. I kept teasing him about the 'terrible awful' but wouldn't tell him what it was...this might have been a main reason for him seeing the movie. So after our St. Augustine day, we went on our movie date!

We got there early, so early that the credits were still rolling from the last showing. There were only a few people still in the theater, making their way out, and I stopped one pair of ladies to see what they thought of it. I believe they were mother and daughter - the daughter (who hadn't read the book) LOVED the movie, and the mother (who had read the book) said it was better than the book! Those are pretty good reviews - only 2 people of many, but I was even more excited to spend the next 146 minutes watching Hilly and Minnie and Aibileen.

The verdict: I LOVED IT! The casting was perfect, the story was almost identical to the book other than a few minor details that didn't change the flow of the story, and the way they executed the terrible awful was great! The relationship between Skeeter and her boyfriend Stuart was a little rushed, the secrets between Celia and Johnny about Minny were simplified, but the point is the relationships between the women, good or bad, and that part was executed flawlessly.

After I finished bawling watching Aibileen walk all the way down the street towards the bus in the final shot, we made our way to the car, trying to decide where to go for dinner. We had thrown around some options based on places we saw on the way to the theater, but we ended up using the AroundMe app to find the perfect place!

Near the theater is the Flagler County Airport. On the grounds of said airport is a restaurant called High Jackers.

I'll pause for a moment for that to sink in.

Ready to move on? Ok.

It was a very casual, everyone knows your name setting - sit where you want and we'll get to you eventually. Usually that means the food is really good - because surely people wouldn't put up with bad service if the food was bad, right? We'll see.

While we waited for someone to take our drink order we perused the menu, which had airport/flight-related title headings like Main Flight Dinners and First Class fancy dishes, Crop Duster salads, etc...

Since we had popcorn and candy at the movie we weren't hungry for entrees, er, main flight dinners, so we ordered chicken nachos and spinach artichoke dip to share. While we waited for our food we listened to the LOUD BLUGRASS BAND PLAYING 10 FEET AWAY. It was hard to have a conversation with the BASS AND BANJO IN OUR EARS. Thankfully they took a short break so we were able to have a 5-7 minute conversation about the movie before they STARTED PLAYING AGAIN. I took a video, and I wish I could share it so you could hear how LOUD THEY WERE PLAYING but unfortunately I deleted it. Consider your eardrums lucky. Good music, just TOO LOUD.

Food was good, huge portions, great prices, but the irony won my heart. Whoever decided to plop a restaurant next to an airport and call it High Jackers can serve me burnt soybeans and I'd show up just to say I did.

Mapped Out

2011-09-13T22:28:00.001-04:00

When Dave and I started thinking about DIY art for the wall above our yet-to-be-purchase-king-bed, we agreed on one thing: don't do it just to do a project, make it mean something. I know how many projects I've pinned versus how many I've executed, so it seemed like a good idea to put some thought into this and choose the right project for the space so we won't hate the fad in a year.

The first one I closed in on was this one, from Let Birds Fly. It's personal, it's crafty, it can be modified to fit any color scheme. I went so far as to purchase the letters from Schlobby Bobby...then, after thinking some more I wasn't sure this would stand the test of time. What if I decide the frame I find a some thrift store isn't the right size in a month? What if I spray paint it black, but then it feels too morbid? What if...

So the letters went back and I abandoned this idea. Then I saw this:

Not a fan of the hearts, but the sentiment behind this project by Tickety Boo tugged at my heartstrings. When I saw a different picture I knew how I could execute this without the hearts:

The gallery wall is all over the internet. See? I love the walls where the frames are identical or complementary so the subject inside the frame can be the star. It's such a great way to display many things that mean something to you rather than picking and choosing one or two mementos to display.

So that's how we landed on our map gallery wall to substitute for a headboard. Not just any maps - places that are important to us individually and as a couple. Here are our favorite cities:

Fredericksburg, VA: I was born there and live there until I moved here for work. It still feels like home to me, and it might always feel that way.

Dallas, TX: Dave's family lived there until he was 6. He is a lifelong fan of the Cowboys, and his brother has made his way back there for work, and is now starting a family.

Harrisonburg, VA: Duh. JMU. Dave and I both went there - different years so we never met, but it was one of the first things that broke the ice when we started dating. Even though we had never been there together it was something we shared and could talk about endlessly. We spent the weekend there together to celebrate our first wedding anniversary and have been back many times since...

Kill Devil Hills, NC: Before we were officially dating (he considered us to be 'hanging out' - what a crock), we took an impromptu trip to the Outer Banks. I had planned to go down just for 1 night to get away from life for a bit, and randomly asked if he wanted to come. I was surprised that he said yes, but am glad he came. :)

Sugarcreek, OH: After a couple years of dating we decided to buy a house together. I was surprised that I even entertained the thought of committing to a 30 year mortgage to some dude who hadn't put a ring on it, but it felt right at the time. During the closing process, we took a vacation to Ohio Amish country with the Millers, and during that trip, he put a ring on it! Apparently he had been given some strongly-worded advice from Sylvia (love that woman) at work - she told him to make an honest woman out of me - and bought a ring that we had picked out together months earlier. Even though we had been shopping for rings, supposedly so he could get an idea what styles appealed to me, I had no idea that he planned to propose during that trip. Of course, after he did and I thought back to recent weeks, there were warning signs, like the Littman's mailer that came in an envelope with a hand-written To: address, the sneaky phone call to my dad where he was (I thought) asking about homeownership, etc.

Asheville, NC: While we were planning the wedding, we threw around many different ideas for the honeymoon. Originally he was in charge of the honeymoon but since I was having mood swings that gave him whiplash - Jamaica? Florida? West Coast? Europe? Alaska? - we decided to make the decision together so we'd both be happy...we landed in a cabin in the woods near Asheville, NC. It was equipped with a gas grill and a hot tub, and was SO secluded. We were 20 miles from anywhere, including gas or food, and took many trips up and down the mountain to see the sights like Chimney Rock Park, Lake Lure (where Dirty Dancing was filmed), the Biltmore Estate, and downtown Asheville in the arts district with the best antique stores ever and a trolley ride that featured the hospital where Zelda Fitzgerald sought refuge from the world.

Fairbanks, AK: Our next big vacation after the honeymoon was to Alaska, where Dave's Uncle Bob and Aunt Louise live. He was gifted a trip there for his high school graduation and always talked about the things and places he saw during that trip. When we were deciding where to go for this vacation, it was almost too easy to choose Fairbanks as our destination! This trip was awesome! We went to Denali National Park, took a glacier tour out of Valdez - the site of the 2nd largest US oil spill ever, and toured the Chena River aboard a riverboat that looked like a hotel...

I'm forgetting the last one....
OH! Richmond: It's where we met, where we did most of our dating, where we first lived together, got married, etc.

This was the big project I took with me on vacation to Florida...to keep me occupied after dark when we couldn't be in the pool. Before the trip, I picked up my supplies:

10x10 Ribba frames from Ikea (this was the purpose for our side trip on the way to see TSwizzle):

9 at $9.99 each = $89.91

I promise I can count to 9 - 2 were already in progress before I took the pic :)

10 Maps from AAA:

FREE - technically I paid for them through my membership, but I've well surpassed that $92 annual fee this year! I'm saving $120 alone in Dallas next weekend on the hotel bill :)

I also needed a ruler, pencil, and scotch tape, which I borrowed from my crafty mama

I love the Ribba line because the frames can either be used as a shadow box or traditional frame.

Since the frames will be hung behind the bed and it might be hard to see the maps in a shadowbox, we opted for traditional. Time to assemble!

I used the mat as a guide to cut my maps out. I just drew some guide lines with my pencil and then cut about half an inch inside the line.

Then I taped the map to the back of the mat (rocket science, I know)...

Then put it in the frame!

Repeat this process as many times as you want, or until all your frames are full.

We have 2 runner-up cities in which we have spent a lot of time, but these are the top 8. If we decide to make the arrangement bigger than 2 rows of 4 frames, we'll pull someone from the bench. Now we just buy the yet-to-be-purchase-king-bed so we can put up the frame wall! We thought about putting it up now, but since the scale of the king will be much different than the queen, and we don't know the height of the bed, we're waiting...can't wait until it's on the wall!

My first SpidUR game!

2011-09-13T14:23:00.001-04:00

Saturday night Dave and I went to Richmond's first home game of the season!

Their stadium is still brand new - only built last season - and so cool! I love how they designed it to match the campus so it doesn't stick out. The archways of the gates mirrored the archways atop the doors of the Robins Center (next door) and all over campus.

And they filled the place with spiders - including the ironwork on the railings surrounding the stands:

...and the 50 yard line:

We got there early enough to see both teams warm up and practice before the game...

...and make their big entrance!

Dave got me a present to commemorate my first Richmond game - this necklace is just tacky enough to show school spirit! I saw plenty of women wearing them with their fancy dresses and heels, so I need one to fit in, right? Of course, I wore mine with jeans and sneakers :)

The Spiders didn't waste any time after the first huddle:

They scored a touchdown on their 3rd play!

Fun! Hopefully we'll make it back to more home games - especially when they play JMU in future years...although I'm not sure who I would root for?

Campus Quilt

2011-09-05T23:04:00.001-04:00

We all have piles of t-shirts sitting around that we'll never wear again, right? Volunteering every year for a charity event, mementos from concerts, old school shirts that don't fit or are so worn you don't want to wash them anymore? This is the perfect project to memorialize them so they aren't discarded to a box in the attic or the Goodwill pile!

After high school my mom made me a quilt out of my pile of Stafford shirts, and later another with my JMU shirts. Whenever Dave and I have people over these are the most requested blankets because they are so comfy and warm!

Bonnie and Ashley have been asking for years for me to teach them how to make one, but I stalled and stalled because I was scared I'd mess up and waste their fabric and we'd all end up in tears! I've only made 1 of these myself, for Nate's 29th birthday out of his high school t-shirts , and I was nervous about teaching others something I have yet to master.

Despite my stalling, we finally made it happen a few weeks ago! Bonnie wanted to make one out of shirts from the radio station where she works, and Ashley would make one from VCU t-shirts, and I was going to make one out of Dave's old JMU t-shirts. Before our quilting day, I worked up this little tutorial so we'd know how much fabric to buy, what size and how many pieces we needed of each color, and how to piece everything together.

I thought that would work better than my chicken scratch version in a notebook...

I reserved a room at a local church so we could spread out and each have plenty of space to lay out our shirts and fabric while we were working. Once we got all set up we got to work!

Here's what you'll need (use Nate's quilt as a guide and choose whatever colors you wish):

Square corner pieces (blue in Nate's quilt): 1 fat quarter (18in. x 22in.) cut into (20) 3.5in. x 3.5in. squares
Sashing (yellow strips in Nate's quilt): 1 1/4 yards cut into (31) 3.5in. x 13.5in. pieces
Fleece backing: 2 1/4 yards
T-shirts: (12) cut into 13.5in. x 13.5in. squares

OR:

(10) cut into 13.5in. x 13.5in. squares plus (8) 5.5in. x 5.5in. squares
This variation can be used if you have t-shirts with a small logo on the front and want to use that as well. If you use this variation you'll need 2 more 3.5 inch squares and (8) 5.5in. x 3.5in. sashing pieces

I had pre-cut most of my fabric before we got there so I could help them if needed, but I still needed to cut up my t-shirts:

Bonnie brought Nate's quilt with her and laid out each piece she cut out to visualize how hers would look once it was sewn together. Smart!

Once everything's cut it's time to sew! We did 1 row at a time, starting at the top...

...then we sewed and sewed and sewed...

We had some ~~minor~~ hella sewing machine issues!! We all wanted to cry at least once while our sewing machines malfunctioned, rebelled, and generally hated us. I believe all 3 of us broke a needle at some point and Ashley and I ended up trading machines halfway through the day, which miraculously solved both our issues. Weird?

By the time we were finished sewing the front of the quilt, the cleaning guy had arrived to clean the church, which meant we had to scram. So we came back to my house to finish them up! We set up 2 6-ft. tables so we could piece the front with the batting and fleece backing. DOn't have any pictures of this part, but the batting goes on the table first, then lay the fleece on top, then the front piece (face down). Pin all around the edges, trim off the extra fleece and batting and sew all the way around except for a hole big enough to turn the quilt pretty sides out for the finishing touches...

Flip it right-side out, sew up the hole, and you're done! Here they are (pardon the mess):

Ashley has already made another quilt since our day - a co-worker is moving out of the country so people in her office all brought in 1 t-shirt to contribute to a going away quilt. What a great idea! Bonnie needs to make one for her alma mater, American University, and I need to make Dave another one with all his concert t-shirts. Need to schedule another quilting day!

Close-ups:

PS - Compare this project to paying $155+ to Campus Quilt Company to sew your quilt for you!

PSS - I uploaded the tutorial to scribd.com, but if you don't have an account or don't want one, email me and I'll send you a copy!

Tshirt Quilt Tutorial

TSwizzle

2011-08-31T13:53:00.001-04:00

Holy crap it's been almost a month since Bonnie and I trekked up to DC to see Taylor Swift at the Verizon Center! Hold on while I queue up Speak Now to serenade me while writing this post... :)

We talked about how fun it would be to see her months ago, but since the show was on a Wednesday night (she works and I'm 2 hours away) we didn't make the move and get tickets. But the Monday before the show, Bonnie's boss emailed her to say he had 2 tickets and 2 meet and greet passes with her name on them - so she asked if I wanted to go with her...

Um, don'tevenhavetothinkaboutitYES! Actually, I had to think about it a little since it was a really busy week at work and I had 6 vacation days in the very near future. But the boss was ok with it, so I was too!

After an impromptu side trip to Ikea for some Ribba frames for a DIY project I wanted to work on in Florida - ok, and a cinnamon roll - we decided to park at Springfield and take the metro into the city. I can drive like the craziest DC driver, but we wanted to make sure we were on time and didn't miss the pick-up time for the meet and greet passes, so we decided not to fight the traffic.

Once we got there (with almost 2 hours to spare) :), we hung out near the will-call booth and watched the scalpers come in to get 20 tickets (to a sold-out concert?) at a time and then walk outside to sell them...

See that blurry green spot in his hands? That's a wad of 20 dollar bills he had earned on the sidewalk...I'm in the wrong profession!

...and the teeny-boppers (am I old enough to use that term?) with nicer cameras than us make their signs and tshirts for the show, and writing 13 on their hands (something Taylor does at all her concerts - her lucky number)...

"I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you" from Long Live

Once we had the tickets and meet and greet bracelets in our hands we relaxed a bit and people-watched!

Unfortunately the meet and greet wasn't exactly what we had imagined. The bottom line is that we met and greeted her, but that's about it! It is awesome that we got the passes, but I felt like we were steered through the process like cattle more than customers/listeners, but that's the nature of the schedule I suppose. We met our group at 6:15 and were led through a series of back hallways and tunnels to a staging area, full of kegs. Not as glamorous as I expected :

We got to an area blocked off with curtains, and I could see the meet and greet group through the break in the panels, along with Taylor! She was mingling with them and they were talking and laughing - so at this point I was torn between not talking to avoid word vomit, and asking her to autograph this and make a video for my college roommate's daughter who is in the audience and is in LOVE with her.

I never had to make a choice between these two - the group in front of us must have been the fan club or VIP's because we didn't have the same experience. We stood in a line, gave up our purses and cameras, went into a smaller curtained area where we met Taylor -when I say met I mean she said I and hugged me and I don't think I ever looked her in the eye because I would have peed myself - and a professional photographer took our picture. They handed us a claim card to retrieve our photo online with 48 hours and out we went. All that happened within maybe a 15 second period of time.

It is a blur. But look at this beautiful photo:

Awesome! Somehow I managed to look human and smile! Have no idea how either, much less both, of those things happened at once! All I can tell you is she is very tall, very skinny, and has shiny beautiful hair. Didn't look her in the eye. Not once. Don't know why.

This is where my pictures end. iPhone photos are awesome when taken outside or in good lighting, but not so good in a dark arena. See that white blur? That's Taylor. Squint reeeaaalll hard and you might see her :)

Thanks for asking me to go Bonnie! I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you! :)

We haven't mastered the self-portrait yet...where do we look? At the light or the hole or the screen or what? LOL

Adventures in the Anderl House...

Romans 8:31

One in a Million

Recipes Contained!

Welcome to the world, Agnes!

70 Years Young!

Winter Inspiration: DIY Snow Globe!

Little Drummer Boy

Winter Inspiration: Golden Snitch Ornament

North Pole Cupcakes

Glamour Shotz!

Four Christmases

Winter Inspiration: Visit the James Center

Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes

Honey Pecan Butter, Y'all!

Winter Inspiration

Fall Bucket List: Complete!

Yep, we're *those* neighbors

Rolo Turtles

Dueling Christmas Trees...

Pinterest Craft Day: Cupcake Ornaments

Pinterest Craft Day: Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments!

Handmade Holiday at Plant Zero

Date Night in Fredericksburg!

Hospital Survival Kit for New Moms

Alton Brown is my hero...

Fall Bucket List: Bonus project inspired by Pinterest

Fall Bucket List: Complete a project inspired by Pinterest

Fall Bucket List: James Madison's Montpelier

Fall Bucket List: Roast a Pumpkin

Active Imagination

Fall Bucket List: Status Report

Fall Bucket List: Drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte

Fall Bucket List: Carve a Pumpkin

Chex Mix

Witch Hat Cookies!

Fall Bucket List: Make Homemade Applesauce

Perfect Fall Weekend in Virginia!

Fall Bucket List

Ways Facebook can be used for good #58: Gift Certificates

Day of Remembrance...

Patriotic Berry Trifle

Florida Date Night

Mapped Out

My first SpidUR game!

Campus Quilt

TSwizzle

Yep, we're those neighbors