Another try at whoopie pies

I tried another recipe from my Whoopie Pies book today.  Chocolate chip with classic buttercream filling. 

New kitchen curtains

I dusted off my sewing machine this weekend to whip up some new curtains for the kitchen.  I've been wanting to replace the valances we had on the windows for a while, but hadn't been able to find anything I loved and thought I'd still love 5 years from now.  So I decided to make them!

I love the tie-up London style, and made one for our guest bathroom earlier this year.  It's so simple and girly, grown up and fun all at the same time, so I decided to use that same style for the kitchen windows.  I picked up some clearance curtain panels at Walmart and ripped out the seams to make them work for my style!

Here are before and after pictures of the french doors leading to the deck:

The side door had a green roman shade, but it was more of an Army green and it stuck out like a sore thumb against the sage paint on the walls now.  Here it is with the new valance:

I love that there are no blinds at the kitchen window.  Even though my view if I'm standing directly in front of it is my neighbor's lovely siding and propane tank, if I turn slightly I get woods.  :)  So I wanted to keep it wide open with just the valance at the top, like it was before.

Lastly, the laundry room.  This is the part where I failed and had to spend more money to fix my mistake.  I bought some curtain panels at Ikea that were 95 inches long, so I measured the laundry room doorway twice, and cut once - just like my dad taught me in his workroom when I was little;  the advice is echoed on HGTV every day.  Anyways, I cut them and hemmed them, but when we hung them up, they were 5 inches too short.  FAIL!  If they were just a little too short I could have lived with it, but 5 inches is way noticeable.  So today we went out and bought some new curtain panels that are just a smidge too long.  I'm not hemming them for now - I'm a little gunshy, but maybe I'll do it eventually.  The length doesn't bother me.  Here are the new curtains:

Not much of a style change, but the green on green bothered me just like with the side door.

This is how I spend my holiday weekends.  :)

Love!

I got my deep covered baker from Pampered Chef today and I'm already putting it to work - making chicken fajitas!

The first time I saw this product at a show, this is the recipe we made and it is so tasty!

I cut up 1 green and 1 red pepper, and 1 onion in huge pieces - you'll understand in a minute - and put them in the bottom of the baker.  I added juice from half of a lime, and sprinkled with a chipotle rub.  Then I put chicken tenderloins on top, added the juice from the other half of the lime, and sprinkled more chipotle rub, along with salt and pepper.

I put the cover on the baker and put it in the microwave for 15 minutes.  It comes out like this...

and I used my awesome salad choppers to chop everything up to be served fajita-style:

We had tortillas, shredded cheese, and sour cream to build fajitas however we pleased, and had refried beans on the side.

Quick, easy, and yummy dinner!  Can't wait to use this baker again!

Grandma's pumpkins

Bonnie inspired me to get my fall butt in gear yesterday!

For the past few years, Dave and I have been getting our pumpkins, mums, and various other fall decorating items from Lancaster County, PA.  We usually go on Whoopie Pie Festival weekend (happened on accident the first year and I'm a creature of habit), which is usually also Thomas the Train's weekend to visit the Strasburg Railroad.  But this year we took a cruise with the Millers to celebrate our anniversaries, so there was no money left over for another awesome vacation.  Next year, for sure.

So since we didn't get up to Amish country this year, we haven't bought any fall decor and our porch looks so sad.  When I read about Bonnie's fun trip to Snead's Farm for pumpkins, I was motivated to change that!  So I put out a plea on Facebook for locations in Chesterfield County where I could pick up both pumpkins and mums without visiting a chain store or the local berry farm which is just too far to drive after work.  And no, I couldn't wait until this weekend!  I knew of a farm near our house that always has fruits and veggies for sale in the summertime, but wasn't sure if they'd have pumpkins.  But Candice answered my FB plea and confirmed that this place is where I should go.  So off we went to Grandma's Pumpkins!

It's right on Courthouse Rd. but if you didn't hear the constant stream of cars passing by you'd swear you were in the country.  They had pre-picked pumpkins, gourds, and some yard decorations.  Not quite as cool as a pumpkin patch but just as fally.

We picked up a large pumpkin and a smaller white one.  For some reason I always want a non-traditional pumpkin - I need a unique one.  We also got some gourds and mini pumpkins for a coffee table decoration and then headed home.

I was going to get mums too, but Grandma was charging $14 each, so we left without one.  Stopped by Great Big Greenhouse tonight and picked 2 up for $4.99 each!

I also picked up a winter pansy to brighten up the deck a little.  It's so dreary out there with the table and grill covered up - needed some color.   So I planted my new yellow pansy in the awesome hand-painted Mexican planter I got in St. Augustine this year.

Happy Autumn!

County Band Night - featuring the MRD's!

When I went to JMU I was part of the Marching Royal Dukes, "Virginia's Finest."  I was certainly out of my league and not a good enough xylophone player to keep up with kids who had played since they were 4 and participated in Drum Corps every summer.  That's not me being self-deprecating, it's me saying these people are the best teenage/early 20's musicians out there! I marched for 4 years in high school, but only played the xylophone during marching season - I was a mediocre oboe player in concert band/wind ensemble.

What I'm getting at is that while I was a small fish in a big pond and only made it through 1 season with the MRD's without being made an alternate, being a part of this organization so worthwhile!  I learned from some of the most talented players and instructors and was introduced to school spirit at a whole new level!  So different from high school marching as we didn't go to competitions or many road trips, but we performed twice at every football game, and it was hard not to become close with people you spend up to 20 hours with each week.

The MRD's posted on their Facebok page this weekend that we could come see them Monday night at Chesterfield's County Band Night hosted by Monacan High School.  Um, yes please - that's right down the road from our house!  The marching bands from each of the county's high schools performed, and JMU played last.

It was so much fun to see the bands play - took me back to the high school days when that was where I was every single weekend. At a competition somewhere wearing that smelly, sweaty hat and hoping I didn't forget to pack my black socks and mallets!  The place even smelled familiar - like popcorn and sweaty hats.  That sounds gross, and it should because it's a gross smell!

James River was my favorite, but I might be biased because they were always the best back in the day.  They won grand champs at a ton of our competitions.  There was one chick in the pit who was awesome - she used 2 pairs of sticks throughout the performance and was flawless - at least to my ears!  Wouldn't be surprised if she's an MRD one day! :)

Clover Hill was up there, and all the M schools were tied for 3rd in my my mind :) - 5 of the 10 high schools in the county have names that start with M. 

The MRD's marched onto the field in sections, and after the first one arrived people in the audience thought that was the whole band...so when the rest of the sections marched on I could hear gasps from the people around me in the stands.  Guess these people didn't realize how huge JMU's band is.  I think it's around 400 players, plus or minus alternates who perform on the sideline.     

Here are the MRD's playing 'Get It On' and the fight song, during which you can hear Dave singing his little heart out!

...and Van Morrison's 'Moondance.'


And since I never know how to end these entries, I'll leave you with my favorite picture of the night - I'm not sure why I like it or even why I took it, but it's cute:

Chocolate whoopie pies with salty peanut butter filling

I decided to make another recipe out of my Whoopie Pies book.  I wanted to something sweet and salty, so I combined the chocolate whoopie pie with the salty peanut butter filling.  I removed the salt from the filling recipe so it wouldn't be quite so salty, but the filling certainly lives up to its name! 

Also, the cake isn't very sweet, so I'm calling it a fail.  I followed the recipe exactly and didn't forget any ingredients, so I'm not sure where the train fell off the track, but it still tastes better than carrots.

And they look cute :)

I wish every Saturday was like this

Today was an awesome day!  It started with an all-day (which ended up being more like 4 hours) scrapbooking event in Montpelier at Hopeful Baptist Church. 

I packed up all my cruise pictures, stickers, paper, and the scrapbook that I bought on the ship.  The consultant had all kinds of tools set out for us to use - cutting systems, scissors, markers, the whole shebang.  I had brought all my stuff just in case, but she was so prepared!

I think Bonnie finished her whole album in the time we were there, but I'm way OCD when I scrapbook, so I only did a whopping 7 pages!  I have to pick the perfect 3 or 4 pictures for each page, trim them, find the matching stickers, coordinating picture-framing and background paper, then start the painstaking process or putting it all together.  I think I did pages documenting Sunday, Monday, and half of Tuesday of our trip.  I was going to finish out Tuesday, but I couldn't find any paper that reminded me of stand-up comedy (does anyone know what that means?), so I stopped there for the day.

On the way home from the church, Bonnie and I ran a highly unsuccessful errand for my mom.  Not only did Kohl's not have what we were looking for, but the amount of time it took to find a parking space at the not-new-but-newly-rebuilt store was more stressful than finding parking anywhere on Black Friday.

We came home and rested for a bit and then had dinner at Mimi's and dessert at Sweet 95!  Love that place! :)

Now we're going to pass out until tomorrow, which will be dedicated to Biology reading, quiz, and homework.  :)

One of these things is not like the other...

Why is there a picture of an apple on the cover of Everyone Poops?  I get the Asian kid, the horse, and duck, because they all poop.

Apples don't poop.  Why is this on the cover?

I realize apples have high fiber content, which aids in the process of digestion, but if this were an SAT question, the apple would not fit into the equation. 

Please Help!

Oh the places we'll go...

A few weeks ago I was in Memories Galore looking for paper for my cruise scrapbook, and I saw these awesome map pages.  Instantly I thought I should make a personalized map for my craft room to display all the places Dave and I have been individually and together.  It's not an original idea by far, but it has mucho sentimentality with a poco price tag.

Because I was in a scrapbooking store where everything magically fits into a 12x12 box, I had to choose from either the whole country on one 12x12 page, which was too small, or two separate pages splitting the country right down the middle.  The second choice seemed like the best idea even though I'd have to figure out a way to fuse them together to make a big map, or keep them separate but make it look like I did it on purpose. :)

Once something like that is in my head, it's hard for me to turn it off, so when Bonnie, Ashley, and I went to Ikea, one of the must-finds on my list was a frame to use for my map project.  I thought maybe I could buy a cheap white frame, remove the glass, and add cork instead of the cardboard backer - then adhere the map to the cork and it would be all ready for my pushpins!  But Ikea only has cheap frames in 8x10 or less, and the size I needed was like $40.  Not a very Ikea-ish price tag, right?  Fortch, we found 15x25 corkboards, and I put them side by side, trying to picture them hanging side by side on the wall, each with half the country displayed.  Looked good in my head, so I got Bonnie and Ashley's creative approvals, and into the cart they went! 

The next day after a super-healthy lunch at Five Guys, Dave and I went to Office Depot to search for the perfect pins.  I was thinking I'd find sewing pins but not the short, fat ones I needed...but lo and behold, there they were:  Map Pins!  Haha, it's like they knew I was coming! :)  I had everything I needed, so when we got home, I got to work on my maps!

I bought the white paint thinking I'd paint the frames of the corkboards...but i decided against it because all the furniture in the craft room is unstained pine.  Left them au naturel.

Since the pack of map pins came with three colors, we thought it would be fun to mark places we've both been individually or with our families, in addition to places we've visited together.   

 Dave's travels are marked with black pins, mine with red, and ours with white

We got to work tonight hanging up the maps.  Here they are! 

Every map needs a legend:

I picked up this map of the Bahamas on our cruise, so I pulled it out of the scrapbook box and used it to mark Nassau and Freeport.

We're missing Alaska because none of the maps I found included it.  Alaska and Hawaii are so neglected in the US map industry.  So we'll be hitting up Uncle Bob and Aunt Louise in Fairbanks to be on the lookout for a postcard-sized map to fill that empty space on the west coast board.

Now I'm sure you've noticed that the East Coast map is waaaaayy more populated than the West Coast and the middle of the country.  This exercise made it painfully obvious that we need to branch out and get off the Eastern Seaboard when we vacation...so in 2011 we've made a deal to visit the middle of the country.  Will it be Chicago?  Yellowstone?  St. Louis?  Little Rock?  I have a favorite already, but I'll share that later.

Green Valley Book Fair

Labor Day weekend was a while ago, but I wanted to document a fun road trip we took to the Green Valley Book Fair.  Ever since I met Jenny Kurtz all those years ago in AST when I moved to Richmond, I've been yearning to see this book fair.  She went just about every time they were open, and would always come back with so many awesome books on the cheap!  Awesome for book nerds like us!

I knew the book fair was up in the mountains somewhere, but didn't realize it is just 4 miles south of JMU, so of course we had to take a detour to drive through campus and hit up our favorite spots in Harrisonburg...oh wait, most of our favorite spots are closed.  Good thing Tyler, who travels a lot for his mysterious and eponymous appraisal company, posted on Facebook a while back about a new burger joint in the 'Burg that served burgers with weird toppings.  So before we headed out on our trip that morning I double-checked the name of the joint with him, Jack Brown's Beer and Burger Joint, and jotted down the address.

We could tell by the number of college kids sitting in the outdoor patio area how popular this joint is - it was around noon when we go there, so I knew I was in for some comfort/hangover food.  I saw a burger with breakfasty toppings going to most of the college kids, so I couldn't wait to get in there and check out the menu.  But first, the decor.  Oh, the decor of this place.

They even have safety tips posted on the walls :)

I like the story of this place - 2 guys who have been friends since they were kids and always dreamed of opening a beer joint together.  They collected all these beer cans from early on, and when they saw their dream become a reality, they used the beer cans to line the walls :)

All they do is beer, burgers, fries, and fried oreos.  They did a ton of burger research and didn't want to be Jacks of all trades, masters of none, so they stuck to the basics.  Brilliant.

Even the bathroom had cozy artwork - who am I to go against the dinosaur's recommendation to try the Elvis burger?

The Elvis has peanut butter on it.  Yep, it sounds horribly gross and unnatural, but it's so weird that it sounds like it works.  So I tried it - and it was fabulous!  It added some sweetness to the burger and I loved it!  Dave got a boring BBQ burger and we shared some sweet potato fries.  And for dessert, a fried oreo. 

tasty

Once our bellies were full, we took one lap through and around campus to see what had changed (pretty much nothing except the awesome stadium makeover) and then stopped at the University Outpost.  It's weird to go in there because I'm so used to it being a steakhouse, but whatevs.  I got an awesome new sticker for my car and Dave got a new t-shirt. 

Once we got our JMU fill, we headed back down 81 to the book fair. 

It did not disappoint - 2 or 3 warehouses full of books!  It was like my Heaven!  It was so well organized and even though it was the last weekend of the fair there was still plenty to choose from!  I had an idea of which books I was looking for, but I should have dome some serious classics/fiction research before I went so I could have picked up some that I don't have.  Without a list the fiction section was a little overwhelming.  I enjoyed the history and comedy sections - that's where I picked up the 4 books I purchased, one of which I can't remember now:

And here's one I had to leave there, no matter how hard it hurt.  <3 Bailey Salinger :)

Dave picked up some nerd books about math and SQL and stuff, and then we started the trip home!  We took the scenic route through Bridgewater and Dayton to Staunton, and stopped for dinner at the Mill Street Grill.  Bonnie, Ashley, and I ate there during a road trip one time, and I've wanted to take Dave there, and this was my opportunity!

Good day reminiscing, being nerds, and spending some time on the open road :)  That's a perfect day for me <3