Post holiday fun

Hope y'all had a great holiday and are maybe still enjoying that holiday. I had to go back to work unfortunately but in my strange part-time schedule, only had to work 3 hours today.

We had a nice holiday visit to Baltimore where we enjoyed a white Christmas (meets my quota for cold and snow for the rest of the year). We celebrated two Christmases - one in Baltimore, and then one at our house (where we opened our gifts and the gifts from my family).

We of course got some amazing cooking gifts and are on our way to trying them out. My favorites: The Flavor Bible, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican (we made dinner last night from this and it was yummy), an ice cream maker attachment and grinder attachment for the mixer, a creme brulee torch, and my wonderful coworker Amanda got us some truffle infused olive oil!  I'm excited to try all of these things out and update you!

On another note - my dad is visiting this week!!  The husband and I planned the meals for the week and here's our menu. We think its a fairly good representation of the influences in this area of Texas. We'll hopefully take pictures of all this yumminess.

Tuesday: Vietnamese from Pho Thang Long
Wednesday: Adobo marinated Cod broiled in corn husks; white rice pilaf with corn and peppers; and creamed zucchini with corn and peppers. (This was yummy and our first foray into corn husk cooking)
Thursday: The Boat - I don't know the name of the actual restaurant but it looks like a boat shipwrecked in a parking lot so we call it the boat. They have amazing fish (lots fried), but also some of the cheapest, biggest, and best oysters you can get around these parts! :) Or so we've been told - we haven't tried oysters yet. But I know my dad will love it.
Friday: All Mexican again: queso, Mexican corn chowder and chicken tamales (all from Rick Bayless)
Saturday: Smoked brisket, coleslaw, and baked potatoes
Sunday: Taking it down a notch for roadside chicken (courtesy of our other Rick Bayless book) and grilled asparagus.

I love that we have the time to cook this week and that we have the patience (most of the time) to cook together. I may or may not do one of those new years resolution-y posts later but if I don't - have a great New Year's celebration!!!

Happy holidays

We'll be out of commission, celebrating Christmas over the next few days. So I wanted to wish you all a wonderful holiday. And here's a little bit of fun I'm leaving with you (please don't judge). This picture somewhat sums up our lives the last few weeks: mismatch craziness, with a little attitude on top. Merry Christmas! :)

Baking and such

One of the reasons I love the holidays is because its the perfect excuse to bake ridiculous amounts of sweets. Super! :)

So like I promised, here are pictures of the most recent sweet yummy treats - chocolate dipped biscotti and sea-salt topped toffee. Both are REALLY good. I have a container of fudge, toffee, and cookies sitting on my desk at work and it is literally killing me to not eat every last bit. But I'm doing a good job of keeping to no more than 2 pieces a day (at work)!

The finished wreath - simple but nice.

And the rest of our holiday decorations!

Have a fabulous weekend before Christmas! :)

Busy busy

Lots of fun has been had by our little family over the last week or so - thus making blogging a little bit more challenging. Anywho - we enjoyed a visit from a good friend this weekend and watched the Ravens beat up on the Texans in Monday Night Football. This was exciting for me because it was my first football game in more than a year - I know, sad.

Proof that we were there - the little camera on my phone doesn't do anything for photos!

I also made lots of yummy sweets - I'll post pictures later.

And for your amusement (because I got a little chuckle out of it).

Seen on Dwellers without Decorators - from Etsy here.

Done...

Well, we're almost done with the bathroom. The main components are finished and the husband did a wonderful job. We are both so excited to have it done and working, with the added benefit that we both like the end product thus far!

Here are some before, during and after photos for your enjoyment.

Original bathroom

Bathroom without wallpaper

Our remodel of the bathroom!

While the husband finished off the bathroom, I worked on some cooking craziness. We're a big fan of the bread-a-day blog recipes and this weekend I made the pretzels again. I also made some yummy fudge. So overall, we both had a really productive and great weekend!

Pretzel knots from Bread-A-Day here

Peanut butter chocolate fudge

Thought-worthy

The blog has been a bit random this week but it's where I am in the world.

I don't know if you like or dislike Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm ambivalent, as with most famous people. But when, a few months ago, I saw a mention of her blog and newsletter I thought oh why not waste a few minutes checking it out. (This was pre-job). I was pleasantly surprised. So I subscribed to her newsletter and have truly enjoyed it - its not fluff - not one of those emails that frivolously violates your inbox. In fact, I've actually saved it a few times. Today's Goop (the name of her blog) newsletter is particularly interesting - the title is Boundaries and it specifically speaks to women's boundaries. As a counselor, this is important to me, but as a woman it is even more important. Thought-worthy.

Counseling humor

I saw this on Elements of Style today - very nice. Original artwork found on 20x200 here.

Turkey day break

Thanksgiving turned out to be our one day of rest this past weekend. But we definitely enjoyed the quiet time together at home. Our menu was lighter than most Thanksgiving meals but just enough. We had turkey, dressing, corn souffle, and brussels sprouts. It was all very yummy and easy, making for a nice relaxing precursor to our crazy weekend!

Here's our turkey - the husband did a great job with it and it was by far one of the best tasting turkeys I've ever had!

 

The whole yummy meal!

 

Fun wine accessories!

After our restful day, we spent the rest of the weekend working on the half bath, cleaning, shopping, and putting up decorations. We didn't get nearly as much stuff done as we had hoped but its coming along. Hopefully the half bath will be finished by the end of the week.

We're still waiting on the faucet, toilet paper holder, and towel ring to arrive and I haven't yet found a mirror in our price range that I want in the bathroom. (Too bad this one is WAY TOO MUCH MONEY).

Labor-wise we still have to:

1. Caulk the trim
2. Paint the trim, and
3. Install everything (toilet, sink, etc)

Who knew this bathroom would be this time intensive. The husband is doing a great job handling the fun 'issues' that pop up - e.g. the way-less-than-level ceiling (off by almost an inch in places). We're both getting excited to have it done and its definitely looking good so far. Hope to have some updated pictures soon!

And just for fun - a good picture of Shadow from the weekend!

Wild hair

According to Urban Dictionary.com, a wild hair is a "Sudden decision that is not expected." I tend to get a lot of wild hairs and so I decided to start a little section where I'll highlight a wild hair I've had recently. For me, wild hairs mostly involve baking. For instance, I'll see an amazing looking dessert like so and then whip it up as soon as I have some free time. But lately I've had some wild hairs involving random home projects or decorating projects. Probably a result of the way-too-many-to-count blogs that I read on a weekly daily basis. So get ready to enjoy some of my hair-brained projects!!

First on the list of wild hairs:

I read several blog posts about making yarn covered wreaths. See here and here. So I decided to make my own! But then while I was doing a little holiday decor shopping at Home Goods, I saw this below.

Broken wreath at Home Goods

And I decided to make a sort of combination of the two! Here is a sneak peek. You only get a sneak peek b/c apparently I don't own any glue worth a crud so I can't finish the thing until I purchase some!! :)

A part of my in-progress wreath!

Checking things off the list

We finally started working on the bathroom this weekend. When I say we, I mean the husband b/c the bathroom is small and well he's better at some of that stuff! The tile is done! Yay! And the husband did some electrical magic so I can have a pretty hanging light in the half bath too!

Half way there - most of the tile down!

Done!

While the husband worked diligently on tiling and electrical work, I finished (finally) the bed skirt and started on another random project (to be posted later in the week). It is really nice to have the bed on its way to being finished. I only want a few gray pillows and a gray throw and we'll be done. The bed spread is the wonderful birthday present from my mom (West Elm)! (please disregard wrinkles)

Visitors!

Oh yeah. We've had lots of visitors recently and that's pretty awesome.

First, moms came for a few days and although she didn't feel her best we had a great time shopping downtown and site-seeing. It was so nice having someone to shop with rather than dragging the husband around everywhere. She bought me a pretty awesome bedspread for our bed so once I finish sewing up our bedskirt, a portion of the bedroom will be complete!

Then, for my birthday, the husband surprised me by organizing a visit from my bestest Jenny and her husband Mike. Umm, can I tell you how much I love those kids? We had such a fabulous weekend with them - hung out and ate yummy food at the house, went to a great restaurant downtown for dinner Friday, shopped all day with Jenny Saturday while the men had a man-day (football-watching, meat-smoking, etc), and had a raucous evening of cheese-slinging and rubberband fights! Really, it was super-duper fun.

Here are some pictures after dinner of the motley crew - Jenny has the rest so I'll have to wait about a year to get those!

To top it off, Funke came back through again before working in Austin for a few days. Three friends from NC in one weekend!!

Needless to say, we've gladly not worked on anything around the house. But next week I'll hopefully have an update on our progress on the half bath remodel that we get started this weekend!!

Ramblings

As of today I am officially 30. Whoa

Actually, it's just another birthday to me - you know, something to be excited about but not concerned about.

But even though that's how I feel, its sometimes hard to get past all the "to-do lists before I'm thirty," or "I've got to do so much before I'm thirty." And sometimes it creeps into my head, bugging me, making me wonder about the way I've chosen to live my life until now. I haven't had a to-do list. And when I'm feeling particularly frustrated with various things in life, I think I haven't really done much with this time.

Then I recognize that all those thoughts creeping into my head are from pressures that I refuse to let into my life for long. I'm actually excited about thirty. I know it may seem strange. But it's one more great year to look forward to.

In honor of my thirty years of life I've decided to share 30 of the best moments, experiences, people, etc - this list is not exhaustive by any means but some of those times and people in my life for which I am so grateful.

1. Getting my master's degree and working toward finishing my PhD without sacrificing the important times and people in my life
2. My husband, my partner, the man who challenges me to be everything that I want to be and who stands beside me with such determination and love
3. The beautiful, strong, brilliant, amazing women whom I call friends - my life has grown so dramatically because of these women
4. Celebrating the births of the two most beautiful children to two of my most favorite people in the ENTIRE world
5. Being called Aunt Liz by those two children, celebrating each of their birthdays, loving them dearly, being loved by them
6. My dad's unwavering support, be it as my soccer or softball coach as a child, or as someone I can go to about the frustrations of school or cars or really anything
7. My mom's steadfastness and quiet strength
8. The day the husband and I found Gracie and the monumentally positive influence she was in my life during the hardest times of the PhD program - she kept me sane, happy, and grounded
9. Seeing Gracie run through mud puddles at the dog park (some of which are deeper than she is tall)
10. Our dogs' fierce love for us despite all our imperfections
11. The weddings of our friends and family - it is more than special to share in such meaningful and joyful celebrations
12. Jenny - before moving to TX, we seemed to follow each other around, living in the same cities for 16 years and I am so lucky for those years. Our friendship started off rocky (I didn't invite her to my 6th grade birthday party) but has become such an integral part of my life - she, along with her husband, children, dog, occasional small furry creature, parents, and more are my family (the non-married and non-biological family) - they have a large part of my heart and I so look forward to the day they are back in my life on a weekly basis
13. Higher education - I know you question this, especially if you've heard me complain about the PhD program. Let me be specific here - the fabulous people, and I mean really freakin' fabulous people (mostly women in my programs) who I've met along that journey. And these women are Amazing - their dedication, strength, determination, resilience, intelligence, passion, and more - they are truly inspirational
14. Growing up with one set of grandparents living in the same city - and still having those grandparents in my life
15. My family, my entire extended family - their love for one another - all of whom have touched my heart in so many way
16. My mentor and friend Laura who has, at times, been the only shining ray of hope in the world of academia
17. NC State football game fun with college friends
18. Walking on the beach, preferably a NC beach, in the early evening
19. The south - and just to let you know, Texas proclaims that it is not a southern state.
20. Live music and all of the amazing concerts I've attended with good friends
21. The 6 years I lived in Raleigh, NC - amazing times, amazing friends, and amazing fun
22. Hearing about friends' babies (and bumps) :)
23. Traveling around Europe with Betsy and then studying in Vienna for two weeks with the Wake Forest crew
24. Teaching - the experience of observing someone learn something new is truly special
25. Learning. I know I've been in school forever but I really like learning and that's one reason why I really like counseling because a great deal of it is about learning about another person, their joys, their struggles, their hopes
26. Cheese fights
27. Living in a condo next door to a dear friend for a year - really, people, we should all live next door to our friends - it makes life sooooo much better
28. Grasshoppers and mudslides
29. Setting up a friend with a guy I met through another friend and then watching their relationship grow - they are now engaged!
30. Little moments - commuting with the husband and sharing about our days together, dinners with my mom every week during grad school, soccer games with my dad, driving 45 minutes to meet friends "half-way" for dinner, a drink after stats class, cold mornings that turn into beautiful days, and more.

Of course there are more but I don't want to bore you!  Have a great week!

A whirlwind of a week

Last week was rough to say the least. The car broke down. We spent two nights of the work week devoted to that problem. Then I made the unfortunate mistake of saying on our way home on Thursday how nice it would be to have a normal night. Yeah, well that's not exactly what happened. Poor Shadow had a bit of an upset tummy and 3.5 hours, one rented carpet cleaner, one empty container of Shout-Out and four loads of laundry later we sat down for thirty minutes before going to bed. Whew. Turns out Shadow's little upset stomach turned into what is likely a version of diaper rash for doggies and she is now on pain medicine and an antibiotic. Poor thing

But besides that, this week is looking up. First, things are a bit more normal (thankfully). Second, MY MOM IS COMING TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Third, the husband's birthday is Thursday. What a nice week and a nice change from last week. Did I mention that I'm soooo excited that my mom is coming??  Well, I am!!  We're going to do some shopping and some antiquing and some eating yummy food. Yay!!  Ok, I'm done. Have a great rest of the week!

Oh, and an update from a previous post - people, if you like to cook and you like things like butternut squash and sweet potatoes - that sausage (we used turkey sausage) shepherd's pie last week was AMAZING. And easy (once I learned from a co-worker that Costco sells butternut squash already cubed). Its a strange mix of things but oh so wonderful!

Temperamental teenagers

I have one of these

Toyota Corolla from here

But she's much more mature than this one. In fact, most days she's a very mature 15 year old. However, Tuesday she decided that extreme drama was the mood of the day - basically she didn't feel like leaving my office. In fact, she didn't feel like doing ANYTHING. So my very nice coworker drove us the 45 minutes home (even though she lives 5 minutes from our office). We dropped off my cranky car at the local repair shop before heading out to the suburbs!

Wednesday morning we were quoted the damage - $440. Not terrible but thanks to the amazing husband, we saved a bunch of money - he was able to do all the fixes last night, and in my work parking garage no less. Hooray for handy husbands!!

And now the solid ole corolla is back in good shape, acting like her same reliable self again. (Now all we need are the crazy drivers to stop wrecking at the entrance to the HOV lanes and we'll be good).

Yay for the weekend being here tomorrow after work!

A quiet mind

I've noticed recently that I spend a lot of time thinking - even when I'm sort of sleeping or should be sleeping. I have been sleeping fine, but I tend to wake up a few minutes before my alarm or earlier on the weekend thinking about all the things I want/need to get done. After thinking about my thinking I decided its the result of my attempt to maximize my time outside of work - trying to "get ahead" or finish something I started awhile ago or start something new. I think I need to find a bit of a balance in this. I'll keep you posted on the balancing but for now, here's what we did this weekend!
We bought the tile for the bathroom project! Woo-hoo!! To give you more of an idea of the bathroom look I'm hoping for, here's a picture of a bathroom I love. This is basically the basis for our bathroom, although we are making several key changes.

Lonny

Ok, so with that in mind, we did not buy the super expensive but loverly hexagonal tile we saw at Daltile ($35/sq.ft). Instead, we bought a 12x12 porcelain tile that will do the job. And instead of black walls, we'll likely go with a very dark blue with less gloss.

Back to the weekend...

Saturday we worked in the yard until about 2 and then ran some errands.

Our to-do list for Sunday looked like this:

Sometimes writing on a board discourages correct spelling.

The husband's part of the list was not numbered. Sunday is Raven's football day and thus much of his afternoon is spent on the couch. However, he did add to his list during the day - he cleaned the dishes and kitchen after all the cooking/baking, and demoed the half bath!

So the husband cleaned this (which is after some of the dishes were put into the dishwasher):

And he did this:

If you need a refresher on the bathroom prior to demo - check it out here.

I spent the day marking things off my list.

Sausage Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potatoes and Squash

Molasses Wheat Berry Bread

Excuse the messy pan but the yumminess was overflowing!  Turkey Sausage Spinach Lasagna with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Pumpkin cupcakes with my mom's homemade cream cheese frosting.

So we'll be eating well this week! And hopefully meal-making will become easier and faster as the weeks move along.

Have a great Monday!

Please welcome our new furry family member

We officially welcomed Shadow into our family a few weekends ago and we need to make it official to the blogging world! So here she is!

We named her Shadow b/c she follows us or Gracie around everywhere! Shadow is very sweet and as we say, 'licky.' To describe her ever-growing personality, she is a bit of a drama queen, a little anxious, playful, and at times obstinant. Yes, you can see how she fits into our family PERFECTLY! :)

Gracie and Shadow get along well and enjoy running laps in the backyard together and playing inside together.

But Shadow is a bit mischevious and has so far had a knack for escaping and destroying. See evidence below.

Shadow decided to take out some energy on our laundry room and this is part of the result - what you can't see is she ate the ironing board cover during this episode. Please notice the wood chips from the door and door frame chewing that occurred during the episode.

The way our laundry room looked before she destroyed it.

Laundry room door part 1.

Laundry room door part 2.

Laundry room door in its entirety - several parts will have to be replaced.

One of several socks found in various parts of the house in a similar state.

This pot once had a little poblano pepper plant that she decided to dig out.

Poor poblano plant that we are trying to revive. We'll keep you updated on it.

Despite this, we do love her and are glad to have another member of our little family (most of the time)!

Have a terrific weekend b/c I know you all deserve it! :)