What We've Been Up To

I know, I know, I take long absences from blogging. It is only because I get up in my own little world having a good time. Recently, we've been snowed in, driving on ice, working, driving in snow, doing the dishes every night, and celebrating Jordan's good news. (I'll give you a hint, he is going to make me call him "doctor" from now on).

It's been rather lovely around here because I've discovered that I really like the winter. I was a bit afraid when we moved up here that my glamorized childhood memory of winter would soon be shattered by reality. Luckily for me I live in my own little world, which I already mentioned. The fresh crisp air is so refreshing to walk around in, and as long as its cold it may as well snow! Maybe I won't have this chipper attitude by the time the end of March rolls around and we are still getting it, but in the meantime I am satisfied.

Also, I'm so proud of myself because I set three goals for me to accomplish for two weeks. They are as follows: 1) If not after every meal, do the dishes more often, 2) Make sure we both have lunch for the following day so that we are not tempted to go out to eat, and 3) Do not drink 18 glasses of wine every night. It has been two weeks and I've accomplished all three! With Jordan's help we have been keeping the counter clean, which prompts me to cook more often, which means leftovers for lunch, and some serious self-control with the wine drinking while I am cooking.

There is one wrench in my plan...Tuesday. Tuesday is such an awful day I have a hard time wanting to do anything but complain and go visit Grant, our favorite bartender, and have him give me happy hour appetizers instead of cooking. Tomorrow is Tuesday, so lets see if I can tame the almost-mid-week blues and my severe and all encompassing road rage in order to keep up my good work!

Chuckle

Other than mustaches, this gives me a giggle.

Why is facial hair so amusing?

Just a Phase

Yes, I'm going through a mustache phase right now. It makes me giggly.

Holiday Baking Part II

Whew, this is just a little sneak peak at the rest of our baking session.




Oh dear, it got more messy by the minute.




Jordan was so helpful when it came to rolling out and frosting sugar cookies.





We made snowflakes.





And we made Christmas trees.




Then I made homemade marshmallows!







Then Erma helped us wrap presents.




But she did not help us clean up the kitchen.

Holiday Baking

I love the holidays. As I get older I still love receiving gifts, but giving gifts is becoming more stressful with each passing year. What does one do in this situation? Bake! To the people that know accomplished bakers this is a welcome gift, but to the people that know me...beware!

Today I made about 11 trips down the baking aisle at the grocery store looking for items that I had never purchased before, such as peppermint extract and unflavored gelatin. I also witnessed a woman break a bag of sugar and leave it leaking on the floor while she scurried away, then when one of the store employees walked by and tried to pick up the spilling bag I felt really guilty even though I didn't do it. While I was shopping I somehow convinced that boy that I like to clean up the kitchen. He even organized one of the cabinets to make room for the 16 pounds of sugar and nuts I bought (I knew I liked him for a reason)!

I came home and declared the kitchen table as my own. It is where I have set up shop until the weekend is over. For those of you wondering, yes, the bottle of rum is essential to baking. It will only get worse from here.




Because I am already an expert baker (yeah...right!), I have decided to try my hand at candy making. This is not one of my brightest ideas. First up: Peanut Brittle. Making peanut brittle taught me that I am afraid of boiling sugar and that hardened sugar is hard to scrape out of your favorite pot. Next up: Rum Balls and Homemade Marshmallows (thanks M Cubed!).




For the moment I need to stop baking and have a glass of wine and try and shut out my extremely loud neighbors and the gaggle of small children they have running and screaming upstairs. It looks something like this (which is also when I realized that I hate facebook because they keep changing the layout, and I'm pretty sure they are getting more corrupt by the hour, but I'll still keep using it anyway).




Hmm, maybe I can just buy cookies and candy and pretend that I made them.

Just To Remind You How Cute Erma Is

Because I have not posted in a while I am afraid that some people might have forgotten how adorable Erma is. This is her as a cute kitten.








And this is her as a cute adult and neck warmer.



Ahh, I love her!

I'm Back!

I know, I know, it has been a while. You see, I went on this vacation - an awesome vacation - and once a person goes on an awesome vacation, it is hard to accept that they will one day have to go back to real life. So I’m back, as a matter of fact I have been back for a rather long time, but I’ve been dreading the first post-vacation blog post because it is a lot of pressure. I really don’t feel like blogging about my entire vacation minute by minute because I would like to keep it as a pleasant memory for me instead of whoring it out with pictures and eighteen paragraphs about all the great stuff I did. Instead, I’ll just do that a teeny bit.

So here it is, I went to Italy for two weeks with my mom. That’s right, we both left our silly husbands behind to go to Europe, and I personally think it was an excellent decision. Here is the great part though, we met up with her Mountain Friend (my parents live on a mountain, so all friends in that immediate region are Mountain Friends) and the Mountain Friend’s sister, who doesn’t live on a mountain at all. My mom and I did Rome with just the two of us and then found the others in Florence and continued to wreak havoc on most of Tuscany and Umbria with them. We traveled into small towns, got lost in vineyards, saw a billion beautiful churches with amazing artwork in them, spoke Italian poorly, and laughed constantly, all while trying to keep to strict regimen of at least one gelato a day.

Here are a few things I learned:
-Men in Rome dress very well. They also flirt very well and excel at it.
-People in Italy do not obey traffic laws. Now that I think of it, they don’t really do rules very well at all.
-There is good wine everywhere.
-A smile goes a long way even if you have no idea how to speak the language.
-I have finally accepted olives into my life. It feels so sexy.
-Cameras are annoying. This is something that I have always known, but when I have a bunch of rude people at the Vatican pushing me around so they can get a horrible shot of The School of Athens just so they can prove they were there it makes me a bit grumpy.
-German tourists are jolly, while Canadian tourists can be snippy.
-Humans really are amazing. Our gang got our fill of art and architecture and between the Colosseum in Rome and the Justinian mosaics in Ravenna we were just flabbergasted at what humans can make.
-And one of the most important things I learned: If I really love a piece of artwork, there is nothing stopping me from one day going to see it in person. I don’t know why that never occurred to me before, and I know that I will not be able to do it again any time soon, but I am confident that I will be able to see more amazing art and architecture up close and in person during my lifetime.

So now I will leave you with some pictures (half of the pictures are on my camera, and half are on my mother’s camera because we are both technologically challenged, especially when it comes to strange European plugs):




Italy has too many ruins, they are everywhere! They make great benches.




Pigeons are gross no matter what continent you are on.




They really are cute, but I think the Pope has a better chance of defending himself with his pointy hat. I think Jordan must have been a Swiss Guard in a previous life.




Apparently lions really like to eat Christians because we kept seeing it everywhere.




Lunch is Assisi. Just another day of drinking wine and overlooking a beautiful valley...I mean I do it all the time in Delaware.




This? Oh, its just the view from our Villa outside of Arezzo. I just threw it in here even though its pretty similar to the view from my apartment.




Ancient Rome. Seriously, ruins everywhere.