I am really nerdy about grocery lists. I plan out our meals for the week and optimize our ingredients. Every week, I make our list and email it to my guy for approval and revisions. I think it is a skill that may come in handy someday, especially once we have a growing family.
I have been anxiously awaiting my new cookbook all week. I am really excited to take my hobby to the next level.
In between work, obsessively checking Twitter for updates about that royal baby, and watching live streams of hospital doors, I have been sew, sew, sewing for a local wholesale order. My favorite part is sewing their little eyes on and watching them come to life.
My ma has this really big bell. So big it is mounted on a big post. We decided that when we said I do, someone needs to ring the “wedding bell”. GET IT??
So we also made little miniature versions for all the guests to ring. They are just little scraps of leftover fabric and ribbon, tied onto wooden dowels. It took me some hunting to find some suitable bells that weren’t too big, still made noise, and didn’t cost a fortune. Once they were done, we stuck them all in a little flower pail and added a sign. We saw lots of the little ones running around with them after the ceremony, and at the end of the night, everyone rang them as we drove off together.
I got my hair cut yesterday. I have some wavy/curly/puffy hair, so they always blow it out all nice for me. BUT, it was raining when I left the salon, so it immediately got curly in some bits. Like washing your car, and then it rains. So anyway, COOKIES.
About wheat flour- the cookie dough doesn’t always taste the way you want, but the resulting cookie has a nice chew. Helps cut down on the cookie dough eating without compromising the results.
I used this recipe here, and added dark chocolate chips and chopped up pecans (aka the only mix-ins we got at the moment). They flew off my desk at work.
I am on an ongoing journey to find a muffin recipe that makes those big muffins with the big fat tops on them. I read somewhere that the secret was using yogurt, or something like that to give your muffin some oomph when its baking. I used a recipe similar to this, and added some lemon zest and poppy seeds.
One of the best parts of making muffins or cupcakes is putting the little cupcake liners in the pan. Instantly makes me feel like I am in the kitchen with my ma.
This batter is super thick. I imagine you could maybe put it in a loaf pan and make bread too.
The recipe said it makes 12 muffins. I checked multiple times. So I made only 12 (overflowing) muffins.
I skipped a glaze on top, since its mostly sugar, and we are trying to be a little healthy here.
And here is the huge muffin! Perfect for our Sunday brunch. I don’t think it is my perfect muffin recipe yet, but by george, it sure has a glorious top on it.
It is quite a shame that not all treats are easy to mail. I wish I knew how to send a pie in the mail. It would be the best feeling to know that someone is going to get your pie in the mail at any minute.
I needed a treat to send to all my wedding peeps, but it needed to not be melty, and to hold up for a couple days while it flies across the country. I decided on granola bars. Because they are like the universally eaten treat.
I used this recipe here. It was pretty easy. Basically you mix stuff together.
At this point, you resist the urge to crumble it all up and keep it for yourself.
Chop em up into bars. I got somewhere between 40-50 bars that seemed perfect sized.
I ended up dipping them in chocolate. To be fancy.
I would make these again any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Because people consume more granola on Sunday than other days. I would try making them with some dried fruit and coconut, or mini marshmallows and tiny chocolate chips. Or just tiny m&m’s mixed in. Or just plain.
You can always tell a dog is happy when they’re wagging their tail. Marley will wag her tail even when you just look at her, which is what she was doing below as she waited patiently for one of us to get up and take her outside.
*It’s an animated photo taken with my phone as I was playing with some of its camera settings.
These ribbons are only if your wedding guests are the very best, like ours were. I started making them as a busy project a couple months beforehand. It was one of those instantly gratifying projects. I first got the idea when I made this ribbon for my ma. And my ma is always my inspiration.
I took some leftover fabric scraps from some other wedding decorations, and I made a million yo-yos. I then scrounged up some felt in coordinating colors, and glued on the extra bits. I attached a pin back to the back of the ribbon.
On wedding day, we put them all in berry baskets by the wedding programs. It made me very happy to see everyone wearing them!
(photo by our amazing photographer)
Now that I have space for a grill outside now, I want nothing more than to get a super sweet grill. I’ve been immersed in researching what the best options are and I had to practice a lot of restraint when I walked into Home Depot over the recent 4th of July weekend and not buy the first one I saw which was hard to do when I walked into this….
How often does your actual hotel room look like the pictures on the website that you saw when you booked your room? I would have to say almost never which is why we were pretty excited when we got to our room and saw that it was 99.9% like the picture on the website. I was fairly convinced that the photo on the website was taken from our room’s balcony.
Picture from the website
The view from our room
guy and his girl 