Christmas lights during the night and day

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Has anyone else ever noticed that Christmas lights during the day just look like a huge mess but when they are lit up they are beautiful and awesome? My case in point is below from a recent trip to Mozart’s Coffee here in town.

A photo from the night the Girl and I got engaged when we stopped by Mozart’s first when it was still a surprise and it looks awesome!

The same lights but during a recent morning coffee run we took to Mozart’s. They look like someone just threw up a string of lights on the side of a building without untangling them.

window shopping

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When I first heard of Fab, I thought, oh great, another one of those sites that will send me 500 emails. But I was wrong. They are awesome. I get to see all kinds of products and designers I wouldn’t normally see. And they are cool. For instance, I probably wouldn’t have seen these beautiful prints if it weren’t for Fab:

Cool vintage-style world prints.

Fun and simple city prints, like this one of Austin.

Sweet collection of infographic style prints, like a map of culinary tools.

Another good idea stolen by someone else

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So this weekend while the Girl was baking up a storm, I had an idea that someone should be making phone and tablet accessories that protected people’s devices while they used them to look up recipes and cook in the kitchen! I had thought I was on to something because when I searched for the phrase “case for phone while cooking or baking” it returned limited results that appeared promising to me that I might have stumbled across an untapped market…

Screen Shot 2012-12-09 at 10.32.53 PM That is until I found www.chefsleeve.com which looks like they have a fairly good stranglehold on the cooking/baking protective cases for the iPad and iPhone. I have to admit that their cutting board with iPad holder is simple, yet ingenius…

Oh well! Maybe there’s still time for me to tap into the Android market…

the great whoopie pie experiment

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I received some lovely whoopie pie pans for my birthday. I had super grand plans for some holiday whoopie pies. I wanted to make these chocolate ones, but rolled in gold sprinkles, and these gingerbread ones, with the crushed peppermints. In my head, they were going to be beautiful.

Instead, the tiny whoopie pies baked to look like tiny muffins, I had to cut the tops off to make them look right, and I got frustrated and filled them with some leftover frosting instead. Not quite what I had in my head…

But after all that, its kind of hard to mess up a cookie/frosting sandwich. Tasty mistakes.

Christmas Present #4

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I don’t know know how the girl does it, but she always knows what I need! For Christmas present #4 I was on the road on a work trip and I needed something to write with and right before I went to some gift shop to buy some, I got some super awesome fine tip pens! What a pleasant surprise.

What could it be?

Sweet pens!

Christmas Present #2

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I have always been a bit jealous inside of this very soft and warm looking pair of socks that the girl has and wears around the house when it’s cold outside….but I am jealous no more! For surprise #2 I got a pair of moose socks that I’ve already started wearing around the house. Happy days!

Moose socks…you know you want a pair.

A goose sighting

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I just got back from a recent work trip to Denver and I had a goose sighting! I kind of forgot how large of a bird a goose is, but when you see them up close as you’re driving through a neighborhood it’s a reminder that they are quite large birds. Speaking of which, did anyone else know that geese were frequent in Denver suburbs? Because it was a surprise to me!

what I bought at the mall today

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I volunteered to be in charge of the gift donation drive at work this year. I “adopted” some kids from a local organization, made the little angel tree with the ornaments, and waited. Pretty soon, we had mountains of presents, and a bunch of donated money to buy the rest of the gifts.

I went to the mall this morning to search for a pair of shoes, and a kind of perfume, and an iPod, and other little gifts on their lists. But I hope it wasn’t really “things” I was buying. I hope that I spent that donated money to help the kids feel like someone cares about them. That someone is on their side and thinks they deserve to be happy.

It makes my heart happy that some people are good, and remember what Christmas is for.

new in the shop: blue ram

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Baa baa blue curly horned sheep. (new in the Little Amaryllis shop)

my first pecan pie

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My reasons for making a pie were threefold:

We just got engaged, so we can do whatever we want.
My fiance’s favorite kind of pie is pecan pie, and I need to learn how to make one for him.
I have been having trouble with my pie crusts, and after watching the master make turkey day pies, I really thought I could conquer the crust.

I wish I could say that it was equal part all those reasons, but I won’t lie. It was mostly because I wanted to make a perfect pie crust.