Meyer Lemon Skillet Cake

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Oh my word, it has been forever since I posted a recipe on here! I decided that today was the day to make amends. I had a bunch of Meyer Lemons from The Farm that I needed to use before they went bad, so I did a little search for a new recipe to try. I came across this insanely easy cake and had to make it. I have to say that I was definitely not let down!

Before I get to the recipe though, take a moment to swoon with me over these gorgeous Meyer Lemons. If only I lived in California and could have a tree of these in my backyard. I never thought I would envy people living there, but these are ridiculously good lemons. Sigh.



The following recipe is taken straight from this site. The only thing I did differently was to use a 10" skillet instead of an 8". If you actually used the correctly sized skillet, you would get a thicker cake. As it was though, this is an incredibly moist and delicious dessert. The original post talks about a sweetened sour cream topping, but doesn't include it in the recipe. I experimented to make my own and have added it at the end for those of you who like precise measurements.

Meyer Lemon Skillet Cake

3/4 cups sugar

Zest of 2 Meyer lemons

juice of 1 Meyer lemon

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 cup melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

1. Place an 8 inch cast iron skillet over low heat, and add the butter. Slowly let the butter melt while you mix the batter.

2. Place the sugar in a large bowl and add the lemon zest. Rub the zest and sugar between your fingers until the zest is evenly distributed through out the sugar.

3. Add the eggs to the lemon sugar and whisk until fully incorporated. Add the lemon juice and vanilla and mix again, until the liquid is distributed evenly.

4. Add the flour and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until it is evenly distributed.

5. By this time, the butter should be melted. Remove the skillet from the heat and pour the butter into the batter. Set the skillet aside and mix the butter into the batter evenly.

6. Pour the batter back into the skillet, spreading it evenly across the pan. Transfer the skillet into the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. The top should just be turning golden, and feel firm to the touch.

Sour Cream Topping

Stir the following together until fully mixed:

1 cup sour cream (I used light but you can use whichever kind you prefer)

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

Lost In A Moment

Friday, February 27, 2009

I promise you I will give you a post this weekend with an update about what I'm doing in life and why I've been so silent lately. I am currently at home sick with the flu that is going around our office so I'm not up for lengthy writing at the moment. Until I'm better, enjoy this video. It is strangely soothing and mesmerizing all at the same time. I oddly helped my stomach feel better.


lost in a moment from dennis wheatley on Vimeo.

Don't Do It

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Because I feel bad about not posting lately, I'm leaving you with this awesome present:

Sam & Nicolle's Engagement

Sunday, February 8, 2009

So my little broski is getting married this summer to the great girl. We are excited to have her join the fam! They asked me to take engagement pics for them for a save the date card, so we went around downtown Puyallup last weekend and had some fun. These are just a few of them, you can click on any of the pictures to see the full set.

D.C. In Pictures

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I have to confess that I only took 3 pictures on the actual day of the inauguration and haven't even transferred them to my computer yet. Being in a huge crowd made it hard to maneuver to get my big camera out of my bag, which when combined with feeling sick, wanting to keep my hands in my pockets next to my hand warmers, and the autofocus suddenly stop working on my lens, made me just decide to leave the picture taking up to Jess. I know, surprising huh. But that gives you an indication of how unwell I really was feeling. I will post some of her pictures for you once she has them on her Flickr account.

The following pictures are of our marathon sightseeing trek the day before the Inauguration. The night pictures were all taken without a tripod and I am amazed at how well I was able to keep still enough to get semi-ok shots without a ton of blurriness. I did perfect a brace of sorts using the brim of my hat, but I didn't realize until afterwards that it gave all my pictures a slight tilt to the right. I am normally very good about visually eyeballing straight lines, but the hat just threw me off so I had to correct the tilt when I was processing the pictures. It took a lot longer to go through the batch when I had to correct so many tilts! Click on any of the pictures for more.

Washington Monument
I have no idea why all of these ended up in black & white, but they did. I processed in batches and somehow ended up converting them all at separate times without realizing it.







Reflecting Pool
The pool was completely iced over and the barricade had been pushed from the side of it into the water. Part of it was on top of the ice and the other part had frozen underneath. The dude in the first picture was an absolute oddball who just stood there while we were taking pictures. I figured he looked enough like some uniformed important person to keep him in the shot.





Jess standing on the ice after a young punk decided to try it out and deemed it safe


Lincoln Memorial
Seeing this was by far the best part of the trip, except for the inauguration of course. As some of you know, when I pray God often gives me pictures or visions for me to pass on to the person I am praying for. Generally I don't get that many for myself, but a few years ago I was going through a really rough spot in life. During one particular prayer, God showed me a vision of myself running up to the Lincoln Memorial and being swept up into Lincoln's arms and just being held. God was saying that he was so much bigger than my problems and would be my shelter. He was showing me that he wants to hold me close if I would let him. That was a huge moment for me and to this day, I can still physically feel that hug from Lincoln/God. So to see the memorial in real life and be able to find the quiet with God in that place even when surrounded by hundreds of people was amazing. I will not soon forget that experience.





View of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial
You can see them dismantling the stage from the concert there in Obama's honor.



The Capitol
The first 3 pictures are from the backside, the final one from the front







Final set up for the Inauguration



Oh, and here's a view of my favorite thing about the trip...

(I hope you realize I was being sarcastic there)

Inauguration Day Play-By-Play

As promised, I have written out how our Inauguration Day went. This is a bit on the long side, so I broke it down into a Before, During, and After section. The after section was really the most eventful of the day. I am working on editing some photos for you and will post hopefully later today.

P.S. The Tacoma News Tribune wrote about our experience here, here, and here. Thanks for the heads up Jason :)

Before
We had planned to get on the Metro right when it started running at 4am but could not face the thought of getting up that early, so we got on around 6am instead. Surprisingly, the cars weren’t all that full when we started out, but that could definitely be attributed to the fact that we were almost at the end of the line. By the time we got about 6 stops down the line the cars were packed.

The metro was so filled with people that the stop we wanted to get off at was temporarily closed so we had to get off at the following one. That station wasn’t much better in terms of sheer numbers of people, so a metro worker started chanting “keep it moving” over the loudspeaker. She kept repeating it and eventually the crowd took it up as a call and answer. Everyone was laughing and in great spirits. Unfortunately we then had to backtrack a ways to get to the Mall. We joined the throngs of people heading in that direction and felt completely lost with no idea of which access points were going to be open and which would be closed. Luckily, they had a ton of volunteers who were more than helpful and helped pass along information about which streets to take and which areas were still open. We finally arrived at a gate a little after 9am.

During
As you can tell from my post on the actual day of the inauguration, I was feeling the joy and excitement in the air when we were finally on the Mall. The air was absolutely electric with the energy from the crowd. We stationed ourselves near a jumbotron so that we would have a good view of what was happening and settled in to just stand there. And stand there. And stand there. They were playing things on the screen for us to watch, but it wasn’t quite enough to distract us from the cold. I was bundled up pretty well and felt warm everywhere exc ept my feet. I forgot to put on extra socks and when you are just standing on the frozen ground, the cold seeps through the bottom of your shoes. I ended up handing out some of my extra toe warmers because one of my neighbors was only wearing tennis shoes with mesh on top and her feet were not going to fare well in that weather.

The crowed absolutely erupted when we got the picture of Obama arriving. All thoughts of cold and discomfort went out the window and the mood in the air increased tenfold. It took forever for all the important people to be announced and make their entrances, which was annoying when all you really want to do is get to the main event. I was disappointed with the crowd however, when Bush was announced and they all started booing. Twice! I am no fan of W’s, as I’m sure you know by now, but he is still a person and deserves to be treated with respect just like anyone else. I thought it was very poor taste for the crowd to boo. However, I did hear that up closer to the Capitol they didn’t hear anything, so I think it just had to be a couple of the sections closer to where I was standing.

Obama’s speech was great. Wonderful. Pointed. Inspiring. All things good. The crowd again erupted over and over and waved the flags that we were given. Jess couldn’t see the jumbotron due to the rather tall people in front of us, so she held her camera up over their heads and watched it all happen on the camera screen. People started trickling out once the speech was done but we stayed until the ending benediction. And then the fun part started…

After
I can safely say that I have never ever in my life experienced anything like the crowd leaving the inauguration. There was poor planning and management of the crowd by officials and it definitely showed. For a mass of people this size, there needed to be wide open spaces for everyone to move. Unfortunately, to get to the street we were needing to walk on, everyone had to funnel through one little opening wide enough for one person at a time. This created a mob of people so packed in that I’m sure you could have lifted your feet off the ground and you would have stayed in place. It was absolutely crazy. I was following Jess and had to hold on to the hood of her jacket to keep from getting separated. Since I’m bigger than her, I would occasionally physically guide and turn her from behind to get out of particularly tight spots. It took us a half hour to cross from one side of a street to the other. There is no crowd that will trump that for me. Ever.

After that, we decided that it would be wise to take a break before going on and trying to get home. We sat on a curb with some other people and watched the masses pass us by. From that point we decided to look for a building to wait out the huge crowds packing the subways. A security guard told us about a shopping mall, L’Enfant Plaza and we headed in that general area. Massive street closures allowed the sea of people to take over the streets, going in all different directions. Like I said in an earlier post, it was surreal to be with thousands and thousands of people flowing over the streets. It felt like some catastrophic event had happened and we were all wandering aimlessly not knowing what to do. We finally ducked in there to get warm and wait and found it packed with a ton of other people trying to get to the metro station connected to the building. Jess and I found a hallway with only about 50 people and sat to wait.

After a while, we thought the crowds had died down considerably and went to get in line for the metro, which was snaked inside the mall. We waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour, we had only gone the length of 4 stores and it was getting hotter by the minute. Picture a small mall hallway packed from side to side with bodies. The low ceiling was trapping in the heat, and the closer you got to the entrance of the metro, the hotter it became. Everyone was shedding layers and people were fainting. No joke. During that hour, we heard several people pass out. I am in the process of developing a cold and at the inauguration wasn’t feeling all that well. After being in those conditions in the line for that long, I developed a fever, started to feel really shaky and told Jess that we had to leave. We were by a side door and were able to escape that way.

From there, we walked to another station an hour away that would allow us to hop right on the correct metro line without having to go through any transfers at crowded stations. We were anticipating some sort of a line at the new station but were beyond thankful to find no line and no waiting for a train. It was completely empty of people. I can’t even begin to describe the absolute relief to be out of that crowded station line. If I hadn’t left, I most certainly would have either fainted or thrown up. We finally made it home a little after 6pm, after trying since 1pm. Finally getting out of D.C. rates up there in probably the top 10 feelings of relief in my life.

All in all, it was a great experience that I would definitely have done all over again. It was amazing to be part of a big historical even instead of just hearing or seeing it happen. A great trip with a great hope for the future of our country. Obama for your mama!

Day 5: Homeward bound

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

5:40am. We are on our way back to the Richmond airport. This trip has been nothing but early risings and even though I love my mornings, I do not want to see the wrong side of 4am again anytime soon.

However, it feels great to be hat free for the first time in 3 days. And out of my hiking boots. I adore both, but when they are worn for days on end the head gets a bit itchy and the feet need a break.

And as much as I love walking, it feels great to know that I'm not going to have to track down a people-free metro station or find a bathroom with dubious hygienic standards.

Do I talk about bathrooms a lot?

2:01pm. We are in the Cincinnati airport for a 5 hour layover. I am using my time wisely and am typing up a detailed summary of our inauguration day. I am too lazy to go to a different terminal to get wireless internet, so I will post it either tonight when I get home or tomorrow.

Hopefully I will be able to fit a nap in here too. I so need one!

7:21pm. On the bus from the airport heading home. Woot for public transportation!

8:57pm. Home. At last.

Day 4: Inauguration!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

9:11am. We are here! It is impossible to describe the mood and feeling here. Everyone chanting in the subways. Singing together in the crowd. It is incredible!

Jess is eating leftover kabob right now and it is grossing me out.

No guarantees about being able to post anymore due to spotty cell reception.

In case people are looking for us, we are close to the Washington Monument facing the capitol.

This is flippin sweet!

2:16pm. I feel like I'm in a disaster movie. Getting out of the National Mall was INSANE! We were in the biggest crush of people and took a half hour to go 30 feet.

Most streets are closed and are literally filled wall to wall with people. It is absolutely surreal to be walking on 4 lane road in a group of thousands of people and pass under an overpass with more people going a different way.

Jess and I ducked into a building to wait for a few hours. We are currently sitting in a hallway with about 50 other people with the same idea.

This is CRAZY! If I didn't know better I would think that some catastrophic event just occurred.

But, it is still fun. The stories we can now tell...

7:17pm. We finally made it back to Aunt Nancy's place. After moving maybe 300 yards in an hour while waiting in line at a particular station, we decided to hoof it an hour away to a different station. It was completely clear. Praise the Lord.

8:20pm. I would like to add that I am super glad that I can now drink water without wondering where I'm going to use the bathroom. There were a ton of port-a-potties at the mall but the cleanliness definitely left something to be desired. Let's just say it was a good thing we brought our own toilet paper with us. Oh yes, we did.

I will post stories in more detail once we are back home and I can use my laptop instead of my phone to type.

10:41pm. Went to bed an hour ago because we have to get up early for our flight but I can't get to sleep because I keep thinking about how great the day was.

Day 3: DC prefunk

Monday, January 19, 2009

6:30am. I should so be asleep right now but am mysteriously wide awake. Just looked at the weather and it is supposed to snow. Joy! (that is said with sarcasm)

11:03am. I think I lied when I said that I wouldn't have internet access anymore. Jess needed to work on an assignment that's due for school tomorrow and we thought now would be the best time to get that finished. So I am currently sitting in Panera (free wi-fi baby!) and catching up on everything. I'm working on editing a few pictures to throw your way before she gets done, but no guarantees. While I'm doing that, you can check out how famous we are. The News Tribune featured us: http://www.thenewstribune.com/1099/story/599432.html Booyah!

1:15pm. I have updated yesterday's entry to include pictures. Just letting you know because I know I have some readers who use RSS feeds and might have already looked at the post.

1:16pm. It's fricken snowing here! Seriously, what is up with this?!?!

10:49pm. We are back after a marathon evening of seeing DC at night. We got some great pictures but are more than ready for bed. More to come tomorrow...

Day 2: Williamsburg

Sunday, January 18, 2009

9:52am. Watching trashy TV while waiting for Jess to pack. This is the life.

12:15pm. Jess and I are waiting for the shuttle into Williamsburg. She and I have different approaches to vacations... She has to plan and get everything in that she can while I just go and do whatever. She is currently pouring over the map plotting our course. This could be a long day...

3:37pm. I am currently drinking what has to be the best mocha I have ever had. Not really but after being outside for hours it is amazing. Jess is on some tour of some building but I decided to forgo that for the joy of coffee.

4:13pm. By the way Happy Birthday Joel! You're an old man now.

6:12pm. This is Jessica and we are are currently heading north on i-95 to Rockville. The day has gone well in Williamsburg. It was fun to brush up on forgotten early American history...though being winter most things were closed and there were very few people.
We are both getting hungry for a good meal! No really good food has eaten yet... I am hoping this will change very soon.

10:36pm. Arrived at Aunt Nancy's place, albeit after much giggling while lifting Jess up to peer in an old man's window and waking him up. Um yeah, we had the wrong place. Sorry for terrorizing you Lawrence!

We won't have much internet access now so all updates will be from Mr. Berry. Blackberry that is. I will have to post pictures and full stories when we get back.

Oh, and by the way, you know you've been having bad food when the highlight is the Chinese food you got from the grocery store. I am seriously doubting the cooking abilities of the people around here.


1/19 Picture Update:

As many of you know, I am a detail person. Give me the big picture and I will tell you all the details that need to happen for the big picture to be complete. Thus, when I take pictures, I tend to document the details. Here are a few of our journey yesterday in Williamsburg. You can click on any of the pictures to see the full set.



















And finally, the sick and disgusting Waffle House:



.

Day 1: Traveling to Virginia

Saturday, January 17, 2009

3:14am. Obama should make it illegal to be up this early.

4:34am. We would like to extend a special thank you to our sponsor Bekah Schmidt who kindly woke up from her dream about terrorists to take us to the airport.

5:19am. Its currently a balmy 8 degrees in Virginia! Time to break out the shorts

2:30pm. On connecting flight in atlanta. Just enough time to pee and then we had to board. Bloody hot and hungry. Thank the lord for the apples we packed.

7:40pm. Oh my, what a cultural experience we just had. After picking up our rental car and finding our hotel for the night, we went to dinner because as stated at 2:30, we were famished. We hadn't really eaten since the wee hours of the morning. Not wanting to prolong our stomach pains much longer, we headed for the nearest place-- The Waffle House. We do a drive by to look in the windows and are disheartened by the fact that there is only one pair of customers in the restaurant. Taking that as a bad sign, we drove another block but decided to turn around because while we're in the South, we might as well take advantage of it.

We walk in the doors to an overwhelming stench of cigarettes and puke. For some reason we keep walking to a table and even take a look at the menu. Jess and I keep giving each other the "this-place-smells-like-pee" type of looks and are struggling to figure out if we want to stay. Eventually the waitress comes over to us and we decide to just go for it. We're going to brave the dirty counters, rotting lettuce, and dripping waffle pans we see. Why? I don't know either.

I'm really struggling how to best write this next part because really, I don't wish to be derogatory or mean or superior to anyone. So with that disclaimer, I would like to just say that there is no better way to describe our waitress than to say that she absolutely epitomizes what many people would call the stereotypical Southern redneck. Just to give you a general idea, she looked to be about 17 and wore huge plastic earrings in the shape of a heart with peace signs in the middle. I wish to submit the following evidence for you to ponder:

1) First, in response to Jess' comment that we had never been to Virginia before and certainly never to the Waffle House, she replied proudly, completely mystified by these out of towners, "Oh REALLY? Well, we serve ALL Coke products here."

2) When Jess was served her biscuits and sausage gravy, the sausage was on the side for her to cut up and put in there herself.

3) We overheard the waitress yelling into her cell phone, "I called the jail and he wasn't there". Jess and I turned to each other with wide eyes at that point and the waitress came over to apologize for all the ruckus. I asked her if she was ok and she told us the story about how her fiancee he had disappeared for two days and wouldn't return her calls. Apparently this is something he does somewhat frequently. I told her in no uncertain terms that she needs to get out of that relationship because she deserved someone who would treat her better.

4) And I am sorry, but no matter what way you slice the bread, there was some weird hanky panky going on in her familial life. She kept calling a coworker of hers "Daddy", when he looked to be no older than 20. At one point, he pulled a picture of a baby out of his wallet and the waitress took it to show someone else what her new baby brother looked like. There is no way that this guy actually fathered this waitress at 3 years of age.

Seriously, this was definitely a night of culture for us.

Changes

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

There have been some big changes recently in my life, mainly having to do with work. I am done working at my old company and am moving on to a new one. I'll update you more in the future, but know that for now I'm super excited about this change! You probably won't be hearing a ton from me over the next month or so while I adjust to the new job (except for the inauguration hoopla of course) but don't worry, I'll be back.

Blonde Moment #387

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

It's been a while since I've told you any of my ridiculous stories. I was going along being normal for so long that I forgot what it's like to pull an Angie. Thankfully I remedied that situation and once again have a reason to laugh at myself...

Yesterday I was jonesing for some Thai food and our normal Thai place was closed, so I ordered takeout over the phone from another restaurant that I've been to before but don't frequent as much. I drove to the place when my food was going to be ready. This restaurant is in a little strip mall, so I park in front and walk to the door. I have to walk a little farther than I thought I had to, but think that I must have just misjudged my choice of parking spots. I walk in, look around, and notice the decor consists of bright blues, reds, oranges, and yellows. We're talking vibrant colors here. Odd, I think, but I just assume they changed the look. Then I see the "specials" board advertising soft tacos. Our normal Thai place randomly also sells fish & chips, so I don't think too much of this Thai restaurant selling soft tacos. There's no one at the front counter, so I have time to look around some more and notice a painting on the front door (that I had just walked through), which says "Felize Navidad". I literally thought, "Wow, how multicultural of them". It wasn't until I was approached by a Mexican server that I realized I was not in the right restaurant. I was so turned around and baffled by my loss of reality that I actually had to ask for directions to the Thai place.

Granted, I did have some impetus for my blond moment. As I had been parking, I was doing a semi-terrible job of it and a couple of guys stopped on the sidewalk to gawk at me. No joke. Feeling slightly embarrassed that anyone had seen me make such a mess out of a simple parking job, I got out of the car and just started walking. I somehow was following the guys who stopped and was desperately hoping that we weren't going to end up in the same place. Unfortunately, I just followed them right into their restaurant, completely bypassing mine. I was definitely groaning inside when I realized we both needed to go to the same place. And then I just made an even bigger ass of myself and ended up looking like I was trailing them on purpose when I suddenly made a mad dash for the door after having to ask for directions to the restaurant RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

Don't you wish you were me?

Snowflake Saturdays

Saturday, December 20, 2008

I have been thoroughly chastised for not updating my blog in a while. I do apologize to those of you who are upset with me. I haven't done anything stupid or funny or ridiculous for the past few weeks and didn't want to make something up for the sake of my readers. So instead, today I bring you pictures of my all day project-- paper snowflakes! Jess and I started making them this morning and somehow just kept on going. We did 55 in all, and have them covering every window in our place. Um yeah, so maybe we did go a bit overboard. But what else is a person to do when they are snowed in?!

Here's some of our handiwork. You can click on any of the pictures to see more.

Awesomeness

Sunday, December 7, 2008

I got some distressing news on Friday and my friend Joel sent me this video to cheer me up. I laughed a lot while watching it. I'm posting it because it's hilarious, but I'm going to make the disclaimer that it does have an F-bomb in it and some suggestive phrases. I don't care about that, but I know some of my readers do so I wanted to make sure you didn't watch it if you were going to be offended.

Johnson Kids

Monday, December 1, 2008

This past weekend I went to the house of one of my coworkers to take some pictures of her kids for her Christmas card. Doesn't she have gorgeous kids!

A-Z Thankful List

Friday, November 28, 2008

So my friend Vicky did this on her blog (which was inspired by one of her friends) and I liked the idea so much that I had to copy it. It's a little late, but I didn't see the post until yesterday. Here goes...

Art supplies

I love creating. Painting, sketching, crafting. I love visual representation of people's ideas. That's why it would be very hard for me to live without my art supplies.

Books

I read all the time. The perfect day for me would be hours upon hours of reading. I couldn't live without books in my life. During one particular 6 month period in 2005, I read 170 books. I was in a job that basically gave me a ton of down time to do what I wanted and the best way to occupy myself was to bring along a book. I read almost one a day during that period

Camera

I think it's pretty obvious by now that I like to take pictures. It would be impossible to overstate the joy it gives me to see God's world through the lens of a camera.

Drama-free living

Drama sucks. I will not get pulled into it and consciously live my life in a way that has no room for it. I surround myself with people who act the same way and have very much purposefully removed sources of drama from my life. There is no need for it and I will not allow myself to participate in it.

Etsy

I love checking out what people are making these days by logging onto etsy.com. I get inspired by their creativity and enjoy the eye candy.

Family

They're great. 'nuff said.

Google

I've been known to say that if I could marry Google, I would. I love their search capabilities, maps, documents, notebooks, and most of all Gmail! I ADORE all things Google!

Honeycrisp apples

Ever since March, I have been eating an apple a day. I used to hate apples but forced myself to eat them since they kept coming to us in our box of produce from the farm. I quickly learned to love them and when the honeycrisps came into season late August, I have been eating them solely. I refuse to compromise and will pay the extra amount of money for the bestest apple in the world! Jess and I have actually gone through an entire box of "seconds" from an apple farm and are starting on the second box. I don't know how I'll survive when they are gone!

Inauguration

I think I've mentioned this here and here.

Jess

The best roommie a girl could ask for. We're on our 7th year together and have our routines down perfectly. I don't know how we'll survive when we surely move apart some day.

Kitchen

I think I have made it abundantly clear that I love to cook. LOVE to cook. I would be super sad if I didn't have a kitchen to make everything in.

Laptop

It's where the magic happens. Emailing, editing photos, researching recipes, blogging. My little lappy and I are great friends.

Mochas

I love coffee. Mochas or a caramel latte are my usuals. I always have to do decaf though because my body doesn't handle caffeine well. And I always get an 8 oz, which is so small that most places (including Starbucks) don't even have it as an option on their menu. Those of us in the know however, order these little cups of heaven that are just the perfect size. Strong, bold flavor.

Nissan Sentra

My car, Arnold. He is currently in the shop (bad fuel pump) and I have been driving my dad's car for a week now. I really truly miss Arnie. He's the cutest and most reliable man I've got in my life right now. We'll be reunited on Sunday and I'm counting down the days!

Obama

Is it ok that I used him earlier for Inauguration? Because I really am that excited about him. I'm sorry if I keep talking about him, but he's totally my President crush.

Photoshop

I have basically taught myself Photoshop. I edit photos with it and have recently experimented with designing various print forms. I made my Christmas cards with it and will be sharing those with you soon.

Quips

I like to be funny. I like people who are funny too.

Red

A wonderful color. Maybe my favorite right now? I can't be sure. But it makes me happy to have red around me.

Singledom

It really is a blessing to be able to do what I want when I want. I am loving this stage of my life and the abundant blessings there are associated with it. Don't get me wrong, I want the marriage and kids too, but I am reveling in the great place God has me at the moment.

Take Root Farm

I think I talk about "The Farm" way more than a person should. But I love it. Our weekly box of produce is such a treat.

Ugly Betty

This tv show is quirky, fun, and makes me sigh inside. I have recently stayed up late the past few nights catching up on it and adore the way Daniel and Betty interact. Seriously, I just sighed. Out loud.

Vocal cords

I don't know how many of you know this, but I love to sing. I did various choirs throughout high school and also helped lead worship at my church. I haven't really done anything with singing since then, but am thankful that my church has a long worship time so that I can sing to my heart's content. It does my soul good.

Work

I am blessed to have work. And moreso, a job that I like in a company that I like. Many people aren't so fortunate.

XML

This was a total stretch, but my blog uses XML for the template. So I guess I have to be thankful for it.

Youth Group

I help lead an awesome group of high school girls! My GO Girls Only Group is seriously some of the most fun I have every week. I love listening to them and hearing what's going on in their worlds. I love my girls!

Zany antics

I am all about spontaneity and doing stupidly dorky things. I will freely admit that I am a dork, but will maintain that I have more fun than someone who is on the more proper end of things. Really, why would someone want to behave all the time?

What. Are. The. Odds!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

So remember this post? The one just three days ago where I erroneously thought I woke up late? The one that made my heart start racing and my adrenaline flowing? The one I was so thankful was just a false alarm?

Well think again, because IT. REALLY. HAPPENED!!!

Yesterday morning I managed to sleep through not one, but two alarms! I always set two alarms (it's a system I have-- too long to explain) so that I am guaranteed to wake up. Apparently in my sleep I must have turned them off and not realized what I had done. I pried my eyes open a little after 6:20 and panicked when I saw that I had exactly 10 minutes until I had to leave. For the second time in several days, I jumped out of bed, running full speed around my room. I was almost doing laps in my haste to get ready. I decided to prioritize my needs and firmly believed a shower was in order. Again, the hair wasn't looking so hot. Generally it doesn't.

I will gladly announce here that I am quite proud of myself for being damn good at getting ready under pressure. I managed to take a shower, get dressed, brush my teeth, do my hair (minus drying it, which would have taken 20 minutes itself-- no joke) grab my lunch and breakfast for the road in UNDER 10 MINUTES! Yes people, I am good.

However, to be fair, one of my friends pointed out that this success may not count because I had a practice run just a couple days prior. I still maintain though that I did an excellent job. I may have known to not waste time throwing off my pajamas and putting them back on before exiting my room, but that small advantage didn't gain me more than a minute. I would have still been right at 10 minutes even with that penalty time added.

You may applaud now. I know you're dying to.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Framed Flowers

Sunday, November 23, 2008

I just found these in a random folder on my computer. Since the days of copious amounts of free flowers from The Farm are long gone for us, I thought I would share these to make the time until next summer a little more bearable. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE fall, I just wish we could still have fresh flowers every week. Where's a boy to bring me some when I need them?

Pico De Gallo

I know I'm getting a little wild with the posts this weekend. Is this my 5th? 6th? I don't know, but I don't care. I'm making up for the weeks of silence from me. I don't know why I didn't write to you all, I just didn't do it. But I'm back now. And wanting to grace you with a simple delicious dish that should make you long for days of picking cilantro at The Farm. Oh wait, that's me.

Anyway, pico de gallo is all things I love, especially the lime and cilantro combination. Seriously makes my mouth do a happy dance when those flavors hit it. If I ever ate this while doing my jog-walk, you'd better watch out. I might just win every talent show you've ever seen.

This recipe is extremely forgiving. I have adopted it as my own from a conglomeration of several recipes. No need to be exact by any means. It is great as a sala for chips, on eggs for breakfast, or with any sort of Mexican food. Or really any food for that matter.

Pico de Gallo
Typically, you can just use one part tomatoes (seeded) to one part onion to one part cilantro. Throw in some minced jalapeno and juice from a lime and you're done. Chill for several hours in the fridge for even better flavor. Or, if you're like me, dig right in because you're too impatient.

10 Roma tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 bunch cilantro
1/2-1 jalapeno
1 small lime, juiced

Cut each tomato in half widthwise. You will need to get rid of all of the seeds (my favorite part of the recipe). Just stick your finger in the hole where the seeds are and they will squirt out. Make sure you're wearing an apron or are very careful to not squirt yourself. After seeding the tomatoes, finely chop and set in a bowl.

Finely chop the onion and add to the tomatos. Cut the cilantro leaves from the stems and roughly chop, adding to the bowl. Seed and chop the jalapeno (you may want to wear gloves to prevent the oils from making your hands burn) and add to the bowl with the lime juice. Stir, and you're done! Chill 2-4 hours for best flavor.

Meatloaf Love

I always feel somewhat ashamed to admit I like meatloaf. I don't know why I feel the shame, but it's always felt like a bit of a taboo food to me. I know it's all in my head. I know I'm being silly. I know meatloaf is normal and acceptable. But it still doesn't feel right to me.

Still, I luuuuuuurve meatloaf. If I could marry a comfort food, it would be meatloaf. So meaty and hearty and strong. He smells good too. And you can really craft him into whatever you want him to be. Meatloaf doesn't start out as one thing and ask you to love him as is. Oh no, there is plenty of room for experimentation and change. He does it willingly. He's a good food. Warm and tasty. That's why I'd marry him.

Still, until the day it becomes legal to marry your food, I think I'll just stick to eating him. And not in THAT way... get your mind out of the gutter. This is thus far my favorite way of crafting meatloaf. I don't think I'm completely done tweaking the recipe, but I'm going to post it anyway because I want you to experience the same love that I have. I'm really a lucky woman, you see, and want to share some of it with you all. Meatloaf love is a rich, heady, dizzyingly wonderful love. I wish you all the same happiness that I have.

Meatloaf
I served this with cubed yams mixed with olive oil and Ras el Hanout spice mix (Moroccan) that I make myself. I put the yams in the oven with the meatloaf and stirred every 20 minutes. They were done when the meatloaf was finished.

1 lb ground beef
1 lb Italian sausage
1 small onion
1-2 celery stalks
2-3 garlic cloves
2 eggs
2/3 cup ketchup, divided in half
1 cup bread crumbs
1 Tbsp. Worscestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
dash salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Finely chop onion, celery, and garlic. I use a food processor to save time. Mix all ingredients together with your bare hand, reserving 1/3 cup ketchup. Pat mixture into a loaf pan. Pour remaining ketchup over the top. Cook in oven for approx 1 hour, until no longer pink in the middle.

False Alarm

I wish you guys could be me for a day so that you could see how absolutely ridiculous I am. Until that is a possibility, I just have to tell you stories and let you imagine it.

This morning I was having a not so pleasant dream about a big storm and fire that were rocking the area. For some reason, I was with my dad and siblings and we had to evacuate the house. We went to some vacation rental/store that had a lot of couches for us to sleep on. We all fell asleep late that night. I woke up the next morning, looked at the clock, and realized that I was hours late for work. For those of you who know me, you understand that I am never late. Ever. I think it's plain rude. I panicked in my dream and started rushing around trying to figure out how I was going to get to work.

At this point, I woke up in real life and rolled over in bed to go back to sleep. That's when I noticed that my clock said 6:40, which is 10 minutes past the time I normally leave for work. My heart leaped in my chest and I lurched out of bed, running on pure adrenaline. I ran to turn on the light, threw off my pajamas and started scrambling in my closet for clothes for work, all the while rehearsing what I was going to say when I called in to say I was going to be late to work. I then caught a glimpse of my hair in the mirror and literally said out loud to myself, "Sh*t, I have to take a shower!" I start to dash for the door to my room when I realized that I had to put something on in case Jess happened to be in the hallway at that moment. I shot back to my pj's, quickly pulled them on, not caring that they were backwards and inside out. Fully covered at that point, I run back to my door and have my hand on the knob when I come to the realization that today is SUNDAY! Sunday! As in sleep in day. As in lay in bed all morning reading day. As in I don't have to set the freakin' alarm because I don't have to get up day!

There was no way I was getting back to sleep after working myself into such a tizzy. I crawled back into bed (after adjusting my pajamas) and have been reading and emailing all morning. I would also like to make a side note for those of you concerned about my apparent lack of church going. My church offers a Saturday night service in addition to several on Sunday morning. I tend to go to the Saturday night one so that I am able to lay in bed on Sundays. I love my lazy mornings. Assuming they aren't started at a freakishly early hour by my ridiculous mind. Don't you wish you were me?

So True

Saturday, November 22, 2008

I don't normally post many videos on here, but I saw this one and had to post my second for the day. Seriously true!

Oh. My. Word.

My favorite part is around 4:20 when they start really getting into it... Strip grandma, strip!

Freak of Nature

Thursday, November 20, 2008

That's me all right. Uncoordinated klutz who's everyday stories are ridiculous yarns spun only from the truth. Which brings me to last night...

I was up late working on designing my Christmas card for this year (more to come on that soon). I went to bed around 11:30, which anyone can tell you is definitely late for me. I fell asleep quickly but was woken an hour later by my body violently choking... on my own spit. That's right people, I somehow managed to inhale spit while I was sleeping and thank the Lord that he created a good cough reflex. I coughed and I sputtered. I sat up in bed and gasped for air. I reached for the glass of water always at the ready on my bedside (for such emergencies) and gulped half of it down. I calmed down some but my heart was still racing and I was still coughing, so I got up and made myself tea and watched an episode of Pushing Dasies. Which is actually something I might have been doing, thanks to my unruly spit. Lame joke, I know.

I went back to bed and fell asleep again. I woke two hours later with a sharp pain shooting down my leg. This was definitely no charlie horse. Oh no, it felt like my leg had gone past falling asleep, past any sort of cramping, and had decided to instead stage a mutiny from my body. Instinctively in my sleep addled brain I somehow knew that I had to get blood moving to my leg. I threw myself over the side of my bed, picked myself up off the floor, and proceeded to jog-walk in place next to my bed. My eyes stayed closed to allow myself the denial that I was truly awake but my racing heart told no lies. The more I jog-walked, the better my leg felt but the more my hope of sleep left me. I plopped back in bed and tried valiantly to slumber for the next hour before my alarm went off, but occasionally my leg would twinge up and I would have to shake it around in bed to get it to stop. That's right, I was like a sleeping dog last night who dreams of catching his rabbit and acts it out with leg twitches.

So I sit here in my reading chair right now, tired beyond belief, yet trying to delay the inevitable bedtime. I don't know what tonight will bring and I somewhat dread the stories I may have to tell you tomorrow. So until then, I bid you goodnight. I'm off to practice safe sleep.

Did I Mention?

Monday, November 10, 2008

That I'm going to the Inauguration?

BECAUSE! I! AM!

Um, still really excited here.

In case you couldn't tell.

Tickets

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Jess and I bought plane tickets tonight... to go to the Inauguration in January!

I'm so excited I can't sleep!

Praise the Lord!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Obama won!

Jess and I both cried at McCain's concession speech. Heartfelt and class act.

Then we cried at Obama's acceptance speech. Trite and cliche, but for the first time in our lives we are actually proud to be Americans.

Obama is not the answer to all of our problems, but he is a start. God has provided and will continue to provide for us, our country, and our world. Regardless of who is in office. I am excited that he chose Obama this time. How great is our God!