Weekend Glimpse

Our weekend was greeted with a beautiful, larger than normal, setting sun Friday night.

Joey & Chrissie's bridal shower was Saturday afternoon. Mom, dad, and I busily prepared everything that morning and we were excited to see it all come into place around 2:00pm. It turned out to be so pretty!! Mimi and Barbara were even able to come down for the festivity!! Always fun to see my Mimi! Only 25 more days until the BIG day! :)

From the shower we went to celebrate Mary Grayce's fifth birthday!!

Sunday morning we woke up super early (4am) and went to the beach before church. Tony was able to surf the clean waves for about an hour. After church we were able to get some much needed work done on the car and spend lots of togetherness time in the evening!! I love my husband SO much!!

A video of Tony & I dancing June of 2008 ~ my dad just uploaded the video to facebook this morning and it has brought many smiles to my face! :)


And in case you didn't know, this is what happens when you forget that you left a baking sheet and beloved pampered chef cookie spatula in the oven, and proceed to preheat the oven to 500 degrees. I learned the hard way and am most sad about the spatula as it was my favorite. :(

Already?

My alarm clock went off at 5:30 this morning. I slowly got out of bed and started making my love and I some pancakes. We enjoyed our breakfast together, Tony got ready for work, I put on a pretty dress (just 'cause), and walked with him to his truck -- lunch box in tow. :) We said our farewells - kisses and hugs - then I went inside to start on my work for the day. The next time I looked at the clock I was surprised to see it was already 1:30pm. Crazy how fast the morning disappeared as I gave our yard a much needed trimming while listening to four different sermons. And the rest of the day was no slower.

I ate lunch, replied to a couple e-mails, and straightened up the house a bit. Then I invited four of the neighborhood kiddos to our backyard for a finger knitting lesson. There we all sat in a circle on a flowered sheet, each with our own ball of yarn, talking about the coming first day of school, and trying to finger knit ... I think it would have made for a cute picture. Sadly, the lesson lasted all of 15 minutes because it started to rain ... but I'm pretty confident another lesson will take place in the near future. ;)

You can learn how to finger knit too ... click here for Katherine's tutorial. Below picture was taken by her. :) 

I did a few more chores around the house and prepared a quick dinner of rice with roasted brocolli, sliced tomato, avocado, and pizza bread ~ all ready to eat when Tony got home from work. Yum!!

A full day it's been for the both of us. Now it's 8:30pm  ~ time for Tony to tackle school work and for me to help where I can. Oh, and maybe some chocolate chip cookies will make an appearance.

Marvelous Light

Early morning beach trip, fresh nail polish, date night paid completely with gift money, worship, lunch with friends, driving in the rain, homemade pizza, late night movie... a lovely weekend filled with togetherness time. Rejoicing in the greatness of our God. :) A favorite song from the weekend ~

Colorful Striped Blanket

A new item to my little Etsy shop!! I must say this blanket is a favorite

and I love the "color party" that happens when folding it. :)

Click here to view the listing.

Little Eggplants & Basil

I was so excited to find some baby eggplants growing in the garden. I planted them early Spring and the ants destroyed the first set of blooms. :( I let the plants sit there throughout the Summer hoping that new blooms would come. And they finally did, much prettier than before.

I also picked a colander full of basil this morning -- working towards simple goal #2. I've washed it all up and have it spread out on the counter to dry. My goal is to fill a mason jar with dried basil ... we shall see.

Pretty Layers

Anthropogie.com ~ pretty attire with not so pretty prices. This look would cost over $1,100.00. ;)

Simple Tip: Berries in Flour

Have you ever made a fruit dessert only to discover all the pretty berries sunk to the bottom while baking? Well no longer will that be the case in my kitchen. Last nights blueberry bread came out beautifully ~ just like the picture, with pretty berries scattered throughout. And the solution couldn't be easier. A lightbulb went off as I read the following in the recipe last night...

Simple tip: Toss blueberries in a little flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the bread. Then add them to the batter.

Image Source

4 Simple Goals (before 2011.....)

I'm joining many others in the blog-world for a "Goal Challenge" hosted by the ever creative Elsie!! Click on the image above for details. Below are my simple goals that I'll strive to complete by the new year. 

1. Make my recipe book pretty. I have a black three ring binder filled with recipes clipped from magazines, printed, handwritten, and given by friends. That solid black book has been their home for almost three years and I really think a facelift would make them & me happy. :) 

2. Save more herbs from my garden. I know that there is much basil, cilantro, oregano, and thyme not being used to the fullest (aka dying before I'm able to put them to use). Although I've dried some herbs in the past, I desire to be more efficient at it, that way we can enjoy garden herbs all year long. 

3. Create a bright and cheerful laundry / utility room. It is currently disorganized with lots of miscellaneous stuff.  I actually started the cleaning process earlier this week. I think a big shelf would do well in there and a lovely piece of artwork. Anything to bring a smile to a never ending chore. :) 

4. Invest in higher thread count sheets (1200 would be nice). We were gifted with 400 thread count a couple years ago and love them a LOT! They are practical and joyfully used every night. I can't even fathom to put our 250 thread count sheets back on the bed. They're just not the same.

5. Enjoy a slice of fresh from the oven blueberry bread. Okay, I know there was only supposed to be 4 goals, but I couldn't leave this yummy one out. It brought much happiness to my tummy while writing this post. Haha! And it gives me the satisfaction of a goal completed. Click on the image for the recipe.  

Dream Come True

I'm married to the best ~ and nothing less!! Tony is truly my bestest friend and I hate to imagine my life without him. He has been so kind and ever so loving to me over the years. God has blessed me greatly! Tony is an answer to my prayers, my dream come true. It is so neat to think that we were created and designed for specifically for each other. Oh how I enjoy life with my Tony! God has graciously knitted our hearts together and continues to teach us how to love one another more and more. My heart is filled with much joy on this here Eve of our  91 monthiversary!! :)

The Ocean

We ended the night at a local pizzeria ~ lovely little date!!!

Pretty Jars

... filled with freezer jam! What kind of jam, you wonder? My parents blessed me with a ziploc bag full of figs from their tree and I couldn't think of any better way to preserve them. Now we can enjoy this yummy fruit throughout the year. This morning, my bestest friend  and I enjoyed the jam atop french toast with a side of scrambled eggs. {Eating a workday breakfast with Tony is the best!!}

Matthew and the Mountain

Last night we were able to see my brothers show. The pictures are blurry, but a memory just the same. :)

The Brownie Experiment

Tonight I made three seperate batches of brownies ... no special occasion. It all started with my desire to make a sweet treat using stevia. I had come across this recipe last week and decided to give it a go. It is definitely not your normal brownie recipe as it calls for chocolate protein powder, applesauce, oat flour, and stevia. The batter was alright. The final result was disappointing (pictured above, left). My first thought was "they taste healthy" and not in a good way. Tony agreed. I found a description of applesauce brownies, where Lucy compared it to "eating a slightly stale chocolate pancake." (1) We couldn't agree more!

So I decided to find a normal brownie recipe and just substitute the sugar with stevia (pictured above, right). This batter was extremely thick and kind of lumpy. I had a good feeling that baking wasn't going to help it any, but I decided  to test it out anyway. The final result was not edible! Actually, I had put a piece up to my mouth and knew right away that it was no good. With some encouragment from Tony, I put a small piece in my mouth, chewed, and spit it in the trash can. Yes, it was that bad!

I teased and said we should wrap these up in fancy paper and sell them on Etsy as doggy treats! :)

Take Three ...

By this time we both just wanted some yummy brownies - the kind that produces great batter for licking and a chocolatey, cakey result when baked. So I pulled out the tried and true recipe for Baker's One Bowl Brownies (pictured above and below). The results were, in the words of Tony, "Much better!" :)

Baker's One Bowl Brownies

4 squares BAKER'S Unsweetened Chocolate
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour

HEAT oven to 325*F.

LINE 13x9-inch pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides. Spray foil with cooking spray.

MICROWAVE chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour; mix well. Pour into prepared pan.

BAKE 30 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool completely. Use foil handles to remove brownies from pan before cutting to serve.