What to Get Your Brother for His Birthday...

All Pictures from Zingermans

Do you know what the hardest thing ever is?  It's trying to figure out what to give your brother for his birthday.  I mean first of all, he is a guy.  Second of all, he is your brother.  You can't pick out clothes for your brother (well I can't).  You already gave him Modern Family Season 1 for Christmas and you are pretty sure he already has access to the TV shows and movies he wants to watch.  Video games and other technology are expensive and how would you even know what to get.  Plus he lives in another state probably (or sometimes another country) and is not good at giving you his address but even when he does, big things are hard to ship.

Then there was that year you thought you'd come up with a good idea for a gift.  Turns out he did not really want the new TLC CD (the band, not the tv channel) even though it featured the hit single  "Waterfalls" (it's in your head now isn't it?  "Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that ya used to.").   He also apparently did not enjoy the hand stenciled t-shirt you gave him a few years back.   Well at least you never saw him wear it.

pic from wiki

You can take the easy way out and get him a gift card (I'm not going to lie, that's what I usually do).  Or you can just make one of those agreements where you decide not to give each other anything at all (but he's in grad school and jobless for the next few months so you feel like you should be nice).  Or you can just think really hard, in your brain and come up with something pretty good, like I think I did this year.

Meat
Cheese
Mustard
Brownies
Huzzah!

Yeah even though my Valentine's Day box of food is long gone, I'm still perusing Zingerman's on the daily, plotting my next purchase.  Then it hit me.  My brother likes food.  I'm pretty sure he likes salami.  I think his favorite sandwich is an Italian Sub (that might have salami on it).  And I've definitely seen him eat chunks of cheese straight out of the fridge at my parent's house.  So yeah I'll make him a box of food from Zingerman's.  Score!

And I think he liked it, unless he's just trying to appease me.  He wrote this in an email to my parents "J-M gave me one of the most exciting gifts I have received in quite some time - hard salami, gourmet cheese, gourmet mustard, and an excellent brownie.  Great work." 

Yay, go me!

PS-I'll be back tomorrow with the details on this weekend's birthday scavenger hunt extravaganza.

Dinner...Southern Style, Y'all

I decided to make dinner at home on Saturday.  I already had some chicken and bbq sauce that I had planned on making last week but never got around to so I went ahead and made The EZ PZ BBQ chicken.  I decided to southern up the rest of the meal and make collard greens and cheesy grits.

Greens

Washed and torn

Bacon

Remove the bacon and leave the fat and add the greens to the pan (I know, healthy right?)

Add a little chicken broth

Add a little vinegar after they have cooked down a little bit (also a little sugar)

Cover them and let them cook until they shrink down (keep checking on them)

Add the crumbled bacon back in at the very end

Ok I know I am telling you to cook something in bacon fat, but trust me, it was awesome.  I have never actually cooked collard greens on my own so I asked my mom for some tips.  The bacon fat was definitely a great addition to the flavor. 

For the grits (which I know some people still hate) I cook them in chicken broth instead of water.  It adds a lot of flavor.  Then I just added some Cheddar and Monterrey jack cheese once they were cooked.  Good stuff.

BBQ chicken, cheesy grits and collard greens=Dinner!

Fin


But seriously this dinner was pretty awesome if I do say so myself.
How do you feel about southern-ish food?
Do you like collard greens?
Is cooking in bacon fat awesome or gross?  (I also make some sauteed kale in balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil if you are interested in a healthier version of greens)
Grits?
Or are you a hater?

PS-I made a Facebook page for MSIF.  Feel free to fan me so we can be BFFs.

Valentine's Week-A Very Special Valentine's Day for Hobie...

Guess who got the most expensive Valentine's Day present in my family?
I will give you a hint.  His favorite past time is chasing squirrels in the back yard.

No, not B.
It's Hobie.

For Valentine's Day, Hobie got his teeth cleaned.  The vet office pretty much guilt tripped us in to doing this for Hobie by saying things like "well I mean he won't die, but it will just be harder for him to eat when he doesn't have any teeth left cause they all rot out".  You know stuff like that.  They have been suggesting it for like a year so we finally bit the bullet and signed him up.  It just happened to be scheduled for Valentine's Day.

He was totally out of it when he came home.  He ran into the living room where he normally engages in an intense game of rope bone but when we got in the room he was just lying passed out on the carpet.  Sweet little buddy bear.  Anywho, his teeth look great (well at least in the before and after pics they printed out for us).

In other Hobie news, my favorite Valentine's Day moment involved Hobie.  We gave Hobie a new bone on Saturday when we were celebrating Valentine's Day.  He quickly become obsessed with it.  It stayed in his mouth for about 2 hours straight. 

Then he finally decided to take it outside.  I'm pretty sure he was trying to hide it from us because he thought we'd steal it.  He kept glancing back at the house while he was burying it under a bush.  When he came back inside, he looked like this...

"Why are you guys staring at me like that?  Do I have something on my face?" 

OK, so that's it for Valentine's week. 

Should I turn this in to a pet mommy blog since my Hobie stories are always so fascinating?
Have you ever had your dog's teeth cleaned?
Is it important or were we conned?
Did you get your pet a Valentine?

Valentine's Week-Making Stuff is Fun!?!?! (and maybe romantic)

Apparently my husband thinks I like making stuff.

After making me shower, get dressed, put shoes on, put a coat on, put in earrings, etc., I learned that my Valentine's Date was actually in the living room.  My husband had set up a craft and baking date for me.  We started out by tie-dying t-shirts.  I can't wait for him to wear his purple, red and fuchsia tie dyed shirt out for a night on the town.  I always wanted to tie-dye a shirt when I was a kid but I guess I just never got around to it, so this was pretty exciting.

I know I look 'special' in this picture.

Tie-dyeing is serious stuff that requires gloves.

The worst part was that we had to wait 8 hours before we could unroll the shirts.

Then we moved on to the baking portion of the evening.  My husband had printed out a recipe for cranberry-orange scones and purchased all the necessary ingredients.

It's ok to wear a cupcake apron as long as you have a beer in your hand.

Another great action photo of me and no, I'm not pouring my glass of wine into the batter

He did all the hard stuff.

Hobie was little to no help.

Fin.  These scones were delightful by the way.

In conclusion....
My husband is a fun craft/baking partner. 
Crafting is more fun when you drink wine. 
Baking is harder when you bake after crafting with wine. 
Baking is easier when someone else measures out all the ingredients for you and just tells you what to do.

Good Date, B!  Let's do this again next year.

Valentine's Week-My Valentine's Date for B

Because I am neat and awesome (errr maybe), I decided a few weeks ago that B and I should each plan a secret Valentine's Date for the other person (or because I wanted to force him to do something nice for me).  So this past Saturday we had those dates.

I'm not going to lie, the idea for this stemmed from the fact that I had always wanted to order something awesome from Zingerman's.  I discovered this place a few years ago and have always enjoyed perusing it and daydreaming about ordering a big box of goodies.  I never really had a reason to until now. 

After much thought and research, I placed my order for The Weekender (the small one).  And for good measure I also added in a loaf of peppered bacon bread since bread is probably my husband's favorite food.  I had it arrive on Friday and it was a very exciting experience for me.  Most people might not get as excited as I do about opening a big box of food.  But to me it was awesome.

So my date was a picnic.  But I'm not super in to the outdoors, so it was a picnic at our coffee table.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Hobie checks out the goods...

 I check out the goods...

 Bread, cheese, salami, coffee cake, honey, jam, cheese, mustard, brownies...

 The salami and cheese were delightful and I don't typically eat salami...

 I added some bacon to the spread....

 There is a brownie underneath all that whipped cream...

 Dollar Store Champagne flute filled with beer (very classy)...

We didn't eat any of the sour cream coffee cake until last night but it was awesome.  It was definitely one of the best pound cake/coffee cakes I have ever had. 

So in conclusion, ordering a box of food from the Internet is fun.

Valentine's Week-Galentine's Festival of Fun

If you hate Valentine's Day, then I'm not going to lie, you will probably hate me or this blog this week.  But I think you should stick around anyways.  Here is my view on Valentine's Day... I know that some people think it's just a made up holiday used to get people to buy greeting cards*** and expensive chocolates.  To me, it is just another reason to celebrate something.  And I always love celebrating stuff.  Plus it means I have more to blog about.  So this week is Valentine's week and I'm covering a broad spectrum of ways I celebrated and I am not just talking about me and my husband.  I celebrated with lots of people.  We will start off the week with Galentine's Day.....

Ok here we go....
1-What is Galentine's Day?  Ok well on that amazing show I keep talking about (Parks and Recreation), my idol, Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) celebrates Galentine's Day each year with her girl friends on the day before Valentine's Day.  I think she seved them frittatas and gave them mosaic pictures of their faces last year.

So I decided to force my gal friends to come over for brunch this year.

I made them Oreo truffles.....

I made them Galentine's Day Cards (with the cool stickers my husband bought me)...

This one was for my friend, Tiffany.  I thought it was fitting since she's a math tutor.  I found these printouts for the inside of the cards here....Aren't they awesome?

This one was for Beezus5...

I set the table with their cards...

I made stuffed pancakes and I didn't burn them all this time....

Beezus5 brought us all heart cookies with lime icing.  They were awesome...

Here's the cookie recipe from Beezus5.

Lime Cornmeal Cookies

Cream - 2 sticks of butter -soft and 1 cup of sugar.
Beat in one egg by hand
Add 4 tsp of lime zest
2 tsp of lime juice
1/2 tsp of almond extract
Evenly mix in 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 cup of yellow cornmeal
Cover and chill for at least 1 hour
To make glaze:
add 8 tbs of lime juice and 1/2tsp of lime zest to 3 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar (yes i know that sounds insane, but if its not thick enough the glaze will be too runny) Add food coloring.
Roll dough into balls and roll in 1/2 sugar, 1/2 corn mixture. Press down with the bottom of a glass. use a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the cookie, but not all the way. Place on pan at least an inch apart.
Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes, turn pan 1/2 way through baking.
Remove from pan and put on cooling rack. When cool, paint on glaze with a teaspoon. Let sit for 15 minutes or until glaze is hard.

I forgot to take pictures of everything else (including the people who came.  I swear they are real people and not my imaginary friends.)  The other ladies brought coffee, mimosa's and coffee cake and I made some cheesy grits.  It was delightful and I hope it's something that can become a yearly tradition.  Happy Belated Galentine's Day to all my friends who came and to those who live far away (or that I only know from the Internet).  You guys were totally there in spirit. 

***-And just an FYI all the Valentine's Cards I bought this year cost 50 cents a piece at the Dollar Tree, well and/or I made them.

Craft Room Renovations-Part 3-The Photo Wall

As I mentioned before, I have recently been really inspired by the blog Young House Love.  I'm kind of obsessed with it.

I knew I needed more wall art/photos for my craft room and when I saw this on YHL, I knew I wanted to do something similar.


photo from Young House Love

This is actually from the nursery at their old house but I wanted to do something like it with some photos and miscellaneous items that I had.  I bought some inexpensive (and on sale) white frames from Michael's and then set about arranging them and figuring out which of my photos and other items I wanted to put in the frames.  I actually used all stuff that I already had (well except the pic of Hobie which I had to get printed).  Mine is a mixture of wedding photos/mementos, a postcard from our honeymoon, a pic of Hobie, a couple other random postcards and a greeting card I thought was pretty.

B helped me with the hanging.  Hobie, of course, just stared out the window.

I ended up slightly moving all the frames a little after they were hung the first time.  I started to freak out about their spacing.  I could see myself lying on the bed in there staring up at the frames and thinking about how they were slightly uneven or crooked or what not and thus making myself crazy.  So I tried to make it as even as I could.

I'm sure some of them are still uneven and not perfectly spaced from each other but I am very happy with the results.

So I thought this ended up being a good project.  It was pretty inexpensive and the worst part was hanging all the photos (which I had help with).  What do you think?  Have you done anything similar?  Would you like me to send you a giant black and white photo of Hobie and his tennis ball for your wall?

Craft Room Renovations Part 2 aka Why I Baked B 2.5 Birthday Cakes...

I might have jumped the gun a bit the other day on my craft room renovations post by starting with the curtains.  I actually started with the floor.  Or should I say, Hobie and B started with the floor.

Our house has wood floors under the carpeted area.  When we moved in, we (well some people who knew what they were doing) took out the carpet and refinished the floors in our bedroom.  This time I decided we could totally do it on our own.  And by we, I meant Hobie and B.  I supervised.

I did remove all the stuff from the room (well except the bed, I'm weak).  So we had this......

Then B and Hobie got to work on pulling up the carpet.  At one point I was going to help B carry all the old carpet downstairs to throw away.  When he realized just how little arm strength I have, he decided that dropping the old carpet out the window would be easier.

So then we had a carpet less room with some beat up old hard woods underneath.  B did a bunch of stuff that involved pulling out staples, sanding, using this big machine and painting it with something.  I went and bought him lunch.  Hobie did very little to help at this point.

So that was over Thanksgiving.  The floor was looking pretty good.  One day when we are super rich we may get the whole thing redone to match the newer hardwoods in the hall and den but for now these DIY refinished hardwoods are pretty good.

By Christmas break I had moved all the furniture back in and then found my curtain fabric and decided that I hated the light green walls.  So I headed to my favorite place (psike) Lowe's and bought some paint samples.  I brought them back and painted them on the wall and hated them all.  So I went back to Lowe's and bought some more.  I finally found one I liked (it's the far right one by the way).

Then we bought the rest of the paint supplies and painted.  If I had known that I was going to paint the walls I would not have moved all the furniture back in.  Oh well.  I actually helped with the painting.  Hobie just watched (can you say lazzzzy?).  Painting the trim was not my favorite thing ever.  But I did it and there's only a few highly noticeable things for me to touch up.

So that was our Christmas break.  At one point I was all "yeah, B I'm going to paint this room by myself over Christmas break."  Then a day later I realized I didn't actually even know what supplies I needed to paint a room by myself.  So B helped me (a lot) and that's the story of why I baked him 2.5 cakes for his birthday. 

Have you ever painted a room on your own or pulled up carpet to find some decent hardwoods?

Who wants to come help me paint the basement?