First Vacation

Ok, so before you think that I am crazy and have never gone anywhere or had a break take a breath.

But I realized that these blissful weeks off are my first vacation.
Let me explain.

Throughout high school and before hand I did, of course, get a usual Christmas break at school.  I would spend this time relaxing and enjoying myself, and often with a trip to Nebraska for Christmas to see family and spend a week or so there.

Then I left high school and entered the pre-real world.  I was in school and got a winter break, but I also started working, and that break was spent....at work.  My freshman year I spent my break readjusting, moving, re-enrolling, and arguing about classes etc. and way more time waiting around in counselor and financial aid offices than I ever imagined.  For the next few years and breaks after that (the last 5 years) I was  taking classes and working, cutting my 2+ week break into only a couple days at a time.  Then I left my coffee house job and started working towards my teaching credential, but I was still working part time and over break I was able to get a lot more time in and I wanted the extra money.  Then I started working part time in education and an office and it was the same story.

Now here I am with a break.  I have gone a little bit stir crazy (and still have some time left)  But it is really good to relax, get done those millions of things that I have been too busy to do the last few months, and usually/hopefully get a nice run in with my molly pup.

2012 in Review

The best way to sum up my year is...

I never thought that I would feel so comfortable outside of my comfort zone. 

Over the last year there have been times that I have pushed myself to my limit....running 13.1 miles was totally stupid, but I am also considering doing it again. My first triathlon gave me a passion for riding and even running.  If you would have told me a year ago that my husband and I would have a new favorite past time that was free and helped us be healthier I might have laughed at you, and been a little clueless as to what it was.  I am honestly shocked at how much we both enjoy spending our weekends and evenings riding around, and how simple it is to ride and get a cup of coffee together on a weekend morning.

I also want to mention how grateful I am for my new things list in 2012 and the stuff that it DIDN'T include.  As I look over my list there is nothing that is sad or heartbreaking.  I have been extremely blessed and can look back at the year full of adventure without too many tears.  Other than our bikes going missing, though it sucked, the year went over pretty well.  A year of health, rewards, and love, for us and those that we care about.  For that I am extremely grateful.

This doesn't mean that the year was perfect, there were still moments of frustration, impatience, and exhaustion, but none of them had endings that were heartbreaking, and most of those have turned out better than I could have guessed or imagined in the moment.

Through some long overdue changes and some new opportunities, there are now a number of areas that I never or rarely went to that I find myself in on a regular basis.

Basically throughout this year I have stretched myself....even if I only got about halfway through my goal.  I feel like this year of adventure has been good to me, and taught me that it is okay  to go outside of my bubble.  If you have read more than a couple of my posts you probably got the idea that I was living in a bubble for probably about the last 12 years, maybe even longer.  I still consider my world a bit of a bubble, because I don't think that it is possible that one person can embrace the entire community all at once, but I have to say that my bubble has changed over the year.

I have had some experiences that I would repeat, some that I am very excited to repeat (Triathlons again and hopefully at least 2 in 2013).  I also plan on continuing the adventure into the next year, and writing down the new things that I have attempted or accomplish.  Some of the new things that I tried in 2012 have become habits and that is a great reward in itself.

One of the best adventures of this year has been the wonderful amount of new recipes that I have attempted, and mostly succeeded.  I think I have only come up with one or two disasters, and have really enjoyed most of the fruits of the labor.  And the tasty desert treats have been delicious as well....though I fully admit that some of these things cancel out the triathlon training!!

I am looking forward to 2013, and new things that I can try, and hopefully succeed.  If 2013 has half as many blessings I think I am in for a great one!

Happy new year to my loved ones, thank you for being part of the lessons that I have learned over the last year.

Overnight cinnamon rolls

I started turning my favorite roll recipe into cinnamon rolls years ago.  My mom taught me how and then I was hooked.  Now most of the time that I make a batch of rolls I also throw together some cinnamon rolls.  Now that I am married I am pretty sure there would be a huge disappointment if I didn't make the cinnamon rolls, I might be in trouble! haha just kidding.....

With this same dough recipe I usually play around with the flour.....it is the way I have to use up the 5 different kinds of flour that I have from different projects up until I made the rolls. (whole wheat, self rising, bread flour, cake flour.....you get the drift)  Usually I start the dough fairly early in the morning, as I did this time, and then some point throughout the day I use that to roll out the rolls and/or cinnamon rolls and let them rise for the day.  This year I decided that it might be a good adventure to let the cinnamon rolls sit out all night, that way when we ate them Christmas morning they would be fresh and perfect.

So I had a little trouble sleeping.....I got up a couple times to speak at them and make sure that they hadn't poofed down.  AND I understand enough about how yeast works to know that the house had to be fairly cold....so I left the heater off for the night as well.

Come Christmas morning they weren't the totally poofy pieces of amazingness that I have always dreamed of making, but they were tasty.  Some of the filling also drained towards the bottom of the pan.  My parents came over for Christmas breakfast, and my dad is a HUGE fan of the sweet crunchy gooey pieces at the bottom of the pan, and pretty much scraped it clean.  The best part is that it didn't bake on to where it was hard to get them off, which is Christmas roll perfection.....though I will someday have poofy amazingness.

Stir fry

So due to the fact that my husband and I had a ton of left over meat, due to last minute changes in plans, we needed to use it somehow.

I love bell peppers....the fact that panda puts a lot in makes my heart happy....so we decided to use the leftover meat and make stir fry. I am currently regretting the use of my precious bell peppers....

So we use a bottle labeled 'stir fry' that has been around awhile. It was to salty so I added a dash of hot sauce....it was bland so I added some thai peanut sauce. I added a tiny bit of quinoa and the husband insisted we add more (should have left it and served it on top)

Anyways it was a disaster....not sure if it was too many clueless cooks in the kitchen but sooooo not happening again. The leftover soup I ended up eating for dinner was a disaster....hahaha

Turtle bites

Another Pinterest piece of amazing.

Rolos
Pretzels(I used the window ones)
Nuts (I had cashews on hand)

I would give credit to some but I have seen this a million places. The pretzels I bought were accidentally butter salt ones but they worked.

I put the rolo and pretzel in the oven at like 250 for about 20 min and then pressed in the cashews. Tossed whole tray in fridge for awhile after. They were delicious. Had to take some to my parents to get them out of house.

Apple salad

I saw a Pinterest recipe thst included lots of cut up snickers, vanilla pudding, cool whip, and some apples. Mixed it all up and it had a good sweet but was tasty. Someone asked me why I put so much mayo in before they tried it, after that more people tried it haha guess I had some extra goop!

Jell-O shots!

Someone brought some to a holiday party, tasty, weird to eat, check off the list.

Alfredo Sauce

Ok no this is FAR from my first attempt at Alfredo sauce.....but it is by far the BEST attempt at Alfredo sauce.

Two new things that I did in this?

1. Used a recipe on a can....and a can (thanks to the progreso recipe starters!)
2. Used corn starch to thicken it up. (First time ever using corn starch....I was a little worried my texture would suck....but I think I did it right! Leftovers will tell!)



This is far better than any other recipe...especially the one where I spilled all the pepper kernels...

Melt away sugar cookies

Ok so the recipe I used had like 4 ingredients....for reals.....soooo I tried it.

Main reason I tried this recipe? The plethora of powdered sugar left around now that I am done with my cake decorating class. And for some random adventures I currently have corn starch on hand.

All I can think is what a waste of perfectly good butter and flour....

It was a disaster. The cookies weren't good hot and they were too 'crunchy' after they cooled. This one? Never again.

Parchment paper

So I am a baking rebel....by far....and when I say that I mean that I never measure things like baking powder, vanilla....etc.  and I never NEVER use parchment paper.  Like at all.....I have it, and sometimes I will use the parchment paper for cool cookies on the counter if I don't feel like dealing with a cooking rack.

So when I started a new recipe Friday and it said to use a parchment lined baking sheet.....I figured I was in a hurry and I REALLY couldn't deal with having it go on.  So I lined one sheet and not the other. (I am telling you guys I like to live on the edge!)

There was no difference.  Total total waste of time and paper.

but I tried it.  One more down!

Floor powder

I have been doing this for a few months and today realized I ever wrote about it.

So a couple months ago I bought a seven pound bag of baking soda....and wondered if I would ever use it. It is now nearly gone.

I used to buy those floor powder box
things, but I never had enough to use all my floors and I never had it when I wanted to vacuum.

So I added some Purex laundry crystals to some baking soda, stirred it up in a bowl and poured it all over my carpet. It does the same job and I always have the stuff on hand.

This time of year my floor just FEELS messier so this is a great feeling!

Cranberry cookies

This recipe was supposed to use white chocolate and cranberries....but a quick inventory and a lack of white chocolate I went with milk chocolate and the bag of cranberries I have had on hand for awhile....

I hate raisins....cranberries turned out well!!

Swirl Fudge

Ok so this isn't 100% new but you have to hear me out.

Yes I did go through a phase in high school when I made fudge all the time.  I am not sure why I wanted to make it and share it but I made a TON.

So here we go, I tried this white chocolate recipe that used condensed milk and then added the white chocolate mix while still hot to the pan, put in chocolate chips, and then added more white chocolate mix. The white chocolate was supposed to HEAT the chocolate and make it swirl pretty.  SOOOO didn't happen that way.  It looked a little bit like....i dunno....weird not stirred fudge?

I will say it did look better after the pieces were cut.  But it wasn't cute.  Sorry guys that is a fact.

The really sad part?  I am not even a fan of white chocolate.

fail

Stalked my husband

Ok so since this happened on accident, we have actually been getting legit use out of it.  In a totally non creepy we both know about it way.

So one day I couldn't find my phone so I used the iPad app to help me page it. (I leave my phone on silent too much)  Well Matt had hooked his phone into the app to and it showed me right where it was.  We joked around about how it was sorta creepy, but from there we have found a lot of use for this app.

As you may or may not know the lovely state of CA is really cracking down on texting and driving as well as answering the phone. (and on maps but that is another story)
Anyways because of this we have realized that it is fairly easy and smart to take into consideration the fact that because of this, and because I want to see where my husband is in regards to dinner and being home, or when one of us has a meeting run late, or we have one of us run an errand.  These sorts of things.

Sorta creepy but since we both know about it, it works out well.

Decorated cupcakes!

I can't believe I didn't get an image!!!!
ARGH!!!

And the cupcakes got eaten.

I love decorating some cookies but cupcakes were another story....thanks to my cake decorating class I had an adventure....the lid of my carrier smashed them.

It is checked off the list...and not a repeat.

First student loan

This one sucked.

I had to start paying student loans the beginning of this year.

Tragic

Asian dressing

So our favorite teppenyaki place has the most amazing salad dressing.

Yes I am THAT person....I choose where I eat based off of a salad or two....kinda sad but still AMAZING I am a sucker for super good dressing, especially a copy cat from a good restaurant.  So as i was browsing through Pinterest I saw a similar recipe for this.

It took some carrots, ginger, and a few random spices, and I threw it all in the blender.  It is sweet and tasty tasty good.  I chilled it for a day and let the flavors mix, it has been a couple days since I have made it but I haven't really tried it yet....I have this thing where I am trying to eat more salad. We will see how it goes.

Healthy coconut bread

So the recipe that I started with a while ago I started to get going again and try some healthy substitutes.

I put in some lovely lovely coconut sugar
and subbed half the butter for coconut oil (that recipe had a TON of butter!)
added a little extra almond meal instead of flour and used some white whole wheat flour.

A little better for us and still pretty darn tasty....with more coconut flavor!

Rolling bag

By the time they came out with rolling backpacks I was well over the age of it being acceptable to use a rolling back pack.  I have of course used rolling luggage many times, but that is always acceptable in an airport.

My habit has officially changed. I was realllllly tired of carrying around a fairly large (heavy and awkward) laptop bag for my work stuff.  The best thing about this, my mom has had more pieces of suitcase type stuff than I have had purses....so when she recently upgraded I got the rolling briefcase.  I still feel nerdy, but the fact that I don't have a bag on each arm, didn't have to BUY new luggage, and get to have a free hand for coffee?

PERFECTION

Thanks mom!

Vanilla fragrance

Little known fact about me: I have a special love for home fragrance, especially this time of year. There is something amazing and relaxing about having a great smelling house in the winter.

So as I was browsing through Pinterest the other day I saw an idea. Take an oven proof container (I used a small Pyrex) put in some vanilla extract. (I got a huge bottle at Costco so I ha it)
Then I popped it in the oven an turned th oven on to 300 degrees ad went about my evening.

Granted I have been going crazy lately, I feel like with the aslogh rain and our Molly pop that it smells like wet dog around here, and I am sensitive about it so anything simple and amazing to make my house smell delightful? All over it!
That being said I also have a few oil warmers burning around my house, but the vanilla smells delightful!

Christmas lights

I love Christmas, and I love decorating for Christmas. Growing up we were usually gone for at least a week over Christmas, and so we always had a fake tree and fairly minimal decorations. Also my dad dislikes decorations because he says they look cluttered.

My husband and I had our first live tree two years ago...it was a miserable experience.

So this year we have a fake tree back. It is also the first year for my husband and I that is is logical to have lights up outside. Honestly? I had mixed feelings, will they look cool? And I REALLY didn't want to spend money on lights. When we raided those 'cluttered' decorations there were four boxes of icicle lights so Matt spent Saturday hanging up the lights.