Friday, June 29, 2012

Birthday Recap

My birthday was a good day yesterday. As simple as it was, I think it was my favorite birthday in a long time. I started the day waking up at 5 so I could finish my mountain of reading for my rhetoric of religion class. Treated myself to driving to school instead of sweating in 90 degree heat (before 9:00!) on my bike. After class I headed home, had some lunch, and headed off to work. After work was over it felt more like a birthday. I cam home to some lovely flowers from my sweetheart!


I was feeling creative and hyper so I made a headband out of my bouquet and posed Lana del Rey style. The flowers were just going to wilt and die anyways so why not make a sweet crown out of them?

See? Just need longer hair and serious eyeliner and you won't know who is who.

After I played with my roses, I opened my present from my sister in law jojo (Jonessa). She got me an amazing cookbook that I can't wait to try! It is super natural every day. Jojo says all the recipes she has tried are amazing so I can't wait to get cookin! My pinterest recipes will have to be put on hold for a bit :) Speaking of which I made my birthday cake from a pinterest recipe. I made triple lemon blueberry cake with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream frosting. LEMON. It was super tasty and fresh. perfect cake for summer. Gotta give props to joey for letting me make a cake that definitely wouldn't be his first pick. I baked it the night before my birthday since I was going to be so busy yesterday. I was baking a cake a midnight, and anyone who knows me knows my brain stops functioning properly after a certain hour. Well I was making the cake just fine. Took a pic.


I thought it was funny how thick the batter was, but I had made cakes with thick batters and didn't think much of it. So I popped in in the oven and felt so proud of myself for making a tasty cake. Then I noticed 4 oval shaped brown things sitting in a cardboard carton. sweating...(it's really hot here) Yeah. forgot the eggs. Soo after the cake had been in the oven for 10 minutes I frantically snatched it out, slopped the semi cooked mess back into the bowl and folded in the eggs that I whipped together like I was folding chocolate chips into cookie dough. I was sure that this cake was screwed, but lo and behold it turned out great still! I wrapped it up and saved it for my birthday so I could frost it.

Joey and I went to dinner at the old fashioned which is THE restaurant to go to if you want traditional wisconsin food. it was delicious. I have always wanted to eat here since we moved, but it has always been so busy that we just end up going somewhere else. Last night though the wait wasn't too bad and we got our sconnie eats on.

Joey got the no.30 which was high cholesterol in a bun. grass fed beef burger, all natural bacon, local cheddar cheese, and a fried egg (which I'm sure was also cage free/natural feed/no corn standard stuff). it would have had fried onions too but we know how joey feels about onions.

burgers make joey happy

rar!! get in muh face!

the inside of the restaurant is cool too. it's filled with old vintage wisconsin stuff...and lots of loud people who think yelling is proper restaurant vernacular.

I had the macaroni and cheese which was bubbly and oozy creaminess, with little puddles of melted butter when it was placed in front of me...by the end of our dinner it was solid...yeah there's no fat in here.

what is a traditional wisconsin meal though with out cheese curds and ranch? this restaurant has the best curds in madison. hands down...now where is my lipitor and sweat pants?

we had a lovely dinner and I love this picture. despite joey's deformed hand haha.

after dinner we went back home and just hung out together. which might sound boring, but it was perfect to me. I just wanted to relax with my family and watch a movie on netflix while stuffing my face with cake. This is the inside of my cake after I sliced it in half. soo tasty.

before I sliced my (mini) cake I dressed it with pink sprinkles, 23 candles, and made joey and the cat sing happy birthday to me...gertie was hiding under the couch. she gets a little moody when the attention isn't all on her.

kitty wasn't too sure about the candles so she was squirmy
It was a perfect birthday! I loved just being with my joey and keeping it simple. It is funny the older you get the less hyped up you want to be about your birthday. Last night while I was falling asleep I was thinking of things I wanted to do in this next year:
1. graduate college
2. get a job/internship at an art gallery or auction house
3. fit into a pair of jeans that I had in high school.
4. get back into yoga
5. be more spontaneous
6. be more organized
7. be a better homemaker (cleaning, decorating, wifey things)
8. be a better wife to joey
9. read more books (good books. ie the classics)
10. learn a language (german or french)
11. become a better writer
12.apply to graduate school???

Monday, June 25, 2012

Birthday week


Woo! best time of the year baby! Birthday week officially commenced this weekend. Here's what happened...

                                                     I went to school. Took a final.

Found a food cart with green smoothies!


Joey got a new laptop for school. He is SO excited about it.

I got a card in the mail with some mula! Thanks dad! Also thanks Nana for the card and mula from when I was in town a couple weeks ago!
Made chocolate almond croissants for a baptism...that I forgot what time it actually started. Thought it was at 12, sent Joey to drop them off...yeah baptism was at 10 am. FAIL. Sister Missionaries sure got a lovely treat though!


We are training Gertie to be able to go on walks with us with out a leash. She did pretty well, but gets distracted sometimes and likes to wander a little bit. We just lure her back with a tennis ball.

We went to the movies at my favorite theater. Sundance cinemas. They are seriously the best! So glad we will have one in Houston too!

We saw Moonrise Kingdom. Best movie ever at the moment. This is the film of summer 2012. Go see it.

Kitty/Ethel likes to hang out in our cupboards.  She also has an undying love and friendship for computer cases. She has been pretty serious with my case since I got my laptop. Now there is a new guy on the block since Joey got his laptop. She is letting my case down easy not totally quitting it cold turkey, but she doesn't leave big black's sight for much. I thought she would appreciate me merging her two loves into one spot. I think it is safe to agree that she does.

I have an addiction to sweets. I also have an addiction to pancakes. I was seriously craving some almond flour pancakes yesterday, and these little minis did the trick. I should have waited to eat pancakes for later, because I want to try a pinterest "funfetti" pancake recipe on my bday...is that too many pancakes in a week? Prolly. Oh well. Happy Birthday week to me!

Friday, June 22, 2012

if you like pina coladas...

I made popsicles the other day. Found the recipe on pinterest of course. Aparantly this one only has 117 calories per popsicle. I didn't do the math, but that's pretty sweet. Pun intended. 

These popsicles are super easy to make. Just a banana(not shown) can of coconut...
  can of pineapple...

some vanilla...



throw it all in a blender...

use a popsicle mold or make shift molds like me. I just used my little prep bowls and poured the liquid in...

insert sticks/bbq skewers....


cover in plastic wrap to hold the sticks in place and wait patiently for them to freeze! They taste like a pina colada!


 and look like little umbrellas thanks to my awesome "molds"!

here is the link if you wanted the full recipe.
It is so hot in Madison right now! Sweating is unavoidable. Excited for tomorrow after work I think joey and I are going for a evening bike ride to really get our sweat on yeah!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

bro tip

 
 My brothers are: crazy. hilarious. protective. talented. silly. awesome. my best buds.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Technology

Just trying something new out. I am posting this from my iPhone! How cool is that? Since this is coming from my phone I figured it would be fitting to do one of those "my life according to my iPhone" posts.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

get on your bikes and ride

still busy with school, i'm sure you're are all so interested in hearing about that! Other than modern german history being on my mind my legs are. Not in the vain way trust me. My legs are just super sore, and I love it. Living in Madison makes it really easy for me to ditch my car and get around on my bike. I ride to school everyday which totals up to be 8 miles give or take(which I know isn't that much...and I don't know why my legs are sore I do this everyday). I haven't had time to take any pictures myself of me riding my bike so yes I am being one of those people intermingling my blog with pinterest and tumblr ideas. They are some sweet bike pics. I will get real pictures by me of my biking adventures in the near future. Before Joey leaves I have some serious cycling dates planned.





Monday, June 18, 2012

float like a hummingbird busy like a bee




Holy smokes it is summer people and yet I am more busy with school now than I am during regular school session! This week is a tough one because my 1st summer course is overlapping with my 2nd course. They are super intense and require reading a billion pages a night. I am exhausted after 7hrs of school and 4hrs of work. So no sleepies yet! I have to read/start prepping for my final on thursday.  Nothing cool to report here other than I am loving being super stressed out for summer school...On a happier note I can get my hair in a high pony! woot! there is a mini mullet going on in the back, but still I am making serious progress. Top bun is gonna happen to this girl! haha