As I mentioned in my last post I'm in love with fall. I sit here patiently waiting for falls arrival in San Diego. Every morning I wake up with the hope of a cool fall morning, only to be greeted by summer weather. Just once I would love to live in a place where the leaves change colors and fall to the ground! Looking out the window I can see our trees starting to die, but only a handful of the leaves are beautiful fall colors. I wouldn't doubt it if in a few days the trees are bare only having never truly turned colors. It's a little odd to me to be obsessed with a season that I've never really gotten the chance to enjoy. I also find it hard to believe I will every truly enjoy the season and all it has to offer. So in the mean time I can enjoy the taste and colors of the season without trying getting the full effect.
I also have a new love for the website Etsy. My love for baking has lead me to wonder how to sell things on this amazing site, and yet I fear that my creations will never be seen because this site has so much to offer! While I have yet to order anything I have spent way too many hours on this site shopping for my future child, mapping out my new kitchen, searching for baking ideas, and just marveling at all things this site has to offer! Everything on this site is homemade, and well lets just say it gets my creative juices flowing! I'm constantly wondering if I can make something cheaper then they could ship it to me, or if I could make it better. Which i'm sure I could :). Anyway if you have a free moment you should def. check it out! I promise you will be busy for hours!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Happy Fall Ya'll!
I have looked forward to this season more then you could know. It's my wish that come this time next year we will be welcoming a little baby of our own. Perhaps that's why I'm so ready for it to get started! Summer seemed like the longest season of my life! Today while I was on facebook I was so jealous to read that so many of my friends were enjoying fall weather! I on the other hand in sunny California am sitting here in a tank top and capris! Not so fall like...I'm praying it comes soon. Although I know it won't be this week since we are in the middle of a heat wave!
However since it was the first day of fall I got a craving for apple butter. My dear friend Jess posted about it on her blog last Friday, and while at the grocery store on Saturday I picked up a jar. So this mornings breakfast was two pieces of toast. One with apple jelly and one with apple butter!
I have to say while the apple butter was good I will have to stick to apple jelly! I love apple jelly, but apple butter was a definite change of pace. I will continue to eat it but it won't be my go to! I'm still on the look out for pumpkin butter, which a good friend promised to send me!
While I was on my apple kick today I made an applesauce cake. The verdict on it was it tasted very similar to the pumpkin cake I made last week. This coming from Bryan and the kids. I however preferred the pumpkin cake from last week. This cake was very simple to make it was a box of spice cake mix, some oil, eggs, and apple sauce. Once baked and cooled it was topped with vanilla icing mixed with cinnamon. The icing was yummy, but it had me longing for cream cheese!
I did love how it made the house smell. It made me want to bake yummy fall treats daily! Next up is pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! Now if only I could find some pumpkin! I swear no where around here has the 15oz can of pumpkin! I'm tempted to buy two packs of cake mix and go to work! Hey I can always seen the extra cookies to work with Bryan! I'm sure the Marines wouldn't mind! All in all it was a good day! Can't wait to do some baking, and hear what you guys have in store for Fall! Until next time!
However since it was the first day of fall I got a craving for apple butter. My dear friend Jess posted about it on her blog last Friday, and while at the grocery store on Saturday I picked up a jar. So this mornings breakfast was two pieces of toast. One with apple jelly and one with apple butter!
I have to say while the apple butter was good I will have to stick to apple jelly! I love apple jelly, but apple butter was a definite change of pace. I will continue to eat it but it won't be my go to! I'm still on the look out for pumpkin butter, which a good friend promised to send me!
While I was on my apple kick today I made an applesauce cake. The verdict on it was it tasted very similar to the pumpkin cake I made last week. This coming from Bryan and the kids. I however preferred the pumpkin cake from last week. This cake was very simple to make it was a box of spice cake mix, some oil, eggs, and apple sauce. Once baked and cooled it was topped with vanilla icing mixed with cinnamon. The icing was yummy, but it had me longing for cream cheese!
I did love how it made the house smell. It made me want to bake yummy fall treats daily! Next up is pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! Now if only I could find some pumpkin! I swear no where around here has the 15oz can of pumpkin! I'm tempted to buy two packs of cake mix and go to work! Hey I can always seen the extra cookies to work with Bryan! I'm sure the Marines wouldn't mind! All in all it was a good day! Can't wait to do some baking, and hear what you guys have in store for Fall! Until next time!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Pumpkin cake and a new book
This summer has been the longest summer of my life! I so badly want it to hurry up and be over with! For some reason this year I look forward to the holidays. Perhaps it has something to do with getting as far away from this summer as possible, or maybe its just the outlook of new things to come. Maybe its a mix of the both. Anyway last week I started bringing out all my fall stuff. I went out last weekend and bought a pumpkin pie candle, and on Sunday night I baked a pumpkin cake!
I should explain that fall is my favorite time of year! I love the colors, smells, holidays, cooler weather, and everything the fall brings with it! I'm also obsessed with pumpkin! Pumpkin latte, pumpkin cupcakes, cookies, pie, and cake oh my lol. I ran across Paula Deen's recipe for pumpkin "bars" but I'll call it pumpkin cake since it baked up taller like a cake. From the very first bite I was in heaven! It was all I wanted in a pumpkin dessert! Bryan and the boys loved it! I really want to try doing it as cupcakes the next time around! Hopefully it works well!
Doesn't it look amazing! Don't you wanna take a huge chunk out of it! The first night I ate a huge and I do mean HUGE piece of it! It was so yummy! I definitely recommend you making this cake this weekend! It will be a favorite in our house throughout the season! Luckily the season hasn't even really started yet! You can find the recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-bars-recipe/index.html
Also, today I ran out and bought a new book. Since we lost Bryanna I have been hearing about a book called An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination.
It's a Memoir about a couple who has a baby that is still born, this couple also goes on to deliever a healthy baby almost exactally a year later. So while I'm sure this will be a difficult book to read it might be helpful as well to see that even though there is an ending there is also a new beginning..whats that saying "With every end comes a new beginning." We need our new beginning...for this reason I have decided to put an end to my Empty Cradle meetings. Our story is sad enough without me adding other's stories to the mix. Really it's just too much, and as we prepare for our new beginning I can't keep holding on to the sadness that will be there regardless. It's one thing to feel it...it's something completly different to bask in it.
Anyway with that being said...have a safe and happy friday night!
I should explain that fall is my favorite time of year! I love the colors, smells, holidays, cooler weather, and everything the fall brings with it! I'm also obsessed with pumpkin! Pumpkin latte, pumpkin cupcakes, cookies, pie, and cake oh my lol. I ran across Paula Deen's recipe for pumpkin "bars" but I'll call it pumpkin cake since it baked up taller like a cake. From the very first bite I was in heaven! It was all I wanted in a pumpkin dessert! Bryan and the boys loved it! I really want to try doing it as cupcakes the next time around! Hopefully it works well!
Doesn't it look amazing! Don't you wanna take a huge chunk out of it! The first night I ate a huge and I do mean HUGE piece of it! It was so yummy! I definitely recommend you making this cake this weekend! It will be a favorite in our house throughout the season! Luckily the season hasn't even really started yet! You can find the recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-bars-recipe/index.html
Also, today I ran out and bought a new book. Since we lost Bryanna I have been hearing about a book called An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination.
It's a Memoir about a couple who has a baby that is still born, this couple also goes on to deliever a healthy baby almost exactally a year later. So while I'm sure this will be a difficult book to read it might be helpful as well to see that even though there is an ending there is also a new beginning..whats that saying "With every end comes a new beginning." We need our new beginning...for this reason I have decided to put an end to my Empty Cradle meetings. Our story is sad enough without me adding other's stories to the mix. Really it's just too much, and as we prepare for our new beginning I can't keep holding on to the sadness that will be there regardless. It's one thing to feel it...it's something completly different to bask in it.
Anyway with that being said...have a safe and happy friday night!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Organization part 1
For the past 7 months my life has been complete chaos. Only now as I'm beginning to see things much clearer and as I'm finally wanting to move forward in life, do I see the need to organize my life more. As I look around me I see so many things in my house that need to be organized, redecorated, and just brought to life in a whole new way. Brought back to life...only now 7 months later am I feeling like I'm ready for life to move forward...I'm so thankful for every single day in my life, and now its time to learn to enjoy life again.
My first project has me in a state of confusion, which if you know me is a state I find myself in quite often! Anyway lately I have found myself buying tons of food magazines. I have even subscribed to two of them. However once the magazines are read and I pull out all the recipes I hope to try I'm left with this...
I should mention that there are more...tons more. I have a binder full of magazines, clippings, and recipes I have cut out, printed out, or been given!
Do you see what I'm talking about now! I have this mess, and the magazines from above that, and now I need to figure out how to organize them in one big happy folder! As you can see I tried my best to organize them before, but as I pull out this binder to make a grocery list I usually get overwhelmed and never even pull out recipes from it. The majority of the recipes in this pile I have never even tried!
For the next week, hopefully not longer, I will be cutting, pasting, writing, and filing, and hopefully I will end up with a very well organized cookbook for myself! I have an vision of what I hope it looks like when it's all said and done, and well since I have most of the day to myself I have tons of time to play around with it! I've seen some really cool looking scrapbooks done for recipes, but since these are just recipes pulled from magazines I don't want to do anything all that fancy...now for my baking...hmmmm....
I did find myself at Michael's today and while wondering through their dollar aisle I ran across a small recipe holder and some recipe cards. For only a $3 I picked up the holder and 60 recipe cards! I also found some really cute food stickers to add to the book. Hopefully I can hit up another craft store soon for more food stickers...but now that I'm dreaming of a baking scrapbook I might hold off on using one of the sheets until then!
I'm in love with the baking stickers! Actually all three of them are pretty cute! I'm not sure how I will utilize the stickers yet, I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the book comes together! Hopefully next week I will have it all together and can post pictures of the final product!
My first project has me in a state of confusion, which if you know me is a state I find myself in quite often! Anyway lately I have found myself buying tons of food magazines. I have even subscribed to two of them. However once the magazines are read and I pull out all the recipes I hope to try I'm left with this...
I should mention that there are more...tons more. I have a binder full of magazines, clippings, and recipes I have cut out, printed out, or been given!
Do you see what I'm talking about now! I have this mess, and the magazines from above that, and now I need to figure out how to organize them in one big happy folder! As you can see I tried my best to organize them before, but as I pull out this binder to make a grocery list I usually get overwhelmed and never even pull out recipes from it. The majority of the recipes in this pile I have never even tried!
For the next week, hopefully not longer, I will be cutting, pasting, writing, and filing, and hopefully I will end up with a very well organized cookbook for myself! I have an vision of what I hope it looks like when it's all said and done, and well since I have most of the day to myself I have tons of time to play around with it! I've seen some really cool looking scrapbooks done for recipes, but since these are just recipes pulled from magazines I don't want to do anything all that fancy...now for my baking...hmmmm....
I did find myself at Michael's today and while wondering through their dollar aisle I ran across a small recipe holder and some recipe cards. For only a $3 I picked up the holder and 60 recipe cards! I also found some really cute food stickers to add to the book. Hopefully I can hit up another craft store soon for more food stickers...but now that I'm dreaming of a baking scrapbook I might hold off on using one of the sheets until then!
I'm in love with the baking stickers! Actually all three of them are pretty cute! I'm not sure how I will utilize the stickers yet, I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the book comes together! Hopefully next week I will have it all together and can post pictures of the final product!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Welcome to faith, hope, love and everything in between. When I came up with the title of this blog it was everything I was feeling in life. The need for hope and faith with everything that has happened this year. The love of my family and friends, and really just whatever goes on in this little brain of mine that is in constant motion.
This is currently blog number three for me. Why so many you ask? Well let me break it down for you.
Blog number one is solely dedicated to Bryanna and all of my feelings that I had during that time and even now. While I don't dedicate as much time to the blog now it helped as a healing tool. I have been able to express my emotions that I might have not been able to get out otherwise. Even now while I don't use it as often I will occasionally run across a poem or song that hits me and makes me think of her so into the blog it goes. It kinda serves as my unofficial memory book...something that I have put out there for others to read so that other women who may go through this know they aren't alone. If you are interested in reading that blog you can find it here: http://bryannassweetsilverlining.blogspot.com/
Blog number two serves as my baking blog. After we lost Bryanna I turned to baking. It's a therapy for me in a way. On days that I'm super worked up and stressed out and anxious baking helps me pull through. There is something so comforting about taking almost next to nothing and creating something so amazing. The smells it fills the house with, pulling out my box of cake tips, and cupcake liners, the excited looks and praises the kids give when they get to sit down and eat it. I love it all. Bryan will often tell me "Just bake already!" when I'm having a stressful day. I just really love everything about it...perhaps I can be the next Martha Steward one day! Anyway to follow that blog look here: http://sweetzs.blogspot.com/
Finally there is this blog. I needed a place to get out my random thoughts, somewhere I could talk about what we are doing as a family. I wanted a place to share the crafts I do, or the activities I want to start. I needed a place to talk about our adventures in trying to conceive again, as I felt Bryanna's blog wasn't the proper place. I wanted to talk about books I'm reading...stresses I'm going through, my highs and my lows, and really just faith, hope, love and everything in between.
This is currently blog number three for me. Why so many you ask? Well let me break it down for you.
Blog number one is solely dedicated to Bryanna and all of my feelings that I had during that time and even now. While I don't dedicate as much time to the blog now it helped as a healing tool. I have been able to express my emotions that I might have not been able to get out otherwise. Even now while I don't use it as often I will occasionally run across a poem or song that hits me and makes me think of her so into the blog it goes. It kinda serves as my unofficial memory book...something that I have put out there for others to read so that other women who may go through this know they aren't alone. If you are interested in reading that blog you can find it here: http://bryannassweetsilverlining.blogspot.com/
Blog number two serves as my baking blog. After we lost Bryanna I turned to baking. It's a therapy for me in a way. On days that I'm super worked up and stressed out and anxious baking helps me pull through. There is something so comforting about taking almost next to nothing and creating something so amazing. The smells it fills the house with, pulling out my box of cake tips, and cupcake liners, the excited looks and praises the kids give when they get to sit down and eat it. I love it all. Bryan will often tell me "Just bake already!" when I'm having a stressful day. I just really love everything about it...perhaps I can be the next Martha Steward one day! Anyway to follow that blog look here: http://sweetzs.blogspot.com/
Finally there is this blog. I needed a place to get out my random thoughts, somewhere I could talk about what we are doing as a family. I wanted a place to share the crafts I do, or the activities I want to start. I needed a place to talk about our adventures in trying to conceive again, as I felt Bryanna's blog wasn't the proper place. I wanted to talk about books I'm reading...stresses I'm going through, my highs and my lows, and really just faith, hope, love and everything in between.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
