Save Me, Please.

I've quit my 3 year long job.  Almost exactly on the day that I started there.  Minus a couple of days.   It's strange to think that it's done.   That I don't have to go to a job that I don't really like almost every day.  I mean, my job was a really good job.  Flexible hours, didn't have to work on the weekends, didn't have to stay past 6 pm at latest, and it wasn't difficult... that is until you had to deal with an angry customer. 

What am I going to do instead?  Start a business for wedding flowers.  While I work part time at (maybe) a flower shop.  It's kind of like my child hood dream... to work at a flower shop or a green house.  Flower shop was the better of the two.  

Starting a business is scary.  Ever since it became a possibility I've been looking on Martha Stewart.com trying to do my homework.  There are so many things about business that I don't even know.  Taxes, how much to charge, what's legal and what's not... like I said, I have a lot to learn.  I have books to buy and a business name to think up.  And customers to get.  That I will have to really pray for.  All my friends are pretty much already married or won't be for a few years.  Great.  Seems impossible.  Scary, scary.  I need to pull out a planner.

Well, that's the update for now.  Maybe more later. 

See ya, 

Merry Christmas,

Marcie

 

COOKIES!!!

I decided that I am pretty much the worst craft/food blogger. I will tell you what I made, but not tell you how. And ONCE, my friends, just once, I provided you with pictures of my crafts and they weren't even very good. (I'm sure you've noticed.) Maybe if my photography skills were a little better than I would maybe post some more pictures. I should practice.

Speaking of things that I've made, I'm starting on some golden yellow mittens and some deep fuschia hand warmers. I have almost a whole mitten done and I have finished one hand warmer unless I want to put a thumb on there. Also I have a fabulous recipe for Molasses Crinkles that I might be able to remember and I took a wack at Baklava. (It was not my best attempt.)

Molasses Crinkles:
3/4 cup softened butter
1 C. packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 C. Molasses

2 1/2 C. Flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves.
Granulated sugar
(I use salted butter so that I don't have to measure salt. But if you use unsalted, I'm pretty sure it's about 1/4 tsp of salt.)

Blend you butter, sugar, egg, and molasses in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Then add the rest of your ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Chill for 1 hour.

After it's chilled, pre heat oven to 350 deg. F. Take dough in teaspoon fulls and roll into balls. Then roll the cooking in a small bowl with granulated sugar until a light layer completely covers the cookie. Place on cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 min. or until they have crinkles on the top.

These are PERFECT coffee cookies. The spices mixed with coffee are AMAZING. I made these two days in a row because they were gone by night. Oh, and the recipe is from Betty Crocker and it makes a little over a dozen.

Hope you like them as much as I do!

Some Kind of Lovely

It's cold and raining.  Comforting and beautiful, according to myself.  It rained the whole month of July and secretly I loved it.  I love the sound as it patters steadily against the roof.  The smell of wet ground.  The dark dampness of the day.  How it actually feels good to cook in front of a hot stove, or bake with a hot oven, in the middle and supposed to be hottest part of the summer. 

And if you're like me, you go to sleep with your window open so that your nose is cold but the rest of your body is warm under the covers.  Constant rain makes me happy.  I need to live in Oregon.  Badly.

I got all of my wedding pictures back last week... or two weeks ago?  I can't remember.  I also can't remember if I told every one that my weekend went according to plan and I got every thing on my list finished.  It all turned out good.  I even did some extra stuff.

And last weekend I made tiramisu.  Which was a scary thing considering that I've tasted the REAL thing before.  It turned out really good, though.  Even compared to Italy's tiramisu... which is a wonderous thing all in itself.  I should go to allrecipes.com where I found the recipe and tell of the good news.  

My brother in-law came in to stay with us this last weekend.  He's a good kid.  Fun to be around if he's not trying to get on your last nerve. (Which happens more than once.)  Secret to him and my sister... I'm trying currently to get them to like each other.  They're a perfect couple.  Alex even thinks that they would be good together.  

Here's hoping, I guess.

Steel Magnolia and Parmesian Noodles.

Last night I came home from work, made my husband some Parmesan noodles with baked cherry tomatoes and basil and garlic bread, and watched the last half of Steel Magnolias. After which, I cleaned my entire kitchen and did a load of laundry. I'm SO industrious. Now I just have to do the hateful job of writing out 50 plus "Thank you," cards for my wedding which happened 2 months ago. So I'm pretty sure that cancels out some of the "Industrious woman" standard.

Just to make sure I lived up to my weekend list, I not only watched one movie, but two and a half. I only slept deeply one of the two nights, but at least I did sleep. (Sunday is not considered a weekend night because you still have to wake up early the next morning for work.)
Friday night I stayed up trying to clean the lower level of my house, but instead my husband talked me in to watching good will hunting and at 11 pm the lady that was doing the flowers for my friends wedding called to see if I could come over for second opinion and to help. I left her house and got home at 2:30. Knowing that I had to be awake by 7 the next morning I didn't get to sleep until 3 am. And that sleep included waking up every hour to make sure I hadn't over slept.
I got all of the decorating stuff done, the wedding was pretty, and I was in bed by 10 pm. (I watched a second movie.)
Then on Sunday we bummed around with friends where I cleaned my kitchen and watched the first half of Steel Magnolias.
Now that you have a full account of my weekend and my first day of the week to come, I shall leave you with 2 things,
1) Parmesan and garlic is a meal that will have your mouth smelling like puke.... even if you thoroughly enjoyed your dinner.
2) 2 1/2 movies is WAY too much for a weekend. Spread it out a little bit.

Peace Out,
Marzipan

Fix Your Eyes and Get Up

You should have been there... yesterday I was just about to start blogging again while I was sucking the chocolate off of the chocolate covered coffee beans. You missed it. Oh well... you snooze, you loose, I guess. So I have made a list of all the things I wish to get done this weekend:

1) Help my friend with her wedding. Which will take all of Friday night and Saturday. Most of weekend GONE.
2) Clean my room and bathrooms and kitchen. (Most of Sunday GONE)
3) Watch a movie and sleep deeply.

Which concludes my weekend. I will feel like I never left work.
I hate weekends like that. The ones where your time off is just as busy as your work schedule.
There's never a 2 hour nap; or even a 20 minute nap, for that matter. You just go, go, go. Which is why I will get as much as possible done for this wedding before hand so that I won't have to do it the day of.
Weddings aren't that bad. You just have to get jazzed for them before they get here. I was excited for this wedding, but then I found some thing shiney (which was getting my house clean and not doing ANYTHING during the weekends) and that completely distracted me. So now I'm having to knock myself back in to it. I think it's just too soon after my own wedding for me to get excited about doing another one. I wish I had some one else to do my wedding so that I didn't have to do anything... but then again, I like it when people say that it was beautiful. That way I can take all the credit.

For Goodness Sake.

Considering the fact that I left you off with an extremely bad day and hopes of rejuvenation through a haircut two weeks ago, I figured it would probably be pretty good to update my current situation.
My hair cut did NOT make things better. It made things quite worse, actually. Infact, I got in the car and started crying. It was a BAD haircut. And because it was a holiday I had to wait almost a week before I could get it fixed. So now my hair is fixed. And it feels so good to wake up and like what you see in the mirror.
I got myself a little pie vent in the shape of a black bird. It's so cute. I'm going to make a strawberry rhubarb pie just so that I can use it. I'll try to take a picture of my pie and the bird vent in it. Yay!
There was something else I wanted to say but I forgot. Goodbye for now!

Slight Possibility.

Today went from good to gradually worse. Maybe it will get better after I get my hair cut. And then even better than that after I go home and bake in my working as of last night oven. And then even better after I go to bed and drown out all of today's stupid faults with dreams that I don't even remember the next morning. There's hope. There's hope.

Crappy Pictures and Late Nite Documentations.

I know that this is the second post in one day, but you'll probably be seeing a lot of these.  THIS one though, will have pictures.  Tonight I got out all of my craft supplies so that I can create something.  Probably some of my fabulous hand-made stationary that takes about 2 days to make one card.  That stuff is always fun.  And since my cooking appliances are busted, I'm getting a little desperate, here. 

See all of my stuff?

Now, I know I'm no pro photographer.  So have a little mercy on my visuals.

That isn't even all my stuff.  Since I've moved, some of it is still in boxes and some of it I had to leave at my parent's house with my little sister.  She could use it and I'll be able to buy more stuff.  So really it's a win-win situation.  And besides, I have my knitting stuff and my little box with glue sticks and pens so what else more do I need?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  

*Note:  The "Down side," I have found, to living in red nail polish, is that you have to be extra careful not to get red swipes on everything paper...no matter how long you let them dry.  It always happens. End Note*

So I gathered my supplies for my one craft, a thank you card for some one who helped with my wedding (person to be decided)

While my husband toiled at "Where in the World?":

So for now, I'm getting kind of tired and I have to wake up early tomorrow morning.  And besides... it's starting to get dark and so all of my finished products are even worse quality than they are now.  So I'm just going to show the next picture, and have you guess what the finished product looks like until I decide to maybe show you some other time when I'm not as beat.  Hey, it might possibly be sent to YOU!  How exciting!

You get the idea, right?  My husband says, "It looks like it's going to say, "Hank you."  

... that's all folks.

100% Uncreative

So I found a sewing machine. Simple, yet high end, with a reasonable price. Alex and I decided yesterday that if we each take $50-$100 out of our pay checks we could have enough saved up for a sewing machine for me and a bike for him. I'm going to take out $50 of every check and I should have enough saved up by fall or sooner.
Sewing machines are always so white. I just want to paint mine or something. I know I can't because that would drop it's value by 100%. But maybe I can just make it a cool cover or something. I'm so excited about my sewing machine.
Our house guest came last night. He came right as I was going to bed so I didn't even see him. He left so early in the morning that he was gone before we had to leave for work. It was so weird.
Tonight I'm going to look through my waffle cook book and see if I can find anything good. Considering the fact that waffles and bbq'ed things are all I can cook other than cereal and sandwiches while my stove is broken. Last night we made kabobs. Those were good, but kabobs are so easy that I sometimes hardly even count them as accomplishing something amazing in the cooking world. And my kabobs aren't amazing. All I use is BBQ Sauce. Nothing amazing. Next time I'm going to cover them in olive oil and then roll them in brown sugar. We'll see how that goes. My co-worker told me to try that. She found it online. Next time. Next time.

DIY

I have 15 minutes to kill before I start closing up the office. I could be doing some other odd job that I have PLENTY of. But instead of those, I'm just going to do this.
My husband last night suggested that I make all of the things that we still need for our house. Like a shower curtain and a bedspread and pillow cases. He suggested sheets too but I'm pretty sure that won't happen.
I thought he might be kidding at first...but apparently he wasn't. I like that idea almost better than buying things and he said he would get me a sewing machine. So I think tomorrow I'm going to go to the sewing machine shop across the street and price check. YAY!!!
I'm excited about the sewing machine. I probably won't get one for a while because his mom has one that I can use for now...but when we move, THEN I can get a sewing machine.
I'm starting to knit before winter comes. It's always nice to have some fresh things to wear in the winter. My goal is to knit a sweater. My friend Rebecca taught herself how...why can't I?

That Important Part Isn't Important.

Well, all of the garden is planted anew. And thanks to my new grandmother I have quite a collection of tomatoes and basil. This summer's cooking should be quite exciting.
Tomorrow we have my husband's uncle coming in to visit his brother. Tonight I will be quite busy grocery shopping and making sure that my house is clean for his arrival. The BEST part about this is that our stove AND our oven are broken.
My builder/fixer friendly husband at first thought the stove was just out of propane. The next thing I know, I see him walking around the outside of the house with a long, skinny, metal tube with a fixture at the end in his hands. I went out and asked him what was up...apparently the annarexic tube used to belong to the kitchen appliances. Not anymore...it's currently situated on our laundry room table waiting for a replacement. Say hello to waffles for breakfast and absolutely NO biscuits and sausage gravy.
Oh fresh biscuits and sausage gravy, how I mourn for you.

The Swing of Things

Well, I just got married. This here is a picture of me and my wonderful husband on our wedding day. It was a beautiful, sunny, COLD day.



After that we jetted off to Barcelona, Spain for our honeymoon. After three days there we jumped on a ship and cruised around to Malta, Rome, Naples, Pisa, and Nice. It was a beautiful trip.

Then I came home to rain, and dead flowers. At least I get to go flower shopping again. Always a fun task.

Both Alex and I are jet lagged. I went to bed later than he did last night and so he woke up early today. He woke me up around 4:30 a.m. He was awake for who knows how long before that. I couldn't go back to sleep so I just cleaned and fed myself with a constant stream of coffee. Coffee is such a guilty pleasure. I like it so much that I don't even call it an addiction even though I know it is.

Many people have asked me what married life is like. To be perfectly honest, it's not much different than life before. Except I cook a lot more, and I have more money and a nicer car. The best part is that I don't have to go home after spending all day with Alex. I'm already there.
I love cooking and cleaning. I never thought I would. I thought I would be one of those people whose house is always so messy that there are little walking paths through the boxes and piles and books and dirty laundry. I mean, our house is still a little messy because of unpacking from moving and a go-go-go lifestyle...but it's slowly getting there.
My days have steady patterns...I wake up, take a shower, and throw Alex's pre-made lunch in his little lunch cooler as we run out the door to our jobs. After work we drive home and I make dinner with the sounds of "The Simpsons" playing in the background and then we sit down and watch "Family Guy" together while we eat our dinner. Then I clean up and do laundry, and water my flowers until we decide to go to bed. It's a beautiful thing. So far, married life just keeps getting better.
I meant to post some pictures on here today, but I'm not on our computer. I guess I'll just have to save that for another time.

Tuesday Nights

Right now, as we speak, I am sucking off the chocolate of chocolate covered coffee beans, and trying to kill time before I have to start closing the office. I'm pretty sure that my left foot is swollen from wearing high heels all day which makes it difficult to shove my feet in them when a customer walks through the door.
Yesterday night I had a little bit of a panic as I realized that on my permit to get married in the middle of a wildlife refuge says that I'm having a "small wedding." I say that because they didn't specify how many people equals a "small wedding" 250 fits the bill perfectly. It took me a while to come to that sollution. Like I said before, I had a mild panic attack which lasted a total of 5 minutes. Today I talked to my Dad about it. Luckily we've known the people that run that refuge my whole life. Having connections is a beautiful thing.
This week is going to be crazy. I'm even thinking of taking off of my get together with friends just because I have so much to do and so little time to do it. I have a weeks worth of work to do in about 3 days...just because I'm working almost everyday. Goodness gracious.
Pray for me.
Peace Out,
Marzipan

Cake'n'Bake

Today is one of those days that just drag by. There's nothing I can do about it. It just slugs along. That's okay. If it has to be.
I have been on this kick lately where I've been reading cooking magazines and blogs from people who cook or bake often. Just to broaden my horizons and to get inspired for what is to come after my quickly approaching marriage. Considering the fact that I come from a long line (so I suppose) of excellent cooks, (with the exception of my grandmother's "slaw") I probably will stay on this track for the rest of my life. Luckily all of the ambitious meals I have read about and eaten have made me day dream of fame coming straight from my kitchen table. In fact, it's almost something that I am sure about. It's not a day dream; it's a fact. I'm already well on my way there.
One of my favorite things to make are cakes. I love to make them from scratch, I love to make them if they're difficult to get right, and I love to make them because they give me the most attention. And I am being completely honest there. Why live in denial, right?
All of my cake recipes have so far been extracted from cookbooks, but I like to believe they have recieved more glory coming from my crappy oven that only bakes the cake half way the first time. So far my favorite wedding present has been the cake pans and glass cake stand my aunt gave me along with some oven mitts and pot holders. She is such a considerate lady and I plan to use all of these items on a regular basis.
One of my favorite bakery items ever is my mother in-laws brunch cake. You could eat an entire pan of that pastry goodness and then sit there not feeling awful about the fact that you just inhaled an entire 9x13 of cresent roll, cream cheese, and cinnamon sugar. That is the most beautiful thing of all time. It is easy, quick, and painlessly fattening. What could be better?
I'm not even going to share the recipe. Because honestly, it's one of those things that when you read it, you might say it's disgusting. But with a cup of coffee, I couldn't sing it's praises any more.
Anyways,
Obviously my experience in the baking world is more broad than it is in the cooking world. In cooking I for the most part just trust that I know things that would taste good together and that I know how to boil water and read directions. I also know that unless you're feeding a large brood of children, box meals aren't all that great and organic ALWAYS tastes better. Not to mention it tends to make you feel all around good about yourself when you eat organic.

Peace Out.
Marzipan

There's a First for Everything.

Today has been a day of "Firsts" for me.
Today is the first day I will be able to use my new umbrella. (Fingers crossed.)
Today is the first day I ordered a whole sandwhich with cucumbers from the resturaunt down the streed.
Today is the first day that have ever set up a smoking schedule for someone.
Today is also the first day that I have ever talked to my mom about wedding vows.
It's going to be a great day of firsts.

I'm getting married in about two and a half weeks. I'm having a morning wedding and there are going to be balloons at the ceremony site...which just happens to be a in the middle of a wild life refuge. I would generally think that balloons would be tacky at a fancy wedding but I have high hopes for these balloons. No tulle included. There is always a better way than tulle, ladies and gentlemen in the proccess of planning a wedding. Unless you can make it look like heaven, there is no way on earth or beyond that tulle can look classy. Our colors are black and white and because it's a spring wedding I'm putting little fake birds everywhere and it's also...hold your breath...50's themed AND in the morning! Say hello to the most awesome wedding you've been to in your LIFE!

Anyways,
The End.

Marzipan