30 by 30

My friend, Dim of Snarky Sister, has been working on her 30 by 30, which inspired me to give it a try. Her blog is awesome by the way… if you’re not reading it, I don’t know why not… and you should probably just give up now.

Anyway, I have about 13 months before I hit 30. That’s 13 months to do 30 things which I’ve put together and will list below. Many of which are food-based, things I’ve been too scared or too lazy to try, or just for fun.

30 by 30 list (in no order):
1. Graduate (seriously, I’ve been working on this thing forever and it needs to be over… now?)
2. Debone a chicken (everyone says it’s so easy… let’s hope they’re not lying)
3. Learn how to do eye makeup really well (the key there is ” really well” – I’m proficient, but I’d like to be much much better at it… then maybe I would wear makeup more than twice a year?)
4. Throw a four-course dinner party (want to come? please?)
5. Kill/cook a lobster (I’m a firm believer that as a meat-eater I should be able to kill whatever it is I’m eating. I love lobster, but have never had the responsibility of killing and cooking one… so we’ll see…)
6. Learn to cook some Indian food (love to eat it, never cooked it.. you get the idea)
7. Make jam or jelly (so that I can do #8)
8. Can jam or jelly (so I actually follow through on canning things other than blueberry syrup)
9. Completely surprise Dave with something fun (this will probably be one of the hardest because I get really excited about surprises for him and they rarely stay secret)
10. Make yogurt (Dave’s brother gave us all the things to make yogurt for a wedding gift, so I have no excuse not to make it…)
11. Make a piece of clothing that I can actually wear (and will want to wear)
12. Make a recipe journal
13. Have a guest blogger (any volunteers? you could talk about whatever you wanted)
14. Host a pig roast (I really want an excuse to buy a whole pig down at the Farmer’s Market – really really! – also, it’s probably a good thing you don’t live closer, Susanna, or pig on the pig could kill our friendship, huh?)
15. Write something substantial (I’m leaving this one kinda vague because I haven’t decided what “substantial” means yet)
16. Make ice cream from scratch
17. Master yeast bread (or at least make one really nice loaf)
18. Eat vegetarian for a week (Dave was distressed to hear this one because it probably means he will also eat vegetarian for a week)
19. Plant an herb garden
20. Get a stamp in my passport (hopefully next month!)
21. Finish a quilt project (I keep starting new ones. I should really put “finish all the quilt projects I have going right not” but I’m totally chicken.. so I’ll settle for 1 of 25)
22. Have a picnic in the park
23. Send people I love more mail (I used to send a lot of mail, but I’ve been slacking off lately and that makes me sad)
24. Make hollandaise sauce (I tried this once and it went horribly wrong)
25. Go to an apple orchard (never been before but really really want an excuse to go)
26. Bring order to the craft room (accountability! I’m writing it here so I *HAVE* to do it)
27. Make a successful souffle
28. Visit the wineries up North (we toured a few several years ago and I would love to go back and do it right)
29. Make macarons
30. Use public transportation (before you make fun of me.. bear in mind I live outside of Detroit where public transportation is the SMART bus that very few people use. I’ll either have to figure out the SMART bus schedule or visit a city that has more methods of public transportation)

So that’s my 30. I’m hoping that it’ll inspire me to blog some more, too. Here’s to hoping I get any of it done….

Let me catch you up….

So I started a new job in August and pretty much the rest of my life has been put on hold because I have never been this busy… ever, but not for the last week!

The major plus of working in higher ed is holiday time off. Dave and I have been off for the past week. Dave has used this time to work on our bathroom. A small leak in the shower has resulted in the need to rip out the entire shower area and rebuild it. He’s been working really hard though and is up to tiling – yay!

I’ve spent this time trying new recipes and stocking our new upright freezer… also, doing lots of laundry as our washer crapped out a couple weeks ago and we finally replaced it (someone should have warned us that being adults sucks, although almost 30, we were not prepared for this)!

And, I also spent some time reading about botulism. Here’s the thing, I’ve always wanted to can. I’ve watched longingly as friends gave away delicious and beautiful canned goods and I even invested in books and canning equipment. The thing that has always stopped me is the fear of botulism. I mean, who wants to share a creation with a loved one and accidentally kill them? So, I read these books almost cover to cover:

And, I spent a substantial amount of New Years Eve grilling a close friend about her canning habits. And… I’m not afraid anymore! And today, on my last day of vacation, I took the plunge and tried my hand at blueberry syrup.. and…

I know blueberries aren’t in season, but they were on sale and I needed something where if I screwed it up, I wouldn’t cry.

And guess what, the sound of the little metallic “ping” as the jar lids vacuum-sealed themselves is literally the best sound ever.

Anyway, hopefully there is more canning in my future and more blogging, too!

Hate the name

but love the app. I’m now addicted to the Hipstamatic app. Completely.

Basically, it makes pictures you take on your phone look like they were shot with old, imperfect lenses on film slightly out of date.. in a good way, of course.

Junie, my mom’s cat, whom I’m sorta pet-sitting today.

And Luci, my mom’s dog, whom I’m definitely pet-sitting.

And, Prentis, the School of Business Admin where I take classes.

And creepy, creepy Jelly cat.

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! I’m really looking forward to passing out candy.. now if I could just remember if my sub was doing it tonight or on Monday…

First Day Cupcake

After two months of training, we are finally going live tomorrow! And to celebrate I’ve made cupcakes for all of my coworkers.

That is all for now.

Light Bulb Terrariums

When I left my old job, I was shocked by how many bags of junk I was hauling home. True, I worked there four years… but seriously, how did I get that much junk in/on one little desk?

Now, I’m presented with a brand new desk… one that I am determined not to junk up… but also want to personalize… see the dilemma?

So far, I have a little calendar, a couple pictures, a couple magnets, and an air plant… and now I’ll have my most recent creation:

A light bulb terrarium:

(I’m a sucker for pandas…)

Since, it was a lot easier to hollow out light bulbs (though, if you try it yourself, I would highly recommend protective eye gear.. you can Google instructions) than I thought it would be, I also made a couple for coworkers:

Little elephant

Blue butterfly… and a close up:

I tried to keep it simple – hollowed out light bulb, sand, preserved moss, tiny air plant and tiny plastic animal.

Now… to keep them alive….

Honeymoon

… and then after we got married, we skipped town to honeymoon in… Brazil!

(this one is gonna be picture-heavy, my apologies, but Dave took some great ones!)

We started in Rio:

Then, spent a few days in a beautiful, historic town called Paraty:

After Paraty, we spent a few days on Ilhabela:

(Side note: Ilhabela is a rainforest island and one of the things we did was take a Jeep tour through the jungle to a hidden beach. The Jeep tour was awesome… except for the part where I became convinced we were stuck in the movie Turistas… we weren’t thankfully).

After Ilhabela, we went to Sao Paulo:

We took this picture while taking a walking tour of the city (we followed the tour the Lonely Planet laid out). Shortly after it was taken, Dave said something like, “huh, my back feels wet. Can you check it?” He turned around and there was a McDonald’s sundae dripping down the back of his shirt. Tiny peanuts and all. A Brazilian business man stopped immediately and said “oh, my friend!” He lead us to an actual McDonald’s where Dave tried to wash his shirt out. Needless to say, the next stop on our walking tour was to find a place that sold cheap t-shirts (much easier said than done).

At the end of the trip, we went back to Rio for a day before coming home.

And did I mention, while in Sao Paulo, I got the best email ever? I got a new job at the University! It is a scary time to be at the University because with State funding cuts, a lot of jobs were in jeopardy. They closed 200 positions, which meant about 85 people were actually laid off. My old position was as support staff and I expected to lose my job.. my new position is in a capacity to help students with financial aid (my former office), admissions, and other student services. I’m a month into it now and so far so good. It’s a new dept, so it’s all training, but we go live October 3rd and I can’t wait! Plus, we’ve been told it has job security at least through the next school year and you can’t really ask for more than that these days.

Anyway, more later

I’m Still Here!

…. And I’m playing catch up….

And I’m married! For two and a half months now! Madness!

We couldn’t have been happier with how everything turned out for the wedding:

More catch up later!

Sur La Table

4 days until the wedding! Eek!

I could talk your ear off about the list of 58 things that Dave and I made that needs to be done, but that’s pretty boring.. and let’s be honest, if those things don’t get done, it won’t actually be the end of the world.. not even close.

A much more interesting topic is my bachelorette party! Haha. My wonderful MOH, Jess, threw me a cooking class bachelorette party at Sur La Table. (Side note: if you haven’t been to a Sur La Table be warned… that store is full of wonderful, amazing cooking things… but is very dangerous because it’s nearly impossible to leave without purchasing something).

The cooking class was SO MUCH FUN! Seriously, I’m already thinking of all the other classes I want to take there. Not only did we learn how to make delicious things and get to eat them, it was just a really fun, laid back party.

Here are some highlights (excuse the image quality, I forgot my camera and had to take pics on my phone):

My mom and Dave’s mom at the prep table.

Allison chopping candied pineapple.

Nat stirring the bread pudding.

Dave’s mom and Jess at the stove.

And the delicous food we made:

Crostini with Cranberry-Apple Chutney, Carmelized Shallots and Herbed Goat Cheese

Prosciutto-Wrapped Scallops with Balsamic Reduction

Thai Beef Skewers with Lemongrass-Mint Dipping Sauce

Chocolate Chunk-Pecan Breaed Pudding Bites

Anyway, it was a really fun party and I can’t wait to make the food at home.. you know.. when I have free time again… after the wedding.. which is in four days! Eek!

Cele-Bake!

To celebrate the end of the semester, I made this:

It’s based on this recipe at sweetapolita. I used strawberries instead of raspberries though… making it a dark chocolate, four-layer cake with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream, toasted marshmallow filling (SO ADDICTIVE), and bittersweet ganache on top.

It was a TALL cake…. quite possibly the tallest I’ve ever made before:

I loved how you baked it on a half sheet pan though and then cut that to stack. And it was really really tasty, which certainly didn’t hurt!

I also made the bacon, which is not pictured because it’s not particularly pretty, but it turned out well. After I cut off the rind (skin and extra fat), I realized I may have trimmed off too much fat, which made frying it up a little bit of a challenge. It had really good flavor though, which was, after all, the goal to begin with – so I can’t complain!

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for tonight!

Happy Administrative Professionals Day

And! Happy last final to me At approximately 8:30 tonight I will be done with the semester and SOOOOOOOOO relieved.