Happy St. Patrick's Day

And Happy Birthday to Mom. (The birthday wishes are from Tally, and you can't possibly get mad at that little sweetie.)

Read more...

Goodbye 2009...

New promises...
New house...

and a new puppy...



2009 has certainly been a whirlwind...

Read more...

Christmas Morn

A photo diary of our Christmas morning...



Tally's first Christmas Card from Grandma



NavyGuy's Mom and Dad ready for some present opening



Anti-bacterial wipes... the serious stocking stuffer...



Wisconsin pride!



The book haul...



Another present for the pup



NavyGuy's big gift - a Kindle (cuz he can't pack six months' worth of books when he deploys)



Won't. Last. Until. April. Without. New. Episodes!!!!! This t-shirt from Sister-in-Law will have to sustain me.



More gifts for Tally



Sister-in-Law's big gift - a TiVo... which she's been salivating over for way too long



Tally consumed this bone in 20 minutes. Oops. Perhaps we should have been watching more closely... (don't worry - she's fine. Iron stomach on that one.)



Who knows... I probably have a cookie in my mouth.



No... my new stamp pad holder is not a toy for puppies!

What did your holiday look like?

Read more...

Reemergence

I'm slowly recovering from the holidays. Between the non-stop shifts at Starbucks, the multiple food comas resulting from each holiday meal, and the overall hustle and bustle of the season, my body isn't bouncing back as quickly as it used to.

Blogging is still going to be sporadic for the next few days, as I received a plethora of new books under the Christmas tree, and all I'm in the mood for is reading on the couch, with Tally pup on my lap, the fire roaring, and a tupperware container of Christmas cookies within reach. But have no fear - lots of holiday recaps, and other shenanigans to come soon!

Read more...

Holiday Decorating: Part 3 The Home Tour

After finally completing the Christmas decorating process, I'm ready to show off the house. NavyGuy and I staged a little home tour, complete with Tally cameos and my general ridiculousness when on film...

Read more...

Holiday Baking

She's finally been takin' out for her first spin...


Yes, it's official. After being terrified to turn it on for six months, I used the glorious pink KitchenAid stand mixer for the first time today to make several different kinds of holiday cookies. It's kind of intimidating, no? Okay, maybe I'm the only one, but it's like super expensive and heavy as all get out, so I was always a wee bit nervous that I was going to break it or something. So I just let it sit on my counter and shine in all it's pretty pinkness.

Well her cushy days of just being counter candy are over! Baby works like a charm! In fact I spent so much time baking this morning, that Tally finally got bored of wandering around my feet and decided to curl up in a safe place (just in case things went haywire in the kitchen).

The results of all my hard work today? A couple batches of Fudge Crinkles, a family recipe called Sweet Treats, and possibly my new favorite: Fake-Out Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars...

I'll admit, they aren't quite the same as the real ones (the blondie base is thicker than the ones you'll get at Starbucks), but the flavor and taste is super similar, and I think, quite delicious. My mom found the recipe here, and even though they take some time and effort, they're way worth it. (Mine obviously don't look as pretty as those in the recipe photo, but give me a break - this was the first corner piece that's always a pain in the booty to get out of the pan!).

More recipes to come - I have Monday off of work, so I'm going to try to get some fudge made, and NavyGuy will absolutely die if he doesn't have his Peanut Butter Chocolate Wheat Thins.

What Christmas cookies are your favorites? Does anyone have all their baking done?

Read more...

A Little of This and a Little of That...

*All Christmas packages are in the mail. I got up at 5am today, finished wrapping everything, and was in line at the post office by 9. And it wasn't even horrific. I got the good postal worker man (who hooked me up with a sweet sweet media rate for a few of the packages), and was out of the building in under 15 minutes.

*When making quiche, the milk and eggs must be whisked together thoroughly. Failure to do so will result in a husband being sent to pick up burritos for dinner.

*NavyGuy starts his holiday leave today. On the plus side, this means he's home to play with the dog everyday and work on a honey-do list. On the less plus side, this means he's home all day. I predict many Nova and Good Eats marathons broken up by bouts of computer gaming and general lounging.

*Monday night was another squadron holiday party. This time both officers and enlisted sailors were invited. It was at the O'Club, and it was... interesting. Some people were in cocktail dresses; some people were in jeans and "fancy" t-shirts. The party was essentially, "come, pay for overpriced drinks, eat a so-so buffet of lukewarm food, and try to act interested when they announce the raffle prizes for all the enlisted guys..." I muddled through the evening in a Chardonnay-induced haze and managed to snake an extra piece of chocolate cake. They did have nice party favors - sturdy wine glasses etched with the squadron logo (keep in mind "nice"is a relative term).

*Still to be done before family arrives on Monday: clean house, finish holiday decorating, finalize Christmas Eve and Christmas Day menus, bake cookies, wrap more gifts... hmmm... that list doesn't sound quite long enough... I must be forgetting something...

Read more...

Christmas Cards '09

or... "How I nearly lost my mind and sent e-cards this year."

Oh the saga. The process from card inception to dropping in the mailbox was fraught with headaches:

~ the design process began with thoughts of making a holiday photo card through one of the photo websites. Damn if those babies aren't pricey! At least the decent looking ones. So after I putzed with various layouts and photos and designs for over a week, I finally realized it wasn't worth the money and I could just make a photo holiday card myself.

~ so then, I designed my own photo card and made about 15 different prototypes before I finalized the design

~ and then the real debacles began... I ran out of white cardstock (trip #1 to Michaels); the cards didn't fit in the envelopes (trip #2); the envelopes were too see-through (trip #3); the new envelopes were too shiny to write on (trip #1 to Office Max for address labels); the address labels didn't print correctly (no trips, just a lot of cursing); I ran out of stamps (trip #1 to the Post Office). I think there were other shenanigans along the way but clearly I've blocked them.

Oh, I suppose you want to see the final product?


Here's the front. One of my favorite wedding photos cuz we look so genuinely happy. I used a corner punch to make those bubble patterns and then just slide the photo into the four corners. That way if anyone wants to take the picture out and save it, they don't need to keep the whole Christmas card itself. The white paper is backed with either green or red paper to make a small border (one of the debacles along the way resulted in me needing to trim the top and bottom of the card to make it fit in the envelopes).

And here's the back. (The card is just one solid piece, not a flip open thing.) The greeting was printed on white cardstock through our printer and the red design is a stamp. That's it. After all the headaches and debacles, the cards turned out fairly simple, but I like them.

P.S. I'm starting next year's cards in January.

Read more...

Weekend Update

~Friday night was NavyGuy's squadron Holiday party for all of the officers and their spouses. The XO (executive officer... second highest guy in the squadron) hosted, and I was pretty nervous. I didn't want to embarrass NavyGuy or ruin his reputation right off the bat.

The night ended up being fairly tame and manageable - a buffet of tasty food and sitting around chatting with the few wives that I am starting to get to know. My only real slip up was letting it be known that NavyGuy has used my scrapbooking tools to make his flight charts... I'll definitely feel bad if his call sign ends up being "Scrappy" because of my big mouth.

~Saturday, NavyGuy and I were all kinds of holiday productive. We bought our new (fake) Christmas tree, which I then set up and decorated beeeeeautifully (pics to come). We also got some shopping done, set up the Willow Tree Nativity set (which NavyGuy thinks is creepy cuz the figurines have no faces and he's threatened to have our future children draw smiles in with sharpies...), and I finally decided on a design for our Christmas cards. They still aren't done, but at least some of the paper has been cut...

~Sunday I had to work. Blah. Then I made Chocolate Peanut Butter Wheat Thins* for a Christmas Cookie Exchange party with "the wives." Well, I remade the wheat thin cookies, cuz the first attempt was a disaster - I bought unsweetened chocolate and didn't realize until I tasted one of the finished treats. Not good. Not good at all. Luckily, the second attempt was a success, and the wives enjoyed the treats. It was nice to sit and chat with a smaller group (and eat lots of sweets), plus I came home with extra cookies for NavyGuy and several new recipes to try out before Christmas.

How was your weekend? What holiday projects did you accomplish? Any fun Christmas parties you're looking forward to? Suggestions for possible call signs for NavyGuy that would be less embarrassing than something craft-related?

*Recipe: Slather peanut butter between two wheat thin crackers. Dip in melted baker's chocolate. Refrigerate. Enjoy.

Read more...

Turkey Day Prep

Sunday night, I did a Thanksgiving test-run of the new recipes for this year (excluding the turkey). It was a slightly unusual menu...

Cocktail Weiners*



Butter-Pecan Sweet Potatoes


and Green Beans with Vinaigrette

Two of the three were hits. The cocktail weiners were fabulous (and the crockpot that Sister got us for the wedding works great!). NavyGuy loves sweet potatoes, and I didn't have them at T-Day last year, so I had to figure out an easy recipe so they could be on the table this year. Martha didn't disappoint - the butter, brown sugar, and pecan pieces were delicious with the already yummy sweet potatoes.

I'm on the fence about the beans though. The vinaigrette just doesn't have much flavor to it, so I think I'm going to keep looking. Any suggestions? Most of the other dishes I have planned are rich and heavy, so I'm hoping to keep the green beans fairly light.

*The cocktail weiner recipe I used came from a Fond du Lac cookbook. The sauce calls for 2 cups ketchup, 1 T of worcestershire sauce, and 1 cup light brown sugar. I used turkey weiners to make them a teensy bit less fatty.

Read more...

DIY Candle

Such a simple way to dress up a basic candle you may already have at home, or can pick up at any dollar store, Walmart, Michaels, or garage sale for cheap. Here's what I used and how I did it:
Supplies: plain pillar candle; wire ribbon; scissors; tacky tape (available at craft stores, or Walmart).

Step 1: Measure the length of ribbon you'll need. I simply wound the ribbon around the candle, and cut so that the ribbon overlapped slightly.Step 2: Make a clean edge for the ribbon, by folding over the cut end. Then place a strip of tacky tape on the inside of the ribbon. Tacky tape is double-sided, permanent adhesive; it's an awesome adhesive because it hold so many different materials, but it will stick permanently, so use carefully.Step 3: Roll the ribbon around the candle, and overlap the tacky tape piece on top of the other end of the ribbon. Pull the ribbon tight enough to have it fit snuggly around the candle, but with a little bit of give - that way, you can slide the ribbon off and change out the candle decor for a different holiday.
Step 4: Embellish the ribbon and/or candle with any other holiday elements you want (again, just attach things with tacky tape). Here, I added a rubber spider to the outside. Like I said, very simple, but so much nicer than a plain candle. And since the ribbon isn't attached directly to the candle, it can be slid off when I want to dress up the candle for a different season. Gotta love cheap decorating!

Read more...

Updates and Blogkeeping

* Happy Belated Fourth of July! NavyGuy and I celebrated by going to the Anacortes parade (there was an Uncle Sam on stilts!), and watching the fireworks downtown. For a small town, Anacortes puts on an impressive display of pyrotechnics.

* Everything went well with the house inspection - better than well in fact. The "brickkicker" found almost no problems in the entire place. Essentially, there's one screw missing from a downspout on the side of the deck, and the blinds on the sliding door upstairs need to be re-positioned farther away from the door (currently, they catch when you slide the door open). The appraiser comes tomorrow, and then we just have to wait patiently for the financing to be complete... though patiently might be asking a little much.

* Sunday morning was my first shift at Target. I've been assigned to the Starbucks in the Target, so while I'm technically a Target employee, I will be trained on Starbucks first. Confusing, yes. After my first shift, where I was trained by a 24 year old, I learned that a) I'm going to have to taste all of the drinks (ew, I hate coffe), b) the saran wrap box is smarter than me, and c) I have a LOT to learn before I can be left alone in the Starbucks. I have another shift tomorrow; we'll see if I make any progress.

* NavyGuy has been on "holiday" since last Thursday, and it's high time he go back to work.

On a separate note, I realized I missed my 1 year "blog"-aversary on June 25th!!! I meant to celebrate somehow, but the date just slipped by. That's okay. It's really just shocking that I've actually stuck with this for so long! I tend to grab new hobbies and obsessions for a while and then let them drift... Nonetheless, since we missed the date, I'm going to celebrate a different milestone - 500 posts! This post marks #475, so I have a few more posts to come up with a way to party with all of you. Feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments - I'm thinking maybe some giveaways? Or a countdown of favorite posts? Posts from some of the frequent guest stars like Mom, Sister, TWP, NavyGuy, or HistoryGirlie? Let me know what you'd like.

Read more...

Well Done Readers!

Nice work everyone - 27 comments in one day! Sister really enjoyed all the birthday love, and I think it kept her from sinking into a deep dark "I'm getting old" birthday depression hole (well random comments from strangers and a night out with her hubby to have a burrito - her favorite - and see Wicked!)

I haven't quite decided on the extra bday gift she's going to get, but I'll be sure to share once I do!

I'm off subbing for 7th and 8th graders today, and then heading off to Portland on Friday, so the posting is probably going to be a little light the next few days. Once I'm back from our Easter weekend trip I'll have lots of stories and pics to share :) In the meantime, here's one last Easter card!
The bunny is cut out and has a little teeny bit of cotton on his tail. This was a great quick card - stamp and cut the bunny, punch the circle out of the front of the card, and then stamp the sentiment on the inside of the card.

Read more...

New Traditions

This is one of the first years that NavyGuy and I won't be home for Easter. I can't speak for him, but I'm only about 72% sad by this turn of events. Obviously I love my family and all of our Easter festivities; dying eggs, eating a nice ham, trying to pry the jello eggs out of their molds, being the last person to find my Easter basket - that kind of happy fun. But the other 28% of me is kind of excited by the fact that NavyGuy and I are going to spend this Easter with each other, and in turn, make some new traditions. We'll always have both of our families, but with our wedding... er, marriage... about a month and a half away, it's cool to have this chance to start being each other's family.
So, we'll be spending this Easter in Portland with my college roomie Miss A and her hubby (click here if you want the backstory of how she's responsible for NavyGuy and I). I have no clue what we're going to do yet, but I expect there will be lots of pictures, lots of laughs, and LOTS of beer!

The card above uses a dollar stamp from Michaels, Martha Stewart spring patterned paper, and yellow eyelets from an assortment pack. I just colored in the bunny with some colored pencils, and attached it with some foam to make it pop off the card a bit.

Read more...

Let the Sun Shine!

Happy First Day of Spring!

I thought these little birds were very springy... and I got to play with the paper piecing technique so I could add a pop of color to bird #1.

Read more...

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I may not ride the corned beef and cabbage train, but I do rock a great Irish Soda Bread recipe :)

This is my second annual loaf after Historygirlie convinced me I could probably tackle this one without much disaster inspired me with her version a few years back. NavyGuy tasted this year's version and declared it a winner!

Amazingly Easy Irish Soda Bread

- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup margarine (or butter), softened
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg

- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1/4 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.

2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet.

4. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with 1/4 cup buttermilk; brush loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 30 to 50 minutes. You may continue to brush the loaf with the butter mixture while it bakes.

Mine cooked up in 35 minutes, but it's definitely something you need to check every 5 minutes once you're past the 30 minute mark. I brushed it with the buttermilk/butter mixture twice while it cooked, and it keeps the bread much moister. This is a very dense bread, and can get dry if you overcook it; if you're worried about that, set the oven temp a little lower and cook for a bit longer.

Read more...

Happy Valentine's Day

Wishing all of you a day full of love...

Read more...

Get a Different Name Day

February 13th is "Get a Different Name Day." I always wonder who creates these random holidays. They're discussed on many different websites and seem to be more than just the creation of one crazy person, but how do they get invented? Can anyone declare a holiday? Can I? Hmmm... okay, a thought for a different day.

Tomorrow is Get a Different Name Day, apparently in honor of everyone who's unhappy with their birthname. Personally, I enjoy mine. It's unique enough that growing up, I never had other kids in class with the same name. Yet, it's not so unique that it's unpronounceable, or people think "whoa - those parents sure did a number on her." Mine is also spelled a less traditional way, and I've always liked how the letters look together. Yes, I notice these kinds of things.

I also have a theory about names, particularly for girls. In my opinion, the girlier the name, the girlier the girl. For instance, I consider Stacey to be an incredibly girly name. Every Stacey I know? Very girly. So, I was always glad to have a name that wasn't supremely girly, because I think your name can help shape your personality a bit.

Even though I'm satisfied with my name, given the chance, would you change yours? If so, to what? Anyone else have a name theory? (Or a Stacey that disproves my theory?)

Read more...

Holiday Mail for Heroes Update

I received a comment on a December post encouraging readers to contribute to the Holiday Mail for Heroes program. The comment included this video announcing the final tally of cards...

Hope everyone who contributed got a nice warm feeling in their heart!

Read more...

Vacation Recap - Fun with Friends

Contrary to common belief, I did not spend every single second I was in Wisconsin traveling from one fast food restaurant to another, gorging myself on all things fried, greased, smothered, or chocolately. A few days, I found time to catch up with some of my best buds :)

My cousin had a holiday party where I got to reminisce with the high school gang. I'll never get over the fact that we can go months without talking, then get together one night and catch everyone up to speed like old times. Our friendships aren't exactly the same as when we were in high school; we've all changed, expanded our circles of friends, and moved forward in our lives. But we still have a connection to each other. My girlies are all kicking ass out in the world (one spent the fall campaigning for Obama, another is well on her way to becoming the Bill Gates of weather and environmental change), and I was psyched that several were able to get to the bridal shower as well.

Despite NavyGuy's protestations, we spent one night bowling with good friends TWP and her hubby. I wiped the floor with all of them the first game, then decided to let NavyGuy show off a bit and take the second game. Earlier in the evening, we had celebrated TWP's daughter's first birthday. As a doting fairy godmother, I was delighted to be able to go to the party and see my little munchkin demolish a piece of ice cream cake (this girl is a powerhouse - she will be on the 2025 season of American Gladiators... possibly named Viper or Chunky).

Last, but not least, dinner at Texas Roadhouse (yea, rolls with cinnamon butter!) with Historygirlie and her daughter Kitty (yea for them!). We had a mini bridal shower since Historygirlie was quarantined with her germ-infested family the day of the shower. Kitty entertained us all evening with her "surprise" face (picture a 14 month old going "oooohhhh") everytime something exciting arrived at the table. NavyGuy was a saint and sat through our gabfest without complaining or checking his phone once! (Or at least if he did check his phone, he did it sneakily under the table.)

Seeing all these dear friends was bittersweet - it's great to see them, but it's harder then when I get back to Washington, because I'm reminded of how happy they make me. But, such is life.

The next vacation recap will start addressing the numerous wedding appointments we had while home, but before we get too far away from January 1st, I think the next post will be a review of 2008.

Read more...