Who new a drawer could be so beautiful?

For months, my spices were randomly sitting on a drawer/shelf and we would have to search through them all to find the bottle we were looking for.

Now after cleaning out very expired bottles that we never used my spice drawer/shelf looks like this.

and a close-up you say??

It's a drawer of beauty.
Organized.
Clean.
Semi-categorized/semi-color coded.
Space to grow.
Ahhh, I'm ready for more cooking and baking. :)

October's First Adventure

Let me start by saying the first time I ever went camping was in 2007...in December...in the SNOW.  I really had no idea what I was about to be doing.

Am I going to be cold?

What will we eat?

Are there going to be bears?

and of course...I'm a girl so I asked...

 please don't laugh

Where/How do I pee?

My family growing up never went camping. My husband on the other hand was in boy scouts. He camped lots more than me. So I was asked a few days ago if I wanted to go camping again. Sure, why not. I survived in winter, I can do the fall. 

This time was MUCH different. How?? Well where do I start.

Weather: Snowy, icy vs. clear sky, dry

Temperature: 20's/Teens vs. 40s/50s

Experience: First Time vs. Second Time

Others: Me & 2 guys vs. Me, 2 guys & my SIL

I will leave you with these pictures.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day/night to be outdoors sitting by a fire. (Even though I remember being awake a lot during the night, I must have slept enough that I'm not crazy tired right now)

I did that?!?

Me: "What do you want me to bake?"
Hubs: "What?"

Me: "What do you want me to bake next?"
Hubs: "oh......."

Me: "I've already make blueberry pie, apple pie, chocolate chip pumpkin cookies...any requests."

Hubs: "How about a cake?"

Me: "Okay, any special kind?"

Hubs: "You can't go wrong with chocolate"

Enter Barefoot Contessa's Chocolate Buttercream Cake

I'm so proud of myself that I made this...entirely from scratch...on a school night?!?!?
Yep, on a Thursday night I was baking away. I enjoyed myself thoroughly (too bad we don't really enjoy the icing--it is sadly not our thing)


Now what to do with all that cake....
and what to bake next....(after our weekend adventure that is...)

September 24, 2010

We officially became a puppy free house.

Our littlest mutt turned 2 [human] years old. I've been told at that age they are no longer considered a "puppy". I feel like he is so much older than that because we stopped feeding him puppy food around 8 months.

We've come up with some strange nicknames for him over the past years:

Nitter-boo

Stinky-Butt

and my personal favorite: Nutter Butter :)

A new favorite

With everything that's been going on around here,  I stopped for a little while and looked through my pictures on my memory card. Low and behold I found this gem.