Friday, January 27, 2012

Spray painting lace

When a lazy rainy day happens most of the time Sam and I like to get projects done. Whether it be home projects, errands, or just things we want to do. And these last rainy days were no exception. I had seen all over pinterest, and other random DIY sites, projects were you use lace and spray paint to make a design on something. After weeks and weeks of saying we wanted to do this to Sams dresser, we finally did! It was a lot of work, but it was only our first time and I think we will get better. The out come was worth all the time we put into it, because it turned out amazing! Way better than either one of us thought it would. I also just really enjoyed working on this with Sam, and having things that we both contributed to around the house is so sweet. 










 We ran into a problem with our lace not laying flat, so the gold nuggets sitting here are to add weight to the sides of the lace. We taped premature on this side and did not measure the lace out correctly. We also started hanging the lace while the dresser was standing upright. Finally we used our brains and turned it on it side, but we didnt want to tape and cut all over again so we just used the rocks. If you try this save yourselves some trouble, measure and tape correctly the first time!








We love how it turned out. The pictures don't do it justice at all!  


Until our next adventure


-M

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Nowlins do Danishes

Recently we have been real party animals, staying up until 1 am watching Parks and Rec. Because of all this late night wildness we don't make ourselves roll out of bed until the late afternoon. So today we decided to just be with one another and not try and fill our days with tons of stuff. And being that the weather is freezing and gloomy it wasnt hard to just stay home and relax. Sam wanted to try something that I enjoy and i suggested baking. Anyone that knows Sam knows he is not a person that even likes being in the kitchen. Well thats a bit of an over statement, but he definitely not much of a cook. I was very surprised when he said he would help me bake something.

I chose this really simple danish recipe from one of my boards on pinterest. I tried to make sure that whatever i chose wouldn't overwhelm him, but also where he could work on his own piece of it while i worked on another. I have the tendency to be a little overbearing.  This ended up being one of the easiest pastries i have ever made! Very few ingredients with a really tasty result. Sam even said he thought these would be a hit for parties, so I guess we will be trying different version of this for our friends.

Dough maker
1 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. butter
2 tbsp. water

The filling
1 c. water
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. all purpose flour
3 eggs




icing

1-1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 to 2 tbsp. water

The finshed product.


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Walk on the mediterranean side

Ever since going to that amazing falafel cart in San Jose I have been craving falafel. I found a really interesting website that not only has a yummy falafel recipe but lots of helpful money saving tips for grocery shopping. It's called Budget Bytes , and it has really useful information on how many portions and the cost of the portions you can get for a simple dinner. 

I decided I would make her pita bread and falafel recipes and see how those turn out, taste wise. Then if i like them I will try some other yummy looking recipes from her site. 

First I made the falafel mix because I wanted to pita bread to be warm when I made it. The only problem i ran into was when I tried to use my Magic Bullet instead of a food processor (which is listed in her directions). It took FOREVER to get the falafel mixture to the right consistency. It did eventually get there, but I now know not to ever try and use a Magic Bullet as a substitute for a food processor. Now all I need is to actually get a food processor. 
(side note: making the falafel was not at all hard it was actually very simple and easy. It probably would have been quick too if I hadn't done things my way)


i will only use you for smoothies from now on

flour and falafel mix

falafel patties

everything taste better fried.

We had dinner and now I can say the falafels were SO SO GOOD! If you are into this type of food I would definitely check this blog out and try these. One other thing I really enjoyed was that everything in the falafel was fresh. I know where all the ingredients came from and what was put in everything. 





Then After all the falafel drama I started on the pita bread. This also came with it's own drama but was fairly easy. I don't ever make my own bread products, so this is still a fairly new process to me. I'm always amazed by how long it takes for dough to rise.
Waiting for dough to rise is like waiting to die... you never know when it will happen and then it does and your like, what the heck! 
Any way the pita recipe is very simple but time consuming (because of all the waiting for dough to rise business). After the dough is at the level of fluffy-ness (?) you want it it takes about 5 minutes to cook. Quick and tasty! These pitas are seriously so good and you can make thick or thin. I might have burned all my fingers trying to make these pitas correctly but it was so worth it! I'm happy I made extra dough and extra pitas, LEFTOVERS!!!
First Knead

Roll it out

bake on a wire rack

Annoy your husband by taking to many pics

Then Enjoy : )

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Girls Day


Don't you just love when you get to randomly hang out with a bunch of your favorite people? Well, I do and I got to yesterday. Some girlfriends and I ended up spending a large chunk of our day together. We were really missing some friends (rebekkah Hurley and Erin Hennessy) but it was so much fun. Us girls went over the hill with the intention to do a little shopping, but it turned into a lot of lounging around department stores. We went into anthropologie and while one shopped the rest of us layed on one of the sample beds and talked. Then we went to the BEST BEST BEST (American) falafel cart. I love this place it's so fresh and tasty. It's like being back in Israel again. We ate our delicious lunch on the grass with some live music and plenty of people watching. After lounging and stuffing our faces with delicious food we went over to the mall. One of the stores we went to smelt like a fart and we were all tired and overly full from lunch so we decided to go home. A few hour later we ended up at the Skeltons house watching valentines day , which is such an awful movie, and eating milkshakes and snuggling.

Very successful girl time.

lounge

if you are ever in santa row go to the falafel cart!

Grub time





Love them.

-M

Monkey toes

Who knew that being able to pick things up/pinch/cling to people with your toes was a special gift. Today Sam and I discovered this very fact. I can pick anything up with my toes and I frequently pinch Sam with my little toes. Sam however is not as gifted as I am in this area. We even did a little test to see if he could pick up some of the same things as me with his chubby toes. And Most of the time he failed, but we had a training session and he is getting a lot better : )

test 1 (me)

test 1 (sam) couldnt do it : (

test 2 something lighter (me)

test 2 (sam) success!






Friday, January 13, 2012

Beach and little boys

I am a nanny for a little boy named Coleman Lemon. I have been watching him since he was 6 months old. He's now 2 1/2! I can't believe how much i love this little guy. He's really into giving kisses and hug right now too, so we do lots of cuddling and playing.
Coleman lemon 

Sam got to play with us at the beach today and it was love at first sight. Coleman just loves Sam and thinks hes the coolest person on earth. We made castle, threw sand into the water, pretended to be trains, dug holes, chased birds, and then went to Monica's (or "ca" as Coleman calls me) house and learned how to play guitar and jump on beds. It was the best sunny day.





-M

Healthy Life Goals.

I promise to stop before i look like this.
I didn't make a new years resolution t loose weight or eat healthy, but I did make a "bet" or "deal" with Sam that I wouldn't eat sweets until valentines day. So, I have been working out pretty regularly to try and keep my mind off all the goodies I can't have (even though it's only the 13th and i have already cheated once but i love sweets!!). In taking this challenge I'm noticing that I am way out of shape. I use to be able to run about 8 miles and not be dead at the end. Now I run about three and I want to throw up. I'm not training for a marathon or anything but I want to like running again.


I went to the gym with Miss. Katie Hund this morning and went to my first ever strength training class. It kicked my butt (in a good way) and made me really want to get into a good stage of  physical health. Along with this Sam and I are progressively cutting meat out of our diets right now. This isn't because we want to be vegetarians or anything but because we just need a little break. We are also focusing on eating a bit better for ourselves right now. I think its a step in the right direction.

I found this really cute couple that has a blog about making good and healthy meals together. I think I'm so into it because they do almost all the cooking with each other. Now only if i could get Sam do this. Any who, check it out here, it's worth a look.

Heres to trying new things and sprucing up some old things as well.

-M

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Connected

Santa Cruz harbor... Our backyard

I hung out with some girlfriends last night and realized how much I have grown here in Santa Cruz. Sometimes I get down and really miss all the people I love in Turlock. I miss knowing tons of people when I drive down the street or go into a store. I miss lots of other things too, but last night I realized how connected I am here. I also got to talk to Sam about how much I love him (this is a common thing I like to do to remind him of all the things I love about him). One was that he was so encouraging when I first moved here. I would get down a lot because I felt really lonely and like I had no friends. But he was always there telling me I'm great ect ect...
I love living here. I love being able to sit in our little apartment and hear the ocean. I love that I have friends that I can talk to about anything and they still love me the same (even if I have veggie farts) I love that Sams' family has become my family. I could keep going on forever because God has truly given me a gift by placing me here for this season of my life. Who knows where I will be in a few years from now, but for now I am glad that I'm in SC. As long as I get to snuggle Sam every night and every morning I don't care where I am.