Awesome

So, life has been busy lately. Teaching, working at the church, high five-ing the pope? It’s a busy life. Plus I was in my gorgeous friend’s wedding, had a blogger meetup, went to California for Thanksgiving, and when you put that all on top of the fact that being awesome like me is a full time job? I’m a slacker blogger.

But here’s just some of the awesome in my life as of late:

While in Indianapolis, I didn’t just high five the pope. Someone foolishly put me in charge of meals. Which resulted in going to a place called Mug ‘n’ Bun. Mug. ‘N’. Bun. How could you not?

It was delicious. And even the bread on my grilled cheeseburger was salty

I like salt.

And I found Matt from the Real World!

True story: Real World New Orleans was on when I was in HS, and one of my best friends was Mormon. So we loved seeing our respective faiths up on TV. And now Matt from the Real World works for a ministry program that my church uses. Rad! And he was super nice.

Also awesome? My college bestie Sam sent me this

If you don’t get it you clearly need to read more Feminist Ryan Gosling.

But the most awesomeness in my life? Totes my husband.

Evidence: some days I teach and work at the church. This can make for some long days. 2nd grade with a chaser of teenagers? Jesus help me. On one of those days I got home from work and found these

(Two tarts cookies! The best. And tiny, so you can eat like 10)

And this

And, most importantly, this

(whoever came up with the idea of pink cans of sparkling wine WITH straws is my best friend)

Marriage is awesome.

Housewife-y

My husband remarked a few weeks ago about how I’m “the housewife* he never thought he’d have”

(My goal in life has been to disprove Ludacris’s statement that you can’t turn a ho into a housewife, so I’m not surprised by my current state in life, but I digress)

It seems he didn’t expect to marry someone who bleaches his undershirts, wears aprons, and bakes bread.

But for all that things I do mystify him sometimes (“…but, why are the towels in the laundry?  They weren’t smelly yet” “you made yogurt?“) he does love some of my habits.

Like my need to make baked goods

These are the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.  My mommy’s recipe.  I’ve never found a better chocolate chip cookie than this one.

It’s so good that I’m worried if I scale it down it won’t be right.  So instead, we have 4 dozen cookies in our house.  But I make them with whole wheat, so they’re healthy, right?

He also likes that I’ve repainted half our downstairs

Cause I’m a housewife.  Not just a kitchen wife.

EVERY WALL in our house was a different shade brown when we moved in.  There are seriously like a dozen browns going on.  I’m fixing it.

And repainting the baseboard

(Don’t repaint your baseboard.  So much taping.  But it really does look better when you’re done)

But I think really, his favorite thing is that he’ll come home from work to find me excitedly saying “I made tortillas!  And cheese!”

Because I do things like that.

I make cheese

(basic, fresco-y stuff)

And then I make tortillas

With WHITE FLOUR even (rare in our house)

and serve it all up with carnitas

And really, when I do things like this, I’d like to think that I’m not the sort of wife husband thought he’d marry it’s because I’m THAT MUCH BETTER.

Right honey?

(PS happy three years!)

*(If you’re a newer reader, I’m not a full time housewife.  I’m a substitute teacher.  But that means there are days where I don’t work.  And instead, set feminism back 50 years.  Barefoot in the kitchen and all that.)

Red and Green

My friend Callie always tells me that Chanukah wins over Christmas because red and green are ugly together, but blue with silver or gold is pretty.

And she might be right.  But Chanukah is over, so it’s red and green time.

The beauty of Christmas colors is that you can add them to anything and then it’s a CHRISTMAS thing.

It’s so simple.

Using that logic, this weekend I transformed normal snickerdoodles into Christmas snickerdoodles.

All you have to do is take the normal cinnamon and sugar you roll them in

And add some sugar sprinkles

Not a ton.  I learned the hard way one year, if you just use colored sugar and no white you get ugggly cookies

But just a little?

Festive!

(Callie was here this weekend.  Since I was out of blue sprinkles Chanukah was over I made her pink ones.  Equally pretty)

I like lazy Christmas cookies

We had some normal sugar cookies too

(I may have made one of the gingerbread men wearing a yarmulke for Callie.  She loved it.)

There are few things more amusing than watching my husband decorate cookies.

He’s really really good.  Do you see the gingerbread man made with THRRE different sprinkles?  It’s art.

What Christmas baking have you been doing?

Do you agree with Callie’s assessment of red and green being ugly?

Healthy Holiday Living

In honor of it being almost Christmas, I thought I’d share some healthy living tips with you.  It seems to be the thing to do.

So here friends, is how I stay healthy at Christmas:

1.  I’m about 95% sure that elastic waist pants coming into style are proof God wants us to enjoy Christmas. Jeggings are like $15 at forever 21.  Give yourself a Merry Christmas

2.  Holiday drinking.  Do it.  If you do enough of it, you won’t care if your non-elastic waist pants fit!

3.  Winter is cold.  Embrace being part bear.  Know what bears do to be ready for the winter?  They eat.  Eating makes you less cold.  No one likes being cold.

4.  Worried about calories?  Make cookies with a small child.  Watching them pick their nose and then touch the cookies is a great appetite suppressant.

(Unless you’re me.  Then you still eat them.)

5.  Walking is exercise.  You have to walk when you’re shopping.  This means the more you shop, the healthier you’ll be!  If you finish shopping for others, get something for yourself.  Jeggings perhaps?

6.  Rather than getting a calorie filled peppermint mocha, get a plain latte, and sweeten it yourself.

(Source– although to be totally honest, there’s some in my house.  I’m just to lazy to go take a picture of it.)

With peppermint schnapps.

7.  Watching someone else put up Christmas lights can do a great job of raising your heart rate!

It’s like cardio, but without having to move!

8. Rock out.

Burns calories + everyone is full of schnapps so there’s no judging!

and finally….

9.  Don’t stress about it.  Stress gives you wrinkles.   I’d pick an extra 10 pounds over needing botox.

This concludes my one and only healthy living tips post.

You’re welcome.

Stuffed.

As you guys know, my husband is all about football.  Especially Oklahoma.  So the Big 12 championship game on Saturday night meant we would be sitting in front of the TV at dinner.

This seemed like the perfect excuse to stuff ourselves with Trader Joe’s frozen ish we’d gotten

Bacon wrapped steak?

Yeah.  Seriously.

And scallops in puff pastry.  Seafood is HEALTHY.

To balance it out we also had a ton of veggies, hummus, smoked gouda, and crackers.

And I got bored with football and made peanut butter macarons. Stuffed with ganache filling.  It happens.

Sooners won.  Go Sports Team!

Sunday we hit up the Co-Op for free chili and cornbread

The guy who makes soup there is GOOD.  (They make it in house).

And stuffed our faces with free Baker & Spice cookies at Sweetwares

This was a beautiful thing as we were so stuffed I didn’t have to make lunch.

Last night was the opposite of our TV dinner the night before.  We sat at the table, lit the advent wreath

And oh yeah,  I cooked a turkey

Before Thanksgiving they were 24 cents a pound at WinCo if you spent $50.  I kinda couldn’t NOT buy one.  So we had a full turkey dinner.

I am going to pretend this isn’t weird.

We stuffed our faces like it was thanksgiving all over.  But no stuffing.  Neither of us eat that

And leaving out the stuffing meant we weren’t so stuffed from dinner that we couldn’t eat dessert.  So we made fudge.  Peanut butter and chocolate fudge.

There’s a theme in our kitchen.  I’ll post the recipe later this week!

Do you have any appetizer things you love?  I always forget how wonderful appetizers for dinner are.  I think I adore all appetizers.  Because I hate forks.