sweater, slacks: thrifted
short-sleeve oxford: New York & Company
shoes: Target
necklace: Forever 21
This weekend, I did a little shopping. Mostly because I was bored and felt like I needed to get out of the house, but also because I hadn't spend any of the money I'd budgeted for clothing on my last two paychecks, so I had a pretty sizable amount just kind of sitting there, asking me to turn it into new clothes.
I also have a pretty sizable list of "winter wants," which is the name I just now made up for my fall/winter wardrobe shopping list. At the top of that list was cute booties, sweater dresses, more tights (you can never have enough colored/patterned tights!) and big, comfy sweaters. I got almost all of the above, though I'm still on the hunt for the perfect cozy sweater. I hit up Forever 21, H&M, the Limited and Target, though I spent more time in Target's shoe and hosiery department than its clothing section. I want to try to search JCPenney with my next paycheck's clothing budget before I turn to the wide world of online shopping. Any other suggestions?
(By the way...these pics aren't of the new clothes. I have a few older shoots to post before I get to the ones I wore today, haha.)
sweater, skirt: thrifted
tank top: Old Navy
boots, tights, socks: Target
necklace: InPink
I can't believe I've never said this before, but please don't judge the occupants of my house by the contents of our backyard. I promise, we're not hillbillies or white trash. We just happen to be four grown-ass adults...who enjoy hanging out in kiddie pools during the summer and can't be bothered to put them in the garage in the winter. Totes normal.
Anyway, enjoy these outdoor pics while you can. Last winter, I could sometimes get before-work shots outside if it wasn't too cold. This year, I leave for work much earlier (and I'm not willing to get up half an hour earlier than I already do!) but by the time I get home, it's already dark. Sooo...indoor photos will be the theme for this winter. Unfortunately.
In other words, this sweater might just be my New Favorite Thing. It's so comfy. And warm. And pretty. Swoon...
So as some of you may or may not know, I'm not much of a baker. It requires precise measuring, which I never bother with, and it just takes too damn long. If I want to make cookies, I want them in like five minutes. Not 40. But our annual Friends Thanksgiving (or Friendsgiving) potluck party was this past weekend, and I felt like being adventurous. So I signed Matt and I both up for desserts, and told him not to worry about making anything because I'm just that awesome. (Ok, so maybe I didn't say it quite like that, but you get the picture.)
Anyway, I scoured Pinterest for about an hour (that is not a joke), looking for recipes and narrowing them down. And this is what I came up with (click the Pins to get the actual recipes):
That sweet deliciousness you see before you is a cinnamon apple braid. It looked kind of complex, but the blogger swore it was super easy, so I thought I'd give it a shot. (I had a little snafu as I was making the dough...apparently, when the blogger over at Eat Live Run said to "mix the dough using an electric mixer on medium high speed," she must have forgotten to finish the sentence with "using a dough hook." Because I'll tell you, using a regular pair of eggbeater attachments did. not. cut it. The dough — which is fairly like bread dough — actually climbed up the mixer attachment and into the machine itself. Which was kind of like watching something out of a horror movie. So after a lot of yelling and Matt having to dump flour all over my hands and the mixer so I could continue, I somehow managed to produce this:
Sweet baby cheebus, that is hands down the most beautiful-looking baked good I've ever made. Usually my stuff tastes ok, but it's not very pretty. Because of the whole "I don't need to measure" thing. But this...this had me so excited, I had to take a picture before I baked it. And it looked even better after I took it out of the oven and glazed it:
My mouth is seriously watering. Luckily, I made two and there were leftovers (a lot of people brought a lot of food...and not many people made it all the way to dessert, haha), so I've been munching on this stuff for breakfast, after lunch and as a before-bed snack. An apple a day, right?
I also attempted to make mini-muffins using this recipe for snickerdoodle muffins:
They tasted pretty good, but didn't really look like the photo. I think that maybe because I made small versions, I should have changed the baking temperature and/or length from the original recipe. Ah, well. They're really good bite-sized snacks. In fact, while I was editing these photos, I was pretty much compelled to run to the kitchen and pop one (yay leftoevers!) in my mouth before settling in to do the post part of this post. Yummm.
You know, it's kind of strange. When I'm going through something that is still highly stigmatized in our society and that most people are embarrassed to talk about (i.e., my issues with depression), I have no problem discussing it here on the blog. But when I'm going through some serious life shit, like I am right now, I just can't bring myself to be transparent.
I want to change that.
Now, for obvious reasons, I'm not going to go into hyper-detail in a public forum. The big things in my life rarely affect only me, and I want to protect those who don't get a say in what I write here. So without really elaborating, suffice to say that I am going through some Serious Life Shit. (I feel like it deserves title caps. That's how important it is.) This is stuff that requires some real soul-searching and contemplation.
I don't like those things.
The fact is, I'd prefer to live in the bubble in my head, the one that tells me that I should just leave everything alone and it'll work itself out. But life doesn't work like that. Life requires me to examine, and consider, and decide. And then I get too wrapped up in my head, and I want to just say, "Screw this, I'm done with all of it." But the fact is, it's still Thursday, and I still need it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm gonna try to force myself to do some real soul-searching over the next few months. I might even make a major life change. (If you know me at all, you know this is a terrifying concept to me. Seriously, it's the flat-out scariest thing I can think of.) Or who knows, maybe I'll decide, through my soul-searching, that a major change isn't necessary. Maybe I'll decide that working through a problem is better than making it go away as fast as possible.
Sorry for being so cryptic today. Sometimes, you just have to get some junk off your chest.
It's no secret that I have a long-standing and intense love affair with mac and cheese. Baked, creamy, from-a-box or made from scratch...as long as it has noodles and cheese, I'm in. So when I saw this recipe for mac and cheese soup in Cuisine at Home magazine, I knew I had to put my own spin on it. Blue cheese and some other unusual flavorings give this soup an unexpected kick, so it's far from your average bowl of mac.
Ingredients:
- 1 /12 cups dry macaroni (for this, I used some spiral-shaped cavatappi instead)
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/2 cup dry white wine or cooking sherry
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 cups milk
- 4 cups shredded Cheddar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- salt
- 1/4 cup crumbled bleu cheese
- 2 tbsp minced fresh chives
Start by cooking your tubular pasta of choice in a pot of salted water according to package directions. When it's ready, drain and set aside.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then stir in flour and cook (stirring constantly) for about one minute to make a roux. Pour in the wine/sherry to deglaze and simmer until the wine is nearly evaporated.
Stir in the chicken broth, nutmeg and cayenne. Simmer until it thickens a little (about five minutes or so), then whisk in the milk and let it slowly warm up. Whatever you do, don't let it boil. It gets grainy and gross, and no one wants that.
Stir in the cheddar cheese, about a cup at a time, letting it melt completely before adding the next batch. Then stir in the lemon juice, a dash of salt (taste it to make sure it's enough) and the pasta.
Remove your saucepan from heat and top with bleu cheese and chives. YUM. Matt and I both loved this soup, but next time I think I'm gonna try making some homemade pretzels (from a recipe on Pinterest, no doubt) to go with it. DOUBLE YUM.
