Heaven, in a cookie

Last night our house was filled with the deliciously deadly aroma of chocolate.  I was making cookies for work.  Since I had found the fabric for Freddie's tie in my stash, I felt like I needed to give him something to go with it.  Instead of buying something extravagant I decided to make extravagantly delicious cookies. 

 

First Step:  Find Freddie's favorite treat?  Cookies...done

Second Step: What kind of Cookies?  Chocolate Chunk....ok

Third Step: Furiously search internet for blogs with Chocolate chunk cookie recipes until one that whet my fancy is found. 

 

Step Three resulted in a recipe for Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies from this website http://picky-palate.com/2010/05/20/salted-caramel-dark-chocolate-chunk-cookies-the-la-cookie/.  They sounded both unbelievably delicious and easy.

 

Every now and then Hubs will announce to the people at work that he's bring in deserts.  He knows I love making deserts but I won't make them for just us.  When he found out that cookies were being made yesterday, he made the announcement.  His co-workers were pumped.

 

I got home, ate dinner and got to cooking.  I love love love baking, especially when I'm doing it for a big group of people.  I imagine how well received the fruits of my labor will be, and how much it will brighten their day to bite into my delish cookies.  I never eat the batter when I'm making cookies, but last night, I just had to try it.  It called for caramel to be mixed in and I needed to see how it tasted.  It was amazing.  I knew if they tasted even close to as good cooked as they did raw I would be all set.

 

 

The cookies ended up being amazing, and they were super easy to make.  Thankfully, we evacuated all but two from the apartment, and came out of the experience with only one delicious cookie eaten each.

 

You should try them out they are soooooo sooooo good. 

 

Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies…The LA Cookie

2 sticks softened butter

3/4 Cup granulated sugar

1 Cup packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 Tablespoons pure vanilla

1/4 Cup burnt caramel sauce (you can use any caramel sauce here)

3 3/4 Cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

12 oz bag mini chocolate chips

1 1/2 Cups chopped good quality chocolate

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a stand or electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars until well combined.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla following the caramel sauce until well combined.

2.  Place the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl; mix.  Slowly add to wet ingredients then the chocolate chips.  Save chunks for later.

3.  Place 1/4 Cup of cookie dough and place into muffin top cups.  Press down then sprinkle with a pinch or two of sea salt then press chocolate chunks over top.  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until just golden around edges.  Remove and let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.  Serve with milk!!

18 Large cookies

I said delicious a lot huh?  But seriously, don't you want one?

Fit to be Tied

A few weeks ago I made this skirt over the weekend and wore it to work on Monday.  I love wearing my newly sewn clothes to work on Monday.  Anyways, I was in a braggy mood about it, cause I thought I had done a superb job sewing it, so I told my coworker Freddie that I had made it.  He was impressed (as I had hoped), and asked if I knew how to make ties.  I had never sewn, or even really thought about sewing, a tie in my life.  

 

Then Freddie announced that he was leaving for the Dana Farber (for a job, not cancer).  I had an idea, I would make him a tie for his going away gift.  It couldn't be that hard right?  Right?

 

I searched the Internet for a free pattern, cause why buy something if you can find it free.  I found this patterns on the purl bee:  http://www.purlbee.com/fathers-day-ties/.  I read through the directions and thought it sounded super simple.  I just needed to find fabric and heavy interfacing.  Saturday, I found the perfect fabric while cleaning out my stash, and went to the store for the interfacing.  I was ready to start. 

 

Monday, I started my cutting.  Tuesday, I finished the cutting, and ironed on the interfacing. Yesterday, was the sewing, ironing and completion day.  I had some issues but, I think the tie ended up looking pretty good when finished.  Since it is for a gift, I wanted to add a little tag for remembrance.  I stitched my initials on a piece of ribbon and attached it to the tie.  I figured it would serve a dual purpose, as it would be able to hold the little tie in the back too.  (look at how technical I am with my terms). 

 

So, what do you think?  Does it look okay?  Am I a pro now?  I'm already planning to make Hubs a tie to match my skirt for our special Walt Disney World Christmas Dinner!  He's pumped by the way :)

I swear my hairbrush was here just a minute ago.......

I see a lot of weird stuff on the train during my daily commute.  Often times, I'll really want to take pictures of the stuff I see, but I won't, cause that's just creepy.  I don't want the people around me to think I'm creepy, or worse yet, the person I'm taking a picture of to catch me.

 

But today, I just couldn't help myself.  Today, I saw something that just had to be documented.  If only I had my real camera on me, cause the IPhone picture came out a tad bit blurry. So here it is.  

Scene from the Green Line - 8/12/10

 

Now my question, what exactly is going on here?  Did the hairbrush get stuck in her hair and she just said "agh Hell, I've got to go to work, whatever!" or is this her hairstyle.  If it's her hairstyle I'm impressed.  It takes a special kind of crazy to walk out of the house with a round brush stuck in your hair....especially if it's on purpose.

 

What do you think? Have you ever done your hair in a round brush and left the house (with the round brush still attached?).  I can honestly say I have not.  I haven't even thought about doing that.  Maybe I'm missing out.

Happy Work-a-versary to me!

 

August 10th exactly a year ago was a very big day for me.  It was the day that I started my job that I have now at the hospital. I was very excited.  The job I had left had been slowly depressing me emotionally and financially for the last five years.  The new job paid much more and seemed like such a great opportunity.

 

365 days later, here I am, oddly enough, wearing exactly the same shirt that I wore to orientation last year (zebra print Calvin Klein short sleeved cardigan).  My heart feels differently than it did last year.  Last year it was full of mirth and excitement.  This year, it's just depressed and tired of my less than perfect working environment. 

 

In honor of my one year work-a-versary I've been thinking a lot about work.  I'm not happy in my job at all.  I'm not even sure if I'm happy with my career.  Unfortunately,  I seem to be good at what I do, and can make money doing it, so I stay.  I would LOVE to be able to do something creative, where I don't have to sit at my desk, in front of a computer all day.  I want to be in front of a sewing machine. 

 

Maybe there's a way where I can be a computer nerd that gets paid, and sit in front of a sewing machine? Maybe I can do sewing on the side.  Think I could get anyone to hire me to make sewing stuff?  These are the thoughts that have been going through my head all day.  What do you think , how hard would it really be to get a little side job sewing? 

Weekend Wrap up...a day late

Alas, the weekend has past again, and I am still tired.  But, today is Tuesday.  Only four more more days until it's the weekend again.  I can't wait until Friday at 5:30.  As Hubby has explained to me, Friday when you get out of work is the best part of the entire weekend.  It's never going to get any better than that.

 

The themes of this past weekend were cleaning and makeup.  I didn't plan on any real crafting projects, because with the way things had been going since my mother in law left for Ireland, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get to them. What I did get to was a whole lot of cleaning and shopping for makeup, which is a necessity in itself.

 

My sister in law, Sarah, has a fabulous setup in her room for putting on her makeup.  In front of her window she has a table setup with all her makeup on it, a mirror and an iPod charger.  Underneath she has drawers to store the makeup that she doesn't use as often.  I mentioned to her that I was really envious of this.  I really don't have a good place to put on or store my makeup.  I had it stored all over the place (half in the bathroom, half in the bedroom).   On Friday, Sarah and I went to the mall and shopped the Mac counter.  I got two eye shadows (Swish and Pink Freeze, both pinks ) and an eye liner pencil (Technakohl in GrayPrint).

On the way home, she suggested that I take my sewing table and turn it into a place for my makeup like she has.  

 

When we first moved into the apartment Hubs suggested that we setup half of the office as a craft room for me.  I was pumped.  We got a sweet drafting table at IKEA and I setup all my sewing stuff on it.   Did I ever use it?  Of course not.  But, where do I sew you ask?  I take my sewing machine into the dining room and setup on the dining room table.  I hate to be in the room all by myself when Hubs is home and watching TV.  I feel if I setup on the dining room table then I'm spending time with him.  Crazy...I know. 

 

Saturday morning, I set off to cleaning early.  The sewing table had become unrecognizably cluttered.  I cleaned until I could see it again and then started setting up my makeup.  It doesn't look like anything special really, but now I have a nice place to sit in the morning and apply my face.

 

 

 

Sunday we got up made breakfast and went on our weekend coffee run.  There's a new Mary Lou's in Quincy so we tried that out.  Hubs got a Creamy Chocolate Coconut and I got a Nutty Irishman.  Hubs coffee was far better than mine.  After Mary Lou's we went to the mall for a Sunday morning walk around, just to waste time before we went to the airport to get his mom.  

 

Hubs wanted to look at Spenser's and have a laugh. He hadn't been feeling good on Saturday and thought that looking at all the merchandise geared towards horney middle schoolers would make him laugh.  He was right.  They had these baby onesies with funny phrases on them.  They were absolutely hilarious.  I captured a few of the tamer ones on my iphone.

 

 

 

Finally, we picked up Sarah and went to the airport to wait for my Mother in law.  Thank god she was coming home.  We ended up waiting a little over an hour for her, but people watching at the airport is fabulous. The time just flew by.  Sarah and I were thinking we may need to just go to the airport on weekends to watch and make fun of people, even if we aren't waiting for someone.  There's some really interesting stuff going on there. 

 

That was my weekend.  Cleaning, makeup, onesies, airport, mother in law came home.  A nice and round weekend.  My mommy in law brought back so many pressies from Ireland for us.  Hubs and I are going to model some of them tonight for another blog entry.  I know it's kind of a week entry....but we'll make the pictures funny.  Promise. 

The Flower and the Bee

This week has been maybe the most insane week of my life.  I haven't had time bless myself, let alone work on any of my projects!  I didn't even make a blog entry yesterday!  Today, I decided, instead of leaving you high and dry and without a blog entry for the second day in a row, I would write about an older project (that I never really wrote about).

Hubs and I went down to Disney last year at the end of September.  We are both huge fans of Disney and Halloween, so we decided to buy tickets to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  The party (which was a blast) is held in the park after it closes, and attendees are encouraged to wear costumes.  We didn't have to be asked twice, we LOVE dressing up. 

But, what should we be?  The Hubster loves us to have matching costumes, so we set off to the costume stores to look.  First of all, Halloween costumes are incredibly expensive.   On top of that, they are mostly trampy (my issue) and small (Hubs issue). We looked and looked and looked, until Hubs saw this costume at Target that he fell in love with!

It was FIFTY dollars! Fifty!!  And Hubs was sure to only wear it once.  But, the sight gag was amazingly funny.  We kept looking but Hubs really wanted to be a bee.  I decided to take on the challenge of making the costumes.  Since he so loves the couples costumes, we decided it was only fitting for me to be a flower. 

For my costume I decided to make a tutu skirt with felt petals for the "flower" part.  I cut one inch strips of three different kinds of Tulle and tied them onto a ribbon.  

Once the tutu was finished I sewed on some felt petal shapes and to round out the flower.  To complete the costume I bought a yellow shirt (the pollen), and green leggings (the stem).  I thought it came out adorable if I say so myself. 

For Hubs, we went searching for a black zip up hooded sweat shirt.  I think we ended up finding the perfect one at Old Navy.  Then we took the sleeves off and turned over and stitched the ends to finish them.  Next we sewed stripes of yellow fabric on the front for the bee stripes.  On the hood I hot glued black pipe cleaners with yellow pom poms for the antennae.  My sister finished off the final stitches for me seconds before we left for the airport.  Did I mention I decided to make the costumes severely last minute?

We had a fabulous time at the party, and I think the costumes came out great.  Here's a picture of us in our costumes in front of the Pluto statue (we took the picture for Guinness who we had to leave at home).

 And one more silly picture of us in our costumes that I couldn't resist

I'm linking this up to the CSI Project's Sewing Challenge this week, here.

A Penny for my Thoughts

Ever imagine what life would be like if cliched phrases were real?  Take the phrase "A Penny for your Thoughts?" for example.  If that was real, I imagine I would be a millionaire, especially after this weekend.  My mind has been going overtime. I mean, I've been thinking probably about 20 dollars worth of pennies a day.

Sadly, as far as crafting goes this weekend was all thinking no doing.  I usually get a lot of crafting done in the morning when Hubs is sleeping.  Yet, this weekend we were up early both Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday we had 8am dentist appointments (YUCK!), and Sunday we got up early to make a big breakfast for Hub's still motherless (6 more days till she comes back...thank god) family.

I had wanted to accomplish two projects over the weekend. I wanted to finish marking, cutting and sewing my floral tank top, and I wanted to refinish a tray that I had been meaning to redo for years.

Terrible, Horrible, Ugly Tray

Tank top Fabric/Pattern (I'm making the green one)

I hate the winter background on the tray almost as much as I hate the hunter green color of it.  It just has to go.  Everything about it is hideous.  Aside from that I didn't have very many ideas. I did some Internet searching for inspiration on Friday, and came up with this tray I loved:

 Hubs and I went to Home Depot to look for painted/designed tiles.  Could I find them? OF COURSE NOT!!  Back to the drawing board.  This morning, I saw a blog entry where they gussied up a tray with painted bottle caps.  I really liked that idea:

http://sweetsomethingdesign.blogspot.com/2010/07/bottle-cap-tray.html

How cute does that look?  What with my family being full blown Irish immigrants and everything, the bottle cap finding and gathering stage would be easy.  I'm definitely keeping this idea as a possibility (the inexpensiveness of the project is intoxicating).

Yesterday, I took out my tank top to start marking.  Armed with a red and a white pencil I started to mark.  Neither of them showed on the cloth.  I pressed harder.  Nothing. I tried a real normal pencil.  Still couldn't see it.  I hate marking out patterns.  I love it when my size is the last on the multi-size pattern and I can just cut.  But, alas, I was second to last on this one, so marking was necessary.  My interest in the project kinda waned and my mind wandered to the fact that I had a dirty kitchen.  I left the tank top for the dishes expecting to return shortly.  I never returned.  Halfway through doing the dishes I got stressed out.  I like to clean when I'm stressed.  Now, instead of having a marked and cut tank top, I have a spotlessly clean kitchen. 

I'm hoping to be able to get some crafting done during the week, but my expectations are considerably low.  I've promised to make a co-worker a tie as his going away gift (got a new job).  I've never made a tie before so I'm hesitant.  I found some fabric yesterday, but it was ten dollars a yard.  I would hate to ruin ten dollar a yard fabric.  I just don't know what to do.....