miscellany

i realized i better post a more upbeat blog than the last one...yikes! so we'll start with something every girl loves: cookies. and, more importantly, they are SUGAR cookies. well, actually, i normally don't like sugar cookies. to me, they are too brittle, too boring, too overcooked.

gillian had a homework assignment last night to list the ingredients in a recipe, and then, if you have time, to make the recipe and tell how it turned out. (btw, this seems like kinda complicated homework for a 6-year-old but what do i know?!) so, being the overachieving family we are, we picked cookies as our recipe. i'm saying we are superstars because, you know, we could have just picked the dinner recipe. oh wait, that would have included "take leftovers out of fridge, stick in microwave for 1 minute, carefully remove and enjoy." not so good for homework i guess.

i had a cooking light sugar cookie recipe i wanted to try, but then i read the recipe (always a good idea to do before you start, even though i'd estimate about 60% of the time i forget to read everything, get down to the end, and realize "oh crap! this is supposed to marinate for 8 hours now! ack!"). (ok, another side note re: "ack": did anyone see the SNL skit with andy what's-his-name pretending to be cathy? it wasn't even that funny but now him saying "ack" to everything is stuck in my head and won't come out under any circumstances.)

ok, back to the cookies. so i read the recipe and it called for too much "chill this amount of time" and "wait this long." so i went online and found this recipe. no waiting, tons of butter and sugar--sounded like a winner to me! of course, it's from southern living, so i knew it had to be yummy. (incidentally, i don't read that magazine, but my mom always makes at least one recipe from it for the holidays, and it never fails to be the richest, most heavenly, most decadent dish on the table.)

i meant to halve the recipe because it says it makes 7 dozen (yeah right--who EVER makes the cookies as small as they say?). but then i put in 2 eggs, so we just HAD to make the whole darn batch. we decided (smartly i think) to make just 2 dozen for now. the rest of the dough is in the fridge, taunting me as i try to lose 10 pounds before halloween. i already said i'm an overachiever right? and mostly a delusional one.

if you don't already have a go-to recipe for sugar cookies, this should definitely be it. i love that it has lemon juice in it. i think next time i would add lemon peel to give it that extra oomph. and you can see by the picture that i didn't add the colored sugar in. i like them plain jane. 

so now i have to share something funny we saw while driving over the weekend. i can't figure out a way to block out the license plate number on this car or i could show you the entire back end. but  here's what the right half looked like:

can you see that it's a BEDAZZLED ichthus? ok, also, this lady had a GIANT mccain/palin sign on the side of her car. it seemed photo shopped with all sorts of slogans about the pair, including "Palin rocks!" in the bottom right-hand corner. but the best part, which i wasn't able to capture on camera, was that around her license plate, this lady had an electronic ticker spilling out different inspirational things about palin. forget john mccain--this lady wants sarah in the hizouse. in His house. (ok, sorry.)  anyway, my favorite message that came across the back end of this lady's car was "For a time such as this." i won't offer my opinion here about why this sounds so funny to me, except to say that it doesn't make sense to me why in the middle of a full-blown financial crisis and two wars this is somehow palin's turn to be president. (remember, she's running for veep, not prez., and has absolutely no experience...but i said i wasn't going to say anything so i'll zip it now.)  

now, just in case you are confused about where my political support lies, look at me with our new house decoration:

this sign is compliments of my friend hannah, who didn't want it in her yard...that's fine--i'll take her leftovers! ;)

one  more fun thing to share: i have a favorite spot to shop for furniture in town: vivant house. anthony doesn't have a website that i know of or i would link to it here. but if you are in town, it's on hillsborough just after you cross the river on the right (headed toward veteran's), and you should GO. RIGHT NOW. it's that awesome.

anthony rescues old pieces from around town, fixes them up, stains or paints them, gives them some love, and then sells them--at REALLY affordable prices. i go there all the time. i don't get to buy much, especially considering our current "economic downturn" (which rick & i have said we've been in personally for quite some time now...!). so one time he was dropping off something here that i had purchased (remember my awesome floral yellow couch? that's from him), and he commented on our buffet:

we bought this piece when we had been married just a few weeks, at an auction. it's enormous, yet we have dragged it around from place to place, even paying to store it a couple of times when our apartment was too small to contain it.

but lately i've been wanting a change in my decor, a funkier (well you know i'm already funky...) or different feel to our place--especially in the dining room. and i figured i can't get new stuff unless i get rid of the old stuff.

so anthony agreed to buy my buffet, and i bought this from him (which i realize doesn't go in our dining room--but i also needed a chest of drawers because this girl is seriously disorganized in the clothing department):

isn't it amazing? it makes our bedroom feel so much better. and i thought i would miss the buffet, but it gives us so much more space in the dining room that i feel like i just got TWO new rooms. 

if you haven't gone to visit him yet, you should go. he has tons of amazing pieces like this one, and did i mention they are all affordable? and did i mention how nice he is?

well, i am swamped with projects (can't you tell as i write a super long rambly blog post?), so it's back to work for me. i might not visit with you again until early next week, so have a great weekend everyone!