Chilly Autumn Friday

Brrr! It has been windy and chilly today! High of 54! Yikes. Good thing I was in the kitchen cooking all day to keep me warm! Today was the first day I could sleep in with nothing going on to really have to get up for since the wedding. Guess I was tired because I slept till 1:30. But in my defense I had a sick husband waking me up all night coughing and when he got ready for work this morning! So I had a late start to my day and just decided to cook and clean today!

First thing's first though. On thursday nights we go to a christian college group called Journey. A lot of the group is composed of college students I went to high school with and the guy who runs it was my teacher in high school and also married us. We love going to this small group of about 15-30 students depending on the day. It is nice to have other people our age, including married couples that we can talk about our weeks and have a bible study with. It is very inspirational and I look forward to it every week! Especially when I am around a 1 year old every day and only hear daddy, baby, hi, up up up, and doggy ALL day! I hope her vocabulary expands soon! We were talking yesterday about what we wanted to give that evening and what we wanted to receive. Talk about a hard question! Defiantly not something you normally think about when heading into a bible study. But a bible study is one place where you don't have to give anything and it is ok to receive and to take. This means you are learning something! We also talked about how we need to expand ourselves to see those around us. We are so easy to anger when someone does something rude or annoying around us or to us. But do we stop and say, you know what if they are having a bad day? What if there was something I could do to help instead of being rude back and making their day worse? We are so stuck in our own pace of life and not focused on others. What if when anyone is rude to us we stop and let it go and be nice back or so can I pray for you? What if that's really what they need? It's a way to share our faith without shoving it on someone. You never know how you could be an inspiration to someone else or help turn their day around. Also if you are driving and someone cuts you off instead of having road rage you could say a prayer for them. For example, pray that they slow down and don't get into a wreck. Have you noticed when you let anger get to you how much more stressful your day is and how everything seems to start going bad or even worse then before? If you turn that negative into a positive you would be surprised at the amount of relief and how your mood shifts. I challenge you to try it! We should be focused on others, not ourselves!

And on top of that I was reading other blogs and have realized there are so many other christian bloggers out there and it is truly inspiring to me. I wouldn't think in the blog world this would be the case so I am pleasantly surprised! I love hearing about other people's faith and stories and what God puts on their hearts! In thinking about last night and reading some blogs today I have come to the conclusion that I think I want to start something new for myself. I want to pray for a different blogger a day, especially those I see who are in need of it. They may not know I am doing it but I think it is a good way to put others before myself, especially those I don't know. Because let's face it, who doesn't need a prayer?

Ok ok, enough seriousness! Now on to more fun stuff! I saw this crane when I was leaving work and it looked like a baby one all by itself! So pretty though!

Now to food!!! So like I said I was going to cook these caramel stuffed apple cider cookies. And of course I will pre-warn you mine do not look all amazing like the picture. Which seems to always be the case. They never look as good as the picture! So before I start, here is what they are supposed to look like and here is the recipe.

from http://www.thecookingphotographer.com/

Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies

recipe very slightly adapted from The Cooking Photographer

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 box (7.4 oz) Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink mix -not sugar free- all 10 packets (I found this in my grocery store near the hot chocolate mixes.)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cups all purpose flour

1 bag Kraft Caramels (14 oz)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350° F. Line cookie sheets with parchment. (You really need the parchment!)
• In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.
• With your mixer (or an energetic spoon) cream together butter, sugar, salt and all 10 packages of apple cider drink mix powder, until light and fluffy.
• Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix well.
• Gradually add flour mixture to butter/egg mixture. Mix until just combined.
• Refrigerate for about an hour. (If you're really impatient you don't have to do this, but it makes it so much easier to work with.)
• When you are ready to bake, unwrap your caramels. 
• Scoop out cookie dough ball about the size of a walnut. (I used a rounded cookie scoop-full. My scoop holds about a Tablespoon.)
• Flatten the ball of dough slightly in the palm of your hand. Press the unwrapped caramel into the center of your dough and seal the dough around it, covering it completely. Place on parchment covered cookie sheets 2 inches apart.
• Bake 12-14 minutes, or until very lightly browned around the edges. Please don't over-bake! Once the cookies are done, slide the parchment off of the baking sheet right out onto the counter. Allow cookies to partially cool on the parchment. When cookies are cool enough to be firm but still slightly warm, carefully twist off of parchment and allow to finish cooling upside down (either on the parchment or on a rack.) If you forget about them and they cool too much and stick to your parchment, put them into the freezer for a few minutes and they'll pop right off.
• Yield: about 4 dozen, depending on how large you make your cookies (or how many caramels have been snitched out of your bag before you begin.) Store in an airtight container.

OK, now onto my version! 

here we go!

So first challenge was the caramels. They didn't have the ones listed so I had to get Werther's caramels. Which are bigger then the Kraft ones. So I proceeded to chop them in half and put them in the bowl so I would be ready. Lesson I learned, they end up sticking together! Uh oh! So I put them in the freezer thinking they would break off like ice cubes. Well I forgot about them and they were TOO cold! Crap! So I actually ended up putting like a teaspoon of hot water on them and voila they started to break apart! So then I laid them out on the counter individually so they wouldn't stick together. So my advice, do not put them in a bowl! Lay them out on a plate or on the counter where they are not touching.

Batter tastes a bit bitter just an fyi!

Make sure you do refrigerate it for an hour! Even after being out for a bit it would get super sticky and I had to put it back in the fridge to make it get thick again!

Next I am going to show you this amazing bad boy of a cookie cooler. It stacks! So now you don't have to have cooling racks all over the place!

Just beautiful!

Also I had no parchment paper, so luckily I had these bad boys, which are also amazing! NOTHING sticks to them and then there is no clean up from your baking pan! All you clean up is the silicone insert! LOVE!

Genius I say!

ya see it does not look like the awesome cookie in the pic lol

look at that awesomeness!

mm caramel insides!

It tastes like a buttery tart fluffy apple with caramel inside! Delicious! I think I like them better then the cake batter bars!!

Now onto dinner! I made Hot and Sour Chicken in the crockpot. It was deliciousssss!!! I put it over rice pilaf with veggies! Nom nom nom! Super easy too! Here is the recipe.

Hot and Sour Chicken:

1 cup chicken broth

3-4 chicken breasts cut in halves

1 package hot and sour soup mix (I found it in the Asian foods by soy sauce)

1 tablespoon soy sauce (or to your liking)

Place chicken in crock pot. Pour seasoning packet over chicken. Pour chicken broth over chicken. Add soy sauce. Cook 5-6 hours on low or 3-3.5 on low. Serve over rice or mashed potatoes.

I also added some crushed red pepper and chili powder to spice it up since we like things spicy! Married a mexican remember! 

I think it is called Sunbird Hot and Sour Soup mix. I looked on the store's website to see if they had a hot and sour soup mix before I went!

Delicious!

Oh, if you drink tea or hot chocolate, or cider a lot you must get one of these! They heat up in like 60 seconds and are amazing!!

We also saw some people throwing this away and decided to take it and re-do it to match our room! Oh boy, wish us luck! Our newest project! Needs new paint and handles but it will look nice!

Well I guess that's enough for one day! My parent's are headed over to have some cookies and I we are babysitting Dyson till tomorrow night to give them a puppy break! Miss my little guy! Have a wonderful friday night everyone!

Wonderful Wednesday!

Let me just pre warn you, if you see a Mexican guy commenting on all of my stuff.. do not be alarmed, it's just my husband! He has all of a sudden reappeared in the blog world.. hmm wonder why?! ;) He loves the fact that I am blogging and I think he is now wanting to get back into it since I am doing it! So just don't mind his silly nonsense!

Ok, moving on to Wednesday. I wasn't expecting to get off early, so that was nice. Worked 6:15 am till 12:15. Antonio doesn't work Wednesday's so I expected to get home and he would be out running errands as he had planned. Instead I find him still asleep, and I ask him why he is still sleeping and he replies with a stuffy nose and funny voice "I'm sick.'' Oops.. that's the 4th person I have gotten sick? Yikes. Guess I am turning into typhoid Mary over here except I got sick too, so what does that make me? Of course I am still getting over my sickness and a nap didn't sound all too bad. We finally got up around 3 and finally left for the store around 4.

We went to get supplies for my cookies tomorrow and of course that isn't all we ended up getting. It was his night to cook and he randomly decided he wanted to use our Quesidilla maker we got from our wedding. Which we had 0 supplies for. And then we decided to get our friends baby shower gift and a few other things. Our 5 item list, 15 min time limit turned into like a 20 item list and over an hour in the store. Usually how most shopping days go! We paid for our stuff and walked out and got almost all the way to the car and realized we forgot to get half the stuff we came for. So we had to turn around and go back in, never embarrassing to say hey Walmart greeter lady, hi again! Oh well!

All the baby stuff we got. I doubt our friend reads my blog lol

I have not mentioned my job yet. I am a nanny for a 1 yr old little girl named Layla. And as I was in the kids section I found this cute little shirt and had to get it for her!

It glows in the dark! I WANT ONE!

So then we get home and I told Antonio I wanted to take a picture of dinner stuff for the blog. I proceed to start arranging things and just was going to take a simple picture of everything to which he replied "If you are gonna do it, do it right." And he went into blogging husband mode. He got out all the cute bowls and tortilla warmer and what not to make the picture look nice. He even made our dinner plates cute! I just sat back and laughed. I was like who is this guy all of a sudden? Think he wanted to impress all you ladies! ;) I must say he did a pretty good job on our Mexican night! Guess I will keep him after all! Well there is next week... guess we will see after next wednesday!

Nifty Quesidilla Maker

Inside

Hubby's picture arranging skills!

Finished product! yumm

While he was cooking I decided to be productive (after blogging for a bit of course) and did some laundry and cleaned up a bit and vacuumed. Is it just me or does anyone else love when there's fresh vacuum lines on the floor? I just look at them and know my floor is clean!! I might just be weird, but it makes me happy, and I hate vacuuming! I also like going to bed with a clean kitchen and waking up to a clean kitchen and home. Makes my day better knowing I don't have to come home and pick up a mess. Although he leaves after me and by the time I get home it looks a bit different then how I left it! After dinner we rented a movie called The Lincoln Lawyer. It was really good! Better then I expected! If you like movies where you have to figure things out, this is a good one!

Highly recommend! via google

Antonio read my blog and was upset I didn't mention him in my paragraph about marriage stuff. So guess I will talk about him today, even though I already have been! So far he has been pretty good with keeping up in cleaning and helping out around the house. I have been quite impressed. I am glad he is taking initiative and pride in his own space and wanting  it to look nice. I am glad he is happy with the apartment I found and enjoys living there and with me! It's cute when he goes on about how he is proud of our stuff and of me, and how he wants to take care of things and have other people come over and see our place. I am also glad he is willing to cook and wants to. Hard to find a guy to do that! We are both still learning how to fix things and be handy dandy DIYers. Sad to say HGTV is one of my new favorite channels. I have a feeling once we have a house we will end up doing LOTS of projects! We re-did my parents old dining room table and chairs. We refinished them and painted them black. We also re-did their living room table set, same thing. It was a lot of work and halfway through sanding I would be yelling at myself as to why I agreed to this crap, but eventually when it was painted and looked good, then I was fine with all the work. There is something about taking pride in doing something yourself then just buying it! Oh here is another fall decoration I got inspired to do while at Michael's.

a pumpkin shaped holder with a pumpkin candle inside and little colored acorn gems to place around it

super cute! I got 3 of them for the TV table!

One thing I was thinking about after reading all these blogs yesterday, is I feel kind of not comparable. Some people's pages are outstanding and they have hundreds of followers and their blogs are awesome. I feel like mine is a limp noodle compared to theirs. I am not amazing at photography, fashion, writing, running, cooking, or other things. I don't have any awesome skills or talents. So I feel kind of small in the blog world. I don't have too much to offer besides my thoughts and opinions and my small span of cooking thus far. So thank you to any who read this, it truly means a lot to me. I try to keep it interesting and entertaining but in the end sometimes this is just a place for me to vent and let my thoughts run free. I am not here to sell anything or have you plaster me all over your page. Just here to find more fun, interesting, and cool friends to reach out to!

Today is my Friday and I have 3 day weekends! Woo, so have a wonderful Thursday and I hope something surprisingly good happens to you today!

Questionsss:

1. Did anything surprisingly good happen to you? If so, what?

2. Any projects lately you have done?

3. Seen any good movies lately?

Addictions and other things!

I guess most of my blogs will end up being posted in the morning about the day before since I get to work so early most days! First thing I need to talk about, this great find I randomly got from Macy's. It was on clearance and we had gift cards so I thought eh it's a few bucks why not. It's a melon/cantaloupe slicer. It is uhmazing! It is a thicker knife so it ends up slicing off those green parts in one swoop! It has a rounded edge that scoops out the insides/seeds super easy! I would highly recommend it if you like to cut up fresh melons/cantaloupe!

GET ME!

ok second thing to talk about today, addictions! More so online addictions! We can chalk blogging up to one of them! Have you ever been on Pinterest? If not you must! It is sort of a picture blog, no words or talking. You pin pictures to different boards you have, for example: you find a yummy food recipe so you pin it to your board that is all food recipes you like/would like to try. Another example: books you recommend, places you would like to go, etc. It is super easy, fun, and addicting! There is a button on my sidebar to go to my pinterest if you are interested and would like to start one or to follow! The recipes on there are to die for!!! My first project from there was a fall/halloween inspired decoration that was simple! I already had this glass and candle, and all I had to do was purchase candy corn and voila!

My candle is now Fall/Halloween inspired!

My second project I found were cake batter bars! UHM can you say scrumdidlyumptious? These are awesome! They lasted 2 days in our apartment! We had people over Saturday and they were gone!

saw this and I had to have it ASAP

All ready to bake!

Even the batter was good!

Finished product!

My next project: Caramel Apple Cider Cookies! These are perfect for fall and look mouth watering delicious! I am going to make them on Friday! Will let you know how they turn out! Pictures of course :)

Onto other things! I ordered my Garmin Forerunner 305. I tried to get a super cheap used one off e-bay, but they start off around $50 and you think oh AWESOME! But then they still have 2-4 days left on auction and as the days go on, the price goes up. I thought I would be smart and wait some out over those few days instead of buying a used one between 90-100 that didn't have an auction.. not such a good idea. The price just ends up going up over those few days and they end up costing over 100! So not only did I waste time, I would have wasted money on it and had to pay shipping! The one I got was $94 and free shipping! So I am excitedly awaiting that!

Soon this baby will be mine!

And another thing, back to this marriage stuff! I went over to my parents house yesterday after work. Spent most of the day there, took a nap in my old bed, watched some TV with my mom. OH I have to introduce you to Dyson! He is my parents new puppy.

First day home

Most recent picture, he is now 6lbs, 4 months old! He likes to bark at the ducks out of our apartment patio door!

Anyways, so I spent time cuddling with Dyson as well and we went for a nice walk! My whole goal was to go pack more stuff up, which I didn't to until 9:30 pm. I kept pushing it off. I was just sitting there and I had this sudden urge of I don't want to leave, I just want to stay here and almost lost it. Have you ever had that feeling? It's weird to say oh my parent's house and not home anymore. I didn't realize how much I missed them already even though they are 15 min away! Is this a normal feeling? Every time I go into my room it gets more and more empty and it makes me sad. Is there such thing as post pardom leaving your parents? I am not saying I am not happy being married, I am just having a hard time letting go of that old life I lived for 24 years! My mom is one of my best friends, and I guess texts and e-mails just don't it as much justice as seeing her every day. Especially after planning a wedding and becoming closer because of that. We talked 50x a day about things. And now it's a few times a day. Guess this a part of growing up!

Well I get off around noon today! woo, I am thinking a nap is in order! Get to spend some of the day with the hubs, he is off on Wednesdays, but works Saturdays so it sucks. We only get to spend Sunday together. He is supposed to be making dinner on his day off, so this is his first night cooking! Hmm.. I will let you know how it goes! 

P.S, If you are a Bruno Mars fan, here is his new song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwr1hm_oBxE&feature=player_embedded

Questioni's

1. Do you have any awesome cooking untensil/tool finds we must know about?

2. Are you addicted to any other online sites?

3. Did you have these feelings after moving out or getting married?

With new beginnings.. become even more new beginnings!

Hello to any who read this! After much debate, I have decided to start doing a blog. There isn't one significant reason behind it, but perhaps many small ones. My friend Megan, has a running blog @http://justrunmego.blogspot.com, and I love reading her blogs when she posts them. Even though I talk to her every day, I like seeing her style of writing and she is a goof so reading about her daily interactions with life crack me up sometimes! I have tried writing a blog before but felt that I had nothing to really offer to the world with my boring life, or I just had no idea what I was supposed to say in one of these. Which I still kind of am unsure about. I feel as though now being a new wife, and starting so many new journeys this year that I have much to share, as well as I would like to get advice from the blog community, perhaps from other new wives out there! Every day may be different but this is a new challenge for me and I would like to be able to share my thoughts and life with others. Some days I may be more into susie homemaker mode and be sharing recipes and/or ideas and talking about marriage. Other days may be more on work or events going on in my life. Who knows.. guess if you stick around you will find out! I do like Megan's idea of posting questions or thoughts at the end for others to answer/ponder about. I think it's a great way to get others to interact, so I am stealing that Meggers. ;)


Where to begin, first off I just got married a little over a week ago! (9/18/11) We have made it a week without killing each other! Yay! Good start right? 

My adorable husband serenading me with a Michael Buble song at our reception! 

What a lovely surprise! He sang as my brother played the guitar. They make a great team for music, but put them together and they are trouble! The wedding was amazing! I couldn't have asked for better weather about 74 degrees with blue skies and partly cloudy! Everything went off flawlessly and I kept waiting for something bad to happen, but thankfully it never did! The day was full of fun and we tried to make our wedding as unique to us as possible. We wanted everyone to come and have a wonderful time, and remember our wedding as one of the best they had ever been to! I don't know if we succeeded for everyone, but I can sure say we will remember it! I mean of course we will but I felt as though we did a pretty great job! I was so excited to be able to get married beneath a chandelier. It has been a dream of mine for awhile and I knew I had to have that one day when I got married, and thanks to my parents, they made it happen!

Married Yay!

We had the most amazing friends and family there and were so blessed by everyone's presence. It was the best day of my life.. so far! Our reception was gorgeous and so much fun! There were a few surprises and plenty of dancing and laughter! Oh and yummy cake from Zingerman's! If you don't know what that is, it's a local bakehouse type place in Ann Arbor that is spectacular and have out of this world stuff! If you have never been, you must go! I was however upset I didn't get a piece of cake! Every time I went back to my table to get it, I got intercepted! If you are married you know how that goes! That table was so close but SO very far away! I had to go to the bar just to get water! I am sad that the day is over, it is on my mind every day and I wish I could go back and do it over again about 100 times. It was way too short and I can see why other people in other countries have 3 day long celebrations! It is just so much fun!! But then again, the planning that went into one day was insane let alone planning 3.. so maybe I am good on 1 day!

Ok, moving on from wedding talk. I am going to talk about 3 different topics today, sorry it may be a longer post! Topic #2 is running. I am not going to make my blog all about running because let's face it, I am not an avid runner.. yet. And I don't want to just talk running all the time! haha, but it is a new goal of mine to become a better runner this year. I have done 2 5ks so far and I have a halloween 5k, which I am not too focused on time for that, because I think it is going to be more fun to watch everyone then to actually run! I am wanting to do a 6k in November in Hines park at night with lots of lights strung up so it's a pretty run. But my ultimate goal is the 10k for Thanksgiving at the Turkey Trot. I am about 10 weeks away and I have not had much time to train during wedding time, so I was planning on starting this past week after the wedding, but became very sick. I am still trying to shake it and it's moved into my chest, so that is not going to = running till it's gone. I am delaying buying a forerunner, because well I don't know why.. spending money perhaps? Guess I should get on that! This is my major goal this year to do a 10k as I started running more avidly last year. It is a sad day when running a 5k seemed too easy.. I hated to admit it but life is about pushing yourself to become better and challenging yourself, so 10k.. why not? Megan wants me to do a half marathon, but uhm not anytime soon! Maybe one day! So at this point I am not running yet till I am better, which will  hopefully be the weekend! But I need to order my watch which I probably will today!

And last subject, I want to talk about my journey on this earth. I am a Christian and I am not here to offend anyone with my beliefs, just being myself with my opinions. I was raised Christian and have been on some ups and downs with my spiritual journey. Recently my husband and I started attending this new church called Northridge. It is amazing. You know that feeling when everywhere in your body tingles and you feel like you could fly and sit next to God in Heaven and you feel pure Joy of just being at church and singing to Him? Ya that amazing feeling I get every time I am there and it keeps me going back and wanting to be closer to Him. I have seen amazing things happen in my life since we started going there and my life has turned around immensely. I am still trying to figure out my entire purpose here on earth, but I know 1 is to serve Him. And when He is calling you to do something, you better do it! We recently decided to become leaders at their teen community called Velocity. Now I love kids, like little kids to pieces. But over 12, they are a challenge for me! They aren't quite so cute and innocent anymore and don't like to listen! I felt like God has been calling me to work with teens for quite some time. I even almost went into child psychology. But I just didn't know how to fulfill that calling. Until we came to Northridge. I knew as soon as I saw an opportunity to be involved with the teens there, that this was how I was going to fulfill that calling. I knew it was going to be a huge challenge for me and it wouldn't be easy. It was going to make me uncomfortable and push me in new ways I had never been pushed before. It was going to make me grow. I want to be able to help young teens/adults and try to help them not make the same mistakes I did. If I can touch 1 persons life, then that's all I ask. I don't have a set goal to change 100 kids lives or anything. I just want to make a difference and make an impact on these kids and push them to grow as well. So far we LOVE it! Some days are easier then others, but I am learning so much from these kids and so happy to be a part of it! It is amazing to see them worship and to see how much God is in their lives. It is such an inspiration to me!

Ok so sorry this was so long but it was day 1 and I guess I had more on my mind to say then I realized! I have lots more things to talk about but I will save those for another day! Have a wonderful Tuesday!

So here are my questions for you! I would love to have feedback from anyone!

1. If you are married, was there anything in your wedding you got that you had always dreamed of?

2. Are you into any sport/hobby that you are avid with and have you set any new goals for yourself in them?

3. What have you done lately to challenge or push yourself in any way?