I just wrote an entire post (shocking) reflecting on 2011, but it disappeared before I could publish it. Instead of trying to recreate it, I guess I'll talk about something else an pretend that that post didn't disappear somewhere in the Internet. I was trying to add a picture when I wrote the previous post, so unfortunately there will be no pictures until I have time to figure it out.

I had a good Christmas, albeit very different this year. I enjoyed spending time with my family and a few dear friends during my time off. My parents, Emma and I went to Gatlinburg for several days and I enjoyed the opportunity to read, sleep and just exist without a particular schedule--anyone who really knows my knows that I'm very much a creature of habit so freedom from my routine is nice, to an extent. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a difficult transition back to work after being away for more than a week. I'm not going to like having limited time to cook (and shop!) once busy season rolls around. I guess since I know better what to expect, I'm really not looking forward to long nights and weekends in the office. I enjoy my job, but I really need some time for cooking, cleaning, reading and simply getting enough sleep.

Once I figure out how to add pictures to my posts, I'll try to write with more frequency--I can't do much worse than I've done this year!!

P.S.--I did try to attach a picture my Uncle made at my house on Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how it's going to look.

Oh, How Pinteresting…

I was going to insert the link for this from The Vintage Apple, but unfortunately the picture doesn’t work with my black background.  Oh, well…

I’ve recently (in the last few weeks) discovered Pinterest.  I’ve pinned a ton, but I’ve been most inspired by some of the recipes available.  I already blogged about the Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes I made a few weeks ago.  They were oh-so-good and I plan to make them again soon!

While I haven’t made any of these things yet, I’m really looking forward to trying them…

  Chocolate-Caramel Brownies

Chicken Bacon Pasta 

Chick-fil-A Chicken Nuggets

Olive Garden Fettuccini Alfredo

I could go on and on, but you wouldn’t want to see everything I have pinned.  That would get quite boring, eventually.

Maybe I’ll do this again next week with some non food-related inspiration from Pinterest!  I promise there is much more to the website than food! :)

My Daddy is the BEST

My sweet Daddy blew into town for a few minutes on his way home from Knoxville today.  He wanted to see me—and Emma, of course—but he also wanted to check on a few things for my house.  I’ve got some plugs that aren’t working and he wanted to see if the breakers were tripped (apparently, it’s not always obvious that a breaker is tripped) or if I needed to call an electrician.  Also, I haven’t been able to get my Blu-Ray player to wirelessly connect to the internet since the wireless transmitter was *missing* and he managed to find it in all of two minutes.  So, we’re 1-1 tonight—no electricity in the guest bathroom, but I can stream Netflix again!!

Thanks for the visit, Daddy!  Emma and I are always happy to have you come to our home!  We hope you can stay longer next time!

I’m probably going to get in trouble for posting this, but it’s the only “semi-recent” picture I have of Daddy on my computer.  Well, I have some others with Emma, but they both happen to be asleep in all of them!

Housekeeping

It seems like I’m never completely caught up with my housekeeping.  Since I was out of town for the Labor Day weekend, I’m finding myself especially behind this weekend.  I have several events planned through October and I know I’ll be very busy for at least five of the next seven weekends.  Whew, that sounds bad when I actually look at it on the calendar!!

I’ve been a little under the weather over the past few days.  I think it’s just a cold/allergies from the weather changing and getting rained on in Gatlinburg.  Anyway, I haven’t felt like doing much today.  I spent much of the morning watching the Food Network.  I’ve been cooking more lately and even baked cupcakes this week.  I haven’t had any motivation to try new things lately, but I was inspired to try some of the Pioneer Woman’s recipes after finally getting to watch her new TV show today.  I did sort my laundry, but I’ve only managed to wash my sheets thus far.  It’s getting late and I haven’t made up my bed yet.  Better get on that!!

I’ve got the dishwasher loaded and ready to go, but I’m going to wait until I go to bed to start it since Emma especially hates it.  Speaking of Emma, she really needs a bath, especially since my sheets are clean, but I think she’s managed to squeak out of that for tonight.

I did water my plants on the deck earlier today, but I didn’t manage to sweep the leaves off the deck.  That’s the only bad thing about my two trees in the backyard—the leaves are back practically as soon as I sweep off the deck.

I’m doing a good job of keeping the downstairs presentable.  I haven’t gone to bed with dishes in the sink in weeks.  I try to take my shoes upstairs when I change after getting home from work.  My coffee table is much better than it was for the first few weeks here, but I still have several things on it that haven’t found a home.  I haven’t found a good place to stash my purse yet, but I have a couple of ideas.  I think the downstairs will really come together when I finally get a dining room table and buffet, a rug to go in the dining room and hang all my pictures.  The pictures have been waiting for Dad to hang them for several weeks…the places are picked out, but I haven’t attempted to hang them myself…that’s Dad’s job.  He’s so good at it and always perfectly “engineers” the picture so it’s perfectly hung!  That’s one of the many reasons Mom and I keep him around!! :)

One random thing on my to-do list—go through my stack of magazines, tear out what I want to keep and throw the rest away.  I need to do this by Thursday since recycling comes that day and I’d much rather recycle them than throw them out.  Since recycling only comes on the third Thursday of the month, I better do it this week instead of holding on to them for another month!!

I better go accomplish some of my to-do list rather than just talk about it!!

Nutella Cupcakes

Yesterday, I was in a baking mood after I got home from work.  I decided to pick a recipe I’d found on Pinterest for Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes.  The recipe is simple and luckily uses staple ingredients, so I had everything on hand.

Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup canola or mild vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 cup Nutella, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 325F.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter, oil and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt; add to the butter mixture and beat on low speed just until combined. The batter will be thick. It needs to be in order to swirl in the Nutella!

Divide the batter between 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Drop a spoonful of Nutella on top of each, and swirl through the batter with the tip of a bamboo skewer, knife or other pointy object. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Tilt them in the pan to help them cool. Makes a dozen cupcakes.

My cupcakes looked almost exactly like this picture.  The cupcake batter is very thick…almost as thick as a cookie dough.  Definitely not pourable.  I put a heaping spoonful in each muffin cup.  I put a dollop of Nutella in each muffin cup and swirled the batter and Nutella with a toothpick.  The only thing I would change is to more thoroughly mix the Nutella into the batter.  The top of each cupcake was nice and marbleized, but I didn’t get the Nutella down to the bottom of the cupcake.  Even though parts of the cupcakes weren’t chocolately, the cake itself is very like a pound cake, so it tastes good even without the Nutella.  I think I might add some orange extract to the batter next time…I’ve always heard that orange and chocolate go well together and I know orange extract is a good addition to Grams’ pound cake.

I took a few cupcakes to work to share with some of my sweet friends.  I know that guys will eat practically anything that’s cooked for them, so I thought they would be good guinea pigs for this new-to-me recipe.  They’re also having a crazy week with a big deadline on Tuesday and another tomorrow, so I thought they deserved a treat.  Cooking is much more fun when you have someone to cook for!!

Labor Day Weekend

After work on Friday, I headed east towards Gatlinburg.  Mom, Daddy and Emma went on Thursday morning and were waiting on me to join them.  Traffic was heavy for much of the drive, but it was a much easier drive than the trip home.  I finally got there around 10:30 (I don’t remember if that was Eastern or Central).  We stayed up a little while and then decided going to bed sounded like a wonderful idea.

We didn’t do much on Saturday.  We didn’t have ESPN so we couldn’t watch the Auburn game.  Daddy listened to the game on XM radio in my car.  I actually went back to sleep during part of the game.  It had been a long week and I guess I needed the sleep!  After the game, Mom and I went down to the pool and splashed around for a while.  We had to get out of the pool when we heard thunder and saw clouds begin to roll in.  I didn’t get another chance to swim and I’m afraid I will have to wait until next year before I get another opportunity.

On Sunday, we rode up into the mountains and in to North Carolina.  After we got back to the condo, it began to rain.  After lunch, we went to the outlet mall.  I got a few things from J. Crew and Banana Republic.  I could have picked out more things,  but I had to restrain myself and only buy things that I needed or were such a good deal I couldn’t pass them up.  After shopping, we stopped for dinner and then went back to the condo.  Mom and Dad had a movie to watch, but I read a book instead.  I pretty much passed out Sunday night.  I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so this was a pleasant change.

Monday morning brought more rain.  It rained all morning in Gatlinburg and the entire trip home.  It took about 2.5 hours to get from the condo to the interstate despite taking some back roads and bypasses.  I can’t imagine how bad it would have been had we gone the “normal” way through town.  There were also several accidents on the interstate and the approximately 5 hour drive ended up taking me 7.5.  Not my idea of an afternoon well spent.  Next time, we will either leave very early or later in the afternoon and hope to avoid the mass exodus.

I’m so glad this is only a four day work week.  Even though I slept a good bit, I don’t feel ready to start the week.  I didn’t get my laundry done or do any grocery shopping.  I’m hoping the rain will stop overnight so I don’t have to fight it driving to work and so I can get some things done in the afternoon that didn’t get done this weekend.

P.S.—I did take some pictures of Emma this weekend, but I haven’t had a chance to upload them yet.  I’m not even sure if any of them turned out.  It’s so hard to take a picture of a black blob that moves at the speed of sound! :)

Couponing

I’m trying to make use of coupons I get online and in the mail to make my budget stretch farther.  I’m not trying to be an extreme couponer, but I’m definitely all for saving as much money as possible!

Today, I finally organized all of my coupons.  I put them all in a 5x8 index card accordion file that I happened to have from my high school research paper days.  So far, I have the following categories: groceries, home supplies, toiletries, Emma, takeout and shopping.  The first four categories are self-explanatory, but takeout includes all of my restaurant and fast-food coupons and shopping includes coupons I have received in the mail for stores such as Kirklands and Bed Bath and Beyond.  I also have a section in the front that currently holds CVS Extra Care Bucks and %-off coupons from Banana Republic.

The only issue I have with this system so far is that the coupons are not organized by date.  I have many coupons that expire on August 31st, so if I’m going to use them, this week is it.  I’m planning on spending some time this afternoon looking at the various circulars to see if I can pair some of my coupons with store sales before Wednesday.

Hopefully, this system will work and I will be able to get some great deals by remembering to use my coupons!