Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Almost a year

From: http://tiddlyinks.com/


Time flies.




As a kid, I never put much stock into that saying. It was just one of those odd things grown-ups said. Christmas never came and math class was longer than long division. Grown-ups did not understand time at all. Now I am a kid posing in an adult's body and I am planning my one year wedding anniversary trip.

I own cats, pay bills, do laundry, and have a husband, yet I still have stuff animals sitting in the window sills and two Disney stations on my Pandora account. I also still dress up for Halloween. When did I become this hybrid child-adult?


I am in shock that I have been married for almost a year. My husband and I got engaged after dating for twenty months. Seven months after getting engaged, we got married on the happiest day of my life.

Taken by one of my maids of honor
Yet, so much has happened in that year that I have to remind myself that almost 365 days have passed. In one year I have (in no particular order):
  • changed jobs...twice
  • gone to Ithaca, NY without my husband two weeks after getting married
  • gone to Kentucky and eaten at the original KFC
  • mourned the loss of my grandmother
  • moved to a new state and new apartment
  • lived without my husband for a month and half
  • saw Jimmy Buffett live 
  • went on the most relaxing honeymoon
  • seen the end of the Harry Potter saga play out on the big screen
  • celebrated my husband's 30th birthday
  • going to go to my 10 year high school reunion
I can't believe that whole list occurred (or will occur) before my one year wedding anniversary.
I do know that throughout that whole year, one thing has been a constant: food. We have eaten our way through marriage and have enjoyed the bonding that can only occur in a kitchen. Tonight was not a special night, but we sat together over a crock pot meal and just enjoyed being together; being us.

It is moments like tonight when my husband kisses me after finishing dinner and then pulls me close to him that makes me realize that if time flies, I am sure glad it is flying with him.

Three Down, One to Go

All three kitties now live in the new apartment. They love the huge windows and are enjoying jumping in every box I empty. Now all I need is Trae to move down here and our little family will be complete!(Update: He moved in two weeks ago! Yippie!)

We moved everything into the new apartment on Friday, June 18th, so my view went from:



to boxes EVERYWHERE. I was just getting use to my roughing-it ways too!


On that Saturday, we did not unpack much and that Sunday, Trae left, but he helped a good bit before leaving. So as you can tell, we have already unpacked a lot in a very short amount of time.

I had already broken in the new kitchen, seeing that much of our kitchen stuff we moved up earlier. Even with only a folding chair and tailgate table, having a fully stocked kitchen made the empty apartment feel like a home. I posted a poll on my Facebook page, and asked people to weigh in on what I should bake first. Overwhelmingly, friends wanted me to make chocolate chip cookies, but I had the urge to make a cake. So I decided to combined the two and chocolate-chip-cookie-cupcakes with caramel buttercream drizzle were born.

Luckily, our new place is within walking distance of the best grocery store: Harris Teeter. (l can literally see one side of the store from my window. I am in baking heaven.) When I became determined to bake, two things had not occurred to me.
  1. I had no idea what baking supplies I had. A few of the kitchen boxes I had not fully unpacked since I had not purchased shelves for the laundry room where our pantry would now reside.
  2. I had no cookbooks. My trusty Betty Crocker cookbook was in a box under a lot of other boxes in SC. 
Problem two was fixed after a Google search. While recipes already exist for chocolate-chip-cookie-cupcakes, I did not like them and made my own by combining two randomly found recipes. The one-two-three-four cake recipe on cooks.com worked great and I will probably use it again as a base for future recipes.

I had already made a preliminary trip to Harris Teeter to get some basics such as eggs. Then after getting half way through the cake and cookie recipes, I realized that I did not have vanilla. A quick jaunt to Harris Teeter fixed that dilemma and caused the inspiration for the drizzle. I made up my trusty caramel sauce found on BakedBree.com, then mixed the sauce in with a can of cream cheese frosting. Delicious. I had to restrain myself from eating it all with a spoon. The mixture was extremely liquefied, but a short trip to the fridge fixed that problem. 




After these cupcakes, I am well liked in my new job!