Mini-road trip

I'm heading to Kansas tomorrow to pick my Mom and head to northern Kansas. We're going through Kansas City on the way and I plan to pick up some goodies at Dean and Deluca while my Mom wants to check out Victorian Trading Co. From there, we're heading north to spend the night in St. Joseph before hitting the HWY for the HWY 34 sale. I'm a little apprehensive since there seems to be nothing much online about it but hopefully I'll get a chance to use this



which I will be storing in here



Tomorrow will be a long driving day and quite the trip since I'll hit 4 states in one day! I'm trying to be good diet wise but it's a road trip and if I see a Cracker Barrel all bets are off!

Baking Goodness

I came into a little book gift card windfall and picked this up as part of my loot.



So far, I've made the Chewy Oatmeal cookies, blueberry buckle and pumpkin bread. I was especially excited about the pumpkin bread since my current recipe, which is super yummy, has shortening and I'm trying to avoid it. The cookies came out really weird but tasty. I think they would be better if chilled prior to baking.

Pretty much this has been the extent of my labor this weekend. It's been awesome to take 3 1/2 days to do nothing except relax and do all kinds of odd errands in and around the house. I'm thinking we should all revolt and make these holidays mandatory every week!

Hope you guys had a great weekend.

Cupcakes, Holiday and Oh My!

I had a baked goods request the other day so I went with the favorite cupcake which is truly just a vehicle for icing. In this case I went with the all time best chocolate cake (recipe on the back of the hershey's cocoa tin) and peanut butter cupcakes. Turns out, the only peanut butter I had was the super crunchy flax seed from Trader Joe's (seriously come to Dallas already!!!) which made them a little dense and dry but still tasty.

Pre-frosting and cool on the wire racks.



Double batch of frosting (not the one found on the back of the cocoa tin) but a double batch does have 6 sticks of butter. You know, just to keep it light.



Frosted. These are the peanut butter designated by a lone peanut on top. I wanted to pipe the icing on but all my icing bags and tips have vanished. A trip to Sur la Table is imminent since I have a coupon and have ambitions to get the piping down. Also, it cuts down on the icing looking like poo.



All packed up and ready to go. The lone cupcake was for a friend who requested no frosting. He prefers things not too sweet but the cake was super moist (hehe) and yummy.



I plan to start working through a few books. This one and this one specifically.

I'm beyond excited about the long weekend. My vacation started at 12:40 today and I immediately grabbed a chai tea, hit the bookstore and grocery store. Back home by 2:30 and watched The Time Traveler's Wife. It got mixed reviews but I loved it. I thought they did a great job translating a fairly complicated idea and feeling from the book to the big screen. Also, I covet that house they bought. Seriously, I would sell a lot of cupcakes for that! Ready to rest up, bake and play in the studio.

Happy Friday!

Wicked!

On our trip to NYC we saw Wicked which is the musical based on this book. Both of them are awesome! Although someone needs to talk to someone about the bathrooms on the mezzanine level. There 3 stalls, yep 3 for about 500 people. Someone is out of their mind. Luckily we sat right by the door so at intermission, first one in. Yay! Also, they have ginger ale at the concession stand so another big win. It's the little things that make me happy!

Stage pic from Rolland's iphone using hipstamatic. Love that app.



Rolland and I waiting for the show to start. Fabulous! Seriously, it's a great show if for everyone. We loved it as did Rolland's family so that's a pretty good span of age ranges. I'm not sure about the little guys and what they might think is scary.



Us on Broadway after the show.



I didn't really realize we matched until now. Yikes.

Summer Love

Friday night the hubby and some of my girlfriends and I headed for the fancy new opera house downtown to see Garrison Keillor's Summer Love Tour. It was fabulous! I love Garrison Keillor and this show was very much like a Prairie Home Companion with a little more music and less of the usual skits although it did have the news from Lake Wobegon and Guy Noir.

Here is a truly awful picture of Garrison Keillor. He did have a lovely white linen suit and the trademark red shoes and socks.



Rolland took a pic of us girls. Jen, Bo (the girl) and myself.



Bo and I on our own while Jen tried to brave the line for the bathroom. She gave up as she realized it wrapped around the lobby.



A really terrific night!

New York..again

I love neon so this required a picture. Also, I took tons of pics of the building. All of the Art Deco buildings are incredible and I love all of them. I hate to play favorites but the Chrysler Building would probably be it. Seriously gorgeous.



Not found in New York but she's cute and I love her.



Hubby with Bear and Lion on the Interpid.



More neon. I'm building a collection of neon and cool signs for my bathroom. What? It's better than velvet Elvis. Almost.



Me and the Bear and Lion on the Intrepid.



This weekend I need to get all of the histamatic images off of the phone. They're all arty and such so more fun to look at.

New York

We made it there and back again (never thought I'd get to use the Hobbit in a blog post but there you go). It was gorgeous weather so the perfect weekend to go. A little bit of rain but incredibly mild temps. Seriously, if it were like that all the time then fall, winter, spring I would never leave! Here are a few pics. Still need to get pics off of Rolland's camera, my iPhone and Rolland's iPhone plus all the rest of the camera. OY. This should be enough to give you the general idea.

Martha Stewart's building as seen from a harbor boat cruise.



The deck of the Intrepid looking towards the city.



Rolland and his Mom at the NBC studios. I love the neon and his Mom loves the today show. A little something for everyone. I think this was her favorite place to visit in the entire city and on Sunday morning she was even on the today show via camera panning to the audience!



More skyline from the boat cruise. I'm sure this building is something but I have no idea what.



The home of the 9 by Design family. Interesting but fairly unremarkable compared to some of the architecture downtown. It's also right of off West Side highway so incredibly noisy and would make me incredibly nervous with all the kids running in and out but I guess city kids are used to lots of traffic.



Rolland, Anita and their Mom getting ready for takeoff.



Family in Times Square. Definitely a lot to see all around!



Me at High Line Park. Amazing elevated park that is really beautiful. They've also kept a lot of the features from when it was an elevated train area so you can see the tracks worked into the trail and the views of the city are incredible. We went following a visit after Chelsea Market then headed south towards Greenwich Village and Soho. I highly recommend it for strolling.



Rolland in front of his favorite plane... which I can no longer identify but it's definitely his favorite. :)



Rolland in front of the Apple motherland.



Tons more pics to come but all I had time for tonight. Hopefully I can get them all organized this weekend but we have lots of weekend plans including Garrison Keillor, Eat Pray Love and house stuff. We need another vacation!

rosary style

Since I was on a roll with the rosary I went ahead and whipped up a little rosary style necklace with a Buddha I picked up at Pearl River on my last trip to NYC. Since we're heading back I wanted to get this one created so I have plenty of reason to buy more. Excellent Christmas gifts I think.

Gift Jewelry

My friend Colleen recently had a baby girl and lately we've talked about all things pink & girly so for her birthday I made this rosary. The pink stone beads have a great mix of color and the quartz crystal adds just a hint of glamour. :) The connector is of St. Patrick (she has a brother named Patrick) with a traditional crucifix at the end. I really hope she likes it.





This one was a going away present for my friend Pamela. She's taking a hiatus to work on her own business (yay!) so I wanted to give her something pretty. The rose stones are a strand I got in Santa Fe and seeing as how she's from New Mexico they fit perfectly. I wire wrapped in between with rough tourmaline stones.



This one I know she loved but I mismeasured and will need to add another couple of stones. Turns out I'm not the only one who dislikes chokers. Ooops.

I'm working on a couple of fun pieces with pics to come later. I think these may stay in my increasingly full jewelry box. Hint: one my hubby described as a Betty Rubble necklace. I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment!

Saturday

So far it's not super exciting at our house as it's all about the errands. I'm including the new gym regime as an errand. I'm not particularly happy with my trainer who I find it hard to believe has chest and shoulders like that without some kind of unnatural help. He also pushes his "supplement" that he sells at his 2nd gig which I'm finding fairly unprofessional seeing as how I'm paying for his time and all. I guess it's a little like cable in that I pay and still have to watch the commercials. Ugh. At the end of this month, definitely requesting someone else.

I did have good Target fortune although I'm not without Target shopping guilt and found this bag that may be used as it's name suggests "flight bag" for the upcoming NYC trip.



I've already started laying out the outfits and thanks to my friend Yuri, I found this dress I plan to wear for dinner then to Wicked on Friday. And it was over 1/2 off which is mostly why it was such an easy impulse purchase.

I have made a couple of pieces of jewelry for gifts that I'll post tomorrow in case you in no way care about a) my trainer from hell or b) what I wear.

Hope you guys are having a terrific weekend.

Suzanne

There are a lot of reasons to love my friend Suzanne. Pick me up texts like this on a Tuesday night are just one of them.



Thanks lady, I love you loads and will see you soon!

Cinnamon rolls

Baked goods I made last weekend. I forgot to take an after picture but they were very popular. Super tasty.



I'd like to get a few things baked today but at 108 outside I'm reluctant to turn on the stove. I did make mushroom curry, brown rice, black bean soup and cauliflower... something I forgot but with Indian spices to go with the curry. I've finally been using the Indian cookbook I bought a few years ago. And Deborah Madison's is a new favorite for vegetarian offerings.

I've also got some art pieces in mind but the heat, not too keep being whiny, really does sap my energy and the couch plus this book are too much of an oasis.

House

I worked on this piece for a few weeks and it's finally finished and up in our newly painted entry way. I had originally been inspired by this and this.

The roof tiles came to me first so after prepping the large canvas and getting a few base layers on I started with the pebbles. A lot of pebbles were required so I was happy to finally use up some of the supplies I've stashed for a couple of years now.



Next, basic painting and shaping of the house.



I forgot to document the layers in between. The edges of the piece are covered in telephone pages that I glued down then coated in a bunch of layers of paint. I covered all the edges around the frame to finish it off. I like how in a few places the names and numbers peek through. I also liked the texture and color of the old butterscotch dominoes.

I also started adding in some of the fun doodling/graphic elements. My version of a cherry blossom crossed with a dogwood.



Final touches including a door knob and a lot of layers of the charcoal pencil. Now, the piece hangs in the entry way of the house and I kind of love it.

Springfield

Turns out Springfield, Missouri is much more interesting than I knew and now has cool art like this in their front yard.



I made Rolland drive by 3 times just to double check that was what we were really seeing then I made him wait while I took several pics (this was the best). I'm still wondering what the hell the crane guy was thinking when putting that together.

Other super cuteness found in Missouri is the cutest nephew ever. And his octobunny that I had no idea would be such a hit. I should've caught on to all the chewing options but missed it entirely. Rolland however know it would be a hit.





I forgot to take a pic of his parents (my brother and sis-in-law). They too are pretty cute.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

It's my hubby's birthday today. We celebrated with steak dinner last night, Despicable Me and Chipotle today. It's total excitement at our house but I hope he had a great birthday weekend.



Happy Birthday, I love you!