Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Right?!

Sorry for being absent this week! It has been unexpectedly busy. Something I hate… mostly because I didn’t get to plan ahead. When I start my week, I like to know what day I am going to do laundry, what nights I won’t be home until late and what my meals are going to look like. Will I be eating at 9:00 one night? If so, I prefer to know that I will be crazy hungry when I get home... etc.

Anywho, it wasn’t that my evenings were super crazy. Although with cheer season in full swing, my personal time is shrinking by the minute. It is that my days have been so packed that when I do finally get home, the last thing I want to do is post on my blog. Sorry dear readers (the few that I have). I promise to come back to you with some awesome posts!

Sometimes my evenings don’t start until 8:00 or 9:00 because of commitments and such… but the personal time I come by is what keeps me sane! My time this week was spent painting my nails with awesome glitter, TV time with my outrageously stellar roommate and running errands (the last one… not so fun). I have gotten inspired by Sara and Nicole lately. I just feel put-together when my nails are painted. Plus the time taken to paint them is relaxing! I love it.  

My nails are teal with the glitter on top. Sorry about the dark photo, but you get the idea!

People have asked me how I did this to my nails. Is it just me or are people getting dumber? My response, “Uhh... glitter nail polish...” Do they think I placed each individual fleck onto my nails? Plus, glitter has become a huge trend this year. You would think they are aware that glittered up nails fall into this trendy category of awesomeness. I guess some people don't get out much... not necessarily a bad thing. I would love to be home more. Note: this awesome glitter polish is from Sam! I got it in the gift exchange at the blogger meet-up Christmas party. Another thing I should have posted about this week… oops!

I hope you are all doing okay in your pre-holiday schedules. Make sure to leave yourself some personal time! Maybe paint your nails or Hulu this weeks episode of Modern Family. And remember to always leave room for God interruptions! Those are the best kind!

TGIF!!! 

Brunch in Bridgetown: Slappy Cakes

I love Slappy Cakes! I don’t think they have the best breakfast menu, but the ambiance and fun of the restaurant is still a fantastic reason to go.

We got a table with a griddle (of course) to make some pancakes as our appetizers. That is the thing about Slappy Cakes, if you really want pancakes you should order them so you can have the perfect fluffy pancakes. The pancakes at your table are really just pre-meal activities. It is really fun though. Plus you can’t mess them up because they keep the table griddles at the perfect temperature. From the long list of toppings we chose chocolate chips and banana. Don’t worry though; they have literally every topping imaginable. I have also tried bacon and lavender honey. You would be surprised how good the bacon is IN the pancake.

Pancake art:

The company was splendid and my mushroom scramble was delish. My favorite part was the goat cheese… obvs. This is going to be a pretty pathetic review because I didn’t taste test others food or take photos. I was hungry and clearly not focused.

Libby and Brian. AKA my slappy friends

For a good time call:

Slappy Cakes

Portland on Dwellable

Happy birthday Ms. Spears.

Happy 30^th to my gurl B. Spears!

Some people don’t understand the love for Britney. But all of us 20-somethings grew up with her! 

Thanks for all the silly made up dances, car parties and simply awesome jams! Hoping that your future has less crazy and more awesome. Happy Birthday! 

Still thankful.

Still thankful one week later. Here is my little T-giving post. Gobble gobble. 

This Thanksgiving was wonderful. I spent the entire day cooking with my mom. We have a blast in the kitchen together and this year felt extra special for some reason. Plus everything turned out great! Later the rest of the family arrived, including my grandparents and uncle from the Seattle area.

It was a wonderful dinner. I am so thankful for such a wonderful family. We genuinely like each other! That is not always the case with family. Well, mine rocks! And we sure like to eat! Haha

Here are some photos of the feast and festivities:

My mom's cute decor.

Taste testing. Look at Mama Jo! We must have liked it.

After a long day of cooking.

Bro (d-jenner) and Grandma

We named the turkey Hank. He was delish.

Listening to my 89 year old grandpa is amazing. He has great stories. 

Clean plates and my Grandma's lovely centerpiece. 

It isn't Thanksgiving if there aren't turkey cookies! 

Photo credit to my big sis Linds Jo.

So excited that tomorrow is Friday! 

Keep it real.

Mishmash moments: Long weekend activities.

With such a long weekend many things happened! I am trying to figure out how to post about everything. The posts are coming out of order. So just relax about it. For now I will post a mishmash. (As I wait for my sister to send the Thanksgiving photos…hint hint) I need to post a brunch review from this weekend too. Jeez! Too much stuff! I guess it is a good problem to have.

The Mish:

On Saturday I went wine tasting with my friend Caitlin’s family. We headed out to Dayton and went to some fantastic wineries. I love that the NW has wine country. Who doesn’t want to be known for something as classy as wine!? Fine by me! It was a lot of fun. I have been friends with Caitlin since middle school. That being said, I am very comfortable with her family… and they expect my crazy. I really appreciate relationships like that. Super lucky! It was a lot of fun and tasting the just bottled new releases made us feel extra important.

Domaine Serene

Red Ridge (They had snacks!)

The Mash:

Libby and I also made Christmas happen in our apartment! We got home from brunch on Sunday and it just needed to be festive! We had gone to see the tree downtown the night before and it really felt like Christmas time was here. Libby and Chris quickly organized a romantic tree cutting date to Sleighbells. Later Libby and I trimmed the tree with our hodgepodge of ornaments and proceeded to watch TV in our reindeer antlers. Yes, we sat there for at least two hours in our reindeer antlers whilst watching Kardash. I have a feeling I will be glued to this season of Kourtney and Kim Take NY… mostly to watch the marriage fall apart. So gross and depressing of me.

I love Christmas in PDX!

Please ignore our demon eyes.

Our tree is almost as big and fancy as the tree downtown! 

Sorry about the crappy iPhone pictures.


Happy kickoff to the holiday season! I need to watch Home Alone soon…

Founders and feathers! This is delicious!

Every Thanksgiving I make the pumpkin pie. My grandma has been trying to teach me how to make pie crust for a number of years but I still have not been able to master it. She can just feel when it is right! How does she do that?! On a few occasions she has tried to teach me, more often than not a some dough ended up down the disposal. So our solution is that she brings the pie crusts with her and I make the filling. It has been working out and our dessert is always a delicious team effort!

Over the years I have used multiple recipes and I started to combine them. Next year I will probably go back to a different method. But no matter what recipe you follow or whether you use heavy cream, half and half, whole milk or (cringe)…evaporated milk… (please don’t use evaporated milk), follow these additional directions and your pie will go from “great pie” to “holy founders and feathers! This is delicious!”

These are my two tips for a fabulous pumpkin pie.

1.) Spice it up!

I use a recipe from a cookbook, but I have written in the spices to use. I took them from my friend Tracy’s recipe.

From The Best Recipe cookbook (plus my notes)

Just replace your recipes spice directions with these!

For one 9” pie:

1 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp cardamom

¼ tsp lemon zest

½ tsp salt

2.) Process it!

Want really smooth pumpkin pie?! Toss your complete filling into the food processor. It will make it extra smooth and take out any left over "can taste" or lumps from the pumpkin filling. Then proceed to pour the processed filling into your blind-baked shell. Bake and Bon appétit! 

I know Thanksgiving already happened and that most of you aren't going to be making pumpkin pie. Just remember it for next year!

I will only be thankful if I can also have a feast.

Just kidding! We really need to practice giving thanks daily. I try… I really do!... even though I may not always succeed. It is easy to get a battitude (bad attitude) during the season of darkness here in the NW. You know… the darkness and rain that we will get for the next 9 months.

We have a ton to be thankful for and it is nice to get an annual reminder. We get to celebrate the pilgrims bringing smallpox and bland food to the Indians (who were totally fine with their maize btw). You know, to break bread before ultimately forcing them off of their land.

I love the true origin of thanksgiving (the Bible. dur). Fun fact: The pilgrims and other settlers regularly practiced gatherings and feasts of thanksgiving, thanking the Lord for their blessings.

Anne shared these wise words on her blog today and I love it! I think I will be putting this on my bulletin board at work:

I usually do the Thanksgiving feast twice. For the past few years my friends have been doing what we have lovingly coined “Kid Thanksgiving.” Most people call it Friendsgiving or something else of that sort. We called it Kid Thanksgiving in college and it just stuck. Deep down I think we still don’t want to admit that we are adults.

We all end up going home for the real Thanksgiving to celebrate with our families, but we love each other like family and want to celebrate together too! Our crowd is dwindling though… stupid friends keep moving to Seattle. Stupid Seattle taking all my friends like that! Rude.

We still had 7 people though. I consider that a nice full table. I have now officially made four turkeys in my life. I think I am getting the hang of it! I still remember that first turkey though, the excitement that it actually turned out and didn’t catch fire ala Tim Allen’s in The Santa Claus. There is always pure turkey joy and relief when it comes out of the oven intact.

My favorite Thanksgiving dish is green bean casserole. Probably because it is the worst one for you... 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!