1 more month

My birthday is in exactly 1 month and I still have some major and some not-so-major projects to get done on my 26 Before 27 list. It turns out I not only suck at blogging, but I also kind of stink at my to-do lists. Darn. Oh well, life is busy and I'm enjoying it either way.

Here are some things I'll be focusing on over the next 4 weeks, in addition to living my life.

3. Learn to sew (Can we be honest with each other? I'm probably not going to master sewing in the next 4 weeks.)
5. Cook all the printed recipes in my recipe folder (Cook ALL the recipes! Or, just make a concentrated effort to make more new recipes. That's kind of the same thing, right?)
9. Bake a pie from scratch
13. Refinish the landscaping on the side of our house (While at Lowe's, Chase and I actually looked at landscaping bricks. This is a big step. Now just to buy them...)
14. Frame wedding posters
15. Make wedding album
18. Bake bread from scratch
19. Make homemade ice cream
21. Visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum
23. Join a group/do more community service
I'm pretty sure I can get those baking and cooking things tackled. I might even be able to squeeze a visit to Nelson-Atkins in over the weekend, assuming my travel schedule slows a bit. As for the rest? Well they might make a good start to my 27 Before 28 list, right?

Happy Mother's Day

I have the most wonderful mother. She is supportive, smart, and strong. She is an incredible listener. She gives great advice, but always asks first to make sure I want to hear it. She is one of the few people I will actually go shopping with. Not because we share the same taste, we don't always, but because she will tell me the truth about how things look and knows that ultimately my first instinct will always drive my decision on whether or not to buy something. My first instinct ultimately drives most decisions in my life. She doesn't try to talk me out of or into anything. She understands I am independent. She has understood that my whole life. After moving me into the dorms my first semester at college, her parting words to me were "Try to come home at least once before Thanksgiving."

My mother was a teacher. I didn't go to the school she taught at, but I know she was one of those really great teachers because her past students still loved her. Once I was in high school, many of my classmates that had been my mom's former students quickly recognized me as "Mrs. Sampson's daughter." To this day she keeps in touch with students she had in her first year of teaching, over 30 years ago. Even though I wasn't ever in her class, I know what an impact she made on so many of her students. It's because of my mom, and the many teachers I had just like her, that I have always wanted to work with children. I see the impact a strong and supportive adult can have on the life of a child, and I only hope to make an impact like that during my lifetime.

I'm so glad my mom will be spending Mother's Day at my house, so I can show her just how much I appreciate everything she has done for me and taught me over the years. I hope everyone remembers to celebrate their mother's this Sunday, even if that means mailing a card or making a phone call. And Happy Mother's Day to my mother, my mother-in-law, and all my beautiful friends who are working everyday to be the best mothers possible.

Look how cute my parents are. Can you believe they've been married over 32 years?

The world according to my iPhone

If someone went through the pictures on your phone, what would they learn about you? I have an embarrassing amount of food pictures on my iPhone. If someone went through my phone, they might think I have an eating disorder. Or a food addiction of some sort. Which is still an eating disorder, I guess.

I use my camera phone as a last resort. It's the "Oh crap I forgot my camera and have use my phone" camera. Or sometimes it's the "I really want to take a picture of this but I don't want anyone to know I'm taking a picture of this" camera. Which means between pictures of food, flowers, and ladies reading Diabetes for Dummies at the airport, my phone gives little insight into my world.

Here are the things we've been up to lately, according to my iPhone:

Spring is in full bloom at my house!



I found this purse in Spain and am seriously coveting it. It's a sin to covet something, or may it's just a sin to covet what isn't yours. I should probably buy it so I stop sinning.



Confession, there are a serious amount of pictures of this guy on my phone too. He's just so cute.



Seeing the Kansas City Symphony perform New World Symphony brought back some memories of high school marching band sophomore year. The symphony was much better than our marching band.



It's baseball season! Tensions were high at Saturday night's game. The teams rushed the field twice! Sadly, the Royals went 0-3 their home opening weekend. It's okay. This is our time.



C and I finished off our weekend with our first ever trip to Stroud's! And boy did we eat. We had enough leftovers from our lunch to take home and make a full dinner out of them. Seriously, that cinnamon roll on the right was my favorite part of the whole meal.

26 before 27 Update

We did it! We made it through meat-free Lent. There were times when it was difficult. Times when my stomach seemed like a bottomless pit. An empty void that could not be filled no matter how much I ate. But then, as all things do, the feeling eventually passed and my body adjusted. We found some great recipes that I'll be sharing over the next few weeks, as soon as I find more time to write.

I've been a little absent lately due to my travels. After a 12-day trip in the United Kingdom and Spain, I had a very short work week filled with meetings about my trip and then Easter hit. After an extended weekend visiting my family, I think I'm finally starting to feel caught up on sleep. Just in time. I leave a week from Saturday to go back to Spain again. While I'm excited and still loving the opportunity I've been given at work, I must admit that I'm not looking forward to the 9-10 hour flights ahead of me.

This is my nephew. He's adorable. And smart. And funny. And he loves hunting for Easter Eggs and being outside in general.


And now for a list! Here's an update on how my 26 before 27 list is going. I think I need to focus in and get some more stuff checked off the list!

1. Go to Chicago (check! We went over Thanksgiving. Post coming soon!)
2. Find a church (we have been to the same church twice! While we haven't completely committed to it, I think it's a good start)
3. Learn to sew (yeah, I have a lot of work to do if I want to get this one done...)
4. Run a 10k (check!)
5. Cook all the printed recipes in my recipe folder (getting closer, but that darn pinterest got in my way and added more recipes!)
6. Blog 30 days in a row (check! I did this the whole month of December)
7. Read 10 books (check! okay, technically I'm reading the 10th book now. List below)
8. Ride my bike more (check! "more" is a pretty relative term, and I biked 26 miles last year in one day, which was "more" than I probably biked the whole year before that. So I call this a success so far.)
9. Bake a pie from scratch
10. Pay off my Graduate School loans (check! Paid off in December!)
11. Begin half marathon training (check! I even ran the race)
12. Plant a full garden (I have a feeling this one isn't going to happen given all my traveling)
13. Refinish the landscaping on the side of our house (I can't promise this is going to happen before my birthday unless we hire someone to do it. Otherwise, it's dependent upon scheduling a weekend and bringing in parental help.)
14. Frame wedding posters
15. Make wedding album
16. Spend the afternoon at a winery (check! I've done this twice so far.)
17. Go someplace new (check! Southampton, United Kingdom, Barcelona, and coming up..Portland!)
18. Bake bread from scratch (I was so close to checking this one off, and then my trip to Spain caused me to cancel my bread baking plans. It's being rescheduled)
19. Make homemade ice cream
20. Go on the Boulevard Brewery Tour (check! We went in January. Read my review here)
21. Visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum
22. Take a day off, for no reason (you would think this would be an easy one, but something always comes up. I will get this done in the next 2 months)
23. Join a group/do more community service (I'm thinking Junior League or Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
24. Watch The Godfather (check! we even watched the 3rd movie...)
25. Read a non-fiction book (Currently reading some David Sedaris)
26. Take one week off from facebook (check! The first week of Lent I gave up pinterest. The second week of Lent I gave up facebook. I planned on doing one week sacrifices throughout the Lenten season, but giving up facebook is as far as I got)

The books I've read so far:
1. One for the Money
2. Two for the Dough
3. Three to Get Lucky
4. The Killing Joke (some "Graphic Novel" C wanted me to read about the joker)
5. The Hunger Games
6. Hunger Games, Catching Fire
7. Hunger Games, Mockingjay
8. Water for Elephants
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. Me Talk Pretty One Day (still reading)

I hope you all had a blessed Easter weekend, full of relaxation, family, and time to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice made just for you.

Hola from Barcelona!

I have been in Europe for work since last Wednesday. It has been a very productive trip from a work standpoint, making some extremely good progress on a project I'm working on. I can say that I'm thrilled with my time here. However, this is the longest time I've been away from C, and the furthest I've been away from him distance-wise as well. With expensive or inconsistent internet access during my travels, and time differences ranging from 5-7 hours, it has been difficult at times to get ahold of each other. Since it looks like I'll probably need to come back at least once or twice more for this project, I felt it necessary to write down some lessons learned/observations made:

1. Schedule specific times to call your SO and stick with them.
2. Skype is amazing (you know, if you have internet access)
3. Having free time in Europe can be difficult without close friends or family to join you. It turns out my collegues don't all have the same passion for travel and sight seeing that I do.
4. When traveling to Spain, bring a few light snacks. They eat really late here (lunch and dinner). A girl's gotta eat.
5. Learn to say no to food or leave food on the plate. I'm pretty sure I've gained at least 5 pounds in the past 10 days. (This might seem like it contradicts number 4, but trust me, it doesn't)
6. Try to have more than 5 days notice so you can research the area, what to see, where to go, how to get around, etc. (Yes, my flight wasa booked on Friday afternoon and I left the following Wednesday. Life can be hectic. I think it's part of being an adult)
7. Don't give up meat before going to Spain. They eat a lot of meat here.
8. Don't plan on eating seafood in Spain in leue of meat. I'm sure it tastes good to people who like seafood, but it just looks scary and gross to me. I don't know what cuttlefish is, but they eat a lot of it.
9. Dessert does not need to be eaten with every meal and it's almost never as good as it looks (unless it's from a specific Italian Restaurant in the New Forest of the UK which will be talked about at a later date, then all bets are off).
10. Be thankful for C and remind him how much I love him. He has been so supportive and great through this last-minute whirlwind trip.

Number 10 should really be at the top of the list, but it seemed like a good way to sum up the post.

I'm sure there are more lessons I've learned during this trip, but have obviously forgotten to remember them. I'm looking forward to future trips and making more progress on our project, but more than anything I'm looking forward to going home, seeing my husband, and sleeping in my own bed. Sunday night cannot get here soon enough.

*On a side note, I apologize for any spelling errors in this post. However, blogger sees that I'm in Spain and apparently believes this should be written in Spanish because it marks almost every single word as misspelled. Technology fail.

Meatless Lent: Week 3

This was a crazy week. I spent most of the week confused that St. Patrick's Day wasn't until this weekend because we had already celebrated it last weekend. My calendar at work started the week off almost completely empty. By the end of the week, I had been to about 3 conference calls, a 2.5 hour training session, and booked a trip to Europe for this coming week. There will be a lot of packing in my very near future.

Meatless Lent is still going well. However, this week and next are bound to be difficult.
1. We've run out of new ideas and are having to remake recipes. Not a bad thing, but we could get sick of these quickly!
2. I leave Wednesday for Europe, which means my food options are about to become a lot more out of my realm of control. Healthy eating and vegetarian eating while traveling may be a little more difficult. I actually loaded up on some peanut butter crackers, fiber one bars, and trail mix to take with me so I don't starve!
3. While I'm traveling, C has assured me he's going to eat PB&J for the next week and a half. I've tried to buy some easy stuff for him to make that would offer some variety from just PB&J, but I know he won't remember. Someone please come feed him.

On a brighter note, once I return from Europe, we'll only have 1 week left of meatless Lent. I'll try to take pictures of the food I'm eating in Europe to share on here once I get back. Here's hoping I can stick to being meat-free!

What we ate this week: After we went to Carthage for the St. Patrick's Day party last weekend, we opted for a dinner of frozen pizza last Sunday night. We had a Digiorno Spinach and Mushroom pizza if you're interested. It wasn't as good as I had hoped. The rest of the week is pictured below.


1. Lipton Noodle Soup (I wasn't feeling well that day so I made C find his own dinner and I made soup. Pathetic, I know.)


2. Stir Fry with Tofu and Veggies over Couscous (I did some research this time around and did a much better job making the tofu!)


3. Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Provolone and Brussels Sprouts


4. Black Bean Burritos (We love these and eat them pretty frequently)


5. Blueberry Pancakes


6. Black Bean and Quinoa "Burger" with Baked Sweet Potatoes

Green Velvet Cupcakes with Baileys Buttercream Frosting

This past weekend some of our good (Irish) friends threw their annual St. Patrick's Day Party. We had been unable to attend the past few years but our calendar opened up so we lucked out this year. They always supply all the alcohol and ask everyone to bring a snack or treat to share. Obviously I chose to bake something.

I have not one, but TWO cookbooks dedicated to cupcakes. For serious. I spent about an hour searching through these books and others and just couldn't find anything that was striking my fancy. Yup, I said that.



After turning to my friends pinterest and google, I finally came across this recipe for Green Velvet Cupcakes. I was extremely happy with how these turned out. They were very moist and have continued to stay moist all week long. I made these last Friday and a week later they are still moist and flavorful. I promise, I'm eating one as I type this.



Since this was an adult party, I wanted to make these a little bit boozy. I opted for a Baileys buttercream frosting. The Bailey's flavor came through very strongly but not overpowering. It will not disappoint.



Note: If you don't have buttermilk-which I didn't-just add 1 T white vinegar to a measuring cup. Fill the rest with milk to 1 cup and let sit about 5 minutes. Honestly I can't tell you what this does or why it works because I'm not a chemist, but I've found multiple websites suggest this and so I did it. The cupcakes may or may not have tasted exactly the same using plain milk. We'll never know...

Green Velvet Cupcakes
makes about 48 mini cupcakes plus 12 full size cupcakes (weird measurements, I know)

Ingredients:
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup oil (I used half cup of oil, half cup of unsweetened apple sauce)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 oz green food coloring (or channel your inner first grader and mix equal parts blue and yellow food coloring to make green)

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line muffin tins with cupcake paper liners.
3. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with whisk. Add in remaining liquid ingredients. Whisk until blended and sit aside.
4. Place all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together well. Normally I don't follow this process, and just throw everything in the mixing bowl; however, I really wanted these to turn out well so I did this extra step.
5. Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or two until well combined.
6. Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, pour the batter into cupcake pans for full size cupcakes. For mini cupcakes use 1 Tablespoon measuring spoon.
7. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 13-14 minutes for mini cupcakes and about 20 minutes for full size cupcakes)

Baileys Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients:
1 Cup Butter (2 sticks) softened to room temperature
2 1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream liqueur

Directions:
Cream the butter in a stand mixer until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar until well combined. Add vanilla and Bailey's and mix for another 1-2 minutes. Feel free to add some extra Bailey's if you want it a little stronger! Enjoy!