Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Dreams do come true

Today was one of those regular old days when nothing was super eventful but everything seemed perfect. Alex slept in pretty late while I cleaned up the house and watched my Royal Wedding coverage. I made breakfast, we went to Lowe's, he hung up our flat screen wall mount, I cleaned the patio and planted my rescued clearance plants I bought at Lowe's. We...well, I made dinner, and ate in on our nicely cleaned patio with a faint smell of citronella in the air. The perfect end to a perfect day being husband and wife.

About an hour ago I decided (after much debate) to go to Baskin Robbins for their 31 cent night. It was such a nice spring evening, we drove with the windows down. When we got there, of course, there was a long line, so we stood in it and just told jokes to each other and had fun. On the way home I actually was able to keep the radio on KFRG (Alex is not a fan of country!) and Rascall Flatts came on Fast Cars and Freedom, I exclaimed, "I haven't heard this song in so long!" I hadn't, in fact I hadn't listened to country period. in a long time. I'm trying to slowly introduce Alex to the genre and am hoping he will start to like it... As I listened to the song, I thought to myself, before I was was married or even engaged I had always wished for those sappy country love songs to come true in my life. I mean, after all, I had had my fair share, if not more, of the sappy sad, he's cheatin' and lyin' songs come true, so I really wanted to be the girl, the wife that her husband sees out of the corner of his eye or across a room and just falls more in love with each time. All that time, I thought, some day... right? I was right! In the Rascall Flatts song the begining line is:

'Starin' at you takin' off your makeup
Wondering why you even put it on
I know you think you do but baby you don't need it
Wish that you could see what I see it when it's gone'


Sometimes I'll catch Alex watching me, or he'll just tell me I'm beautiful or how lucky he is and it makes me blush and giggle I and think, now I know. I know what it feels like to have a husband who loves me so much. Now I get to play that part in those songs! I am so blessed to have a husband who expresses his feelings, happy or sad. He knows he can trust me and I know I can trust him. Our hearts are safe with each other.

That song has a little extra meaning to us also because we dated in high school, for those of you who don't know.  I was 16 and he was 18, we went to homecoming together, he was my first 'car date'...and we were late getting home, and I got in trouble, but that's another story....Anyway, I love to hear Alex tell me the story about when we met again ten years later, his feelings driving to Mammoth. I like to hear him admit he made a mistake dumping me!....LOL. But hey, that's the way it was meant to be...In the Rascall Flatts song they sing, "You don't look a day over fast cars and freedom..." and now that I'm 30 (ugh) and some days feel old, he still sees me as 16, and that makes me feel good :) I hope that lasts a long time!

Sometimes it's weird to think that he turned out to be the one! He really broke my heart back then! And now, here I am, living one of those sappy country love songs. Love it!

cutest couple, circa 1997

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Easter Treats

I have literally spent all day baking today! My kind of day! I made egg and flower shaped sugar cookies, carrot cake cupcakes, almond & orange zest  biscotti and pistachio & lemon zest biscotti. All for tomorrow and a few extra for Alex's store.

Biscotti is not as hard to make as it may seem...and they happen to be low-fat, really :)  Here is the recipe I use :

2 3/4  cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
6 tblsp. butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp finely shredded lemon or orange peel (this is optional, but it REALLY gives great flavor so I would say it is a must!)
1 cup coarsely chopped pistachios or almonds

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of the bowl and place eggs and egg yolks and mix. Add butter, zest and nuts. Dough will be crumbly.


















2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; divide into three equal portions. Shape each portion into a loaf.




Place on lightly greased or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Flatten loaves slightly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes.

3. Transfer baked loaves onto a cooling rack and let cool about 15 minutes.



Then, move to cutting board and cut WITH A SERRATED KNIFE  slices about 1/2 inch wide.





Place slices on their sides on baking sheet and bake for another 10 minutes.



Turn them over and bake another 5 to 10 minutes.





I drizzed melted white chocolate on the lemon pistachio ones and milk chocolate on the orange almond ones. It just adds a little touch!


I also made some basic sugar cookeis and decorated them with royal icing. They came out lovely!






Finished jars -



*Sorry for the bad picture quality, I cannot find our camera and I have been using my phones for pictures...

Well, I am beat for the day. I am going to relax now and finish watching The Ten Commandments. Hope everyone has a happy and blessed Easter!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

It Started With the Hummingbird Feeder,,,

And turned into this...


We went down to the garage and started looking for my feeder and during that found some buried treasure. Well, maybe not treasure, but things I forgot about or had at least once since we've been here said, "Where is that, _______?" Now this morning, I have a bunch of stuff to find homes for. We also were able to clean out the garage at the same time so now we are not housing things that had, "Why were we saving this....?" written all over it.

So now I can hang my hummingbird feeder, I found some extra pots for plants and a tray so now Alex can serve me breakfast in bed on his days off! (Sarcasm)

Friday, April 1, 2011

"Like an old married couple..."

Alex and I had a great evening tonight, just like I hoped for. Great dinner, a couple beers and great music.





After dinner we went out to Rite-Aid to get some ice cream cones and on the way home there were groups of teenagers walking down the street, hanging out and Alex says, "Go home." Funny, I was thinking the same thing. We started talking about things we do, for example, liking to go to the movies for the first showing because it cheaper and quieter! We see teenagers at restaurants or while out shopping and we both think, 'greeeaaat...' with a roll of the eyes.Sometimes we think of ourselves still being right out of high school. We don't feel thirty, but moments around teens make us feel like an old married couple who just wants some peace and quiet! If you've ever watched the show Better With You on abc Wednesday nights you may be familiarized with the begining of the show. They put the three couples in a similar situation to show how each one at different points in their relationship react differently...Well there was one particular one that reminded us of ourselves, the second couple...

http://abc.go.com/shows/better-with-you/three-stages-of-love

 We love to go out for a great dinner or to the movies, but we also love to stay home. To us, it is so much more fun to entertain at home, have a dinner party or go to friends' or family's homes. It's just funny how perspectives change. It wasn't that long ago nine o' clock would roll around and it was time to go out and now it means pj's and TV time! In my world, Saturday morning is the new Friday night!