2011 Resolutions -- How I did!

I made a list of resolutions last January that I shared here. I remembered that I made this list today, and checked it for the first time. Oops. I might have done a better job if I'd checked it more often.

Oh well - water under the bridge now. Here's the list I made last year and what I managed to unconsciously accomplish:

• Get married! Check! We are super duper married. Read about that here, here, here, here, here, and here!
  
  
  
  
• Organize all of my craft ideas into a binder, so I can actually create! Uncheck. Though ironically, I had written this down on my I'm-not-working-next-week-and-want-to-be-productive list a few days before reading this!
  
• Donate a quilt to a local fundraiser Done!
  
  
  
• Start an exercise routine (about 3x/week)  About halfway done (get it?). I did a lot more exercising this year than I've done in the past, but didn't get on a permanent 3x/week schedule. I have big plans for this year, though! Oh, don't we all...
  
• Re-connect with old friends with whom I've lost touch This is an ongoing goal, but I'm happy to report reconnecting with a few old friends and also purposely staying in better touch with current friends. I think this will re-make it onto my 2012 list.
  
• Visit my grandma in New York for a sewing weekend Done!! And so much fun!
  
• Make an album of all of our pictures from 2010. Not even close. But I added it to my list for this week!
  
• Pack my lunch / eat lunch at home as much as possible.  We did a great job with this one. We did a better job creating menus, and I've eaten a lot of leftovers for lunch (yum!). Packing my lunch the night before was the biggest helper here.
  
• Make time to read. Sort of! I've read more than I was able to last year, but there were still a few book club months that got away from me. Re-adding this to the 2012 list.
  
• Make smarter food choices like wheat bread over white. This has become pretty standard for us now. Whole wheat bread, cutting calories where possible. Always room for improvement, of course, but definitely a step in the right direction!
  
• Stick to a cleaning schedule The biggest help here was that we gave in earlier this year and hired a cleaning lady. She is such a blessing to us, and worth every penny. We just had to accept that we aren't good at keeping our house clean, and with my crazy schedule this year, it wasn't worth using our little bit of time together to clean. Add to that how cranky I get when the house is messy and yeah, worth the money! Our end of the bargain is keeping our house picked up between cleaning sessions. We've made leaps and bounds in this area - hoping it's become a habit at this point!
  
• Stop worrying about what other people think and whether I'm doing things the "right way." I can't imagine I'll ever be able to really check this one off, but I've definitely made substantial progress here. Maybe it's just part of growing older, but I've spent a lot less time this year worrying about what I should be doing or stressing about what other people will think. That doesn't mean I haven't done it at all, of course, but less often counts as progress!
  
• Make the most of my wardrobe. I tend to be a lazy dresser - I have great clothes, but I usually can't be bothered to put an actual outfit together. Another halfer. I haven't bought a single new piece of clothing since April, and I've still gotten dressed every day. This is another one I want to continue to focus on in the new year, but I think I've done a better job with it this year.

So there you have it - a sort of productive 2011! Of course, I did a lot of other things this year as well, but it's fun to check back and see what I accomplished. Have you re-visited your resolutions from this year? Were you more successful than I was?

3rd Annual Friends Christmas

We are really lucky to have a great group of friends from college that isn't mine or Zac's - it's ours! A few years ago (three, to be exact) we decided to start a tradition of getting together at the holidays. Now that we all live in different cities, we hardly ever see each other anymore. It's sad.

To be completely honest, one of our reasons for starting this tradition was so that our kids would be impressed when we had our 19th Annual Friends Christmas. Only 16 more years to go until that milestone!

This year's get together was in Louisville. We started at our friend Katie's house for some yummy pre-dinner appetizers and drinks.

Katie made these yummy caprese salad bites. So good!

We went to a fun local Louisville restaurant that happened to have 1/2 price wine nights (score!). Katie and I split a bottle of wine, but since we were across the table from each other, this is the best picture we could get!

                

Just use your imagination.

The highlight of the night was definitely our Secret Santa gift exchange. We should have known that everyone would be terribly awesome gifts.

Don't let the pretty wrapping fool you. Or the bow that Joe put on a free briefcase he got for buying cologne. Don't pick that gift, either.

Mandy opened a fireplace DVD. Daniel was creeping behind her.

Matt got this sweet iPhone case. It's an ear.

Kristen opened two (regifted) games - Animal House Trivia and Poker for Lovers, which was way too funny looking not to open! Made for some good laughs.

Katie rocking her new mustache glasses (definitely the coolest gift).

Joe got spy glasses. He is watching Zac over his shoulder through these little mirror things in the sunglasses. Totally inconspicuous.

Daniel was SUPER excited to open presidential PEZ dispensers. You're welcome, Daniel!

Brendan specifically requested this item when he saw a picture of it online. It's a willie warmer, which is a totally inappropriate sweater that I knitted. So worth it when tears ran down his face as he opened it.

Friends Christmas 2011 was a huge success, though I'm officially old enough that staying up until 2 AM hurts for a few days afterward. Thanks to all of our wonderful friends for kicking off the holiday season in such a fun way!! I wish every day could be Friends Christmas... but I guess that was called college, right?

Homemade Caramels

You're probably knee deep in holiday baked goods, but I made these delicious caramels tonight and wanted to share the recipe with you.

I remember my mom making these when we were little, and they taste just as good when I make them. They're pretty easy to make, but definitely a pain in the butt. Worth it in the end, but not the easiest holiday yummy to make.

Homemade Caramels

1 cup butter

2 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar and salt, stir in syrup. Mix well, gradually add milk and stir constantly. Cook and stir over medium heat to firm ball stage, or 245 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into well buttered 11x17 glass pan. Cool, cut into squares and wrap.

That's the official version of the recipe. But in case you're actually going to make it, here's the real deal stuff you need to know:

1. This is a STICKY endeavor. Be prepared.

2. Get the ingredients ready ahead of time. The caramel takes all of 20 seconds to burn on you.

3. Don't stop stirring this thing. Ever. Because it will burn on you. (Yes, this happened to me!)

4. Over butter that pan. There is no such thing as too much butter in that pan (see #1).

5. It doesn't matter if you accidentally add the milk before the syrup, or forget the vanilla completely. Because I did that today and they still taste good!

6. If you don't have a candy thermometer and don't know that 245 degrees looks like, stir until your arm goes numb. That's probably about the right temperature.

7. Cut them small. These are super duper sweet and you don't need a huge piece.

I wrap mine in squares of wax paper that I cut myself. They are all so mismatched. I would suggest cutting them on the longish side so you can twist the ends all pretty.

There you go. Did I frighten you away from ever making them? They really aren't that bad, and the recipe makes A TON. Great for parties and neighborhood gifts!

Are you still baking/cooking for the holidays?

A very holiday mantle

I have a love-hate relationship with our fireplace and mantle. I love that we have one, but I hate that it has these ugly half columns that break up the entire space and make it really hard to decorate. I suggested to Zac that we try to remove them, using the "how hard can it really be?" argument. He didn't fall for it - maybe it was the idea of smashing bricks and replacing dry wall that didn't appeal to him.

So... I took on the challenge of decorating and disguising. Here are before pictures of the mantle.

Believe it or not, this room has flat paint, so I'm not sure why it has crazy flash bounces on the walls. Oh, and it's since much cleaner than in these pictures.

See what I mean about the columns?

I'm going to skip a bunch of steps and just show you our finished holiday mantle. I finished some of our permanent, all year round additions just before Christmas, so I'll give you more details on those once we take down the holiday decorations and make it "normal" again. 

But in the meantime... it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We still need to get a stocking for Derby! The bride and groom English Carolers were a present from my mom last Christmas. The mirror and N were DIY projects that I'll tell you about later (they're part of the permanent collection. Like our mantle is a museum). Oh - I've also since watered the poinsettas and they're slowly coming back to life!

I'd love to see your holiday decorations too. How long do you leave them up? These bad boys will find themselves living in a box by December 27 at the latest. As soon as Christmas is over they start to drive me crazy - and funny enough, both my mother and my mother-in-law do the exact same thing! My co-worker who leaves her tree up until Easter is a whole different story...

Whoopie!

I was born in New York, but we moved away when I was two years old. For as long as I can remember, we've lived far away from our extended family during the holidays. When we were younger, our aunts and uncles used to send gifts and they would arrive a few days before Christmas. My mom used to let us pick one present to open each day while my dad was at work (he is a lunatic about not opening presents one single second early).

When a present arrived for me this year from my godmother, I apparently still thought those rules applied, and I opened it right away! I'm super glad I did - because what a fun present! She sent a whoopie pie pan, and a cute recipe book for different whoopie pie flavors.

If you've ever had a whoopie pie, they're sort of like cupcakes that are way easier to eat.  They're supposed to look like this:

             

There's no limit to the different cakes and fillings you can use, which makes them extra fun. My book club came over last weekend for a Christmas book exchange / potluck, and I decided to make them my whoopie pie guinea pigs. Funny enough, almost everyone brought a recipe they had never made before (and they were all delicious).

I made red velvet cakes with buttercream icing. Nothing too fancy. Apologies now for my lack of food photography skills.

The batter is definitely more cake like than cookie like.

These first scoops turned out to be too big. If I had them to do over again, I would do about half as much batter in each one. The pan looks like a shallow mini-muffin pan.

You're supposed to brush the bottom of the pan with butter, but of course I didn't, so mine stuck. The nice thing is that it doesn't really matter, since they become a sandwich. I slapped some icing on those bad boys and turned them into cute little sandwiches.

They got good reviews and were pretty easy to make. Because the cakes are so tiny, they only have to bake for about 8 minutes. Apparently you can make them without my fancy pan, but that sounds overwhelming for this non-baker.

Have you ever made or eaten whoopie pies? What flavor combinations can you dream up? I think my next batch will be salted caramel filling on a chocolate cake... yum!

Can we really have it all?

There's no question that the past year and half have been extra busy for me. The addition of graduate school on top of work and everything else has definitely been a challenge. I'm thankful everyday for a husband who has stepped up to the plate and taken over way more than his fair share of the housework, cooking, and errand running. He doesn't even flinch anymore when I text him and say, "I need a favor. Like, today."

I don't know if this is something others in our generation relate to, but I want to have IT ALL. Like, absolutely everything. A few weeks ago, the following conversation happened at our house:

Zac: You know you can't possibly do everything right?
Tara: Well I'll be damned if I don't die trying.

And I'm serious. Because I can't say no to anything, and I don't want to say no to anything. I've had fantastic opportunities in my life because I'm willing to say yes and get involved in things. I've met amazing people, learned crazy awesome things, and had unique experiences.
                                           

Someone should get me this as a mug.

And I want to keep doing all that stuff. While always having a spotlessly clean house, looking slender and put together, and throwing fancy parties with napkins that look like this.

                                             

I want to do it all while blogging about how creative and frugal I am. I want to have sweet little babies running around who are always well behaved and smart. I want to be around for everything important in their lives while having a meaningful and valuable career. And be the kind of mom my mom was, and make everything feel special and fun.

I want to be the kind of person who writes thank you notes in a timely fashion, and brings meals when people have sick family members or new babies. I want to have time to sew/craft/crochet/paint/decorate all of the projects I've found on Pinterest. I want to never forget a birthday, and give thoughtful gifts like Leslie Knope (any other Parks & Rec fans out there)?

I also want to read books, take walks, better my community, have enough money that I don't have to worry about money but can add central A/C to my house, and snuggle with my cute puppy (and husband!).

I get that this is an unrealistic list. A friend once told me that you truly can have it all, just not at once. She's probably right. So the question becomes - will striving to have it all give me a fulfilling life or hospitalized with a mental breakdown within weeks? But what would I give up or put on hold? I don't want or need to be perfect, but I do seem to want to cram three lives into one.

                                              

Thanks for listening to the madness that is my brain. And yes, this is what it's like to be me. 24/7. Or to be married to me. Zac appreciates that I'm writing this to you instead of talking about it to him, probably.

How do you balance everything? How do you choose what's the most important, and what you can give up? Does it change for you depending on the time in your life? If I can't have it all, how can I have the most all at once??

I'm not a MAC, but...

I am most definitely not a Mac. I still use a PC both at home and work, and I think Mac computers seem more complicated. I know once you make the switch, no one ever looks back, but I'm still happy with my PCs.

Last weekend, my phone started acting up. Since I had an upgrade available on my plan, I thought I'd spring for a new phone. And if you're going to spring, you may as well go all out right? This was my "I got a raise at work - Yay!" present. And Zac claims my Christmas present too, which is probably true.

Here's my pretty new phone:



It's an iPhone. The cool one where you can talk to Siri like the commercials. And it took me all of 30 seconds to declare I was totally in love with it.

Let me back track to Thanksgiving weekend, when both of my sisters, my cousin, and my aunt all had new iPhones. When we were going to bed that night I asked Zac if he was having a nice holiday. He said, "Yeah, it's super fun watching everyone obsess over their new iPhones." It was totally an iPhone Thanksgiving at my mom's house.

And now I see what the fuss is about. It's way faster to ask Siri to turn on my alarm or add an appointment to my calendar or remind me to do something than it is for me to do it myself. And it's fun to ask her funny questions!

The phone is so fast, it always works (which my old one didn't), and I'm constantly discovering new things I can do with it.

If you have an iPhone, check out this list of super secret features you might not know about. I learned a few cool tricks!

So -- I'm NOT a Mac, but I'm definitely an iPhone! Anyone else have this new phone? Do you love it too, or are you avoiding this crazy technology?

P.S. Apple (definitely) didn't give me anything for writing this. I paid a crap ton of money for this phone. I just like it and wanted to let you know that it's great in case you're on the fence about upgrading!

Potato Soup -- YUM!

When I saw this recipe on Kim's blog Newly Woodwards a few days ago, I instantly sent it to my husband requesting it for dinner. That night. He does all the cooking, remember? I know, I'm insanely lucky. He does a lot of other stuff too. He pretty much rocks. (And he still doesn't read this blog, so there's no ulterior motive for me saying that).

Kim's a better photographer than I am, so I am stealing her picture:

Seriously Kim, you have photographic talents. 

We made a few changes. We didn't have any green onions, so Zac used regular onions. We actually didn't add extra sour cream or cheese to the top, which if you know me at all, you'll know that those are two of my favorite foods and that's surprising.

And (if you know Zac at all), it won't surprise you that he added bacon. I thought that made it less of a quick, weeknight dinner, but we always cook our bacon in the oven, so he did it at the same time as the potatoes and it wasn't really much extra work.

Side note: if you don't cook bacon in the oven, you need to start. Immediately. Put parchment paper on a baking sheet, lay out your bacon, cook for 10 - 15 minutes (until it looks done) at 350 degrees. Cook longer if you like your bacon crispier. It tastes better, it's much easier, and you don't have to degrease your entire kitchen when you're finished. Win-win-win.

The best part about this dinner? It's going to be even yummier when I have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow! I love soup in the winter. Do you have any fantastic soup recipes I need to add to my recipe box?

A very OSU Baby Shower

I mentioned here that we threw an Ohio State themed baby shower for Erika, which was tough for someone like me who is most definitely NOT an Ohio State fan! In fact, as I was making Erika's gift, the following conversation actually happened:

Zac: "Mark and Erika are Ohio State fans?"
Me: "Yes, you know that. Erika is from Columbus."
Zac: "That sucks. I really like them."
Me: "You know we can still be friends with them, right?"

Sheesh. Boys are crazy.

I forgot my camera for the shower (must have been everything else I was packing to take with me!) but I stole some pictures from my friend Whitney to show you the spread. We went with a strictly desserts shower.

Another Pinterest inspired craft, these sweet streamers  were easy to make and were oh so cute.

I just noticed my face in the background. What am I crazy surprised about?? I guess it will remain one of the world's great mysteries.

A picture of the spread. Mini fruit pizzas on sugar cookies (thanks, Pinterest!), buckeyes, and red velvet cupcakes.

Strawberries filled with cheesecake filling and dipped in graham crackers. They were really yummy, but would be better in the summer when strawberries are sweeter.

Whitney brought these cookies. Aren't they adorable??

And what Ohio State shower would be complete without buckeyes as favors? I ate about 30 over the next week. So bad, but oh so good.

Us with the sweet mama to be:

                

I made this appliqued onesie and bib to fit the theme.

   

                    

The onesie was inspired by Pinterest (shocking, I know), and is just simple applique. It was a quick project because the letters don't have a lot of curves! For the bib, I traced a bib I had (that I keep for tracing, not because I have random bibs placed throughout my house) onto white terrycloth, appliqued the shapes on the front, and then made binding and finished it like a quilt. Which was a huge mistake because it took forever and I had to do most of it by hand. This is definitely where bias tape would be helpful in the future. The closure is just sew on white velcro.

It took everything in me not to add ruffles to the legs of that onesie, because of course, I've known this baby was a girl from the very beginning.  And guess what?

Sweet Anna Lee Robbe was born on December 1st. I should have added those ruffles!!

She is unbelievably sweet. What a pretty baby. I wanted to make sure she had something pink, so I made her this hat using this awesome free pattern. I have been hooked on crocheting lately. This hat took about two hours - it was super fast and turned out so cute! 

Congrats Mark and Erika on having the sweetest little girl. They had to pry her out of my arms. And I've already made her two more hats. I need to get a life. Or work on getting my husband ready for babies of our own?

Lots of Baby Stuff!

I have been neglecting my blog again, but I am not going to apologize. I'm just going to try to get back in the saddle. It's been a busy month for us, but everyone else has been busy too!

This has been a fun year for me because so many of my friends are having babies! I saw a (slightly inappropriate) very funny e-card the other day that made me laugh because it's so true:

It does seem strange that so many of my friends are now having babies. Strange, but fun!!

I told you a little bit about my friend Erika's baby shower here, but there's so much more to tell. I went to the shower her family threw for her, and then some friends also gave one for her.

When Erika found out she was pregnant, I knew I wanted to make this baby a quilt. Funny enough, she actually told me she was pregnant at my wedding. On the way to the airport for our honeymoon, I suddenly said to Zac, "Oh! I think Erika is pregnant! I need to call her!"  

I didn't keep it a secret that I was making her a quilt, and she looked through a lot of my books to see what she liked. She gravitated toward traditional quilts, but also ones with bright fun colors. The added complication is that they didn't find out if the baby was a boy or girl, which made picking the fabrics more complicated.

At this point, I'll say that I knew from day one that the baby was going to be a girl, even though everyone else thought it was a boy!

I was inspired by this quilt that I found on Pinterest:

I love the clean lines and the stripes. I love the straight line quilting on this one, even though I didn't end up going that route.

I made up this pattern by drawing it on a piece of paper and making the stripes 6 inches wide. I used a quarter yard of each fabric which kept the cutting to a minimum. I sewed the six stripes together, then cut them and added the alphabet stripe. This quilt top went together in less than an hour - it was so fast. If anyone is interested in a pattern or more detailed instructions, I"m happy to put one together!

Here's my finished product:

The back

I quilted this on my grandmother's long arm quilting machine, which is why the quilting looks awesome. The best part (that you can't see here) is that on the white and yellow stripes, I wrote "Baby Robbe" in the quilting. I was pretty tickled with myself when I figured out I could do that, and even Gramma was impressed!

I gave this to Erika at her family shower. Look how darling she is.

This girl didn't even look pregnant from the back. She is so tiny. And I don't hate her for that at all.

She loved it, and I do too! A perfect play mat for a baby (that I know is going to be a girl... more on that later!).

Anyone else bombarded with babies lately? 

Linking to:

* Skip to My Lou * I Heart Naptime * Too Cute Tuesday at Polka Dot Giraffe * Creation Corner * Creations by Kara *Fireflies and Jellybeans *