I am sick. Again.

How does this happen to me? How is my immune system so sub-par that I just walk around with a big bullseye on my forehead, waiting for a big gang of germs to spot me and rain down on me like a hailstorm?

See, I should have known last night. Kevin and I went to my parents house last night after church to watch a movie on my dad's GIANT new TV. It's huge. Anyway, we were munching on pizza and salad, and I took a sip of my Corona and it just tasted funny. Plus my appetite was pretty much non-existant. I went home and took a handfull of vitamins - a multi-V, vitamin D, a MASSIVE vitamin C chewable, and another big oval shaped one that I can't remember the name of....then I sipped a big steaming mug of chamomile honey tea, and drifted off to sleep praying that I'd managed to dodge it. Woke up this morning, and I SO did not dodge it. quite the opposite, actually. I think my cold took advantage of the fact that I was sleeping and got to work on my system.

I have that funny feeling in my head that you get when you have a cold, like your head is actually inside a moderately sized fish-bowl, and everything you hear is both muffled, and absolutely aggravating to your ears.

I have a scratchy throat that makes me want to not talk at all. Did I mention that my job is talking on the phone a lot? It is. Boo.

I have chills, even though I'm wearing a long warm skirt, and two long sleeved shirts. About to reach into my desk drawer and pull out my fleece shawl and wrap it around myself in a manner suggesting that I don't really care how I look right now. I'd like to go home now and curl up in bed with the big brown furry blanket, and snuggle up with a hot water bottle by my feet, and sniffle and sip on chamomile tea, and Canada Dry ginger ale, which reminds me of my Papa.

*sniffle*

PS: I also want some chicken noodle soup. I know I'm supposed to be doing the vegan/vegetarian thing, but I want some chicken noodle soup. And some vanilla pudding. And my strawberry pajamas.

I heart goat cheese....and my husband's chili....

It's Thursday, and I'm tantalizingly close to the WEEKEND. My brain is buzzing with all of the awesome potential of those two days...maybe I'll break in my new sewing machine, and whip up something awesome. Maybe I'll spend the whole weekend ogling Joy the Baker's recipes. One thing I KNOW I will be doing is having dinner tomorrow night at our house with our friends Bo and Sharon, and their devilishly handsome corgi, Reagan. I have a little doggie crush on him, and I keep dog cookies in the pantry just for him.
ANYWAY, my sweet husband is making us a big tasty pot of Vegan Chili. He makes the best chili. It's full of good stuff....pinto, kindney, black, and chili beans...sweet corn and cute little cubes of tofu...green, red, orange, and red peppers, and some adorable little sweet peppers, along with a couple jalapenos. Seriously, the man makes the BEST chili, and I'm not just biased because I'm his wife or anything. All of this will be consumed with some tasty, creamy guacamole I picked up from Trader Joe's this week. Heck, maybe I'll just throw the guac on top of the chili and scoop everything up with tortilla chips. Anything is possible on the weekend!
Another food-related thing I will DEFINITELY be doing is eating some goat cheese. I love goat cheese. Have you had goat cheese? It's fantastic. My love affair with goat cheese started at Eclipse di Luna, where they serve little balls of goat cheese fried to perfection, then smothered with caramelized onions and then drizzled with wild honey. I know, right? Yum. Incidentally, they also do these uh-mazing frenched lamb chops that you dip into creamy goat cheese sauce with rosemary in it.
What was I talking about again? Oh, goat cheese. Yeah, it's that good. PLUS, Trader Joe's started carrying these little individual portions of goat cheese that I've been eating at lunch. Yum. Time to caramelize some onions this weekend, pop em' on top of a little goat cheese, and break out the orange blossom honey. That counts as breakfast, right?

Wednesdayyyyy.....

Man, is it Wednesday already? Maybe I'm just an old married lady or something. I mean, it's 9:30 and I'd really like to be in bed now. I need a hobby. 

Speaking of which, I have a beeee-youtiful new sewing machine headed my way. Maybe I've been cruising Etsy a little too much lately. Maybe I've got a little winter cabin fever. Whatever it is, I want to learn how to SEW. I want to sew blankets, maybe some nice Euro pillow shams for the bed, a little baby quilt for the bun our friend Natalia has in the oven. I have fantasies about sewing clothes, making button holes. 

I really have no clue what I'm doing, which I actually think is more fun. 

More updates to come...

Mmmmmm oatmeal....

Let me start this by saying that I used to HATE oatmeal as a kid. I didn't like it at all. EXCEPT for the Quaker Maple & Brown sugar kind, with lots of raisins added in, and a little dribble of 2% on top. Bliss. I keep it in the house just in case I get in the mood for it on the weekends, which is interesting because I never really get around to eating breakfast on the weekends. 

Anyway, this morning I woke up and realized that if I do in fact have to go into work today, it won't be until noon. I wanted oatmeal. So I fired up the kettle, pulled out some big bowls, and made a couple steaming helpings of goodness. I just love how oatmeal goes down soft and warm - I feel like it's a little heating blanket applied to the inside of your tummy. It just feels GOOD. 

Yesterday, in order to stay out of Kevin's hair (he was working from home) I decided to whip up a batch of cupcakes to take to work with me today (or if work is closed again, I'll just sit home and eat them all myself). I found some vanilla frosting in the kitchen, right next to a half a box of Mallomars, so I thought - DUH! Sunflower cupcakes! Just did chocolate cupcakes, stuck a Mallomar on top of each one with a dab of icing, then piped on little yellow flower petals. If I had gone fancier, I would have done green leaves, too, but I think my coworkers who brave the treacherous roads today will appreciate these sunny little guys....

 

Alright....time to pay some bills before I do or do not have to go in to work. I'm going to have SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON when I get back, but for now I'm trying to enjoy the snowy view from my window....

 

The dog days may be over, but the snow days sure aren't....

It SNOWED two nights ago. It snowed 5 INCHES two nights ago. Of course, if I lived in, say, Vermont, nobody would blink an eye, and nobody would care, and everybody would cheerfully hop into their four-wheel-drive vehicles and take to the freshly ploughed ano d salted roads. But here? In Atlanta? I've heard several people call it Snowmageddon. Snowmageddon is how they describe 5 inches of snow. And the whole city shuts down, but only after everybody descends on grocery stores and WalMarts citywide cleaning the places out of bread, milk, eggs, beer, and toilet paper. 

Anyway, I can sort of see why. As a Canadian girl, I'm used to snow falling, and the plough guys hopping out there cleaning everything up (even side streets) within a few hours or so. But here they have no such infrastructure in place here to take care of that. Our street is basically a frozen pond at this point, and I feel like getting into my car and driving would be like grown-up bumper cars. Having said that, it's only half an hour away from the time I call into work to see if they're opening the office today. Part of me realizes there's probably a lot to be done. Another part of me doesn't want to white-knuckle it all the way to work, and would prefer to sit at home in my strawberry pajamas making chocolate cupcakes and finishing the sorting out of my studio. Yesterday was nice - Kevin couldn't get to work either, so he took the day off and we hung out at home cleaning up from Christmas, and watching half a dozen episodes of Psych with large bowls of popcorn and some Newton's Folly apple cider.

Hopefully if they do open the office, I won't have a repeat of last year, which involved me attempting to drive to work, and sliding right through a stop sign and landing my car in a small ditch. 

ANYWAY, you're bored of hearing about my snow-day. Want to hear what I've been up to in the kitchen lately? Of course you do....

My cousin Rachel tweeted a picture of a cake last week, and made the statement that it was the best frosting she'd EVER HAD. I had to have the recipe. I made the cake that night, and here are pictures for your visual enjoyment. It really is the BEST frosting ever. Only mistake I made was being in a teensy bit of a hurry, and not letting my butter get to room temperature, but I will do that next time, and it will be ECSTASY. 

Frosting....mid-mix....

+ Yellow butter bundt cake....

 + Best frosting EVARRRR sprinkled with a little white decorating sugar.....

= YUM.

Time to call and see if I need to go into work.....blurg......

 

Do you hear what I hear?

Do you hear what I hear? Or maybe I shoud say, do you hear what I heard. It was my alarm clock this morning at 6:30 am, which pulled me out of a very bizzarre dream which I believe had something to do with baking (go figure). Here is the mental process I then followed:

1st response: ughhhhhh....what time is it......?
2nd response: 6:30 already? Really?
3rd response: awww.....Christmas/New Year's goodness is officially over....
4th response: okay....coffee......coffee will make this better....

So I dragged myself out of bed, and ran to bump up the heat, and make a VERY LARGE pot of EXTRA STRONG coffee.

It's MONDAY....*sigh*

Another post to come later, where I will discuss the beauties of home-made pasta noodles, and the BEST FROSTING I'VE EVER HAD. Seriously. I might just eat cake for dinner. (Don't judge, Marie Antoinette said it was okay).