Monthly Archives: March 2012

February Recipe

My very late recipe for the month of February is called “Gentleman’s Whiskey and Honey“.  No it’s not a scary boozy chicken dish, it’s an approachable boozy cocktail!   If I had actually thought this out I would have made a green cocktail in honor of St. Patricks day tomorrow, but I can’t go down the scary road of wondering what would be different if I thought things out before I did them.

So.

My February recipe IS indeed a cocktail, it IS a month late and it IS very very delicious.

A preface:

I hate liquor.  I dislike the taste, I HATE the way it makes me behave, and most importantly I feel like I’m cheating on wine.  If I’m drinking liquor for a night out I’m either the hilarious fun to be around life of the party (in my mind) or crying somewhere in a corner (in real life).  I am very hesitant around cocktails.

Well…Sean is the bar manager at the restaurant I work at and he is a mix master.  One night at work Sean asked us to try his new drink creation therefore enabling us to better promote it.  I say “us” but the only person that tried it was me because I swallowed it all in one delicious gulp while batting my coworkers away with my free hand.  This drink is delicious.  Why?  Because it doesn’t taste like booze.  This drink is extremely dangerous.  Why?  Because it doesn’t taste like booze.

Let’s do it.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is make some honey water.  This is the most difficult thing you’ll do for this whole recipe and all it takes is mixing equal parts honey with boiling water.  You can make a pretty big batch and just keep it in your refrigerator for those lonely Tuesday afternoons.  A quarter cup of each will make about three of these cocktails.

Set the honey water aside and proceed to assemble all necessary bar tools.  By necessary I mean ‘really fun to buy from Williams Sonoma with wedding gift cards’.  I’m sure you could do without, but the most clutch for me was the measurer (technical term).

You’re going to freshly press/squeeze one whole orange and one half lemon into your cocktail shaker.  Before you cut the orange, shave off a little strip to be used as a pretty twist later.

The next step is the good stuff.  You’re going to measure and add 1 and 1/2 ounces of Gentleman Jack (no substitutions…it’s so smooth).

Get that honey water back in your hands to measure and add 1 ounce to the shaker.  Add some ice, shake it up, pour it out and enjoy.

It’s so smooth, so light and refreshing, and it’s filled with vitamin C!

Honestly though this is a great cocktail and so simple to prepare.  I suggest it for those nights when you want to be the life of the party, have a good cry, or if you need to knock out a toddler.

*No Finley’s were harmed in the making of this cocktail.  : )

 

iPhone Photo Purging

If you didn’t know – this is going to become a regular blog feature.  I love love love taking photo’s on my phone.  They always (rarely) turn out SO WELL (average).  I don’t always lug my camera around but I ALWAYS have my phone.  My camera always seems to capture my life as I want to present it whereas my phone captures…life as it is.

This one is pretty wedding heavy.  As will be the next one.

The rules are as follow:

Please enjoy and refrain from judging.

Three of my FAVORITE girls on the drive to my bachelorette party in Steamboat!

Ashley and I drinking our favorite Vihno Verde by Aveleda (try it – delicious in the summer) at the condo in Steamboat.

My momma shopping in a beautiful boutique up in the mountains.
It’s photo’s like this why I live in Colorado.  I mean SERIOUSLY.  

Ashley and I in our brand new CO proud hoodies!

Marlo in her favorite spot in the house – the couch crack?First step in baking the lemon cookies for the wedding.
My wedding hair trial in good ol’ Fargo.  It was aqua net stiff and fell out after 20 minutes.   Hence I was forced to do my own hair.  

Can you tell I’m thrilled?  I guess in hindsight it wasn’t THAT bad.

Auntie Megan (will hate me for this) with her completed wedding ball!Busy wedding bee’s!  Nice ball Jerri ; )Hmmm.  Day two of wedding balls?  Megan and Heidi changed – Mom and Jerri the same??  Not sure.  WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING 

So many balls all over the place : )

Awwww.  Madigan and Apple spooning.  They’re coming to see me today!!!Miss Apple Bottom being a model.Freshly made table number tents.  They’re sparkly and fun – hard to tell in the picture.: )After my final dress fitting.  Titled “wedding madness is not for the fainthearted”.

Final dress fitting at L’Atelier Couture!  BEST shopping experience of my life.  The girls there (Amanda & Madeline especially) and my time at their gorgeous boutique are some of my favorite memories of wedding time.Getting the final adjustments made!  So excited!!!!   Momma learning how to hustle and bustle the Vera Wang…The completed bustle!  Swoon…

Three of my favorite pictures of Miss Livi (at the aquarium) in her cute little sailor outfit.

Me looking stressed, malnourished and pale with my tan and fabulous godmother AMY at the Disney store!  It’s all about us.
A farewell cocktail after my last trip to MN before the wedding.A real gem I found at the Minneapolis airport.  Laughed out loud.
Picture text from Vanessa after receiving her maid of honor dress in the mail.Marlo doing crack…again.  Pictures like this make me gush “ohhh wook at my widdle baby kitty kitty kitty” which make my husband fear for the baby talk someday.Clint, myself, ASHLEY (purple teeth), Danielle and Sean at THIN MAN having a blasty blast.My insanely in shape healthy eating freak of nature fit bestie Danielle.It’s an inside joke.  I bet you all (my four readers) feel SOOOOO left out ; )I’m going to get a phone call approximately one day after I post this from Jon threatening to shut down our internet if I keep posting photo’s of him.  I ain’t scurred.

Link Love

I’ve got some good stuff coming up this week including a visit from Auntie Megan and all her puppies, picking out a new bed for our new mattress as well as a St. Patricks day celebration on Saturday!!!  Also I’ll be posting my much delayed February recipe which is just soooo yummy and will always help make your night better.

Since it’s Monday (ugh) and just too nice outside for me to sit at this computer I’m  going to throw up some awesome links from the net for ya’ll to visit!  You DO click on the links right?  I’ll only lead you to good stuff…promise.  Happy web surfing!

This Parisian hotel room is making me twitch.

A new craft to attempt?

I do not want to see my internet hours logged after reading this article.

This video is circling around the internet and it’s guaranteed to brighten your day!

Jon and I HATE spending money on razors so this concept might be brilliant – but the hilarious promotional video is what makes this link worth visiting.

These views are spectacularly beautiful if you have high res capabilities on your computer!

My favorite little bag store came out with new iPad and laptop cases!  So cute.

LOVE this honest article on what it’s going to be like to become a parent (IN THE DISTANT FUTURE MOTHER).

Have you bought this album yet?  If not – I recommend doing so.

Hey It’s Your Birthday…

Today is my best friend’s birthday!  Her name is Vanessa.  A lot of you know her – a lot of you don’t.  Doesn’t matter.  She’s great and she’s 27 years old today so all things on this blog are dedicated to her!

I started going through the archives to find a few photo’s of us together from over the almost 9 years we’ve been friends and instead of a few I found A TON.  Weird : )

Some of them really cute and with each of us on the same side in every shot…

…some of them not so cute for which I’m sure i’ll be in trouble.

As you can see we’ve been together through questionable choices in tank tops (see me above) as well as questionable choices in use of sunscreen……questionable choices in both hair and makeup (yikes)…

…questionable choices in headwear…

…and let’s not forget questionable choices in general…

…it was homecoming – give us a break.

Questionable choices in men, boys, friends, classes etc. You get the point.

But one of the choices I have never questioned in my life is to keep coming back to her.  Always. Happy Birthday Vanessa – I love you an unquestionable amount.

Here we go!

We’re back! I have to admit it’s taking me awhile to get back into the swing of things around here.  We got back to our place at around 11:00 a.m. Tuesday morning after an all night sleep deprived red-eye and just today am I finally getting my head on straight.  I spent most of Tuesday yawning, unpacking and laundering.  Yesterday I got our place in order, stocked our cupboards and refrigerator and even managed to cook dinner!  Slow and steady. I’ve got lots of blogging to catch up on including my monthly recipe for February (which just flew by).  I thought maybe I should post one photo from Hawaii every day and then my weekly post quota would be met for all eternity!  I won’t do that, but I will make you wait a little longer for Hawaii photo’s.  I took a lot and I need to get them downloaded and organized first. Alright fine just ONE: So while we all wait with baited breath for Hawaii pictures, let’s talk about something equally as exciting:

AMERICAN IDOL!!!!

Yes I am a geek and no I don’t care what you think.  Every year Jon and I say we’re never watching the show again.  Every year we get sucked right back in.  This is because of several things:

1.)  It’s great reality TV with good stories.

2.) Jon and I both love music and especially ‘live’ performances.

3.) Jon and I are extremely competitive and gamble on the outcome every year.

4.) I can’t bear to be out of touch with pop culture/what people are talking about.

So we watch. The episode in which they announce the top 13 commences a very serious ritual in our household.  We separate ourselves and secretively hunch over our notes to rank OUR top 13 top to bottom (please excuse the crappy photo quality).  Jon uses the evernote app on his iPad. I take a more sophisticated route using wine and post it notes (I won last year). Marlo silently judges. The prize is made up of three parts:

1.) Bragging rights.

2.) I hate taking out the trash and don’t do it.  He hates changing the litter box and WON’T do it.  The loser does the others least favorite chore for a month.

3.) Winner gets a $150 shopping spree paid for by the loser.

The stakes are high this year : )  What I want most of all are the bragging rights. I’m assuming most of you have stopped reading by now due to compete lack of interest, but if you haven’t I will explain the rules.  We rank them 1 to 13.  If we guess an elimination correctly it’s +3 points.  If we guess the winner correctly it’s +7 points.  If we guess the wrong elimination, it’s minus the amount of points until their actual elimination.  Pretty simple. Here are the top 13 this year:

Jeremy Rosado Shannon Macgrane Elise Testone Jermaine Jones Joshua Ledet Heejun Han Erika Van Pelt Deandre Brackensick Colton Dixon Skylar Laine Hollie Cavanaugh Phillip Phillips Jessica Sanchez I conveniently put them in order from my number 13 at the top to my number 1 at the bottom.  Keep in mind these are not our lists for who we like the best, it’s our lists for how we think the voting will go.  I guess I thought maybe it would be fun for you guys to keep track of our little competition.  The resulting devastation when one of us loses to the other is something you’ll wanna stick around for. Feel free to play along!

Ali’s Picks

  •  1 Jessica
  •  2 Phillip
  •  3 Hollie
  •  4 Skylar
  •  5 Colton
  •  6 Deandre
  •  7 Erika
  •  8 Heejun
  •  9 Joshua
  • 10 Jermaine
  • 11 Elise
  • 12 Shannon
  • 13 Jeremy

Jon’s Picks

  1. Joshua
  2. Jessica
  3. Colton
  4. Hollie
  5. Phillip
  6. Jermaine
  7. Elise
  8. Skylar
  9. Deandre
  10. Heejun
  11. Erika
  12. Shannon
  13. Jeremy