Merry Christmas!

This Christmas has been a whirlwind of travel that has only just slowed down before the next go round! I wanted to pause and upload some picts from this year's festivities. This is a pic that my wonderful Sis took of Dill in front of our tree! Lindsey and Evan were our wonderful housesitters while we went to South Carolina to visit Mr's Fam. It was my first Christmas away from my own fam and with Mr's. It was kinda sad to not wake up surrounded by my family Christmas morning but it was a whole new set of family traditions and dynamics! This weekend is my family Christmas and I am super excited!!! Two Christmases is better than one.

 Lindsey and I made some "creative" Christmas cookies!

 This is a cute little Christmas decoration that Lindsey got me at after Christmas sales. Thanks, best sis ever!

Chocolate Wasted Cake

Mr. and I had a Sunday afternoon in the Kitchen yesterday. We sometimes set out to make creations and I think it is so fun that sometimes Mr. cooks with me.

We had a Chili Cook Off and Cake Auction at Church yesterday. Mr. was an esteemed judge at the cook off which meant we had to arrive early so our cake was not ready for the auction. The cake was still bought by a friend for a whopping $60 towards the church fundraiser. So the cake and all our hard work still went to a good cause! Better Late than Never!

I topped the cake with leftover chocolate whoppers, Reeses, and kit kats from the Trunk er Treat the night before!

Here is the recipe. A couple changes I made:
- I wanted to try a mini cake so I poured the batter into a 9x13 in rectangular pan, cut the circular layers out with a bread knife using a bowl as my guide but you could use a biscuit cutter I just didn't have one and I wanted the cake slightly bigger than that.
- I halved the icing recipe
- I also omitted the chocolate chips from the cake recipe because I am using the left over cake for cake balls and I didn't know what the chips would do to the consistency of the cake.
- I did not drizzle the chocolate over the top of the cake. That would have been as Mr. put it more "aesthetically pleasing" but after a long day it just wasn't happening. And I'm sure it was just as yummy!

This is a yummy chocolate cake recipe though. (very moist)

Honeymooning in Paradise.

When Mr. and I got married a little over a year ago because of the strenous PA program I am in there was no time for a honeymoon. (we literally got married over the 7 day break I had between the spring and fall semesters). We hesitantly chose to postpone our honeymoon until there was more time. I tried to not make a big deal about it but the last breakfast we had on the island that week of the wedding I wanted to cry. We had had a wonderful time entertaining and celebrating with all our family and friends but I had no time to ourselves to share the joy of being in love.

So fast forward a year.... and here we went back to Anna Maria to celebrate our honeymoon. And boy was it worth the wait! Here are some pictures to explain.

Our hotel suite, The flounder!

 Standing in the exact spot where we got married!

 Wishing you were here!

 I had to sacrifice my pedicure but it was worth it.

I surprised Mr. with a deep sea fishing trip. Mr. caught way more than I did. This is him with his favorite fish to eat. Grouper!

 This is us with our Red fish we caught. (over two feet in length and about 15lbs each.)

 I caught two Red fish! I never realized that the hardest part was reeling the fish into the boat!!

Mr.'s honeymoon surprise for me was to order a cake from the bakers who made our wedding cake and get a bottle of wine for the little shop that we bought all the wine for from the wedding. (Mr. also bought me several bottles that are going to be shipped home yum!!)

PS. we got to keep all our fish from the fishing trip. Snapper, Mackrel, flounder, and red fish (the only fish that I contributed to our bounty was a red fish) But I did catch a baby shark!! sorry no pics of that one you will just have to believe me and my fisherman tales! .... Come over and eat some with us ok??

Simple living

Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life you look up and say what am I doing... I've recently become interested in simple living. I am at the beginning of my thinking/experimenting with this lifestyle but really I am just interested in distilling my life down to what makes me and Mr. happy and fulfilled.
One of the ideas from the simple living manifesto (posted above) is to come up with simple pleasures and sprinkle them throughout your day. Here is a sample list. and here is the beginnings of my own list.

•  Coffee
•  Painted nails
•  a hot bath
• a glass of wine
• baking/creating
• a good book
• watching Mr and the dogs play
• blogging 
• catching up with a dear friend
• a massage
• getting my eyebrows waxed
• going for yogurt
• Christmas music/decorations
• laying on the beach
• walking barefoot
• a quiet saturday morning
• kolaches 
• fresh baked bread
• staying up talking 
• sitting on the porch 
• a baseball game
• a nice walk
• the way you feel after a good workout
• dinner out 
• pizza carryout
• new sheets 
• planning a weekend away
• dinner with friends
• a new piece of clothing or shoes
• curling my hair
• JIF peanut butter on bread
• a clean house
• clean dogs

I just came up with 33 things in like 5 minutes and just making the list brought a smile to my face. That is what I want my new lifestyle to be about: making myself happy (I hope you don't see this as selfish, I see it as filling my tank so I have more to give to Mr.'s and others), using my time more wisely and not stressing the small stuff. I look forward to adding to the list.

My Hiatus

I have taken some time away from blogging. More unintentional than anything else. I have been reading, thinking, ageing, musing.

I am 25 now. I only think about it in flashes but I can't believe that I am 25. I am a planner, I look forward to life. I can't imagine that I graduated college 5 years ago, and high school 7 years ago. (Yea I did college fast).

(Picture from my party w/ Mr. at Flying Saucer)


A year from now I will be working. I think I always think about my life in terms of when I get to ____ fill in the the blank with graduation, marriage, 25. I will "begin" my life. I am realizing that at least 1/4 of life has gone by. I need to get my head out of the calendar and start living it! Enjoying it not looking forward and preparing for it or worrying about it. anyone else have revelations like this lately?

Mr. and I are going on our honeymoon in 18 days. We are headed back to Anna Maria where we got married a little over a year ago and we are both so excited for the break, but moreso to return to a place that we love. To a place that has become so special to the both of us.

TOGETHER: One year and counting almost...

I am not an anniversary person. I never celebrated dating anniversaries (well one year two girl friends and I all had concurrent anniversaries with our boyfriends but we spent that day together just the three of us smoking cigars and listening to Delila in a backyard hot tub (best anniversary ever)).

But mine and Mr.'s first wedding anniversary is coming up, and I have been thinking about that lately. More so just amazed that a year has passed already and reflecting over the past year of being married to the best man. (well he was the groom, but you get it)

I can't believe that I love Mr. now more than the day we were married. (I am not trying to be sweet or especially sentimental) Just saying I understand what people mean. We have been together longer. TOGETHER in the sense of waking up in the middle of the night with  Mr. wailing uncontrollably and thinking I was going to have to take him to the emergency room, or TOGETHER in the sense of bursting out laughing to keep from crying while my Mr. is hysterically yelling because the Jo Jo  has ... wait for it... vomited on the bed (that had newly changed sheets, as if it could be any worse). TOGETHER in the sense of "honey I'm going to sleep on the couch because your sick"... "no really you're keeping me up and I don't want to catch what you have!" TOGETHER meaning being mind bogglingly bored trapped in the house while the walls are almost shaking because the music at Cowboys stadium is so loud and the traffic is too horrendous to leave the neighborhood.

The other day I realized, I married a man I had never been bowling with. (We went and neither of us bowls very well).

Life is amazing and ridiculous. **Sometimes I want to take our marriage back.  It's true sometimes I am weak, scared, frustrated. But the wonderful thing is, it is done. I can't take it back. I mean don't think I can ... I don't think you can get in annulled after this long ... But I digress.

But marriage doesn't end just because I want to quit that is the beautiful thing about marriage. I didn't go into this marriage thing thinking everything was going to be fairy tales and roses even though that is what it was May 10, 2010. But the things brought us closer and made me (hopefully Mr. too) love each other more is the hard things. The times that were frustrating, and hard, and scary made me trust and rely more on us TOGETHER rather than just me.

I'm not perfect. Obviously see asterisks. But Mr. is much better than I am: more patient, understanding, loving and forgiving. He is my yang. He doesn't complete me (neither of us can bowl!) But he does a hell of a job complimenting me. We make it work.

We are less than a month away from 1 year. Hopefully there will be many, many more years.

A Beautiful Wedding Weekend

I threw a Bachelorette shower for a dear friend who got married this weekend. The theme was Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue! I decorated cookies to match the theme.

Here is the beautiful Bachlorette.

The venue was a beautiful Vineyard and the perfect backdrop for the sweet night. There is something very special about weddings. After attending several with Mr. it is a solemn thing to listen to the vows. It is like being reminded of the promise we made almost a year ago. Somestimes life gets in the way of living out our love towards each other and listening to the vows of another couple starting the journey always realigns my vision. Very often recently I fall back into viewing the world as it applys to me not the two of us. This weekend was a wonderful weekend to remind me what marriage is about.

It was also a great time to get to see an old friend I haven't seen in a while!! I love you Jen.

One more pic with friends!

Lucky!

I have never thought of myself as a lucky person. I was never the one who won raffles or got the big breaks. I always felt like I had to work and plan and worry for my dreams to come to fruition. Driving in the car yesterday morning I heard this song and it made me realize I am so lucky.

I met my husband through a series of unfortunate events (to say the least). I am so lucky things didn't turn out how I planned they turned out so much better. I am lucky in love.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Family Pictures

I have been in Temple, Texas at Scott and White doing my internal med rotation. It is alot of long hours and I have no internet at my hotel. I wanted to post some pictures from our Family photo shoot Thanksgiving. Abby with Sweet Fix is an amazing photographer.

Cakeballs

After making them a couple times I finally perfected my skills. Jedi Cakeball makers beware.



Cakeballs like most everything in the pastry world are an undertaking to create. But the result is these cute lil bits of yumminess that my husband (and more importantly) Mother in law can't get enough of. What have I done!

By the way if you want my tips on making them flawlessly message me.

Sick Day

I never know when I should (rightfully) succumb to my illnesses and call in sick. The people pleaser in me just makes it two (read too) hard. But when you wake up and can hardly talk and just think well I guess I can spend the whole day studying instead of going to the office that is sick! and pathetic.

I hate staying home. The walls start to close in ... so inevitably I will leave the house which I feel is a strict violation of the sick day privileges. Also, I try to be productive, clean, do errands I need to do on a business day and then my "day of rest" turns into a more busy day than if I had just gone to work.

Also, what is the sick day supposed to accomplish. I try to think well thoughts but inevitably the virus/or bacterial in this case illness will probably just run isn't 7-10 day course (I am on day 7 today so here's to hoping 7 day course!).

What I loved was sick days when you are little and that means all day with mom being pampered and watching TV and eating liquid things... As an adult it means you are woken up by your alarm clock which you put on snooze every 10 minutes because you are in too much of a haze to turn it to dismiss, then your husband calls to see how you are and you can barely form words (this is common every day before I have had my coffee but with this sore throat I am even more indistinguishable.) Then you get up put on dress clothes and psych yourself up for another day until... All the head congestion hits and you look at the clock and realize you have snoozed one two (read too.. I'm sick give me a couple typos!) many times and you should be there now. O well change into PJ's and succumb to the beginning of a marvelous sick day. Which must begin with a blog post!

I married a Hoarder!

During my break one objective was to clean the house. That has not happened to the extent I would have liked but in an attempt to get back on track I seized a couple free moments we had last night to clear out Mr.'s fold out desk/bookcase.

Side note: I love getting a rise out of Mr. I can push his buttons and make him fly off the handle. Not angrily but I can make a normally monotone, mild mannered man become an arm flailing almost comical character. It makes me smile....

However, the attempt to clean out the drawers of T-shirts (The man has 30+) electric cords and computer accessories was met with... lets just say resistance? Some phrases I heard: "I need this." "I may use this one day." "We need to keep this box." "Let's just, put it in the attic." "I don't want to use this desk (in response to me saying I wanted to make the desk functional for him)"

I finally gave up. Surrendered to my husband with a laugh and the affirmation that yes I was put on this earth to make his life miserable!

It was a fun activity, and yes I did get some trash (Mr.'s treasures) thrown away, and yes I will go back in there today without him and throw even more away with the assurance that he will never remember he even had it in the first place!

Last night conversation:

Mr: What are you doing tomorrow just staying home?

Cynthia: Yea, I'm bored though.

Mr: Want to do something special tomorrow night? ... For our 3 mo Anniversary?

Cynthia: What? Anniversary? I forgot! (Before I could stop myself)

I have never yet remembered an Anniversary! But I'm glad Mr. remembers: Happy Day today!